Terrorism Information - The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

Spotlight on Global Jihad (April 24 – May 3, 2023)

This week, ISIS carried out relatively low-scale activity around the world. The focus of the activity was on Africa.A US-led Global Coalition force, supported by the Kurdish SDF forces, detained a senior ISIS commander north of Al-Raqqah. The US Army reported an airstrike against a senior Al-Qaeda operative in northwestern Syria. In Nigeria: ISIS continued its activity against Nigerian army targets and against local residents in the northeast of the country. In Congo ISIS continued its activity against Christian residents in the northeast of the country. At least seven residents were killed. Three people, two of them Jews and a Tunisian security guard, were killed in an attack carried out at the entrance to a synagogue on the island of Djerba in Tunisia . So far, no organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it may have been an Islamic-motivated attack. The editorial of ISIS’s Al-Naba weekly stressed ISIS’s weakness in the Arab region alongside its expansion on the African continent, noting that Africans have replaced the Arabs as successors of the path of jihad. Read more...

Spotlight on Terrorism: Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria (April 21 – May 4, 2023)

The Iranian foreign minister, paid an official visit to Lebanon. He met with Hezbollah leader and toured south Lebanon near the Israeli border. On the sidelines of the visit he met with PIJ.Syrian sources reported Israeli Air Force attacks on Hezbollah and pro-Iranian Shi'ite militia targets in Syria. After the attacks Hezbollah forces reportedly redeployed in Syria.A Jerusalem district court sentenced an east Jerusalem dentist to five years in prison; he was convicted of spying for Hezbollah.A new study revealed sources of Hezbollah's funding and its involvement in the international drug trade. Read more...

Spotlight on Global Jihad (March 2-8, 2023)

ISIS activity around the world moderately increased this week. The main event was a suicide attack in southwest Pakistan in which 10 policemen were killed and 12 others were wounded. In Syria: Eight civilians were killed and over 35 were wounded when a mine, apparently of ISIS, exploded near a truck that was carrying them. Somali security forces killed 200 operatives of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab and took over several areas that were under the organization’s control. Several media foundations affiliated with ISIS, which deal with the translation of the organization’s media materials into different languages, announced that they started operating under one media foundation called “Fursan al-Tarjuma.” Read more...

Declarations of Senior Iranian Officials Concerning the West Bank Point to Intensifying Iranian Effort to Expand Its Influence in this Arena

In recent months, senior commanders of the IRGC have paid increasing attention to the growing tide of “Palestinian resistance” in the West Bank and the challenges facing Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in this arena. Read more...

The military-terrorist wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad published books by terrorist activists imprisoned in Israel

At the beginning of January 2023 the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades issued a book called The Bus Is Burning, apparently written by Hassan Salamehwho is currently serving 46 consecutive life sentences in Israeli prisons. At the end of December 2022 a book about Bassem al-Sa'adi was published. Al-Sa'adi is a high-ranking Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative who was detained in Jenin in August 2022, whose detention led to Operation Breaking Dawn. The books were apparently published as part of inculcating the Palestinian public with the shaheed culture Read more...

Palestinian reactions to Israel’s decision to outlaw organizations affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

On October 22, 2021, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued an order designating six Palestinian social-civilian organizations (NGOs) as terrorist organizations. The order permits the legal confiscation of the organizations' assets and the legal sanctions to be imposed on anyone participating in their activities. Read more...

Iranian Subversion in Bahrain: The United States designates the Saraya al-Mukhtar as a Bahraini terrorist organization handled by Iran

On December 15, 2020, the American State Department announced it was designating the Bahraini terrorist organization Saraya al-Mukhtar as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization. According to the announcement, the organization receives "financial and logistic support" from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The organization's "self-described goal is to depose the Bahraini government with the intention of paving the way for Iran to exert greater influence in Bahrain" (State Department website, December 15, 2020). Read more...