“The creator of the audiobook has previously released similar AI content; however, Siege has a more notorious history,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a terrorism analyst at the Counter Extremism Project, “due to its cultlike status among some in the online extreme right, promotion of lone actor violence, and being required reading by several neo-Nazi groups that openly endorse terrorism and whose members have committed violent criminal acts”.

“The online sphere is 100% key to these attacks,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, the former coordinator of the United Nations Security Council’s panel on Islamic State and al Qaeda. […] The man then connected online with Islamic State sympathizers and spread extremist content, he added. Acting on the group’s advice available online, he bought a kitchen knife—rather than one that might draw officials’ notice—and stabbed the victims’ necks to increase the likelihood they would die, said Schindler, who is now senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit that combats extremist ideologies.