Obama/Kerry Cant Modify Iran, Cyber Army

Posted on May 3, 2016May 3, 2016 by Denise Simon

Iran’s cyber army – the latest in a series of maleficence

TheHill: In July, when the P5+1 struck a nuclear deal with Iran dubbed as “historic,” administration officials spun it as a first step on a path toward improving Tehran’s behavior. That path hit yet another bump in recent weeks, when Iran launched nuclear-capable missiles in defiance of a United Nations Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal.

In a letter to the U.N., the U.S., France, Great Britain and Germany decried the missile tests. Secretary of State John Kerry speaking on a visit to Bahrain on April 7, 2016, condemned “the destabilising actions of Iran.”

Iran’s Minister of Defense Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan shot back: “If John Kerry actually thought about these subjects, he would no longer utter nonsense and foolish words.” The U.S., he said, should “leave the region and stop supporting terrorists.”

The Iranian regime, in contrast, clearly has no plans to curtail its regional meddling. According to reports from inside the Iranian regime, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has dispatched hordes of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), mercenary militias, as well as groups of regular army forces to Syria in anticipation of new attacks against the opposition and Free Syrian Army (FSA).

In a move unparalleled since the Iran-Iraq war, Khamenei has deployed his military on a large scale abroad.

The missile launches, coupled with the Iranian regime’s expanding role in wreaking havoc in Syria, naturally grabbed the headlines, overshadowing a no less disturbing report by the U.S. Justice Department that Iran was behind a series of cyber attacks against the U.S., targeting at least 46 companies and a dam by 2013. Now, new and stunning intelligence about the scope and depth of the Iranian regime’s investment in a cyber war against the U.S. are widening the anti-terror focus.

According to the U.S. indictment, between 2011 and 2013, hackers linked to the IRGC attacked U.S. financial institutions as well as a flood-control dam 25 miles north of New York City. Other targets included the New York Stock Exchange, Bank of America, and AT&T.

The hackers broke into the command and control system of the dam in 2013, according to Washington, and may have been able to release water from behind the dam if not for the fact that the sluice gate had been manually disconnected at the time of intrusion.

This is an unequivocal warning that the Iranian regime is preparing to mount a larger cyber attack against American infrastructure.

According to new reports from inside the Iranian regime, IRGC commander Mohammad-Ali Jafari has thrown his weight behind designating a “Cyber Force” to act as the IRGC’s “sixth force” – alongside its ground forces, navy, aerospace, extraterritorial Qods (Jerusalem) Force, and domestic Bassij militia.

The IRGC has been deeply involved in cyber warfare aimed at domestic suppression and supporting terrorists abroad since 2007. IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani (killed in late 2015 leading the charge in Syria) announced in 2010, “The Bassij cyber council has trained over 1,500 active ‘cyber jihadis,’” promising that their activities would increase in the near future.

When the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization was formed following the 2009 nationwide uprisings against the theocracy, the Cyber Army was placed under it. In November 2010, the Cyber Army claimed that it had hacked 500 sites simultaneously, while disrupting the intelligence networks and private websites of other counties.

Tehran has no intention of getting “right with the world,” as President Obama once suggested. The Iranian regime is committed to pursuing a strategic war against the U.S. and its allies. Any hopes of change in behavior are illusory at best.

Washington needs to develop a more comprehensive strategy to confront this threat before it’s too late. Since the regime’s cyber force, now targeting U.S. sites was formed to counter social protests and political activism inside Iran, America’s natural allies in this war are the Iranian people and the organized opposition.

Statement before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security/Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies

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In 2014: As international scrutiny remains focused on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program, a capability is developing in the shadows inside Iran that could pose an even greater threat to the United States. The 2010 National Security Strategy discusses Iran in the context of its nuclear program, support of terrorism, its influence in regional activities, and its internal problems. There was no mention of Iran’s cyber capability or of that ability to pose a threat to U.S. interests. This is understandable, considering Iran has not been a major concern in the cyber realm. Furthermore, Russia and China’s cyber activities have justifiably garnered a majority of attention and been widely reported in the media over the past decade. Iran’s cyber capabilities have been considered third-tier at best. That is rapidly changing. This report discusses the growing cyber capability of Iran and why it poses a new threat to U.S. national interests.

Iran in a Cyber Context.

Just as computing power grows exponentially each year, so can an adversary’s cyber capabilities. When one considers the origins of world-class cyber threats to the United States, two countries immediately come to mind—Russia and China. Yet with its growing cyber capabilities and intent to use them, Iran is rapidly striving to earn a position among the ranks of this nefariously elite group. For decades, the U.S. Government has publicly acknowledged concern over Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear program to counter U.S. military capabilities. Recently, the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review stated that, “Over the past 5 years, a top Administration priority in the Middle East has been preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”² This focus on Iran’s nuclear ambitions has distracted many from Iran’s other developing capability. In the last few years, Iran’s cyber proficiency has garnered the attention of a select few government officials and private industry leaders. In late-2011, the executive chairman of Google stated, “The Iranians are unusually talented in cyber war for some reason we don’t fully understand.”³ Stopping a cyber adversary from disrupting activity or stealing intellectual property has been the primary concern of government and private sector organizations, but in the military and intelligence communities, there are other concerns about Iran. More here.

Carter’s Ultimatum to Russia

Posted on May 3, 2016May 3, 2016 by Denise Simon

STUTTGART, Germany (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter blasted what the U.S. and its allies see as Russian aggression in Europe, saying Tuesday that Moscow is “going backward in time” with warlike actions that compel an American military buildup on NATO’s eastern flank.

“We do not seek to make Russia an enemy,” Carter said at a ceremony to install a new head of the military’s U.S. European Command and top NATO commander in Europe. “But make no mistake: We will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, and the positive future it affords us,” he said.

Carter’s remarks reflect U.S. aggravation with Moscow on multiple fronts, including its intervention in eastern Ukraine, its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and what Carter called Russian efforts to intimidate its Baltic neighbors — countries the United States is treaty-bound to defend because they are NATO members.

Carter said the “most disturbing” Russian rhetoric was about using nuclear weapons.

“Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling raises troubling questions about Russia’s leaders’ commitment to strategic stability, their respect for norms against the use of nuclear weapons, and whether they respect the profound caution that nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to brandishing nuclear weapons,” he said.

The end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was thought to have virtually ended the prospect of nuclear conflict with Moscow. But the speeches at Tuesday’s change-of-command ceremony emphasized the possibility of history repeating itself, or at least ending a period of warmer U.S.-Russian relations.

Senior White House officials said the U.S. and its partners were shifting into a new phase focused on military deterrence to Moscow. Additional NATO forces that will rotate through countries on Russia’s eastern flank will be enough to defend NATO countries if Russia were to attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

To that end, the U.S. plans to add a third U.S. Army combat brigade in Europe in the coming year as part of a $3.4 billion initiative, Carter said. On Monday, he said NATO is considering establishing a continuous rotation of up to 4,000 troops in the Baltic states and possibly Poland.

That force, which could include some U.S. troops, is among options expected to be considered at a NATO defense meeting in June. U.S. officials said they were encouraging other NATO members to commit troops to the force as well.

But U.S. attempts to control or direct Russia haven’t fared well. The U.S has been unable to end Russia’s occupation of parts of Ukraine and support for separatist rebels. And Washington is desperately seeking Moscow’s help to enforce a cease-fire in Syria between the Russian-backed government and Western-supported rebels, and eventually usher President Bashar Assad out of power.

On both fronts, the United States has been running into brick walls with the Russians.

U.S. officials said that they had “explicitly compartmentalized” the various issues the U.S. is discussing with Russia. Yet it’s unlikely that Russia’s government sees it that way.

The U.S. and NATO have sought to avoid provoking Moscow more than necessary, such as opting against opening new bases or permanently stationing troops in the Baltic countries. The Kremlin has raised concerns that permanent basing would violate a 1997 NATO-Russia agreement that prohibits permanent basing “in the current and foreseeable security environment,” and senior U.S. officials said that NATO had decided to abide by those provisions.

Carter said he regretted the deterioration in relations with Moscow.

“We haven’t had to prioritize deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank for the past 25 years, but while I wish it were otherwise, now we have to,” he said at an outdoor ceremony, speaking from a podium framed by birch trees and drenched in sunshine.

Carter emphasized his hope that Russia will abandon what he called its confrontational approach.

“The United States will continue to hold out the possibility that Russia will assume the role of a constructive partner moving forward, not isolated and going backward in time as it appears to be today,” he said. “Much of the progress we’ve made together since the end of the Cold War, we accomplished with Russia. Let me repeat that. Not in spite of Russia, not against Russia, not without Russia, but with it.”

Related: Operation Atlantic Resolve

Carter made no mention of two post-Cold War developments that many believe prompted, at least in part, Russia’s turn away from the West, namely, the expansion of NATO to Russia’s very doorstep and U.S. placement of missile defenses in Europe.

“We’ll keep the door open for Russia,” he said. But it’s up to the Kremlin to decide.”

Army Gen. Curtis “Mike” Scaparrotti was installed Tuesday as head of U.S. European Command and the top NATO commander in Europe. Scaparrotti most recently commanded U.S. and allied troops in South Korea and has commanded troops in Afghanistan. He succeeds Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who has pointedly and repeatedly warned that NATO must better prepare for an adversarial relationship with Russia.

Obama Gives Qatar Top Grade, then Trump

Posted on May 2, 2016May 2, 2016 by Denise Simon

Remember it was Qatar that was the designated headquarters for the Taliban, it was also Qatar that provided a ClubMed resort for the 5 former Gitmo detainees traded for Bowe Bergdahl.

Qatar also hosted the Muslim Brotherhood leadership until they quietly expelled but a few, but the faithfulness still remains.

So how could any businessman do business with Qatar with any conscience?

More here from CNN Money.

Obama Gives Qatar Undeserved A+ on Fighting Incitement

Hate Preachers on Qatar Campus: Obama Gives Qatar Undeserved A+ on Fighting Incitement

David Andrew Weinberg

“Kill the infidels… Count them in number and do not spare one.” Blatant religious incitement of this sort feels like such a caricature of radical Islam that it borders on the implausible. Yet it is happening right under the noses of six prestigious American universities on their satellite campuses in Qatar.

Although this incitement violates a prominent pledge by Qatar’s government to the U.S. administration, President Obama gave Qatar’s Emir Tamim a free pass on the issue after they met in Riyadh on Thursday. Their one-on-one meeting was on the sidelines of a U.S.-Gulf summit, following which the President signed onto a joint communique that said America “commended” the Gulf states for their efforts to combat terrorism. Among these, it praised “actions by Gulf partners to counter ISIL’s hateful ideology and message, and more broadly to counter violent extremism.”

Yet there can be no more pivotal component to the Islamic State’s hateful ideology than its call to murder infidels. Thus, even if President Obama has chosen to give the Qatari regime an undeserved A+ report card on combating religious incitement, legislators who represent these public and private American schools must urgently speak out. Similarly, conscientious students, faculty, and other community members at these schools should spread the word and stand up in opposition to this dangerous new development on campus.

These particular hateful remarks about killing infidels were delivered on March 18th by preacher Mudassir Ahmed at the main mosque in Education City – a project of the quasi-governmental Qatar Foundation. The sprawling Education City campus, located not far from downtown Doha, is also home to satellite programs for Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, and Texas A&M Universities. Since the mosque was inaugurated last year, the Foundation has promoted a slew of appearances there by speakers with records of religious incitement.

The Foundation’s newspaper regularly encourages readers to “join the QF community for prayer” at the Education City Mosque and to “avail the services of the Education City buses to and from the mosque.” The Foundation’s Housing and Residence Life office reportedly emailed students to inform them that the mosque’s Friday sermons would be translated into English “to ensure that everyone is benefiting.” As for hate preacher Mudassir Ahmed in particular, the Foundation promoted his sermon in advance on social media, posting and reposting a flier with its logo as well as that of Qatar’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs.

That sermon, however, was not the first time incitement was uttered from the Education City Mosque. Last November, less than a week before Michelle Obama visited Doha to address a conference at the Foundation, Saudi preacher Tareq al-Hawas used its pulpit to condemn “the aggressor Zionists,” urging God to “count them in number and kill them completely; do not spare one.” And just this month, a different preacher with a record of glorifying Hamas (including specifically its military wing) called at the campus’s mosque for God to “render victorious our brothers the mujahideen… in every place” and even to “guide their shooting.”

Such language should not have come as a surprise. Ahmed had delivered similar remarks in a 2013 sermon at Qatar’s state-controlled Grand Mosque, where another preacher called just last year for Allah to “destroy” Christians, Alawites, Shi’ites and Jews. Also in 2013, Hawas reportedly lamented on air that Hitler had not “finished off” the Jews, thus “relieving humanity” of them. And in spite of Hawas’s 2015 incitement at the Education City Mosque, he was just invited back, delivering additional militaristic remarks there on March 11th, just one week before Ahmed’s outrageous appearance.

In fact, every Friday preacher at the mosque this March has had a distinguished past record of religious incitement. Omar Abdelkafi, who addressed the mosque on March 25th, is an Egyptian fundamentalist who recently declared that the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris were “the sequel to the comedy film of 9/11,” in which Muslims “played no part.” He also seems to have instructed pious Muslims not to shake hands with Christians or even walk on the same sidewalk.

And on March 4th, the Education City Mosque hosted Mohammed al-Arefe, a prominent hardliner from Saudi Arabia with more followers on Twitter than Beyoncé. In the past, Arefe has reportedly described Shi’ite Muslims as purveyors of “treachery” and “evil,” and in 2013 as “non-believers who must be killed” according to Human Rights Watch. He has allegedly offered tips on wife-beating, called Osama bin Laden a “sheikh,” and proclaimed that “one’s devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah and one’s will to shed blood, smash skulls, and chop off body parts… constitute an honor for the believer.”

This was not the first time any of these four preachers was permitted to deliver a guest sermon at the Education City Mosque. Nor are they its only speakers with a record of hate speech. When the facility was inaugurated a year ago, the Foundation misleadingly proclaimed that it reflected a “strong commitment” to pluralism.

Yet the mosque’s guest preacher for that very event was Saudi cleric Saleh al-Moghamsy, who had previously opined on Qatari TV that bin Laden died with more dignity than any Christian, Jew, Zoroastrian, apostate, or atheist simply by virtue of being a Muslim. Moghamsy has also asserted that God created women as an “ornament“ to men. Another guest preacher at the mosque has previously declared that “the dumbest girl is that who judges her beauty with the number of those who molest her. This poor idiot girl does no [sic] know that flies fall only on stinking things.”

[“Skyline of Doha at Night”; Source: Wikipedia]

Freedom of speech is a touchstone of the American academy, and freedom of religion is a fundamental American value enshrined in the Bill of Rights. But that doesn’t mean these six U.S. universities should remain silent in the face of such blatant hate speech. President Obama missed a real opportunity to make clear that Qatar’s embrace of such hate preachers violates its 2014 pledge to aid the fight against the Islamic State by “repudiating their hateful ideology.” Even the Emir himself has embraced several such hate preachers in the past year. And providing prestigious platforms to those who advocate killing infidels would seem to be a rather blatant violation of that 2014 pledge.

Further, if these six American colleges turn a blind eye to the problem, they would convey the impression that they care more about Gulf petrodollars than creating a tolerant atmosphere for female students and religious minorities, for whom such incitement could pose even a physical danger on campus. The U.S. universities with programs in Qatar reportedly receive a combined $320 million a year from the Qatar Foundation to sustain their campuses in the energy-rich city state. Cornell alone reportedly receives an astonishing yearly outlay of $122 million.

Of course, such generous, recurring payments give school administrators a powerful incentive to remain silent about the revolving door of hate preachers at the Education City Mosque. But improving the selection of these guest preachers would actually make U.S.-Qatari education programming more sustainable by removing one of the biggest potential obstacles to continued cooperation.

Regardless, these schools may have no choice in the matter. Their students and faculty have already begun to raise concerns about systematic labor abuses in Qatar, as well as potential risks to academic inquiry in a nation that throws people in jail for insulting religion or the ruler.

There are many more people of good conscience in student government, campus groups, faculty bodies, and university boards who would be shocked to learn about the appalling promotion of hate speech inside Qatar’s glittering Education City. They can and should let their voices be heard.

5 Years and the CIA Tweeted, But Obama Admin Still Wrong

Posted on May 2, 2016May 2, 2016 by Denise Simon

Over the weekend, the CIA tweeted about the Usama bin Ladin raid…..emulating events of 5 years ago. Several media outlets wrote pieces saying how weird it was while others were more critical. The CIA twitter feed was full of people even more hostile.

Perhaps none of these people including media took a deeper look at the possible reason as to why the CIA hosted this session. Could it be that the CIA hosted this event to flush out who was participating globally, where they are and to investigate their affiliation or sympathy with terror groups? Of course. Sheesh….I ‘get-it’.

Does anyone realize that al Qaeda is not on the run, has not been decimated much less defeated?

Replaced as the preeminent global jihadist power by the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda nonetheless remains a potent force and dangerous threat, experts say.

With last year’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and a wave of shootings in West Africa, Al-Qaeda has shown it can still carry out its trademark spectacular attacks.

And in Syria and Yemen its militants have seized on chaos to take control of significant territory, even presenting themselves as an alternative to the brutality of IS rule.

Writing for French news website Atlantico in early April, former intelligence officer Alain Rodier said that while IS may have stolen the spotlight, Al-Qaeda may be in a better long-term position.

By rushing to declare its caliphate and establish its rule, IS has made itself an easier target, with thousands of its supporters killed in air strikes launched by a US-led coalition and by Russia.

Its harsh rule has also alienated potential supporters, while groups like Al-Nusra have instead sought to work with local forces in areas under their control.

“The death of Al-Qaeda’s founding father in no way meant the end of his progeny,” Rodier wrote. “This jihad will last for decades.” More here from Dubai (AFP).

In 2011, when Barack Obama ordered all….all military out of Iraq, the country was stable and sovereign and could self govern. Yeah, right. Then Obama’s National Security Advisor, John Brennan, now the Director of the CIA stated that al Qaeda’s goal for a global caliphate was an absurd notion. Really?

Are you still unsure as to how the Obama strategy or rather lack of strategy was concocted?

“Our strategy is…shaped by a deeper understanding of al Qaeda’s goals, strategy, and tactics,” Brennan claimed. “I’m not talking about al Qaeda’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are.”

Sure recently Islamic State has suffered some territorial setbacks as well as financial setbacks, that is a great thing. However, Islamic State just imposed it’s will in the highly protected and fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

The Green Zone, surrounded by thick blast walls topped with razor wire, is off-limits to most Iraqis because of security procedures that require multiple checks and specific documentation to enter. It has long been the focus of al-Sadr’s criticism that the government is detached from the people.

Supporters of al-Sadr have been holding demonstrations and sit-ins for months to demand an overhaul of the political system put in place by the U.S. following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Last summer, demonstrations demanding better government services mobilized millions across Iraq and pressured Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to submit his first package of reform proposals. However, months of stalled progress followed, and in recent months al-Sadr’s well-organized supporters took over the protest movement.

Despite the subdued end to the latest protest, Iraqi officials fear the precedent set by the Green Zone breach will continue to undermine the country’s security.

Earlier on Sunday, car bombs in the southern city of Samawah killed 31 people and wounded at least 52. A police officer said two parked cars filled with explosives were detonated within minutes of each other around midday, the first near government offices and the second at an open-air bus station less than a mile away. On Saturday, an ISIS-claimed bombing in a market filled with Shiite civilians in Baghdad killed at least 21 people and wounded at least 42 others.

Further, al Qaeda is recruiting heavily in Syria those Islamic State fighters leaving the terror battlefield. While recently, there is a major debate underway about the Obama administration releasing the 28 pages about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the 9/11 attack, John Brennan said recently that those documents are full of misinformation and assumed facts now proven to be false. Either way, they need to be declassified, but there will be consequences for going that. However Brennan could be somewhat correct given the trove of documents recovered from the bin Ladin compound. Some of those documents have been declassified and is know at the ‘bookshelf’.

Declassified Material – March 1, 2016 (113 items)

Declassified Material – May 20, 2015 (103 items)

Publicly Available U.S. Government Documents (75 items)

English Language Books (39 items)

Material Published by Violent Extremists & Terror Groups (35 items)

Materials Regarding France (19 items)

Media Articles (33 items)

Other Religious Documents (11 items)

Think Tank & Other Studies (40 items)

Software & Technical Manuals (30 items)

Other Miscellaneous Documents (14 items)

Documents Probably Used by Other Compound Residents

al Qaeda in Syria, Heavy Recruiting

Posted on April 29, 2016April 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Al Qaeda-linked cleric leads new recruiting campaign for jihadists in Syria

By Thomas Joscelyn

LWJ: Sheikh Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini, one of the most influential jihadist ideologues in Syria, has launched a new recruiting campaign that aims to indoctrinate thousands of young men. The mobilization effort, named “Take Up Arms, Do Not Sit Still,” began online and throughout Syria on Apr. 20.

One of the first propaganda videos released for the effort shows Muhaysini speaking in front of a large crowd at a refugee camp. The Saudi cleric, who is linked to al Qaeda, is treated like a rock star at the event. The rally was supposedly led to between 200 and 300 new recruits joining the jihadists’ cause.

Muhaysini begins his speech by blasting Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, Iran and Hezbollah. A clip of Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, is played. “If the battle with those terrorists and takfiris needs me and all Hezbollah to go to Syria, we will go to Syria,” Nasrallah promises.

Muhaysini responds, “We say come, and we swear by Allah we will [introduce] you to the dogs of Sham.”

The jihadist cleric continues by saying that the refugees in the camp had their homes destroyed by Assad and suffered from his barrel bombs. Muhaysini points to an empty tent that he says will be filled with the “new mujahideen,” who “will fill the land of Sham with the blood of the Russians” and the Iranians.

The video, which is just over 10 minutes long and includes English subtitles, is well-choreographed. It appears that a commercial drone was used to shoot footage from overhead. For instance, an aerial shot of the camp (seen on the right) plays as Muhaysini criticizes the youth who live there for failing to join the jihad.

“O you here, know I love you,” Muhaysini says, before imploring the camp’s youth to join the jihadists. He preaches the virtues of martyrdom: “Allah’s religion is awaiting you. What makes you sit? O you hero, are you afraid of martyrdom? Do you know what martyrdom is? It is one bullet in the cause of Allah which makes you leave the life. Then you will become alive in Gardens of Eternity by the Lord of the Worlds.”

Muhaysini calls for all willing males over the age of 15 to make their way to the empty tent. Young men and adolescents then stream in, committing themselves to the jihad against Assad and his allies.

In a second, longer video, Muhaysini is joined by three others and together they explain the purpose of the recruiting drive. The additional men are Abu Namis (a military commander in Liwa al Haq), Sheikh Muslih al Alyani (deputy chair of the Jihad’s Callers Center, which is headed by Muhaysini), and Dr. Ayman Harush (a lecturer at the University of Aleppo).

Muhaysini says the “zeal” of sharia officials in his Jihad’s Callers Center and their comrades in the Scholars League of the Levant, which is another association of sharia officials in Syria, led to the effort. The campaign does not serve any single faction, Muhaysini says, and 200 officials from different groups have spread out across Syria to proselytize.

The Saudi cleric explains how a new recruit is assigned to an organization. Once a young man agrees to join, he is sent to the “central command of the campaign,” which coordinates across the various factions and decides where he goes. They all receive sharia instruction, but only the best are armed. Between 400 and 500 new mujahideen have been selected thus far, according to Muhaysini, who says that they hope to attract 5,000 new jihadists.

Muhaysini says Syrians, including those who fled to Turkey, are being recruited and he hopes that the ideology of jihad takes root throughout the Levant, beyond the immediate call to arms. He adds that the campaign is a response to the Iranian-backed popular mobilization forces fighting in Iraq and Syria, as well as the Shiites’ mobilization throughout the region. Muhaysini criticizes the Sunni scholars who refuse to mobilize the Sunni youth to counter their Shiite adversaries in Iran and Hezbollah.

Harush, the lecturer in Aleppo, justifies the jihad as a defensive one, saying that Iran has brought in fighters from throughout the Middle East to attack the Sunnis. And Abu Namis, the Liwa al Haq official, says that the Sunni factions do not have a surplus of fighters, as some claim. Abu Namis calls on foreign fighters to join their Syrian counterparts.

Muhaysini wears multiple hats inside Syria. In addition to being the chairman of the Jihad’s Callers Center, he is a senior judge in Jaysh al Fath, a rebel coalition that overran the Idlib province in 2015. Jaysh al Fath was co-founded by Al Nusrah Front, which is al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, and another al Qaeda-linked group, Ahrar al Sham.

Muhaysini and some of his supporters online refer to him as an “independent” jihadist. The Long War Journal assesses that this is unlikely and he is probably a senior al Qaeda sharia official. He has numerous connections to al Qaeda’s international network.

He was a student of Sulayman Al Alwan, a jihadist cleric responsible for indoctrinating some key figures within al Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission found that al Alwan even instructed one of the 9/11 hijackers. Muhaysini has defended and spoken fondly of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. In 2014, Muhaysini even issued a proposal for jihadist reconciliation that was timed to coincide with Zawahiri’s own. The initiative was intended to reconcile the Islamic State with its jihadist rivals in the Al Nusrah Front and Ahrar al Sham. While the latter parties agreed to the plan, the Islamic State rejected it.

Muhaysini works closely with Al Nusrah Front and other al Qaeda groups in Syria, such as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and similar ethnic jihadist brigades. His work has been featured in Al Masra, an al Qaeda newsletter launched earlier this year, as well as in the Taliban’s literature. Muhaysini’s popular social media sites are regularly littered with references to al Qaeda, including eulogies for senior al Qaeda operatives killed in American airstrikes.

Numerous al Qaeda-affiliated social media accounts are promoting Muhaysini’s new recruiting campaign.

Images and advertisements from the “Take Up Arms, Do Not Sit Still” campaign

The youth answer Muhaysini’s call to arms:

Men and youth enter the recruiting tent set up at a refugee camp:

Another overhead shot, perhaps recorded by drone, from the event at a refugee camp:

New recruits watching an Al Nusrah Front video:

Some of the campaign’s new recruits:

A banner calling for donations:

An attendee at one of the events records Muhaysini on his phone: