Category: The Islamic State

Eye on Jihadis in Libya Weekly Update – October 17, 2017

Posted on by libyaanalysis
IS in Action On 14 October, Ahmed Ben Salem, the spokesman for RADA Special Deterrence Force based in Tripoli, stated that the group has come to an agreement with Tunisian authorities regarding the extradition of woman and children Tunisian prisoners held in Mitiga Prison. The Tunisian newspaper, Al-Sabah, reported that Ben Salem said the agreement entailed the extradition of twenty-one children. The decision comes just days after Tamim Jendoubi was handed over to his grandfather successfully on Tuesday, by order of the Public Prosecutors Office. He is just one of many family members of IS fighters who were killed or captured by the Bunyan Marsoos Operation and the Libyan security forces.

Other Jihadi Actors 

The IS attack in Misrata earlier this month has provoked city officials to clamp down against Islamist hardliners and suspected IS collaborators. Clashes broke out between hard-line fighters affiliated with Islamist factions and Misratan security forces on 11 October, during a security operation in al-Sakt area south of Misrata city. Thirteen people were arrested as suspected IS members or collaborators, including two senior leaders of the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB): al-Saadi al-Nawfali and Brayyek al-Masreya. Rabee Mohammed Mousa Faraj al-Shaaeri, reportedly a member of the Ajdabiya Shura Council, died on 15 October from wounds sustained during the clashes. A key commander of Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, Mohammed al-Nous, was also reportedly arrested in Misrata on 14 October after he was found hiding under a fake name.
Ahmed Abu Khattala is currently on trial in Washington D.C., for his alleged involvement in the September 2012 attack on the US Special Mission in Benghazi that killed 4 Americans. On 12 October, a Libyan military commander’s recorded video testimony was played in court, though his identity was not revealed because of security concerns for him and his family. In the recording, the witness claimed he heard Abu Khattala “incite” dozens of revolutionaries at a meeting in Benghazi by speaking out against an alleged US intelligence post in the city. He added that just a few days before the attacks, Abu Khattala told him of his plan to attack the US Special Mission and requested armed vehicles, which the commander said he interpreted as a message not to interfere. Nevertheless, the witness’s credibility, motivation, and actions have been questioned due to social media posts that allegedly show his bias and extreme stance against Islamist militants.

 A weekly update of ISIS’s actions, the Western response, and developments pertaining to Libya’s other militias is available by subscribing here.  To read about Western countries’ responses to ISIS in Libya this week, click here. To read the Eye on ISIS in Libya Team’s blog post about the actions of other jihadi actors, click here. And to read their explanation of the developments within the anti-ISIS Coalition of Libyan militias, click here.

To read all four sections of this week’s Eye on ISIS in Libya report, click here. To subscribe to receive this report weekly into your inbox, sign up on the subscribe page.

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GUEST POST: Hymnal Propaganda: A Closer Look at 'Clanging of the Swords'

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

As with all guest posts, the opinions expressed below are those of the guest author and they do not necessarily represent the views of this websites administrator and does not at all represent his employer at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Jihadology.net aims to not only provide primary sources for researchers and occasional analysis of them, but also to allow other young and upcoming students as well as established academics or policy researchers to contribute original analysis on issues related to jihadism. If you would like to contribute a piece, please email your idea/post to azelin [at] jihadology [dot] net.
Click here to see an archive of all guest posts.
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Hymnal Propaganda: A Closer Look at ‘Clanging of the Swords’
Nashīds are a prime example of the Islamic State’s efforts to combine old and new rhetorical features to promote and legitimize its violent ends
By Alexander Schinis
Part of the Islamic State’s (IS) claim to fame is its high-value media productions. Some of its most popular productions are its hymns, or anashīd, which have spread around the world in the past years. The hymns serve as a rallying cry to their listeners, a call-to-arms on behalf of the terror group’s military goals. More than just overt calls for war, though, anashīd serve the group as foundational and legitimizing texts. Coded within the works of IS-produced anashīd are clues about its efforts to cast itself as the leader of global jihad.
This article will examine some of the structural features of one of IS’s most popular anashīd. In addition to these features, an assessment of the martial lyrical content of the nashīd will follow. Analyzing these features together will reveal some of IS’s many strategies in legitimizing itself as heir to leadership over the Islamic ummah.
What is a nashīd?
A nashīd (plural: anashīd) is a vocalized chant, frequently polyphonic and often without any instrumentation. There is significant variation across genres of anashīd. The work of Behnam Said includes some of the most comprehensive research into the history and cultural relevance of these types of works (Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2012).
The focus here is on the public-facing anashīd produced by IS. The qualities of these anashīd place the works somewhere between an exultant battle hymn and self-righteous national anthem.
One of IS’s most well-known anashīd, called “Clanging of the Swords,” offers a compelling example of what such a nashīd looks and sounds like. This nashīd was retrieved from www.archive.org. Aymenn al-Tamimi offers one version of the English translation, linked here. Featuring the vocals of the munshid Abu Yaser, the nashīd made its debut in the video propaganda production of the same name in the summer of 2014.
Repetition in the nashīd
It will not take long for the listener to recognize how repetitive “Clanging of the Swords” is. Repetition is an integral part of many of IS’s anashīd. However, this should not be read as a lack of creativity on the part of their creators. Instead, the nashīd presents itself as a medium that enjoys a strong relationship with memory. Charles Hirschkind, in a study of sermons and the practice of “ethical listening” in Egypt, found that sermons could be easily memorizable because of their use of repetition (Columbia University Press, 2006). He points to Marcel Jousse’s theory of gesture and memory, which states that gestures, such as aural patterns, are predisposed to easy memorization. The nashīd’s use of repetition is likely a strategy used by IS to facilitate their memorization by its intended audience.
Repetition in “Clanging of the Swords” appears on a few levels. The first is its repetition of the chorus, made up of four lines. The hymn repeats this chorus of four lines seven times – sometimes back-to-back – in the period of the hymn’s approximately three minute run time.
The second level of repetition in the anthem appears in an echo-like effect for certain lines, immediately after their utterance. The hymn has three discrete stanzas, all of which demonstrate this pattern, and the last line of each stanza is repeated. Taking into account the repetition of its chorus, in this scheme, 34 lines of verse are repeated at least once. Of the hymn’s total of 40 lines, only six lines do not find repetition in the hymn. This makes the non-repeated verses outliers in the verse repetition scheme of the nashīd.
The third level of repetition in “Clanging of the Swords” is the reiteration of a number of themes and words. This is partly a function of the two tiers of repetition noted above. Across the chorus and stanzas there are specific words that appear several times. If the subject of the hymn is the listener, the object is “the enemy.” The anthem invokes the word “enemy” or “enemies” (in Arabic, عدو \ أعداء) “oppressors” (in Arabic, الطغاة) or “aggressors” more than any other object in the work. Other recurring words and phrases that appear across lines and stanzas are ideas of a righteous “path,” the notion of “sacrifice,” and references to “God.”
The extensive and multi-layered use of repetition, when taking into account the theories of Hirshkind and Jousse, serves the political aims of IS’s cultural productions by lending the works to quick memorization by the listener.
Monorhyme in the nashīd
Structural repetition makes this and other anashīd catchy and quick to commit to memory, but other features lend the nashīd deeper significance to certain audiences. One such feature in “Clanging of the Swords” is the use of monorhyme, i.e., the rhyming of each line of verse with all other lines.
Each line of the hymn is made up of two hemistichs, and in the original Arabic of the hymn, the last vocalization of each line’s second hemistich rhymes with an “a” sound. This is achieved with a few different schemes. One includes rhyming different letters with similar sounds. This is seen in the chorus, where the use of the

Check out my new ‘Policy Watch’ for the Washington Institute: "Interpreting the Fall of Islamic State Governance"

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

According to a field commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the last Islamic State (IS) holdouts will lose control of Raqqa, the group’s self-proclaimed capital, by sometime in the third week of October. Alongside the fall of Mosul, the IS stronghold in Iraq, this development marks a second collapse of governance for the jihadists.

Reflecting this failure, for the first time since IS began systematizing its governance capabilities in late 2013 and early 2014, the group’s media apparatus has not, for roughly a month, released any material related to governing, social services, or dawa (proselytizing and outreach activities). The most sophisticated system of jihadist governance ever established thus appears to be dwindling to nothing. All the same, it is worth noting that the media silence may not indicate the absolute cessation of IS governance — indeed, the group is likely engaging in basic governance in certain areas along the Iraq-Syria border — but instead the further erosion of its media apparatus.
Click here to read the full article.

New issue of The Islamic State’s newsletter: “al-Nabā’ #101"

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

For prior parts see: #100, #99, #98, #97, #96, #95, #94, #93, #92, #91, #90, #89, #88, #87, #86, #85, #84, #83, #82, #81, #80, #79, #78, #77, #76, #75, #74, #73, #72, #71, #70, #69, #68, #67, #66, #65, #64, #63, #62, #61, #60, #59, #58, #57, #56, #55, #54, #53, #52, #51, #50, #49, #48, #47, #46, #45, #44, #43, #42, #41, #40, #39, #38, #37, #36, #35, #34, #33, #32, #31, #30, #29, #28, #27, #26, #25, #24, #23, #22, #21, #20, #19, #18, #17, #16, #15, #14, #13, #12, #11, #10, #9, #8, #7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2, and #1.
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: The Islamic State — al-Nabā’ Newsletter #101
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To inquire about a translation for this newsletter issue for a fee email: [email protected]

Eye On Jihadis in Libya Weekly Update: October 10

Posted on by libyaanalysis

IS in Action
An IS suicide bomb attack which targeted a Misratan court complex in the centre of the city on 4 October, killed four people and wounded several more. IS fighters opened fire on the complex and the explosion was triggered after one of the attackers detonated a suicide belt. Later a car bomb was discovered nearby that was rigged for a massive detonation and could have taken out the complex completely if detonated. The recent attack follows the public disclosures last week, by the Attorney General’s office in Tripoli, of persons with suspected ties to ISIS and other extremist organizations, and the issuance of arrest warrants for 820 individuals.
It is reported that local social and political backlash against militia members allegedly connected with IS in the city has intensified in the wake of the attack. Misratan youths, who are increasingly supportive of a Libyan National Army (LNA) intervention, are already supporting local security forces in clamping down against militia members connected with IS, Ansar al-Sharia (ASL) and the Benghazi Shura Revolutionary Council (BRSC) specifically. To this end, local sources report that an IS cell was found in the Ruwaisat area and its members, some alleged to be former Benghazi Defence Brigade (BDB) and BMSC members, were arrested. An armory connected to the group was also found with large quantities of ammunition and explosives.
The bodies of 21 Christians killed by IS in Sirte in 2015, were recently taken to a Misratan mortuary for identification and further evaluation before a discussion of the repatriation of their bodies. The investigation bureau of Misrata’s Crime Prevention Department reported that all of the victims were beheaded and dressed in the orange “execution” jumpsuits frequently depicted in IS media.

Other Jihadi Actors
Supreme Committee for Issuing Fatwas (Al-Lajna al-‘Ulya li-l-Ifta’), which is based in the eastern city al-Bayda and is associated with Khalifa Haftar, commander of the LNA, has called for jihad in Sabratha against “Kharijites,” a term used by Dignity Operation members to label their opponents as extremists. The announcement follows the Committee’s controversial Fatwa denouncing Ibadis earlier this summer, which provoked massive criticism from both local and international actors as inciting violence among Libyans.
Following this announcement the eastern government, headed by Abdullah Al-Thanni, ordered mosques in the region to perform Qunut prayers to ask God to defeat the “Kharijites” in Sabratha. On 6 October, the Anti-ISIS Operations Room (AIOR), a force technically under the authority of the Government of National Accord (GNA) but more closely aligned with the LNA, announced its control of Sabratha after defeating the Anas Dabbashi Brigade– ending the prolonged conflict in the city and surrounding areas.

A weekly update of ISIS’s actions, the Western response, and developments pertaining to Libya’s other militias is available by subscribing here. To read about Western countries’ responses to ISIS in Libya this week, click here, and to read about the developments within the anti-ISIS Coalition of Libyan militias, click here. To read all four sections of this week’s Eye on ISIS in Libya report, click here.
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New issue of The Islamic State’s newsletter: “al-Nabā’ #100"

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

For prior parts see: #99, #98, #97, #96, #95, #94, #93, #92, #91, #90, #89, #88, #87, #86, #85, #84, #83, #82, #81, #80, #79, #78, #77, #76, #75, #74, #73, #72, #71, #70, #69, #68, #67, #66, #65, #64, #63, #62, #61, #60, #59, #58, #57, #56, #55, #54, #53, #52, #51, #50, #49, #48, #47, #46, #45, #44, #43, #42, #41, #40, #39, #38, #37, #36, #35, #34, #33, #32, #31, #30, #29, #28, #27, #26, #25, #24, #23, #22, #21, #20, #19, #18, #17, #16, #15, #14, #13, #12, #11, #10, #9, #8, #7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2, and #1.
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: The Islamic State — al-Nabā’ Newsletter #100
_____________

To inquire about a translation for this newsletter issue for a fee email: [email protected]