Why does Isis slay hostages? To cover up the fact that it’s losing

At this point in the war between the jihadist group known as the Islamic State and a US-led international coalition, many observers are wondering how Isis keeps winning. Isis is up against western air power and powerful regional opponents, and yet has apparently seized a territory larger than the United Kingdom, and is expanding into Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, and elsewhere. It seems incredible.

But the truth is that it’s difficult to say Isis is winning by any objective measure. In Iraq, the group has been put on the defensive in the provinces of Nineveh, Salahaddin, and Diyala, and may soon face a major offensive on its stronghold of Mosul. It’s true, unfortunately, that Isis is on the offensive in Anbar province, and could potentially capture new territory there. In eastern Syria, too, Isis is well-established, having brutally suppressed a tribal uprising in Dayr al-Zawr, and it faces no significant resistance in its holdings in Raqqa and Hasaka. Isis can’t be said to be losing, exactly, but it has lost its momentum — having failed to take and hold major new territory since capturing the Iraqi city of Hit in October — and its position in northern Iraq looks increasingly shaky.

More to the point, Isis’s international expansion seems more of a success in press reports than it is in fact. The question observers should be asking is not why Isis is winning; rather, how it has managed to convince us of its growing power while actually treading water.

Part of the answer lies in the Islamic State’s marketing genius, and another part in our own willingness to believe its propaganda — and the inability, or unwillingness, of western governments to counter this.