TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Provoking Israel to Spark an Armed Conflict: IPT News, Feb. 25, 2020
Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Groups are Working Together in West Africa to Grab Large Swaths of Territory: Danielle Paquette and Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2020
Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad: Aaron Y. Zelin and Rukmini Callimachi, Washington Institute, Feb. 14, 2020
Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent’s Propaganda Campaign Continues Despite Digital Disruptions and Stifled Operational Capability: Animesh Roul, The Jamestown Foundation, Jan. 28, 2020
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Palestinian Islamic Jihad Provoking Israel to Spark an Armed Conflict
IPT News, Feb. 25, 2020
Despite recent Israeli concessions to Palestinians in Gaza, terrorists escalated attacks against the Jewish state over the past two days. On Sunday, two Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operatives planted an improvised explosive device on the Israel-Gaza border. Israeli soldiers saw them and opened fire, killing one of them and wounding the other. Using a bulldozer, the military retrieved the body to keep as leverage in negotiations for two Israeli men and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers held in captivity.
Throughout Sunday and Monday, Gaza-based terrorists – mainly the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – indiscriminately launched dozens of rockets at Israel.
Following an initial missile onslaught, Israel responded by targeting PIJ terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and Syria. It is rare that Israel targets the Damascus-based PIJ leadership, Iran’s main Palestinian proxy. Israel’s retaliation can also be viewed as part of its broader campaign to degrade and destroy pro-Iranian elements seeking to entrench their positions in Syria.
Israel has been preparing to face repercussions for escalating strikes against Iranian targets in neighboring countries. Israel “will regret” its attacks, which “will not pass without a response,” a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned last month. Israel is suspected of recently escalating strikes against increasingly emboldened Iranian proxies and partners around Syria’s eastern border and even inside Iraq itself, signaling a major shift in Israel’s strategy.
Most of Israel’s strikes against Iranian allies in the region have focused on Iraqi Shi’a militias or Lebanese Hizballah. Targeting PIJ’s leadership in Syria sends another strong signal that Israel’s adversaries are not immune to retaliation irrespective of where they reside.
As PIJ escalated rocket fire, Israel targeted several PIJ bases in Gaza including a team reportedly setting up to fire rockets. Four terrorists were injured as a result. Throughout this flare-up, Israel has carefully targeted militant infrastructure and personnel – leading to no civilian collateral damage thus far. Palestinian terrorists, on the other hand, indiscriminately target Israeli civilians in an effort to spread fear across Israeli society.
Beyond trying to coerce further concessions from Israel, the PIJ is also driven by internal organizational dynamics. As Israel and Hamas continue to seek a longer-term ceasefire, largely through Egyptian mediation, the PIJ feels sidelined among the wider Palestinian national movement. The PIJ is either trying to strategically spoil ongoing negotiations or force Hamas into a war it does not want to fight – or both. Palestinian terrorism against Israelis is often a product of infighting among competing factions – a competition over who can challenge Israel most effectively in an effort to lead the Palestinian constituency. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Groups are Working Together in West Africa To Grab Large Swaths of Territory
Danielle Paquette and Joby Warrick
Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2020
Groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, at war with each other in the Middle East, are working together to take control of territory across a vast stretch of West Africa, U.S. and local officials say, sparking fears the regional threat could grow into a global crisis.
Fighters appear to be coordinating attacks and carving out mutually agreed-upon areas of influence in the Sahel, the strip of land beneath the Sahara Desert. The rural territory at risk is so large it could “fit multiple Afghanistans and Iraqs,” said Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, head of the U.S. military’s Special Operations arm in Africa. “What we’ve seen is not just random acts of violence under a terrorist banner but a deliberate campaign that is trying to bring these various groups under a common cause,” he said. “That larger effort then poses a threat to the United States.”
The militants have wielded increasingly sophisticated tactics in recent months as they have rooted deeper into Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, attacking army bases and dominating villages with surprising force, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior officials and military leaders from the United States, France and West Africa.
To avoid scrutiny from the West, the groups are not declaring “caliphates,” officials said, buying time to train, gather force and plot attacks that could ultimately reach major international targets.
A coalition of al-Qaeda loyalists called JNIM has as many as 2,000 fighters in West Africa, according to a U.S. report released this month. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which staged the 2017 attack that killed four American soldiers in Niger, is also thought to be hundreds strong and recruiting combatants in northeastern Mali. “This cancer will spread far beyond here if we don’t fight together to end it,” said Gen. Ibrahim Fane, secretary general of Mali’s ministry of defense, whose country has lost more than 100 soldiers in routine clashes since October.
The warnings come as the Pentagon weighs pulling forces from West Africa, where about 1,400 troops provide intelligence and drone support, among other forms of military help. About 4,400 American troops are based in East Africa, where the U.S. military advises African forces fighting al-Shabab.
At a U.S.-led training exercise this week in coastal Mauritania, officials said the Defense Department has made no decision as it considers shifting resources to the Asia-Pacific region to counter China and Russia.
France, which has about 4,500 troops in West Africa — the most of any foreign partner by far — has urged the United States to stay in the battle and other European powers to step up. (The United Nations has about 13,000 peacekeepers in Mali alone.) … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad
Aaron Y. Zelin and Rukmini Callimachi
Washington Institute, Feb. 14, 2020
Many observers were unaware that Tunisians were disproportionately involved in jihadism prior to 2011, largely because much of this activity took place in foreign conflict zones. From the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad to terrorist attacks in Mali, they participated in the movement for thirty years prior to the Tunisian revolution, playing important roles as foreign fighters in Bosnia, Algeria, Iraq, and other locales. They were also key cogs in a logistics, facilitation, and recruitment network based in Europe, mainly operating out of Milan but also present in Paris, Brussels, and London. These examples help explain why so many Tunisian foreign fighters have joined the fight in Syria over the past few years.
Meanwhile, many hardened Tunisian jihadists with past terrorist experience have been released back into the public due to several factors, including the transitional nature of the post-revolutionary government, inadequate supervision over the prisoner population, and pressure from revolutionaries. The transitional government had little domestic legitimacy during its tenure, a situation that gave Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) room to formally organize itself and spread its ideas.
Post-revolution elections did not resolve this problem: the Ennahda-led government became more engaged than its predecessor in dealing with AST, but its gamble on a light-touch policy proved costly. AST exploited this with a dawa-first approach instead of a jihad-first approach. Focusing on outreach activities, religious education, charity, and relief efforts allowed the group to reach a broader audience than if it had been a typical clandestine organization like al-Qaeda. One of AST’s messages resonated particularly well with Tunisians looking for something new post-revolution: “Your sons are at your service,” a slogan intended to show citizens that the group was giving back to the community.
What happened in Tunisia from 2011 to 2013 helps explain why so many citizens subsequently joined the Islamic State (IS). Many were shaped by their experiences with AST, whose fall spurred a shift in the country’s jihadist movement. No longer was it a cohesive entity run by Tunisians and primarily focused on domestic issues—rather, it became more globalized again by big-brand groups like IS. Tunisian jihadism was returning to its historical roots, with individuals joining up as foreign fighters and helping to facilitate and plot attacks. Additionally, Tunisians helped build the IS dawa program—Abu Waqas al-Tunisi was the program’s public face, appearing in six of its videos by the end of 2013.
The failed takeover of Ben Gardane in March 2016 proved to be the turning point for IS power inside Tunisia, greatly boosting the government’s political legitimacy and military campaign after a year of high-profile IS attacks. Since then, Tunisian authorities have been able to slowly degrade the movement. Jihadism is now at its lowest level since the revolution, while the state has gained a great deal of experience and understands the movement better.… [To read the full article and listen to the policy lecture by Aaron Zelin, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent’s Propaganda Campaign Continues Despite Digital Disruptions and Stifled Operational Capability
Animesh Roul
The Jamestown Foundation, Jan. 28, 2020
In late November 2019, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) issued a message on its digital platforms, both through Telegram messaging channel and through al-Qaeda’s official al-Sahab web portal, urging members to ensure unity among the ranks and learn lessons from the death of Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. AQIS criticized the rival IS group and its slain leader, underscoring how the group divided the global jihad movement and almost destroyed it through sowing discord within. This message was among a series of publications released late last year by the AQIS spokesman and present leader Osama Mahmoud, who succeeded slain leader Asim Umar in September last year, with blessings from al-Qaeda central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Despite a series of setbacks with leadership decapitations in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last few months, AQIS, the fifth and youngest affiliate of the transnational terrorist group, maintains its propaganda campaign to mobilize a broad support base in its areas of operation—Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Broadly, two principals are a constant focus of AQIS’ media campaign—far enemies (anti-Western propaganda, US, Israel, Christian and Jews) and the near enemy (Anti-Pakistan campaign/Pakistan military). The category of near enemy also includes the Saffron terrorist campaign (the Hindu right-wing in India) and war against secular and anti-Islam (Taghut) governments (Bangladesh and Myanmar). Like AQAP’s Inspire magazine series, AQIS published at least two issues of Resurgence magazine. The first issue released under the editorship of Hassaan Yusuf in October 2014 covered most of the countries of South Asia and also delved into Myanmar and East Turkestan. [1]
Besides Resurgence, which has described various future targets and strategies to achieve jihadist goals, AQIS came out with more robust and specific guidelines for violent jihad after almost three years of its formation. It released its “Code of Conduct” (CoC) document in June 2017, emphasizing its allegiance to Zawahiri and the emir of the Taliban. This document remains a core propaganda literature of AQIS, reiterating its geographical focus and objectives. The document is also vital for several reasons as it provides details about AQIS’ bureaucratic structure, operations, and, more importantly, the future targets of AQIS. Though two years have passed since its release, AQIS has largely failed to act upon the document, which specified its targets in different countries in South Asia. These targets included Western assets in Afghanistan—in order to defend the so-called Islamic Emirate—and military targets in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and India. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Jihadi Textbooks in Schools Funded by £100 Million of Our Cash as Foreign Aid Goes on Science Material that Teaches Physics in Palestine by Showing a Slingshot Being Fired at ‘Zionists’: Tom Kelly, Daily Mail, Feb. 21, 2020 –-Ministers pledged urgent action last night after it emerged that British foreign aid cash is funding schools where textbooks on martyrdom and radical Islamism are used.
Al-Qaeda In the Indian Subcontinent: The Nucleus of Jihad in South Asia: The Soufan Center, Jan. 2019 — •Over the last three decades, Islam in South Asia has undergone a gradual shift, from moderate and pluralistic to a more puritan Wahhabi brand practiced in Saudi Arabia. The spread of thousands of Saudi-funded madrassas and Wahhabi mosques across South Asia is proving to be an ideal recruiting base for al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups throughout the region.
U.S. Military Buries Press Release that Would Announce Killing of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent’s Emir: Bill Roggio, FDD, Jan. 17, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Defense suppressed a press release that would have announced the death of Asim Umar, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, because it “would complicate future negotiations with the Taliban,” military officials have told FDD’s Long War Journal.
Despite Defeats, the Islamic State Remains Unbroken and Defiant Around The World: Brian Glyn Williams, The Conversation, Jan. 28, 2020 — In a series of bloody campaigns from 2014 to 2019, a multinational military coalition drove the Islamic State group, often known as ISIS, out of much of the Iraqi and Syrian territory that the strict militant theocracy had brutally governed.
Friends Of Philip Haney: ‘No Way He Would Have Taken His Own Life’: JD Rucker, NOQ Report, Feb. 23, 2020 –– DHS whistleblower Philip Haney is dead. News reports are attributing his death to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but certain things do not seem to jibe with that narrative. Could he be the victim of foul play?
