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ISIS: The Ghost of Saddam Hussein

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Are Washington and Tehran pursuing the same goals in Syria?

“Yes, there is a strategy,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said in his December 5th address at the Brookings Institution. The US strategy, he explained, has three components: “Mobilising a coalition to defeat Daesh” — the Islamic State; to “work diplomati­cally” with Iran, among other countries, “to bring an end to the war in Syria”; and “ensure that the instability created by the war in Syria does not spread”.

But are Washington and Tehran pursuing the same goals in Syria?

At first glance, there are reasons to suggest they are: the emer­gence of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, his promise of engaging in bilateral talks with the United States, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 and the menacing rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) have led some in the West to hope for a new alignment of strate­gic interests between Washington and Tehran.

Rohani, however, commands little influence over the Islamic Republic’s regional policies. The Is­lamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) owns this portfolio.

The public statements of IRGC commanders and the activities of the corps in Syria make it clear that, beyond a fleeting tactical convergence of interests, Tehran is pursuing goals that are the exact opposite of those of the Obama administration.

IRGC commander Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Major- General Qassem Soleimani, head of the expeditionary Quds Force, have repeatedly expressed their support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime, with Soleimani promising to stick with Assad “to the very end”.

Brigadier-General Hossein Hamadani, the field commander of the Iranian forces in Syria who was killed October 7th in the suburbs of Aleppo, not only praised Assad as “more obedient to the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khame­nei, than some of our statesmen”, he also recalled the supreme leader stressing the importance of the “strategic depth” Syria provides for Iran.

With the aim of securing the sur­vival of the Assad regime, the IRGC is deploying troops and non-Iranian Shia militias in Syria. According to open source data, 210 Iranians, 179 Afghans and 33 Pakistanis — all Shias, with the exception of two Iranian Sunnis — were killed in combat in Syria between January 2012 and December 5, 2015.

While there is no reliable infor­mation about the scale of Iraqi Shia combat fatalities in Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah is believed to have lost 1,000-1,500 fighters in Syria in the same period.

As surviving militiamen return to their home countries, there is a very real risk of the spread or rekin­dling of sectarian conflicts in those nations, which is the opposite of Kerry’s expressed aim of prevent­ing further spread of the war.

Sharing ISIS as an enemy is not likely to bring Washington and Teh­ran closer to each other. As a means of keeping Assad in power, Tehran is concentrating its military re­sources against Syrian rebel forces threatening the Damascus regime, including the secular opposition, which might offer an acceptable alternative to Assad.

In the meantime, Tehran makes little military effort against ISIS, which the Islamic Republic consid­ers an alternative worse than As­sad. In this regard, too, Kerry looks in vain for support from Tehran.

Not even Kerry’s desire to bring an end to the war in Syria is likely to resonate with the IRGC leader­ship because continued war in Syria, the Middle East refugee crisis and the increased threat of terrorism from Beirut to Paris only increase Tehran’s leverage.

Once the Assad regime’s survival is secure, the IRGC benefits from a permanent low-intensity crisis in Syria, which not only legitimises its military presence there but also makes Tehran a desirable negotiat­ing partner for the United States and European powers desperate to end the slaughter in Syria.

In his Brookings address, Kerry emphasised the difficulties of achieving US goals in Syria but, by looking to Tehran for support, he may end up making those aims even less achievable.

Saddam still lives:

How Saddam’s men help Islamic State rule

MALA QARA, Iraq (Reuters) – Mohannad is a spy for Islamic State. He eavesdrops on chatter in the street markets of Mosul and reports back to his handlers when someone breaks the militant group’s rules. One man he informed on this year – a street trader defying a ban on selling cigarettes – was fined and tortured by Islamic State fighters, according to a friend of Mohannad’s family. If the trader did not stop, his torturers told the man, they would kill him.

Mohannad is paid $20 for every offender he helps to catch.

He is 14.

The teenager is one cog in the intelligence network Islamic State has put in place since it seized vast stretches of Iraq and neighboring Syria. Informers range from children to battle-hardened fighters. Overseeing the network are former army and intelligence officers, many of whom helped keep former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party in power for years.

Saddam-era officers have been a powerful factor in the rise of Islamic State, in particular in the Sunni militant group’s victories in Iraq last year. Islamic State then out-muscled the Sunni-dominated Baath Party and absorbed thousands of its followers. The new recruits joined Saddam-era officers who already held key posts in Islamic State.

The Baathists have strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and are instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate, according to interviews with dozens of people, including Baath leaders, former intelligence and military officers, Western diplomats and 35 Iraqis who recently fled Islamic State territory for Kurdistan.

Of Islamic State’s 23 portfolios – equivalent to ministries – former Saddam regime officers run three of the most crucial: security, military and finance, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi analyst who has worked with the Iraqi government.

Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who spent years opposing Saddam’s regime, said the ex-Baathists working with Islamic State provide the group with highly effective guidance on explosives, strategy and planning. “They know who is who, family by family, name by name,” he said.

“The fingerprints of the old Iraqi state are clear on their work. You can feel it,” one former senior security official in the Baath Party said.

In many ways, it is a union of convenience. Most former Baathist officers have little in common with Islamic State. Saddam promoted Arab nationalism and secularism for most of his rule.

But many of the ex-Baathists working with Islamic State are driven by self preservation and a shared hatred of the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad. Others are true believers who became radicalized in the early years after Saddam’s ouster, converted on the battlefield or in U.S. military and Iraqi prisons.

One former intelligence commander who served in Iraq’s national intelligence service from 2003 to 2009 said some ex-Baathists pushed out of state agencies by Iraq’s government were only too happy to find new masters. “ISIS pays them,” he said.

A few Sunni lawmakers hope that former Saddam-era officers might be persuaded to abandon their Islamic State allies. But a senior official close to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said dealing with them was difficult because the Baathists are so deeply split, with some supporting Islamic State and some opposed. “Who are they?” he asked. “Some wave olive branches. Others still wave a gun.”

A spokesman for Abadi, Saad al-Hadithi, said the Iraqi government opposes negotiations with the Baath Party. “There is no space for them in the political process,” he said. “They are banned under the constitution.”

TURNING POINT IN TIKRIT

Baathists began collaborating with al Qaeda in Iraq – the early incarnation of what would become Islamic State – soon after Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003. Saddam had run a brutal police state. The U.S. occupation dissolved the Baath Party and barred senior and even middling party officials from joining the new security services. Some left the country, others joined the anti-American insurgency.

But then the Baathists and jihadists disagreed over who should be in charge. Many ex-Baathists struck an alliance with the U.S. military and turned on the jihadists.

By 2014, the Baathists and the jihadists were back to being allies. As Islamic State fighters swept through central Iraq, they were joined by the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, a group of Baathist fighters.

The Naqshbandi and smaller groups of Saddam-era officers made up the majority of fighters in the initial stages of last year’s military onslaught, according to Sunni tribal leaders, Baathists and an Iraqi security commander. It was the Naqshbandi who rallied locals in Mosul to rise up against Baghdad, and who planned and commanded many of last year’s military advances, according to Iraqi officials and Abdul al-Samad al-Ghrairy, a senior official in what’s left of the Baath Party.

Within days, though, Islamic State “took the revolution from us,” said Ghrairy. “We couldn’t sustain the battle.”

In Tikrit, Islamic State fighters opened a jail and released up to 200 followers. More Islamic State fighters poured into the city, many of them with heavy machine guns. These men “took all the army’s weapons and didn’t give the Naqshabandi any. They kicked them aside,” a senior security official in Salahuddin said.

Soon after the fall of Tikrit in June 2014, leaders from the main factions of the Sunni rebellion met in the house of a Baath Party member. According to the senior security official, Tikrit tribal leaders and Baath officials, Islamic State told Baathists they had a choice: Join us or stand down. Some Baathists abandoned the revolt. Others stayed, swelling the ranks of Islamic State with mid-level security veterans.

That has boosted Islamic State’s firepower and tactical prowess. “This is not the al Qaeda we fought before,” said a prominent Sunni from Mosul who battled Islamic State’s forerunners. “Their tactics are different. These are men educated in military staff college. They are ex-army leaders. They are not simple minds, but men with real experience.”

Both Ghrairy and Khudair Murshidy, the Baath Party’s official spokesman, told Reuters that the party’s armed wing is frozen in the aftermath of its defeat. Islamic State, they added, had killed some 600 Baath supporters and Naqshbandi fighters. “Their policy is to kill everyone, destroy everyone,” Murshidy said. “They create fear and death everywhere and control areas. Many people have joined them now. At first they were a few hundred, now they are maybe more than 50,000.”

“THE WALLS HAVE EARS”

Emma Sky, a former adviser to the U.S. military, believes Islamic State has effectively subsumed the Baathists. “The mustached officers have grown religious beards. I think many have genuinely become religious,” she said.

Among the most high profile Baathists to join Islamic State are Ayman Sabawi, the son of Saddam Hussein’s half brother, and Raad Hassan, Saddam’s cousin, said the senior Salahuddin security official and several tribal leaders. Both were children during Saddam’s time, but the family connection is powerfully symbolic.

More senior officers now in Islamic State include Walid Jasim (aka Abu Ahmed al-Alwani) who was a captain of intelligence in Saddam’s time, and Fadhil al-Hiyala (aka Abu Muslim al-Turkmani) whom some believe was a deputy to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until he was killed in an airstrike earlier this year.

 
A boy walks past a picture of Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein on a street in Tikrit, Iraq …

The group’s multi-layered security and intelligence agencies in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, are overseen by an agency called Amniya – literally ‘Security’. The agency has six branches, each responsible for maintaining a different aspect of security.

The overall head of Amniya in Iraq and Syria is a former Saddam-era intelligence officer from Fallujah called Ayad Hamid al-Jumaili, who joined the Sunni insurgency after the U.S.-led invasion and now answers directly to Baghdadi, according to Hashimi, the analyst.

A vice squad known as Hisba enforces order on the streets. Hisba officers punish everyone from cigarette traders to women not fully covered. They also run a network of informants, placing children such as 14-year-old Mohannad in mosques and markets, and women at funerals and family gatherings, according to residents of Mosul.

“The work of these children is rewarded with gifts or small cash prizes,” said the former intelligence officer. “Women, on the other hand, are recruited mostly from (Islamic State) families and they gather information for no reward.” The repression has become so intense in Mosul, residents said, people have revived a phrase used in Saddam’s era: “The walls have ears.”

Interviews with 35 men who recently escaped from Islamic State-held villages around Mosul offer rare details of what is happening inside Islamic State territory. Reuters sat in on debriefings of the men by Staff Lieutenant Colonel Surood Abdel Salal, a Kurdish intelligence official at a base behind the frontline south of Erbil. Most of those questioned were former members of the Iraqi security forces defeated by Islamic State in Mosul.

The 35 men described a life of increasing deprivation under Islamic State and a climate of paranoia in which they could trust no-one, even their own relatives.

One man in Mosul told Reuters his brother had been executed in early October after he cursed Islamic State and the Caliphate while arguing with his son, who wanted to join the group. “My brother’s shouting was heard by the neighbors. During that time there was a group of children who were playing in front of the house,” said the man. “Not a week had passed and my brother was arrested on charges of cursing God and the Islamic State.”

Islamic State execution squads often arrive in a large bus with tinted windows, another resident said. Police seal off streets surrounding the place where a killing is to be carried out. Men dressed in black with balaclavas either shoot people, or behead them with swords.

The bodies of those deemed to have committed the worst offences – cursing God or the group – are thrown in an area called al-Khafsa, a deep natural crater in the desert just south of Mosul, residents in the city said. Those killed for lesser crimes are returned to their families wrapped in a blanket.

A WEB OF INFORMANTS

In September, according to several of the men who fled, Islamic State’s Amniya agency rounded up around 400 former members of Iraq’s security forces and executed them. Families of those dumped in al-Khafsa were then sent a kind of receipt to notify them of the execution. Among those who described the massacre was a 21-year-old from a village east of Mosul whose cousin’s corpse was returned on the second day of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice. “They brought it wrapped in a blanket with three bullet wounds,” he said.

Some of the 35 escapees said people are banned from leaving Islamic State territory; those caught leaving are routinely killed. Two escapees recounted the fate of a group of men who tried to leave recently. Islamic State caught them and executioners dropped a concrete blast wall on top of them. The killing was filmed and replayed on large screens the militants have erected in public spaces.

According to the fugitives’ testimony, Islamic State has embedded itself in almost every village, converting the homes of former Iraqi military officers into bases and creating a web of informants. Mobile phones are banned as is access to the Internet.

“They had an informant in each area who said so-and-so didn’t go to prayers,” said Fathi, a 30-year-old former policeman from a village east of Mosul. Many of the escapees had been on the run for months, carefully avoiding Islamic State checkpoints, especially those equipped with laptops the militants use to look up names on a database. Some hid in woodland along the Tigris River.

Ahmed, 32, said he was wanted by Islamic State for belonging to a tribal militia that fought the insurgents before the fall of Mosul. He said he had not been home for months because he feared one of his young daughters would betray his presence. “Maybe someone will come and ask my children (where I am) and they don’t know any better,” he said.

Local Islamic State leaders send their own children out as scouts, some of the escapees said. One man said the militants paid cigarette sellers to inform on their customers. So pervasive is Islamic State’s surveillance network that even at home people cannot let their guard down, according to 31-year-old policeman Saad Khalaf Ali. He was arrested and accused of speaking against the militants. He denied it, but the militants produced footage of him in his own home saying he wished for government forces to retake the area. The video had been secretly filmed by a boy from the village, the policeman said. “They take advantage of small children most of all because people don’t suspect them.”

Ali begged the militants for forgiveness and was released. But they detained him again several months later on charges of informing Kurdish and Iraqi forces about Islamic State positions. This time, he said, his own nephew and a cousin informed on him. He would have been executed but for a joint raid by American and Kurdish Special Forces in October which rescued him and 68 others.

UNDER PRESSURE?

It will be difficult for Baghdad to lure away ex-Baathists and Saddam-era officers working with Islamic State. The Iraqi government itself is bogged down by internal divisions, while the parts of the Baath party that have not joined Islamic State cannot agree on whether they want talks, or even who should represent them.

Meantime the war drags on.

In October, Baghdad created a special office to share intelligence between Iraq, Iran, Russia and the Syrian government. That office is providing Iraq’s airforce with information on Islamic State positions. Baghdad has also stepped up efforts to squeeze Islamic State financially by attacking oil facilities, pressuring businessmen who have helped the militants, and stopping salaries to government employees in areas under Islamic State rule.

Iraqi Finance Minister Zebari said Islamic State in Mosul had responded by “extorting more money from the public. They are going more towards criminal actions and kidnapping.” The group’s surveillance network is testament to its resourcefulness and ability to survive.

After his release from prison, Ahmed al-Tai’i, the cigarette salesman reported by 14-year-old Mohannad, confronted the boy’s father. The father admitted that Islamic State militants had paid Mohannad and other youngsters to help them, according to a friend of Tai’i.

The cigarette salesman says his arrest and imprisonment have left him paranoid. “Since I left prison a constant fear has lived with me. If I want to say or do something that contravenes the orders and instructions of Islamic State I look around to check there is nobody, even my friends, and especially small children,” he said. “I have lost trust in everyone around me.”

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How Saddam’s men help Islamic State rule (Web version) http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-iraq-islamicstate/

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(Coles reported from Mala Qara and Parker from Erbil; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Stephen Kalin and Michael Georgy in Baghdad and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Michael Georgy and Simon Robinson)

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The Islamic Center of Riverside or Brooklyn

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Meforum: Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the “Lackawanna Six,” and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda,[30] all involve Tablighi missionaries.[31] Other indicted terrorists, such as “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another.[32] According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI’s first Islamic counterterrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone.[33] Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989.[34]

The Tablighi Jamaat has made inroads among two very different segments of the American Muslim population. Because many American Muslims are immigrants, and a large subsection of these are from South Asia, Deobandi influences have been able to penetrate deeply. Many Tablighi Jamaat missionaries speak Urdu as a first language and so can communicate easily with American Muslims of South Asian origin. The Tablighi headquarters in the United States for the past decade appears to be in the Al-Falah mosque in Queens, New York. Its missionaries—predominantly from South Asia—regularly visit Sunni mosques and Islamic centers across the country.[35] The willingness of Saudi-controlled front organizations and charities, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the Haramain Foundation, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and others, to spend large amounts of money to co-opt the religious establishment has helped catalyze recruitment. As a result Wahhabi and Deobandi influence dominate American Islam. Full reading with citations here.

Take a hard look of the U.K. what happens there comes to America under the visa waiver system.

The activities of Tablighi Jamaat are gradually increasing in United States, and according to recent statistics disclosed during last year’s largest Tablighi congregations in Bangladesh, more than four hundred Tablighi groups are actively working in various so-called community mosques or in disguise mostly targeting young Americans with the goal of converting them initially to Islam and later giving them Jihadist provocations.

Tablighi Jamaat [Conveying Group] is a Muslim missionary and revival movement. Their activities are not limited to the Deobandi community. Leaders of Tablighi Jamaat claim that the movement is strictly non-political in nature, with the main aim of the participants being to work at the grass roots level and reaching out to all Muslims of the world for spiritual development.

Tablighi Jamat seeks to revitalize Muslims around the world. It is claimed that their ideology and practices are in strict accordance with Qur’an and Sunnah. Despite its affiliation and influence of the prominent scholars of Deoband, it does not focus any particular sect or community. It gathers its members and aids in community activities such as mosque building and education.

When it comes to freely traveling into the United States a deep look at visa requests of through the visa waiver countries, those that are alleged to be scholars of Deobandi frequently appear at mosques throughout the country with particular emphasis on the Riverside Islamic Center. This is one of the mosques attended by Syed Farook and his circle of sympathizers. Further reading here.

This is a red flag sect of Islam well know to the counter-terrorism center and the U.S. State Department.

Fatwa Fanatics – The Deobandi-Wahhabi Lust for Control Over Personal Life

by Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi
Millat Times [India]
March 11, 2013

The fundamentalist Deobandi Muslim sect, widely represented in the Indian subcontinent and among South Asian Muslims abroad, resembles its ally, the Saudi Wahhabi clergy, in many ways. Both claim to “reform” the religion. Like the Wahhabis, the Deobandis preach a distorted utopia of “pure” Islam disrespectful of other faiths and condemning Islamic interpretations with which they differ. Deobandism, like Wahhabism, is harshly restrictive of women’s rights.

There are distinctions separating Deobandis and Wahhabis, aside from those between the idiom, food, dress, and other cultural aspects of South Asia, whence the Deobandis emerged, and Nejd, the remote zone of the Arabian peninsula that produced Wahhabism. Deobandism began in the 19th century in India as a nonviolent, purificationist movement. The failure of the 1857 Indian rebellion against the British convinced the clerics who established Deobandism that peaceful revivalism would better unite the Indian Muslims for resistance against the colonial rulers.

By contrast, Wahhabism emerged in Nejd three quarters of a century earlier, as a violent phenomenon. Wahhabis claimed that the Sunni Islam of the time, centered on the Ottoman caliphate, as well as Shia Islam and spiritual Sufism, represented a return to pre-Muslim polytheism and must be fought to the death.

Deobandism had no command over any government until the mid-1990s, when Deobandi students (“Taliban,” the plural form of the Arabic-Pashto word “talib,” meaning “student”) from Afghanistan took over that devastated country. Until then, many Taliban were medresa pupils in Pakistan, and Islamabad is widely acknowledged to have organized and backed the Afghan takeover by the faction. Wahhabism, however, has been the sole Saudi religion since the formation of the first, unsuccessful 18th and 19th century Saudi-Wahhabi “states” in Arabia. The official standing of Wahhabism was confirmed with the establishment of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

Their installation as rulers of Afghanistan, originally with Saudi financing, led the Taliban – i.e. the Pakistani-trained Deobandis – to abandon their nonviolent past. They imposed a brutal, repressive regime, originally in Kandahar, that claimed a basis in Islamic law. Deobandi depredations against other Muslims had a precedent in the 1971 Bangladesh independence war, when the Deobandis and their jihadist allies committed widespread human rights violations in the former “East Pakistan.” Early in February 2013, the Bangladesh High Court found one such figure, Abdul Quader Mollah, guilty of murder and rape, as crimes against humanity in that conflict. He was sentenced to life in prison. A.Q. Mollah was a member of the youth organization in the Bangladesh branch of Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), the most influential South Asian jihadist party. JEI is accused of the main responsibility for depraved actions during the Bangladesh struggle.

Some moderate Muslims perceived in this verdict a victory for non-sectarian justice in Bangladesh. But almost immediately, Bangladeshis came out in the streets in large numbers. They expressed their discontent with the outcome and called for the execution of A.Q. Mollah and a ban on JEI. In January, Abdul Kalam Azad, another Islamist charged with crimes against humanity in Bangladesh, had been sentenced to death – in absentia, since he has apparently fled to Pakistan. More radicals facing trial in Bangladesh for crimes against humanity include, as described by BBC News, Ghulam Azam, the head of the Bangladesh wing of JEI; Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Bangladesh JEI secretary-general; Motiur Rahman Nizami, originally a Bangladesh JEI youth leader, and Delwar Hossein Sayeedi, a former Bangladesh JEI parliamentarian. [Update: On February 28, Delwar Hossein Sayeedi was sentenced to death. JEI responded with further disorders, resulting in an unconfirmed number of injuries and fatalities.] Although a minor party in Bangladesh, JEI reflects the continuing intrusion of Islamist ideology from Pakistan.

During two weeks of anti-JEI protests in Shahbag Square, Dhaka, after the A.Q. Mollah decision, an anti-JEI blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, was stabbed and hacked to death in his house. This intensified the demands of the Shahbag participants for suppression of the JEI.

JEI had demonstrated against the trial before it began and as it proceeded. The Islamist party reacted to the Shahbag Square protests by rioting against the government and journalists, with at least four people killed during an outburst after Friday prayers on February 22. JEI followers accused the Shahbag participants of insulting Muhammad and Islam.

In response to the anti-JEI anger of the Bangladeshi public, Dhaka adopted an amended law that permits the state to appeal the Mollah verdict and hold a new trial. Under the revised legislation, prosecutors may call for the death penalty for those previously convicted and given lesser sentences. The Bangladeshi government will now have the power to indict, try, and punish – even prohibit – political parties like JEI, for crimes against humanity in the 1971 liberation of the land.

The horrors in Bangladesh were perpetrated by Deobandis from then-“West” Pakistan. The center of the Deobandi movement remained at Darul Uloom Deoband in India’s Uttar Pradesh state. Until the second recent Afghan war began in 2001, the Indian Deobandis adhered mainly to their past quietist attitude. The Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Deobandis then radicalized the Indian Deobandis, leading members of the latter element to adopt rhetoric justifying terrorism.

The impact of the Indian Deobandi transformation has been predictable: a series of atrocities in India. Deobandis also founded the preaching movement Tabligh-i-Jamaat (Call of the Community or TJ), which pledges nonviolence though holding to extremist Deobandi doctrines. TJ has had significant success in Bangladesh and in the Bengali diaspora in the West.

Both Deobandis and Wahhabis despise Shia Muslims and have been involved in or have incited violence against the Shias. Unlike the Wahhabis, the Deobandis do not denounce Sufism outright. Yet the Deobandis share Wahhabi prohibitions on some of the practices commonest and most beloved among Sufis, such as milad–an–nabi (celebration of the birthday of Muhammad) and musical performances. Deobandis have further been implicated in the devastation of Sufi shrines in Pakistan and India. Additionally, Saudi Wahhabism wiped out the four recognized schools of Sunni jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali), replacing them with an arbitrary form of Islamic law derived supposedly (and spuriously) from Hanbalism. The Deobandis disagree discreetly with this posture, alleging their loyalty to the Hanafi school, which is traditional for Sunnis in India and, paradoxically, the most open to controversy.

Unlike Saudi Wahhabis, who reject parliamentary institutions and participation in them, and leave governance ostensibly to the monarchy, the Deobandis are involved in Islamist political parties, exemplified by JEI, from Afghanistan to Bangladesh and in Britain, the U.S., and South Africa. Indian Sufi Muslims have complained bitterly and extensively against a bias toward relations with the Deobandis, as representatives of Indian Islam, on the part of the secular Indian government.

In the UK, Deobandis are active in seeking ascendancy over Sunni believers. They pursue this aim through the establishment of Deobandi mosques, the takeover of mosques erected previously by the moderate, conservative Barelvi sect, which supports Sufism actively, and the missionary activities of TJ. In Britain, Barelvi and other conventional Muslims resist the Deobandi invasion. Statistics enumerating Deobandi vs. Barelvi and other South Asian Sunni Muslims in Britain are unreliable; they typically count the number of mosques administered by the two groups, rather than the creed of the believers. Since the Deobandis will declare any prayer space a mosque, they can exaggerate their influence.

In the United States, where people of South Asian origin form a plurality of about 35 percent among Muslims, Deobandism dominates Pakistani-American Sunni mosques. Unlike in Britain, Barelvis in the U.S., although numerous, have been unable to organize their own community institutions. As noted by Marcia Hermansen of Loyola University in Chicago, “most [South Asian Muslim] community organizations were already controlled by anti-Sufi Islamists.”

Wahhabism is more notorious for some of its retrograde and bizarre doctrines, which have produced such limitations on Saudi women’s rights as forbidding their operation of motor vehicles. Thousands of cars and trucks are owned by Saudi females, and while they cannot drive them openly in cities and on highways, it is well-known that Saudi women drive in rural areas. Wahhabism founded the infamous Saudi “morals patrols” or mutawiyin, often miscalled a religious police. The Taliban have created similar “religious enforcement” groups in Afghanistan and Pakistani Deobandis have appealed for their importation into the latter country.

Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, since he succeeded to the throne in 2005, has taken measures, small but significant, to expand women’s rights and curb the excesses of the Wahhabi clerics and the “morals patrols.” Still, the South Asian Deobandis, as noted, have grown more nihilistic in their outlook and practices.

Deobandis and Wahhabis are dissonant on other matters of little significance. Nevertheless, Wahhabi-Deobandi linkages persist. In 2011, Abdurrahman Al-Sudais, a prominent Wahhabi fanatic and Friday preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, was allowed by India to visit Darul Uloom Deoband in U.P., as well as Delhi and Old Delhi. His mission was to reinforce amity between the sects and demonstrate that together, Deobandism and Wahhabism are expanding their influence in India. His journey to India was permitted although Al-Sudais is barred from Canada and has been criticized in Saudi Arabia for hateful declamations.

According to the American Muslim academic Ebrahim Moosa, who studied at Darul Ulum Nadwatul ‘Ulama, a Deobandi medresa at Lucknow, U.P., the international spread of the ideology, lacking the financial resources of the Saudi Wahhabis, depends on donations by British and South African Muslims.

If there is a single feature the Wahhabis and Deobandis have in common, it is their dedication to the gratuitous issuance of weird and illogical fatwas, or religious opinions. Some of the more ludicrous Saudi Wahhabi fatwas have held, for example, that Wahhabi strictures against gender mixing between unrelated men and women may be evaded if the man drinks the breast milk of the woman, making them, allegedly, members of the same family. A fatwa issued in February called for imposition of the face veil (niqab) on female infants as a supposed protection against sexual abuse.

The proliferation of fatwa websites in Saudi Arabia has been criticized by King Abdullah and senior Saudi clerics, who have sought to regulate such activities. The king and the religious authorities warn that many are directed by self-designated Islamic jurists without credentials, and announce their opinions on whim and a desire for publicity. Unlike Christianity, Islam – except for Wahhabism – does not encourage free-lance preaching by unschooled, “inspired” individuals usurping clerical titles. Even the Deobandis stress a rigorous Islamic education, however deviant their beliefs.

A similarly eccentric spirit of fatwa composition has, withal, overtaken Darul Uloom Deoband. The chief Deobandi medresa has recently promulgated contradictory fatwas that leave Indian Muslims confused, in the words of commentator Shuriah Niazi. In 2010, the Deobandi center released a fatwa forbidding gender mixing in the workplace, an effective bar on any female employment, preventing women from supporting their families. The fatwa against women working alongside men exceeded the bounds of Wahhabism, and was previously unknown in Islamic jurisprudence. Repudiation of the fatwa by Indian Muslim women, Islamic scholars, and media commentators led Darul Uloom Deoband to qualify it by stating that work outside the home is permissible for women if they are covered completely when interacting with men. Even this amelioration reflected a discrimination against women previously absent from Islamic law.

Darul Uloom Deoband emitted more fatwas in 2012, of the same kind. One attempted to bar Muslims and others from submitting to body scans. A leading anti-Wahhabi Indian Sufi, General Secretary of the All India Ulema and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) Maulana Syed Muhammad Ashraf Kichowchhwi, rejected the fatwa, declaring, “If a scan is necessary for security reasons or to detect or treat a disease then it is not haram [forbidden] or un-Islamic.” Soon, Darul Uloom Deoband caused a new uproar with a fatwa against Shia Muslims. The Deobandis praised Yezid Ibn Muawiya, responsible for the murder of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Muhammad and son of Imam Ali, at the battle of Karbala in 680 CE. This was among the worst insults that could be crafted against the Shias. A later fatwa from Darul Uloom Deoband banned Muslim women from working as receptionists, because the job would require them to forego total body covering.

The Deobandi center ended the year with fatwas against multimedia smartphones and the practice of showing prospective husbands photographs of girls seeking to be married.

Indian Muslims view the fatwa antics of Darul Uloom Deoband much as Saudis have come to regard the similar behavior of Wahhabi “callers to religion.” That is, sensational fatwas are created to gain media attention for the “scholars” that improvise them.

Muslims and non-Muslims in South Asia and elsewhere in the world should understand the identical motive behind the activities of Deobandi and Wahhabi “fatwa factories,” whether originating in medresas or websites. The Deobandis and Wahhabis seek absolute direction over the lives of Sunni Muslims, and, by extension, over all Muslim relations with their non-Muslim neighbors. The aim of “fatwa fanatics” is not religious; it is political and totalitarian.

Consorting With the Enemy

by Stephen Schwartz
Family Security Matters
August 30, 2006

In a normal world, U.S. and British law enforcement would aggressively investigate the “Wahhabi lobby” of radical Islamist organizations that, in the main English-speaking countries, provide pseudo-religious cover for the terrorist assault on civilization. U.S. and British investigators would not be deterred by the unfortunate fact that the “Wahhabi lobby” constitutes the “Muslim establishment” in both lands.

But we do not live in a normal world. We live in a perverse environment where U.S. and British law enforcement frequently appear more concerned about their reputation for political correctness and more afraid of accusations that they might violate someone’s civil liberties, than about the death and destruction they are supposed to prevent.

Thus we see the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), one of the most hypocritical and suspect Muslim organizations in America, preening itself on having met, on August 14 in Los Angeles, with the Consul General of the United Kingdom as well as with representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal Department of Homeland Security, and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. The point of the meeting? Apparently, nothing more than an opportunity for Salam al-Marayati, MPAC founder, to claim credit for a decision by a Muslim individual in Britain to tip off British authorities about the alleged transatlantic airline terror conspiracy.

Al-Marayati said, “I want to acknowledge the crucial tip that came from a worried member of the British Muslim community and was the primary reason that this alleged plot was disrupted. It is that unknown hero that we want to acknowledge today as well as those Muslims in America, Europe and throughout the world who are stepping forward out of their Islamic obligation to protect their communities and their societies… These are people who are serving [sic] their patriotic duty in the United States and elsewhere.”

There are two lessons to be derived from this maudlin performance.

First, al-Marayati and those like him are so desperate to show that Muslims of their stripe will participate on the right side of the battle to defend civilization that he will try to associate himself with the action of an obscure individual living thousands of miles away.

Second, the British consul general and American law enforcement, although approaching the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001, seem to have learned nothing about al-Marayati and his cohort.

While British diplomats, the FBI, DHS and assorted other agencies assigned to guard the peace may not be clear on what al-Marayati represents, five years ago al-Marayati himself was quite precise about such matters. Speaking on radio within hours of the 9/11 atrocities, according to The New York Times of October 22, 2001, al-Marayati told L.A. station KCRW, “If we’re going to look at suspects we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies.”

The spectacle of official British and American representatives cozying up to Salam al-Marayati should be disgusting to any loyal citizen of either country, regardless of religion, and should be especially repellent to moderate Muslims, who do not want or need al-Marayati to speak for them. The more al-Marayati and Co. are permitted to represent American Islam, the fewer opportunities moderate Muslims will have to rescue their religion from the common enemy: extremism.

It appears that neither British nor American authorities, no matter their anti-terrorist will, have changed much since 9/11; but neither has Salam al-Marayati. Since then, MPAC has conducted a consistent campaign of “profiling” against anti-terrorist figures such as Steven Emerson of The Investigative Project. I documented MPAC’s hate spree against Emerson and others back in 2004.

MPAC has not changed its spots. But neither have the U.S. or British authorities changed their method of dealing publicly with those who promote defiance, exaggerated grievances, claims of victimization, and general political confrontation by Muslims in the English-speaking nations. It is past time for democratic governments to cease appeasing these domestic agitators for radical Islam; to dispense with political correctness, and to bring all such extremist activities, and those of their backers, wherever they may be, to an end.

It is also past time for Salam al-Marayati and his ilk to realize that honeyed words and photo-ops with cops will not eradicate from the public record the memory of their past incitement – exemplified by the infamous statement quoted above. MPAC and groups like it have no role to play in the struggle for democracy unless they turn over all the information they possess to law enforcement, warn American and British Muslims in no uncertain terms against radical rhetoric, and then shut down their operations. They have no hope of saving their reputations, at least in the short run of events. They should get out of the way and let those intent on protecting democracy and rescuing Islam – and who have nothing to hide, explain away, or apologize for – carry on the struggle. They should go home, read their Qur’an, and ponder how their addiction to ideology and publicity, and their ambitions and dishonesty, have harmed their community. They have succeeded for too long in imposing silence on the majority of American Muslims. Better that MPAC and the rest now be silent, than that they continue their charade of moderation, enabled by naïve Western public officials.

Preparing for War on Multiple Fronts?

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Preparing for War, too Slow?

Keep an eye on Libya, it too may require a repeated effort.

Without any formal announcements, the military has been testing missile systems both in an offensive and defensive measure. The Pentagon is charged with keeping ahead of forecasted conditions and they are successful and do make robust recommendations to the White House. Under sequestration, some needed measures are not possible yet proving the need given recent global terror events some requests are approved while others are delayed.

 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An early morning missile test in New Mexico left a white contrail that quickly turned into a corkscrew that was visible for hundreds of miles Thursday.

The unarmed Juno target missile was launched at 6:55 a.m. MST from an old military depot in northwestern New Mexico.

It was aimed at White Sands Missile Range, some 215 miles away, but a White Sands spokesman says it was successfully intercepted over the range by a Patriot missile and disintegrated midair.

Range spokesman Luciano Vera says a second Patriot fired from White Sands self-destructed after the first Patriot hit the target.

The corkscrew-shaped contrail was visible in Phoenix, 245 miles southwest of the launch site.

Moving forward, the Pentagon is also diligently working to gain a robust intelligence advantage as well as expanding a Middle East war footing.

WASHINGTON — As American intelligence agencies grapple with the expansion of the Islamic State beyond its headquarters in Syria, the Pentagon has proposed a new plan to the White House to build up a string of military bases in Africa, Southwest Asia and the Middle East.

The bases could be used for collecting intelligence and carrying out strikes against the terrorist group’s far-flung affiliates.

The growth of the Islamic State’s franchises — at least eight militant groups have pledged loyalty to the network’s leaders so far — has forced a debate within the Obama administration about how to distinguish between the affiliates that pose the most immediate threat to the United States and Europe and others that are more regionally focused. The regional groups, some officials say, may have opportunistically adopted the Islamic State’s brand to bolster their local clout and global stature.

In the midst of that debate, senior military officials have told the White House that the network of bases would serve as hubs for Special Operations troops and intelligence operatives who would conduct counterterrorism missions for the foreseeable future. The plan would all but ensure what Pentagon officials call an “enduring” American military presence in some of the world’s most volatile regions.

While it is in vogue to side with Putin and his mission to stop Islamic State in Syria, it is pure propaganda. Russia has assumed a full defensive posture aiding Bashir al Assad and is only targeting anti-Assad forces in Syria, many of which are supported by the West and the Middle East Gulf States. Russia in fact is expanding their bases in Syria stealing away some objectives even from Iran. Further, Russia is using the conflict in Syria to test the skill levels of ground troops and newly created weapons systems.

Then while the globe is focused on tracking terrorists around the world and connecting them to Islamic State or al Qaida, there is yet another matter of grave concern pointing to North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country has developed a hydrogen bomb, state media reported Thursday.

Jong Un made the statement during an arms industry inspection on Wednesday, South Korean news agency Yonhap said, citing reports.

Information related to the highly secretive nation of North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, is extremely difficult to independently confirm.

A report by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the country is now a “powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate a self-reliant A-bomb (atomic bomb) and H-bomb (hydrogen bomb) to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation,” Yonhap reported. *** This is not a new condition, as the United States has advanced technology to test the air quality to determine what it reveals, which is in fact part of the signals intelligence used by the geo-spatial systems. Going back a few years, conditions were prove what North Korea was doing when it comes to the creation of a hydrogen bomb. There was and is a surge in radiation going back to 2010.

We cannot overlook the matter of the continued aggression by China in the South China Sea where the United States has deployed the USS Larson, which is a guided missile destroyer tasked with surveillance and intelligence gathering.

While there is still the matter of Iran testing missile systems in violation of all resolutions, there is very little if anything being considered to stop Iran.

It appears all of these global events are in fact part of the briefings provided to the White House, yet the Commander in Chief has proven he would rather remain focused on social justice issues and defer national security matters to the next President. You be the judge as to what the worldwide global security conditions will be by then.

 

 

 

 

Confirmed: Terrorists Have Tried to Exploit Refugee Program

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We cant being to measure the trouble and failed government programs and how it fully impacts national/domestic security.

Primer: During a hearing today in the House with the Director of USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services), it was told that Tashfee Malik, one of the two killers in San Bernardino was not processed through the system at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan managed by the State Department as mandated by law. Further it appears cases presented to embassies are rubber-stamped where already during testimony, 80% of refugee applications have been approved by alleged Syrians. Additionally, 23,000 asylum applications have also been approved, year to date for 2015.

What was most curious is Citizenship and Immigration Services has 25 international offices. Most are in countries that are essentially failed countries, which is yet a compounded diplomatic failure of the United Nations, USAID and the U,S, State Department. Consequently failed diplomatic efforts further cost the American taxpayers much more than it ever should.

ODNI Confirms Terrorists Tried to Enter U.S. as Syrian Refugees

JudicialWatch: Individuals with ties to terrorist groups in Syria have tried to infiltrate the United States through the Obama refugee program that will admit at least 10,000 Syrians, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has confirmed.

The disturbing admission comes amid robust assurances by the administration that the refugees are thoroughly vetted before entering the country. In fact, the State Department publicly guarantees that every Syrian refugee is rigorously screened because “nothing is more important to us than the security of the American people.” The agency also addresses public concerns involving resettling Syrian refugees by asserting that it’s a “myth” that “all Syrians are dangerous.” In fact, “none have been arrested or removed on terrorism charges,” the State Department writes in a bulletin. Admission is only granted “after the most extensive level of security screening of any category of traveler to the United States,” according to the agency.

Nevertheless, in early October the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Matthew Emrich, admitted during a congressional hearing that there’s no way to adequately screen the new arrivals from the war-torn Muslim nation that’s a hotbed of terrorism. That’s because the Syrian government doesn’t have an intelligence database to run checks against so there’s no reliable method to accurately verify the identity of the new arrivals. Emrich did ensure during his congressional testimony that “we check everything that we are aware of” and that “we are in the process of overturning every stone.” This may not sound all that reassuring to most Americans.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Assistant Director Michael Steinbach has also conceded that the U.S. government has no system to properly screen Syrian refugees. “The concern in Syria is that we don’t have systems in places on the ground to collect information to vet,” Steinbach said. “That would be the concern is we would be vetting — databases don’t hold the information on those individuals. “You’re talking about a country that is a failed state, that is — does not have any infrastructure, so to speak. So all of the data sets — the police, the intel services — that normally you would go to seek information don’t exist.” Judicial Watch reported on these two alarming revelations back in October.

Now we have the ODNI, the broad agency that serves as an umbrella for the intelligence community and advises the president, verifying that indeed terrorists have tried to exploit Obama’s Syrian refugee initiative. The ODNI is composed of more than a dozen spy agencies, including Air Force, Army, Navy, Treasury and Coast Guard intelligence as well as the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This week the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, released unclassified excerpts of information provided to him by the ODNI regarding possible terrorist exploitation of Syrian refugee flows. It’s scary but, unfortunately, not surprising.

The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has identified “…individuals with ties to terrorist groups in Syria attempting to gain entry to the U.S. through the U.S. refugee program,” the ODNI tells the Texas congressman in a document that contains classified information the lawmaker could not make public. The NCTC also wrote this to the congressman: “The refugee system, like all immigration programs, is vulnerable to exploitation from extremist groups seeking to send operatives to the West. U.S. and Canadian authorities in 2011 arrested several refugees linked to what is now ISIL. Early in 2011, Canadian authorities arrested dual Iraqi-Canadian citizen Faruq ‘Isa who is accused of vetting individuals on the internet for suicide operations in Iraq. The FBI, in May of the same year, arrested Kentucky-based Iraqi refugees Wa’ad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi for attempting to send weapons and explosives from Kentucky to Iraq and conspiring to commit terrorism while in Iraq. Alwan pled guilty to the charges against him in December 2011, and Hammadi pled guilty in August 2012.”

The recent attacks in Paris were executed by terrorists who made it to Europe as refugees and the same could feasibly happen in the U.S. But national security has never stopped the Obama administration from assisting potential terrorists to settle in the U.S. Earlier this year JW reported on a “temporary” amnesty the administration is offering to nationals of Yemen, another Islamic Middle Eastern country well known as an Al Qaeda breeding ground. Under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) illegal aliens from Yemen, headquarters of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), get to stay in the U.S. for at least 18 months. In its latest Country Reports on Terrorism, the State Department reveals that AQAP militants carried out hundreds of attacks including suicide bombers, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), ambushes, kidnappings and targeted assassinations. The media has also documented this for years with one in-depth report confirming that “Yemen has emerged as the breeding grounds for some of the most high-profile plans to attack the U.S. homeland.”

 

Hey Barack, THIS is NOT Contained

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DailyMail: Rapid rise of the death cult: Graphic shows the terrifying spread of ISIS across the globe in just two years as terror groups across South East Asia and Africa queue up to swear allegiance

  • In the past two years, dozens of groups operating across the globe have sworn loyalty to the barbaric extremists
  • It includes jihadis in Uzbekistan, the Philippines and low-lying Russia, while sleeper cells have been formed in Africa
  • Many of the groups have been operating for decades and are responsible for kidnappings, bombings and extortion
  • Aside from their brutality they have one common goal – the establishment of an Islamic state governed by Sharia law

The full scale of Islamic State’s influence can today be laid bare as it’s revealed dozens of terror groups worldwide have pledged their allegiance to the barbaric extremists.

From militia lurking in the jungles of the Philippines to sleeper cells training in the deserts of Libya, a vast array of groups are now claiming to be operating alongside the jihadis’ notorious black and white banner.

It is clear the groups have little in common except their desire to establish their own kingdoms governed by a traditional interpretation of Sharia law. But they are united by one other common principle – they will do anything to realise their goals.

It’s believed more than 40 international groups have pledged their support to ISIS and its ruthless leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured)

It's believed more than 40 international groups have pledged their support to ISIS and its ruthless leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured)

 

Many of the rebel groups operating worldwide have sent fighters to battle with ISIS forces (pictured) in the Middle East, while others simply operate as a symbolic partner.

Many of the rebel groups operating worldwide have sent fighters to battle with ISIS forces (pictured) in the Middle East, while others simply operate as a symbolic partner

Among the atrocities to be attributed to these groups is the use of child soldiers, suicide bombings, gangland-style warfare, kidnappings and extortion.

Frighteningly, the vast majority of them have pledged their allegiance to ISIS either this year or in 2014, suggesting the group is enjoying a rapid growth of influence.

In total, a staggering 42 international groups are believed to have offered support or pledged affiliation to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to the Global Terrorism Index, published last month by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Some, such as Saudi Arabia’s Supporters of the Islamic State in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, may be little more than rag-tag groupings of people inspired by the ISIS banner.

But others, such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram or the Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf, have been operating independently for many years and are among multiple well-established groups to swear loyalty to the organisation.

The degree to which these groups are linked to ISIS also varies – some have made only an offer of support or symbolic association. Others are thought to have sent fighters to the Middle East, or are groups established by ISIS that essentially operate as sleeper cells.

Dr Christina Schori Liang, a senior fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told MailOnline ISIS had simply fostered a brand which was so effective other terror groups wanted to be associated with it.

She said: ‘They appear to others to be very high performance and this increases their legitimacy. If one market dries up they always have others they fall back upon and other terrorist groups can see that.

‘It offers these groups global recognition that they are part of one of the most effective terrorist organisations in the world. It’s just the idea that they’re part of a greater social movement.’

Using methods Dr Liang said were akin to a successful start-up company, ISIS has created its own markets – such as its illicit oil trade – while also spreading itself further to tap into other revenue.

Dr Liang said she feared ISIS and its vast array of affiliates would soon extend beyond their symbolic and ideological ties to start operating like a multinational company.

She explained: ‘It’s kind of like a mafia organisation. Everyone has their own business and if they co-operate more I can see them extending their businesses to one another – so it could enrich them even further.

‘I think of ISIS as always looking for new markets. They may not necessarily get into the [other groups’] market, but will take a piece of the cut.’

Africa

ISIS supporters in Africa include Boko Haram, the deadly Islamic militants operating in Nigeria who made headlines for the mass abduction of schoolgirls in 2014.

Such is the scale of terror the group inflicts on the country’s north-east, Boko Haram was recently named as the deadliest terror group operating today.

Although this requires discounting the estimated 20,000 battlefield deaths caused by ISIS, in terms of sheer acts of terror and wholesale slaughter, the group takes top spot.

Led by the mysterious Abubakar Shekau, the group pledged allegiance to ISIS in March this year. It has been suggested the brutal leader died several years ago but his profile is purposely kept alive as part of the Boko Haram ‘brand’.

The group earned notoriety when it kidnapped several hundred schoolgirls from the city of Chibok, in the country’s north-east. They were forced to convert to Islam and marry members of Boko Haram as slave brides.

Although the Nigerian army has this year recaptured much of the territory seized by Boko Haram in its six-year campaign to carve out an Islamic state, the militants have recently struck back with a surge of deadly raids and suicide bombings.

Some of its latest attacks occurred last month when a string of suicide bombers – now believed to have been children as young as 11 – blew themselves up, killing more than 40 people.

At the weekend, three female suicide bombers attacked a busy market on an island in Lake Chad, leaving at least 27 people dead and 90 injured.

 

A video posted online in January this year purported to show the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, issuing a warning to the Cameroon government

A video posted online in January this year purported to show the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, issuing a warning to the Cameroon government

The group carries out near-weekly attacks across north-east Nigeria, the latest of which was a series of suicide bombings perpetrated by children

The group carries out near-weekly attacks across north-east Nigeria, the latest of which was a series of suicide bombings perpetrated by children

Boko Haram received notoriety last year when it kidnapped several hundred schoolgirls (pictured) from the city of Chibok

 

Boko Haram received notoriety last year when it kidnapped several hundred schoolgirls (pictured) from the city of Chibok

Further north, ISIS-inspired splinter cells have been established in Egypt – where ISIS claimed to have destroyed the Russian Metrojet airliner over the Sinai province. Similar operations are thought to be operating in Tunisia, which has suffered three attacks this year, and Libya.

To the east, Sudan’s longstanding Islamic group Al-Attasam belKetab wa al-Sunna announced in July last year it would endorse ISIS.

The organisation broke with Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood in 1991 to establish a stricter Islamic movement. It is another of many groups to have once been aligned to Al-Qaeda, only to switch allegiance as ISIS gained in prominence.

However, ISIS-inspired groups are no longer limited to north African countries. In Mali the rebel group Al-Murabitoon was said to have declared its support for ISIS in May 2015.

This group was formed by the fearsome one-eyed Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was battle-hardened in the wars against the Soviets in Afghanistan and then against the U.S.-led forces.

However – there remains some dispute about the authenticity of its allegiance after its declaration of support, which consisted of a radio recording, was rejected by Belmokhtar a few days later.

It is likely there is a rift within the organisation and Belmokhtar’s branch of the jihadis may still remain loyal to Al-Qaeda. The organisation claimed responsibility for the Bamako hotel attack last month that left 22 dead.

South East Asia

Just this week, ISIS released a recruitment song in Mandarin aimed at Chinese nationals. However, it’s not entirely clear who the song is directed at.

Insurgents within the country’s ethnic Uyghur population, who are thought to have joined ISIS in the past and are among the country’s 20million-strong Muslim population, do not speak Mandarin.

One of the more far-reaching groups to join the ISIS ranks in recent months is Abu Sayyaf – a small, mobile and deadly terror group which has formed a terrifying reputation within the long-standing Philippines insurgency.

Active across the country’s south, they are only one of many rebel groups attempting to carve out an independent Islamic province in the area.

The group is responsible for atrocities that include kidnapping, rape, extortion and drug trafficking and murder, and in July last year the group pledged allegiance to ISIS. It, like its Middle Eastern compatriots, specialises in kidnapping.

Abu Sayyaf militants are believed to be currently holding nine different hostages, including a Dutch man kidnapped three years ago, two Malaysians and a town mayor.

However, unlike ISIS, which routinely kills those it has taken captive, Abu Sayyaf takes a more practical approach to its kidnappings. They are carried out purely for financial gain, and the terrorists will happily spend several years drawing out negotiations in order to secure a ransom.

In 2004, the group was found to be responsible for the bombing of Superferry 14 – a passenger ship departing the country’s capital of Manila. Some 116 people were killed in the attack, and to date it remains the Philippines’ worst terrorist atrocity.

Although it has been classed as a terrorist organisation by a host of Western countries, Abu Sayyaf treads a fine line between ideological rebellion and criminal enterprise.

Meanwhile, the Bangasamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, led by Ameril Umbra Kato, was formed in 2010 when it broke away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

It too, like a handful of other groups in the area, wants complete autonomy in the country’s south for a new Islamic state. Its leader and founder Kato died earlier this year from health-related issues – just months after the central government launched an operation to arrest him.

They were said to have pledged support to ISIS in August 2014.

Abu Sayyaf militants wearing bandannas and camouflage fatigues rest in the jungle armed with explosives and machine guns

Abu Sayyaf militants wearing bandannas and camouflage fatigues rest in the jungle armed with explosives and machine guns

In 2002, Abu Sayyaf militants took U.S. missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham hostage from a resort in Palawan, in the country's west. A year later, Filipino army troops conducted a rescue operation in which Mr Burnham was killed

 

In 2002, Abu Sayyaf militants took U.S. missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham hostage from a resort in Palawan, in the country’s west. A year later, Filipino army troops conducted a rescue operation in which Mr Burnham was killed

Members of the breakaway Muslim separatist group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters stand guard on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The group pledged its support to ISIS in August 2014

 

Members of the breakaway Muslim separatist group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters stand guard on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The group pledged its support to ISIS in August 2014

The group's leader and founder Ameril Umbrakato (third from right) died earlier this year from health-related issues

 

The group’s leader and founder Ameril Umbrakato (third from right) died earlier this year from health-related issues

Mujahideen Indonesia Timor (pictured), a rebel group operating in Indonesia, is thought to be the first in the country to swear loyalty to ISIS

 

Mujahideen Indonesia Timor (pictured), a rebel group operating in Indonesia, is thought to be the first in the country to swear loyalty to ISIS

Other groups in the country to have declared support for the Middle Eastern jihadis include Ansar al-Khilafah in the Philippines and Ma’rakat al-Ansar.

Next door, Indonesia’s feared Abu Wardah Santoso – the leader of the self-declared Mujahideen Indonesia Timor – remains his country’s most wanted man. According to local media, his group is believed to be Indonesia’s first to swear loyalty to ISIS and is responsible for killing civilians and several of the country’s anti-terror officers.

The third major terror organisation in the area linked to ISIS is Jemaah Islamiah – the group responsible for the 2002 Bali Bombings which killed 202 people.

While it has refrained from openly swearing loyalty or allegiance to its Middle Eastern counterparts, authorities believe the two organisations have close links and there may be up to 200 Indonesian or Malaysian members operating in Syria and Iraq.

Formed in Malaysia in the 1990s while its founders were seeking refuge from the Suharto dictatorship, it has a history of fostering operational links with other jihadi groups within the region.

The Middle East

Unsurprisingly, ISIS enjoys far reaching support closer to its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq. This includes affiliates in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The strength of many of these groups is difficult to determine, and some may be small clusters of ISIS-inspired jihadis, rather than organised terror cells.

However, its reach also extends much further north – to the lower reaches of Russia, where Islamic insurgencies battling Putin have switched over to join ISIS’s global enterprise.

ISIS in the Caucasus Province was created in June this year and lies in south-west Russia, amid a brewing insurgency Putin has battled for years in and around Chechnya.

Some have stated it is no surprise a group has been formed in the region. While it has a history of Islamic insurgency, ISIS is known to cherish the ferocity of the Chechen fighters within its ranks and they are considered prized recruits among the battalions fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Similar to some of the ISIS operations underway in north Africa, it appears to have been established solely as an ISIS cell and was not in existence in a different form prior to this.

However, its leader Rustam Asildarov was recruited from Vilayat Dagestan – a jihadi group created during the Second Chechen War.

It lays claim to areas surrounding Dagestan, Georgia and Chechnya, as well as a handful of provinces in Russia’s south that stretch up to Sochi where the 2014 Winter Olympics were held.

To its east in northern Afghanistan and Pakistan lies a group named the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Operating in the far northern reaches of the countries, and originally emanating from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the group in previous years has been closely allied to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

But this changed midway through 2015 when its leadership publicly switched its allegiance to ISIS.

It is the first Central Asian jihadi group to declare its allegiance to ISIS, though it is not clear if it is the same group referred to as ‘ISIS in the Kohrasan Province’.

This is the moment the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, now based around Afghanistan and Pakistan, publicly swore allegiance to ISIS

 

This is the moment the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, now based around Afghanistan and Pakistan, publicly swore allegiance to ISIS

While its formative years in the 1990s were focused on establishing an Islamic state in Uzbekistan, it has since spread south to combat Pakistani authorities and Western forces in Afghanistan.

The group was designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S. more than a decade ago for its links to Al-Qaeda and due to several high profile kidnappings.

It made headlines after taking a group of Japanese scientists hostage in 1999, and the following year four U.S. mountain climbers were captured. They later managed to escape.

Since 2012 it has been headed by Usman Ghazi when he succeeded a commander killed in a US drone strike.

In recent years the group has been linked to suicide bombings and several gun battles with authorities throughout the Central Asia region, while it also stands accused of drug smuggling. Last year it claimed responsibility for the attack on Karachi airport in Pakistan which killed 39 people.

Early this year, it released a video showing a beheading. Their victim was believed to have been one of 31 people they took hostage from a bus in Afghanistan.

Groups allied to the jihadis have also surfaced in the Gaza Strip – where their main target remains Israel. The Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem was formed three or four years ago.

Compared to many other organisations, it declared its support for ISIS relatively early, in February 2014. Six months later, it had been designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S. for its rocket and IED attacks on Israel.

And in Saudi Arabia, a shadowy group calling itself Supporters of the Islamic State in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques has sworn its allegiance to ISIS.

Though Saudi Arabia has been subjected to ISIS-inspired attacks, it remains unclear how organised the group is, and whether it has received official backing from ISIS.

Last year the group claimed responsibility for the attack on Karachi airport in Pakistan, which killed 39 people

 

Last year the group claimed responsibility for the attack on Karachi airport in Pakistan, which killed 39 people

 

Originally emanating from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was another group to have once been aligned to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda