Tag Archives: Islamic State

Syrian Southern Front Presses Assad, as Iran Doubles Down

The Southern Front, an alliance of opposition militias, claim to have seized the al-Thaala airbase in Southern Syria, according to Maj. Issam al-Rayyes. The Southern Front includes the Syria Revolutionaries’ Front and the Yarmouk Brigade, both groups have both clashed with Jabhat Al Nusra, albeit unsuccessfully, but also fought alongside them, in the past.

The leader of Yarmouk Brigade, Bashar al-Zoubi, has stated rebels successfully shot down a regime military jet outside the base. Both claims have been rejected by the Assad regime, claiming the state’s forces have successfully stopped three attacks led by the opposition on the base. Videos have surfaced which appear to show some kind of plane crashing but they have not been authenticated.

The captured airbase comes as the second Syrian military installation successfully seized by Syrian opposition forces this week. On Tuesday, opposition fighters grasped control of an army base, known as the home of the Syrian 52nd Brigade, in the city of Daraa. Again, videos surfaced showing the rebels inside the base, the second largest base in southern Syria that Assad’s regime had still controlled. Since March, the regime has progressively been losing much of the country’s territory to rebels and jihadists, such as members of the Islamic State IS had allied with the Nusra Front to seize nearly all of northern Syria, and recently seized the key city of Palmyra.

As IS, al-Nusra and the Southern Front continue to seize territory, worries of battles for territory are looming. The Southern Front has announced its disapproval for al-Nusra’s ideology. Intelligence analysts claim that The Southern Front is the strongest group in southern Syria, however the only reason that remains true is because they are the only group with a strong presence in the south. IS showed their interest in the southern region earlier this spring when they attempted to seize an air base in the southern Sweida province of Syria. Thus, once either IS or al-Nusra begin a major assault on southern Syria, It seems unlikely that the Southern Front will successfully fending off them off.

As the Southern Front advances closer to Damascus, some Western policy makers, including officials attending a recent G7 meeting raised the question of whether the setback may be enough to force supporters of the regime to abandon Assad and discuss a political settlement.  But Assad’s desperation may be eased by the Iranians, who have recently announced renewed support for Assad. Iran has already supplied some $6 Billion a year propping up Assad, and, despite Iranian denial, the Iranian government has recently deployed and additional 15,000 troops. IRGC leaders have urged the Iranian Basij militia forces to volunteer to travel to Syria to fight.

Syrian rebels and jihadists forces continue to press Assad, but with continued Iranian support, it’s unlikely the fighting will end any time soon.

Islamic State offers millions to those who pledge allegiance

The success of the Islamic State hinges on the group’s ability to expand the amount of territory it controls as well as in the number of adherents who swear allegiance to it, which is currently estimated to be from 20,000 to 200,000 in Iraq and Syria alone. There are thought to be at least 35 official terrorist groups that have pledged allegiance or support IS including Boko Haram of Nigeria, al-Murabitoun of Mali, and Ansar Bait al-Maqdi of Egypt.

Hisham al-Hashimi told al- Monitor, “IS distributed up to $6 million a month to groups like Boko Haram and Ansar al- Sharia.”

Abu Hajjar who oversaw Islamic State finances prior to his 2014 arrest reportedly told Iraqi officials that IS exported, “$2 billion in international investments to Libya, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and Yemen, money that is now being spread among external allied IS branches.”

The Islamic State is able to “move millions” through online transfer systems such as Hawala, which was the “primary method used by al Qaeda to send and receive cash.” Business Insider also reports that many branches of international banks are controlled by the Islamic State, giving the group the ability to send and receive money though EFTs. However, as a former U.S. counter- terrorism official told the L.A. Times, “You can literally drive a car with $10,000, $20,000 or a million dollars from XYZ country to Syria. Not a whole lot we can do.”

Such funding is vital to groups such as Boko Haram because the Islamic State‘s “financial support … can help guarantee their survival.” Along with money, groups that pledge allegiance to IS are reportedly given “training” and “strategic support,” further enhancing the appeal.

This strategy of expansion deepens IS roots throughout the Muslim world, making the task of defeating IS harder. Senior researcher Martin Ewi from the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa comments on the issue, “If the groups are committed, when the leadership of the current IS organization is removed, these groups can easily reorganize themselves.”

The Islamic State sees value in investing “in people, not infrastructure” because infrastructure “can be an easy target for attacks.” This further explains the action of sending money to groups in exchange for support.

How is Islamic State able to fund such large sums of money to different affiliates?

As The New York Times reports, IS funds come from four main sources: extortion and taxation in Iraq, stolen money from state owned Iraqi banks, oil, and kidnapping ransoms. Just in 2014, ISIS gained $600 million in extortion and taxes, $500 million in stolen funds from state banks, $100 million in oil, and $20 million in ransoms. And an estimated $875 million was the total amount of assets attained by IS when the group captured the city of Mosul in June of last year.

In 2014, the Islamic State seized hundreds of oil fields, and now holds 60% of all of Syria’s refineries. These refineries have been a large target for “United States- led airstrikes” since September 2014. However, as the numbers above show, oil is but a fraction of the group’s income. The Islamic State uses much of the oil in production “for its own fuel,” and was apparently already selling oil at a discounted price “among local markets” before prices fell to “about $2 million per week.” Most of IS oil is sold in the black market, and buyers may not know its origin. The issue of fallen oil prices and stolen refineries, which has cost the Syrian government $3.8 billion dollars, has Syria worried and Iraq uncertain of their abilities to fight against the Islamic State.

IS also receives donations from “sympathetic private individuals” including from areas like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.

The terrorist regime “keeps costs low” by stealing military equipment and infrastructure when it can, and pays low salaries, according to The New York Times.

Funding affiliated groups for their allegiance is a strategic and successful route for the terror group to take. However, it is important to remember that the offer of money from IS is not the only reason many terror groups join in this larger alliance of terrorist groups. Each group shares the same ideology and seek the same “legal, religious, and political ends.”

Islamic State’s ability to raise funds is a major challenge for those fighting against IS, and a deep analysis of IS’s finances followed by an in depth strategy on how to cut off IS funding would be a critical step towards defeating “the world’s wealthiest terrorist group.”

Obama Administration Sends Additional Troops to Iraq While Admitting It Has No Strategy

On May 17, Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar Province, fell to the Islamic State, indicating the weak strategy put into place by Iraqi forces. On May 26 Iraqi officials announced that Iraq soldiers and “allied Shiite militias” plan to retake Ramadi. Currently, the US has 3,100 “trainers and advisors” put into place in Iraq. On Wednesday, US officials are “expected to announce … plans for a new military base in Iraq’s Anbar province and the deployment of around 400 additional U.S. trainers.”According to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, “8,920 Iraqi troops have received training at four different sites and another 2,061 are currently in some stage of training.”

The United States’ announcement of further involvement signifies its decision to embark on what is likely to be a “long and bloody” battle in the regaining of Anbar.

However, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CNN that Iraqi forces lack the “will to fight” even though they “vastly outnumbered” their opponents. Carter went on to say, “We can give them training, we can give them equipment – we obviously can’t give them the will to fight.”

In response to Carter’s comment, NPR reported Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al- Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defense and security committee, countering, “The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons and aerial support.”

Indeed, the Washington Post reported on May 19 the lack of aid inside Ramadi where local police officers were not paid for months and resorted to soliciting “cash from local families and businessmen to buy weapons.” Prime Minister Abadi even admitted, “The national government failed to deliver weapons and military reinforcements despite the local forces’ repeated requests for support.”

The White House did provide Iraq with $200 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid in April during Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al- Aadi’s visit to the White House.

However, there have been growing concern regarding the Administration’s policy towards Iraq, as some believe the President lacks a tough enough stance on the Islamic State. There is also a question raised on whether training Iraqi forces is a successful maneuver, President Obama saying Monday the United States does not “yet have a complete strategy” for training Iraqi forces in the fight. According to the New York Times, the US has yet to approve neither “the use of American spotters on the battlefield … nor the use of Apache helicopter gunships,” both of which would speed up the process of regaining the city dramatically.

Far from being defeated, Islamic State is on the offensive, as attack after attack consistently headlines nightly news coverage worldwide. Many prominent Sunni leaders have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, such as the leaders in Anbar on May 3, furthering the group’s stronghold in the area. The decision of local Sunni tribes to back IS may largely be tied to Sunni fears of regarding the Iraqi governments reliance on Shia militias, which have been linked to attacks on Sunni populations following Islamic State’s ouster from Tikrit . This map published by The New York Times on May 21 helps explain the vast amount of land that Islamic State still holds.

The United States is not the only country adding forces to the effort to bring Iraqi forces up to the task. On June 8, British Prime Minister David Cameron told the public Britain is sending 125 more troops to Iraq to train forces against the Islamic State which brings the total number of British soldiers there to 275. And according to The New York Times, Italy is supposed to aid Iraq as well in the near future.

If Ramadi stands any chance at being liberated, Iraqi government officials must provide weapons and reinforcements to those fighting IS, which it has largely limited to the Iranian backed Shia militias.  The United States’ deeper involvement in the issue through deploying more trainers, advisers, and military aid is a positive step, only if the aid is dispersed appropriately. However, analysts fear that the undertaking by Iraqi forces of retaking Anbar is too big of a task for the army, as it took “10, 000 US Marines to seize Fallujah … a decade ago.“

Forcing Libyan Government to Accept Islamists is a Mistake

Attempts at peace talks and agreements between the UN-recognized Libyan government and the unofficial government, Libya Dawn, have been unproductive in the past. However, another attempt at such agreements began Monday June 8 in Skhirat, Morocco.

The reported goal of these talks is to establish some sort of united, joint government between the two Libyan forces in order to “finally begin effectively addressing the serious problems of the country”.

An International Business Times article released this morning states that, “Libya’s two rival governments, which have been engaged in bitter conflict over the past year, remain at odds over a number of crucial issues as UN sponsored peace talks entered their second phase”. Some of the issues to which the parties can not agree include: an agreement by all combatants to withdraw from Tripoli; the sharing of power with individuals such as the Prime Minister of Libya, Abdullah Thinni, and the “head of Libya’s Armed Forces, General Khalifa Hafter”; and the lack of specific detail in the political agreement’s terminology.

It is no surprise that the two rival governments “engaged in bitter conflict” are unable to come to terms. After the toppling and overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in the 2011 Libyan Civil War, Libya was thrown into chaos and disorder. As a result, in late August of 2014, the Islamist militia Libya Dawn seized the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Here, Libya Dawn destroyed homes and statues, took over the Tripoli International Airport, and violently targeted individuals from specific opposing tribes. The officially recognized Libyan government was forced to relocate to the city of Tobruk in the northeastern part of Libya. The Tobruk government is unlikely to consider allying with its Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated opposition, especially as Tobruk continues to rely on the support of the U.A.E and Egyptian governments, both stridently anti-Brotherhood.

On Wednesday June 10, delegates at the peace talk negotiations are due to travel to Germany to meet a number of European Union foreign ministers and UN Security Council members. It will be interesting to see the language that is used in the meeting, and what pressures, if any, are imposed on which bodies of government.

Since the installation of Libya Dawn and the forced relocation of the official Libyan government, only conflict and collision followed. With such division and disorder, the country is woefully susceptible to the rising numbers of militias, in particular the expansion into Libya by the Islamic State. Already, the Islamic State has been responsible for numerous attacks in Libya, as previously reported on the Free Fire Blog. Massive executions of Christians and the attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli are just a some of IS’ bloody crimes.

The woeful reality of the Libyan situation is that IS is only one of the country’s problems. Thousands of refugees have fled the war-torn country for Europe. This journey has left many dead, and the number of those killed in this dangerous attempt will only continue to increase as insistence on a joint agreement is pursued.

UN Special Representative Bernardino Leon, in an address to all the delegates at the commencement of the talks expressed, in his opinion, the true importance of reaching an agreement: “Nothing you do today can ever reverse the terrible pain inflicted on the people of Libya over the past year but it is within your hand and none but yours, to spare the people of Libya”.

It is time for the US to take his advice. U.S. policy should support the internationally recognized Libyan government in Torbruk, and insist upon the disarmament and disbandment of all militias, including Libyan Dawn.  As Free Fire blog has previously noted, “The problem in Libya is not political; rather it is a security problem…We must disarm the militias and fight against terrorism first”.

The United States must understand that while they may have differences, Islamist forces, whether Libyan Dawn, Al Qaeda’s affiliate Ansar al-Sharia, or the Islamic State, all seek to impose Shariah law, and are inherently anti-democratic, and diametrically opposed to U.S. interests.

Islamic State Seizes Power Plant at Sirte

As of Tuesday, Islamic State fighters seized control of a power plant west of the Libyan city of Sirte after a brief battle with loyalist troops that left three of the loyalist defenders dead. The power plant is responsible for providing much of western and central Libya with power. Islamic State has used the chaos in Libya to their advantage as Libya Dawn battles the legitimate Libyan government. Already the city of Derna is controlled by Islamic State, and Islamic State moved on to besiege and seize part of Sirte in February. Islamic State would later claim to have control of the entire city of Sirte in late May. This unfortunate event comes as the UN tries fruitlessly to convince the legitimate Libyan government and Libya Dawn to come to a cease fire agreement.

It should come without further explanation on how critical control of the power plant is to Libya. It’s possible that Islamic State is taking a page from Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Last year, Al Qaeda militants sabotaged power lines in the Yemeni province of Marib, leaving the entire nation without power for over a day. Attacking power lines is a common strategy used by Yemeni tribesmen as a means to fulfill their demands. It is safe to assume that Islamic State is planning to deny electricity to regions of Libya in order to effectively control regions of the country. Another attack on Pakistan’s overtaxed power grid back in January left most of the south Asian country without electricity. The guerrilla attack was just the most effective of multiple bombings on Pakistani electrical infrastructure. Attacks on soft targets like power lines or power plants are easy to carry out, especially in nations such as Pakistan or Libya, and are economically crippling to an entire region, if not an entire nation.

 

President Obama Says He Still Does Not Have a Plan to Deal with ISIS in Iraq

Yesterday, at the G-7 Summit in Germany, President Obama said this about his strategy to deal with the growing threat from ISIS in Iraq:

“When a finalized plan is presented to me by the Pentagon then I will share it with the American people.  We don’t yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis as well about how that recruitment takes place, how that training takes place.”

Remember that Mr. Obama also said he did not have a plan to deal with ISIS in August 2014.  In September 2014, he announced a new plan to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS in Iraq and Syria by providing military assistance to the Iraqi army and the Iraqi Kurds, conducting airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, and training moderate Syrian rebel fighters.

Nine months later, Mr Obama is admitting the obvious: he does not have a “complete strategy” to defeat ISIS in Iraq but is trying to shift the blame to the Iraqi government and the Pentagon.

As I wrote in a Fox News op-ed last month, I believe President Obama actually does have a strategy for Iraq and Syria.  It is to do as little as possible in these conflicts.  He has placed severe limits on U.S. military advisers and trainers – they are not allowed to deploy with Iraqi troops even in non-combat roles.  U.S. pilots have complained that they are barred from attacking many key targets with airstrikes. The number of airstrikes has been significantly limited.  The U.S. program to train Syrian rebels is far behind schedule.

Mr. Obama wants to be seen as a president who ended wars, not a president who got the United States into a new war. He therefore is doing as little as he can get away with to address the chaos in Iraq and Syria so he can hand this mess to the next president.

Expect more spin from the president and his advisers over the next 18 months on how Mr Obama’s strategy in Iraq and Syria is working and blaming others for setbacks.  As a result, also expect threats to global security to increase because our president has abdicated his responsibility as the Commander in Chief and the leader of the free world.

 

IS Gains Anbar Tribes’ Allegiance and Use Dam to Punish Opposition

On Wednesday May 3, many prominent Sunni tribal leaders in the Anbar Province of Iraq have pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State group. This is not the first occasion that Sunni tribes have declared allegiance to IS. In January of this year, the Islamic State attacked the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. IS lost the attack, defeated by Kurdish peshmerga forces, but gained supporters. In a tweet that was posted by an IS-linked account, Sunni tribal chiefs near Kirkuk pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (IS caliph).

Most worrisome to the Iraqi government, is the decision of the al-Jumaili tribe to swear its loyalty to Islamic State. According to Imran Khan who is a reporter in Baghdad for Al Jazeera (a Qatar-based news network), “The al-Jumailis command a number of fighters and they have a large amount of influence over other tribes [in Anbar]”. This indicates that the Islamic State could use Al-Jumaili’s influence over other Anbar tribes in the future to possibly attain more support or supplies for the group.

It remains to be seen if the Islamic State pressured and forced these tribes into pledging their allegiance, but one way in which IS is enforcing its control over the local population is through manipulating the flow of water. According to local officials and residents in Baghdad, “ISIS has closed off a dam to the north of the Iraqi city of Ramadi-seized by its [Islamic State] forces last month-cutting water supplies to pro-government towns downstream and making it easier for it fighters to attack forces loyal to Baghdad”.

As a result of these dam closures, water supplies have been threatened, irrigation systems have been challenged, and water treatment plants are now struggling to function properly. Issues with water supplies present problems to all individuals in the area and can lead to serious concerns such as dehydration, disease, crop failure, sanitation issues, and so forth. The Iraqi military forces could be especially affected in their ongoing attempts to reclaim the city of Ramadi, which was recently taken over by Islamic State forces.

Iraqi forces will encounter enough conflict in attempts to recapture Ramadai. As previously mentioned in Free Fire, “…the Iraqi government is planning to retake Ramadi using Iranian-trained Shiite militias. Since Shiite militias looted the Sunni town of Tikrit after they helped take it back from ISIS in late March, their presence will not be welcomed by Sunnis in Ramadi”.

A key Sunni tribe leader, Sheikh Abdulrazzaq al-Dulaym, had strong sentiments as Shiite tribes approached to take back Ramadi. “If they [Shiite militias] enter now, it will cause a civil war”. The Sheikh rules over the Dulaym tribe, “the largest tribe that populates the territory seized by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq”. During the week of May 17th of this year, the Sheikh went to the Obama administration and asked them to take action in terms of “arming and equipping” Sunni fighters. The administration claimed that they already began such action, but the Sheikh begged to differ.

The Sunni tribal leaders that pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State only had two options: the declaration that they pursued, or support the Shiite militias from the Iraqi government. Although the militias stem from the Iraqi government, they are closely tied with Iran. This fact concerns the Sheikh; “It’s not a secret; everyone knows it. The Iranian officials and generals are leading this popular mobilization”.

Perhaps if the US had done more to train and equip Sunni fighters, there would have been a third option for the Sunni tribes. While it is possible that such a gesture could have resulted in them aligning with IS anyway, it still would have been a shot.

This major shift in alliances, in combination with the challenges posed by the dam closures, mandates that Iraqi government forces discover a new strategy in combatting the Islamic State, and they need it fast.

IS Threatens Israel Monday, Israel Air Force Jets Return Fire This Morning

The Islamic State (IS) issued a threat to Israel on Monday, June 1st, declaring that the Sunni terrorist group Hamas must halt its recent attacks and assaults on IS supporters in the Gaza Strip within 48 hours “or else”. Hamas’s recent crackdown is in response to the May 31 assassination of one of its senior commanders by the Hadid Brigade (full name, “Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade”), a group of IS supporters in the Gaza Strip. IS issued its 48 hour threat, which gave no insight into future consequences if Hamas does not meet its demands, to various Middle East reporters on Monday who then dispersed the news.

According to an article posted on June 2 by World Net Daily, a leader of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, Islamic State’s affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula, reportedly declared “that if Hamas does not cease its crackdown, the group [IS] will not only continue to target Hamas, it will also break the Israel-Gaza truce with more attacks launched against the Jewish state”. On the same day, however, Hamas forces killed Islamic State supporter Younis al-Honnor. The 27-year-old was reportedly killed unintentionally while resisting arrest by Hamas forces.

As retaliation for Honnor’s death, rockets were fired Wednesday evening from the Gaza Strip at the Israeli city Ashkelon and the town Netivot. The “Omar Brigade,” which is likely the same as the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, claimed responsibility for the assault.

In response to Wednesday night’s attack on Ashkelon and Netivot, Israel Air Force jets hit “three ‘terror infrastructure’ targets in the Gaza Strip” this morning.

Israel’s Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, declared today in a press release “that the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] struck Hamas targets because even if the militants who fired the rockets belong to ‘rogue gangs’ from the Islamic Jihad, Israel holds Hamas ‘responsible for what is happening in the Strip’”.

Before these recent events, on May 3rd of this year, Hamas followers destroyed the Al-Moutahabbin Mosque, located in the central region of the Gaza Strip. This mosque belonged to a group of Islamic State supporters known as the “Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem”. A daily Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masry al-Youm, reported that this group described the destruction as carried out, “in a manner that even the Jewish and American occupation has not done”. This demolition was in response to previous unclaimed bombings in the Gaza Strip.

After the attack on the Al-Moutahabbin mosque, Supporters of the Islamic State of Jerusalem stated its renewed loyalty to and faith in IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The group then threatened Hamas members, even publishing some names and photos, unless Hamas releases several captives, including a local Salafi sheikh.

Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 following what is known as the Battle of Gaza. A primary difference and source of conflict between Hamas and IS is Islamic law, called sharia. IS abides by and fights to enforce much stricter adherence to sharia law and says Hamas is “too liberal” and “soft on Israel.”

Various tweets have been released indicating such differences, one stating, “The Hamas government is apostate [one who renounces a religious or political belief or principle], and what it is doing does not constitute jihad, but rather a defense of democracy.” Another message states, “Khaled Meshaal [head of Hamas political bureau]: Hamas fights for the sake of freedom and independence. The Islamic State: it fights so that all religion can be for God.”

The conflict between Hamas and the Islamic State is much more than a dispute over geographic terrain or political quarreling; it is one about a deeply engrained moral, political, and theological ideology. Based on these ideological differences, events like those that have transpired over the past couple days in Gaza and Israel will not cease anytime soon.

Boston Terror Suspect Shot By Police Connected to Terror-Tied Mosque

On June 2, the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force shot and killed twenty-six year old Usaama Rahim in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. Police say they have video of him approaching them with a “military style” knife and refusing to yield to police officers ordering him to drop the weapon. Although law enforcement officials did not officially release his name, his older brother Imam Ibrahim Rahim confirmed on Facebook and in an interview with the Council on American-Islamic Relations that his brother was killed. Ibrahim Rahim said that Usaama was waiting to go to work when he was shot in the back and killed at the bus stop while on the phone with his father. Law enforcement officials say he was shot from the front and was hit in the torso.

Usaama Rahim had been under surveillance of terrorism officials for eighteen months. When officials approached him on June 2, they did not have a warrant for his arrest and only wanted to interview him. He was the subject of a federal investigation of homegrown indoctrination of terrorist ideology and officials are looking into whether he became indoctrinated by the Islamic State through the internet and social media. An hour after he was shot, police were seen inside a three-story home belonging to David Wright in Everett, Massachusetts that was also under surveillance. Wright was taken into custody. The two men were planning on beheading a police officer, and were part of a larger investigation that involves several other people.

Usaama’s older brother, Ibrahim, is an Imam in California who previously taught at the Ella Collins Institute of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC). The ISBCC is sister mosque of the Islamic Society of Boston mosque, attended by the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon Bombing. The former head of ISBCC is Suhaib Webb, who FBI surveillance reports indicate once partnered with Al Qaeda ideologue Anwar Al-Awlaki in order to raise money for Jamil Abdullah Amin, a Georgia Imam and former Black Panther convicted of murdering a police officer.

The mosques are managed separately but owned by the same institution. Both mosques have ties to the Muslim American Society, which describes itself as an Islamic Revivalist movement, but which was described in court as the “overt arm” of the Muslim Brotherhood.The FBI documents also note that both Webb and Awlaki may have had ties to the Muslim American Society.

The mosque’s first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, a self-identified Muslim Brother and Al Qaeda financier, was sentenced in federal court in 2004 for his role in a Libyan plot to assassinate the then-crown prince and now late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Aafia Siddiqui was arrested in 2008 in Afghanistan with cyanide in her possession while planning to attack New York City; in prison, she tried to grab a rifle and shoot military officers and FBI agents. Tarek Mehanna was convicted of travelling to Yemen to receive terrorist training and plotting to use automatic weapons in a mall in Boston. Ahmad Abousamra, Mehanna’s co-conspirator, was wanted by the FBI and was hiding in Syria until he was allegedly killed in an Iraqi government airstrike on June 1. Jamal Badawi, who served on the mosque’s board of trustees, was cited as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism court case detailing the funneling of money to Hamas. Yousef al-Qarawadi, who also served on the board of trustees, is the Chief jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood, and head of the Union of the Good, an international consortium of charities known to finance Hamas.

Usaama Rahim is connected to the ISBCC through his older brother Ibrahim Rahim, and through his connection to the ISBCC, he is connected to a culture that breeds violence and terrorism. Although the exact reasoning as to why the Boston Joint Task Force was monitoring him has not been released by officials, he clearly had access to Islamist ideology. Officials have stated that no immediate, related threat to the public exists at this time, but this may not be an isolated incident. Rahim is not the only person connected to the ISB network who has become indoctrinated with a violent ideology, and he is likely not the last.

Jihad In Post-Soviet Central Asia

Recently on the Free Fire blog, there was a report on the defection of Colonel Gulmurod Halimov, the head of Tajikistan’s elite OMON counter-terrorist unit, trained by both American Special Forces and Russian Specnaz, to Islamic State. Shortly after the news broke of Halimov’s defection, Tajikistan declared Islamic State a terrorist organization by means of a suit from the Prosecutor-General’s Office. Halimov’s change of allegiance also coincided with a meeting of CIS nations to discuss counter-terrorism starting on May 26th. Of particular importance was the discussion of “color revolutions” and the threat posed by Islamic State; reports on the meeting note that a goal of the meeting was to “prevent spread of religious extremism and terrorist ideology.”

Central Asian countries have good reason to be concerned about Islamic State moving in to the region. Tajikistan in particular fought a brutal civil war in the 1990s between the post-Soviet communist strongmen and a strange alliance between Islamists and democratic reformers. Since then, the Tajik government has engaged in a campaign of countering growing Middle Eastern cultural influence in the heavily Muslim country, fearing a resurgence of jihadist activity. With Islamic State making an appearance in Afghanistan, the Tajik government has good reason to fear jihadist infiltration of the country.

As of January, Islamic State has formed the Khorasan province, which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and several other states in Central Asia. In the letter announcing the creation of the Khorasan province, Islamic State spokesman Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani urged jihadists in Central Asia to abandon factionalism and join with the new Caliphate.

Before discussing the more militant jihadist organizations, we must first bring attention to Hizb ut-Tahrir. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir prefers to use “pre-violent jihad” to achieve their goals of creating a unified Islamic state. Hizb ut-Tahrir spread widely throughout post-Soviet Central Asia, despite being made illegal by all of the nations in the region. One reason for Hizb ut-Tahrir’s successful spread among disaffected Central Asian Muslims is its resemblance to Soviet Communism in economic issues. The economic policies of Hizb ut-Tahrir include guaranteed employment, nationalization of industries, free health care, and criminalization of usury. It is from Hizb ut-Tahrir from which the more militant groups in the area sprung, albeit Hizb ut-Tahrir tends to oppose such groups due to their use of violent jihad against fellow Muslims.

In addition to the Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement have been the other major Central Asian jihadist organizations. Though Islamist politics in post-Soviet Central Asia has been less popular than in the Middle East, the lack of political freedoms and corruption in the former Soviet republics have created fertile ground for jihadist organizations. Central Asian leaders such as Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov have repeatedly cited “jihadism” as the greatest threat to stability and security to their nations, and as a result secularism has been aggressively pursued throughout the region.

Currently based in northern Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was created by Tahir Yuldash and Juman Namangani during the conflict in the early 1990s between Islamist clerics and the Islam Karimov government, backed by Uzbekistan’s quietist Hanafi clerics and scholars. The Islamist clerics, referred to as mujadidiya(reformers), demanded a rollback of the Soviet-era secularism, adherence to the salafist view (thus rejecting the Hanafi school which is popular in Central Asia), and the establishment of “Muslimonabad” an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law in Central Asia. The mujadidiya were made more confident by success of the Iranian revolution and the efforts and success of the mujahideen in Afghanistan, but ironically enough, were aided in their conflict against the Hanafis by the Soviet government. Both the atheistic Soviets and the mujadidiya saw the Hanafists as common enemies; the Soviets feared the Hanafists, being more numerous and influential in Uzbekistan, undermining their authority and saw the mujadidiya as an effective tool to turn religious Uzbeks against mainstream Islam. Thus, the USSR allowed for Wahhabist and Muslim Brotherhood texts to be distributed in Central Asia. However, the end of the USSR saw pro-mujadidiya scholars become politically active, and Islamist militias became more prominent in the hinterlands where the Soviet retreat left a power vacuum.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was one of those militias, the organization initially referred to as “Adolat.” Adolat became known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan by 1998, and would attempt to assassinate President Islam Karimov in 1999 and conduct bombings of the US and Israeli embassies in 2004. IMU was initially prevalent in the Ferghana Valley of eastern Uzbekistan, but would later flee for northern Afghanistan where they were protected by the Taliban while they continued activity against the Uzbek government. During the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the IMU would retreat to northern Pakistan, where the group would grow, becoming integrated with Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, and would incorporate jihadists from around the world.

IMU would become a significant threat in the tribal areas of Pakistan, launching several attacks against Pakistani government officials, pro-government tribal leaders, and Pakistani military forces since 2007. With Yuldash’s death in a drone strike in 2009, the IMU’s new leaders had little, if any, connection to Uzbekistan. The IMU’s new mufti, Abu Zar al-Burmi, a Pakistani of Burmese Rohingya ancestry, has moved the IMU towards closer affiliation with the Pakistani Taliban and incorporated anti-Chinese and anti-Burmese government grievances into the IMU’s propaganda; prior to al-Burmi’s rise to power the IMU had never been interested in South Asian issues. Al-Burmi has also urged jihadists to target China, a major power with a history of oppressing Muslims and a major backer of the Pakistani government. Other major figures in the IMU include Moroccan German national Abu Ibrahim al-Almani, Abdul Hakim, a Russian national, and Adnan Rashid, a Pakistani and former commander of the Taliban.

Lately, the IMU have begun targeting NATO and Afghan troops in northern Afghanistan, moving the focus of its operation to the northern part of Afghanistan where their Taliban allies have little control over. With northern Afghanistan’s ethnic makeup of Hazara, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmen, the IMU has a closer background to northern Afghanistan than does the heavily Pashtun Taliban, and the IMU is once more close to Uzbekistan’s borders. As of March 2015, IMU has officially pledged allegiance to Islamic State, stating in a beheading video that they were no longer allied with Mullah Omar and the Taliban.

The other domestic jihadist organization of note in Central Asia is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkestan Islamic Party. Just like in Central Asia, the government of the People’s Republic of China is aggressively secular and politically repressive; China’s hostile stance towards religion is especially an element unpopular among the Muslim population in western China. There is also the added component of ethnic chauvinism from China’s Han majority towards the Turkic Uighurs and Kazakhs of the westernmost Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Politically marginalized Uighurs have attempted to foster separatism and defend their rights by means of forming (explicitly Islamic) organizations such as Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan since the 1940s. After the Sino-Soviet split, the USSR deliberately fomented Uighur nationalism to weaken the Chinese hold on the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. In turn, China felt threatened by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and began to support the Afghan mujahideen, opening training camps for the mujahideen in Pakistan and western China and supplying them with weapons. The Chinese also began to broadcast anti-Soviet messages in Russian and local Turkic languages into Soviet Central Asia.

The ETIM was reportedly founded by Hasan Mahsum and Memetuhut Memetrozi in 1997; Memetrozi was allegedly educated at a madrassa in Pakistan, according to reports from Chinese media. If true, this would be a clear case of the dog biting the hand that feeds it. The Chinese have long considered ETIM as a terrorist group, fearing further regional separatist movements should ETIM become successful, and warned the United States that ETIM had ties to bin Laden and Al-Qaeda after September 11.

China’s crackdown on ETIM has led it to flee to Pakistan, where like the IMU, it became internationalized, albeit retaining its primary goal of freeing Xinjiang from Chinese control. Recently, around 300 Uighurs have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight for Islamic State. Chinese intelligence blames elements in the Turkish government, as the Uighurs generally enter Islamic State territory through Turkey by means of Turkish passports. Turkey’s complicity in aiding Islamic State has been covered by Center for Security Policy before. Turkey’s support for Uighur rights is well known, President Erdogan having described ethnic violence in Xinjiang as “genocide.”

Whatever the case, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is a growing threat to China. Chinese Muslims have paid close attention to the Arab Spring and the rise of Islamic State, feeling wronged due to China’s anti-religious policies and ethnic chauvinism. Over the past few years, jihadist terrorism has been on a severe upswing in China, including bombings and ethnic violence and rioting in Xinjiang. The most prominent attacks so far was an car attack (suspected to be a failed bombing) in Beijing on October 2013, and a car bombing in Urumqi last May.

As mentioned earlier, several Uighur terrorists have gone west to fight with Islamic State, and even before then the ETIM was closely affiliated with al-Qaeda. The former leader of ETIM, Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, was appointed a member of al-Qaeda’s Shura Majlis in 2005. Just like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, ETIM has been “internationalized” due to its ties to al-Qaeda and IMU, and has joined with IMU in its struggle against the Chinese and their Pakistani allies. Haq also was able to raise funds and purchase weaponry and explosive materials throughout the Middle East in order to facilitate attacks against Chinese targets outside of China. Though China’s size and lack of significant Muslim populations in the wealthy east make it a difficult target for ETIM, Chinese assets and personnel in Central and South Asia are open targets for the jihadist organization.

Chinese security officials are greatly concerned about Uighur jihadists returning from Syria with experience and further training in how to carry out terrorist attacks. Certainly, leaders such as the Turkestan Islamic Party’s Abdullah Mansour have explicitly requested aid from Muslims worldwide to help in defeating the Chinese infidels. In response, Chinese security forces have enacted a dramatic crackdown on Uighur nationalists over the past year. Last year, in the wake of the Xinjiang attacks, Chinese police conducted 27,164 criminal arrests in Xinjiang, nearly double that of last year.

Russia has also been concerned over Islamic State operating so closely to their own borders. One of the major reasons for the USSR’s entrance into the Afghan war back in the 1980s was to prevent the establishment of a Islamist state on the USSR’s backyard, and to prevent Afghan heroin from flooding into the USSR. Since then, the Russians have attempted to keep the Taliban busy and away from instigating jihad in Russia, from supplying the Northern Alliance with weaponry to tacitly approving of US bases in Central Asia, at least until recently.

Lately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov has stated that Islamic State is Russia’s most dangerous enemy. Lavrov noted that Russia was concerned over jihadists from the Caucasus or elsewhere returning home and establishing their own terror cells affiliated with Islamic State within Russia. He also stressed the claim that Russia was aiding the Assad regime in Syria to prevent Islamic State from getting a foothold in the Middle East. However, Russia has lately decided to greatly reduce their aid for the troubled Syrian dictator.

To counteract Islamic State influence in Central Asia, Russia has donated $1.2 billion worth of surplus arms to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, not only the two poorest former Soviet Central Asian states, but also the two former subject states that still have Russian military bases in their borders. Russia continues to sell arms to the relatively wealthier states such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. A secondary condition on the donation was that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan cease their attempts to purchase arms from the United States, doubtlessly to keep the poor nations reliant on Russian aid. Doubtless these arms are intended to help keep the local strongmen dictators in power and deter jihadists.

With the threat of Islamic State spreading to Central Asia, China and Russia are finding themselves forced to improve their counter-terrorist strategies and bolster their allies in the region. In this troubling time, the United States should not abandon Afghanistan as it has Iraq, especially as reports of Islamic State militants operating in the country have appeared.