Iraqi Online Markets: Preliminary Findings

Well, the New York Times broke the story, yes there are gun markets for Shia militia on Facebook. These are my preliminary findings which will be expanded upon at a later date:

The proliferation of online weapons markets in Iraq ranging from pistols and body armor to rocket propelled grenades and light machine guns has been a shock to many. It should not be. The use of Facebook as a platform for arms dealing is intuitive. The Onion-Net or ‘Dark-Net’ as it is commonly called is a notoriously difficult to manage software. The Onion-Net is for hackers. Facebook is designed for grandma. Your typical grunt looking to pawn off an extra piece of body armor or captured rifles generally fits more on the latter half of the scale.

By utilizing Facebook as a platform more buyers can be found and a price more in tune with the market can be had. While the more sophisticated online gun markets have ratings for buyers, it is still difficult to corroborate the reliability of the seller. Facebook, with its social networking components allows for deals to be grounded in real life connections and with a user interface familiar to the average person. In conflict zones such as Iraq, people are often in need of personal protection to protect themselves and their property. CJ Chivers of the New York Times rightly pointed this out with the observation that the vast majority of the weapons on these markets are pistols.

The presence of triggers for MANPADS, grenades and RPGs is an extension of the fact these markets are so user-friendly. The private messaging system provided by Facebook allows for a more stable connection between buyer and seller. Professional traffickers dealing in bulk are less likely to use the Facebook marketplace as it is too open. Cases from Mozambique and elsewhere inform us that much of what is understood as arms trafficking is local in nature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Socialization and Media Distribution in Wilayat Ninawa

Islamic State, more than al-Qaeda ever did, has invested in a sustainable propaganda apparatus. Despite the airstrikes, IS has been able to endure and spread their message. The monopoly of violence over territory in areas of Iraq and Syria. The IS media apparatus has 38 provincial-level media offices ranging across their ‘Khalifia’. How these various institutions operate and create their consistently high quality pieces of video is by a complicated system of professional videographers who at times operate via dead drop.

Recently the Islamic State’s Ninawa Province, the administrators of Mosul, put out a media release documenting their operations in the region. What it revealed was a much more sophisticated program of disseminating propaganda than had been seen before. IS in Ninawa Province has a four part system of disseminating their video. The first is of course via the internet. The ease at which IS content can be spread online has dropped in recent months, but that has not stopped the dissemination of content within the areas of their control.

Contrary to the popular image, the vast majority of Islamic State propaganda is not the hour long “documentaries” produced by al-Hayat Media Center. al-Hayat is the A-team of video production for the Islamic State and at their most self indulgent have created photo-realistic CGI recreations of 9/11. This is obviously not sustainable when your organization puts outs multiple releases worldwide every week. Most IS videos are produced in Arabic and are not given English subtitles. These videos often focus on combat in Iraq and Syria, the utopian angle the Islamic State tries to promote, and IS governance projects.

The recent release by Ninawa Province shows the focus on these latter Arabic language releases. One means by which IS disseminates these videos is by mobile media vans with high definition televisions attached to the side. To ensure the audio quality IS focuses so much on is not lost due to ambient noise (birds, traffic, chatter in the audience) IS attaches loudspeakers to at least some of these vans. This allows IS to bring their message to areas far away from their custom kiosks and penetrate the minds of a new generation. Twice in the video the van was shown being used in front of a group of children. One instance appears to show one of the Quran memorization contests IS puts on in Iraq and Syria, complete with prizes for the winners. Whether this is representative of their role in the media network or just a dare to not airstrike the vans is open for debate. Having a mobile platform shows IS is cognizant of the fact their media points are a target and feel the need to move them on a whim.

The third way IS disseminates it’s message is via dedicated media kiosks. These vary in their level of quality. The first two images show a full kiosk complete with fans and formal seating. This indicates IS hopes to make these places normalized places of gathering for those within their areas of control. These kiosks operate both during the day and night. Without other forms of entertainment, the novelty of constant and newly action packed videos makes these kiosks attractive to children and teenagers in the same ways malls are in the West. The prospect of air-conditioning creates incentive people to stay longer, whether they plan on joining IS or not. The creation of common spaces in these kiosks furthers the Islamic State’s project of normalizing their viewpoint and socializing potential jihadi recruits into their world.

Other media kiosks are less elaborate and appear to be either projectors aimed at a wall or high definition televisions attached to open air kiosks. The video shows mainly younger and older males gathering at these kiosks. The concept is still to expound the victories of the Islamic State, but it appears less resources have been invested in these projects. One possibility is that IS see buy-in from youth as being more important to the long term viability of their project and focus resources there. A second possibility is that IS simply did not show the full extent of their media kiosks in the video as a means of disinformation. This video is from Ninawa (Mosul) and does not touch on their system of public showings other cities under IS control Raqqa, Fallujah, Deir Ezzor, Rural Aleppo and Palmyra are still black holes. It does however make sense frontline cities such as Deir Ezzor, Palmyra and Rural Aleppo might not have media kiosks at all.

The fourth and final way IS distributes is videos is via DVD. The media releases shows DVDs containing IS releases being either burned or tested for quality in some kind of media room. From there the DVDs are packed in clear cases in a packing room. It is unclear if this takes place at a separate location or in the same location the videos are burned onto the DVD. From there the DVDs are packed in cardboard boxes and distributed to locations across Mosul. The DVDs are given out by IS fighters at vehicle checkpoints alongside religious literature. This is a common practice and would likely be the most efficient way to distribute IS media is locations without media kiosks.

Depending on the size of the DVDs uses, the videos may have to be compressed to fit on some disks thus lowering video and audio quality. It is unclear what kind of quality control mechanisms IS has over DVD releases across their Khalifia. A poor batch of DVDs could take quite a bit of emotional impact from their videos. IS videos are infamous for the level of professionalism put into the contrast and picture quality of releases. Many older DVDs do not hold enough memory to reproduce the original file. Releases over 20 or 30 minutes would function better on Blu Ray than most DVDs. This is balanced out by the fact the DVDs are cheaper to produce in large quantities and play on a wider variety of machines than something like Blu Ray or even flash drive.

The level of sophistication IS shows not only in the production level of their media, but in the sophistication of their supply chain and distribution methods amounts to a coordinated campaign dedicated to shaping norms, customs and values. The rallying call of baqiyah, has become a core tenant to the strategy of Islamic State. To truly last it must find new recruits to fight battles on multiple fronts and normalize it’s brutal interpretation on Sunni Islam among the population it seeks to rule. Both of these goals are advanced by the efficient and constant dissemination of high quality propaganda. A long overlooked area of inquiry for journalists, policy makers and academics is how IS continues to put out quality work despite the targeting of their networks. It does not appear IS has institutions dedicated to replacing their videographers, supply chain managers and audio specialists but it is an area needing urgent attention if Western govenments and societies wish to curtail the spread of Daesh and it’s ideology.

Second US Airstrike Against Daesh in Libya

US warplanes struck a staging ground for the Islamic State in Libya this Friday moring killing between 30 and 40 operatives. This is the second airstrike by the US against IS in Libya. Last time targeted an Iraqi IS operative in Derna, this time the target was a Tunisian and it took place in the western half of the country.

The farmhouse/training camp outside of Sabratha was being used by IS militants and was struck at approximately 3:30am local time. Sabratha is a small city, west of Tripoli and along the road to Tunisa. IS is by no means the most powerful faction in the area. The city is under contention by the two main factions in the Libyan Civil War. IS only rolled into town around mid-December. The fact the airstrike killed 30-40 operatives may be significant to their operations considering how new they are to the area, but time will tell.

NYT reports the target was a Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian IS operative connected to the two shooting attacks in Tunisia last year. He was lasted

A Brief History of Hizbullah’s Transnational Money Laundering Networks

Scholar Martin Rudner characterizes Hezbollah as having three distinct sources of revenue. The first is direct support from patron states Iran and Syria. With the ongoing civil war in Syria and debilitating economic sanctions on Iran, these sources of revenue have dried up in recent months. The second source of revenue for Hezbollah is the ‘taxes’ Hezbollah makes entities in it’s area of control pay. The third, and most relevant to our work is the remittances sent by Lebanese diaspora communities (or laundered through Lebanese diaspora communities).

The Lebanese Diaspora

Other than laundering money through Iranian Revolutionary Guard front companies and loans to Lebanese small businesses Hizbullah makes a good chunk of its’ money from the Lebanese diaspora. The Lebanese diaspora community is one of the largest, and most wide-reaching diasporas today. Starting as far back as the mid-19th Century, Lebanese Christians fleeing conflict have set up diaspora communities around the world. In time, these Lebanese Christian communities began to be safe havens for Lebanese Muslims. Historical identity politics aside, what matters is that today there are large and robust Lebanese communities on every continent except Antarctica.

Hizbullah routinely sends out operatives to Lebanese diaspora communities around the world. These operations are run by Hizbullah’s ‘External Security’ wing. Operatives raise large sums of money from the diaspora, at times masking the fact the money is being raised for Hizbullah. Israeli intelligence estimates that Hizbullah raises hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from diaspora communities in Africa alone.

Notable episodes include the 2003 crash of a transport plane in Benin, where a “foreign relations official” of Hizbullah was incinerated in the crash along with the $2 million he was carrying. As well as the 1998 interdiction of $1.7 million dollars between Senegal and Lebanon (Trinkunas p.142). In 2010 the US Federal Research division reported individuals connected with Hizbullah had made numerous inroads networking as financial advisors with unnamed African military leaders and heads of state (Levitt p.248, 250). The impetus for this overall program seems to have been at the behest of Imad Mughniyeh, a Hizbullah official who died via mysterious car bomb in 2008 (Levitt p.250).

Insight into the operations of these networks is provided by a combination of investigative journalism and US Treasury Department sanctions. In 2009 the Treasury Department sanctioned Abd al Menhem Qubaysi and Kassim Tajideen. Qubaysi was the “personal representative of “Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah” in West Africa. When a Ivorian counter intelligence unit tried to raid a cultural center run by Qubaysi, they were prevented from doing so by Ivorian President Laurent Ghagbo (Levitt p.256). This action lends credence to Hizbullah’s ability to infiltrate influential social networks in West Africa.

Tajideen is a family member of a larger Lebanese clan who operate front companies across West and Central Africa and is connected to a Hizbullah construction company sanctioned in 2007. The company made mortgages and loans in Gambia for businesses in South Lebanon. The ability for a man involved in a company sanctioned in 2007 to avoid blacklisting until 2010, shows how adept Hizbullah is adept at masking ownership and relations between its different entities.

The South American Connection

Hizbullah’s presence in Latin America is just as robust. The tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina is of particular note, with the Lebanese diaspora population in Brazil being larger than the population of Lebanese in Lebanon itself. Actors such as Assad Ahmad Barakat were able to set up an international crime ring from Chile to Paraguay to Brazil. Using a series of fronts Barakat and his associates were able to move large amounts of funds across multiple borders. Other Hizbullah operations in the tri-border area include document forgery services advertised travel services and possibly drug trafficking (Levitt 78-83). The mechanisms by which this occurred are similar to the African case, but different in key ways.

Hizbullah does not appear to have the same clout within the state institutions of Latin America it does in West Africa. Hizbullah exploits Shia identity politics to raise money for itself. But the numerous ethnic Lebanese power brokers in Brazil and other Latin American countries do not find it within their interest to aid Hizbullah. Although much is made of Hizbullah’s criminal activity (such as a large movie pirating operations) it is unclear whether Hizbullah operatives actually engage in these activities themselves, or if the criminal kingpins they raise money from are simply rich enough to donate large sums of money. Or if they are simply being blackmailed by Hizbullah and their large number of violent connections. This distinction is crucial, because it allows law enforcement interested in uncovering the networks to focus their energy on where the funds are actually moving rather than on finding Hizbullah drug smuggling operations that exist only on a small scale.

The duality of physically moving large sums of cash vs laundering money via charities and front companies shows that Hizbullah has successfully been able to “diversify risk”. If one node of the overall network is compromised, Hizbullah is still able to theoretically move large amounts of funds from the diaspora into Lebanon. Hizbullah’s ability to avoid Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terrorist Finance (here on out AML/CTF) regimes in diaspora countries is unmatched and would take years of reform across multiple states. The proverbial ‘last mile’ where funds enter Lebanon may be the best chance at interdicting funds.

Attempted Solutions

The two main ways states have tried to cut off funding from the diaspora to Hizbullah is through sanctions and implementation of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) AML/CTF regime. Sanctions are a mechanism to prevent funds from reaching persons and institutions known to be associated with Hizbullah. While implementation of FATF is a mechanism to find the persons and institutions associated with Hizbullah that are not explicitly sanctioned. Both of these regimes need improvement.

Sanctions can be imposed by either international bodies such as the United Nations or by individual countries such as the United States. Financial sanctions imposed by the United States have special clout due to the predominance of American finance in the world economy. The Treasury Department through either the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) or FinCen, can ban those who are non-compliant in preventing financial flows to sanctioned groups and individuals from trading with US banks, effectively putting them out of business. Obviously, for a profit minded business, it makes more sense to trade with one of the world’s most developed markets rather than a terrorist group that runs only part of Lebanon.

Successful instances of sanctions include the sanctioning of a Hizbullah business network across Western and Central Africa. And the removal of the Tanzanian/Cypriot bank FBME from the international financial system in part for moving funds for Hizbullah. However these successes are undermined when institutions such as HSBC do not check lists of sanctioned individuals and end up laundering funds for Hizbullah. When banks such as HSBC are caught doing this, they get measly fines of $32,000

Understanding the international regimes surrounding AML/CTF is more than daunting. International organizations as varied as the World Bank, to the EU, to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision which was created by the G-10 in 1974. All of these organizations have their own guidelines and definitions for what constitutes money laundering, terrorist finance, and how to deal with it. The solution to this byzantine disarray of standards was the creation of the Financial Action Task Force or FATF. Established in 1989 at the G-7 Summit, the FATF is the most robust set of standards for AML/CTF to date.

Under the system of treaties, it is up to states to run and fund ‘Financial Intelligence Units’ to enforce the treaty within their own borders. Unsurprisingly these task forces are neglected in states with rampant corruption. Remittances to Lebanon is much less of a priority for these guys than running corruption investigations at home.

The responsibility of implementing FATF guidelines falls upon financial institutions and financial intelligence units. When banks or other financial institutions see large transfers of cash or just general suspicious activity, they go on to file Suspicious Activity Reports or SARs. A core aspect of the FATF framework is that every country should have a robust and well funded financial intelligence unit of FIU to investigate suspicious activity when they are reported by banks and other financial institutions. FIUs work with one another through a network known as the Egmont Group. FinCen serves as the FIU for the United States. The FATF has set up a byzantine array of regional bodies so that FATF controls can be implemented region by region, but this makes the control and investigative process mind-numbingly difficult. Likewise, not all of these regional bodies are fully able to implement FATF guidelines in their respective member states. Non member states were  urged by the UN in UNSC Resolution 1617 to implement the 40 recommendations on money laundering and 9 recommendations on terrorist finance.

So It’s Totally Broken And Unlikely To Be Fixed?

Part of the reason sanctions regimes to cut off funding to Hezbollah have failed is that Hezbollah is able to rely upon Lebanese diaspora communities around the world. Starting as far back as the 19th Century Lebanese Christians and others have fled war in the Levant for safer pastures. These communities, although initially Christian, served as centers for Muslim relatives to travel to in the 20th Century. Because of this, Lebanese communities exist on every continent except Antarctica.

The war in Syria has meant that the traditional shipments of cash and arms flowing from Iran have slowed, especially as financial sanctions have wrecked the Iranian economy as well. Because of this Hezbollah has found itself being more responsible for it’s own finances. While most of the information surrounding this is classified, we can infer this phenomena based on a few measures. First, Hezbollah continues to be a major faction in the Syrian civil war. This would not be possible without finances to shore up the organization.

It is extremely difficult for individual states to be able to effectively clamp down on the illegitimate transfer of funds. It is even more difficult to expect every state containing a relatively large Lebanese community to be able to clamp down on the illegitimate transfer of funds. According to the World Bank 17% of Lebanon’s GDP was made up of remittances. This is massive, especially when one considers the population of the Lebanese expatriate diaspora in countries such as Brazil is larger than the Lebanese community in Lebanon. Remittances can come either in the form of legitimate transfers to family members, or cash being moved from front companies around the world. Significant effort is required to make sure every transaction is legitimate.

From Canada to Paraguay to Australia to West Africa, Hezbollah operatives have set up front companies to move both licit and illicit funds back to Hezbollah. The tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina is of particular note, with the Lebanese diaspora population in Brazil being larger than the population of Lebanese in Lebanon. Actors such as Assad Ahmad Barakat were able to set up an international crime ring from Chile to Paraguay to Brazil. Using a series of fronts Barakat and his associates were able to move large amounts of funds

FIUs should not be expected to spend large amounts of time and energy on money laundering cases that do not directly impact their country. Given the choice between pursuing a case that involves remittances to the Middle East or a case involving drug cartels, it is not surprising a Latin American police force would choose to focus on the case involving drug cartels. Why waste police time and resources on a case that could be global in reach when there are pressing issues affecting local communities?

For the most part however, the mechanisms by which funds are moved from Hezbollah front companies and purported charities to Lebanon is mired in secrecy. A large part of this has to do with the fact Hezbollah is a legitimate political party in Lebanon. Hezbollah can use it’s institutional clout to protect it’s most vital interests. Obviously, funding the day to day operations of an organization falls into this category. But not much effort is needed by Hezbollah to do this. Terrorist finance is a criminal offence according to Law no. 553/2003. But the law does not define what constitutes finance of terrorist organizations or what constitutes a terrorist organization. Likewise, disclosure and declaration of cross border transmission of funds is not mandatory. November 2009 was the last time an outside systematic review of Lebanon’s compliance with FATF guidelines were conducted.

This obfuscation is aided by the fact Lebanon, at the time of writing, is not a party to the FATF. It is a member of the MENAFATF regional body, but the actual implementation of FATF protocols inside Lebanon is not clear in the open source. In the case FATF recommendations were institutionalized, Hezbollah could again use its’ institutional, as well as military, clout to coerce and intimidate bank officials. Hezbollah is arguably the most organized terrorist organization in the world and has been implicated in the assassination of leading Lebanese government officials before. If it were the case Lebanon was moving against Hezbollah’s financial infrastructure in a systematic way, we would expect to see kidnappings and assassinations of bank officials in Lebanon. This does not appear to be the case.

The Special Investigative Unit, Lebanon’s FIU, have claimed in their 2013 annual reports that compliance has increased since 2009. These reports although bordering on press releases, do show attempts at bringing rule of law to Lebanon’s financial systems. Alas, by not releasing identifying information on cases it is impossible to verify whether the Special Investigative Unit is going after large organizations such as Hezbollah, or just relatively small time drug dealers. It is one thing to say one is pursuing terrorist finance, it is another to allow verification. Likewise, it is unclear what is happening to these individuals being investigated. Are they being prosecuted? Are they operatives who have fallen out of favor? Or are actors within the Lebanese government actually making a sustained drive to attack Hezbollah’s finances? This would make sense for the central government to do. Hezbollah undermines their legitimacy as sovereign of their own territory and attacking their finances would benefit actors within the government. But again, without verification this is merely informed speculation. Speculation that can lead down many different and contradictory roads based on the same evidence provided.

Compounding difficulties is the maturity of Hezbollah as an organization. Hezbollah involves itself in a number of ventures that are legitimate. As the quasi-sovereign of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is heavily involved in construction and social projects. When looking at the Egmont group training manuals for FIUs, a theme that comes up again and again is that successfully detected money laundering operations usually involve relatively small time actors (in a reading of over 50 different case studies in the manual, only one case involved an enterprise with over 100 persons involved). Common mistakes of unsuccessful launderers involve criminals who didn’t have legitimate organizations to eventually transfer their funds to. Money was merely being transferred to personal accounts. Hezbollah does not encounter this issue as it has legitimate construction companies in Lebanon that until recently were open for international business. This gives organizations with the sophistication of Hezbollah a level of plausible deniability other criminal actors do not have. Likewise, if officials do become suspicious of a person vital to an organization, they can be protected by Iranian intelligence services.

Fractures in the sanctions regime make it simpler for local interests in Latin American states and elsewhere to ignore issues involving Hezbollah. The US designates all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, while the European Union only designates the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. These disagreements make it easier for non-interested parties to detach themselves from the situation. Altogether this paints a bleak picture for the current anti-money laundering regimes as the pertain to groups like Hizbullah. With the increased policy focus on combating Sunni-nationalist organizations such as the self-declared Islamic State, the focus on Hizbullah’s operations become a secondary priority in the short and medium term.

 

Note

Editor’s note: This document was written in the Spring of 2015 and some of the information could do with an update. Likewise, large portions of the manuscript were salvaged from a damaged computer. Portions of the bibliography and other documents were completely lost. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me and I will see what I can do to help you in your follow-ups.

Islamic State in Mindanao

Back in March 2014 the Moro Islamic Liberation Front inked a peace deal with the Filipino government. This left the hardcore fighters out in the cold. In August 2014 a splinter faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters declared their Bay’ah to Islamic State. This is likely due to two main factors A) Their marginalization and need to make their group unique within the new political landscape of the Southern Philippines. B) These are the people within the M.I.L.F. who didn’t want peace with the government anyway, they might as well seek an outside patron as they rebuild their organization.

In January 2015 the B.I.F.F. (the Bangsamoro group) engaged in a nasty firefight in which 45 members of the Phillipines’ Special Action Force. It was also reported by local Filipino papers that an American died in what was dubbed ‘Oplan Exodus’. The newspapers even seem to be aware of which company within the Filipino Special Action Force was embedded with. Interestingly, US Joint Special Operations Command wrapped up operations mere weeks after Oplan Exodus, officially ending a 13 year mission there. The death of a US serviceman was denied by the U.S. Embassy in Manilla, but remains an interesting tidbit in the kaleidoscopic and classified US fight against al-Qaeda’s remaining alumni. Showing the importance of the mission, the F.B.I. went so far as to have agents collect DNA samples after the battle.

The target of this raid was suspected bombmaker, smuggler and jihadi fixer Zulkifli Abid. A Malaysian national by birth, Abdin is a purported veteran of the Afghan jihad and had Islamist contacts in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and is suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings. Not one to leave well enough alone, the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research also reports Abdin was a co-founder of the Islamic Caliphate of Mindanao group a little known terror group which may also have ties to the Islamic State group. The fact Abid, died under the protection of a group declared to the Islamic State shows just how chaotic, and understudied jihadism in Southeast Asia really is.

Current State of the Islamic State: December 2015

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as we know it, is crumbling. In it’s place the Islamic State has focused its efforts on consolidating fallback points elsewhere on the globe as Kurdish and Sunni Tribal forces pick away at the infrastructure and logistical networks of the fledgling ‘Dawla’. With the loss of the Tirshin Euphrates crossing point and dam, trucks moving between al-Bab and Manbij in the west and Raqqa in the center will be forced to traverse south around lake Assad using the M4 highway. This could be very significant for the coming battles in Manbij and al-Bab. In isolation this may not seem like a big deal but with the Peshmerga and YPG offensives making cutting off Highway 47 in Iraq (thus forcing smugglers to use unmapped trails through the Iraqi desert) means IS supply lines on the Mosul-Raqqa-Bab axis are more precarious, isolated (and predictable) than ever.

While loss of the Tishrin dam is important logistically, the loss in Ramadi perhaps counts more psychologically. Ramadi was a major area of operation for the Iraqi Sunni insurgency and likely is a person loss to many of the veterans of the war against the United States inside IS. IS was able to take control of Ramadi in May 2015 after a series of coordinated car/truck bombings and seizure of vital infrastructure drove ISF from the city in utter humiliation. This was a massive success for IS in a year of repeated quagmires and failure. While a Sunni insurgency will remain in Anbar for the foreseeable future, the idea of a state building project in ‘Wilyat Anbar’ looks increasingly delusional.

With the decapitation strike against the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam it will be interesting to see who tries to fill the power vacuum there. The chaos provides an opening for IS to get a foothold in Damascus after their failed seizure of Yarmouk. They certainly have operatives on the ground. The question is whether they have the ability to capitalize on this and shift the narrative away from the loss of Ramadi. In Baghdadi’s recent audio release he acknowledges the “loss of many lands”. This fits with the self awareness and self criticism the Islamic State has shown in the past. But this self-critique is moot as long as they maintain a dual policy of state-building and policy of ‘war against all’. These courses of action run contrary to one another. This contradiction leads the author to believe that consolidation of ‘Wilyats’ outside of Iraq and the Levant will be a strategic focus for IS in 2016. IS’s media releases have increasingly focused on areas outside of Iraq and the Levant such as their fledgling ‘Wilyat Khurasan’, located in Logar and Nangahar province; province that incubated the original members of al-Qaeda.

Zahran Alloush is dead.

War criminal and all around stain on humanity Zahran Alloush was killed in Eastern Ghouta today. On this Christmas I give all my thoughts and prayers to the people of Syria and hope the horrible conflict there ends a little sooner because of this.

A Very Brief Analysis of Islamic State’s “In the Words of the Enemy” Project

On the heels of the attacks in Paris and counter-productive commentary coming from certain sections of the American electorate, I thought it helpful finally explore Islamic State’s “In the Words of the Enemy” project. To my pleasant surprise, it is kind of terribly put together. I was expecting quotes from people on Fox News advocating for banning Islam. It ended up being something different.

For the uninitiated “In the Words of the Enemy” is a section featured in Daesh’s Dabiq promotional magazine. It features, as one can likely assume, public statements from the adversaries of Daesh. For the first 8 issues, they are presented in a way that only makes Daesh seem undefeatable in the eyes of their adversaries. Most often this is long-winded blockquotes from US politicians and think tank officials criticizing Obama’s Syria policy. In this rhetoric they make Daesh out to be an unstoppable force. This plays nicely with the other metaphors they like to peddle.

Unicorns, like sanity, died long ago.

What is interesting is that these quotes, even when from people on Fox News are always about their own strength. They don’t feel the need to prove (at least to the audience that reads Dabiq) that “Western crusaders” are at war with Islam. In fact, the often use the phrase “the Muslims” quite a bit in a bid to humanize whoever they are talking about (“Islam” in quotation marks is the Daesh signifier for people who only go to the Mosque on Friday or only pray four times a day). The meta-narrative overall seems to hold it as an assumption all Western actions in the Middle East are “crusade”. The term “crusader” is very vague term, they might be trying to use as a dog-whistle.

The section was a collection of block quotes until the publication of Dabiq #9 where the section becomes a platform to insinuate al-Qaeda is working with the West. They seemed to have found every quote of US officials advocating working with al-Qaeda against Daesh and put it on one page. Dabiq #12, the most recent one, they focus on internal divisions and criticisms of the other Islamist groups in Western Syria. The subtext here is that all true jihadists should pledge loyalty to Daesh. The audience seems to be disaffected jihadis in other organizations and an attempt to sew doubt in their ranks more than it is at recruiting westerners.

As Daesh becomes a more calcified organization, and their target demographic becomes tighter we may see more of this. Daesh high on their victory in Mosul is not Daesh today. They used to use Europeans and Australians as suicide bombers on small targets like machine gun posts almost solely because they had no military skills and were milling around Raqqa. In fact, something often overlooked in the popular discussion is that the social welfare state Daesh have built for themselves where they provide for the families men killed in battle has become an unsustainable drain on their financial coffers. Daesh has been extremely innovative in the propaganda department. Terrorist groups and politically savvy warlords will copy their propaganda distribution strategy for decades to come. But that doesn’t do much good when every faction in Iraq and Syria is at war with them.

How Daesh Moves Cash

Interesting video emerged today of Iraqi security forces stripping a Daesh pick-up truck of large amounts of cash. It is unclear whether the tactic of stuffing a tailgate to the brim with cash is a widespread way of smuggling bulk cash across the desert, but it is interesting nonetheless. Very Breaking Bad..

Burning Raqqa to the Ground, and Salting the Earth Where it Stood is not a Policy Response

I will admit. I’m angry. Paris, a symbol of the Enlightenment and human progress under ruthless assault by followers of a medieval ideology makes me want to smash things. But just dropping the 101st Airborne into Syria and expecting results, while momentarily cathartic, is, well… counterproductive.

Daesh and their followers attempt to elicit just this kind of rash response. The pillars of their strategy are the spread of violence, and deepening of alienation. In Iraq, they have unfortunately been very successful. By turning the relatively minor theological differences between Sunni and Shia into an existential conflict they created a maelstrom through which they could build their so-called ‘State’.

Now that they are pressed from all sides and losing on key fronts, they resort to exporting their barbarity to the European Continent. They hope this will shift momentum in their favor. We can’t allow that to happen. Keep pushing for a ceasefire in Syria. Isolate their citadels one-by-one until they are nothing but disconnected city-states. But the last thing we should do is play into their apocalyptic narrative and give them the enemy they want.

A war to truly exterminate Daesh would require more theaters than just Iraq and Syria. Are we going to invoke Article V like after 9/11? Will the French fight Daesh in North Africa and America fight Daesh in Iraq and Syria? Will the rebels join in UN mediated talks with Assad’s government? Will al-Nusra sabotage a ceasefire? Will we turned a blind eye to Bashar al-Assad’s crimes against humanity? These questions need to be answered before committing to any course of action.