You will only get this kind of stuff from The Long War Journal.
How a US citizen became a key player in the Islamic State’s rivalry with al Qaeda
Ahmad Abousamra, a US citizen who graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Boston, became one of the Islamic State’s top propagandists and “chief editor” of its English-language magazine. His story is told in the the eighth edition of the Islamic State’s Rumiyah (“Rome”) magazine, which was released online in several languages earlier this week. He is identified as “Abu Sulayman ash-Shami” and “Shaykh Ahmad ‘Abdul-Badi’ Abu Samrah” in Rumiyah. The cover of the publication, seen above, features him.
Abousamra was apparently killed in an airstrike near Tabqa, Syria in January. Press reports previously indicated that he was killed in mid-2015. But if Rumiyah is accurate, then he survived and continued to serve Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s cause for nearly two more years.
Before his demise, Abousamra rose to become one of the so-called caliphate’s most prolific English-speaking propagandists. And Abousamra was tasked with another especially important mission. He was one of the chief architects of the Islamic State’s anti-al Qaeda messaging.
Abousamra’s family is originally from Syria, but he was born in France on Sept. 19, 1981. Rumiyah begins his story much later, with his graduation from UMass Boston, where he studied computer science.
Dissatisfied with life in America, Abousamra decided “to go forth in the cause of Allah with some of his friends.”
“So they left as muhajirin to Allah, not coordinating their journey with anyone,” Rumiyah’s profile continues. “They roamed between Yemen, Pakistan, and Iraq, hoping to meet someone who would bring them to the mujahidin. But once they became weary of finding the way, and as they feared inciting the suspicions of intelligence agencies, they returned to America, asking Allah to guide them towards their goal.”
After returning to his home country, Abousamra “decided to try and make America itself the frontlines for his jihad and the place for his martyrdom.” He and two of his friends “planned…to carry out an operation that would target Americans in their own land.” So “they drew up their plans for their desired operation, including the seizure of some weapons from the Crusaders, which they would then use for an attack behind enemy lines that they hoped would cause the killing of a large number of mushrikin [polytheists].”
Their “plot was discovered just days before the operation’s appointed time,” according to Rumiyah. However, Allah supposedly “saved” Abousamra “from falling into captivity, allowing him to leave America before the FBI could gather sufficient information to release an order for his arrest at the borders and airports.” The FBI’s Most Wanted poster for Abousamra, offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to his capture, can be seen on the right. The FBI announced the reward on Dec. 18, 2013, years after Abousamra absconded from the US.
Abousamra returned to “the birthplace of his fathers” in Syria, living in Aleppo for a “few years, seeking knowledge, calling his family and friends to tawhid [monotheism], and anticipating his next chance to wage jihad,” according to Rumiyah.
The university-educated jihadist “was keen to avoid the eyes of the intelligence agency and avoid sitting with the evil scholars who were allied with the tawaghit,” meaning Bashar al Assad’s regime, during this time.
Interestingly, Rumiyah avoids any mention of one of Abousamra’s earliest co-conspirators: Tarek Mehanna. Unlike Abousamra, Mehanna did not escape capture. Mehanna was arrested, tried and convicted on terror-related charges after joining Abousamra on a trip to Yemen in 2004. The pair unsuccessfully tried to join the jihad. After a week in Yemen, they were still unable to locate a training camp, so Mehanna returned to the US. Abousamra pressed on to Iraq and eventually elsewhere.
Mehanna didn’t give up, however. He began translating and posting al Qaeda videos on the Internet. In 2012, he was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison on terrorism-related charges. Federal authorities found that Mehanna lied about his own trip to Yemen and the activities of another one of his co-conspirators, Daniel Joseph Maldonado. In 2007, Maldonado pleaded guilty to separate charges in a US Court, “admitting that he had traveled from Houston to Africa in November 2005 and then on to Somalia in December 2006 to join the Islamic Courts Union and elements of al Qaeda to fight against the Transitional Federal Government to establish an independent Islamic State in Somalia.” Maldonado was subsequently sentenced to a decade in prison.
Meanwhile, Abousamra remained free.
An Islamic State loyalist who fought Assad’s regime
Abousamra joined the fight against the Assad government after popular uprisings swept through Syria in 2011. He was “wounded in a battle against the Nusayriyyah [a derogatory term for Assad and his supporters] in a neighborhood of Halab [Aleppo],” according to Rumiyah. He then joined Al Nusrah Front, which was an arm of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) at the time, and “met with” Al Nusrah’s “leaders.”
Rumiyah emphasizes that Abousamra knew Al Nusrah was initially comprised of Baghdadi’s “soldiers.” This is one of the key themes in Rumiyah’s story, because he would remain loyal to Baghdadi even after Al Nusrah broke away from the ISI and announced its direct allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s overall emir.
Al Nusrah allegedly denied Abousamra’s request for transfer to Iraq, and also did not “allow him to execute an istishhadi [martyrdom] operation against the Nusayriyyah.” So he continued to work in Aleppo, “participating in raids against Nusayri [Assad regime] positions.”
Rumiyah portrays Abousamra as an unwavering Baghdadi loyalist who opposed Al Nusrah’s “treacherous” emir, Abu Muhammad al Julani. Until 2013, Julani was one of Baghdadi’s lieutenants. But he took Al Nusrah in another direction, disobeying an order from Baghdadi to fall in line. After Julani announced his direct allegiance to Zawahiri in Apr. 2013, the greatest rivalry in the history of modern jihadism broke out. Baghdadi’s enterprise mushroomed into the current Islamic State, challenging al Qaeda’s authority within the jihadist community everywhere from West Africa to Southeast Asia.
Abousamra “criticized” Al Nusrah’s men “for their betrayal of the Islamic State and their violation of their covenant and bay’ah [oath of allegiance] to Amir ul-Muminin [‘Emir of the Faithful’] Abu Bakr al Baghdadi,” Rumiyah’s propagandists write. “He began exposing the truth of the situation to other soldiers, showing them that [Al Nusrah Front] had been trying to hide their original allegiance to the Islamic State, and he explained to them that it was not permissible to stop obeying Amir ul-Muminin or retract their bay’ah as long as they did not see blatant kufr [disbelief] from him.”
At this point, Al Nusrah supposedly “sought some way to get rid of him,” finally giving Abousamra approval for a martyrdom operation. But Abousamra was hip to their alleged scheme, so he left “their ranks in order to renew his bay’ah to Ami rul-Muminin [Baghdadi] and his status as one of his soldiers.”
“Chief editor” of Dabiq
Abousamra still sought to kill himself in a suicide bombing, but in the name of Baghdadi’s state, not Al Nusrah. The Islamic Sate finally picked a target, “a large group” of Bashar al Assad’s “supporters” in the “heart of the Nusayri regime-held areas inside the city of Aleppo.” He was going to “sneak into the middle of a gathering and detonate his explosive belt.” But Allah supposedly intervened once again.
Abu Muhammad al Furqan, one of the Islamic State’s most senior leaders, discovered Abousamra and concluded that his talents were best put to use elsewhere. Another jihadist was sent to carry out the suicide bombing. “It was then decided to bring [Abousamra] to the Media Diwan of the Islamic State, which Shaykh Abu Muhammad was striving to enhance by widening its activities and supporting it with cadres of qualified scholars and technicians,” Rumiyah’s editors write.
Under Furqan’s command in the media department, Abousamra organized the “foreign languages team,” which was created by Furqan “to inform Muslims in the east and west about the Islamic State and to urge them to perform hijrah to it.” Abousamra “worked on various videos” released by Al Hayat Media Center, one of the group’s main media arms, and translated materials into English.
Eventually, these efforts evolved into the English-language Dabiq magazine.
Dabiq is a town in Syria that has been at the center of the jihadists’ apocalyptic mythology. It is supposedly a key location where the jihadists’ enemies will be vanquished. Furqan chose Dabiq as the publication’s name “in order to frustrate the Crusaders of Rome and convey to them their inevitable end – by Allah’s permission – just as Allah’s Messenger explained.” Every issue of Dabiq carried the words of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the founder of al Qaeda in Iraq, which evolved into more than one jihadist group, including the Islamic State and Al Nusrah. “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify – by Allah’s permission – until it burns the Crusader armies in Dabiq,” Zarqawi said.
The editors of Rumiyah do not highlight for readers the fact that their end-times predictions for Dabiq fell flat. The town was captured by Turkish-backed forces last year. The Islamic State likely knew that Dabiq would be lost for some time. Earlier in 2016, Dabiq magazine was renamed Rumiyah (“Rome”). And Zarqawi’s quote was replaced by another from Abu Hamza al Muhajir, who succeeded Zarqawi as leader of al Qaeda in Iraq and established the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006. Each edition of Rumiyah now includes the following line from Muhajir: “O muwahhidin, rejoice, for by Allah, we will not rest from our jihad except beneath the olive trees of Rumiyah [Rome].”
The group does not explain how it is going to conquer Rome, if it cannot even hold onto Dabiq.
Regardless, Abousamra helped establish this English-language propaganda publication, becoming its “chief editor” and leader “of all the foreign language teams.”
He wrote “many articles for the magazine, review[ed] what his fellow editors wrote, and scrutinize[d] any materials that were translated for publishing, spending a great deal of time and effort doing so,” Rumiyah’s editors explain. Abousamra worked closely with Furqan, who had “many responsibilities as a general caretaker of the Islamic State,” a role Furqan was appointed to by Baghdadi himself. Therefore, Furqan likely held one of the most senior positions in the Islamic State under Baghdadi.
Because Furqan was busy with many matters, he relied on Abousamra for help “in drafting treatises and articles which would clarify the methodology of the Islamic State and expose its enemies.” Rumiyah’s editors claim that Furqan, who was killed in 2016, was impressed by the “quality” of Abousamra’s writing and his knowledge of sharia law.
Writing under another alias, “Abu Maysarah ash-Shami,” Abousamra became one of al Qaeda’s most strident critics.
A staunch opponent of al Qaeda
Abousamra’s fierce opposition to al Qaeda is peppered throughout his writings in Dabiq. The cover story in the sixth issue of the online magazine was written by a purported al Qaeda defector known as Abu Jarir ash-Shamali. The piece was a harsh critique of al Qaeda’s operations, but also revealed some details about the structure of Zawahiri’s group, including how the committees within its hierarchy have been reshuffled over time. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, The Islamic State’s curious cover story.]
That same issue of Dabiq included a lengthy article by Abousamra, writing under his pen name, “Abu Maysarah ash-Shami.” A screen shot of the piece can be seen on the right.
Weeks earlier, in November 2014, Baghdadi announced the expansion of the Islamic State, declaring that the group’s wilayah (provinces) now existed in several countries outside of Iraq and Syria. Baghdadi also claimed that existing jihadist groups in these countries had been nullified, due to the presence of the caliphate. All Muslims owed their loyalty to the Islamic State’s wilayah, Baghdadi claimed.
One of the affected nations was Yemen, where Baghdadi’s network has a branch to this day.
Naturally, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which rejected Baghdadi’s caliphate gambit, took exception to his declaration. After all, Baghdadi had implied, or even outright stated, that AQAP was no longer legitimate now that the caliphate operated on its turf.
Harith bin Ghazi al Nadhari, a senior ideologue, was among the AQAP officials who objected to Baghdadi’s declaration. (Nadhari was subsequently killed in a drone strike on Jan. 31 in Yemen.)
And in the sixth issue of Dabiq, Abousamra took it upon himself to blast Nadhari. Abousamra criticized Nadhari, “who is blinded by his spite,” for issuing a lengthy rebuttal to Baghdadi, adding that some of the AQAP man’s words “trickle with blood, forebode evil, and contain wickedness.” Abousamra claimed that Nadhari had fallen “into a bizarre contradiction” by emphasizing his continuing loyalty to Zawahiri. The Baghdadi loyalist argued that Zawahiri “doesn’t make takfir on the Rafidah [Shiites] to begin with,” as the al Qaeda emir excuses them “due to their ignorance.” Abousamra was referring to one of the key doctrinal differences between al Qaeda and the Islamic State, with the latter excommunicating all Shiites from Islam.
Abousamra added that Zawahiri “does not make takfir of the supporters” of the regimes throughout region, “except for those officers who torture Muslims and belong to some specific departments of National Security.” In other words, al Qaeda’s emir is supposedly soft on the jihadists’ foes — an accusation never hurled at the Islamic State, which is known for its us vs. the world mentality.
Abousamra believed he found a contradiction in Nadhari’s stance, as AQAP is warring with the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen and Zawahiri has forbidden the use of violence against Shiite civilians. But in reality, AQAP has attempted to put limits on its fighting. With some exceptions, AQAP confines its operations to predominately military and security targets manned by the Houthis and its other enemies. AQAP has also distanced itself from the Islamic State’s deliberate targeting of civilian areas. This is consistent with Zawahiri’s “General Guidelines for Waging Jihad,” a policy that was adopted by al Qaeda’s branches around the globe, but rejected by Baghdadi and his men, as they have fetishized attacks on Shiites.
Still, once one goes down the jihadist path, the dividing line between permissible and impermissible violence can become murky. And Abousamra complained in Dabiq that AQAP “never” has a “problem cooperating” with groups such as the Islah party, an Islamist political group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. A leading figure in Islah is Shaykh Abd-al-Majid al-Zindani, a longtime al Qaeda ally in Yemen.
In some areas of Yemen, Ansar al Sharia, an AQAP front group, fights “side-by-side with the apostate army” of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and “the Bankrupt Brotherhood against the Houthis,” Abousamra complained. Their forces are even “transported between the frontlines in the vehicles of the apostate army.”
In his Nov. 2014 speech, Baghdadi took a swipe at AQAP, saying that if the Houthis had been confronted by real Muslims, then “their evil would not have become exacerbated.” (The Houthis began a largely successful offensive in Yemen months earlier.) Abousamra defended Baghdadi’s dig at his rivals, arguing that if AQAP hadn’t adhered to Zawahiri’s guidelines and engaged in “Zawahiri-style” fighting, which treats the Houthis “as a Muslim faction that is to be fought with the least amount of force required to repel its aggression,” then the Houthis would not have gone on the march. Only after the Houthis rose did Nadhari bless a broader war on their forces, Abousamra claimed, and by then it was too late.
Abousamra also critiqued al Qaeda’s bay’ah (oath of allegiance) to the Taliban, noting that Mullah Omar’s group had called for and enjoyed good relations with nations such as Qatar and Iran. Such diplomacy is unthinkable from the Islamic State’s uncompromising perspective.
As Baghdadi and his self-declared caliphate rose in prominence throughout 2014, al Qaeda marketed Mullah Omar as the true caliph. Osama bin Laden himself named Omar as the Muslims’ rightful ruler, al Qaeda reminded jihadists. There was just one problem: Omar was already dead at the time.
And by late 2014, when the sixth issue of Dabiq was written, Abousamra seems to have heard that Omar was no longer among the living. The UMass grad explained that he had heard from others that “senior commanders in Afghanistan and Waziristan…doubt that Mullah Omar is still alive and are convinced that he was either killed or imprisoned, as none of them has seen him since the start of the modern crusader campaign against Afghanistan” in late 2001. He faulted the Taliban for issuing statements in Omar’s name with “clear deviation from the truth” in them, but recognized “it’s possible that these expressions…came from someone other than” Omar.
When ISIS begins bailing out of Raqqa, you KNOW they are up shit creek.
The story comes from Al Arabiya.
ISIS leaders’ families escape Raqqa
As ISIS is weakening in Raqqa, dozens of ISIS leaders, their families and foreign militants fled the city to other areas controlled by the organization. According to the Syrian Human Rights Watch, a military operation carried out by the Syrian Democratic forces managed to besiege the city.
In the past 24 hours alone, some 80 leaders and foreign militants have left the city with their families.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fugitives used boats to cross the Euphrates to reach the southern bank of the river, and then headed towards the southern countryside of the city of Raqqa.
More than two weeks ago, about 300 ISIS families and some Syrian families left the city of Raqqa towards other areas controlled by ISIS, such as al-Mayadin.
The Observatory monitored the escape of these families through boats and ferries from Raqqa to the southern bank of the Euphrates River.
They then headed to two different directions, where some of them fled to the province of Deir al-Zor, the other moved to the eastern countryside of Hama.
No, it's not for the women folks...it's for the MEN! Read on.
The story comes from Al Arabiya.
ISIS imposes ‘Afghan-style dress code’ in Syria’s Raqqa
ISIS has imposed an “Afghan-style” dress code on men in its Syrian stronghold Raqqa to help its fighters blend into the civilian population, a monitor and activists said today.
“For more than two weeks, Afghan-style clothing... Has been imposed by Daesh,” said Abu Mohamed, an activist with the “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently” group, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
“Anyone who does not comply faces prison and fine,” he told AFP.
The new restriction comes as a Kurdish-Arab alliance of fighters nears Raqqa, backed by the US-led coalition launching air strikes against ISIS.
The rule “is an attempt to make it harder for airplanes and the Kurdish forces... To distinguish between civilians and Daesh members,” Abu Mohamed said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, also reported the new rule in Raqqa.
“ISIS has imposed Afghan-style dress on residents of Raqqa so that informants giving coordinates to the US-led coalition will not be able to distinguish between civilians and fighters,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Abu Mohamed said there was a “state of alert” in Raqqa, with new checkpoints springing up and ISIS arresting anyone who describes the situation as dire.
“Prices are skyrocketing and there is no electricity or water,” he told AFP.
The Observatory also said civilians and the families of ISIS families were attempting to flee into Raqqa province from neighboring Aleppo, where ISIS is under assault in the east.
“Thousands of families in recent days have tried to reach the administrative borders of Raqqa province, along with around 120 families of fighters and commanders of ISIS,” the monitor said.
The Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces alliance advancing towards Raqqa on Monday cut a key supply route between the city and ISIS-held territory in Deir Ezzor province to the east.
The alliance is now eight kilometers from Raqqa to the northeast, according to the Observatory.
It said IS was preventing civilians from entering the province “but granted families of its fighters” a document allowing “passage to Raqqa city by boat as ground transportation is now impossible because the bridges across the Euphrates have been destroyed.”
The story comes from Al Arabiya.
ISIS executes 5 Egyptians ‘for aiding army’
ISIS in Egypt claims to have executed five men it accused of working for the army, which is battling the militants in the Sinai Peninsula.
In a series of photos published Friday on the secure messaging app Telegram, five men presented as army "elements" are seen lying face down on the ground before a militant shoots them in the back of their heads with an assault rifle, the SITE intelligence group said.
Militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013 unleashed a bloody crackdown on his supporters.
The crackdown decimated the Islamist movement and killed hundreds of his followers, and set off a militant insurgency that has killed hundreds of security personnel.
Most of the attacks have taken place in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, but attacks have also been carried out in other areas including Cairo.
The Egyptian army announced on Friday that it had killed "500 terrorists" since it launched a wide-ranging security operation in the Sinai in September 2015.
In October 2015, ISIS claimed the downing of a plane carrying Russian tourists home from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.
The story comes from The Long War Journal.
US-led coalition targeted key online operative for Islamic State near Mosul
The US-led coalition targeted Rachid Kassim, an aspiring rapper turned Islamic State operative, near Mosul, Iraq earlier this week. Kassim, who is pictured above, has been involved in several terror plots in the West.
The airstrike was announced yesterday by Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway. “We are currently assessing the results of that strike and will provide more information when it becomes available,” Major Rankine-Galloway told the press. Some French media reports are already claiming that Kassim was killed, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). But American officials remain uncertain.
French officials have tied Kassim to a string of plots in their country. They found that Kassim was part of a network of online operatives who “remote-control” attacks via social media applications. This network has coordinated small-scale attacks around the globe, including in European nations and the US. [For an overview of how these plots work, see FDD’s Long War Journal report: Terror plots in Germany, France were ‘remote-controlled’ by Islamic State operatives.]
In June 2016, Amaq News Agency, one of the Islamic State’s chief propaganda arms, promoted a video from an Islamic State loyalist named Larossi Abballa. The video was recorded at the scene of a brutal double murder in Magnanville, France, which is less than 40 miles north of Paris. Abballa stabbed a police officer and his partner to death, recounting the horror show for the Islamic State’s audience and the rest of the world. Abballa was a member of Kassim’s Telegram group, according to AFP. Authorities concluded that Kassim had encouraged Abballa.
In July 2016, a pair of Islamic State supporters killed a priest at a church in Normandy. The two young men recorded a video in which they pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of the so-called caliphate. Amaq quickly edited and disseminated the footage online. A screen shot from the video can be seen on the right.
As FDD’s Long War Journal noted at the time, Amaq’s release of the clip required at least some level of coordination, even if only over the internet. Investigators discovered in the weeks that followed that Kassim provided the two jihadis with guidance online.
Then, in Sept. 2016, French authorities broke up an Islamic State plot near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. According to Reuters and France 24, Kassim “remotely guided” some members of the group, which included several women.
Kassim has been tied to other plots in Europe as well.
Kassim raised his profile by claiming responsibility, on behalf of the Islamic State, for the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France last year. He beheaded a captive in the same video.
The US and its allies have repeatedly targeted Islamic State operatives responsible for “remote-controlling” terrorists abroad. These same operatives are located in Iraq and Syria, but guide jihadis throughout the West and elsewhere.
Two British nationals, Reyaad Khan and Junaid Hussain, were killed in a pair of airstrikes in Raqqa, Syria in Sept. 2015. Hussain has been tied to jihadis around the globe, including terrorists inside the US. Hussain apparently communicated with the two gunmen who opened fire at a May 2015 event in Garland, Texas that was dedicated to drawing images of the Prophet Mohammed. The Department of Justice and the FBI have connected Hussain to a number of other would-be plotters as well.
Hussain’s wife, Sally Jones, has been involved in the Islamic State’s online efforts, too. In Sept. 2015, the State Department added Jones to the US government’s list of designated terrorists. “Jones and Hussain targeted American military personnel through publication of a ‘hit list’ online to encourage lone offender attacks,” Foggy Bottom’s announcement read. “Jones has used social media to recruit women to join” the Islamic State and, in Aug. 2015, “encouraged individuals aspiring to conduct attacks in Britain by offering guidance on how to construct homemade bombs.”
A jihadi known as Abu Isa Al Amriki and his wife, Umm Isa Amriki, were killed in an American airstrike near Al Bab, Syria on Apr. 22, 2016. According to the Pentagon, Abu Isa “was involved in planning attacks against the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.” Like Hussain, he has been tied to a number of jihadis inside the US. His wife was also involved in online recruiting efforts.
FDD’s Long War Journal has reported on the Islamic State’s digital network, including “remote-controlled” plots, since 2015. A list of some of these reports is below:
Sept. 7, 2015: Prime Minister says 2 British nationals killed in airstrikes were plotting attacks
Sept. 29, 2015: US government targets Islamic State’s foreign fighters in new designations
July 7, 2016: Ohio man conspired with Islamic State recruiter, Justice Department says
July 19, 2016: Teenager who terrorized German train appears in Islamic State video
July 26, 2016: Attacks in France and Germany claimed by Islamic State propaganda arm
July 27, 2016: Terrorists in Normandy swore allegiance to Baghdadi before attacking church
Aug. 18, 2016: Jihadists who attacked Russian police appear in Islamic State video
Sept. 24, 2016: Terror plots in Germany, France were ‘remote-controlled’ by Islamic State operatives
Nov. 8, 2016: Ohio man allegedly communicated with an Islamic State ‘external attack planner’
Nov. 29, 2016: North Carolina man pleads guilty to conspiring with Islamic State recruiter
The Mosul Strangler, that's who keeps ISIS jihadis awake at nights. Mwahahaha.
The story comes from The Daily Mail.
ISIS fanatics living in fear of vigilante dubbed the Mosul Strangler after a jihadi was found smothered and a civilian stabbed a militant
A member of the Islamic State was found dead from an apparent smothering in western Mosul, putting the extremist organization in high alert, according to local reports.
The group put curfews in place in three residential areas in Tal Afar after the man was found dead, and ten people were arrested and sent to an unknown location as they searched for the alleged assassin, who's been dubbed the 'Mosul strangler'.
The Jihadi's death comes just a day after a civilian stabbed a jihadi after refusing to pay a false tax, witnesses say.
A witness of the incident told The Express that the civilian refused to pay the caliphate support tax, which 'was imposed by the Islamic State group on shops' owners in Tal Afar market, west of Mosul'.
After the man stabbed the member of the Islamic State, the group shot the civilian, the witness said.
Some 30,000 people have returned to Mosul since Iraqi forces launched a massive operation in October to retake the country's second largest city from the Islamic State group, the UN said on Tuesday.
The number of returnees has increased since Iraqi forces drove the militants from the eastern half of the city last month, according to UN. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid. IS still holds western Mosul, home to an estimated 750,000 people.
At times, the crowds have overwhelmed checkpoints outside the city, where security forces are screening those who want to return.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State has lost at least 3,300 members since the recapture of eastern Mosul, Iraqi military officials told IraqiNews.com.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told France 24 that the Islamic State's head commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been located.
He said that the leader was left isolated after several of his commanders were killed.
'ISIL is militarily on the defensive in several regions, notably in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Syrian Arab Republic,' United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a report on Tuesday.
The Islamic State has struggled with finances since the Iraqi forces launched its operation to retake Mosul last year.
An Iraqi soldier said that the military was leaving rotting Jihadi corpses to be 'eaten by dogs'.
The corpses are left on view as a psychological weapon to deter ISIS sleeper cells, which Iraqi officials say are highly effective and distributed across the country.
ISIS executed thousands of Iraqi soldiers and policemen in cold blood and their comrades are eager for revenge.
Soldier Asaad Hussein said: 'We leave them in the street like that so the dogs eat them. We also want the citizens to know there is a price for supporting terrorists.'
The story comes from The Long War Journal.
Islamic State offensive against Assad regime cuts city of Deir Ezzor in two
On Jan. 15, the Islamic State launched a new offensive in Deir Ezzor. The eastern Syrian city has been divided between the so-called caliphate and Bashar al Assad’s regime since July 2014. In the two and half years since, the jihadists and Assad’s loyalists have regularly clashed, leading to an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The situation has become even more dire in recent days. Despite fighting on multiple fronts throughout Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State was able to muster enough forces for a significant push into the city.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s men have “effectively cut the besieged enclave in two.” Deir Ezzor’s airport and two neighborhoods in the east have been cut off from the city’s more populous western neighborhoods.
An OCHA map of the current situation in Deir Ezzor can be seen above.
An estimated 93,500 people, “including over 40,000 children,” live in the parts of the city controlled by the Assad regime. The Islamic State’s prolonged siege has deprived them of “regular access to food, medicines and other essentials” since mid-2014. For months, humanitarian organizations delivered provisions and foodstuffs “through high altitude air drops.” But the Islamic State’s new assault on Deir Ezzor has made that impossible, according to OCHA, as the jihadis have taken “control of the drop-zone which is located three kilometers west of the airport.” The offensive has only exacerbated the ongoing crisis, with regular shortages in the supply of food, water, medicines, electricity and other necessary items.
Islamic State propaganda from the offensive
The Islamic State frequently clashes with the Assad regime, as well as allied militias and conscripts, in Deir Ezzor.
Amaq News Agency, one of the Islamic State’s chief propaganda outlets, has eagerly advertised the exchanges, using captured regime fighters and militiamen in its videos. The captives are often made to renounce the Assad regime. Amaq has also provided a steady stream of other videos and images, including clips of the jihadis using anti-tank weapons against regime tanks and other assets.
An infographic produced by Amaq in early January listed 1,112 “martyrdom operations” (suicide attacks) in Iraq and Syria throughout 2016. Thirty-six (36) of these bombings supposedly took place in Deir Ezzor province. Although suicide bombers are deployed more regularly in other areas of Syria, Deir Ezzor was still tied with Raqqa for the third most frequently targeted province. Only the Aleppo (150) and Hasakah (49) provinces witnessed more suicide bombings, according to Amaq.
Amaq has published numerous videos and photos from the recent offensive. On Jan. 16, the propaganda outlet said that the jihadis had captured key positions “west of the Deir Ezzor airbase,” destroying a bus that was “transporting troops and three other vehicles” during the battle. The airbase quickly came under siege from “all sides,” according to Amaq, and approximately 40 Syrian troops were killed during the early hours of the fighting.
On Jan. 18, Amaq announced that Islamic State fighters had captured “the electrical substation, its checkpoint” and a plaza “northwest of the airbase.” This was reportedly followed by advances on “the Syrian army field hospital,” and other key points. An Amaq video contained footage from inside the hospital, a crude facility with pockmarks from mortar shells and other ammunition scattered throughout the walls.
Other Amaq statements on Jan. 19 and Jan. 20 claimed that the jihadis have destroyed a “field artillery piece” and a tank belonging to the Syrian regime.
Russian warplanes have run bombing missions over the city in support of the Syrian Army, as well as the irregulars who have been pressed into service. An Amaq video released on Jan. 21 purportedly showed the destruction caused by the Russian bombings, with buildings reduced to rubble. A screen shot from the video can be seen above.
Continuous fighting between Islamic State, Assad regime in Deir Ezzor
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has published regular reports on the fighting in and around Deir Ezzor since 2014. But the Islamic State’s offensive in the city appears to be its most significant effort in the area since early 2016.
During a press briefing on Jan. 29, 2016, Colonel Steve Warren, who was then the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), discussed the Islamic State’s operations in Deir Ezzor.
Col. Warren said that the city was “split” between the Islamic State and the regime, with each controlling about 50 percent. The jihadists had been “battling regime forces” for some time, Warren noted, but used “the cover a sandstorm” to gain ground in “single neighborhood.” This temporarily increased the Islamic State’s control “from 50 percent to maybe 56 percent,” but the Assad regime “gained some of it back when the weather cleared and they were able to bring some air power to bear.” In Warren’s view, the Islamic State’s short-lived gains did not amount to a “major tactical event.” Other accounts claimed that the jihadis massacred civilians and Syrian forces during the Jan. 2016 raid.
The two sides continued to clash in and around Deir Ezzor in the year since.
During a press briefing on Aug. 16, 2016, Colonel Christopher Garver, another OIR spokesman, confirmed that the city was still “divided.” The Islamic State had been in the city for “many months” at that point, with the US flying missions against the group both inside Deir Ezzor and in the area around it. The US and its allies had “certainly attacked a lot of the oil infrastructure…outside of Deir Ezzor and in that area,” Garver said. Meanwhile, the Islamic State and the Syrian Army had “been fighting over that city for quite a long time.”
The Islamic State has earned significant oil revenues from wells outside of Deir Ezzor city. And as Garver explained, the oil fields have been a frequent American target. The US has continued to bomb oil wells and related infrastructure even as the jihadis surged in the city this month.
The US air campaign in Deir Ezzor led to an international incident in Sept. 2016, when American bombers mistakenly struck fighters allied with the Syrian regime. According to the Defense Department, the Americans believed they were bombing Islamic State positions, an indication of just how close the front lines between the two sides were at the time. Indeed, the two foes have been at each other’s throats in Deir Ezzor for two and a half years.
There's a rumor in the Arab world that America has a new President....
The story comes from Al Arabiya.
Trump tells CIA ‘evil ISIS’ to be eradicated
New US President Donald Trump told the CIA they will eradicate “evil ISIS” together in an impassioned speech to around 300 members of the intelligence community on Saturday,
Trump told the CIA it had his full support as he paid a visit to mend fences after publicly rejecting its assessment that Russia tried to help him win the US election.
"I am with you 1,000 percent," Trump said in a short address to CIA staff after his visit to the agency headquarters in Virginia.
In his first full day in office, Trump moved swiftly to confront simmering tensions left by US intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the US election to try to tip the outcome in Trump's favor.
"I love you, I respect you," he told members of the US intelligence community.
"We're all on the same wavelength, right?" he asked, referring in particular to the fight against ISIS.
"We have not used the real abilities that we have. We've been restrained. We have to get rid of ISIS."
Mike Pompeo, Trump's pick to lead the CIA, has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate.
A 53-year-old Republican lawmaker, Pompeo is considered a foreign policy hawk and was an ardent opponent of former president Barack Obama's administration.
Outgoing CIA director John Brennan had stern words for Trump last Sunday, saying he needed to be more "disciplined" in his public comments.
"I don't think he has a full appreciation of Russian capabilities, Russia's intentions and actions," Brennan said of Trump on Fox News Sunday.
Trump, likening US intelligence to Nazis, suggested Brennan himself may have leaked an unsubstantiated report that the Russians had gathered damaging salacious personal information about him.
The intelligence agencies had given both Trump and Obama a summary of the dossier, which later was published in full by BuzzFeed.
Brennan said the US intelligence chiefs considered it their responsibility to make Trump aware that it was in circulation.
The story comes from The Long War Journal.
Islamic State claims responsibility for New Year’s Day attack at Istanbul nightclub
The Islamic State released a statement earlier today claiming responsibility for the attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey during the early hours of New Year’s Day. At least 39 people were killed and dozens more wounded in the massacre. Many of the victims were foreign tourists, according to local media reports.
The so-called caliphate says that its “hero soldier” assaulted one of Turkey’s “most famous nightclubs,” because it is a location where “Christians celebrate their pagan holiday.” The jihadist group also attempts to justify the attack by portraying Turkey as a “protector of the cross” and accusing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government of spilling the “blood of Muslims” with its planes and guns. This is likely a reference to Turkey’s military operations in northern Syria, where its forces and allied rebel groups fight Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s men on a daily basis. Of course, most of the Islamic State’s victims are Muslims, meaning its accusation against Turkey is hollow. Many of the victims at Reina were likely Muslims as well.
The Islamic State had been reticent to claim responsibility for attacks inside Turkey. Although a number of operations are thought to be the work of its men, including the June 2016 attack on the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, the group didn’t own any of them via its prolific propaganda machine. That began to change in early Nov. 2016, when Abu Bakr al Baghdadi called on his followers to strike inside Turkey. The Islamic State’s thinking likely changed after Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield was launched. Turkish forces and their allies have successfully claimed territory from the caliphate in northern Syria.
During his speech in November, Baghdadi claimed that Turkey had revealed its true agenda by entering the war. He argued that the Turks have taken advantage of the fact that the Islamic State has been distracted by the “war against the infidel nations” and has been forced to defend its territory. For these reasons, Baghdadi told his followers to “attack” Turkey and bring the country into their “conflict.” Baghdadi also likened “infidel” Turkish soldiers to dogs and called on the caliphate’s “soldiers” to spill their blood. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s ‘grand jihad’ against the world.]
Within hours of Baghdadi’s speech, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car bombing in southeastern Turkey. This was the group’s first high-profile claim of responsibility for a terrorist operation inside the country. Turkish authorities quickly blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a US-designated terrorist organization, for the explosion. It is possible that Kurdish terrorists did carry out the bombing. Still, the Islamic State’s claim was important because it signaled a new willingness to publicly lash out at Turkey.
The Islamic State’s new spokesman, Abu al Hassan al Muhajir, continued with Baghdadi’s anti-Turkey theme in his first message, which was released in early December. Muhajir accused Turkey of serving “Crusader Europe” and said that Erdoğan had miscalculated by directly entering the war in Syria. Muhajir called on the Islamic State’s jihadists to strike Turkish interests around the world.
“Accordingly, we make a call to every truthful muwahhid to target the supports of the apostate, secularist, Turkish state everywhere, including the security, military, economic, and media apparatuses…even every embassy and consulate representing them in all lands of the earth,” Muhajir said. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report: New Islamic State spokesman seeks to rally Sunnis against Iran, West.]
Baghdadi’s propagandists also released a gruesome video purportedly showing two Turkish soldiers being burned alive in December.
Nightclubs and similar venues are an easy target for the Islamic State’s terrorists. In Nov. 2015, the jihadists slaughtered 89 people at the Bataclan theatre in Paris. The attack on Bataclan was part of a coordinated assault throughout France’s capital. In June 2016, a jihadist who repeatedly swore his allegiance to Baghdadi shot and killed 49 people at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
Initial reports indicate that at least one gunman assaulted Reina. Some local accounts claim that he was dressed like Santa Claus, or in similar holiday garb. However, that detail and many others remain to be confirmed. Turkish authorities have arrested several people suspected of being tied to the Islamic State’s network inside Turkey, but the terrorist responsible for the killings has not yet been identified or detained.
I dunno. It's like watching the Packers play the Bears.
The story comes from Al Arabiya.
ISIS video shows Turkish troops ‘burned alive’
ISIS militants on Thursday released a video purporting to show two captured Turkish soldiers being burned alive. The video, showing two uniformed men being hauled from a cage before being bound and torched, was posted on militant websites.
The 19-minute footage was purportedly shot in the ISIS-declared “Aleppo Province” in northern Syria. Speaking in Turkish, the killer of the two men verbally attacks Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and calls for “destruction to be sowed” in Turkey.
The shock images recall the killing of Maaz al-Kassasbeh, a Jordanian fighter pilot, who was captured by the militants when his plane went down in Syria in December 2014, and was later burned alive in a cage. The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq said last month that the militants had kidnapped two Turkish soldiers, and the Turkish army separately said it had lost contact with two of its men.
The video’s release came a day after 16 Turkish soldiers were killed by ISIS militants, in Ankara’s biggest loss so far in its unprecedented incursion into Syria. They were killed in a succession of attacks around the Syrian town of Al-Bab on Wednesday that included three suicide car bombings.
The story comes from The Jerusalem Post.
Islamic State claims Yemen suicide attack that killed 49
CAIRO - Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on Sunday that killed up to 49 Yemeni soldiers in the southern port city of Aden, the group said in a statement.
Islamic State said more than 70 "apostates" were killed in the attack carried out by a suicide bomber it identified as Abu Hashem al-Radfani.
Hopefully, the year 2017 will bring four or five of these types of posts per week instead of one every few months.
Anyway, good riddance Boubaker al-Hakim - say howdy to Lucifer for us.
The story comes from The Long War Journal.
US confirms death of high-profile Tunisian Islamic State assassin
The US Defense Department has confirmed that Boubaker al-Hakim, a French-Tunisian Islamic State leader pictured above, was killed in airstrikes carried out in Raqqa, Syria on Nov. 26.
In a statement on Dec. 10, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook described al-Hakim as a “longtime terrorist with deep ties to French and Tunisian Jihadist elements.” Cook tied al-Hakim to the so-called caliphate’s external operations arm, saying his death “degrades” the Islamic State’s “ability to conduct further attacks in the West” and denies the group “a veteran extremist with extensive ties.”
Cook also noted that al-Hakim is “suspected of involvement” in terrorist attacks against “Tunisian political leadership” in 2013. Indeed, al-Hakim admitted in an interview with the Islamic State’s Dabiq magazine in early 2015 that he assassinated one Tunisian politician and knew the jihadists responsible for killing a second.
Interview with Dabiq
Al-Hakim was identified as Abū Muqātil at-Tūnusī in the 8th issue of Dabiq, which was released online in March 2015. He bragged about killing Mohammed Brahmi, the leader of the People’s Movement party, on July 25, 2013.
“We stayed four hours in front of the home of this tyrant, waiting, until he left the home and entered his car,” al-Hakim told Dabiq. “I then moved towards him and killed him by shooting ten bullets at him.”
“We wanted to cause chaos…in the lands by killing Brahmi so as to facilitate the brothers’ movements and so that we would be able to bring in weapons and liberate our brothers from prisons,” al-Hakim said, explaining the rationale behind Brahmi’s slaying. “This was the main goal behind killing Brahmi in addition to the fact that he worked in [Tunisia’s] Constituent Assembly making him from the tawāghīt [apostate rulers] of the country.”
Al-Hakim also identified three jihadists who were responsible for the assassination of another Tunisian politician, Chokri Belaid, on Feb. 6, 2013. One of them was known as Ahmad ar-Ruwaysī. According to al-Hakim, ar-Ruwaysī escaped from prison following the uprising in Tunisia in 2011 and fled to Libya, where he helped run a training camp and smuggle arms back into Tunisia. After Belaid was killed, ar-Ruwaysī became a wanted man and so he stayed in Libya. Al-Hakim told Dabiq that ar-Ruwaysī joined the Islamic State in Sirte, which was the group’s stronghold in North Africa from mid-2015 until earlier this year. It was in Sirte that ar-Ruwaysī swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s operation before dying in battle.
His interview with Dabiq wasn’t the first time al-Hakim admitted a role in the assassinations of Brahmi and Belaid.
In Dec. 2014, the Islamic State released a video calling on Muslims to support the group’s jihad in Tunisia. Al-Hakim starred in the production.
“Yes, O tyrants, we are the ones who assassinated Chokri Belaid and Brahmi, and, Allah permitting, we will return,” al-Hakim said, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.
Al-Hakim announced his fealty to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and encouraged Tunisians to pledge their own allegiance to the Islamic State’s master. He also threatened France. “We will tear apart that flag that was raised by the grandchildren of Charles de Gaulle” and “the grandchildren of Napoleon,” raising the black banner of monotheism in its place, al-Hakim said.
A veteran jihadist
Al-Hakim briefly recounted additional biographical details in his interview with Dabiq. He said that his “religious practice started in 2002” when he traveled “to Sham,” meaning the Levant (Syria), “to study the Sharia.” After the Americans entered Iraq in 2003, al-Hakim briefly joined the jihad there for “about a month” before being “betrayed by some of the hypocrites” and “forced to leave.”
Al-Hakim then went to France, where he “prepared for another journey” to Iraq. He joined Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s group. He met up with Zarqawi and his men in Fallujah, staying in the city for “about six or seven months.” Al-Hakim said he left Iraq for Syria “to receive my family,” but “was arrested there.” He was then imprisoned in Bashar al Assad’s notorious and controversial Far’ Falastin prison, which housed other well-known jihadists, “for nine months.” He was deported to France and “imprisoned there for seven years.”
Al-Hakim said his time in a French prison was “difficult,” but it was also “a great gate for da’wah [proselytization] to Allah” and a “school” for indoctrinating others in the jihadist ideology.
It appears that al-Hakim returned to Tunisia around the time of the Arab uprisings in 2011. “I then left back to Tunisia and started planning on establishing jihād in Tunisia with my brothers,” al-Hakim told Dabiq. “Libya was next to us and weapons were widespread there,” al-Hakim continued. “So we went to Libya and established a training camp there” and “would work to smuggle weapons into Tunisia.”
Al-Hakim portrayed the assassinations of Belaid and Brahmi as a strategic failure, admitting that the slayings did not spark a broader jihadi revolution. “The matter succeeded but some of those associated with jihād there, may Allah guide them, went out and defended the former government institutions and thereby ruined our mission,” al-Hakim told Dabiq. “After all these attempts I decided to go to Shām and join the Islamic State there.”
The French-Tunisian jihadist was also especially critical of the Islamists in Tunisia who failed to support the supposed caliphate’s cause. Al-Hakim called on Tunisia’s Islamists to “repent,” arguing that their “ideas” and participation in elections “have not brought you any results.” Only armed jihad was sufficient, from al-Hakim’s perspective.
In his interview with Dabiq, al-Hakim praised the March 18, 2015 attack on the Bardo National Museum. Dozens of people, mainly foreign tourists, were killed or wounded in the massacre. Al-Hakim said this “delighted us and healed our hearts,” adding that other “brothers” should carry out similar operations. CNN reported that he is also suspected of having connections to the jihadi gunman who killed 38 people at a tourist beach near Sousse, Tunisia on June 26, 2015.
Tied to Ansar al Sharia Tunisia, European jihadists
Al-Hakim was designated as a terrorist by both the United Nations and the US State Department in Sept. 2015. Both designations noted al-Hakim’s reported “ties” to Ansar al Sharia Tunisia, which was orchestrated the Sept. 14, 2012 assault on the US Embassy in Tunis.
The designations noted that al-Hakim “worked with related associates to target Western diplomats in North Africa,” but didn’t specifically tie him to the ransacking of the American embassy. Just days earlier, Ansar al Sharia Libya was part of a coalition of al Qaeda groups that attacked and killed four Americans in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.
The Tunisian government first reported al-Hakim’s connections with Ansar al Sharia Tunisia in 2013. Officials accused Ansar al Sharia’s leader, Seifallah Ben Hassine (also known as Abu Iyad al Tunisi), of ordering the hit on Belaid. Tunisian authorities also reported that a forensic investigation tied the killings of Belaid and Brahmi to the same jihadi network and even the same weapon. [See FDD’s Long War Journal reports: Tunisian government alleges longtime jihadist involved in assassinations and Ansar al Sharia responds to Tunisian government.]
After the Ansar al Sharia groups gained international infamy in 2012, many accounts sought to distance them from al Qaeda’s network. However, as The Long War Journal reported at the time, the Ansar al Sharia organizations in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen all had demonstrable ties to al Qaeda. The Long War Journal’s analysis was subsequently confirmed by the details reported in UN and American designations, as well as other evidence.
The rise of the Islamic State in 2013 and 2014 led some jihadists, such as al-Hakim, to defect to the self-declared caliphate’s cause. Others, including Ansar al Sharia Tunisia leader Hassine, remained loyal to the al Qaeda network. According to letters that were released via social media, Hassine initially urged Ayman al Zawahiri to join the Islamic State’s then surging effort. But Hassine quickly did an about-face, concluding that Baghdadi and his followers were too extreme even for al Qaeda. Some sources have reported that Hassine was killed in 2015, but his demise was never confirmed.
Al-Hakim and his comrades went all in for the Islamic State. In the Dec. 2014 video, he called on jihadists in Tunisia to defect to Baghdadi’s enterprise en masse. “I call on my brothers in Tunisia in general and my brothers in the mountains in particular to follow their brothers in Libya, Algeria, the Land of the Two Holy Mosques [Saudi Arabia], Yemen, and Sinai, and pledge allegiance to the Emir of the Believers,” al-Hakim said, according SITE’s translation. While some answered the call, others didn’t. For instance, the Uqba bin Nafi battalion in the Mount Chaambi region remained loyal to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
The divide among al-Hakim’s jihadi friends extended all the way into Europe. When al-Hakim’s death was widely reported earlier this month, some accounts linked him to the mass murder at Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris in Jan. 2015. That operation was carried out by two brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi. It is likely that al-Hakim, who was born in Paris, knew one or both of the Kouachi brothers in France. Al-Hakim was a key figure in a recruiting cell based in the 19th Arrondisement of Paris. Al-Hakim’s network sent aspiring jihadists off to fight in Iraq and the Kouachis were tied to this same operation.
However, al-Hakim did not specifically mention the Charlie Hebdo attack in his interview with Dabiq, which was posted online more than two months after the fact. The Kouachis carried out the assault on behalf of al Qaeda and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). A friend of the Kouachis, Amedy Coulibaly, murdered others in the name of the Islamic State. But the Kouachis did not follow Coulibaly into the caliphate’s camp. In reality, while their specific allegiances differed, they were all jihadis and knew each others years beforehand.
While al Qaeda is still capable of plotting a mass-casualty attack and celebrates indiscriminate killings in the West, the group has also experimented with more targeted slayings, such as the Charlie Hebdo operation. An AQAP analysis, for example, explained that al Qaeda’s central leadership had selected “particular target[s]” to strike.
Al-Hakim was less interested in this style of terror. In Dabiq, he called on jihadis in France to lash out. “I also say to them, do not look for specific targets,” al-Hakim stressed. “Kill anybody. All the kuffār [unbelievers] over there are targets. Don’t tire yourself and look for difficult targets. Kill whoever is over there from the kuffār.”
