Experts agree that the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant's (ISIS) release of video executing American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff was meant to cause global panic and to recruit members from around the world.

Counterterrorism experts say that Steven Sotloff's beheading video and that of American journalist James Foley's in August are accomplishing what the militants intend to do: propelling ISIS into headlines.

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The armed jihadist group made international headlines in June following a series of ethnic and religious cleansing, beheading and crucifixions in Iraq and Syria in its violent quest to establish a Muslim caliphate. The release of Sotloff's gruesome beheading on Tuesday has once again put the militant group in the limelight.

The insurgents are experts in using media propaganda to create terror and panic among those who disagree with their radicalism and pose a continuous threat on global political leaders, CNN reported.

In a rare public appearance Wednesday, Matt Olsen of the National Terrorism Center, the U.S. government agency responsible for national and international terrorism efforts, described how ISIS operates.

"[ISIS] operates the most significant propaganda machine of any extremist group." Olsen said. "[It is threatening to] outpace al-Qaeda as the dominant voice of influence in the global extremism movement."

Olsen added that the group disseminates timely media content on various platforms to "secure a widespread following for the group."

The group's usage of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are a big PR push aimed at recruiting young Muslim Westerners, whom experts believe feel more disenfranchised and marginalized than young Muslims in Muslim countries.

Will McCants, director of Brookings Institution's Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, recalled a letter al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri sent to slain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In the letter, al-Zawahiri said "Terrorism is very much about theater, so media matters immensely."

Some intelligence experts speculate that in the wake of the 9/11 attack anniversary, the militants timed the release of the beheading videos for maximum impact. The Sotloff footage came within weeks of Foley's execution where the masked jihadist threatened to kill the American-Israeli journalist should U.S. military interventions continue in Iraq.

However, ISIS' campaign may be far from over, given the recent threat against a British captive who was shown at the end of the Sotloff footage.

World leaders are presently discussing possible strategies for combating the Islamic State group at the NATO Summit in Wales. Using similar language, U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the Islamic State group, vowing to create measures that will degrade and destroy the insurgents so that they no longer pose threat to the region and the rest of the world.

The Islamic State group is an offshoot of the al-Qaeda global jihad group. IS fell out with al-Qaeda earlier this year after al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri disowned the faction for its insurgency.

TagsISIS, proganda, Video, beheading, Steven Sotloff, james foley