Search Results for: dabiq 11

Articles of the Week – 9/8-9/14

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin
Monday September 10: Al-Qa`ida’s First American Foreign Fighter after 9/11 – Bryant Neal Viñas and Mitchell Silber, CTC Sentinel: https://bit.ly/2NE91Qi=&0=& Refugee Radicalization/Militarization in the Age of the European Refugee Crisis: A Composite Model – Marina Eleftheriadou, Terrorism and Political Violence: https://bit.ly/2ps4nXH Support for democracy and liberal sexual mores among Muslims in Western Europe – Viivi Eskelinen and Maykel Verkuyten, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies: https://bit.ly/2PV8rej

The Clear Banner: A Brief Update On Ethnic Georgian Foreign Fighters In The Islamic State

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

The Clear Banner sub-blog on Jihadology.net is primarily focused on Sunni foreign fighting. It does not have to just be related to the phenomenon in Syria. It can also cover any location that contains Sunni foreign fighters. If you are interested in writing on this subject please email me at azelin [at] jihadology [dot] net.
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A Brief Update On Ethnic Georgian Foreign Fighters In The Islamic State
By Bennett Clifford
Background
In 2015, the government of Georgia estimated that 41 of its citizens were active combatants in jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, while other reports suggest that the contingent may have been as large as 100.1 The bulk of the foreign jihadist fighters from Georgia originated from the Pankisi Valley, an isolated set of villages in the north-east of the country that is renowned as a source of prominent foreign fighters, including the Islamic State (IS)’s deceased minister of war, Tarkhan Batirashvili (Umar al-Shishani).2 The majority population in the Pankisi Valley are Kists. Related closely to the Chechens of the North Caucasus, the Kists maintain distinct religious traditions, customs, folk laws (adat-tsesebi), and a unique dialect of the Chechen language.
Most of Georgia’s foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq are ethnic Kists from the Pankisi Valley, but the second largest demographic are ethnic Georgian Muslims.3 A database maintained by the author includes eight ethnic Georgians who successfully traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Unlike in the Pankisi Valley, where foreign fighter recruitment is geographically consolidated, ethnic Georgian fighters come from various settlements and villages throughout the country. During Soviet rule in Georgia, particularly during its twilight years, ethnic Georgian Muslims living in the high mountainous communities of the south-western province of Adjara were resettled throughout the country due to a combination of ecological disasters and government planning policies.4 Most of the ethnic Georgian foreign fighters came from these “eco-migrant” settlements: in particular, the villages of Nasakirali and Zoti in the western province of Guria, and particular villages within the Tsalka municipality in the central Kvemo Kartli region.
This brief post covers the reported fates of three members of the ethnic Georgian foreign fighter contingent after the loss of IS territory in Syria and Iraq, revealing new information on their status and whereabouts. Perhaps most importantly, one of the major (and arguably, only) IS Georgian-language propagandists and the group’s standard-bearer, Tamaz Chaghalidze, is ostensibly alive and has returned to social media during the past few months, posting a barrage of new Georgian-language material. These posts glorify the martyred “heroes of the Islamic State,” offer justifications for IS’ losses in the sieges of Mosul and Raqqa, and provide insight on other Georgians in Syria and Iraq. One post, included in full with an English translation below, discusses the fates of two members of the group– Badri Iremadze and Murman Paichadze.
Who is Tamaz Chaghalidze?

Post from an autobiography on Tamaz Chaghalidze’s WordPress site. “Ahmad Jurji, also known as Tamaz Chaghalidze, was born on December 3, 1988 in the village of Zoti in Chokhatauri municipality.”
Tamaz Chaghalidze (kunya: Ahmad Jurji), largely unknown outside of Georgia, is directly responsible for the majority of IS propaganda in the Georgian language. Born in 1988 in the village of Zoti in the province of Guria, Chaghalidze left for the city of Batumi in Adjara in 2006, where he studied international economics at Shota Rustaveli State University. During his eight years in Batumi, he transitioned from participation as a political operative for a major Georgian party to an active figure in the local Islamist scene, and in 2014, he traveled to Syria to join the jihad.5 As an opening salvo in a flood of propaganda, shortly after his departure to Syria he published a video in August 2014 declaring his allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and threatening Georgia for its mistreatment of Muslims.6
The video reached viral status in Georgia and resulted in the opening of an investigation by Georgia’s State Security Services into Chaghalidze’s threats against Georgia.7 Chaghalidze remained active online, utilizing a still-active Odnoklassiki profile which he opened before his departure to disseminate even more threats. Stylistically, Chaghalidze’s content errs towards self-promotion and directly appeals to ethnic Georgian Muslims, particularly eco-migrants. In many posts, he utilizes Adjaran dialect and slang, punctuating Salafi-jihadist religious teachings with invectives targeting members of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Georgian Muslim institutions, the Georgian armed forces, and others:

“Attention- to the kaafirs in Georgia who did anything against Islam and Muslims as part of NATO missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa,8 or in Georgia itself in Lapanquri,9 Pankisi, Guria, Adjara, Javakheti or other regions. We know all your actions and you will pay for everything with your dirty kaafir blood. I warn you again- do not touch any Muslim brother or mosque or anything that concerns the name of Islam; otherwise, one day, when the black flags fly over Georgia, you will have nowhere to escape. You will beg on your knees, and they will show it on TV programs. You rats will regret the day you were created. We will cause so much trouble for the Patriarchate in Adjara that you robe-wearing rats10 will wish you were created as reptiles. I swear, by Allah, every kaafir will pay with their dirty blood. The one chance that civilians have is to accept Islam and pledge allegiance to the Caliphate.”


From 2015 until 2017, Chaghalidze maintained an extensive online presence from his base in Syria, running his own personal WordPress blog. In addition, he contributed to several other sites on WordPress, Facebook, Tumblr, Odnoklassiki, Myspace and Telegram entitled “Xalifat” [Caliphate] or “Daula” [The State], and ran multiple sock-puppet Facebook accounts. These pages disseminated efforts by Chaghalidze and other Georgian-speaking foreign fighters to translate official IS media products, such as the magazines Dabiq and Rumiyyah and the al-Bayan radio service, into their native tongue. As part of an ongoing investigation, the Georgian government repeatedly blocked the IP addresses of these pages, shutting off access in Georgia.11 Each time a page was shut down, another appeared in its place. Eventually, many of Chaghalidze’s efforts were consolidated into the group Bushra, which operates a still-active Facebook group, several Telegram channels, a justpaste.it account and uses a TutaNota email address.

Posters for two official Islamic State releases in the Georgian language- “Message to the Georgian people” (2015, top) and “My God! I hasten towards you so that you would be satisfied with me” (2016, bottom)
Eventually, partially due to the success of Chaghalidze’s efforts in the unofficial realm, IS official media outlets published two releases in the Georgian language. In November 2015, IS’ al-Furat Media Foundation released “Gzavnili kartvel khalkhs” [Message to the Georgian People], its first full-length video in the Georgian language. The 12-minute video featured four ethnic Georgian fighters from Guria and Kvemo Kartli: Khvicha Gobadze (aka Abu Mariam al Jurji), Roin Paksadze, Mamuka Antadze, and Badri Iremadze. The second release, “Ghmerto chemo! Me vichkare shensken, rom iqo chemit kmaqopili” [My God! I hasten towards you so that you would be satisfied with me], was released in February 2016 and featured Chaghalidze, Iremadze, and the Kist fighter Mukhmad Baghakashvili eulogizing three slain Georgian IS fighters. In the second video, Chaghalidze appears in an IS police uniform—elsewhere, on his eponymous WordPress

Articles of the Week – 6/30-7/6

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

Sunday July 1:
Jaysh Khalid bin al-Waleed on Relations With Other Factions: Translation and Analysis – Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi: https://bit.ly/2N0uT4v
Monday July 2:
Othering the West in the online Jihadist propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq – Nuria Lorenzo-Dus and Stuart Macdonald, Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: https://bit.ly/2m4oUjE
Tuesday July 3:
The New American Way of War: Special Operations Forces in the War on Terrorism – Daniel Byman and Ian A. Merritt, The Washington Quarterly: https://bit.ly/2uhaYGq
Subduing al-Shabaab: The Somalia Model of Counterterrorism and Its Limits – Paul D. Williams, The Washington Quarterly: https://bit.ly/2u3EU9U
Does Violent Secessionism Work? – Ryan D. Griffiths and Louis M. Wasser, Journal of Conflict Resolution:
Wednesday July 4:
The Holy Month of Jihad? Measuring Terrorist Activity During Ramadan in the Post-9/11 Era – Reinier Bergema and Lucie Kattenbroek, Small Wars Journal:
Trajectories of Radicalized Females in Montreal – Ratna Ghosh, Hicham Tiflati, Alice Chan, and Dilmurat Mahmut, TSAS: https://bit.ly/2zkTVsX
TTP’s Online Women’s Magazine Has a Different Message for Their Female Jihadi Audience Than Rumiyah – Mehwish Rani, Vox-Pol: https://bit.ly/2zkUwLd
Ethnic political exclusion and terrorism: Analyzing the local conditions for violence – Holley E Hansen, Stephen C Nemeth, and Jacob A Mauslein, Conflict Management and Peace Science:
Thursday July 5:
Cubs in the Lions’ Den: Indoctrination and Recruitment of Children Within Islamic State Territory – Gina Vale, ICSR: https://bit.ly/2J61PpI
Politics and Islamic revivalism in Bangladesh: the role of the state and non-state/non-political actors – Md Nazrul Islam and Md Saidul Islam, Politics, Religion & Ideology:
Friday July 6:
Dābiq et la frontière du Dār al-Islām: Histoire et représentations (Ier-Ve siècles H./Viie-Xie siècles) – Eva Collet, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée: https://bit.ly/2KHP5ez
How Turkey and the election of Erdogan are fragmenting the Jihadi movement – Tore Hamming, Jihadica: https://bit.ly/2KEfOZv
Bangladeshi Militants: What Do We Know? – Ali Riaz and Saimum Parvez, Terrorism and Political Violence: https://bit.ly/2NxHxJ8
Not just Brainwashed: Understanding the Radicalization of Indonesian Female Supporters of the Islamic State – Nava Nuraniyah, Terrorism and Political Violence: https://bit.ly/2MWqtLW
Why They Join: Pathways into Indonesian Jihadist Organizations Julie Chernov Hwang and Kirsten E. Schulze, Terrorism and Political Violence: https://bit.ly/2KVuwKM
Radicalisation in the Philippines: The Cotabato Cell of the “East Asia Wilayah” – Sidney Jones, Terrorism and Political Violence: https://bit.ly/2J2CCMU
Factional Dynamics within Boko Haram – Omar S Mahmood and Ndubuisi Christian Ani, Institute for Security Studies: https://bit.ly/2KV058z

GUEST POST: Searching for the Shadowy Canadian Leader of ISIS in Bangladesh

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 blogs 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 wonks 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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Searching for the Shadowy Canadian Leader of ISIS in Bangladesh
By Amarnath Amarasingam
Tamim
“You must be kidding, bro,” a friend of mine from Windsor, Ontario, tells me when I ask him about Tamim Chowdhury, the purported leader of ISIS in Bangladesh. “He was a quiet guy. Definitely religious. But a leader? I don’t think so.” He was not the first to express surprise when I asked around about Tamim. He did not seem to have made an impression on the people he met. Or so I thought.
The name Tamim Chowdhury first came on my radar in early 2015 when I was doing interviews with friends of another Windsor jihadi who had gone off to fight in Syria: Ahmad Waseem, known as Abu Turab, who was killed in March 2015 in Tal Hamis. Tamim’s name was floating around as someone who may have also left for Syria. I jotted down his name, but then became busy with other things.
Some months later, I spoke to another friend of Waseem’s and remembered to also ask about Tamim. He seemed a little surprised, and remarked that Tamim, facing harassment from law enforcement in Canada, had decided to simply move back to his home country of Bangladesh. Nothing to worry about, he said. I was skeptical.
The next time I saw his name appear, it became clear that Tamim was indeed important. A colleague of mine, who asked to be anonymous, pointed me to the ISIS Study Group website (which as of this writing has gone offline) where Tamim was mentioned as one of the leaders of ISIS in Bangladesh. A few months later, Zayadul Ahsan published an article in The Daily Star further cementing this theory. I started asking questions again, trying to find more people who may have known him in Windsor, and asking several jihadi fighters that I was in contact with in Syria. One of these fighters would provide a clue.
Connecting the Dots
One of the most famous blogs amongst journalists and analysts of Canadian foreign fighters is called “Beneath Which Rivers Flow.” It was an important blog, because it contained biographical details of two jihadis who had left from Calgary, Alberta, to fight, and eventually die, in Syria: Damian Clairmont and Salman Ashrafi. The most recent post was a letter to the mother of Damian, Christianne Boudreau, arguing that she should be proud of his sacrifice and proud to be the mother of a martyr. All the posts about Damian are signed by an individual calling himself “Abu Dujana al-Muhajir”. According to some individuals I interviewed, this blog was “owned” by Ahmad Waseem, but he allowed friends of his to post on it from time to time.
In a casual conversation about who this “Abu Dujana” might be with a Canadian fighter in Syria, he remarked: “I don’t know his real name, but he is of Bangladesh background and was from the 519 [area code for Windsor] area.” It seemed pretty clear that he was talking about Tamim Chowdhury. I realized that I was perhaps looking for Chowdhury in all the wrong places. He was certainly from Windsor and was friends with Ahmed Waseem. But Waseem had spent at least two years in Calgary, and returned home to Windsor, before leaving for Syria.
I had seen no evidence at the time that Tamim ever went to Calgary. But, if Tamim was Abu Dujana, the individual who wrote glowing eulogies of Calgary jihadi fighters, then he had to have spent time there. If this was true, our notion of the “Calgary cluster” of fighters just got more interesting.
As I wrote in Jihadology last year, one of the first clusters that the Canadian public became aware of was in Calgary. The Calgary cluster consisted of Damian Clairmont, Salman Ashrafi, Gregory and Collin Gordon, Farah Shirdon, and a few others. While they were friends, their biographical details are quite varied. Ashrafi was born Muslim, educated at the University of Lethbridge, held a prestigious job at Talisman Energy, and was married with a child at the time of his departure in November or December 2012. In November 2013, he engaged in a suicide attack in Iraq that would kill him and 40 others.
Clairmont, on the other hand, was a white convert, suffered from bipolar disorder, was a high school dropout, and was homeless for a time in Calgary. Clairmont and Ashrafi were close friends and part of a study circle, at the 8th and 8th musallah, a storefront Islamic centre in downtown Calgary, with the Gordon brothers and several others. The Gordon brothers are featured prominently in Dabiq 15.
In interviews with their friends in Calgary, it initially seemed evident that Clairmont was the dominant personality, and influenced many of the other young men. Clairmont would leave Calgary in late 2012 as well. He fought with the Al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusra, and was captured and killed by the Free Syrian Army in January 2014.
However, this image of the Calgary cluster is starting to change.
What We Know So Far
As I searched for more information on Tamim, on the night of 1 July 2016, five militants stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery, took hostages, and eventually hacked 24 people to death. If Tamim was the head of ISIS in Bangladesh, he was clearly behind this attack. Indeed, Bangladeshi police admitted in late July that Tamim was the mastermind. The fact that a Canadian was orchestrating attacks in Bangladesh has likely also led to some intelligence sharing between the two countries.
Once the trail led to Calgary, I started reaching out to friends there for more information about Tamim. The Bangladeshi media had produced two photos of Tamim (here and here), which I promptly sent to them. They confirmed that it was the same Tamim they remembered seeing in Calgary. Then things got interesting, and several details started falling into place.
This is what we know about Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury so far, even though several of these details still need to be made more precise:
He was born on July 25, 1986.
It is not clear yet if he was born in Canada or Bangladesh (probably the latter), but he is indeed a Canadian citizen.
He likely attended J.L. Forster Secondary School in Windsor. He competed for the school in a variety of track and field activities in 2004.
He graduated from the University of Windsor in Spring 2011, with an Honors in Chemistry, but probably majored/minored in other fields as well.
Some time after graduating from Windsor, he traveled to Calgary. It is unclear whether he moved to Calgary, or simply traveled back and forth several times. The latter seems more likely since those I spoke with in Calgary only remember him intermittently. He seems to have stayed low-key perhaps, and did not mix too closely with the Muslim community there.
One source says he remembers Tamim hanging out with Damian Clairmont at the 8th and 8th musallah, where Damian, Salman Ashrafi, Collin and Gregory Gordon, another individual named Waseem (last name unknown, but not Ahmad Waseem), and a few others held a private study circle. According to friends of theirs, Damian was likely the one who took a leadership role over the group, but it could be that Tamim was equally influential.
The same source says that Tamim almost certainly went to Syria, either directly from Calgary or from Windsor, “probably” in late 2012. Another source claims he saw Tamim hanging around the University of Calgary in 2013. This is further complicated by the fact that religious leaders in Windsor say they asked Tamim not to engage with youth at the mosques, clearly worried that he was potentially radicalizing them. This was possibly some time in 2013 as well. As such, details on when exactly he traveled to Syria are still murky.
From Syria, Tamim likely found his way to Bangladesh, perhaps even on direct orders from ISIS leadership. However, it is not clear when he landed in Bangladesh. One could venture an educated guess that the speed at which he took over ISIS in Bangladesh necessitated that he had some kind of “evidence” from ISIS central to “show” potential recruits.
Dabiq 14 features an interview with the “Amir of the Khilafah’s Soldiers in Bengal,” named as Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif. Nowhere in the interview is there mention of Canada, Calgary, Windsor, or Tamim, but, again, one could venture an educated guess that it is the same person.
As of this writing, there are reports that Tamim may have crossed into India. On August 2, the Bangladeshi government put a 20 lakh ($25,000USD) bounty on his head.
Watch this space, and Twitter (@AmarAmarasingam) for updates on this story.
Amarnath Amarasingam is a Fellow at The George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, and co-directs a study of western foreign fighters at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

New article from al-Maqālāt: "The Rampant Eruption: Mass Takfīr by Abū Maysarah al-Shāmī"

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

Everyone by now has heard or read the recent article filled with excessive Takfir written by the well known ISIS jurist and spokesperson Abu Maysarah Al-Shaami. Abu Maysarah Al-Shaami does not only make Takfir on the Muslim Brotherhood in general, he makes Takfir on the organization in its entirety and all the individuals of this organization, which has more than 100 millions members in the world. Of course this goes for all other Islamic parties who participate in the democratic parliaments, and this goes for all the millions of members of the Muslim Brotherhood who have passed away since its establishment by Hassan Al-Bannah (may Allah have mercy upon him). But he doesn’t stop there, he continues and attacks the leaders of As-Salifiyah Al-Jihadiyah calling them the “Idols of As-Salifayah Al-Jihadiyah.” He begins with making Takfir on Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri, while calling him a fool, he then makes Takfir on Mullah Akhtar Mansour, while calling him a Dajjaal and an agent of the Pakistani secret services, he then makes Takfir on the Taliban, while calling them a nationalistic movement who refuse the Sharia of Allah. He continues and makes Takfir on Shaykh Abu Musab Suri (may Allah hasten his release). But he doesn’t stop there, there is more. He finishes with making Takfir on all the Muslims who vote on democratic parties; 40 millions Muslims vote in Egypt alone, let alone the rest of the dozens of Muslim countries! SubhanAllah, anyone still doubt the fact that ISIS are Khawarij after reading all of this mass-Takfir?
But what about the Muslims who do not make Takfir on the Muslims who vote? Are they apostates too, because they refrain from making Takfir on a Kaafir? Or are they excused due to ignorance? And if they are excused due to ignorance, then why not excuse the voters themselves? Most of the general Muslims do not understand the reality of democracy and legislation. He does not go in to that, he does however excuse his own Caliphate, claiming that they did know the reality of Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri previously, fearing that the bolder extremists in their ranks will eventually make Takfir on ISIS because they did not make Takfir on Shaykh Ayman and the Taliban before. They even praised them, even though the positions on which they now make Takfir are old. Which could create a paradox, as one could make Takfir on ISIS, because ISIS refrained from making Takfir on themselves, while they knew about the so-called Kufr of Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri and the Taliban. And even if they did not know, then they can not be excused for their ignorance. So this article actually gave the extremists a basis for making Takfir on ISIS itself. This is the ridiculous inconsistent idiocy of chain Takfir.
Shaykh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi responded on this and said: “The son that was raised on harming his relatives and neighbors; when he grows up he will also oppose his parents. Remember who you killed when they will make Takfir on you because you refrained from Takfir on the one who is excused. Abu Maysarah Al-Shaami claimed that Zawahiri helps every apostate group against Islam and Muslims, he even calls for his death and prays that Allah will destroy him at the hands of his brothers in the province of Khorasan. This is the caller of extremism: Leave the treacherous Afghan government, the NATO army, the enemies of Islam, and the Idol worshippers, and instead of inciting his followers against them, he incites them to kill the wise one (Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri).”
He contradicts himself as he excuses ISIS for its ignorance about the reality of Shayk Ayman Zawahiri and the Taliban, but he does not excuse the voters for their ignorance. Furthermore he makes Takfir on Shaykh Abu Musab Suri because he excused the Muslim Brotherhood and the voters due to their ignorance about the reality of democracy. He claims that ISIS must be excused because they did not the reality of Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri “because they were too busy waging Jihaad.” While all the points he mentioned to proof his so-called Kufr were also mentioned years ago by Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani in his speeches “This is not our methodology” and “Apologies oh Amir of Al-Qaedah”, and he did not make Takfir on Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri at that time. So he knew about these positions, but he did not make Takfir on the Shaykh because of them.
This should mean that Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani has also fallen in to Kufr according to their own standards. Al-Adnani even said that he will accept the Bayah of Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri if he came to Shaam, how could the Bayah of a disbeliever be accepted? Abu Maysrah Al-Shaami also blamed Abu Musab Suri for refraining from Takfir on voters. While Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani addressed the protesters in Egypt who voted on Mursi as Muslims and people of Ahl Sunnah in his speech “Pacifism is the religion of whom?”, how could he address them as Muslims if they are apostates according to Abu Maysrah Al-Shaami? And what about his previous leader Abu Umar Al-Baghdadi (May Allah have mercy on him) who did not make Takfir on the voters and considered their blood to be sacred according to his own statements?
It is known that the majority of the Muslims vote in democratic elections in the Muslim countries, and you judge over a people or society according to the majority. So the basis of the Ummah is Kufr according to ISIS, as the majority of the Ummah votes. And if ISIS in addition does not excuse the ones who do not make Takfir on the voters, then we are not left with one single Muslim on the world, except a small Takfiri sect. Takfir is not just a judgment without any practical implications, with Takfir on someone blood and wealth become legal war spoils and women can be taken as slaves. So this is the promise the Caliphate of ISIS has for the Ummah, instead of promising the Muslim Ummah liberation from tyrannical oppression and colonial occupation, ISIS makes Takfir on the Ummah and promises them wars of apostasy. Who needs enemies if we have Takfiri jurists like Abu Maysarah Al-Shaami? His judgment means that we will likely witness random attacks on Muslim public places. As the majority of the Muslims vote, so their basis is Kufr and their blood is legal. We saw another indication of this prelude when we heard that the blood of those who refuse to give Bayah to their Caliphate is legal. We are already witnessing ISIS cold bloodedly executing the Taliban Mujahideen in Afghanistan and labeling them as apostates. Why? Because they did not give their Bayah to ISIS.
Making Takfir on all the voters is not just his own personal opinion, as he claimed that this is the position of ISIS in general. The current ISIS leadership seems to agree because his articles are shared on ISIS media channels, like the magazine Dabiq, and we still haven’t heard of any ISIS leader rejecting his many deviances and published works. Rather his articles are the most shared, translated and published. So this is not just some individual with a personal opinion, he represents ISIS and is an official spokesperson, and his Arabic articles are read by thousands of readers. Many even suggest that he is the official media spokesperson Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani. But Allah knows best. Two years ago ISIS supporters and soldiers said that ISIS does not make Takfir on Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri. Well now ISIS officially makes Takfir on the whole Al-Qaedah leadership and all its branches and soldiers, so will they reject the deviances of ISIS?
Like Shaykh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi said in his response to the recent article of Abu Maysarah Al-Shaami: “If there were any sane people with authority and influence in ISIS they would not allow the likes of Abu Maysarah Al-Shaami to publish and talk, because his Takfir and perversion is like that of Al-Adnani; if it isn’t the same person.”
Abu Maysarah is known for his extremism and shameful articles, which often confirm previous articles written in Dabiq. He wrote an article titled “Inform the wives of the Sahawaat that they are divorced” making Takfir on the members of Jabhat Nusra and other Mujahid factions, and calling their wives fornicators if they did not divorce their husbands, confirming what Umm Sumayah said in the 10th issue of Dabiq. He also wrote an article titled “A response to the sissy pimp” defaming Shaykh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisis and Shaykh Abu Qatadah Al-Filistini calling them donkeys of knowledge.
He also made Takfir on the Taliban and called Mullah Akhtar Mansour a Taghut and a Dajjaal in his article titled “Oh youth in Somalia – The foolish sheep gave Bayah to the Tawagheet of the Taliban”. But when the Mujahid youth in Somalia ignored his nonsense and renewed their Bayah to Shaykh Ayman Zawahiri and Mullah Akhtar Mansor, he wrote an article attacking and defaming the Mujahid youth in Somalia, calling them deviant, and he called upon ISIS cells in Somalia to execute suicide operations against Al-Shabaab and its leaders, in his article titled “Surely this is the treachery of Al-Shabaab leaders.” He then wrote an article called “The Jews of Jihad – The Al-Qaedah of Zawahiri” filled with lies, defaming and slandering the Al-Qaedah leadership and Ansar Sharia in Libya. Now this article titled “The obliteration of symbols – Abu Musab As-Suri” confirming the slanders against the Shaykh in the recent edition of Dabiq.
The attack against Shaykh Abu Musab Suri clearly originates from his outspoken statements against the extremist Takfiris he encountered in the Algerian civil war in the early nineties. Which indicates that ISIS shares the same extremism of the Takfiris from the GIA in Algeria. We have never heard ISIS criticize the extremism in the Algerian war, but they do criticize Shaykh Abu Musab who opposed the extremism in Algeria that cost many Muslim lives. His statements about the extremism he encountered in Algeria are also

The Archivist: Unseen Islamic State Military Commanders Manual: Qualities and Manners of the Mujahid Commander

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

NOTE: For prior parts in The Archivist series you can view an archive of it all here. And for his older series see: Musings of an Iraqi Brasenostril on Jihad.
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The Archivist: Unseen Islamic State Military Commanders Manual: Qualities and Manners of the Mujahid Commander
By Aymenn al-Tamimi

In keeping with its statehood image, the Islamic State (IS) seeks to present its fighting forces as akin to an organized military, with a bureaucratic department known as the Diwan al-Jund (Soldiers Department) as part of the system of Diwans to cover various aspects of state governance since the declaration of the Caliphate. To be sure, there is still a considerable degree of obscurity as to the nature of organization of the military. From the documentary evidence, names of various battalions have emerged such as the Yarmouk Battalion, the Furqan Brigade, the al-Qa’qaa’ battalion, the al-Sadiq Special Battalion. From the battalion names that are known, it would appear that they are wilaya [province] or region specific. For instance, the al-Qa’qaa’ battalion seems to be a specific product of the ‘Idad al-Fatiheen institute in the town of al-Bab.

In addition, there are also divisions of units explicitly defined according to capabilities such as sniper attacks and air defence, as well as operatives who may be defined as istishhadiyun [‘martyrdom operatives’- i.e. suicide bombers] and inghimasiyun [commandos]. Shari’i officials may also have a role to play in providing spiritual and moral direction before and after battles as well as during times when there are no battles. More broadly, a special-forces division exists by the name of Jaysh al-Khilafa/Jaysh Dabiq (the Caliphate Army/Dabiq Army) that operates across IS territory as circumstances require. It is also responsible for the dispatching of operatives abroad, undoubtedly to areas like Libya where IS has cultivated official wilayas and developed an administration resembling its bureaucratic model in Iraq and Syria.

More a relic of the past are foreign fighter battalions that had a high social media profile in the ISIS era (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham: April 2013-June 2014) such as the Katibat al-Battar al-Libi. These battalions notably dropped off the radar after the official Caliphate declaration, as the policy is to try to integrate muhajireen and ansar into the same fighting units, or failing that, at least integrate muhajireen of multiple nationalities rather than have foreign fighter battalions based around single nationalities or ethnicities.

Coming under the Diwan al-Jund is the Idarat al-Mu’askarat (Camps Administration), which, as its name suggests, is responsible for oversight of the military camps established by IS. For example, in coordination with the Diwan al-‘Eftaa wa al-Buhuth (Fatwa Issuing and Research Department), the Idarat al-Mu’askarat issues the basic theology manuals for training camp recruits, such as the Course in Tawheed (Muqarrar fi al-Tawheed) and Course in Fiqh (Muqarrar fi al-Fiqh).

This text in question, intended as a manual for military commanders, is also a product of the Idarat al-Mu’askarat. The majority of its contents is in the form of religious guidance with additional sections emphasizing bodily preparation and largely common sense advice for commanders, but a special appendix on the conduct of military missions is attached at the end. Considering that the latter sort of information is highly sensitive, it is hardly surprising that the cover of this text has been stamped with the label ‘not to be sold or distributed.’ Reference is also made in the text to an appendix on the security (amni) department of IS bureaucracy, but it is not included here.

Among the interesting pieces of information that emerge in the appendix set out here are the nature of relations between provincial governors [walis] and military commanders, the procedures for the arranging of a suicide bombing operation, the fact that the work of security officials should generally not be known by military officials, and the procedures regarding leave permits for soldiers. Furthermore, one should note that the positions of military amir and security amir in each wilaya defined in the appendix are separate. This is one line of evidence pointing to the forged nature of the purported IS document, marked as the wilaya of Ninawa, signed by the supposed ‘military and security official’ and promoted as genuine by the American anti-IS campaign spokesman Col. Steve Warren back in December 2015. The document in question is likely the work of Shi’a militia propagandists, as it portrayed all acts of destruction of property and abuses against civilians as IS-ordered atrocities designed to be blamed on Iraqi forces.

In terms of the religious guidance content of the book, it is generally unremarkable apart from the fact that it largely appears to have been plagiarised from an earlier work called “Jihad in the path of God,” of which the fourth subsection of the first chapter is entitled “Qualities of the mujahideen in the path of God” (also see here). Specifically, all the sections from pages 3-12 seem to have been lifted almost verbatim from this subsection, apart from some very minor modifications and abridgements (e.g. unlike the original, Sayyid Qutb, who is cited, is not mentioned by name in the text below but is rather just referred to as ‘one of the predecessors’). The work “Jihad in the path of God” was written by one Abdullah al-Ahdal, also known by his full name Abdullah Qadri al-Ahdal. Born in around 1356 AH [c. 1937-8] in the Abs district of northwest Yemen, he went to study at the Islamic University in Medina and graduated in 1385 AH [c. 1965-6], subsequently going on to obtain a doctorate at the Shari’a College in Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud Islamic University in Riyadh in 1402 CE [c. 1981-2]. His PhD thesis was the work “Jihad in the path of God,” which has gone through two printings.

As for the section on bodily preparation, this part too appears to have been plagiarised from elsewhere (cf. here).

Below is the text of the manual with translation in full.
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Islamic State
Camps Administration

GUEST POST: The Conquest of Constantinople: The Islamic State Targets a Turkish Audience

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

NOTE: 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 blogs 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 wonks 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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The Conquest of Constantinople: The Islamic State Targets a Turkish Audience
By North Caucasus Caucus
“We earnestly desire from our exalted god that He grant us the good news of the conquest of Istanbul and other places, and in that vein we patiently continue.” – Konstantiniyye, June 2015, pp.6
Introduction
The Conquest of Constantinople
On 01 June 2015, official Islamic State (IS) media outlet al-Hayat Media released the first issue of a new Turkish language magazine entitled, Konstantiniyye (the transliteration of the Ottoman spelling of Constantinople). The lay out and design of the 46-page magazine are familiar to those who have read some of al-Hayat’s other publications such as Dabiq and Istok, a similar specifically Russian-language magazine just released several weeks prior to Konstantiniyye. While all the previous issues of IS’s magazine, Dabiq, had been translated into Turkish, this is the first official publication from al-Hayat directed at a Turkish audience and could be an indication of IS leadership no longer caring as much about provoking the Turkish government.
Content and Themes Directed at a Turkish Audience
The first issue of Konstantiniyye was entitled, “The Conquest of Constantinople.” In the introduction of the magazine, al-Hayat lays out its goals and bemoans that “the people of Turkey, especially Muslims, have been deprived of much of the multitude of news, writings, and videos coming out of the Islamic State each day.” To rectify this, al-Hayat states that they established a dedicated Turkey desk, which will provide official translations of all al-Hayat publications as well as publish Konstantiniyye monthly. Konstantiniyye specifically for a Turkish audience and focusing on “topics of interest to Muslims in Turkey about the Islamic State.” The writers go on to say, “We have tried not to overwhelm the reader by taking care to keep our writings short.” The release of the magazine appears to have been timed to coincide with two events in Turkey – the annual celebration of the conquest of Constantinople and the Turkish national elections.
Conquest of Istanbul
The centerpiece of the magazine is an article entitled, “The Conquest of Constantinople.” The magazine was released two days after Turkey’s annual celebration of “Fetih Gunu,” the day commemorating the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. The commemoration of this event has grown considerably over the last decade and become a much more prominent event in Turkish popular consciousness. The impressive panorama museum, constructed in 2006, remains a very popular tourist attraction. (I visited myself in 2014 and had to wait in line for more than 45 minutes to enter). A film about the conquest, Fetih 1453 was released in February 2012 and was the most expensive and highest grossing movie in Turkish history. Clips from Fetih 1453 were used in the al-Hayat Balkans-focused release, “Honor in Jihad.”
The article seeks to tie the conquest of Constantinople and modern day Istanbul into IS’s broader narrative about the pre-destined nature of Caliphate and the final apocalyptic battles at al-Amaq and Dabiq. Based primarily on the hadiths of Abu Hurairah, the author writes, “Allah’s messenger [Muhammed]…told us the good news that Constantinople would also be conquered. Constantinople was conquered before, but the conquest referred to in this good news has not yet occurred.” However, the conquest does not refer to taking the city by force. The author writes,  “As can be understood from these hadiths, close to the Last Hour, the city that was formerly known as Constantinople and now is known as Istanbul will be conquered with the call of takbir and without weapons or blood.” The discussion of the conquest of Istanbul is likely in line with previous claims that IS will conquer Rome. This is not an actual goal, but more to energize a potential Turkish audience.
Following “The Conquest of Constantinople,” the magazine features a poem about Istanbul (a full translation of the poem can be found at the end of this article). The popularity of poetry among jihadis has been well chronicled among many nationalities of foreign fighters (Thomas Hegghammer has written on this topic extensively, as has The New Yorker). This mirrors the increased volume of original IS-focused nasheeds regularly released throughout the last few months.
Elections and Democracy
The Conquest of Constantinople2
There ar e two sections on democracy, one entitled, “Democracy was Ignited ” and the other “The Qur’an is for the Dead and Democracy is for the Living.” Both articles lay out standard Salafi arguments about the incompatibility of being a Muslim and participating in democratic systems, as well as how the democratic systems will ultimately fall just like communism and socialism. As a potential indicator of writers knowing their audience, the first article included a meme popular on more religiously conservative Turkish Facebook pages, featuring US soldiers raiding a house in Iraq with the caption, “Open the door, Democracy is coming!” The title of the second article presents the idea that some Muslims have been deceived into believing that the Qur’an does not apply to them in their everyday life, therefore there is a need for democracy.
While unlikely coordinated, a Turkish Salafi group headed by Halis Bayancuk (Ebu Hanzala), similarly launched an anti-voting campaign. Though often associated with IS in both the Turkish and Western media, Bayancuk publicly stated in May 2015 that he has not pledged allegiance to IS emir Baghdadi, but some IS members call him their brother and he calls some IS members his brothers in religion. Using the slogan, “Don’t vote, honor your creator,” Bayancuk’s websites, Tevhidgundem, Tevhiddersleri, and Tevhiddergisi, laid out the organization’s strategy and goals. Laying out both real world and virtual tactics, goals included distributing hundreds of thousands of brochures and hanging a similar number of billets in 30 major cities around the country as well as sending five million e-mails and hashtag bombing (having supporters all tweeting at 9pm local time in order to get the campaign’s hashtags trending). On 04 June, #OyKullanmaYaratıcınaŞirkKoşma (Don’t vote, don’t undermine your creator) and #OyKullanmaRabbineSirkKosma (Don’t vote, don’t undermine your lord) did briefly trend in Turkey. Under the hashtag, supporters posted photos of themselves posting billets and using graffiti stencils to deface political advertisements throughout the country.
Considering the enviable over 85% turnout for the election, the campaign likely had a negligible effect on the overall outcome of the election. However, it shows a growing coordination and support base for Salafi groups. A similar, but much smaller campaign was launched during the last national election in 2011. One major difference was the attempt to get grass roots support – providing instructions on how people could personally get involved as well as PDFs of the brochures and stickers so supporters could have them produced in one of Turkey’s ubiquitous print shops.
Other Turkey Focused Content and Other Standard IS Propaganda
The Conquest of Constantinople3
The final two articles, calibrated to resonate specifically with a Turkish audience, are a dietary fatwa and an article about Palestinians in the Yarmouk camp. The fatwa focuses on how people living in the Islamic State should not eat meat brought in from Turkey (such as pre-packaged meat sold in grocery stores). The primary reason against eating this meat, according to the fatwa, is the animals are not slaughtered in accordance with proper rules and those handling the meat are not actually Muslims. Stories about processed meat in Turkey not being halal have existed for years (though the authors claim they have insider information on the topic). Additionally Palestinian issues have had great resonance among a large portion of the Turkish population, not just Salafis or the very religiously conservative.
The remainder of the magazine is standard IS media material – a translation of an address by IS spokesman Ebu Muhammed al Adnani entitled, “The Killers and Those who are Killed (originally released in March 2015), justification for the destruction of Iraqi antiquities, and a profile of Boko Haram and its pledge of allegiance to IS. The material is generally short and punchy and with the purpose of convincing readers the necessity to immigrate to the Islamic State.
Distribution and Reach
The website, darulhilafe.com appears to have been the first to post the

The Clear Banner: Belgian Fighters In Syria and Iraq – November 2014

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

NOTE: For prior parts in the Clear Banner series you can view an archive of it all here. Also for earlier updates on Belgian foreign fighters see: September 2013, January 2014 I and II, and May 2014.
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Belgian Fighters In Syria and Iraq – November 2014
By Pieter Van Ostaeyen
 
Some demographics:
Islam is the largest minority religion in Belgium, it is estimated that about 6% (about 630.000 people) of Belgium’s total population are Muslims. In the 1960’s, when Belgium still was recovering from the total devastation of World War II, the country invited thousands of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants to work in the heavy industry which at that time dominated the Belgian economy. Most of these unschooled people had relatively well-paid jobs in the steel industry or coal mines. The guest-worker program was abolished in 1974, yet a lot of these people stayed in Belgium and brought in their families taking use of the family reunification laws. Today the Muslim population keeps on growing due to marriage migrations.
In 1974 Islam was officially recognized by the Belgian government as a subsidized religion; from 1996 onwards the Belgian Muslim community has been represented by the Muslim Executive of Belgium.1 Although this first generation of Muslims seems to have integrated quite well in Belgium, this surely doesn’t stand for their children and grandchildren. Cities like Antwerp, Mechelen, Vilvoorde, and Brussels now have important minorities of descendants of these guest-worker immigrants. As such one would say this isn’t problematic at all, taking into respect on how their parents and grandparents managed to build a career and family.
However, in the 1980’s and 1990’s Belgium started facing increasing problems and mishaps with its Muslim immigrant community. Cities like Mechelen in the 1990’s were known as hubs of petty theft and drug dealing (especially by Moroccan Berbers dealing hashish). More and more of these youngsters were cruising the city with expensive cars like BMW’s and Mercedes’s. It was commonly known these cars were paid with drug-money. At that time, the city of Mechelen was referred to as ‘Chicago at the river Dijle’2, due to its extreme crime rates. Other Flemish cities were facing the same problem. In Antwerp the district of Borgerhout was known as Borgerokko because of its high amount of inhabitants from Maghrebi origin. Brussels, Belgium’s capital, had entire no-go zones. It is in this climate of fear and mutual mistrust that extreme right wing parties like Vlaams Blok (now Vlaams Belang) thrived. On the federal elections of Sunday November 24th, 1991, out of the blue Vlaams Blok gained around 6.5 % of the votes. The tone of voice was set for the years to come; using slogans like ‘adapt or get lost’, Vlaams Blok profited highly from the general mistrust amongst the Belgian public towards the Muslim community.
In the course of the next few years Vlaams Blok started building up its anti-Islamic theme, criticizing Muslims on head scarves, the slaughter of sheep on ‘Eid festivities and the fact they didn’t manage to integrate in our society. They easily disregarded the fact it was mainly because of political parties and narratives as their own that the Muslim society in Belgium had little or no chance to assimilate or let alone integrate. In the course of the next few years Vlaams Blok was forbidden and reappeared as Vlaams Belang. As such the name was dropped but the rhetoric remained the same; intolerance and latent racism in Flanders grew steadily.
It should be noted that well before Belgium was confronted with its huge amount of fighters engaged in the war in Syria (and later Iraq), the country already was a main supplier of Jihadist Fighters. On September 10th, 2001, the suicide attack on Ahmed Shah Masoud, leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was conducted by a Belgian Muslim. And even before 9/11 Belgians played a quite important role in international Jihad. Several Belgians were engaged in GICM (Groupe Islamiste Combattante Marrocaine) and GIA. Shaykh Bassam al-Ayashi, the oldest Belgian fighter in Syria, who once was suspected to be a main al-Qaeda recruiter now is leading his own little branch of Suqur as-Sham in Northern Syria.
As one of the main reasons for all, these Belgians involved all refer to the Belgian policy on its inaptitude to integrate the Muslims in our democratic society. These guys don’t see us as being democratic; they rather see how Muslims are being oppressed on what they consider to be their basic rights. The fact that Belgium forbad the face-veil or Niqab, headscarves are forbidden in schools and in public service, next year private Halal-slaughter will no longer be allowed, and so on. It is a message even confirmed by Sharia4Belgium’s spokesman Fouad Belkacem. In a statement he recently published from prison, he states: If I look back upon these days I think about the arrogance and the deep-rooted islamophobia of the Belgian State […] The head-scarf ban in 2009 hit us like an atom bomb […] For almost 50 years we saw humiliated Muslims beg for basic rights […].3
It is in reaction to these general sentiments that Sharia4Belgium was founded on March 3 2010. The group was inspired by other European Salafi groups that already existed such as Islam4UK, at that time led by the radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary. In its founding notes Islam4UK stated: [the group was] established by sincere Muslims as a platform to propagate the supreme Islamic ideology within the United Kingdom as a divine alternative to man-made law, and to convince the British public about the superiority of Islam […] thereby changing public opinion in favor of Islam in order to transfer the authority and power […] to the Muslims in order to implement the Shari’a (in Britain).4 A very similar discourse was spreading among radical Muslims in Belgium. As such, Sharia4Belgium copied a lot of the rhetoric of Anjem Choudary and other inspiring leaders of Islam4UK. Sharia4Belgium denounced democracy and stated it wanted to introduce the Shari’a in Belgium.
Fouad Belkacem explains in his statement who is leaving for Jihad in Syria:
A. The Migrants for the case of Allah. These believers seek to please Allah wherever possible. They believe that the highest value after worshipping the unity of Allah is the blessed Jihad. Jihad doesn’t mean Holy War, this term stems from Christianity and its Crusades. May Allah give this brothers what they seek.
B. The Migrants against suppression. They are the ones who left because of the injustice they daily lived in Belgium. A lot of practicing Muslims every day feel the injustice from the government and society.
C. A new live, a new beginning. A lot left for Syria to start a new life. The fact that a lot of youngsters prefer to live under bombs than in “hospitable, warm Flanders” as such is another proof against the government. Everything seems better than Belgium.
D. Sense of justice. The last group is that of the pious Muslims who could no longer bear the injustice done to their brothers. They want to contribute, how futile it may be.5
This general resentment against Belgiums policy against its Muslim community is also confirmed by the Belgian researcher Montasser AlDe’emeh. In the Belgian weekly Knack of September 23, 2014, Montasser published part of his interviews with a Belgian Islamic State fighter:
In Belgium daily they make new laws against Muslims. A Niqab ban, a headscarf ban and soon maybe a ban on beards and some Mosques? Why can’t our sisters wear a headscarf? […]Politicians, teachers at school, people at work, they

GUEST POST: The Different Functions of IS Online and Offline Plegdes (bay'at): Creating A Multifaceted Nexus of Authority

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin
NOTE: 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 blogs administrator and does not at all represent his employer at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.=&0=&=&1=&=&2=&=&3=&=&4=&=&5=&=&6=&=&7=&“=&8=&=&1=&“=&10=&=&11=&“=&12=&=&13=&“=&14=&=&15=&