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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
ISIS’ Defeat in Syria Could Denote Qaeda’s Return
2016-06-24
Al Qaeda never left...
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Paris- Many analysts believe that ISIS’ potentially close defeat in Syria could translate into al Qaeda’s offshoot, al-Nusra Front, taking the battlefield lead once again.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, warned of the relative and partial advances against ISIS in the last weeks, saying that having no Arab or Sunni alternative on the field, may help ISIS maintain its most prominent territory and possibly restore some of the lost land. Filiu cited ISIS regaining foothold in Palmyra, Syria.

A Syrian expert, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that despite expectations for ISIS’ abatement in Syria being a far reach, it still remains a more likely accomplishment than in Iraq, Baghdadi’s self-declared caliphate hub.

The Syrian analyst added that a grave defeat, especially against ISIS’ de facto capital in Syria, Raqqa, will not lead to the end of extremists in Syria. He went on saying that within the last four bloodied years of conflict, over 280 thousand were killed hence al-Nusra Front was forced to revolt against the organization and become ISIS’ threatening equal and opponent. Not to mention that al-Nusra Front had exploited other Islamist movements, especially Salafis affiliated to the Ahrar al-Sham nationalist movement.

The analyst explained that after the defeat, many ISIS recruits will come to join al-Nusra Front ranks, and the latter will later manipulate the feeling of abandonment northwestern Sunni Syrians experience.

In light of absent reliable peace talks, residents in each of Idlib, western Aleppo and Lattakia do not see any possibility of a political settlement for the five-year total war. The residents are subject to daily Russian and Assad air force bombardment, not to mention, the recurring genocides targeting children and civilians amid utter international disregard.

Feeling abandoned, residents are driven towards extremism, with none but Ahrar al-Sham to play the sole role of local nationalist military force in the area, the Syria expert added.
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Europe
Paris attack said possibly tied to Islamic State via Tunisia killer
2015-01-09
[IsraelTimes]. One of the Charlie Hebdo suspects worked with IS member Boubaker al-Hakim to send fighters to join Al-Qaeda in Iraq

A French-Tunisian jihadist who assassinated two Tunisian politicians in 2013 provides a possible link between Charlie Hebdo suspect Cherif Kouachi and the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 group based in Iraq and Syria, a researcher told AFP on Thursday.

Boubaker al-Hakim is a member of the krazed killer Islamic State (IS) group, which last month grabbed credit for assassinating two secular politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohammed Brahmi, in Tunisia in 2013.

He was previously part of the Butte-Chaumont network in Gay Paree alongside Kouachi that helped send fighters to join Al Qaeda in Iraq in the mid-2000s.

Kouachi is wanted along with his brother Said for the deadly attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday that left 12 people dead.

Hakim represents the link between the Kouachi brothers and (IS), said researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, a leading expert on radical Islam at Gay Parees Sciences Po university.

It is impossible that an operation on the scale of the one that led to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo was not sponsored by Daesh, he claimed, using an alternative name for IS.

No group has yet grabbed credit for the Charlie Hebdo attack, but it is certain that (IS) is closely following it and waiting to see how it ends, said Filiu.

I am sure that the video claiming responsibility is already prepared.

He added that Hakim is not a very senior figure in IS, but gained respect within the movement after killing Belaid and Brahmi.

Hakim grabbed credit for the murders in a video released last month that was filmed in IS territory somewhere in Iraq or Syria.

Born in 1983, he is only around a few months younger than Kouachi and grew up in the same area of Gay Paree the 19th arrondissement where the Butte-Chaumont network was established.

Both men were jugged
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
 and convicted together in Gay Paree in 2008 for their role in the network.

Hakim was sentenced to seven years for running a way station in Damascus for young French Moslems en route to fight US forces in Iraq. Kouachi received three years.

Hakim, and no doubt Kouachi, rejoined Al Qaedas Iraqi networks after they were released from prison and accompanied them in their transformation into Daesh, said Filiu.

The combat experience they acquired was useful in the cold-blooded liquidations they have carried out since.
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Africa North
Al Qaeda's Africa wing dreams global, acts local
2013-12-17
[Pak Daily Times] Armed krazed killer groups in North and West Africa may have pledged allegiance to al Qaeda's vision of global jihad, but they act independently of its core command and have yet to make good on threats to strike the West.

Counterterrorism experts meeting in Washington noted an increase in anti-Western rhetoric from groups in the Sahel, Nigeria and Somalia, but said that African bad boy groups were still fighting local wars.

And the United States and its allies should be cautious, they warned, of intervening in these struggles and giving African Islamists a reason to expand their campaigns to target European and American interests. Al Qaeda's Yemeni franchise, once locked in a local struggle, is now an international threat that has put parcel bombs on planes and trained a Nigerian to make a failed suicide kaboom on a passenger jet.

"The movements in Africa -- they all enjoy the al Qaeda brand, they love the franchise. It gives them a certain panache," said Michael Hayden, former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

"But I'm not sure they want to become real enemies of the United States and they want to commit to the global Islamic caliphate," he added, referring to late al Qaeda figurehead the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now beyond all cares and woe...
's goal of a single Musselmen empire.

Hayden was speaking alongside other counterterrorism experts at The Jamestown Foundation's annual conference on terrorism, held Thursday.

While bin Laden lived for a while in Sudan and boasted that his fighters helped train the Somali militias to shoot down US helicopters, his successors appear to have no direct operational control of their African supporters.

Some groups, including the North African offshoot al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had pledged allegiance to their late "sheikh," but bin Laden's deputy and successor Egyptian bad boy Ayman al-Zawahiri
... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
 does not have the same star power.

"The jihadist movement in Africa is clearly not controlled by al-Zawahiri, if he controls anything," said Peter Pham of the Atlantic Council think tank.

"But the al Qaeda brand helps some local groups to distinguish themselves from other local competitors. "It gives them a bigger sense of meaning to attract young people and in some cases the al Qaeda cachet helps them secure funding from overseas, especially the Gulf," he explained. The African groups' ideological independence reflects their roots in different regional struggles, and has allowed them to latch onto and exploit causes such as Tuareg nationalism in Mali and northern Nigeria's resentment of corrupt governance.

But it also limits their real influence beyond their home areas, and even among diaspora African groups in the West. From core al Qaeda's point of view, groups like the Sahel's AQIM, Somalia's Shabaab and Nigeria's Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
 and Ansaru have a use mainly as propaganda for a movement sometimes seen as on the back foot. "It serves al-Zawahiri to make the world believe he has more influence that he really has. He is a lonely man sitting in a house somewhere," said Pham. "He has greater perception of impact if he can claim credit or partial credit for all these independent actors in Africa."

This view is shared by French terrorism expert Jean-Pierre Filiu, who told AFP: "There is no operational unity or coordinated command in Africa, these groups are linked only by the same style of jihadist propaganda."

So what should the West's response be? If African conflicts are left to fester, might local militias one day transform into international terror threats? Or would intervening cause them to turn their guns on the West straight away? "The question we have to ask is: what is the appropriate way to deal with these groups?" asked Hayden, who led the CIA between 2006 and 2009.

"These guys in the tribal regions of Pakistain -- they are already committed to killing us if they can. We don't need to avoid making them an enemy, they are an enemy. There is no problem with putting an American face on dealing with that group.

"But in Africa, they are not quite global caliphate kind of folks yet, not quite targeting the US yet. So do we want to accelerate that process by too quickly putting an American face on dealing with those groups or do we want to risk waiting too long?

"It's not an easy kind of decision," he admitted.

And this caution in Washington is matched on the new African battlefields of today.

La Belle France has not hesitated to take the fight to AQIM snuffies in Mali nor, in recent days, to send troops to try to put a halt to fighting and massacres in the Central African Republic that could be seized upon by Islamists. But thus far, the far bigger US military has limited itself to providing logistical support.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Ahrar al-Sham Jihadists Emerge from Shadows in North Syria
2013-02-14
[An Nahar] Jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham is emerging from the shadows of the larger rebel outfit al-Nusra Front as a key player in northern Syria, playing up its nationalist roots and more moderate form of Islam.

Fighters from the group, whose name means in Arabic the "Free Men of Syria", are mainly to be found on the battlefields in the northern provinces of Idlib, Aleppo and central Hama alongside some 30 other jihadist organizations.

For a long time it was eclipsed by the hardline al-Nusra Front which has grabbed credit for the majority of deadly suicide kabooms in Syria's nearly two-year conflict and is blacklisted by Washington as a terror outfit.

But in recent months Ahrar al-Sham has begun unleashing its fighters across the battlefronts, especially in Idlib where they played a leading role in advances around the city of Jisr al-Shughur, an Agence La Belle France Presse news hound said.

Its fighters are also on the frontlines of the battles around the city of Idlib and further south in Maarat al-Numan.

Their victories have been trumpeted on the Internet and, rebel sources say, have been accomplished thanks to financial backing from Gulf Arab countries.

At the end of December, Ahrar al-Sham announced the creation of an Islamic front grouping a dozen of other organizations including Ansar al-Sham, Liwa al-Haq and Jamaat al-Taliaa.

On January 31 several other groups announced on a statement posted on the Internet that they had joined forces with Ahrar al-Sham to form a broader coalition dubbed "Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya" (The Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham).

Although some Arab jihadists fight amongst their ranks, most of Ahrar al-Sham's fighters are Syrian nationals while the group's founders, according to a source close to it, were former political prisoners released in an amnesty.

"The founders of the movement are all former political prisoners who were placed in durance vile
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
 in the infamous Sednaya prison near Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
," the source said.

"For years they lived and suffered together in jail (but) were set free as part of an amnesty ordered by the regime in May 2011."

The group appears to be well-structured although the names of their commanders are not in the public domain. However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well...
 a fighter known as Abu Anas is the leader for battlegrounds in northern Syria.

One of Ahrar al-Sham's strengths is that it has deep roots in northern rebel-held territory, where unlike the shadowy al-Nusra Front, its men enjoy grassroots support because some are from the villages and cities of the region.

The group's approach to Islam is less rigid that the position of al-Nusra Front -- which Washington says has links to Al-Qaeda in Iraq -- with group leaders insisting they oppose "fanaticism."

Ahrar al-Sham supports the creation of an Islamic state in Syria but one that is based on sharia, Islamic law, that would guarantee the rights of minorities including Christians.

"Their rhetoric is loaded with Islamic references but... deep down their goal is to restore the illusory sovereignty of the Syrian people and do away with dictatorship," said Jean-Pierre Filiu, an expert on jihadist movements.

On the ground Ahrar al-Sham fight sometimes alongside the mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army and al-Nusra, joining in attacks on regime military targets -- but apparently refrain from taking part in suicide kabooms.

Like other jihadists their fighters wear black turbans and their beards long, and fly a white flag with an eagle soaring over the name of the group on their checkpoints.
Link


Africa North
Sahel: France more than ever threatened
2011-01-10
[Ennahar] La Belle France and Frenchies are more than ever threatened in the Sahel by jihadists affiliated with al Qaeda or thugs ready to mount an audacious kidnapping and selling their captives, analysts said, after the abduction and death of two Frenchies in Niger.

Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has not been formally designated by the French authorities as responsible for the kidnapping of two young men, kidnapped Friday night by gunnies in a restaurant in Niamey, but suspected it converge : President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the "barbaric terrorism", while the French army spoke of an "execution" of the hostages by kidnappers called "terrorists."

The two young men were killed during a Franco-Nigerien military operation aimed at releasing them while the kidnappers were trying to reach the Malian border.

This attempted abduction occurs more than three months after the kidnapping, claimed by AQIM, of five French (a Togolese and a Malagasy) mostly working for the French nuclear group Areva and a subcontractor construction group Vinci in northern Niger.

Dominique Thomas, a specialist in jihadi movements in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Gay Paree, "if it is really a coup of AQIM, and even if it is a subcontract with local bandidos, the goal is to tell Gay Paree: "Your citizens are no longer safe anywhere."

"It is within the scope of psychological warfare that began with La Belle France," he adds.

"The goal is to destabilize the situation further, to prove that throughout the Sahel, even in cities far safer, they can strike. Why not Ouagadougou, now, why not Chad, Nigeria? Even if the kidnapping failed, the two guys died, and they know that the international impact will be very strong."

"This puts Gay Paree in a position even more uncomfortable, this further complicates any negotiations on the fate of the hostages in September: the goal is reached," he said.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, professor at Sciences-Po Gay Paree and author of "Nine Lives of Al-Qaeda" believes, meanwhile, that "it is now certain that Aqim has passed the message to its many partners criminals she was willing to pay a very good price the capture of Frenchies who would be transferred in a second time."

"That's probably what happened in Niamey and the hostages were then en route to a camp of AQIM, before a probable claim in the course of next week," he adds.

Many experts believe that in attacking directly La Belle France, in the Sahel, AQIM completes its joining the global jihad advocated by Osama bin Laden from his hideout in the Afghan-Pakistain border area.

AQIM, jihad movement of Algerian origin, puts Gay Paree in a difficult position by putting forward demands almost deliberately impossible to satisfy.

For the release of hostages held by them since September, AQIM leaders call for the withdrawal of the French army in Afghanistan and return to the head of Al-Qaeda himself to negotiate the fate of the hostages of the desert.
Link


Africa North
Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a harsh and violent leader within AQIM
2010-09-24
[Ennahar] Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, who holds the French hostages kidnapped in Niger, is one of the most radical and violent leaders of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who gradually extended his field of action in the Sahara, according to experts.

"For two years," said French researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of "Nine Lives of Al Qaeda," Abu Zeid has dramatically expanded his field of action, with great mobility, kidnapping of tourists in southern Tunisia, opening the front of Niger which did not exist before."

Born 44 years ago in the small town of Touggourt (600 km south of Algiers), he joined at the age of 24 the local committee of the Islamic Front (FIS) and then switches to the armed activity in late 1991.

"According to his family," says Algerian journalist Mohamed Mokeddem, who runs the daily Ennahar, "he went into hiding shortly after the attack on the barracks of Guemmar (November 1991) He was accompanied by his brother Bachir, who was killed by the Algerian army in 1995. Until the end of year 90, he operates in the bush of Batna (eastern Algeria).

In 2003, during the spectacular kidnapping of 32 European tourists in what was still known the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
... now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb...
 (GSPC) in southern Algeria, Abu Zeid appears for the first time as an Assistant Chief of the kidnappers, Abderazak the Para.

"The first pictures of him were taken by those hostage who have published them in the German media after their release," adds Mohamed Mokeddem, specialist of Algerian jihadist networks.

These images show a small man, almost frail, with a short beard. In an amateur shot film by a member of AQIM in 2007, AFP was able to view in Mauritania, Abu Zeid appears briefly, looking somber and disapproving, alongside jihadists who play in the water around a their Toyotas stuck in a river.

In 2006, when a quarrel broke out between Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the principal leaders of the GSPC in the Sahara and the organization's supreme leader, Abdelmalek Droukdal, installed in northern Algeria, Abu Zeid aligned the direction of movement.

As an assistant of the "Emir of the Sahara" Yahia Djouadi, he commanded Katiba (group of jihadists) Tariq ibn Ziyad, some 200 men (mainly Algerian, Mauritanian and Malian) well equipped and highly mobile, based mainly in northern Mali.

"He has a direct connexion with al Qaeda, including with the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, known for anti-French virulence," said Jean-Pierre Filiu.

"This abduction will last, but what is worrying is that there were two cases of kidnappings in which it has ended badly," he recalls, referring to the English tourist Edwin Dyer, killed in June 2009 and the French Germaneau Michel, who died this summer, both captured by Abu Zeid and his men.

A concern shared by Louis Caprioli, former assistant director in charge of the fight against terrorism to the DST (French intelligence).

"Abu Zeid will make every effort to mediate the matter. He will set ultimatums. He builds on the strategy of terror (of the former head of Al Qaeda in Iraq) Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, and this is very worrying."

Shortly after the announcement of the death of Edwin Dyer, a Malian official who had participated in the negotiations told AFP: "Abu Zeid is a violent and brutal man. he is very hard in negotiations. He has criticized us for working for whites, who for him are infidels ".
Link


Africa North
Kidnapping proves lucrative for N African Qaeda
2009-12-02
[Al Arabiya Latest] Kidnapping has become a lucrative business for al-Qaeda's north African branch, experts said Tuesday after a French national and three Spaniards were abducted in the Sahel within days of each other.

The kidnapping of Frenchman Pierre Camatte in northern Mali last week and the abduction of the Spanish aid workers on Sunday in Mauritania have both been attributed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), even though it has not yet claimed responsibility.

" Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb needs money (...) Other groups can snatch Westerners for them and hand them over. You get the impression it's becoming a business in the (Sahel) region "
Alain Antil
In the last year, kidnappings "have multiplied, and the situation has continuously deteriorated in the last five years," Alain Antil, a researcher for the French Institute on International Relations (IFRI) said.

"Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb needs money (...) Other groups can snatch Westerners for them and hand them over. You get the impression it's becoming a business in the (Sahel) region," Antil explained.

AQIM "has grave financial problems and these kidnappings show a push to resolve this," French al-Qaeda specialist Jean-Pierre Filiu of the Paris Institute for Political Qtudies said.

"In times of difficulty (al-Qaeda's north African branch) becomes dangerous," added the author of several books on Islamist extremism.

According to the coordinator of counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department, Daniel Benjamin, AQIM "is financially strapped, particularly in Algeria, and unable to reach its recruiting goals." Benjamin said that it was reliant on kidnapping Westerners.
An interesting pair of points -- drops in both donations and volunteers...and this behaviour isn't likely to increase either, I should think.
Targeting tourists and aid workers
" Although we still can't be completely sure of anything, everything indicates that it was a kidnapping, and, if so, as I fear it was, everything indicates that it was a kidnapping by AQIM, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb "
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba
AQIM have targeted tourists as well as aid workers.

On Sunday three Spanish aid workers disappeared in Mauritania and appeared to have been kidnapped by a group linked to al-Qaeda.

"Although we still can't be completely sure of anything, everything indicates that it was a kidnapping, and, if so, as I fear it was, everything indicates that it was a kidnapping by AQIM, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

In Feb. 2008, two Austrian tourists were kidnapped by AQIM in Tunisia, who took them to northern Mali and released them after eight months. In December of the same year two Canadian diplomats were seized in Niger by a group that claims links with al-Qaeda.

They were soon joined by four European tourists -- two Swiss, a German and a Briton -- abducted in the border region between Mali and Niger in January.

The Canadian diplomats, the Swiss hostages and the German were released over the following months, but in June AQIM put a message on a web site saying it has killed the Briton, Edwin Dyer.
Top

Ransoms and deals
Ransoms are believed to have been paid and deals struck to release jailed militants, though most of the governments involved vehemently deny entering into any deals.

Observers say the killing of the British hostage was because London had refused to give in to the kidnappers' demands to release an Islamic militant jailed in Britain.

In the Austrians' case, local media in Austria quoted sources saying a ransom of between two and ￜ3 million was paid but stressed that Vienna had not paid any money directly to the kidnappers.

Likewise, Canadian media reported that the Malian authorities paid several million dollars to ensure the release of the Canadians. Canada denies paying a ransom, but critics point to the fact that Canadian aid to Mali has more than quadrupled since.

Last September, Algerian President Abelaziz Bouteflika pleaded before the United Nations General Assembly for a ban on paying ransoms to kidnappers, which he said had reached "worrying proportions."

According to the Algerian leader "ransoms are now the principal source of finance for terrorism."
Link


Iraq
Iraqi Sunni insurgents reject links with 'Awakening'
2008-01-08
The Islamic Army, the main Sunni insurgent group in Iraq, is adamant it will not make common cause with the Sunni militias tackling Al Qaeda with US support, and will instead fight the Americans “to the end.”

“The Islamic Army has nothing to do with the Awakening councils,” Ibrahim al-Shimmari, official spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, told AFP in an email interview.

Self defence: “No one can be a member of the Islamic Army and the Awakening at the same time. Our war is for self-defence and we are targeting those who attacked us.”

The Islamic Army is the most powerful Sunni insurgent group in Iraq. Well-established in the west and mainly Sunni centre-north of the country, the movement represents the nationalist wing of the country’s “resistance.” French academic Jean-Pierre Filiu, an expert on the insurgency, says there are signs of cross-membership between the Awakening and the Islamic Army. “On the evidence, the Islamic Army has a foot in these militia,” Filiu told AFP. “And in any case, they do not fight them.” According to Shimmari, the so-called Sahwa or Awakening forces - Sunni paramilitaries organised by the US military to fight Al Qaeda - have emerged due to the “misconduct” of Al Qaeda. Made up largely of former insurgents, the Awakening councils began their rise more than a year ago in the west of the country, where they put Al Qaeda to flight. They have since proliferated in Baghdad and to the north of the capital with American military support. “The occupation forces seized the opportunity (the conflict between Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents) and supported the Awakening to help the troop ‘surge’ strategy of (US President George W.) Bush,” said Shimmari.
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