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ISIS Master Plan Documents Located

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The Isis papers: a masterplan for consolidating power

24-page document, translated here, outlines principles for governing territory under the group’s control and strategy for becoming a viable state

Islamic State exercise training camp, northern Iraq.
Boys known as the ‘caliphate cubs’ hold rifles and Islamic State flags as they exercise at a training camp in Tal Afar, near Mosul, northern Iraq. Photograph: AP

 

Islamic State

Caliphate on the prophetic methodology

In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful:

“No, by your Lord, they will not believe until they have you rule over them in what they have disagreed and find in themselves from what you have judged and willingly submit.”

Principles in the administration of the Islamic State – 1435AH [2103-2014]

Introduction

In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful

As for what follows:

After 50 years of jihad whose sides have fallen prostrate in the totality of the land, and the states gathered against the centres of the Sunni jihad in the world, God ennobled his true soldiers whom he selected to establish the caliphate state whose fortresses had fallen at the hands of global Zionism in al-Astana [Istanbul] 100 years ago. [Note: This is a reference to the end of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924].

Indeed the establishment of the Islamic State, its concept does not stand on the basis of a mujahid soldier fighting and bearing his arms, nor does it rest on da’wa [evangelising] in a mosque or a street, but rather it is a comprehensive system requiring the leaders of the ummah [Muslim nation] to realise its concepts.

So on the expansion of the Islamic State, the state requires an Islamic system of life, a Qur’anic constitution and a system to implement it, and there must not be suppression of the role of qualifications, skills of expertise and the training of the current generation on administering the state.

From the start of the uprising of blessed Syria against the Nusayris [derogatory for Alawites], the mujahideen came in great numbers out of zeal for their religion. But some of them harboured Arab nationalist and tribalist arrogance, and others a zeal and will without shari’a aims.

But it was inevitable that there would be an organisation of these numbers and their principles as a shari’i [Islamically legitimate] organisation accepting the current reality that the world marshalled against it from its soldiers and intelligence services.

And from then there would be the confrontation of altering the principles and selling out to which the first mujahideen [fighters] did not show deference in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and elsewhere.

And from then there would be the cultivation of educational and societal change with which the muhajireen [immigrants] co-existed and organisation of their ranks with the ansar [natives] – the people of the land.

And there were many challenges and difficulties that one would have to deal with according to its establishment and according to its special ideological programme, and one must deal with each one of them on an individual basis.

Chapter one

Announcement of the Islamic Caliphate

The announcement of the renewal of the caliphate in Iraq in the year 1427AH [2006] was the arbiter between division and separation as well as the glory of the Muslims. That year was tantamount to the hemiplegia for the idolatrous west that began preparing equipment and projects to strike any project of the Islamic State, and the announcement of the caliphate.

And the announcement of the caliphate was the result of the mujahideen’s realising the lack of advantage in fighting against the idolaters without the existence of a leader and caliph who could gather the Muslims under his banner and be a figure of strength for them.

America and its allies were able to destroy the caliphate project [ie the Islamic State of Iraq] to a great extent in Iraq after they established the Sunni Iraqi Sahwa forces [Sunni Awakening tribal forces that fought the Islamic State of Iraq] and struck the Sunni nursemaid [ie basis of Sunni support for the Islamic State of Iraq], by portraying it as a treacherous terrorist state of hypocritical political projects, with great marshalling of the media to accomplish that. The deeds of the soldiers of the state thus became limited to security operations to strike American targets and their allies.

After the arising of the blessed uprising of Syria, the Islamic State had a great role in striking the Nusayris in it and destroying the pillars of the rule of Assad in the heart of the command centres.

And it has therefore been the case that the lesson to be learned from the prior leaders of the state is the way to benefit from prior mistakes, and the means to preserve the revolutionaries of Syria on the jihadi trend while not moulding them in a western framework which that western support brings.

And in the second chapter is a statement on the administration of the muhajir (foreign) mujahid in particular and developing the creed of the Islamic State among the ansar in Syria.

The announcement of the caliphate in Syria was a powerful blow that the agents of the west who were set on the direction of the Sahwat of Iraq by whom the west thought that it could put an end to the Islamic caliphate project as it had weakened it in Iraq did not expect.

There were new modified problems that the leadership of the state was able to deal with, among them [Abu Muhammad] al-Joulani, [Note: the leader of al-Qaida in Syria formerly of Islamic State] announcement of his rejection of joining the Islamic State despite his allegiance to the caliph in Iraq, and in that he was trying to split the ranks and sabotage the project in subordination to his personal agendas bound with regional states, and his rejection was a confrontation for the Islamic project that God gave victory to despite the multitude of those discouraged and the callers to humiliation and servitude.

And the one who witnesses the events of Syria sees how God has given might to the Islamic State and lowered Joulani and those with him.

Chapter two

Organisation of the individual and group

With the entry of the second year of the uprising of Syria, the Shia militias of various nationalities entered Syria to fight at the side of the Nusayri-Rafidite [Assad] regime which flaunted its crimes with regards to the Sunnis, which led to a global Islamic uprising represented in the hijra [migration] of thousands of Muslim youths to fight in the rank of the Sunnis from the various regions of the land.

Thousands migrated to Syria to fight alongside the mujahideen, without their knowing the direction of any faction, its affiliation or private agendas.

It was necessary to prepare a sound programme in which the muhajireen might take refuge as their jihad is the result of the glory to Islam and the monotheists.

So the announcement of the caliphate was the obligation that gathers those arriving in the land of jihad, strengthens their hearts – and through it their minds are set – and gathers them over the difference of their colours under one banner, one word and one caliph

The majority of the first muhajireen came from the Gulf states and the Arabic Maghreb whose zeal for their religion urged them on, and among them were those with zeal for their Arab Sunni brothers without religious jihadist inhibition, and without there being for them prior expertise in global jihadi organisations.

After them was hijra [migration] from the states of the world after the announcement of the caliphate, as no disbelieving state has remained which hasn’t also suffered from the hijra [migration] of its youth to support the Islamic State which the soldiers of Joulani and the apostate Sahwa forces from the Free [Syrian] Army and others besides them rejected.

And after that, Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ordered to establish a first camp which included the new muhajireen [immigrants] who had no deeply ingrained expertise and creed, near the prior borders for the Sykes-Picot “Iraq-Syria” lines.

And the camp included the organisation of the muhajir [immigrant] individual in the Islamic State and laying aside local tribalism and ignorance before him, and making his affiliation to the religion alone and under one banner.

And the camp included nurturing the spirit of the brothers between the muhajireen and the ansar through laying aside the prior identity for the muhajir, and making him a resident in the Islamic State with his family without feelings of estrangement or distinguishing between him and his brothers from the muhajireen and the ansar.

And without Islam it is not possible for this change to be included which encountered difficulty in the beginning on account of place affiliation that the mujahideen felt on the day of their fight with the Free Army Sahwa and inclinations of nationalism and ethnic division which was making the muhajir lose his zeal to fight alongside them.

And there resulted from the camp the formation of joint fighting groups between the muhajireen and the ansar established on the basis of the leadership of the individual most capable of bearing responsibility, having prior expertise and the military and sharia [law] tests of the camp.

And there also resulted from the camp the formation of groups composed of the muhajireen from the western states in particular in view of the difficulty of linguistic communication in the beginning and launch stage and in view of the mutual understanding and precedence of coordination between some of the muhajireen from Chechnya and France to fight in single cells without the existence of any distinction for members from those besides them [ie there was no differential treatment on the basis of ethnic identity].

And it was inevitable that Arabic character should precede over the character of the muhajireen, for the language of the Qur’an is Arabic, and the prophetic hadiths [sayings] are in Arabic and the customs of Islamic society were Arabic in great part, and in view of the nature of the local society of the peoples of Syria it was inevitable that Arabic character should be cultivated in the language and religious culture in the muhajireen and laying aside the foreign identity that bears in its hidden nature hostility to Islam, its culture and its roots.

For unifying the life of the mujahid and his language and culture is the guarantor for unifying the rank of the mujahideen and realising their total belonging in the Islamic State that includes muhajireen from every corner of the earth.

Chapter three

Administration of the camps

The preparatory camp is the first home and school of the mujahid in which his military and jihadi training sessions take place and he undergoes sufficient education in matters of his religion, life and jihad.

And according to the plans of the Islamic State to nurture the caliphate generation, the camps are divided into three types:

1. Continuation camps

And these are special camps for the mujahideen who lead in the jihad and those who are masters of expertise in managing and planning the battle in beginning and end. And the camp includes physical preparation for 15 days. And that is in a training session every year, and the mujahid through that camp comes upon the latest arts of using weapons, military planning and military technologies currently put forth in battles and weapons whose use by the enemy are anticipated, along with detailed commentary on the technologies of enemy use of the weapons, areas of their use, their strength and how the soldiers of the state can take advantage of them.

2. First preparation camps

For the mujahid on the day he joins the Islamic State, whether as a muhajir or from the ansar: and the camp includes sharia sessions through which the mujahid studies the fiqh [jurisprudence] of the rulings, Islamic doctrine, al-wala’ and al-bara’ [loyalty and disavowal], in addition to the arts of fighting and the arts of using weapons, with screening of every mujahid in a specialty in which he excels and completing his camp according to his skill in specific weapons.

3. Preparation camp for children

The camp includes sharia sessions in fiqh of doctrine and rulings, with special sessions in Islamic society and manners, and training on bearing light arms and the principles of use.

Outstanding individuals are selected from them for security portfolio assignments, including checkpoints, patrols and the various Amniyat units [internal security units].

And the camps administration is responsible for planning, aims and results, and as the results of the camp should be in alignment with the aims and principles of the Islamic State, it has been necessary to establish a centre for the administration of the camps whose tasks are as follows:

1. Preparing special sharia sessions in the camps in coordination with the al-Buhuth and al-Eftaa [fatwa – legal opinion] committee.

2. Preparing educational programmes to teach the Arabic language and recitation of the Qur’an in coordination with the Diwan al-Ta’aleem [department of education] for every province.

3. Preparing military programmes teaching the types of weapons and military tactics with the supervision of the military commander in every province.

4. Studying expenditures and allowances for every camp whose study and analysis are to be completed by the military leader or wali [governor] of every area according to the needs connected with every wilaya [province] and submitting the study to the wali.

5. Overseeing the selection of the educational and training staff in the camp.

6. Putting in place detailed planning and programmes on the course of the battle.

7. Tracking the supervision of the camp according to the defined programmes.

8. Assessing the camp session and raising a report to the officials concerning the readiness of the session after the camp.

Chapter four

Direction administration

The mujahid [soldier] remains in need of direction and tracking after his completion of the special training session for him, for spiritual direction is the foundation of his success in every matter he undertakes and the mujahid’s direction in every stage will consist of reminding him of the aims of the Islamic State and hadiths [prophetic sayings] on the virtue of the mujahid and persevering and continuing despite the difficulty of the path of jihad.

1. Direction before the battle

And here the military commander for the mission or the sharia official accompanying him should undertake it, and the direction should be a little before the launching of the mujahid to battle through mentioning hadiths on the virtue of jihad and endurance on encountering the enemy as well as following the decisions and instructions of the field commander during the battle, along with the virtue of martyrdom in the path of God to raise the banner of Islam and the caliphate and the virtue of the one struck with wounds in the land of the battle. All this should be done during the readying and preparation for the battle. And the director oversees the mujahideen in all their moments until their absence from him in the battle.

And the director should not be discouraged, having doubts, hesitating or cowardly because he is the example that the mujahid summons whenever the furnace of the battle flares up.

2. Direction after the battle:

In the event of victory, the director summons what came from the Prophet from sayings on the virtue of the mujahid and their feelings that what they have accomplished aspires to be in the service of their religion and creed, with their being reminded to embrace the instructions coming from the battle leadership from the rulings of spoils and not adopting any decision to plunder the wealth of the people except by its rights and by explicit order from the commander responsible.

In the event of being broken, the direction should be on patience, reckoning and steadfastness on meeting the enemy while not heeding those having doubts and those who spread rumour and terror in the ranks of the soldiers.

3. Lasting direction:

Remaining on activity and steadfastness with the mujahid in all his states and lessons in al-wala and al-bara [loyalty and disavowal] as well as fiqh, Islamic creed and listening to and obeying the amir [leader].

The staff of direction in every province should be from the cream of the crop of free sharia and military officials who have the ability to argue, convince and encourage as well as from the soldiers around whom the group have congregated and should be possessors of confidence among them.

Chapter five

Organisation of the provinces

The Sykes-Picot agreement and after them the indirect rule of the west over the states of Islam tried to place administrative borders drawing social, madhhabist and ethnic differences in every region, and deepening the roots of the differences between the Sunni Muslims.

Thus the distinction of the Sunnis from the Shia in the provinces of Iraq and oversight of the centres of administration in every Sunni region, and even the appointment of officials in the Sunnis’ regions from the filth of the Rafidites have been clear, while the regions have been entrusted under the rule of [their own] Kurdish and Shia sects independent in decision-making from the ruling presidency as we have seen in Kirkuk and Irbil and in even smaller regions including from them in the cursed Najaf and Karbala and that have enjoyed “religious” administrative independence, unannounced.

All those divisions have also forbidden the Sunnis from the simplest of their rights while making the Nusayris masters of the sea, and the Shia in Iraq the kings of oil and the merchant pathways, and the Yazidi Kurds the sheikhs of the mountains while the Druze have become masters over the mountains overseeing Israel.

All that has not merely been a coincidence, but it was a dirty political decision in order to implement a tightening stranglehold on the Sunnis and make them the most remote people and strip them of all assets for advancement or thinking of a rightly-guided Islamic State.

If we were to see today the borders of the Islamic State and the borders of the Sunnis regions, we would see them torn apart, besieged and persecuted, for there are the Shia from the south of Iraq, the Nusayris from the west of Syria and the communist Kurdish parties to their north, and the Druze to their south.

So it is no surprise that today we see the bloodshed flowing in the land of Syria and Iraq.

So it has been from the law and sound mind to redraw the borders of the provinces and give lengthy consideration to every development that occurs in the region. Thus we protect the power of the Sunnis and strengthen its expansion and focal points, and then special teams can be deployed for fundamental change in the structuring of the regions that are subject to the rule of the Islamic State.

And that was what the companions [of the Prophet Muhammad] and after them the caliphs pursued against every heretic community: that is, dispersing their groupings so there no longer remained any impeding opinion, strength or ability, and the Muslim alone remains the master of the state and decision-making and no one is in conflict with him.

And in what there is no doubt is the fact that among the assets of the ummah [Islamic nation] are: its wealth, the nature of its land, its inhabitants and its water. And in everything is distinction:

1. Wealth of the state

It is the principal component and source of financing for all internal and external operations, and the existence of secure financial resources whose value does not change in every time and place is a must – and the need of the people for them should be clear with the nations unable to do without them despite the existence of the impediments that prevent their use and purchase from the land of the state.

This includes oil and gas and what the land possesses including gold as currency that does not deteriorate or decline, as well as trade routes from which they have no wealth and all of it should be the intervention of the Islamic State as a powerful side in all their plans and such that they cannot pretend that it has no existence and might.

2. The nature of its land

The state cannot remain without the existence of the land that allows for its continuation and expansion, for the assets of the land are – the mountains, the agricultural lands, the sea and the river – for these natural assets are what makes the Islamic State acquire its importance and the importance of location, and the agreement of the west in Sykes-Picot were established on the basis of depriving the Sunnis from those assets, as the mountains were granted to the Kurds, Druze and Alawites, while the sea was granted to the Rafidites and Nusayris, while the river and what surrounds it in investment for the Jews and the agricultural lands under their administration.

And that was a new setback that was added to all the ambitions in establishing the Islamic State and freeing it from servitude of the filthy Nusayris and the disbelieving Rafidites [Alawites and Shia]. When there is no asset for them the enemy have been shut on their openings from every side.

3. The traitorous governments have tried to mislead the Sunni peoples in every Arab land, as corrupt programmes were introduced for them and there spread among them the love of vice, bonds, bribery, usury and abandoning worship and forgetting the rulings of jihad. So the Sunnis in Syria have lived in a new ignorance after ignorance during the French occupation of their land as there was the Alawite government that planted its vices in every house, permitted the forbidden and made forbidden development and civilisation.

But after the uprising undertaken by the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria and their getting rid of the servitude to the tyrants began the second plan that requires implementing the “demographic” change in their regions and expelling the Sunnis from their areas, for it has been what we saw in Fallujah, Aleppo, Homs, Tikrit and other areas besides them from the regions of the Sunnis many of whose people have suffered during their presence in their land.

Indeed they realise that the Islamic State cannot renew the ummah’s blood without a human member capable of always producing, and there was the alluring of the best of its youth and plundering the land with hijra outside their areas and liquidating many of them.

And today it is necessary to have a studied plan that responds in kind and brings about like change in the profane abode of disbelief, expelling its people and killing its people until there is no base for them and the land is for God and his servants.

And in turn implementing the plans that include the return of the Muslim youth to their land and bringing together the skills from the land of the Muslims, and the going out of the state for specialised staff in their fields if they are not of those of the pact in Islam [ie Jews and Christians].

Chapter six

Administration of wealth

Indeed the might of the Islamic State can only be through its being free entirely from all bonds of tyranny that the west possesses as means of leverage against it, and it moves them according to its need and whim based on knowing from it the need of the mujahideen for support, wealth and weapons.

Jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria have lived through long bonds of humiliation pledged on conditional western support, until they seized wide areas of the land and possessed all assets of advancement.

And all of that is on account of the ignorant administration that controls them and keeps them under western guardianship for all their activities, wars and expansion.

Indeed the Islamic State’s seizure of vast areas includes all assets of advancement that does not suffice without the existence of an administration managing the interests and managing the crises. So it is necessary for a plan to be put in place including the might of the state and its independence as we specify in the following points:

– Preserving the capabilities [personnel and infrastructure] that managed the production projects under the prior governments, whilst taking into account the need to place strict oversights and an administration affiliated with the Islamic State.

– Placing specialists  in accounting and oversight over all production directorates in the Islamic State including establishments of oil, gas, archaeological areas and factories for manufacturing and production.

– Preserving additional reserves that ensure the continuation of operation in one successive arrangement in all circumstances.

– Regulating expenses through a comprehensive administration including collective expenses and collective production without singling out a province or group by provision of estimates exceeding their needs in normal circumstances.

– Establishing factories for local military and food production and independence from the monopoly of arms dealers for materials of necessity and cutting them off in the event of contravening the interests.

– Realising local needs and providing for them within the borders of the state in isolated safe zones and connecting trade routes inside the state through principal centres and beneficiary wings.

– Reducing excess expenditure through the administration of the province; it must operate independently and be able to take its own decisions in matters concerning the province.

– Relying on external business as a principal source of income through the openings of the state to the other side without an intermediary. Direct exchange has better guarantees than the monopoly of the intermediary for business transactions and means of connection.

Chapter seven

Administration of the projects

In parallel with military preparation in the lines of fighting and the camps, a committee is to be put in place to administer production projects and put in place plans to implement new investment projects.

The one who invests in the lands of the state is to be given comprehensive protection according to the agreement that arises with the observance of the interests of the Islamic State in production, exporting and prices.

The independence of the investor from the administration of the province is a more preferred means for the administration of the wealth, increasing local production and improving the capability of the producing material, and regulating the time and expenditure. And it will [also] be a better guarantee against losses resulting from any sizeable investment project.

For the independent foundation is outside the limits of liability that arise for those projects that are affiliated with a province of the Islamic State.

And it is not right for the investor according to the law, to hand over the production to those who have no right to it and they [those who have the right to it] are the ones determined in an agreement by the administration that is entrusted over the project and overseeing its organisation by the province in which the project is established.

And such an agreement is stipulated on determining the beneficiaries and the means of profit with the guarantee of the [Islamic] State to convey the products internally to the borders of the Islamic State without exposing them to any risk.

And it is not allowed to invest in the following projects:

1. Oil products

It is not allowed for a person who has no pledge of allegiance on his neck to the caliph to invest in an oil or gas field or what has arisen from their trajectory, but it is allowed besides that to produce derivatives after buying the crude products from the fields of the Islamic State, just as it is allowed to sell and deal in them inside and outside the state.

2. Gold and antiquities

It is not allowed to excavate for gold and antiquities except by expressed agreement from the resources department, and all transferred and stored materials will be confiscated for the interest of the treasury.

And it is allowed to deal in gold not excavated from the ground according to the well-known aharia frameworks with immediate effect.

3. Weapons

It is forbidden to establish factories to produce weapons and materials particular to them without granting of any explicit permits for the situation, just as it is forbidden to establish shops to sell public weapons besides personal weapons and deal in them without prior knowledge and agreement from the responsible military amir in the wilaya.

As for the other principal goods that also come under the crux of people’s lives, the officials must know about all means of operation and production like dealing in water, flour and livestock.

Chapter eight

Administration of education

Education is the foundation upon which Islamic society is built, and it is the division that makes the Muslims differ in their lives from the rest of the paths of disbelief.

The previous Ba’athist and Shia governments tried to deviate the Muslim generation from their path through their educational programmes that concord with their governments and political whims.

The programmes focused on glorifying the ruling authorities and discarding differences between sects, stripping Sunnis of their identity.

And among the most important of their goals were:

1. Focusing on glorifying and eternalising the leaders and taking refuge in God and inserting them into hidden shirk [idolatry] through immortalising ephemeral, temporary personalities.

2. Spreading the aims of their parties and their ideas whilst distancing the nurtured from Islamic thought, because the ruling party considers itself the pulse of society and the symbol of its endurance, while Islamic principles are for the mosque only and between man and his Lord with severe proceedings against all those who tried to do away with party thinking or modify it.

3. Discarding the difference with the disbelieving sects, and considering co-existence with them as the true societal bond that the ummah must operate in accordance with in order to preserve its goals, while in reality protection is implemented for the rights of all the communities of disbelief while oppressing the Sunnis and their principles.

4. Spreading the culture of moral dissolution by promoting it through expressions of civilisation and exchanges of cultures with the west.

And thus it was that the ummah entered into labyrinths of confusion that made it forget its glory, its strength and its past, while the prior Islamic caliphates were portrayed as being a foreign occupation that arose on the basis of ignorance and the decline of the ummah and nationalism.

– And among the aims of the Islamic programme in the Islamic State:

1. Implanting Islamic values in society as well as sound, sharia-based societal manners and customs.

2. Correcting the erroneous narrations that the prior programmes had implanted about the prior caliphs and imams.

3. Developing Islamic society on the basis of manners and on sharia.

4. Raising a knowledgeable Islamic generation capable of bearing the ummah and its future without needing the expertises of the west.

So it is also that the Islamic school is one of the houses of worship, whose aims are confined to acquiring knowledge also, but also it is an educational nurturing ground that raises the individual with comprehensive development of mind and body.

And in it there should be training facilities for mind, body and vocation, as successful programmes cannot rely on what is written between the lines, without practical training on all given subjects.

Also it is the case that the interest in the Arabic language and its use in daily life for the individual is an important matter in the Islamic State as is distancing from vulgar expressions that were put forward in society in a well-considered plan to guarantee the forgetting of the Islamic identity for society.

Chapter nine

Administration of relations

External relations are the first foundation for building every nascent state, and they are among the foundations that show the strength and might of the state. They should constitute for it a general stance in everything that happens in the world with the people of Islam and be for it an external hand protecting its dealings.

And the Prophet (peace be upon him) was considered the master of the global Islamic message; it was necessary for him to be acquainted with what was happening around him in the neighbouring states, and knowing their latest affairs and thus inviting them to Islam. And indeed the messenger (God’s peace and blessings be upon him and his family) established his proficiency and skill in external movements through viewing at a distance and personifying the just of the just, and appropriate evaluation of matters as well as outstanding ability in the operation of recruiting to Islam.

Indeed external relations are key to knowing the international politics surrounding the Islamic State, and alliances should be as a guarantee of force and leverage that the Islamic leadership can use in all its matters with the external world.

According to sharia politics, the leadership is not allowed to adopt decisions to ally with a state or implement an agreement with it if that violates sharia politics, as agreed on by the majority of ulama [religious scholars] and symbols of jihad. So indeed every agreement must include the following:

1. The internal sovereignty of the Islamic State and not allowing for other states to intervene in matters of Islamic rule or the general politics of the Islamic State.

2. Protecting the borders of the Islamic State from every mushrik [idolater], disbeliever, aggressor and even friend, for no army or other force is allowed to enter the borders of the Islamic State whatever the pretext.

3. A provision that the [Islamic] State should be witness to good treatment of Muslims in its lands and mutual affection with Muslims in other areas of the world, and that it is not allowed to deal with another state that has a history of hostility to Islam’s spread, the building of mosques and oppression of Muslims in its lands.

4. A provision that the agreement should first be in the interest of the Muslims, not in the interest of the disbelievers.

5. That the agreement should not include any future provisions touching on the freedom and sovereignty of the Muslim state, and no bonds of debt or conditions of harmful exploitation even if in the future with regards to the matters of the state.

6. That there should be for the Muslims their rights and freedoms within the state that is to enter into an agreement with us.

7. That all points of the agreement should be clear to the imam [the caliph] and those with him.

And in the event of the nullification of any one of the conditions or lack of their provision, it is not allowed for the imam to enter the ummah and the Muslims into dubious bonds that oppress the ummah and the fate of its development.

Chapter ten

Administration of media

Indeed everything that I have previously mentioned constitutes practical steps on the ground and [so] there must be a principal means to promote them that should be comprehensive. All of its ideas and activities should be advertised in the interest of the aforementioned practical steps. That will not be realised without media foundations that are branched out and comprehensive in operation within one administration and background.

So there should be one media foundation branched out within multiple pockets according to the following outline:

1. The Base Foundation:

To be directly affiliated with the Diwan al-Khilafa [office of the caliph] or Majlis al-Shura [advisory council] of whoever so represents them, and the official for it should be connected by his relations with the military commander, [chief] security official and the caliph himself. The office will put implement the main media principles and tasks and it should be supervising the distribution of the media offices in the provinces and the media foundations that take a name and are independent from the administration of the provinces [ie so-called auxiliary agencies and foundations mentioned below].

And the Base Foundation defines the priorities of publication and broadcasting as well as the media campaigns, just as it directly supervises through a committee the activities of the offices and undertakes inspection campaigns in the provinces and activist places.

The foundation also sets the preparation of media staff, their expenses and requirements and receives monthly reports on the activities of every office.

2. The provincial media

And in every province there should be a media office affiliated with the governor himself and in coordination with the military and security official in its region, and its director should be in direct contact with the media official in the Base Foundation.

And among the offices’ tasks are covering the military operations and their results, with issues concluding the end of every great military operation or distinguished operations for the soldiers of the state, as well as services’ facilities, implementing sharia rulings and the course of life in the province.

Also the office should be interested in implementing tasks of printing and distribution or supervising them within the province.

3. Auxiliary agencies and foundations:

It is suggested that production foundations or auxiliary agencies are established according to the mother office’s needs and interests.

The auxiliary office specialises in tracking military and services coverage in a province or number of provinces without there being in the name of the foundation or its symbol something to directly link it with the Islamic State.

The auxiliary foundations are not to be allowed to cover security operations or implementations of [judicial] rulings.

These are general suggestions placed for you by the poor slave of God, the servant of the Islamic State, in order to be a lighthouse by which there is guidance, as well as general and prompt systems of organisation.

And the administrative cadres will receive training sessions on operating according to the following programme.

Abu Abdullah al-Masri.

 

Islamic State blueprint

 

 

 

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How to Say ‘Islamic State’ in Mandarin

ForeignPolicy: New Chinese-language propaganda seems to ignore Uighurs, the group Beijing says has the most terrorist connections.

On Dec. 6, the Islamic State released a slick recording of a Mandarin Chinese-language song glorifying jihad, in what seems to be a direct attempt to recruit Chinese Muslims to the terrorist group’s cause. “Awaken, Muslim brothers! Now is the time to wake up,” proclaims the song in Chinese. “It’s our dream to die on this battlefield.”

Although the Islamic State recording is — horrifyingly — catchy, it is unlikely to make it far on the Chinese-language Internet. The nation’s ruling Chinese Communist Party enforces strict online censorship, filtering in real time posts that it deems destabilizing or overtly critical of the government.

The Islamic State has targeted China on several occasions. In July 2014, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called out China as a country that oppresses its Muslims. In December 2014, the Chinese state-run Global Times reported that 300 Uighurs, a largely Muslim Turkic-speaking ethnic minority that mostly lives in the northwest Chinese region of Xinjiang, had left China to join the militant organization, though there is no way to verify that statistic. And on Nov. 18, the Islamic State announced that it had executed its first Chinese hostage, a Beijing native named Fan Jinghui.

But this new recruitment effort indicates that the Islamic State is not just interested in Uighurs, but in all of China’s Muslims, including the Hui, Chinese speakers whose features are often indistinguishable from the majority Han ethnic group. It’s unlikely this latest song is actually attempting to recruit Uighurs, many of whom speak Mandarin poorly or not at all, particularly those in Xinjiang’s rural southern regions.

Chinese authorities have put particular blame for extremist violence within the country on Uighur separatists, a group that has often chafed under what many feel to be the imposition of Mandarin on their culture and historic homeland. The Chinese government has sought to connect the simmering insurgency among some Uighurs in Xinjiang with international terrorism and more recently with the Islamic State. After November attacks in Paris killed 130 and wounded hundreds, including one Chinese citizen, Beijing called on Western powers to recognize Xinjiang, and recent violent attacks in several cities throughout China, as an important front in the global war on terror. Beijing has denounced the failure of Western countries to do so as a “double standard” on terrorism.

Outside observers and Uighur advocacy groups maintain, however, that the Chinese government conflates dissidents and separatists with terrorists, and Chinese authorities have not publicly released evidence establishing a direct connection between high-profile domestic attacks within China and outside terrorist organizations.

After San Bernardino Massacre, Who Isn’t Cooperating

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Fmr. FBI Counterterrorism Agent: We’ve Received ‘Nearly Zero Help’ from U.S. Muslim Community Since 9/11

Though President Barack Obama claimed that America must “enlist Muslim communities” to combat terrorism in his Sunday evening Oval Office address, former FBI Counterterrorism Agent John Guandolo said on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily (6AM-9AM EST on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125) that since 9/11, “we collectively have received nearly zero help from the Muslim Community.”

Breitbart: Guandolo, who pointed out on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily that a “vast majority” of U.S. mosques and Islamic centers are a part of a much larger “jihadi network,” told host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that though Muslim community leaders “certainly give the air as if they are helping,” if one looks at the “major Islamic organizations, the major Islamic centers in the United States,” they have “condemned all of the counter-terrorism policies and they’ve gotten the government to kowtow to them, to turn only to them for advice.”

“And what advice do they give them?” Guandolo asked. “That Islam doesn’t stand for this and that everything you’re doing is the reason for what happened—9/11 is your fault because of your policies.”

As Breitbart News reported, Los Angeles CAIR director Hussam Ayloush said last week just days after the San Bernardino terrorist attacks that America is “partly responsible” for the San Bernardino terrorist attacks because “some of our foreign policy” is “fueling extremism.”

Last night, Obama said that “if we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.”

Guandolo said he doesn’t necessarily agree with the idea that “we have to work with the Muslim community in order to solve this problem here in the United States,” but “if you are going to work with the Muslim community, the U.S. government” should not be “exclusively working with Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood entities without exception” like it is doing now. Guandolo named the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim American Society.

“Those are who they’re working with and others that are Muslim Brotherhood or ideologically directly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he added, pointing out that Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke at the Muslim Advocates—another such organization—last Thursday.

Guandolo said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is speaking about Muslim civil rights on Monday evening at The Adams Center in Sterling, Virginia, which is associated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). He said evidence presented at the Holy Land terrorism-funding trial revealed that ISNA is “the nucleus of the Muslim Brotherhood here” and “directly funds Hamas leaders and organizations overseas.” He also pointed out that the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity in America, was a “Hamas organization at the time it was indicted and Hamas is an inherent part of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He said it will be nearly impossible to so successfully combat terrorists “so long as the U.S. government… emboldens and empowers Muslim Brotherhood organizations here.”

“If you expect FBI and others to aggressively pursue them, it’s not going to happen because our leaders — President, Secretary of State, national security adivsers, generals at the Pentagon—are are turning to their advisers who in fact are Muslim Brotherhood leaders to say what should we and what shouldn’t we do,” he said.

Guandolo said “it gets down to the local ground level where our behavior becomes insane and we do things like” tell FBI agents to take their socks off while arresting people at mosques so “you’re arresting somebody in your socks. It’s not only insane but there’s an officer-safety issue as well.” He added there was absolutely “no real logic about what happened in San Bernardino” when the F.B.I. allowed the media to rummage through the home of the San Bernardino terrorists and said “this kind of mindset” entered the FBI because of Muslim leaders who are advising the federal government on Islam and terrorism.

Bannon mentioned that this mindset dates back to the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and Guandolo said during the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, the Muslim Brotherhood published their “strategic plan for North America and then their implementation manual which implements the plan” in order to start “the real forward push to get their plan implemented.” He said those documents were discovered in a 2004 raid of a Hamas leaders’s home in Annandale, Virginia.

Guandolo also informed listeners that the Muslim Brotherhood has been in the United States since the 1960s because the “very first Islamic organization in America”—the Muslim Students Association—was created by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s in order to “recruit Jihadis on college campuses and on every major college campus in America.”

According to Guandolo, “if you even hint at shutting them down, then you’re immediately a racist or an Islamophobe.”

“The story that is told in between is the story of an Islamic network in the U.S. that was not just established by random Muslims coming here,” he said.

He also called out Saudi Arabia for being the top financier of Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and al-Qaeda projects in the United States. Guandolo said these organizations build lavish mosques that can hold thousands of people in areas where there are only 12 Muslims because their strategy is to claim ground “up to three miles around the mosque.” He said the Saudis help these organizations purchase homes in the area at substantially above-market prices in order to “occupy that space around that mosque.”

Guandolo runs the understandingthethreat.com site and is the author of Raising a Jihadi Generation.

*** Since the Farook and Malik family, the killers of San Bernardino are from Pakistan, it is prudent to look deeper at the genesis of terror there.

Tom Rogan, NRO: Someone screamed at us to get down and hide below the desks,” he said, adding that the gunmen shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire. “Then one of them shouted, ‘There are so many children beneath the benches, go and get them.’ I saw a pair of big black boots coming toward me.” —

Shahrukh Khan, 16, a victim of the Peshawar school attack, speaking to Agence-France Presse Welcome to the world of the Pakistani Taliban: Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP). Blending Deobandi fanaticism with warped Pashtunwali traditionalism, despising individual freedom and intellectual curiosity, these fanatics found an Army school in Peshawar to be a tempting target. Some might be shocked by this attack, but I am not. This kind of rampage has been coming.

This summer, I warned that Pakistani politicians and security officials were juggling with fire in their flirtation with the TTP. Led by Fazlullah, an unrepentant psychopath, the TTP has escalated its atrocities. Attacking Christian and Shia Muslim religious sites, cafés, and women (Fazlullah directed the attack on the now-famous schoolgirl Malala), the TTP, like the Islamic State, seeks a return to medieval authoritarianism.
So now Pakistan has its 9/11 moment. Facing the loss of more than 140 children, will it end its dalliance with terrorists? The early signs are somewhat hopeful. Recognizing the pure horror of this attack, Pakistani politicians of all stripes have reacted with outrage. Imran Khan, for example, sent out tweets that suggested his support for military reprisals. While that might seem an obvious reaction, Khan up until now has played to the TTP for his own interests while blaming America for Pakistan’s problems.
Defeating the TTP, however, will take more than a few highly publicized military actions in the coming days. It will require a sea change in Pakistani politics. Supported by networks of local patrons and propelled by paranoia over Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, powerful members of the Pakistani establishment have long regarded the TTP and other terrorist groups as proxies for their own interests. Consider the undeniable support of Pakistan’s primary intelligence service, the ISI, for the Haqqani network, a group responsible for killing NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. Want to understand that relationship? Watch Homeland. Pakistan has been toughening its stance against the TTP over the past year, but this attack is a symptom of Pakistan’s fatal hesitancy to directly confront TTP. Pakistan’s future now rests on the pivot between those who recognize that these terrorists cannot be leashed and those who see them as tools to use for their own ends. This isn’t just a Pakistani concern. Given that India’s new prime minister doesn’t easily tolerate Pakistani support of terrorist groups, the TTP has the potential to spark a war between India and Pakistan — two nuclear powers. And despite recent signs of hope in Afghanistan, the American military there will have to be on watch. We must also be on guard for new TTP plots against the homeland, because the group will probably attempt to emulate the Islamic State in its reach. This is no small concern. After all, TTP was responsible for the Times Square car-bomb plot, and is supported by a small but sizeable element of Britain’s Pakistani community. Western politics also matter here. With so many in the West more concerned with the rights of terrorists than the realities of the threat we face, we must isolate those who would tie our hands in this fight. Start with U.N. special rapporteur Ben Emmerson. Last week, Emmerson demanded prosecutions against CIA officers who have saved American lives. And last year Emmerson issued a ludicrous report that condemned the CIA drone program in Pakistan — the same program that has smashed groups like TTP and that prevent the export of jihadist atrocities to the West. Above all, we must take heed of what December 15 proved — if further proof is needed. Monday morning, hundreds of children woke up full of hope. Tuesday morning, their coffins and the rows of their names on a list of the deceased reveal the bloody price of Islamist fanaticism. Pakistan and the world must honor their memory with our resolve. —

POTUS asked for Unique ISIS Report, Dates Matter

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Barack Obama commissioned a special report on Islamic State that was complied by U,S, Southern Command and a few other top intelligence agencies. He received the report before he told the country Islamic State was ‘contained’ and certainly before the Paris climate change summit where countless side meetings were held with other world leaders on the matter of Iraq and Syria. He had the facts, but continued with ‘his’ self concocted strategy, while issuing a full rebuke to others challenging his posture on the war against Islamic State.

Most chilling is Barack Obama received this distinct report, holding all the facts regarding territory and resourcing the military on Islamic State but worse is the State Department is managing the whole conflict with U.S. Southern Command. Since when does a diplomatic agency drive a war?

U.S. Intel to Obama: ISIS Is Not Contained

Dozier/DailyBeast: A new report stands in stark contrast to earlier White House assurances that ISIS had been ‘contained.’ And it is already spurring changes in how the U.S. grapples with ISIS.
A new U.S. intelligence report on ISIS, commissioned by the White House, predicts that the self-proclaimed Islamic State will spread worldwide and grow in numbers, unless it suffers a significant loss of territory on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials told The Daily Beast.

The report stands in stark contrast to earlier White House assurances that ISIS had been “contained” in Iraq and Syria. And it is already spurring changes in how the U.S. grapples with ISIS, these officials said.

It’s also a tacit admission that coalition efforts so far – dropping thousands of bombs and deploying 3,500 U.S. troops as well as other coalition trainers — have been outpaced by ISIS’ ability to expand and attract new followers, even as the yearlong coalition air campaign has helped local forces drive ISIS out of parts of Iraq and Syria.

The White House commissioned the intelligence report prior to last month’s deadly strikes in Paris, and long before last week’s terror attacks in San Bernardino, California, three senior U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to describe a confidential document and policy changes. It was also commissioned before Obama declared ISIS “contained” in Iraq and Syria — just a day before the Paris attacks — but it was delivered to the White House in the weeks afterward.

After reviewing its grim conclusions, President Barack Obama asked Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford to come up with new options to beat the group back.

The counterterrorism campaign is being stepped up—using the same arsenal of drones, special forces raids, and local proxies previously employed in the global war on al Qaeda. A special operations targeting cell, announced by Carter last week, is one of the recommendations. The roughly 200-strong team will conduct raiding operations in Iraq and Syria, coordinating strikes through a 50-man team that will work inside northern Syria with a band of U.S.-supported guerrillas known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

Defense chiefs have also tasked the military’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to host an interagency think tank of military, diplomatic, and intelligence representatives to come up with other options, The Daily Beast has learned.

President Obama addressed the nation about the threat of terrorism in a rare Oval Office address Sunday night and made brief mention of the stepped-up campaign but no new announcements to expand it.

“In Iraq and Syria, air strikes are taking out ISIL leaders…In both countries, we’re deploying special operations forces who can accelerate that offensive,” Obama said. “We’ve stepped up our effort since the attacks in Paris.”

The roughly eight-page intelligence report that drove the policy changes was compiled by a team of analysts from CIA, DIA, NSA, and other agencies, all reporting to the director for national intelligence.

“This intel report didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” said one official. “It was lots of great charts showing countries highlighted across the globe, with some groups having pledged allegiance to ISIS and others leaning towards it.”

It described how the terrorist group with aspirations of founding an extremist Islamic caliphate already has a network of groups that have pledged allegiance or are vying for membership in a dozen countries.

The DNI confirmed it had produced the intelligence report, but offered no comment.

The White House and Pentagon would not comment on the intelligence report nor confirm the request to U.S. Special Operations Command to host intergovernmental discussions on the problem. But they did point out that SOCOM already has the job of tracking and planning the military’s response to counterterrorism threats.

“SOCOM plays an important role in the critical analysis of trans-regional threats, providing assessments that look across the seams between geographic commands, and helping the department to synchronize military efforts with all elements of national power,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis Saturday.

The State Department will continue to lead the overall ISIS campaign, with U.S. Central Command directing the campaign in Iraq and Syria, two U.S. officials said, saying that SOCOM was in no way being asked to take over the campaign.

But three U.S. officials insisted SOCOM has been asked to present further options that will employ other skills unique to the more than 60,000 operators led by Gen. Joseph Votel, who once commanded the counterterrorism-focused Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, which is comprised of elite units like the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known colloquially as SEAL Team Six.

Far beyond raids and hostage rescues, special operators like Green Berets specialize in training, advising and assisting local forces, and conducting psychological operations to combat ISIS’s social media siren song that has lured so many young recruits to its fight – still drawing 1,000 fighters a month to Iraq and Syria.

Secretary of Defense Carter is so eager to use some of the nascent plans they have already come up with, that he announced them publicly before military planners had worked out some of the logistical or legal kinks.

Carter surprised his own defense chiefs when he told Congress last week that he would be deploying the new Iraq-based special operations “expeditionary targeting force.” While many of the operators are already in Iraq, ready to participate in one-off raids like the one that killed ISIS financier Abu Sayyaf, the rules governing how they will operate haven’t quite been worked out, one of the senior U.S. officials said.

Those forces and the 50 operators who will work inside Syria are led by the Joint Special Operations Command, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operations publicly.

Carter said they’ll only raid inside Iraq with the Baghdad  government’s consent, and always together with Iraqi forces. But the Pentagon hasn’t figured out what it would do if it starts regularly capturing ISIS leaders in raids inside Syria – with options ranging from handing them over to the Iraqi government for questioning or flying them to a U.S. ship and prosecuting them as has been done with al-Qaeda suspects grabbed in Libya and Somalia.

“With respects to the expeditionary targeting force and capture, we will deal with that on a case by case basis. It’s gonna depend on the circumstances,” Carter said Thursday in a Pentagon press briefing.

The 50 special operations “advisers” inside Syria, who are expected to arrive this month, will be helping to synchronizing and coordinating air strikes and rebel ground offensives, two senior military officials say.

“It’s having conversations in person that have been hard to have by text message, the way they are doing it now,” one of the officials said.

“Things like, “hey, that target you helped us hit yesterday, next time let us know if there are civilians in the area,” he said.

All the officials interviewed said stepped-up raids and strikes won’t solve the problem, but may damage ISIS enough to make the group less popular and buy time for other necessary steps like the political deal-making underway to try to get Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

U.S. officials are also in discussions with close allies like Britain, France, and others to ask them to step up their counterterrorist missions in places like Libya, where ISIS is growing but the White House is unwilling to send troops after the attacks that killed the ambassador and three more Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

“It’s clear that we have to intensify global efforts,” said one western official who spoke anonymously in order to describe sensitive diplomatic discussions to weave a global network for counter-ISIS forces. “As long as they have territory, they can push their narrative of having a caliphate.”

 

 

 

 

What Should you Know About Wilson Fish….

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The Wilson-Fish (WF) program is an alternative to traditional state administered refugee resettlement programs for providing assistance (cash and medical) and social services to refugees.

  Minneapolis

  Vermont

  Twin Falls, Idaho

The full government program description is here, from the Health and Human Services website which manages the Refugee Resettlement Program.

The purposes of the WF program are to:

  • Increase refugee prospects for early employment and self-sufficiency
  • Promote coordination among voluntary resettlement agencies and service providers
  • Ensure that refugee assistance programs exist in every state where refugees are resettled

http://app.na.readspeaker.com/cgi-bin/rsent?customerid=7596&lang=en_us&readid=main&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acf.hhs.gov%2Fprograms%2Forr%2Fprograms%2Fwilson-fish

I. INTRODUCTION

II. ELIGIBLITY

III. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

IV. PROGRAM SERVICES
A. Refugee Cash Assistance
B. Refugee Medical Assistance/Refugee Medical Screening
C. Intensive Case Management
D. Employment/Employability Services
E. English Language Training
F. Translation and Interpretation Services
G. Refugee Social Services – Key Requirements

V. PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION
A. Statewide Coordination
B. RCA/RMA Administration

VI. PROCEDURES AND DEFINITIONS
A. Procurement of Services
B. Sanctioning and Fair Hearing Process
C. Definition of Terms
D. Procedure for a WF Program to Revert to a State Administered RCA or PPP Model

VII. REPORTING

VIII. Application
A. Substantial Involvement Under the Cooperative Agreement
B. Contents of the WF Application

I. INTRODUCTION

These guidelines are provided to grantees under the Wilson/Fish (WF) alternative program to assist them in their delivery of services and assistance to eligible populations. The purpose of the WF program is to establish an alternative to the traditional state administered refugee assistance program through the provision of integrated assistance (cash and medical) and services (employment, case-management, English as a Second Language (ESL) and other social services) to refugees in order to increase early employment and self-sufficiency prospects. In addition, the WF program enables refugee assistance programs to exist in every State where refugees are resettled.

The statutory authority for the WF program was granted in October, 1984, when Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to provide authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement alternative projects for refugees. This provision, known as the Wilson/Fish Amendment, Pub.L. 98-473, 8 U.S.C. 1522(e)(7), provided:

“(7)(A) The Secretary shall develop and implement alternative projects for refugees who have been in the United States less than thirty-six months, under which refugees are provided interim support, medical services,1 support services, and case management, as needed, in a manner that encourages self-sufficiency, reduces welfare dependency, and fosters greater coordination among the resettlement agencies and service providers…

(B) Refugees covered under such alternative projects shall be precluded from receiving cash or medical assistance under any other paragraph of this subsection or under title XIX or part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act.

(C) “…”

(D) To the extent that the use of such funds is consistent with the purposes of such provisions, funds appropriated under section 414(a) of this Act, part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act, or Title XIX of such Act, may be used for the purpose of implementing and evaluating alternative projects under this paragraph.”

The WF Program is also referenced in the Office of  Refugee Resettlement (ORR)  regulations under the heading Alternative RCA Programs at 45 C.F.R. § 400.69:

“A state that determines that a public/private RCA program or publicly-administered program modeled after its TANF program is not the best approach for the State, may choose instead to establish an alternative approach under the Wilson/Fish program, authorized by INA section 412(e)(7).”

The ORR regulations at 45 C.F.R. §400.301 also provide authority to the ORR Director to select a replacement to respond to the needs of the state’s refugee population if a state withdraws from the refugee program:”…when a State withdraws from all or part of the refugee program, the Director may authorize a replacement designee or designees to administer the provision of assistance and services, as appropriate, to refugees in that State” (see page 14 – “Statewide Coordination”).

Neither the statute nor regulations mandate a competitive review process for determining a WF grantee.  However, the statute does require as follows:

No grant or contract may be awarded under this section unless an appropriate proposal and application (including a description of the agency’s ability to perform the services specified in the proposal) are submitted to, and approved by, the appropriate administering official. Grants and contracts under this section shall be made to those agencies which the appropriate administering official determines can best perform the services 8 U.S.C. § 1522(a)(4)(A).

ORR with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) concurrence has concluded a competitive review process is not cost effective, not in the best interest of the government, and not a practical fit for the WF program.   ORR also, in accordance with the law cited above, will require that appropriate proposals and applications are submitted and that a determination is made that the grantees are the ones that can “best perform” the services.  Therefore funding under this program is open only to those agencies that currently administer a WF program. The WF program has the regulatory authority as cited above to expand sites in the future as necessary if a state withdraws from the refugee program or if a state proposes to switch its current RCA model to the WF model.

WF grantees which include States, voluntary resettlement agencies (local and national), and a private non-profit agency that oversees a local voluntary resettlement agency administer 12 state-wide WF programs in the following States: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont, plus one county-wide program in San Diego County, California. The WF programs in these locations are currently administered by the following agencies:

Alabama: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Alaska: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Colorado: Colorado Department of Human Services
Idaho: Janus Inc. (formerly Mountain States Group), Idaho Office for Refugees
Kentucky: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Louisville, Kentucky Office for Refugees
Louisiana: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana Office for Refugees
Massachusetts: Office for Refugees and Immigrants
Nevada: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada
North Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota
San Diego County, CA: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego
South Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota
Tennessee: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Tennessee Office for Refugees
Vermont: USCRI – Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program

II. ELIGIBILITY

ORR Eligible Client Population

To be eligible for WF funded programs and services, grantees must ensure refugees2 meet all requirements of 45 C.F.R. 400.43, “Requirements for documentation of refugee status”. Eligibility for refugee program services and assistance also includes: Asylees3, Cuban Haitian Entrants4; Certain Amerasians5 from Vietnam; Victims of Severe Forms of Trafficking6; Special Immigrant Visa Holders7.

All eligible individuals will be referred to as “refugees” or “clients” in these guidelines, unless the context indicates otherwise. For more details on documentary proof of the above statuses and all other ORR eligible populations, including statutory and regulatory authorities, visit the ORR website.

III. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Under the WF program guidelines, the grantee will provide interim financial assistance, medical assistance (if applicable), employment services, case management and other social services to refugees in a manner that encourages self-sufficiency, and fosters greater coordination among voluntary agencies and other community-based service providers. An integrated system of assistance and services is an essential characteristic of a WF program. Services and assistance under this program are intended to help refugees attain self-sufficiency within the period of support defined by 45 CFR 400.211.8 This period is currently eight months from date of arrival in the U.S. (for refugees and SIVs); the date of adjustment of status if applying for Special Immigrant Status within the U.S (SIVs); the date of final grant of asylum (for asylees); the date a Cuban/Haitian becomes an entrant9; the date of certification or eligibility letter for Victims of Severe Forms of Trafficking.

WF programs provide assistance and services to refugees for the purpose of enhancing refugee self-sufficiency. Some examples include: (1) where assistance and services for refugees receiving RCA and those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families  (TANF) could be provided in a better coordinated, effective, and efficient manner;  (2) where the  payment rate for RCA and TANF is well below the ORR payment rates listed in the ORR regulations at 45 C.F.R. section 400.60;  (3) where TANF-eligible refugees may not have access to timely, culturally and linguistically compatible services in the provision of employment and training programs; (4) where existing options for delivery of services and assistance to refugees do not present the most effective resettlement in that location, and where resettlement could be made more effective through the implementation of an alternative project; (5) where the continuity of services from the time of arrival until the attainment of self-sufficiency needs to be strengthened; or (6) where it is in the best interest of refugees to receive assistance and services outside the traditional TANF system.

WF programs have the flexibility to design programs tailored to the refugees’ needs, assets, and environment of the resettlement community.

There are seven main elements of WF programs that allow them to be distinguished from the traditional10 state -administered refugee resettlement programs:

a. They may serve TANF eligible clients in addition to RCA clients.
b. The provision of cash assistance, case management and employment services are integrated and administered generally under a single agency employing a “one stop shop “ model  that is culturally and linguistically equipped to work with refugees.
c. The cash assistance element may be administered and/or delivered by the state or a private entity.
d. Monthly RCA payment levels may exceed state TANF payment levels (up to the PPP levels outlined under 45 C.F.R. §400.60).
e. WF programs utilize innovative strategies for the provision of cash assistance, through incentives, bonuses and income disregards which are tied directly to the achievement of employment goals outlined in the client self-sufficiency plan.
f. Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) may be administered by a private entity.
g. WF programs provide intensive case management to refugees who are determined to have special needs.

Funding for the WF program is made available under the Transitional Assistance and Medical Services (TAMS) and Social Services line items.  Under TAMS, WF grantees receive WF-Cash and Medical Assistance (WF-CMA) discretionary funds which are awarded through cooperative agreements to cover RCA, RMA (if privately administered), intensive case management, statewide coordination and RCA/RMA administration costs. WF-CMA discretionary grants are awarded based on a budget of estimated costs for providing up to eight months of RCA and RMA (if applicable) to eligible refugees and up to one year of intensive case management, as well as for the identifiable and reasonable administrative costs associated with providing RCA and RMA and statewide coordination. WF-CMA is a cost reimbursement grant. Any unobligated balances will be used as an offset to the following year’s award for this grant.