Information countermeasures to religious extremism in the light of ensuring national security (as exemplified by the Northern Caucasus)

The article deals with peculiarities of manifestation of religious extremism as one of the threats to the Russian Federation national security. There are identified new tendencies in countering religious extremism, inclu-ding the ones on the part of civil society institutions, public policy structures, expert community and mass media. It is as well noted that despite the reduction of the number of terrorist acts in the Northern Caucasus, there is still a threat of the spread of radical religious ideology in the region. The article covers peculiarities of jihad interpretation by different Islam branches. It also points to the fact that jihad is often misinterpreted in mass media sources. Based on the identified causes and factors of the spread of radical ideology among young people and the evaluation of effectiveness of the conducted information policy the article provides re-commendations on countering religious extremism in mass media and social networks. The author concludes that it is necessary to develop an alternative anti-terro-rist content, which can be actively used in mass media and in the Internet and thus will help to unmask the ideology of extremism and provide for its rejection on the part of the youth.