Spotlight on Global Jihad (March 10-16, 2016)

Main events of the week

The ceasefire in Syria, which entered into effect on the night of February 26-27, was maintained in its third week with the familiar characteristics: a significant decrease in the intensity of the clashes, local and insignificant violations, and continuing airstrikes by Russia and the US-led coalition against ISIS and against organizations to which the ceasefire does not apply. This week, the Syrian Army continued its efforts to take over the city of Palmyra. The Syrian Army, with Russian air support, took over strategic areas near the city, apparently in preparation for invading it and taking it over from ISIS. On the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, and on the eve of the Geneva proximity talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a dramatic announcement on the immediate withdrawal of a large part of the Russian military force in Syria (the withdrawal of the forces began on March 15, 2016, the day after the announcement).At this stage, the reasons for the surprising Russian move are still unclear, as are its political goals, the scope of the Russian forces that will remain in Syria and what steps the Russians intend to take in the future. In its announcements, the Russian government emphasized the achievements of the seven months of Russian military intervention. However, contrary to the Russian (and Syrian) propaganda, the situation on the ground is more complex: an examination of the Russian involvement indicates that it has enabled the Syrian Army to stabilize its ranks and even achieve territorial gains in some important combat zones (the area of Aleppo, the area east of Homs, southern Syria). However, Syria’s offensive moves in the various arenas are far from over, the core area of ISIS’s territorial control area and its military backbone are still intact, and the rebel organizations, including the Al-Nusra Front, continue to hold most of their outposts and to threaten vital territories of the Syrian regime (from the area of Idlib, for example). Against this background, the ITIC believes that the Russian move carries risks for the Syrian regime, chiefly halting the momentum of the Syrian Army’s achievements, made possible by the Russian support. At the same time, it is liable to enhance the self-confidence and motivation of ISIS, the Al-Nusra Front and other rebel organizations. The situation in Syria, after five years of fighting, is still far from resolved, and things may even be completely reversed, as happened in the past.

 

Russia’s involvement in the fighting in Syria

• At a meeting with the Russian foreign and defense ministers, President Vladimir Putin announced the withdrawal of large part of the Russian force in Syria. According to him, this is because the Russian involvement in Syria has achieved most of its objectives (Kremlin website, March 14, 2016). Putin ordered the troops to start withdrawing as early as March 15, 2016. According to Putin, the naval and air bases in Tartus and Hmeymim will continue to operate as in the past, but some of the aircraft and vessels will be removed. Russia will also continue to operate the support center that supervises the ceasefire (Kremlin website, March 14, 2016). At the same time, Putin ordered an increase in Russia’s diplomatic presence at the Geneva proximity talks to help end the crisis in Syria (Al-Jazeera; Sky News, March 14, 2016).
• According to the Russian defense minister, up to the time of Putin’s announcement, the Air Force had carried out some 9,000 airstrikes in Syria, seriously damaging the resources of the terrorist organizations (209 oil facilities and nearly 3,000 tankers). The Air Force also blocked supply routes between Turkey and Syria used for oil trading and for conveying weapons. According to the announcement, thanks to the Russian aid, the Syrian regime managed to liberate large parts of Syria (approximately 10,000 square kilometers and around 400 villages and towns) and kill 2,000 terrorist operatives, including 17 commanders of Russian origin (RT, March 15, 2016).
• The widely reported withdrawal of the Russian forces from Syria began immediately, the day after President Putin made his announcement. Beginning on March 14, 2016, Russian and Arab sources reported that a large number of Russian fighter planes left the air force base in Hmeymim in two phases. There were also reports on Russian vessels leaving the port of Tartus and the evacuation of troops and military equipment. At the same time, it was reported that the Russian Air Force would continue to attack ISIS targets in Palmyra in support of the Syrian Army’s advance.
• According to an official statement issued by the office of the Syrian president, Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad had agreed in a telephone conversation to reduce Russia’s airborne forces in Syria. This is due to the Syrian Army’s successes in cooperation with the Russian Air Force in the fight against terrorism, in light of the restoration of security in many areas in Syria and following the progress in the process of reconciliation. According to the announcement, Russia has promised to continue to support Syria in its fight against terrorism (Syrian President’s official Facebook page, March 14, 2016). Bouthaina Shaaban, political and media adviser to the President of Syria, noted that the Russian decision is a “natural development” in light of the ceasefire and the achievement of all the objectives agreed upon between Russia and Syria. She stressed that Syria was not surprised by the decision and claimed that the Syrian Army can not only retain the territories that it has taken over but also to expand its areas of control (Al-Mayadeen, March 15, 2016; RT, March 14, 2016).

Implementation of the ceasefire agreement – overview

• The ceasefire agreement has entered into its third week. Last week as well, it was maintained with the familiar characteristics, i.e., a significant decrease in the intensity of the clashes, local and insignificant violations, continued airstrikes against ISIS and other organizations that are not included in the ceasefire, and the Syrian Army’s continued widespread military action against ISIS in Palmyra. A spokesman for the US State Department said that the ceasefire was expected to continue even after the set two-week period because no Syrian official or agency had expressed a desire to end it (Twitter page of the US Embassy in Syria, March 12, 2016).
• The Russian Ministry of Defense publishes a daily bulletin on violations of the ceasefire, issued by the coordination center in Syria. According to these reports, last week an average of fewer than 10 violations a day was recorded. The Russian Defense Ministry noted that the Russian Air Force and the Syrian Air Force did not carry out airstrikes against Syrian opposition groups that had declared their commitment to the ceasefire (TASS News Agency, March 9, 2016). In addition, a number of local agreements have reportedly been signed with several other organizations that have accepted the terms of the ceasefire (Russian Defense Ministry Twitter page, March 12, 2016). According to the Russian defense minister, the number of organizations that have joined the declaration of a ceasefire in Syria has reached 42, and negotiations with other organizations are underway (Sputnik, March 12, 2016).

The international campaign against ISIS

• The US-led coalition continued to carry out attacks in Iraq and Syria against ISIS targets and those of other terrorist organizations that are not included in the ceasefire agreement. During the week, aircraft of the coalition countries carried out many dozens of airstrikes. Syria – the airstrikes were concentrated in the areas of Marea (north of Aleppo), Al-Hasakah, Palmyra and Al-Raqqah. Iraq – the airstrikes were concentrated mainly in Ramadi, Sinjar and Mosul. According to senior US officials, the US has carried out a series of airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS’s chemical production infrastructure. According to the report, these attacks relied on intelligence obtained in the interrogation of a senior ISIS operative captured a few weeks ago (CNN, March 9, 2016).

Turkey

• This week as well, the Turkish Army continued to fire from Turkish territory at ISIS targets and at the Kurdish forces on Syrian territory.According to a representative of the Kurdish forces in the area of Afrin, near the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkey violates the ceasefire on a daily basis. According to him, the Kurds plan to appeal to the UN and other agencies to protest Turkey’s activity (Reuters, March 9, 2016). The Turkish Army also reportedly fired at the ISIS-controlled village of Shwireen, some 9 km from the Syrian-Turkish border. A video issued by ISIS’s media foundation shows a number of houses that were damaged in the attack (Aamaq; vid.me file-sharing website, March 13, 2016).

Main developments in Syria

Homs Province

The Syrian Army’s efforts to take over the city of Palmyra continue

• The Syrian Army continued its efforts to take over the city of Palmyra, east of Homs. Fighting is apparently still ongoing on the outskirts of the city. The Syrian Army has reportedly managed to advance and take over a number of strategic locations west of Palmyra. In the area of Al-Qaryatayn, southeast of Homs, the Syrian Army managed to take control of a strategic area west of the city (Al-Manar TV, March 10, 2016). It seems, therefore, that the Syrian Army is surrounding both these cities, in preparation for invading them and taking them over from ISIS.
• The Syrian effort to take over Palmyra is backed by massive Russian air support.Russian aircraft have attacked ISIS targets in the city and its environs. They also helped isolate the city, by attacking routes leading from it to areas under ISIS’s control in eastern Syria (Al-Durar al-Shamiya, March 12, 2016). As a result of the airstrikes and the fighting taking place in and around Palmyra, many civilians have fled eastward, including to the city of Al-Raqqah and the surrounding rural area.

The Al-Tanf border crossing

• Clashes between the rebel force and ISIS in the area of the Al-Tanf border crossing continued. On commencement of the Syrian attempt to take over Palmyra, a rebel force attempted to take over the crossing. Since then, the crossing has apparently changed hands repeatedly. This week, the rebel organizations apparently took over the crossing from ISIS operatives once again (Twitter, March 12, 2016).

Clashes in other provinces throughout Syria

• In other provinces in Syria, including provinces where the ceasefire applies and areas where it does not, local clashes continued between the various forces:

• Aleppo Province: Localclashes continued between the Kurdish forces and ISIS, which is carrying out guerrilla warfare against them. This week, ISIS carried out two suicide bombing attacks against the Kurdish forces in the area of the Tishreen Dam (Syria Mubasher, March 11, 2016).
• Al-Hasakah Province: The Kurdish forces suffered losses as a result of a suicide bombing attack carried out by a suicide bomber in the west of the city of Al-Hasakah (Syria Mubasher, March 12, 2016).
• ·Deir al-Zor:Clashes continued between the Syrian forces and ISIS operatives in the area of the military airbase. ISIS also carried out attacks in a number of the city’s neighborhoods. The Syrian forces blew up a tunnel in the city, causing the collapse of several buildings where ISIS operatives were staying (Al-Durar al-Shamiya, March 13, 2016).
• Idlib: In the rural area of Idlib, there were clashes between Free Syrian Army forces and Al-Nusra Front operatives. Al-Nusra Front operatives reportedly managed to take over the Free Syrian Army’s stores of weapons and ammunition (Al-Mayadeen, March 13, 2016).
• The area of Damascus: There were clashes in the southern part of the Al-Yarmouk refugee camp between ISIS operatives and their supporters and the Al-Nusra Front (sputniknews.com, March 3, 2016; arabi21.com, March 7, 2016; Filastin Hurra News Agency, March 10, 2016).
• Southern Syria: On March 7, 2016, the ISIS-affiliated Al-Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade appointed a new “Emir” codenamed Abu Abdullah al-Madani. The new emir is a Saudi. He succeeds Abu Obeida Al-Qahtani, who was appointed after the Al-Nusra Front killed the founder of the Al-Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, Abu Ali al-Baridi (November 2015).
• The area of Daraa: There were clashes between the rebel forces and ISIS operatives in the village of Ayn al-Bayda, northeast of Daraa. Losses were reported on both sides (Aamaq, March 11, 2016; the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), March 12, 2016).

Main developments in Iraq

Al-Anbar Province

• The Iraqi Army’s efforts to cleanse the city of Ramadi and its environs continue.ISIS continues to carry out guerrilla attacks against the Iraqi Army in the city’s suburbs and environs. ISIS claims to have taken over four Iraqi Army positions in northern Ramadi on March 9, 2016. Twenty-five Iraqi soldiers were killed in the attack (Aamaq, March 9, 2016). On March 13, 2016, ISIS announced that the attack carried out by its operatives against Iraqi Army positions northwest of Ramadi had killed 20 Iraqi soldiers and damaged 10 APCs (Aamaq, March 13, 2016).

Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia

• The Iraqi Army announced that an Iraqi Border Patrol force had thwarted an attack by ISIS against a Border Patrol position in Makr al-Nu’am, on the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border. According to the report, ISIS activated a car bomb driven by a suicide bomber (Al-Sumaria, March 12, 2016).

• According to senior Iraqi officials and senior Kurdish Peshmerga officials, ISIS carried out two attacks involving the use of chemical weapons. The attacks were carried out on March 12, 2016, in the area of Taza (south of Kirkuk). A little girl was killed and around 600 people were wounded in the attack (The Star, March 12, 2016).
• The US Department of State officially announced the arrest of Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, head of ISIS’s chemical weapons development unit. He was arrested in a raid in Iraq last month. The Americans handed Sleiman al-Afari over to the Iraqi authorities (Al-Jazeera, March 9, 2016; The New York Times, March 9, 2016).

The conduct of the Islamic State

Tens of thousands of ISIS documents fell into the hands of German intelligence

• Tens of thousands of ISIS documents containing names, addresses and phone numbers of more than 22,000 ISIS operatives were handed over to German intelligence. Some of the documents were exposed in the media. These documents were obtained from the former commander of ISIS’s Internal Security Police, codenamed Abu Hamed, who served in the Free Syrian Army and defected to ISIS (Sky News, March 10, 2016). The documents included questionnaires issued by ISIS’s Border Directorate, the entity responsible for the absorption of foreign fighters into the ranks of ISIS. According to the documents, citizens from more than 51 countries provided their personal details in the application forms in order to join ISIS. The names that were found included those of the three terrorists who carried out the attack at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in November 2015 (Gulf News, March 12, 2016).

Senior ISIS commander of Chechen origin reported killed or seriously injured

• According to an announcement by the US Army, Omar the Chechen, a senior military commander in ISIS, was killed in an airstrike on March 4, 2016, in the city of Shadadi, south of Al-Hasakah (which has fallen in the hands of the Kurdish forces). According to the version of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Omar the Chechen survived the airstrike that was carried out against a convoy in which he was traveling. Some of the operatives who were with him in the convoy were killed, but he was seriously injured and taken from the Al-Hasakah Province to a hospital in Al-Raqqah, where he is treated by an ISIS doctor from Europe. According to a number of reports, he is clinically dead (The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR); Al-Arabiya, March 13, 2016). ISIS’s Aamaq News Agency denied the announcement of Omar the Chechen’s death (Al-Jazeera, March 15, 2016).

 

Egyptand the Sinai Peninsula

• During the week, the Egyptian security forces continued their activity against ISIS’s Sinai Province, mainly in the areas of Sheikh Zuweid, Al-Arish and Rafah. According to reports, a few dozen operatives of ISIS’s Sinai Province were killed and many others were injured (Veto portal, March 12, 2016). In addition, many operatives were reportedly arrested. At the same time, ISIS operatives continued their guerrilla activities against the Egyptian security forces, mainly in the form of planting IEDs against military vehicles. Several members of the Egyptian security forces were reportedly killed and wounded, mainly by IEDs
• ISIS’s Sinai Province released a video entitled “The Nectar of Life” (Rahiq al-Hayah). The video shows three ISIS suicide bombers expressing their gratitude for being privileged to carry out a suicide bombing attack. They read their wills and promise to continue to fight against the “tyrants and their agents” (i.e., the Egyptian regime), to blow up car bombs and to release their prisoners. The end of the video shows the suicide bombing attacks that they carried out (Isdarat al-Dawla al-Islamiyya, March 10, 2016).

Palestinians and Israeli Arabs

• An Israeli Arab named Khalil Saleh al-Sayyid, from Umm al-Fahm, was apparently killed in a US airstrike while fighting in the ranks of ISIS in Syria. The 28-year-old, married with one child, came to Syria around three years ago via Turkey. According to his family, since arriving in Syria he did not make contact with them. The family learned of his death on social media (Ynet, March 13, 2016).

The global jihad in other countries

Libya

Interview with ISIS leader in Libya

• The new issue of ISIS’s Arabic-language organ Al-Naba, which came out on March 8, 2016, contains an interview with Abdel Qader al-Najdi, the new Emir of the Libyan provinces of the Islamic State. Al-Najdi has reportedly succeeded Abu Mughaira al-Qahtani, who was killed in a US Air Force airstrike in Derna in November 2015 (justpaste.it, March 8, 2016).
• In the interview, Al-Najdi calls on all Muslims to migrate to the center of the Caliphate of the Islamic State (i.e., Iraq and Syria) but also to its other provinces, including Libya. He says that the Islamic State in Libya is still in its early days, but is going the way of the provinces of Iraq and Syria. It is establishing its institutions, including the morality police, a welfare system, a judiciary system and more. According to him, these institutions maintain continuous contact with the corresponding institutions in the Islamic State. In the interview, Al-Najdi dismisses reports on the establishment of an international coalition against ISIS in Libya. He also threatens the rulers of Libya’s neighboring countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, saying that nothing would prevent ISIS operatives from reaching them and eliminating their rule. Al-Najdi expresses the hope that ISIS operatives in Libya will be the conquerors of Rome (justpaste.it, March 8, 2016).

The disclosure of the identity of ISIS’s new Emir in the media may indicate the increasing self-confidence of ISIS’s branch in Libya, which is gradually establishing itself in the territorial control area in Sirte. Operatives from the outside play a key role in the establishment of the branch, and this is the reason for Al-Najdi’s call on Muslims to migrate to Libya. Libya is the only country outside Iraq and Syria where ISIS has managed to establish a government that controls the population and national infrastructure. According to ISIS, as reflected in the interview with Al-Najdi, this governmental system maintains ties with the corresponding systems in Iraq and Syria, despite the geographical distance between them.

• West Africa continues to be a center for terrorist acts by Al-Qaeda’s branch: On March 13, 2016, six armed terrorists attacked two hotels in the resort town of Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast (located approximately 40 km from the capital Abidjan). At least 16 people were killed, including four Europeans and 10 locals (including two soldiers). Another 22 people were wounded in the attack. The six gunmen broke into a hotel and took several people hostage. Some of them moved to a nearby hotel and shot vacationers who were staying there. Shots were also heard from the beach. The six terrorists who took part in the attack were killed. Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the attack. AQIM issued a statement praising its “heroes” who managed to break into the hotels (All Africa, March 14, 2016).

The battle for hearts and minds

• The Islamic State’ Al-Raqqah Province released a video entitled “O Descendants of the Prophet in Lebanon.” The video calls on the residents of Lebanon to pledge allegiance to ISIS and fight the so-called Lebanese tyrants who currently rule the country. In the video, the operatives mention Iran’s protégé Hezbollah, calling it a “criminal organization” that is destroying Lebanon and fighting alongside the Assad regime. The video calls on the Christians in Lebanon to convert to Islam and calls for the imposition of Islamic law on Lebanon (Isdarat, March 11, 2016). In the ITIC’s assessment, this video is a response to Hezbollah’s media attack in Lebanon against ISIS and other jihadi organizations.

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