Around ten years ago I read an article on a major issue with our troops in Iraq. We would stop a suspect at a fence, take his basic information down and get a name from him. However, we would not know that he was also checkering out other installations and he would always give a different name.
A reservist, who worked for a hi-tech company, took a leave back home and had his company work on a portable fingerprint machine. Besides getting his "name," they would get his fingerprints and developed a database of men who continued to "accidentally" run into our fence lines, can change their names every time.
With ISIS recruiting people via website and moving to a "leaderless" resistance, cyber warfare is a critical defense.
WASHINGTON — A decade ago, he was a young Army soldier training Iraqi troops when he noticed their primitive filing system: handwritten notes threaded with different colors of yarn, stacked in piles. For organization’s sake, he built them a simple computer database.
Now an Army reservist, the major is taking a break from his civilian high-tech job to help America’s technological fight against the Islamic State. He’s part of a growing force of experts the Pentagon has assembled to defeat the extremists.
“The ability to participate in some way in a real mission, that is actually something that’s rare, that you can’t find in private sector,” said the 38-year-old Nebraska native who is working at U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Md. “You’re part of a larger team putting your skills to use, not just optimizing clicks for a digital ad, but optimizing the ability to counter ISIS or contribute to the security of our nation.”
‘Analytic focus’
Last year, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter expressed frustration that the United States was losing the cyberwar against the militants. He pushed the Cyber Command to be more aggressive. In response, the Pentagon undertook an effort to incorporate cyber technology into its daily military fight, including new ways to disrupt the enemy’s communications, recruiting, fundraising and propaganda.
To speak with someone at the front lines of this campaign, The Associated Press agreed to withhold the major’s name. The military says he could be threatened or targeted by the militants if he is identified publicly. The major and other officials wouldn’t provide precise details on the highly classified work he is doing.
But Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, said the major is bringing new expertise for identifying enemy networks, pinpointing system administrators or developers and potentially monitoring how ISIS’ online traffic moves.
He “has the ability to bring an analytic focus of what the threat is doing, coupled with a really deep understanding of how networks run,” Nakasone said, describing such contributions as “really helpful for us.” He outlined a key question for the military: “How do you impact an adversary that’s using cyberspace against us?”
‘Tangible Results’
The military is looking for new ways to bring in more civilians with high-tech skills who can help against ISIS and prepare for the new range of technological threats the nation will face. Nakasone said that means getting Guard and Reserve members with technical expertise in digital forensics, math cryptoanalysis and writing computer code. The challenge is how to find them.
“I would like to say it’s this great database that we have, that we’ve been able to plug in and say, ‘Show me the best tool developers and analysts that you have out there,’” Nakasone said. “We don’t have that yet. We are going to have one, though, by June.”
The Army Reserve is starting a pilot program cataloging soldiers’ talents. Among 190,000 Army reservists, Nakasone said there might be up to 15,000 with some type of cyberrelated skills. But there are legal and privacy hurdles, and any database hinges on reservists voluntarily and accurately providing information on their capabilities.
The Army major said others in the civilian high-tech industry are interested in helping.
The major said he has signed up for a second one-year tour in his cyber job. He is looking at options for staying longer.
“I find what I’m doing very satisfying, because I have an opportunity to implement things, to get things done and see them work and see tangible results,” he said. “I’m not making as much as I was on the civilian side. But the satisfaction is that strong, and is that valuable, that it’s worth it.”
Last week, the Islamic State released the eighth edition of its Rumiyah monthly magazine. Its cover story: an article lionizing Rumiyah's former editor, Ahmad Abousamra, who was killed in January by a U.S.-led coalition airstrike near Tabqa, Syria.
Other experts have already done a commendable job of retracing Abousamra's steps as he transformed from a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston's computer science program to a propagandist of terrorism. (I encourage readers interested in his past to look at the profiles compiled by CNN's Paul Cruickshank and the Long War Journal's Thomas Joscelyn.) Rather than repeating their good work, I'd like to use Abousamra's case to look at the importance of propagandists to extremist groups such as the Islamic State — and the impact their removal from the battlefield can have in the fight against terrorism.
Spreading the Word
As I noted a few weeks ago, propagandists have always played a crucial role in terrorist groups' recruitment and radicalization efforts. In fact, early anarchists viewed terrorism itself as a form of propaganda, spread with the help of the media. Advances in the printing press and telegraph enabled anarchists to transmit their messages worldwide; decades later, jihadists became the early adopters of the internet. The Islamic State is no exception, and it has used social media to give its propaganda an unprecedented global reach.
But technology is a tool that is only as effective as the message it conveys. Many different actors have tried to use social media to promote their ideologies or sell their products, but very few have seen the success that the Islamic State has. Part of the group's appeal can be attributed to the apocalyptic nature of its beliefs and the excitement it has generated by telling followers they can help bring about the final battle between good and evil. Yet such claims are hardly unique: There are plenty of other cults with similar views, some of which have even tried to bring about the end of days. What set the Islamic State apart were its dramatic victories on the battlefield in 2014, which lent credibility to the group's promises to conquer the world. But even so, those wins were greatly amplified by the skill of the propaganda team the Islamic State had assembled under Abu Muhammed al-Furqan, the man in charge of the group's media diwan, or department...
Iraqi troops and their allies are getting closer and closer to Mosul. Forces at the head of the advance, approaching the city from the east, have even crossed into the city's outskirts. Islamic State fighters in the heart of Mosul have begun to prepare for the impending battle, and based on satellite imagery obtained from our partners at AllSource Analysis, it appears as if the jihadist group has formed a formidable defensive line along the southern edge of the city's center.
The photographs above, taken Oct. 31, show that the Islamic State has cleared a wide swath of terrain to the north of Mosul airport, along the western bank of the Tigris River. Nearly all of the buildings in the airport complex and the former military base to its west have been leveled. (Though Mosul's sugar factory is still standing, its facilities seem to have already been struck by coalition airstrikes.) By destroying the buildings, the jihadists are likely trying to transform the edge of Mosul's fortified city center into a wall from which they can target approaching adversaries. The large open areas the Islamic State has cleared to the south of its positions will enable it to watch and engage advancing forces from a greater distance.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State has also erected a long line of barricades on roads leading into the city. The group has placed concrete blocks — perhaps portions of concrete walls — and other rubble in the streets to prevent vehicles from navigating them. However, the militants have opted against reducing mobility in several areas of the city for now. They have fashioned ready-made barriers that are currently lining both sides of the roads that are still open, and they could easily tip them into the streets once the battle draws near.
The air power and artillery fire that Iraqi forces can bring to bear will significantly reduce the Islamic State's chances of maintaining its hold on Mosul. Nevertheless, the jihadists' defensive measures will pose a substantial tactical challenge to the converging forces. Iraqi troops will either have to adjust their course to avoid running into the Islamic State's positions head-on, or accept the risks of crossing open terrain to reach the dug-in jihadist fighters.
I remember the video for Gangsta's Paradise, where Michelle Pfeiffer pulls the sun glasses off of a young girl and the look of hatred in her eyes. I thought how easily a young mind can be destroyed. Now we have another example of recruiting young people early. The threat is there.
Young people within the caliphate are being trained to fight. They are isolated from their parents, taught to shoot rifles and throw grenades, and encouraged to volunteer as suicide bombers, a role extolled by their instructors as the highest calling for any pious Muslim youth. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)
The interview had gone on for nearly an hour when Taim, a slim, dark-eyed boy, started to fidget. The 8-year-old asked for paper and settled back in an oversize hotel chair to draw a memory.
His picture, in a child’s bold scrawl, was a scene from the small park near his house, a place where he used to play in the days before the bearded men with guns took over the city. A crowd in the park had gathered around two figures, and Taim remembered them vividly: A man with one eye, and a bald man who seemed upset about something.
“He was looking very angry,” Taim said, narrating his drawing of the bald man. “He is holding the other man and he is also holding something in his right hand.
“The other man has no eye — they had already taken his eye, you see?” he said, pointing to the second figure. “And then the other men stood behind him, and the head of the man with one eye just fell.”
The boy’s slender finger touched the page to show the severed head he had drawn.
“His head just fell,” Taim repeated.
The boy closed his eyes, as if to make the image go away.
“No,” he said finally. “I don’t want to remember it.”
During the two years since the founding of the self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, an estimated 6 million people have lived under the rule of the Islamic State. At least a third of them — about 2 million souls — are younger than 15.
These are, in a real sense, children of the caliphate. Collectively, say experts who have studied them, they are a profoundly traumatized population: impressionable young brains exposed not only to the ravages of war but also to countless acts of unspeakable cruelty, from public floggings and amputations to executions — the crucifixions and beheadings that have contributed to the Islamic State’s global notoriety.
The Washington Post interviewed five boys whose families escaped from Islamic State territory, including Taim, a Syrian refugee interviewed near his temporary home in Europe. The location of the refugee facility is being withheld by The Post at the family’s request. The newspaper also reviewed videos, reports and transcripts containing the stories of dozens of other boys and girls whose experiences are broadly similar to those interviewed.
Some, such as Taim, also ended up in the terrorist group’s schools and training camps, where they were force-fed a diet of Islamic State ideology and gory videos. Isolated from their families, they were taught to shoot rifles and throw grenades, and were encouraged to volunteer as suicide bombers, a role extolled by their instructors as the highest calling for any pious Muslim youth. Several described being made to witness — and even participate in — the executions of prisoners.
Aid workers who interact regularly with such youths describe deep psychological wounds that may be among the Islamic State’s most enduring legacies, setting the stage for new cycles of violence and extremism many years after the caliphate itself is wiped away. But relief organizations are straining to offer even limited counseling to children in the region’s overflowing refugee camps, and officials said even fewer resources are available for those living in shattered Iraqi and Syrian towns that were recently liberated from terrorist rule.
“Everyone has been traumatized,” said Chris Seiple, president emeritus of the Institute for Global Engagement, a charity that works with families fleeing the Islamic State. In counseling sessions set up by his organization in northern Iraq, he said, “you can watch how these kids try to begin working through this stuff,” sometimes with words but often in drawings that seem to conjure up the same recurring nightmare.
“We see kids drawing pictures of watching ISIS chopping off heads,” said Seiple, using a common acronym for the Islamic State. “What do you do with that, besides weep?”
A video of propaganda by the Islamic State is seen online Nov. 18, 2015. It shows children being trained in sports, weapons and Koran recitation in an undisclosed area somewhere between Syria and Iraq. (Balkis Press/Sipa USA via AP)
Boys into warriors
Taim was 6 when the militants with their black flags rolled into Raqqa, a city in north-central Syria. The streets of the Islamic State’s future capital had already witnessed sporadic battles between rival factions since the start of country’s civil war in late 2011. Now, with the terrorists in charge, the fighting would ease, but the bloodshed would grow steadily worse.
Taim, among the youths interviewed, was exposed to an unusually wide range of experiences during the nearly two years his family lived in the caliphate, from attending a school supervised by Islamic State instructors to undergoing military training in a camp intended to turn young boys into warriors and suicide bombers. In other respects, his story is strikingly similar to that of the four other boys, all of whom described harsh conditions and the brutal treatment of ordinary citizens, including family members…
Bright and alert with a shy smile, Taim turns wistful when asked about his memories of the early weeks after the jihadists took control. Before the Islamic State, daily life revolved around family, play time and his local school, which he adored. “I loved school,” he said with a grin, listing math, art and sports as favorite subjects.
Initially, the town’s new occupiers closed his school, turning the building into a military base, Taim’s family members said. When students were finally allowed to return months later, the fighters were still there, a physical presence in the classroom. They gave out trinkets and prizes and personally oversaw the introduction of a new curriculum, developed and approved by the Islamic State.
“They would give us toys at the beginning,” he said, “but when the lessons began, they were very serious. They would mainly teach us about Islam.”
Taim remembered how his new teachers gave special emphasis to a particular story from the life of the prophet Muhammad. In it, Islam’s founder punishes a group of camel thieves by plucking out their eyes and chopping off their limbs. For Raqqa youths, the lesson about harsh justice appeared to serve as both a warning and a justification for the cruel punishments the militants were beginning to inflict on the city’s residents for violations ranging from suspecting spying to smoking cigarettes.
Over time, the Islamic State replaced traditional classroom textbooks with new ones, written and published by the terrorists themselves. Many of the books have been collected and studied over the past two years by Western analysts, who describe the group’s educational literature as thinly disguised propaganda.
For very young children, lessons on arithmetic and handwriting are illustrated with pictures of guns, grenades and tanks. For older pupils, books on science and history glorify martyrdom and portray the creation of the Islamic State as humanity’s crowning achievement.
Jacob Olidort, an expert on Islamic militant literature who has analyzed dozens of such texts, said the literature is a serious and systematic attempt at shaping young minds, with the aim of producing not just believers but fighters.
“What we learn is that education is not only part of their arsenal, but an entire theater of conflict,” said Olidort, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They’re trying to create a jihadi generation. It’s not just believing the right creed, but being able to fight. It’s about convincing young people that only their perspective on the world is right and everyone else’s is wrong.”
For Taim, some of the most memorable lessons were not contained in books. Often, he recalled, the Islamic State’s teachers admonished the children to act as informants, promptly reporting any behavior by their parents that violated religious laws or suggested opposition to the group’s rule.
One day, he said, the teachers marched the class into a nearby park and made the children stand around an open pit — a future grave, one of the instructors said, for any child who failed to speak up if his parents were resisting or hiding from the Islamic State.
“If we did not tell them,” he said, “they would throw us into the hole.”…
Children in Cuba, North Korea and other dictatorships are still taught to inform on their patents if they speaks against the state and it's leaders. In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels both called for the destruction of the family and the raising of children by the state:
Abolition of the family! ... The bourgeois family will disappear, in the course [of history] as its supplement [private property] disappears, and both will vanish with the destruction of capital.
In this instance we have children being raised by a quasi-state entity to be suicide bombers for a movement. Think it's impossible for children to be like that. I suggest you read the book or watch the movie American Sniper, where Chris Kyle has to shot a child getting ready to attack an American patrol. What kind of mother would send her son into certain death like this:
Granted, it's Politico, but if they say it's an issue, you know it's worse than it's posted here!
German intelligence warns of ISIL ‘hit squads’ among refugees Official says country has to accept it is home to terror ‘sleeper cells.’ German intelligence services have evidence that “hit squads” from the Islamic State terror group have infiltrated the country disguised as refugees, the deputy head of Bavaria’s spy agency told the BBC Thursday. “We have to accept that we have hit squads and sleeper cells in Germany,” Manfred Hauser, the vice president of the Bavaria region’s intelligence gathering agency, BayLfV, told the Today program. “We have substantial reports that among the refugees there are hit squads. There are hundreds of these reports, some from refugees themselves. We are still following up on these, and we haven’t investigated all of them fully,” said Hauser. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière will present a set of new security measures in Berlin on Thursday, following recent attacks in the country inspired by ISIL. ...Hauser said intelligence services have “irrefutable evidence that there is an IS command structure in place,” making a coordinated attack, similar to those seen in Paris last November and Brussels in March, “likely.” Bavaria has been the main gateway for asylum seekers fleeing conflict in the Middle East, over 1 million of whom arrived in Germany in 2015.
B Hussein Obama wants to bring in 10, 000 "refugees." Mrs. Bill Clinton will up it to 65, 000. On behalf of Americans everywhere.....
As you drive northeast out of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, you enter a different world. While the nation as a whole is more than 80 percent Orthodox Christian, the Pankisi Gorge in the Greater Caucasus Mountains just 161 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital is home to 8,000 Sunni Muslims from the Kist ethnic group. Instead of the iconic church bells of Tbilisi, you hear the call to prayer five times a day.
Historically, the region was a paragon of religious harmony, with Kists living alongside Christian Georgians and Ossetians. This held even through the 19th century when Orthodox Russia squared off against recalcitrant Muslim Chechens — a conflict that often took on the character of a holy war.
But things changed in the early 1990s when Chechen separatists declared independence. The Kists have strong cultural ties with both the Chechens and Ingush groups across the border. Chechen fighters and refugees fleeing the conflict flocked to Georgia and into the Muslim communities of the Pankisi Gorge. For several years, militants staged regular raids back into Chechnya and other Caucasus republics belonging to the Russian Federation. Christian Ossetians began to abandon their homes because of the influx, leaving for other parts of the country.
On entering the tiny village of Jokolo in the Pankisi Gorge, the first thing you notice is a large mosque alongside the only paved road, which runs through the gorge along the Alazani River up into the mountains. The mosque is clearly the center of life here, flanked by a single line of desolate shops and market stalls. There is one restaurant that is open only on special occasions. Young men with red and black beards milled around the entrance to the mosque, seemingly with little else to do.
With the arrival of the Chechens in the 1990s, the area saw major inroads by a once-alien form of Islam: Wahhabism. In recent years, the Pankisi Gorge has become infamous as a fertile recruiting ground for the Islamic State, which seeks to swell its ranks (and prestige) by bringing in foreign fighters to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State leader Abu Omar al-Shishani hailed from the region. Born in the village of Birkiani as Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili, al-Shishani fought against Russia in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and became radicalized soon after. I went to find the home of his father, 72-year-old Temur Batirashvili. Georgian TV channels that week were broadcasting reports of al-Shishani's death, and I wondered how his father was reacting to this news. Rumors of his son's death have been circulating since at least 2014 but have proved wrong time and again. Each time, his father declined to comment to the media. But as I passed his father's house, I saw that the gates had been flung open and people were pouring in, undeniable proof that Temur had received confirmation of his son's death, corroborated by the Islamic State shortly after on July 13.
With the Islamic State fighting for its continued existence in Syria, it is doubtful that al-Shishani will be the last native of the Pankisi Gorge to die. Other, less celebrated sons and daughters have followed al-Shishani to the killing fields of Iraq and Syria. Driving through the region gave me a clue as to why. In addition to the desire for glory, there is another, simpler reason for their exodus: economic stagnation. There is little for the youth of the region to do. Communities look as if they are dying. The internet is the only thing that offers young people possibilities outside of their village — and all too often the internet offers a doorway to transnational jihad.
Residents have repeatedly reported this problem to authorities. Many allege that the Islamic State has done more than recruit online, insisting that the group has sent an agent to the gorge to make connections in person. The government, however, denies that the Islamic State has sent a recruiter to the Pankisi Gorge and downplays how many Chechens and Kists have joined to the self-proclaimed caliphate. (The government officially puts the number at 50, but local estimates suggest it is actually 200 or more.)
Finding the family of a foreign fighter was not difficult. The village of Dumasturi, for example, is typical of the region. The main economic activity there is raising livestock, including cattle, sheep and some buffalo. Most of the village, however, is abandoned, roofs and walls collapsing after years of neglect. I met a woman named Tina Alkhanishvili in the village. She told me her husband had abandoned her and moved to Grozny, the Chechen capital, where he started a new family. She and her children live in poverty.
Her son, Ramzan Alkhanishvili, was just 18 years old when he disappeared to join the Islamic State in April. His mother dropped him off at school in the morning, as she normally did. A few hours later, around noon, he left and never returned. His mother waited until evening, and then she and relatives began to search for him, asking friends and acquaintances if they knew what had happened. No one knew anything. That night they went to the closest police station, located in the center of a nearby village. I passed by the police station, which was so brightly lit that it looked like a UFO around the poor Georgian houses, built from stone and covered with circular tiles. Ramzan was accompanied by a 16-year-old boy. Tina was left wondering how a 16-year-old managed to purchase tickets and board an airplane in Tbilisi bound for Turkey. She implied this could not have been organized independently by her son; he must have had the hands-on assistance of Islamic State agents.
Her life is emblematic of many in the Pankisi Gorge — waiting to see what will happen next, as the youth they love disappear and their communities crumble. And all for conflicts outside of their isolated river valley.
What to Expect After the Nov. 13 Paris AttacksFrench security forces evacuate Paris’ 10th arrondissement following a string of Nov. 13 attacks.(KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images)
Analysis
Update (9:30 a.m. CST): The death toll from the Nov. 13 attacks has now reached over 120, according to France 24.
Update (6:00 p.m. CST): According to French media reports, French security forces have stormed and secured the Bataclan theater. The attackers apparently used grenades inside the main concert hall, Aujourd'hui Paris reported Nov. 13. Details are still emerging.
As many as 60 people died Nov. 13 in multiple terrorist attacks throughout Paris. At least five gunmen – likely jihadists judging from witness's accounts – conducted the attacks. Timeline of the Attack
The attacks, which were clearly coordinated, took place in multiple locations and involved different methods. In the first wave, two suicide bombers detonated their explosives at locations near the Stade de France, where a soccer match between France and Germany was taking place. (French President Francois Hollande himself was at the stadium at the time of the attack. He was escorted from the scene and met with French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve in a closed meeting shortly thereafter.) It is unclear whether grenades or other explosives were used, and it is possible a suicide bomber may have been involved.
Meanwhile, gunmen also opened fire, reportedly with Kalashnikov rifles, on a tightly packed Cambodian restaurant in a drive-by shooting. Shots were also fired at the Bataclan concert hall, where a hostage situation is now underway. Roughly 25 minutes later, gunmen also opened fire on Rue de Charonne. And about an hour after the initial attacks, attacks by other terrorist cells took place at the Louvre and Les Halles.
Special police units, including RAID, a police intervention unit, have been rapidly mobilized and are currently securing the areas around the stadium, the bars and restaurants in the area of the 10th and 11th arrondissement, a part of Paris popular with young people and tourists, and the Bataclan concert hall, where at least some of the gunmen, allegedly armed with explosives, are reportedly located and holding up to 100 hostages.
Events in Paris could evolve rapidly – the standoff with the gunmen at the Bataclan concert hall could end at any moment if the French special police units believe that the gunmen are going to harm the hostages.
Though shocking, the attacks are not completely surprising. Multiple individuals from France and other European countries have traveled to Syria to join extremist groups there. As the Charlie Hebdo attacks have also demonstrated, there is a persistent risk of terrorist attacks within Europe. An important question going forward is whether the attacks were entirely grassroots in nature or whether the assailants received instruction or assistance from abroad from groups such as the Islamic State or al Qaeda. Furthermore, the recent influx of refugees into Europe from places such as Syria highlights the risk that jihadist groups could have placed some of their members among the large refugee flow in order to conduct attacks in Europe.
In an address to the nation, French President Francois Hollande said that the country will close off its borders. The French government will prioritize immediately locking down the city, protecting civilians and capturing the attackers. The next piece of that will be to close down transportation and the borders to prevent any perpetrators from escaping. Finally they will begin to investigate to uproot the parties responsible for the attacks. Notably, Hollande has officialy declared a state of emergency.Political Fallout
The attacks will surely have political consequences. They come five days before France's only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, is due to set sail for the Persian Gulf for actions against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. France has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since late September. Should the attacks be traced back to the Islamic State's core area of operation, France will probably deepen its involvement in anti-Islamic State operations in Syria and Iraq at a time when the Syrian battlefield in particular is becoming crowded and complicated.
From a political perspective, the attacks are a reminder of France's longstanding ethnic frictions following several months in which the focus has been on neighboring Germany. High numbers of migrants have been entering Germany from the east and south, with very few carrying on to France. As a result, France has kept a relatively low profile in the attempts to stem the flow of migrants, though it has been present at the numerous summits on the issue and has supported Germany's push for a relocation of asylum seekers across Europe. Nevertheless, this event can be expected to strengthen the argument of those groups that have been calling for a halt in the flow of immigrants and the closing of borders in countries such as Germany, Sweden and much of Central and Eastern Europe
In the wake of these attacks, Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Front party could see their popularity rise. Le Pen kept a low profile after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January and still saw an increase in her party's popularity because of its longstanding anti-immigration message. Hollande also saw a brief uptick in popularity after the Charlie Hebdo attack because of his reaction to the events, but a repeat of this trend is not expected because people will now question whether the anti-terrorism measures that were approved this year actually worked. The leader of the center-right Republicans Party, Nicolas Sarkozy, also has a history of taking a strong stance on security issues; he was campaigning on the subject only last week. He is expected to battle the milder Alain Juppe for his party's nomination in the 2017 elections, and voters may swing to his side in the wake of the attacks.
Editor's note: Stratfor has produced this supplemental edition of the Security Weekly to amplify understanding of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris. The Security Weekly publishes regularly each Thursday.
Until Nov. 13, the eight attackers responsible for the night of violence in Paris were just a handful of radical Islamists in a large universe of Islamist radicals in France. Many of these radicals are nonviolent, while a small segment of them are extremists who espouse violence to achieve their radical agenda — the type we refer to as jihadists. Yet even among the jihadists who advocate violence, there are divisions. Some maintain that jihad should be waged only defensively in support of fellow Muslims being oppressed or attacked in places such as Syria. Another subset advocates for attacks in a Western country such as France. Even among the latter group, there are those whose threats are merely hot air and those who are actually willing to act. Even among those willing to attack there are actors who pose different degrees of threat.
For French authorities, sorting through the universe of potential attackers to identify those who pose the greatest risk is a daunting challenge — as it is for any other government. The process is like a shark attempting to select a few fish from among a vast shoal of baitfish swimming in unison. A shark has an incredible sensory array that is extremely effective at identifying prey to be devoured by its rows of formidable teeth. But the shoal provides security by making it next to impossible for the shark to identify the specific individual fish its needs to target.
This is exactly the situation in which the French authorities find themselves. They have incredible intelligence capabilities (sensors) and very capable police and military forces (teeth). Yet, those intelligence and enforcement resources are quite limited and can be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the shoal of potential jihadist attackers.
It requires an incredible amount of resources to maintain live telephone taps on one target, much less 24/7 physical surveillance. This means that security services very quickly reach their capacity. Thus, they need to use risk assessments to rank the potential threats and deploy their resources selectively against those threats deemed the most dangerous. This is especially true in a democratic country such at France, where there is rule of law and one cannot just conduct sweeps to arrest every known potential threat and then sort them out in prison. But frankly, as seen in even authoritarian countries, one simply cannot arrest (or kill) their way out of the problem and, often, draconian measures serve only to fuel anger and resentment, further aiding in radicalization.
Because of this reality, some attackers will slip through the screen, no matter the proficiency of security services. Once they attack, they are immediately removed from the shoal of potential threats and are subjected to an incredible amount of scrutiny. Their electronics will be seized as evidence and searched, and their past travel, associations and communications will be reviewed under a microscope. Under this heavy scrutiny, investigators will undoubtedly find clear warnings and indicators that the attackers were up to no good before the attack. Indeed, we will undoubtedly that some, if not all the attackers had previously come to the attention of the authorities.
To use another analogy, prior to the attack, the authorities had a mountainous pile of puzzle pieces with no frame or reference picture — some of those pieces could have led them to these attackers had they been assembled. But sorting through a gigantic pile of pieces of data and putting those pieces together without a frame of reference is often very difficult. Following this attack, the French authorities now have both the frame and the reference picture, and as they examine individual pieces of information, they will be able to place them into context using the frame of reference and (in retrospect) discover smoking guns.
Many will criticize the French government for missing such obvious clues, but those who do have lost sight of the initial challenge of the shoal of suspects and the vast amounts of data associated with each individual fish. Hindsight can be far more acute than foresight.
At this time last year, a string of leaderless resistance-style attacks by grassroots jihadists in the West was making people very nervous. And their concern was understandable: In late October 2014, the tempo of attacks by grassroots jihadists in the West reached its highest point in history. The spike in activity largely stemmed from a statement made by Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani a month earlier, urging individuals in Western countries to:
"... single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him."
The wave of violence continued through the end of 2014 and into 2015, as assailants struck Australia and France in December, followed closely by the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January and the Copenhagen attack in February. But since that time, it has become clear that the momentum of the attacks has slowed, and that grassroots jihadists have not been able to keep up a consistent tempo of striking multiple times each month. In other words, the violence taking place in October last year was an anomaly, not the start of an emerging trend. The question is: Why didn't the movement gain more traction?
The Limited Appeal of Jihadism
At least some of the reduction in violence can be traced to stepped up law enforcement efforts to identify potential attackers and disrupt plots. But it is also becoming increasingly clear that, as Stratfor noted in March, the Islamic State's appeal has its limits, and after an initial spurt of dramatic growth, the group seems to have reached its pinnacle. Now, the market for its ideology has hit a point of saturation, and its recruiting attempts are becoming less and less successful.
This is not to say that the jihadist ideology, or even the Islamic State's version of it, will disappear anytime soon. Jihadist insurgencies and terrorist attacks will persist for the foreseeable future, albeit at a slower tempo. However, the factors that led to the Islamic State's stunning rise in popularity last year — the group's territorial gains, its successes against authorities, and its propaganda — are starting to wear out. Much of the group's appeal lay in its portrayal of itself as an agent of apocalyptic Islamic prophecy. The Islamic State wasn't just talking about the end of times; it was actively working to make it happen.
There are other ways the group's diminishing appeal is making itself known. In addition to the slowing tempo of grassroots attacks, many reports have surfaced in recent months of the Islamic State arresting and executing its fighters as traitors when they try to leave the group's territory and return home. The days of the "five-star jihad" that promised lavish lifestyles to new recruits are clearly over, and many of the foreign fighters who traveled to Syria and Iraq have become disenchanted with the Islamic State — especially because many of the people they are fighting and killing are other Muslims.
A recent remark by FBI Director James Comey highlighted this trend when he said that fewer Americans are attempting to travel abroad to join the Islamic State. Of course, some of the decline could be explained by officials' efforts to make travel more difficult, but the key thing to note is Comey's phrasing: He said fewer people are attempting to travel to join the group, not that fewer people have successfully traveled there. There also has not been a corresponding spike in attacks by Islamic State supporters who may have been prevented from traveling, or a spike in arrests of people trying to travel to Islamic State-held territory. Clearly, the group's appeal has waned among American Muslims since last year, and many of its remaining supporters appear to be losing their zeal to be arrested or killed during an attack in the West.
Exposing the Islamic State's Vulnerability
Prior to the U.S.-led coalition's bombing operations over the past year, the Islamic State seemed to be invincible as it gobbled up large portions of Iraq and Syria. The media's coverage of these conquests only added to the hype as it portrayed the group as far more powerful than it actually was. The Islamic State's battlefield successes, coupled with the media limelight, played right into the group's apocalyptic propaganda that the end of times was near, and that it would triumph and conquer the world. To Muslims seeking a transcendent cause, the Islamic State's message held great appeal.
But since that time, the coalition's bombing efforts have significantly degraded the Islamic State's capabilities, even if they have not destroyed the group entirely. As a result, it has stymied the Islamic State's spread, as has the human geography of the region, and the group has not seen much success beyond Sunni areas. In fact, in many areas, such as northern Syria, coalition air power has played a decisive role in helping forces such as the Kurds push the Islamic State back from key border crossings. While smuggling in and out of Islamic State territory still occurs, the volume of goods and people crossing the border is undoubtedly far less than it was when the Islamic State controlled strategic areas around it.
By halting the group's advance and destroying its military units, the coalition has also helped curtail the Islamic State's biggest supply of resources: the homes, farms, business, goods and people that do not belong to the group, as well as the taxes levied on conquered citizens. This type of logistical model is severely undermined once conquerors can no longer acquire more territory to rape and pillage to support the areas already under their control.
And make no mistake, controlling territory requires resources, especially in large cities the size of Mosul. The rulers of such cities must provide services, utilities, food, water and security for the population, all while guarding against any threats from locals who are unhappy with their rule. So while many have noted that the Islamic State is "the richest terrorist group in history," they must also account for the vast economic drain that comes with holding and governing the amount of territory the Islamic State has, on top of the financial toll its war efforts are taking.
The Draw of Apocalyptic Ambitions
The Islamic State's brutal rape and pillage strategy has not alienated all of its potential recruits. For many in the region controlled by the Islamic State, they have no other choice but to support the group or die, and often few other career opportunities exist. But beyond these captive supporters, there are still many who have volunteered to support the caliphate experiment because of its transcendent purpose and because the idea of approaching the final days is so powerful that it can override any qualms about how the end is to be achieved. If you are fulfilling an apocalyptic prophecy, does it really matter that you murdered, raped and robbed?
The Islamic State's end goal is powerfully appealing to jihadists around the world, and even beyond to many non-jihadist Muslims. The opportunity to bring about an Islamic prophecy is exciting, and Islamic State leaders truly believe what they are preaching. The group's barbaric actions prove that its leaders genuinely subscribe to their apocalyptic vision and do not care about possible repercussions. Their doctrine has an especially powerful pull among marginalized individuals who tend to flock to cults, gangs and radical groups, as we can see not only in the young fighters and brides traveling to Syria but also in the grassroots jihadists conducting leaderless resistance-style attacks in the West.
The powerful appeal of apocalypticism can influence people to do unthinkable things. In the past, we have seen followers of the apocalyptic cult Aum Shinrikyo try to kill millions of people with biological and chemical weapons. Members of the Branch Davidians gave their daughters to David Koresh as brides and fought to the death to keep him from being arrested. Followers of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in the hope of getting onboard the UFO hiding behind the Hale-Bopp Comet, and members of apocalyptic Christian cults have sold all their possessions in preparation for the foretold second coming of Jesus Christ that never came.
These historical examples point to the major limitation of groups that embrace apocalypticism: They lose their appeal when their predictions fail to materialize. When the second coming of Jesus did not take place in 1832, 1878, 1914 or 1975; when chemical attacks against the Tokyo subway system did not usher in the end of the world; and when David Koresh did not rise from the dead after three days, the organizations promoting such claims quickly became less attractive and began losing their ability to recruit new members.
This doesn't mean that the Islamic State's appeal will disappear overnight. But as the group's offensive operations are thwarted, as its economic engine stalls, and as the events it waits for do not come to pass, people will become increasingly disenchanted with its ideology. There are still Aum Shinrikyo and Branch Davidian supporters in the world, just as some of those who are invested in the Islamic State's ideology will continue to support the group until their final breaths. Once a person has sacrificed so much for a cause, it becomes hard to let it go. But as the clock continues to tick and the world continues to spin, time will ultimately undermine the apocalyptic ideology of the Islamic State.
Al Qaeda and Islamic State leaders are calling for grassroots jihadists to conduct more strikes in the West, so we anticipate that additional attacks will be forthcoming. In fact, the past 11 months have been the most active in terms of grassroots jihadist activity since jihadist leaders first began to heavily promote the leaderless resistance operational model in 2009.
Many have referred to the perpetrators of these attacks as lone wolves, a term bandied about in the media. Indeed, I intentionally used the phrase in the above title to help attract attention to the topic in a way that is easily understood. But it is a critical mistake to assume that the leaderless resistance model is synonymous with lone wolf attacks. Certainly lone wolves are one component of leaderless resistance terrorist theory, but they are not the most dangerous aspect: The threat presented by grassroots cells far overshadows that posed by lone wolves.
Leaderless Resistance Theory
Right-wing groups in the United States began to seriously promote leaderless resistance in the late 1980s after the Ft. Smith Arkansas Sedition Trial revealed how far law enforcement had penetrated their ranks. The idea behind leaderless resistance — formally expressed by ideologues such as William Pierce, Richard Kelly Hoskins and Louis Beam — was to have a two-part structure that could help the groups combat and ultimately defeat government efforts.
One tier would be the public "organs of information," which would distribute information. Members of the organs of information were not to conduct any illegal activities so that the government could not justifiably arrest them. They would take advantage of free speech to outline strategy and to identify potential targets. The second tier would be composed of individual operators (lone wolves) and small phantom cells, which would conduct attacks based on the strategy and guidance published by the first tier. These people were to keep a low profile and remain anonymous, with no traceable connections to the above-ground activists. It was through an air gap, to steal a network security term, that they could insulate the two tiers from each other and make it far more difficult for law enforcement agencies to track operatives, map networks and thwart attacks.
Following the success of the 9/11 attacks, jihadists struggled to land their much anticipated and oft threatened follow-on attack. Because of this, jihadist theorists such as Abu Musab al-Suri began to promote the leaderless resistance model for jihadists in late 2004. In 2009, the call to leaderless resistance was adopted by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and in the wake of the Ft. Hood shooting, the al Qaeda core.
Though some jihadist ideologues such as Samir Khan and Anwar al-Awlaki began by carefully skirting the boundaries of the U.S. First Amendment, as had American white supremacists, it was not long before law enforcement pressure drove them overseas to places such as Yemen. The idea was still to provide a gap between ideologues like al-Awlaki and grassroots operatives to increase operational security, although the gap has not always been absolute. There have been cases where grassroots operatives have had contact with the high-profile jihadists who helped inspire and radicalize them: Such was the case with grassroots operative Nidal Malik Hasan who had direct contact with jihadist leader al-Awlaki. But in general, it is clear that jihadist groups, including the Islamic State, have widely embraced the leaderless resistance model. It is equally clear that grassroots operatives have become the most probable threat in the West. (Attacks by professional terrorist cadres are still the most severe threat to the West, even though such an attack is less likely to occur than grassroots attacks.)
There is danger, however, in the assumption that the leaderless resistance threat stemming from jihadist grassroots operatives is confined to just the lone wolf threat. Grassroots terror cells, which operate under the same logic but promote a slightly more collaborative approach, are a vital and dangerous part of the leaderless resistance model that must not be overlooked.
Beyond the Lone Wolf Threat
As I have noted in the past, it takes a very special person to be a successful lone wolf terrorist because the individual not only has to self-radicalize but also has to conduct every step of the terrorist planning process alone. This requires a lot of skill and discipline and explains why we see so few lone wolves. The limitations of individual jihadists also explain why so many individuals have reached out to government informants looking for help in acquiring weapons or explosives.
But by operating as a cell, a group of individuals can help overcome their individual limitations. They can motivate and encourage each other and use their individual strengths and abilities for the benefit of the whole. Moreover, they can operate as a fire team — or even multiple fire teams to attack multiple targets — even when conducting simple attacks using firearms.
We have seen such small jihadist cells operate in the past, as with the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston, or the Kouachi brothers and their associate, Amedy Coulibaly, in Paris. In both cases, the employment of multiple actors and various crime scenes resulted in massive disruptions to the cities where they occurred, posing significant challenges to the police. These cases highlight the threat that grassroots cells pose. Law enforcement and security personnel need to prepare for complex scenarios, such as two or three simultaneous active shooter scenes at different soft targets in geographically distant sectors of the same jurisdiction, or multiple sequential attacks.
Unfortunately, law enforcement has a history of responding to emerging and changing threats only after a disastrous case, such as the 1986 Platt and Matix shooting in Miami, which resulted in the deaths of two FBI special agents and the wounding of four others, or the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout, in which two heavily armed — and armored — bank robbers wounded 11 police officers. But the threat of grassroots jihadist cells is not a secret, and there is no reason to wait for a watershed event to act preemptively. There are not only examples of cellular organizations out there, but jihadists who have noted the limits of lone wolf attacks, calling for grassroots jihadists to operate in cells or gangs.
In one e-book published earlier this year, titled, "Muslim Gangs: The future of Muslims in the West," the author wrote, "The aim of this book is to give Muslims a starting point on how to make their own gangs and grow them into a Jihadi movement which can recruit and become a force of strength in the West." Now, while much of the practical operational guidance provided in the book is amateurish, as it is in the author's other ebook, "How to Survive in the West," it is nonetheless significant that he has realized the strength that comes from working as an organized group. And he certainly is not alone. In January, authorities in Europe arrested a number of operatives they claim were planning to conduct multiple attacks against an array of soft targets.
The disruption and panic caused by the prolonged incidents in Boston and Paris, or even the single shooter in Ottawa, could be multiplied significantly if a city was to be hit by an assault with multiple gunmen working as a fire team or by multiple fire teams conducting simultaneous attacks, as seen in Mumbai. Sequenced attacks against different soft targets in one city or across the country could also have a tremendous psychological impact. However, such tactics are not new, or particularly remarkable outside of the West. Jihadists frequently conduct attacks involving multiple fire teams on the battlefield in places like Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Somalia, and fighters trained in these places are returning to the West.
Governments will continue to be able to thwart many of the attacks planned by grassroots lone operators and small cells before they can be launched, but inevitably some of these attacks will succeed. Police departments and security personnel need to be prepared to deal with them. Multiple shooters working as a fire team — and even situations involving multiple active shooters — can be countered or mitigated, but police agencies and security personnel in the West need to be prepared, as do their populations. Some large police departments such as those in New York and Los Angeles are perhaps better prepared to handle multiple or sequential active shooter attacks against soft targets in geographically diverse portions of their jurisdiction, but can the same be said about smaller cities such as Syracuse or Sacramento?
Much has been written since the July 30 confirmation that the Taliban's longtime leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, died two years ago. Most of the discussion has focused on the future of the Taliban movement, the impact of his death on the al Qaeda core — which had pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar as Amir al-Mu'minin, or "commander of the faithful," — and of course, the Islamic State's efforts to take advantage of Mullah Omar's death.
Certainly, the announcement has caused existing rifts among the various factions of the Taliban to become more pronounced. But these divisions have always existed, and the Taliban have long been anything but a cohesive, unified organization. The announcement also became fodder for a massive Twitter campaign by the Islamic State "Twitteratti," who are seeking to exploit the intentional deception of the Taliban cadres who sought to hide Mullah Omar's death. The Islamic State had publicly challenged the Taliban to publish proof of life for Mullah Omar, suggesting that word of the Talban leader's death had leaked. This likely forced the Taliban to admit that he was dead.
Islamic State gloating aside, I personally doubt we will witness the same scale of defections from the al Qaeda orbit of the jihadist universe that we did after the declaration of the caliphate last year. This is because the battle lines in the al Qaeda vs. Islamic State fight for the heart of the global jihad have become well established, and much of the shine has worn off the Islamic State's claim to be an inexorable force.
From my perspective, the more interesting aspect of the announcement of Mullah Omar's demise is that he had been dead since April 2013, but nobody really missed him. Concealing someone's death for one "Weekend at Bernie's" is one thing, but maintaining such a ruse for two years is quite another.
Low-Profile Leaders
Despite losing their commander-in-chief in April 2013, the Taliban have been making steady progress in their military campaign against the Kabul government. During the 2014 and 2015 fighting seasons, the Taliban not only worked to solidify their hold in their traditional areas of control in parts of Helmand, Paktika and Zabul provinces but also focused on the country's northern provinces, a marked departure from their previous emphasis on traditional strongholds in the south and east. The Taliban also continued to conduct high-profile attacks in Kabul, though it is noteworthy that Afghan security forces have responded quite effectively to such attacks over the past few months.
The Taliban made these advances while engaged in negotiations with the government in Kabul to try to find a political solution to the violence. The negotiations have been deadlocked, and the Taliban hope to use gains on the battlefield to bolster their negotiating position. Continuing attacks in Kabul against targets including the national parliament also enable the group to make its presence felt at the very heart of Afghanistan's government.
The Taliban accomplished all this without Mullah Omar's direct leadership. One reason for this is that changes in the way the United States and its allies conduct their campaigns against militant groups such as the Taliban have caused a dramatic shift in how those groups operate. The use of Predator and Reaper strikes and commando raids to target militant leaders — supported by robust signals intelligence efforts — have forced militant leaders to dramatically decrease their profiles and curtail their communications. Most leaders now eschew electronic communications and rely on couriers to bring information to them and dispatch orders.
The insulation required to protect jihadist leaders from the relentless efforts to hunt them down means that subordinates rarely have direct interaction with senior leadership. Instead, instructions and guidance are passed via intermediaries. The intermediaries themselves are often isolated from the leaders, communicating with them only via courier. When leaders do come out of hiding to interact with their troops, they put themselves at risk of being killed, as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Emir Nasir al-Wahayshi was when he left his hideout to visit his triumphant followers after the capture of the Yemeni city of Mukalla.
Even showing your face on camera can come with a steep price, as seen by the number of al Qaeda and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula talking heads who have been killed by U.S. airstrikes, including U.S. citizens Adam Gadahn, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula also lost spokesman Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari in January, along with Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaish (the group's mufti) and Nasir bin Ali al-Ansi in April.
This reality reinforces the need to maintain a low profile. It unsurprising that some time has passed since al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri or Islamic State Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were last seen in person or on video. Yet the low-profile approach to jihadist leader survival also comes with a cost: This method of operation leaves apex leaders isolated and slightly behind the information curve. To offset this disconnect and time lag, more autonomy is being delegated to operational leaders in the field.
This delegation works well in a situation like Afghanistan where many elements of the Taliban movement, such as the Haqqani network, are more or less politically aligned with the Taliban leadership but militarily independent. But the situation is far from unique to the Taliban. We know from ample evidence, such as the correspondence recovered when Osama bin Laden was killed, that al Qaeda also functioned in this manner, and also that the Islamic State central core delegates a great deal of autonomy down to emirs at the wilayat, or provincial, level in Syria and Iraq.
In such a detached and decentralized system, it is easy to see how an intermediary could hide the death of an apex leader if the leader's death were only known to a handful of people. The commanders receiving instructions would not really perceive a noticeable difference in communication since they always hear from the intermediary. Such a ruse could be used if the intermediary — or others working with the intermediary — wanted to usurp the apex leader's authority. Obviously, such a ploy could cause considerable blowback once it is discovered.
But there are other, less sinister explanations for the employment of such a ruse. A major one ties back to the relentless campaign to hunt down jihadist leaders: If U.S. and allied intelligence are focused on looking for a ghost, they will not be able to use those same assets to search for the still-living jihadist leader or leaders now in charge.
Tip of the Iceberg?
One of the more interesting responses to the announcement of Mullah Omar's death and the naming of his replacement, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, was that one of the statements of support for Mansoor was allegedly given by Jalaluddin Haqqani, patriarch of the Haqqani clan. Soon after this statement of support was issued, reports began to surface that Haqqani had also died more than a year ago, although members of his family denied the report. His son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has been appointed by Mansoor as the operational commander for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This suggests the Haqqanis are indeed firmly behind Mansoor, but even so, this has not quieted the rumors that Jalaluddin is dead. And he is not the only jihadist leader rumored to be no longer among the living.
Islamic State fanboys on social media are often keen to criticize al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri for being disconnected and essentially invisible, and some even claim al-Zawahiri is dead. But Islamic State Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself has also maintained an extremely low profile since declaring the establishment of the caliphate at the beginning of Ramadan last year in a speech at a mosque in Mosul, and there have been persistent rumors that al-Baghdadi was later either wounded or killed in a U.S. airstrike. The Islamic State has vehemently denied such rumors but has failed to produce any credible proof of life other than an audio recording released last November.
Similar rumors are swirling around Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Islamic State's Wilayat al-Sudan al-Gharbi, the Nigerian jihadist group formerly known as Boko Haram. Shekau has been repeatedly declared dead by the Nigerian government only to release videos mocking those claims, but he has not appeared in recent videos, and widespread rumors of his demise continue.
Operationally, such rumors will have very little impact on the battlefield even if proved true. Apex leaders can be important figureheads, skillful managers who can unify factions or raise funds and recruit new fighters. But in the end, very few of them are frontline warriors running their group's day-to-day military or terrorist operations. Although Abu Musab al-Zarqawi became widely celebrated in jihadist circles as the "prince of slaughterers," an outtake video released by U.S. forces showed how the man portrayed as vicious and powerful in al Qaeda in Iraq videos was actually wearing unfashionable white sneakers instead of combat boots and couldn't even clear a malfunction from the M-249 light machinegun he awkwardly handled.
Such figures are important symbols, but as seen in the case of Mullah Omar, bin Laden or al-Zarqawi, jihadist groups will continue to function after their leader has been killed. This is not only because the jihadist ideology embraces and even celebrates martyrdom but also because jihadists tend to create decentralized, robust organizations that can survive the loss of the apex leadership. As long as the ideology of jihadism retains its strength and appeal, jihadist groups will continue to recruit new members faster than they can be killed.
On July 18, the eve of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, the market in Khan Bani Saad in Iraq's Diyala Governorate was packed with people buying items to prepare for family celebrations. Amid the hustle and bustle, a merchant's truck entered the market. The driver announced that because of the holiday he was selling ice at deeply discounted prices. Such an offer was welcome in the scorching heat of an Iraqi summer, and many people crowded around the truck to take advantage of the sale. As the crowd gathered, the truck's driver pushed an innocuous switch and the large quantity of explosives concealed under his cargo of ice erupted into a massive explosion. The fiery blast killed at least 130 people and injured scores of others. The powerful device left a deep crater in the street and severely damaged the surrounding building.
The Khan Bani Saad bombing, claimed by the Islamic State, was a clever, deadly and expertly executed attack against a very soft target. The attackers were able to construct a functional, large device (not as easy as it sounds) and transport it to the attack site, then employ a ruse to lure victims close to it. The attack clearly illustrates the Islamic State's capability to plan and execute suicide vehicle bombings inside its core area of operations. Furthermore, the attack was only one of several suicide vehicle bombings executed by the Islamic State in July. The group has conducted scores of such attacks across their core operational area, from Kobani in Syria to Khan Bani Saad more than 643 kilometers (400 miles) away.
However, it is important to recognize that the bomb making and tactical capabilities of the Islamic State's core organization do not always directly translate to its regional franchises.
The Islamic State's Structure
Rhetoric aside, what most people conceive of as the Islamic State is not really a single hierarchical organization. Like al Qaeda, the group has a three-tiered architecture consisting of the core organization in Iraq and Syria; franchise groups outside of the core area in places such as Libya, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan; and grassroots operatives located worldwide, including Europe and North America. Franchise groups and grassroots operatives may claim allegiance to the core group, and even take on some of its operational philosophies and tactics, but there is a large tactical distinction between fighters and units that are Islamic State-inspired and those that are Islamic State-directed. For example, the group known as the Islamic State's Wilayat al Sudan al Gharbi, or West African province, might use this name, but when you look at the group's tactics, techniques and procedures, there is little evidence that it is anything other than Boko Haram with a new name and a new inspiration.
In other words, there is little to suggest that the Islamic State core is directly involved in the operations of its franchise groups, sending operational planners to support the military and terrorist operations of franchises or even training franchise personnel to plan and execute attacks.
It is important to remember that merely taking on the name of a larger jihadist group and publishing a video on the Internet does not somehow magically imbue a person or organization with the capabilities of that larger group. In fact, some past attempts to launch new jihadist franchise groups have been abject failures. For example, in 2006 al Qaeda announced that a remnant of the Egyptian militant group Gamaah al-Islamiyah was becoming a franchise group in Egypt. The group appears to have been intended as an alternative to the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi-linked Jamaat al-Tawhid and Jihad that established itself in the Sinai Peninsula (this group became the Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai in 2014), but the al Qaeda/Gamaah al-Islamiyah franchise group simply never amounted to much.
Certainly in the case of the Islamic State, there is a big difference between the capabilities of the core group and those of their proclaimed franchise groups. One of the places that difference is perhaps most visible is in the execution of suicide vehicle bomb attacks.
The Bomb
Even more than al Qaeda in Iraq's pre-2010 run, the hallmark of the Islamic State's current military campaign has been the suicide vehicle bomb. The operational planning and bomb making expertise the group has built up over its many years of operations has been important to the success of these efforts.
In many cases, the group constructs vehicle bombs using armored vehicles, such as armored Humvees or armored personnel carriers, or trucks with makeshift armor of metal plating. The armor not only helps protect the vehicle as it approaches a protected site, such as the perimeter of a military base, but it also provides additional shrapnel and, in the case of an armored vehicle, amplifies the explosion akin to a pipe bomb. Using large vehicle bombs to breach defensive perimeters ahead of an infantry assault has become a widely employed tactic. In many cases, multiple large vehicle bombs will be deployed; one breaches the perimeter, then others target command centers and barracks. Often these vehicle bombs contain hundreds or even thousands of pounds of high explosives, and they are deadly against troops that do not have the means to stop them.
In the May 2015 operation to capture Ramadi, it is believed that the Islamic State used some 27 suicide vehicle bombs. The use of numerous powerful vehicle bombs in this manner is the Islamic State's version of what the Americans called "shock and awe" in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the tactic has been very effective in demoralizing and routing much larger military forces.
The group deploys scores of large vehicle bombs every month, and up to this point it has had no shortage of suicide operatives or high explosives, though this could change soon if Turkey is serious about its efforts to curtail the Islamic State's supply lines. A large percentage of the Islamic State's suicide bombers are foreign fighters, and many, if not most, of them entered the theater through Turkey. In addition, the Islamic State has been steadily importing tons of ammonium nitrate — much of which went toward constructing massive vehicle bombs — from Turkey.
The Fizzle
Bombings at the franchise level have been neither as widespread nor as effective. For example, Wilayat Najd, the Saudi Islamic State franchise, began a bombing campaign directed against Shiite mosques in May. The first attack targeted a mosque in al-Qadeeh on May 20. It caught the Shiites off guard, and the bomber was able to enter the mosque before detonating his device, killing 21. The Shiites responded by making preparations for the following week, and security guards outside a mosque in Dammam were able to keep a bomber outside. The suicide attack resulted in the deaths of only three victims. On July 16, another Wilayat Najd attack was thwarted when a suicide operative detonated his device when his vehicle was stopped at a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Riyadh. The incident was initially reported as a car bomb attack, but a review of photos and videos from the scene quickly revealed that it was a case of a bomb in the car rather than a car bomb. Two police officers were wounded in the explosion, but the bomber was the only fatality.
Another Islamic State franchise group that has struggled in its bombing operations is Wilayat Sanaa in Yemen. The Yemeni group's operations have followed a similar trajectory to those conducted by Wilayat Najd: an initial surprise attack that was successful, followed by additional attacks thwarted by increased security. On March 20, Wilayat Sanaa dispatched four suicide bombers to target two mosques in Sanaa that were frequented by Houthi members. There is really no such thing as a Shiite mosque in Yemen, since the Zaidi Houthis and Sunnis often attend the same mosques. That initial attack claimed some 140 victims.
After that first surprise attack, security increased at mosques in Sanaa, making it much harder to walk into a mosque with a suicide belt or vest on. In response to this security, Wilayat Sanaa adjusted its tactics and started planning more complex attacks. They first attempted to use concealed explosives. On May 22, the group sent a suicide bomber into a mosque with explosives hidden inside his sandals. Once detonated, the bomb resulted in 13 injuries but no deaths because of the small amount of explosives involved. Security officers at a mosque thwarted another bombing on May 29 when they detained another Islamic State suicide bomber with explosives in his shoes.
With concealment not working, the group began using vehicle bombs in hopes of overcoming increased external security at mosques by detonating larger devices outside of the buildings. Wilayat Sanaa has dispatched several vehicle bombs. The group's vehicle bomb campaign began June 17, when four vehicle bombs were dispatched against the Houthis' political headquarters and two mosques, killing 31 people. A June 20 bombing attempt against a mosque killed one. On June 29, a vehicle bomb attack against a Houthi funeral killed 28.
But since the funeral attack, Wilayat Sanaa attacks have been less successful. A vehicle bombing July 2 left two dead, another July 7 left one dead, and a vehicle bombing July 19 killed only five. Not to trivialize the casualties in these attacks, but these death tolls are very low for vehicle bomb attacks. In many cases, the attacker likely would have killed more people had he used a firearm.
As I was working on this analysis, Wilayat Sinai attacked a mosque in Sanaa on July 28 with a bomb that killed only three people. Photographs of the scene indicate that the device was small, again more of a bomb in a car than a car bomb. The photographs also reveal that the explosives were in direct contact with the street rather than inside the car, so it was actually more of a bomb under the car. It appears that the attack was conducted using a small explosive device concealed in a bag or box that was placed under the car next to the curb. I have not been able to obtain such detailed photos of the other July non-suicide attacks in Sanaa, but because of the low death tolls, I wonder if they were not also conducted using small satchel bombs rather than dramatically underpowered vehicle bombs.
The reasons for the low death tolls in Wilayat Sanaa bombings are twofold. First, the devices are underpowered for vehicle bombs, rarely creating much of a crater or causing structural damage to buildings near the site of the blast. They tend to be more like smaller bombs hidden in cars than vehicle bombs (which attackers need a vehicle to transport). In most cases, the devices cause only limited structural damage to the vehicle used to camouflage them; small devices can still cause major fire damage to a vehicle, but that is not the same thing as blast damage. Larger vehicle bombs heavily damage the vehicles they are in, often scattering parts of the bomb vehicle over dozens if not hundreds of meters.
Second, these smaller devices usually have not been deployed in a manner that would enable them to cause maximum damage, even though they have been deployed against soft targets like mosques. The June 29 attack on a funeral was Wilayat Sanaa's most effective bombing to date. They achieved a higher overall death toll in the June 17 attack, but they needed four vehicle bombs to do so, and frankly averaging less than eight deaths per vehicle bomb is hardly impressive terrorist targeting.
Constructing and deploying a vehicle bomb requires a great amount of resources, and a terrorism planner would want to maximize the return on the investment. That is why we are concluding that Wilayat Sanaa is not nearly as effective as the Islamic State core, or even al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in terms of bombing tradecraft. In recent months, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has deployed a number of substantial suicide vehicle bombs against Houthi forces and forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh — far harder targets than those selected by Wilayat Sanaa.
It is unclear if the Wilayat Sanaa devices have been underpowered because of problems in obtaining explosives or because of the inexperience of the group's bomb maker or makers. It is possible that Wilayat Sanaa and Wilayat Najd operational planners will receive outside training and assistance or will be able to improve their terrorism tradecraft through trial and error. If they receive training, we would expect to see a dramatic operational leap in capability; if they learn through trial and error, we might see a steady learning curve if the group is able to learn from past mistakes and then improve its operations accordingly. Either way, it will be important to continue to study the tactical proficiency of these groups in an effort to gauge the threat they pose.
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