Kerry Ignores ALL Iran Violations

Posted on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

Iran is a known and verified state sponsor of terror, of this there is no dispute. Iran has violated sanctions, agreements, hidden nuclear operations from inspectors and worse the United States has fought against Iran militia factions in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan at least since the 80’s.

Exactly how much slack is Barack Obama, John Kerry and even the other members of the P5+1 going to give Iran at the expense of the continue threat and nuclear operations of this rogue nation? Is there no red-line anywhere? Oh wait…every other country appears to have a red-line but that of the Obama administration either moves, changes color or is simply rhetoric. When foreign nations are leading the charge on stopping Iran, the West needs to take notice.

John Kerry was in Moscow this week meeting with the Russian leadership over Syria, Iraq and most of all Iran. Russia is not going to cooperate with the United Nations resolutions or with any sanctions against Iran. Kerry failed to gain Putin’s agreement.

A Russian official on Wednesday bluntly rejected claims that sanctions on Iran would be restored immediately should the Islamic Republic violate the terms of an agreement to curb its nuclear program, poking a hole in a central White House plank meant to soothe critics of the deal. The Obama administration has stated that Russia agreed “in principle” on the need to reimpose sanctions if Iran fails to comply with the agreement, but the Russian government has never confirmed that it agrees with such a stance.

Exclusive: Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran – sources

The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, U.N. experts and Western sources said.

The incident could add to Western concerns about whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal being negotiated with world powers under which it would curb sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

The negotiators are trying to reach a deal by the end of June after hammering out a preliminary agreement on April 2, with Iran committing to reduce the number of centrifuges it operates and agreeing to other long-term nuclear limitations.

Some details of the attempted purchase were described in the latest annual report of an expert panel for the United Nations Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee, which has been seen by Reuters.

The panel said that in January Iran attempted to buy compressors – which have nuclear and non-nuclear applications – made by the U.S.-owned company Howden CKD Compressors.

A Czech state official and a Western diplomat familiar with the case confirmed to Reuters that Iran had attempted to buy the shipment from Howden CKD in the Czech Republic, and that Czech authorities had acted to block the deal.

It was not clear if any intermediaries were involved in the attempt to acquire the machinery.

There was no suggestion that Howden CKD itself was involved in any wrongdoing. Officials at Prague-based Howden declined to comment on the attempted purchase.

The U.N. panel, which monitors compliance with the U.N. sanctions regime, said there had been a “false end user” stated for the order.

“The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions,” it added.

The report offered no further details about the attempted transaction. Iran’s U.N. mission did not respond to a query about the report.

CONTRACT WORTH $61 million

The Czech state official said the party seeking the compressors had claimed the machinery was needed for a compressor station, such as the kind used to transport natural gas from one relay station to another.

The official declined to say exactly how the transaction was stopped, provide specifications of the compressors or confirm the intended purchaser. However, he made clear it was the Czech authorities who halted the deal

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the total value of the contract would have been about 1.5 billion Czech koruna ($61 million).

This was a huge amount for the company concerned, the previously named CKD Kompresory, a leading supplier of multi-stage centrifugal compressors to the oil and gas, petrochemical and other industries.

The firm was acquired by Colfax Corp. of the United States in 2013 for $69.4 million. A spokesman for Colfax declined to comment.

The United States and its Western allies say Iran continues to try to skirt international sanctions on its atomic and missile programs even while negotiating the nuclear deal.

The U.N. panel of experts also noted in its report that Britain informed it of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to blacklisted firms.

While compressors have non-nuclear applications in the oil and gas industry, they also have nuclear uses, including in centrifuge cascades. Centrifuges purify uranium gas fed into them for use as fuel in nuclear reactors or weapons, if purified to levels of around 90 percent of the fissile isotope uranium-235.

“Such compressors can be used to extract enriched uranium directly from the cascades,” Olli Heinonen, former deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a nuclear expert currently at Harvard University, told Reuters.

“In particular, they are useful when working with higher enrichment such as 20 percent enriched uranium,” he said, adding that precise specifications of the compressors in question would be necessary to make a definitive assessment.

Iran has frozen production of 20 percent enriched uranium, a move that Western officials cite as one of the most important curbs on Iranian nuclear activities under an interim agreement in 2013.

Tehran rejects allegations by Western powers and their allies that it is seeking the capability to produce atomic weapons and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA and the United States have said repeatedly that Tehran has adhered to the terms of the 2013 interim deal.

Pentagon not Nimble to Challenge ISIS PR

Posted on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

The Pentagon has sought the assistance of DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency to collaborate on how best to cultivate the social media success of Islamic State, ISIS.

Social media, propaganda and public relations used by Islamic State is so advanced, effective and cutting edge that our own technology, resources and imagination has not kept pace with the successful methods broadcasted by the terror group.

DARPA developed software technology called MEMEX that can see and access something known as the ‘dark-web’, but dynamic encryption codes stifle efforts to capture communications used by all recognized terror groups where they collaborate on money, planning, movement, people and operations. Further our own government agencies are back to infighting on who takes the lead, what the strategy is and further what powerful countermeasures can be applied to stop the ISIS public relations/marketing machine. Enemies are nimble, the United States intelligence community is not.

Bureaucracy stifles counter-jihad info war

By Bill Gertz

The Pentagon is struggling to counter the information warfare efforts of the Islamic State terrorist group that are effectively exploiting U.S. social media and Western press freedoms to recruit jihadists and communicate among themselves.

Bureaucratic red tape within the military, specifically the U.S. Central Command and Pentagon, is preventing rapid responses to IS propaganda and activities, Inside the Ring has learned from knowledgeable sources.

One problem is the cumbersome approval process needed before U.S. information warriors can carry out counter-actions online. Prior to doing so, they’re required to go through several layers of approvals along a lengthy chain of command.

As a result, in some cases U.S. information operations against IS propaganda were delayed for days or weeks, often making the responses ineffective or useless.

Additionally, U.S. information operations have been weakened and limited in conducting counter-information attacks because of concerns the American hand will be exposed. Another problem has been fear among U.S. higher-ups that IS will step up both information and kinetic attacks in response.

Outright lies — such as false reports of U.S. troops deployments — are more easily countered. But those cases are infrequent. Aggressive online programs to dissuade would-be jihadists and expose IS propaganda programs and activities have been stifled. Counter cyber attacks against known IS operators also have been limited.

The U.S. information warfare effort has been hampered by officials have said is a cultural bias against propaganda activities, which are sometime regarded as contrary to U.S. freedoms. That is said to be changing, however, as terrorist groups like IS and al Qaeda are increasing their use of soft power methods to attack the West. Nation-state information warfare, particularly by China, Russia and Iran, also is gradually being recognized as a growing strategic threat.

The IS information threat was highlighted by the alert issued last week raising the security threat level on U.S. military bases. The alert was prompted by an IS-linked hacker group that posted a notice online warning of an “another surprise for America” — interpreted as a possible attack.

As a result, U.S. Northern Command commander, Adm. Bill Gortney, ordered military bases to tighten security from “Alpha” to “Bravo” level around the country. Force-protection level Bravo is ordered in response to a somewhat predictable terrorist threat.

The group making the threat was the same hacker group that successfully conducted a cyber attack on Central Command’s social media accounts in January, replacing web pages with IS propaganda and the name “Cybercaliphate.”

The group conducted some low-level cyber attacks against several Pentagon web sites last week in attempted “denial-of-service” cyber strikes whose impact was limited.

One example of IS’s online agility is its use of Twitter. IS operatives and supporters are using multiple Twitter accounts to send well-crafted videos and propaganda materials. Usually, IS terrorists open up to six Twitter accounts, with successive accounts being used after one or more of the accounts are shut down by the social media giant, often at U.S. government urging.

One effective propaganda and recruiting video was posted on a Russian Internet site and targeted Central Asia Muslims. The five-minute video was described as extremely professional in both content and production values.

Another trend is a recent shift by IS away from Web-based social media sites to mobile devices that are being used to communicate through text messaging, and propagandize by mobile videos shared directly between hand-held devices.

Additionally, IS information operations to inspire Islamists to conduct attacks in the United States also are shifting to the so-called “Dark Web,” the gray Internet underworld used by criminals to share information and software.

IS also appears to have studied information dissemination methods used by neo-Nazi groups, in order to communicate and spread their message in the English-speaking world.

The target audience for IS includes Islamist sympathizers who are not directly linked to the Syrian/Iraqi based IS terror group.

New Net Assessment chief

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has selected a candidate for the influential post of director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s future warfare and worst-case scenario think tank.

The selection is said to be James. H. Baker, currently the principal deputy director for strategic plans and policy on the Joint Staff, and a key aide to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. In the past Mr. Baker was head of Joint Chiefs chairman’s action group under then-Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen.

Some military and defense officials expressed concern that Mr. Baker will reverse decades of innovative work inside the secretive Net Assessment office led by Andrew Marshall, the 93-year-old academic who stepped down in January.

Mr. Marshall was known as the Pentagon’s “Yoda” and was the only official to hold the director’s post since the office was created in 1973.

Mr. Marshall appointed his deputy, Andrew May, as acting director who was a candidate for the top post. A third candidate who lost out in the selection process was Thomas Ehrhard, currently an aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work.

What concerns several China hawks is Mr. Baker’s reputation as a left-of-center analyst who has sought to minimize foreign threats, especially those from China. Mr. Baker disclosed his conciliatory views on China and advocated for greater unrestricted engagement at a 2013 speech to the Naval War College.

As ONA director, Mr. Baker would be in charge of the office’s annual $15 million budget, and have direct access to Mr. Carter. The Pentagon sought to downgrade the office last year by placing it within the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy. But Congress passed legislation blocking the move and added an additional $5 million for assessments.

Another problem for critics is Mr. Baker’s past role as senior official in the costly F-35 development program. The stealth jet program suffered cost overruns amounting to tens of millions of dollars and left the new frontline fighter with the dubious reputation of being the most expensive aircraft ever built. Unit costs for the three-version jet skyrocketed to between $98 million to $116 million per aircraft.

A Republican foreign policy adviser predicted to Inside the Ring: “James H. Baker will be fired on Jan. 20, 2017 if a Republican is elected president. He’s too partisan and too left wing. Frankly, Hillary Clinton may fire him too.”

A defense official confirmed Mr. Baker will be the next ONA director but declined to comment on his critics.

State issues foreign booze warning

The State Department’s security office recently sent out a warning notice to U.S. companies operating facilities overseas urging Americans to avoid drinking local booze.

The May 5 notice from the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a public-private entity that works with State’s Office of Diplomatic Security, stated that the warning followed the deaths last month in Nigeria of 23 people poisoned after drinking a local gin called ogogoro that apparently was tainted with a pesticide.

“The deadly situation in Nigeria underscores the need for awareness that consuming alcohol abroad comes with various risks that are not necessarily prevalent in the U.S.,” the four-page OSAC notice said.

The alert advised travelers or workers abroad to avoid drinking homemade or counterfeit alcoholic drinks around the world often made with varying levels of toxicity. For example, last year, 24 people died and dozens were injured from drinking a Kenyan bootleg alcohol called kathuvuria, and some 31 people died and 160 injured in India from drinking booze tainted with methyl alcohol.

The alert also warns Americans not to engage in drinking competitions with locals: “Even Australian PM Tony Abbott was celebrated ‘skolling’ (chugging) a schooner (2/3 of a pint) of beer before flipping the empty glass on top of his head at a pub,” the report said.

In South Korea, Americans were warned to avoid getting drunk at parties with business partners, often on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, as part of South Koreans’ efforts to learn “true personalities in a tradition known as hoesik,” the report said.

“This level of inebriation can lead to cultural misunderstandings, ruined business relations or, worse, an increase in exposure to criminality,” the report added.

Obama Has it Both Ways on Iran

Posted on May 13, 2015May 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

Barack Obama has the memo on Iran…in fact all of them and he has dismissed them for the sake of continued talks on the nuclear program. He admits Iran is a sponsor of terror. The president knows full well the history of Iran yet still works diligently to sell an unwritten deal where sanctions and inspections of Iran are not only debatable but suspect at best.

There is chatter that Saudi Arabia has taken delivery of nuclear weapons they funded through Pakistan’s program while the arms race builds in the Middle East as other Gulf States are in talks with acquiring nuclear weapons.

This era has become the most dangerous and threatening in the world since the Cuban missile crisis under Barack Obama, his National Security Council and with John Kerry, Secretary of State. The whole globe understands the full risk of a nuclear Iran as well as their proxy armies deployed in several locations across the world. Terrorism de jour and sponsoring more is the constant mission of Iran.

Obama says Iran sponsors terrorism

WASHINGTON – President Obama is calling Iran “a state sponsor of terrorism” in his first interview with an Arab newspaper, as he tries to sell skeptical regional allies on a nuclear deal with the terror-backing state.

It was his toughest comments about Iran since the US and other nations reached the tentative nuclear pact with Tehran.

Obama gave the interview to the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat on the eve of a Camp David summit with leaders and officials of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which represents Persian Gulf Arab nations — although several heads of state are skipping the Camp David affair Thursday.

“The countries in the region are right to be deeply concerned about Iran’s activities, especially its support for violent proxies inside the borders of other nations,” Obama said, a reference to Hezbollah and other groups.

“Iran clearly engages in dangerous and destabilizing behavior in different countries across the region. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. It helps prop up the Assad regime in Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen,” Obama said.

Obama made his reassuring comments as he prepares to brief Arab allies on the status of the nuclear framework reached with Iran following months of negotiations with the regime that included a half-dozen nations.

Anxious about the Iranian threat, Gulf nations are seeking security guarantees from the US. Obama told the paper “there should be no doubt about the commitment of the United States to the security of the region” and our Gulf partners.

He also called for “working to resolve the conflicts across the Middle East that have taken so many innocent lives and caused so much suffering for the people of the region.”

“When it comes to Iran’s future, I cannot predict Iran’s internal dynamics. Within Iran, there are leaders and groups that for decades have defined themselves in opposition to both the United States and our regional partners,” the president said.

“I’m not counting on any nuclear deal to change that. That said, it’s also possible that if we can successfully address the nuclear question and Iran begins to receive relief from some nuclear sanctions, it could lead to more investments in the Iranian economy and more opportunity for the Iranian people, which could strengthen the hands of more moderate leaders in Iran. More Iranians could see that constructive engagement — not confrontation — with the international community is the better path,” he added.

Obama also said the US was taking a “hard look” at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and called for both sides to demonstrate a “genuine commitment” to a two-state solution.

It appears Obama isn’t taking Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s decision to skip the Camp David summit too hard. The newspaper is controlled by the king’s sons.

Iran’s weapons program continues to advance and any inspections are out of the question of their nuclear sites as told by Iran’s leadership.

Iran rejects Amano’s remarks on access to military sites

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – AEOI spokesman said IAEA chief‘s interpretation of the Additional Protocol on getting access to Iran’s military sites is his own subjective interpretation, although Iran has reservations about it.

“Amano has not dictated any obligation for Iran but rather presented his own subjective interpretation of the Additional Protocol about which we have our reservations,” AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told IRIB on Wednesday, while referring to an Associated Press interview with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano on Tuesday.

Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday that a nuclear agreement being worked on by Tehran and the six states would give his experts the right to push for access to Iranian military sites.

Kamalvandi clarified, however, that the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s safeguards agreements does not oblige its signatories to allow inspections to their military sites.

“First of all, Iran has neither approved nor implemented the Additional Protocol yet; secondly, no article of the protocol dictates a specific obligation regarding access to the military sites of the signatories,” he asserted.

Kamalvandi added that under the Additional Protocol, access to the sites demanded by the UN nuclear agency requires evidence and the IAEA must take into account the considerations of the signatories, including security considerations.

“If a signatory has a reason to refrain from allowing a visit to the site, the Additional Protocol has permitted access to areas adjacent to the ones demanded by the IAEA or the use of other means of inspection,” he said.

He emphasized that if Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol, it would fulfill its commitments in accordance with the document.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will not allow inspections of its military facilities under the pretext of nuclear inspections.

Amano’s remarks came as Iran and the 5+1 negotiators kicked off a new round of deputy-level talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna on drafting the text of a final deal over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran and the 5+1 countries – the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany – are seeking to finalize a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program by the end of June. The two sides reached a mutual understanding in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2.

Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday that a nuclear agreement being worked on by Tehran and the six states would give his experts the right to push for access to Iranian military sites.

He emphasized that if Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol, it would fulfill its commitments in accordance with the document.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will not allow inspections of its military facilities under the pretext of nuclear inspections.

Obama, Tattle-Tail Runs to UN on Law Enforcement

Posted on May 13, 2015May 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

Obama and his previous and current U.S. Attorney General at the Department of Justice are on an alarming mission to destroy law enforcement across the United States, calling their work violations of human rights. Obama has chosen to whine about police departments in America to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Really? Is he asking for the United Nations to apply sanctions to our law enforcement?

The UN Security Council is and never has been a judge of Human Rights where countries like Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria are omitted from his diatribe and are ignored by the UN as well.

Anyone remember Hamas using children as human shields during the last round of hostilities in Gaza?

Congress has stopped Barack Obama from transferring Guantanamo detainees and closing the facility while the White House has been sneaky and doing transfers and trades without advising Congress. Barack Obama is working to stop all death penalty sentences in America but he says little about sex trafficking, known slavery by other countries and worse he has no interest in protecting the slaughter of Jews and Christians in the Middle East.

Obama’s twisted logic is to report what he considers misguided adherence to law to the United Nations inviting other countries to participate our domestic debates. Simply stated, Barack Obama is deferring oversight of our justice and legal system to an international corrupt institution.

Remember that ‘red-line’ Obama declared on the use of chemical weapons in Syria? Crickets as Syria continues to use chlorine barrel bombs against citizens. Is there any doubt that Obama really does hate America? Shameful…

Obama Admin Apologizes to U.N. for American Cops

Promises to prosecute those who “wilfully use excessive force.”

The Obama administration apologized Monday to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council for American law enforcement personnel whom it described as “willfully us[ing] excessive force,” at times with racist motivation. In its defense of its handling of the issue, the administration touts prosecuting over 400 law-enforcement officials and committing itself to take down those found guilty in the future.

The Associated Press reports that the U.N. human rights council—which includes dozens of countries with deplorable human rights records—voiced “widespread concern” about unjust practices by American police. The Obama administration responded by vowing to “rededicate” itself to ensuring that “our civil-rights laws live up to their promise” and touting its punishment of out-of-control personnel:

“We must rededicate ourselves to ensuring that our civil-rights laws live up to their promise,” Justice Department official James Cadogan told delegates, adding that that is particularly important in the area of police practices and pointing to recent high-profile cases of officers killing unarmed black residents.

“These events challenge us to do better and to work harder for progress through both dialogue and action,” he said at the session’s opening. He added that the government has the authority to prosecute officials who “willfully use excessive force,” and that criminal charges have been brought against more than 400 law-enforcement officials in the past six years.

The council presented calls for changes to other U.S. policies, including abolishing the death penalty, curbing NSA surveillance programs, and closing Guantanamo Bay.

Administration officials responded with the standard non-answers. On execution, Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Bitkower explained that the “controversy” over executions in America was an ongoing “extensive debate.” As for U.S intelligence gathering, Bitkower vaguely defended the programs by saying they are “subject to stringent and multilayered oversight mechanisms.”

As for the call to close Gitmo, Brig. Gen. Richard Gross said President Obama has called shutting down Gitmo a “national imperative” and remains committed to the cause despite being thwarted by Congress. The remaining inmates after Obama’s transfer of many in recent years, the administration maintained, were all there legally.

The U.S. human rights review was part of the “Universal Periodic Reviews” of U.N. members. The reviews occur every four years. This is the second such review for the U.S, the last occurring in 2010.

Tunisia, Revolution Then and Now and Again

Posted on May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 by Denise Simon

The new normal is here and it suggests that protests, aggressions, hostilities and war is part of the every day future unless a multi-track cure is introduced.

In 2013, it was said ‘North Africa is the next frontier in the War on Terror’….

From a 2011 summary on the Arab Revolution:

A year ago, 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi was getting ready to sell fruits and vegetables in the rural town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Bouazizi was the breadwinner for his widowed mother and six siblings, but he didn’t have a permit to sell the goods. When the police asked Bouazizi to hand over his wooden cart, he refused and a policewoman allegedly slapped him. Angered after being publicly humiliated, Bouazizi marched in front of a government building and set himself on fire. His act of desperation resonated immediately with others in the town. Protests began that day in Sidi Bouzid, captured by cellphone cameras and shared on the Internet. Within days, protests started popping up across the country, calling upon President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his regime to step down. About a month later, he fled.

The revolution begins…

Predictions are important and are based on historical facts, current conditions, tracking people, policy, money and weapons. To see into the future, analysts must form dynamic summaries and then work to give credibility to them or alter them daily as new ground conditions dictate. Is there another Arab Spring, Summer or Fall coming? All clues and symptoms point to yes.

In part from Reuters, Africa:

“We exhausted all our options,” said Zied Salem, who graduated in mathematics nine years ago but made a living from smuggling until a government clampdown ended even that. “After the revolution we had a dream but now they stole our dream.” Salem warned Tunisia’s democratically-elected leaders that they risked suffering the same fate as autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who fell in the 2011 revolution. “If they do not provide us jobs quickly, their lives will be darker. We will revolt and expel them like Ben Ali,” said Salem, who pitched his tent in front of the phosphate company’s office. Despair is not new. In late 2010, a young man burned himself to death in protest, setting off the revolution that swept Tunisia to democracy and the region into uprisings.

Between the Islamic State and al Qaeda in Tunisia

by Aaron Zelin

If al-Qaeda and IS operatives in Tunisia decide to challenge each other for local jihadist supremacy, the result could be more high-profile attacks that threaten the country’s summer tourist industry. Over the past month, there are increasing signs that The Islamic State (IS) intends to build a base and set up a new wilayah (province) in Tunisia in the near future named Wilayat Ifriqiya, a medieval name for the region of Tunisia (as well as northwest Libya and northeast Algeria). This would challenge al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib’s (AQIM) Tunisian branch Katibat ‘Uqba ibn Nafi’s (KUIN) monopoly on insurgency and terrorism since their campaign in Jebel Chambi began in December 2012, opening another front in the broader AQ-IS war. As a consequence, outbidding between these two adversaries could lead to an escalation in violence, with Bardo National Museum style attacks becoming more common.

THE ISLAMIC STATE SIGNALING IN TUNISIA

In mid-December last year, IS directed its first overt message to the Tunisian state and its people. Aboubaker el-Hakim (who went by Abu al-Muqatil in the video) claimed responsibility for the assassination of Tunisia’s secular leftist politicians in 2013 — “Yes, tyrants, we’re the ones who killed Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi” — thus confirming the Ennahda-led government’s suspicions that he was involved. Beyond calling for more violence and for Tunisians to remember its imprisoned brothers and sisters, he also called upon the Tunisian people to pledge bay’a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to raise the banner of tawhid (pure monotheism) and to rip down the flags of Charles de Gaulle and Napoleon (alluding to the historically close relations between Tunisia and France). This was followed on April 7th by Abu Yahya al-Tunisi of IS’s Wilayat Tarabulus in Libya, who urged Tunisians to travel to Libya for training in order to establish and extend the writ of IS back at home. Only two days later, a new media account, Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya (Soldiers of the Caliphate in Ifriqiya) Media Foundation, was created. While unofficial, it foreshadowed the targeting of Tunisia in much the same way the establishment of al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa (The Indissoluble Link) Media foreshadowed the pledge of bay’a given by Boko Haram to IS in March 2015. Besides IS’s claim of responsibility for the Bardo National Museum attack (which the government actually believes KUIN was responsible for), Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya Media announced IS’s first claim of responsibility for an insurgent attack in Jebel al-Meghila, near the town of Sbeitla. Additionally, Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya Media claimed responsibility on April 22 for a separate attack in Jebel Salloum, in which one of its Algerian fighters was killed (signaling to Tunisians as well that other nationalities were within its ranks.) This was followed by IS official media disseminators, including Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya Media, claiming responsibility for attacks in Tunisia on May 2, also in Jebel Salloum. This increasingly formalized approach suggests that the official announcement of a new wilayah may be imminent.

AL-QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHRIB’S TUNISIAN GAMBIT

Although KUIN was first identified as a Tunisian cut-out for AQIM in December 2012 by then Tunisian Interior Minister Ali Larayedh, it was not until mid-January 2015 that the battalion publicly acknowledged the association. This pledge was reaffirmed by KUIN following the death of its leader Khalid Shaaib (Abu Sakhr Lukman) in late March and was an attempt to consolidate strength following false rumours that the KUIN might switch sides to IS. These rumors emanated in part from a statement by KUIN showing support for IS though there was no indication of bay’a. The need to distinguish between general support and a religiously-binding pledge of allegiance is vital — AQAP released a statement in support of IS in Iraq after the fall of Mosul last year. KUIN has also identified with Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) when announcing martyrs, highlighting how some of its fighters are former members. AST has become largely defunct however, with members either being arrested, going abroad to fight and train in Syria and Libya, or joining up with KUIN followings its designation by the Tunisian government as a terrorist organization in late August 2013. Since it first entered the public gaze, KUIN has remained obscure, maintaining a low-level insurgency with the Tunisian military for 2.5 years in Jebel Chambi. Members have also been arrested for attempted attacks in different cities of Tunisia as well as for weapons smuggling. More recently it has increased its online profile, at first through the Fajr al-Qayrawan Facebook and Twitter account and then Ifriqiya Media, a well-known non-partisan aggregator of online jihadi releases from all African-based jihadi organizations. Only this past weekend, KUIN created an official media outlet for itself called al-Fatih (the conqueror). Up until then, the main content it released showed pictures of its fighters, martyrs, training camps, graphics with quotes from the Qur’an and ghana’im (spoils of war) from its past operation in Hanchir Ettala.

WHAT NOW?

While KUIN has been involved in a low-level insurgency for 2.5 years, it has not altered the status quo in Tunisia. Therefore, if IS attempts a full-scale terrorist or insurgent campaign in Tunisia, pressure on KUIN could mount and an outbidding scenario of escalating violence could ensue. It could also put more pressure on the Tunisian state, which has up to now been able to maintain control against jihadis since the revolution. That said it is possible one or both organizations might attempt a large-scale attack that would gain a huge media audience, given the onset of tourist season. Moreover, in the aftermath of the Bardo National Museum attack, supporters of IS flipped the popular meme #IWillComeToTunisiaThisSummer in support of the Tunisian tourism industry on its head by showing off with bullets and weapons, intimating that they too would be coming to Tunisia this summer. Vigilance from both the state and the public, then, will be vital in maintaining order and diminishing the effects of violence.