Spotlight on Global Jihad (July 13-19, 2023)

Main events of the past week

• ISIS’s activity around the world continued to be relatively low this week. Most of it focused on Africa.
• Syria: The Iranian Revolutionary Guards branch in Syria and representatives of the Syrian army are working to recruit fighters trained by the Russian Wagner Group for operations against ISIS.
• Iraq: An ISIS commander was detained in the northern Salah al-Din Province.
• Africa:
  • Nigeria: Two soldiers were killed and several others were wounded in the explosion of an IED in northeastern Nigeria. Nigerian Air Force planes attacked ISIS targets in the Lake Chad area, killing dozens of operatives.
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo: Two fighters of forces supporting the Congolese army and 12 civilians were killed in an ISIS attack against a Christian village near the border with Uganda.
  • Niger: Militants, apparently Al-Qaeda or ISIS operatives, attacked a convoy of Nigerien security forces close to the Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso tri-border area. A police officer and four civilians were killed and 19 people were wounded.
  • Somalia: The Somali government has declared an all-out war on the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab.
  • Kenya: Al-Shabaab operatives attacked a Kenyan police camp in northern Kenya. Two police officers and a teacher who was present at the scene were killed.
  • Mozambique: Mozambican troops were attacked in the northeast of the country. Three soldiers were killed.
• Britain: The British Home Secretary warned that ISIS and Al-Qaeda were planning attacks in the kingdom.
• The battle for hearts and minds:
• The editorial of ISIS’s weekly tries to encourage the organization’s operatives in light of the decline in activity.
• Following the burning of the Quran in Sweden, elements affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaeda call for attacking Christians in Europe.
• Elements affiliated with Al-Qaeda call on Muslims in Israel to attack civilians and soldiers.

The Syrian Arena

ISIS’s activity

Deir ez-Zor-Al-Mayadeen region

• On July 17, militants, apparently ISIS operatives, fired at a vehicle carrying the commander of the Deir ez-Zor Military Council, which operates as part of the SDF forces on the Al-Kharafi Road northeast of Deir ez-Zor. One of the commander’s escorts was killed (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, July 17, 2023).

The desert region

• On July 17, 2023, masked men, apparently ISIS operatives riding motorcycles, fired heavy machine guns at four vehicles of IRGC-backed militias near the Arak Junction, about 30 km east of Palmyra. Several fighters were wounded. The four vehicles were destroyed (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, July 17, 2023).
• On July 13, 2023, a Syrian soldier or fighter in the forces supporting the Syrian army was killed in the explosion of an old mine planted by ISIS in the desert area west of Al-Tebni, about 40 km northwest of Deir ez-Zor (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, July 13, 2023).

Possible integration of mercenaries in the fight against ISIS

• On July 11, 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that the commander of the IRGC’s branch in Syria, codenamed Hajj Mahdi, and representatives of the Syrian army had held a meeting to discuss the recruitment of fighters trained by the Russian Wagner Group, following the Wagner Group’s rebellion against Russian President Putin. They aim to recruit these fighters, known as “ISIS hunters,” for a monthly salary that is $300 higher than the salary currently paid to them by the Wagner Group, following a reduction in their salaries due to the attempted rebellion (Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2023).

Iraq

Counterterrorism

Salah al-Din Province

• On July 13, 2023, a joint force of the Iraqi National Intelligence Agency and a team from the counterterrorism unit of the Sulaymaniyah Province, in northeastern Iraq, detained Akkab Hamad Nijris Dali, aka Abu Jamal, who served as ISIS’s commander (emir) in the northern region of the Salah al-Din Province. Abu Jamal previously held the position of ISIS’s Sharia judge of ISIS’s Dijlah (Tigris) Province. As part of his duties, he issued many Islamic fatwas that incited attacks on the Iraqi security forces and the forces supporting them. In 2017, he fled Iraq to Syria and operated there in several areas. In 2023, he returned to Iraq on the orders of ISIS’s leadership (Iraqi News Agency, July 14, 2023).

Diyala Province

• On July 12, 2023, Iraqi security forces detained an ISIS operative in the Diyala Province (the exact location was not specified). The operative was involved in detonating IEDs and firing mortar shells in the northwestern region of Baqubah (Iraqi News Agency, July 12, 2023).

Summary of ISIS’s activity in the various provinces

• An infographic published by ISIS’s weekly Al-Naba, summarizing ISIS’s activity on July 6-12, 2023, indicates that during this period, ISIS operatives carried out eight attacks in the various provinces (compared with nine in the previous week). The provinces of Mozambique, West Africa, and Iraq carried out two attacks each. Other provinces: Syria (1); and Central Africa (1). Thirteen people were killed and wounded in the attacks, compared with 50 in the previous week. The largest number of casualties was in the province of Mozambique (6). In other provinces: Central Africa (3); Iraq (3); and West Africa (1) (Al-Naba weekly, Telegram, July 13, 2023) This is a continuation of the decline in ISIS’s activity around the world. This is ISIS’s lowest number of attacks (and probably also the lowest number of casualties) during a week of activity since the beginning of 2023.

Attacks by week (according to ISIS’s figures)

Africa

Nigeria

ISIS’s activity

• On July 15, 2023, an IED was activated against a Nigerian army foot patrol between the towns of Katavila and Mararaba, in northeastern Nigeria, near the border with Cameroon. Two soldiers were killed and several others were wounded (Telegram, July 16, 2023).
• On July 15, 2023, an IED was activated against a Nigerian army force in the town of Malam Fatori, in northeastern Nigeria, close to the border with Niger. A bulldozer driver was wounded, and the bulldozer was put out of commission (Telegram, July 17, 2023).
• On July 15, 2023, an attack was carried out against a Nigerian army checkpoint near the town of Tangoshi, Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria. The soldiers manning the checkpoint fled. A medium machine gun was seized (Telegram, July 15, 2023).

Counterterrorism

• On July 15, 2023, Nigerian Air Force planes attacked ISIS targets in the Lake Chad area, in the northeast of the country. Dozens of ISIS operatives were reportedly killed (thecable.ng, July 16, 2023).

Democratic Republic of the Congo

ISIS’s activity

• On July 13, 2023, an attack was carried out against forces supporting the Congolese army in the Christian village of Mayuano, in the Ituri region of northeastern Congo. Two fighters were killed and the rest fled. Three assault rifles were seized, and the staging area was set on fire. In addition, ISIS operatives killed 12 Christian civilians from the village (Telegram, July 15, 2023).

Cameroon

• According to a report from July 13, 2023, ISIS operatives demanded $16,750 for the release of 13 Cameroonian hostages recently kidnapped in the north of the country (humanglemedia.com, July 13, 2023).

Mozambique

ISIS’s activity

• On July 10, 2023, an attack was carried out against a compound of Mozambican troops in the village of Kitrago, in the northeast of the country. Three soldiers were killed. ISIS operatives set fire to the compound after seizing a variety of equipment and weapons, including RPG launchers, mortars, and ammunition (Telegram, July 12, 2023).

     
Weapons of the Mozambican army seized by ISIS (Telegram, July 12, 2023)

• On July 15, 2023, the ISIS-affiliated Mu’ta Media Foundation published an infographic summarizing the organization’s activity in Mozambique between January 1 and July 15, 2023. According to the infographic, ISIS operatives killed and wounded nearly 95 people: about 80 of them members of the Mozambican army, the African Coalition, and local militias, and about 15 of them Christian civilians. In addition, dozens of homes, property, and equipment belonging to Christian residents, the Mozambican army, the African Coalition, and local militias were set on fire (Telegram, July 15, 2023).

Niger

• On July 14, 2023, gunmen attacked a convoy of a paramilitary force escorted by Niger police in the Tillabéri region of western Niger, about 160 km from the Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso triangle. A police officer and four civilians were killed and 19 people were wounded, including seven police officers. Two of the attackers were killed. Apparently, they were Al-Qaeda or ISIS operatives operating in the area (channelstv.com, July 16, 2023).

Somalia

Al-Shabaab activity

• On July 12, 2023, operatives of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab, arriving in several routes, attacked a base of forces supporting the Somali army in the town of Gharli, near the Somalia-Kenya border in Gedo Province, in southwestern Somalia. Several fighters of the forces supporting the Somali army were killed or wounded. Kenyan soldiers operating as part of the African Union Transition Mission (ATMIS) fled. Al-Shabaab operatives took over the town (Telegram, July 13, 2023). Two days later, on July 14, 2023, massive fighting took place around the base between Somali security forces and African Union forces, and Al-Shabaab operatives. Four people were reportedly killed, including three African Union officers (mangalorean.com, July 14, 2023).

Thwarting Al-Shabaab terrorism

• The Somali government declared an all-out war against Al-Shabaab in the country’s border areas (implicitly, mainly vis-à-vis Kenya, where the organization has been focusing its activity in recent weeks) (KBC channel, July 15, 2023). During the week, Somali army forces operated against Al-Shabaab targets in central and southern Somalia:
  • On July 16, 2023, the forces operated in the Galmudug area, in the center of the country. Eighteen Al-Shabab operatives were killed (GNA, July 16, 2023).
  • On July 15, 2023, they operated in the Bud Bud area, in the Galguduud region, in central Somalia, destroying sites where weapons and materials used to make explosives were found (Somalia News Agency, July 15, 2023).
  • On July 12, 2023, a Somali army force operated in cooperation with local forces of Jubaland, in southern Somalia, near the border with Kenya, against Al-Shabab operatives, near the village of Welmaro. Seventeen operatives were killed. The dead were part of a group of suicide bombers recruited by the organization and trained in the south of the country. Senior Somali military officials reported that most of those killed were foreigners (Somalia News Agency, July 13, 2023).

Kenya

Al-Shabaab activity

• On July 14, 2023, Al-Shabaab operatives attacked a Kenyan police camp in the north of the country. Two police officers and a teacher who was present at the scene were killed (VOA, July 14, 2023).

Asia

Philippines

ISIS’s activity

• On July 13, 2023, there were exchanges of fire between ISIS operatives and a Philippine army patrol force in the Maguindanao region, on the island of Mindanao in the south of the country. Several soldiers were killed or wounded (Telegram, July 17, 2023).

Europe

Britain

• Suella Braverman, Britain’s Home Secretary, updated MPs on Britain’s counterterrorism strategy over the past five years. During the presentation of the update, she warned that ISIS and Al-Qaeda were planning to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain. According to the Home Secretary, terrorist activity has recently become more difficult to predict and investigate, and terrorist organizations today are more fragmented and dispersed, implying that it is more difficult to thwart terrorism attacks. There are also increasing threats of attacks by extreme right-wing elements. According to her, although the attacks thwarted in Britain were not sophisticated, the threats to carry out attacks are “more diverse, dynamic and complex” (Financial Times and The Independent, July 18, 2023).
• Concurrently with the Home Secretary’s report, Anjem Choudary, an ISIS-affiliated British preacher of Pakistani origin, was detained at his home in east London on suspicion of committing terrorist offenses. Choudary is a lawyer by profession and is considered the most prominent Islamist preacher in Britain. Another man apparently involved was detained the same day at Heathrow Airport immediately after landing from Canada (The Telegraph, July 17, 2023).

Spain

• On July 12, 2023, the trial of Abdul Majid Abdul Bari was opened in Spain. Abdul Bari, 32, a British-Egyptian national from west London, former rap singer, is suspected of membership in ISIS during his stay in Syria between 2013 and 2015. The public became aware of him after he published a photo in August 2014 showing him holding the severed head of a man in the city of Al-Raqqah (ISIS’s stronghold at the time). He was arrested in the coastal city of Almería in southern Spain in April 2020, just days after arriving there on a boat from Algeria. The prosecution is seeking to sentence him to nine years in prison, also for online fraud to finance terrorist activity (Telexpresse, July 12, 2023).

United States

• On July 14, 2023, a New York court sentenced Mirsad Kandic, a 41-year-old Kosovo-born US citizen from Brooklyn, New York, to life in prison after being convicted in May 2022 of conspiring to provide material assistance to ISIS; providing ISIS with material support by recruiting operatives, including Australian citizen Jake Bilardi, who became an ISIS fighter and later a suicide bomber on behalf of ISIS; providing services, weapons, property, equipment, and forged identification documents to ISIS. The offenses were committed from January 2013 until his arrest in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in June 2017. Kandic traveled from the United States to Syria in 2013 via Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Kosovo, and Turkey. In Syria, he joined the ranks of ISIS and operated in the ranks of the organization in the suburbs of Aleppo (US Department of Justice website, July 14, 2023).
• On July 13, 2023, a Florida court sentenced Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, a 26-year-old US citizen from Tampa, Florida, to 18 years in prison after he was convicted of attempting to provide material assistance to ISIS. Al-Azhari, who pleaded guilty on February 23, 2023, was previously arrested in Saudi Arabia, and served a prison term there for supporting a terrorist organization in Syria. After his release from Saudi prison in December 2018, he was transferred to the United States. Around April 2020, he began planning terrorist activity in support of ISIS. To do this, he purchased multiple firearms and tried to locate potential targets for terrorist activity in the Tampa Bay area. He was arrested on May 24, 2020, after obtaining a pistol with a silencer (US Department of Justice, July 13, 2023).

The battle for hearts and minds

ISIS’s weekly tries to encourage its operatives

• The editorial of ISIS’s weekly Al-Naba, published this week under the title “Don’t lose heart or grieve,” tries to encourage ISIS’s operatives in light of the weakening of their activity. The writer notes that the verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, precisely in difficult times, for encouragement, and so should the organization’s operatives cheer up and stand firm until victory, which, according to him, is expected to arrive (Al-Naba weekly, Telegram, July 13, 2023).

ISIS and Al-Qaeda call for jihad over the burning of the Quran in Sweden

• In light of the burning of a copy of the Quran in Sweden on June 28, 2023, which drew harsh criticism around the world, elements affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaeda published posters calling for terrorist attacks in Europe:
• An ISIS-affiliated element published a poster in English and Arabic, calling on Muslims in Europe to fight the “Crusaders” (i.e., Christians). The poster calls on Muslims to spread fear, chaos, and killing in Europe and to “take revenge on those who insulted Allah and His Messenger [i.e., the Prophet Muhammad]” (Telegram and MEMRI, July 12, 2023).

• An element affiliated with Al-Qaeda published a poster calling for the murder of Salwan Momika, the Iraqi Christian immigrant who carried out the act of burning the Quran in Sweden (Telegram and MEMRI, July 13, 2023).

Al-Qaeda calls for attacks against soldiers and civilians in Israel

• The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Media Foundation published daily posters calling on Muslims to carry out lone wolf attacks against civilians and soldiers in Israel:
• On July 15, 2023, a poster was published calling on Muslims in Greater Jerusalem to carry out lone wolf attacks against the “enemies of Allah,” i.e., Jewish citizens of Israel. Attached to the poster was a picture of two IDF soldiers carrying the Israeli flag on their backpacks. The recommendation to the potential attacker is to plan and carry out the attack in complete secrecy and calmly, to cause as many fatalities as possible (TRACTerrorism, July 19, 2023).

• The next day, a poster calling on Muslims in Israel to carry out lone wolf attacks was published. According to the poster, “One of the greatest deeds that bring [the believer] closer to Allah and are most preferable by Him is fighting the Jews, attacking and terrorizing them, and preventing them from feeling safe.” The photo attached to the poster shows the scene of a terrorist attack (TRACTerrorism, July 19, 2023).

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