daesh | Raffaello Pantucci

Posts Tagged ‘daesh’

Daesh: What Happens Next?

Posted: June 19, 2017 in Royal United Services Institute
Tags: AQ, AQ vs ISIS, daesh, global terrorism, ISIS, terrorism

More catch-up posting, this time a piece for my institutional home RUSI’s magazine Newsbrief, looking at how the threat from ISIS/Daesh may evolve over the next few years.

Daesh: What Happens Next?

May 24, 2017

As the battle for Mosul rages on and Daesh is put under increasing pressure in other parts of Iraq and Syria, how will the threat from the group evolve? Will Daesh end up following the path of Al-Qa’ida, with regional affiliates becoming more prominent?

In the wake of 9/11, Al-Qa’ida was sharply ejected from its base in Afghanistan. Re-establishing itself in Pakistan’s border areas, the leadership continued their bitter struggle against the world, launching and coordinating a series of attacks. Most immediately these included: an attempt on transatlantic airlines using British shoe bombers; an attack on the Ghriba Synagogue on the island of Djerba, Tunisia; the bombing of a nightclub in Bali; a rocket attack on an Israeli passenger aircraft leaving Mombasa, Kenya; and ship-borne suicide bombers targeting the French-flagged Petronas oil tanker MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen. Scattered around the world, these plots included a mix of local Al-Qa’ida affiliates and people who had trained at camps in Afghanistan, but all showed a clear link to the group’s leadership.

This set a pattern for the next few years, where the group continued to manipulate its networks from a distance, as well as send out cells of plotters to launch attacks around the world. In some cases, largely autonomous local networks took some seed support (or had a few key individuals return from the training camps), leading to a spate of attacks.

A good example of this was in Indonesia, where Jemaah Islamiah, the Southeast Asian Al-Qa’ida affiliate, launched a series of attacks in Bali and Jakarta. In other cases, such as the UK, the group had a steady supply of radicalised young men travel to its camps in Pakistan where they were indoctrinated and then directed to commit atrocities back home. This pipeline generated a string of plots directed from the core with escalating ambition that culminated in the August 2006 plot to bring down eight transatlantic flights with liquid bombs. This ideology received a boost from the invasion of Iraq, with random individuals seeking to launch attacks to advance the group with little evidence of a clear link to the leadership.

This pattern really started to change only in 2008–2010, when an extensive drone and Special Forces campaign was launched against the Al-Qa’ida leadership in Pakistan. This persistent hammering had an effect and led to a noticeable drop in Al-Qa’ida’s capacity to train and send out jihadis, as well as communicate with its international network. A Birmingham network, disrupted in 2011, was overheard talking about how the extent of their training camp was hanging about indoors hiding from drones and watching extremist videos. In 2010, French jihadist Mohammed Merah sought out training camps in Pakistan and appeared only able to spend a day at one before being sent quickly back on his way. The Birmingham cell was disrupted while Merah went on to launch a campaign in southern France, murdering off-duty soldiers and Jewish schoolchildren. Bin Laden senior was able to issue only occasional messages to his network and the world, leading to growing strategic stagnation.

But as the leadership took a beating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al-Qa’ida’s regional affiliates assumed a more prominent role in launching attacks. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) raised its profile, becoming a greater draw to the community of radicalised young westerners seeking to connect with jihadist groups. This brought a new wave of young aspiring Western warriors to Yemen, in particular through the attraction of its American-Yemeni preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki. These warriors were further indoctrinated, trained and then dispatched to launch attacks back home. This led to repeated attempts on international aviation, including: the ‘underwear bomber’; the printer cartridge bombs; concerns over an attempt to launch an attack with surgically implanted explosives: and a threat from a radicalised IT worker at British Airways. AQAP became the standard bearer for Al-Qa’ida globally, continuing the international struggle as the core lost its capacity to manage such attacks.

But the core organisation continued to exist and exert influence and direction over the network. As was evidenced by the many letters to have leaked from the correspondence seized in Abbottabad, Osama was a controlling leader. In one letter, for example, he expressed disappointment and disapproval of methods of attacks advocated by AQAP in its influential English-language magazine Inspire. Elsewhere, it seems clear that he was responsible for the continuing refusal to formally recognise Somali affiliate Al-Shabaab as part of the global organisation. However, his ability to control the group was weakening and as regional affiliates became more prominent or others developed, the nature of the ideology that Osama had launched changed. His death at the hands of US Special Forces at his Abbottabad compound in 2011 changed the group, with his successor Ayman Al-Zawahiri offering a different style of leadership and direction.

The result of this was a clear shift towards regionalisation by the group. Attacks and campaigns became much more localised. The 2013 attacks at In Amenas in Algeria and Al-Shabaab’s assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi are the best examples of this. In both cases, the attackers were linked to Al-Qa’ida, but there was a mix of local dynamics and new leadership figures establishing themselves at play in both cases. Despite Al-Qa’ida’s celebrations and announcements, it was not clear the degree to which the attacks were directed from Afghanistan or Pakistan, if at all. The incident advanced the global cause, although appeared much more about local than international dynamics. The regional affiliates still used Al-Qa’ida’s rhetoric and ideology, though their motivations appeared to be driven by a different set of drivers than the core leadership or ideology would necessarily advocate. More focused on local enemies, they were retreating to confront the ‘near enemy’ rather than the ‘far enemy’.

Daesh appears to be undergoing the same process, albeit in a more compressed timeframe than the decade or so it has taken Al-Qa’ida. Plots linked to the Daesh’s core continue to show up around the world, with some evidence of individual former fighters returning home to plant the seeds of a network. There is also evidence of attackers being directed, instigated or inspired by the group’s core in Syria and Iraq.

At the same time, Daesh’s regional affiliates – for instance, its groups in Afghanistan, Egypt, Nigeria or Libya – are taking a much more forward and aggressive position. The core group claims responsibility for these attacks and releases images through formal information channels linked to its Amaq or Nashir news agencies. The attacks themselves, however, often appear to be far more locally oriented and directed. That is to say, they are focused on striking enemies in their immediate environments, rather than using their bases to launch the large-scale attacks on the West that the core seems interested in wanting to do. Daesh’s Afghan affiliate, for example, has repeatedly launched attacks against Shia or government targets in Kabul. The group’s Egyptian affiliate continues to strike against minorities or the state in Egypt. Libya is possibly the exception to this rule, given the disorder in the state, the group has often used its training camps or footprint there to launch attacks or attempted plots in nearby North African countries such as Morocco or Tunisia.

This local focus suggests a far looser network of groups whose allegiance may be more limited, or at the very least a narrative by the core organisation that allows for far greater autonomy by regional affiliates. But this strategy carries with it risks for the core. If a regional affiliate has been operating autonomously for some time and is merely carrying the banner locally, then its loyalty may over time become frayed. Members of the leadership with personal links to the affiliate may get killed off, leading to the rise of new individuals whose ties may lie elsewhere. This will change the power dynamic between the core and the affiliate as the historical kinship links which tie the groups together get lost and new ones are harder to develop over long distances. This is a dynamic that has already played out to some degree with Al-Qa’ida, but it is happening with Daesh over a much shorter timeline as the core organisation continues to hold territory in the Levant and directs, instigates and inspires terrorist plots around the world.

Therefore, the potential threat from Daesh is one that is an enhanced version of what was seen with Al-Qa’ida. And the dangers from these patterns are similar to those seen with Al-Qa’ida. The growing prominence of affiliates is something that became a threat not only to Western countries or their nationals abroad, but also means that the core ideology and threat from the group is transferred from the core to affiliates at moments when the former comes under particular stress. The rise of AQAP to prominence in the late 2000s is a reflection of this, and it is possible that we could see a similar displacing as Daesh comes under greater pressure in the Levant.

At the same time, it is equally possible to draw some lessons from Al-Qa’ida’s weakening to understand how to damage Daesh and manage its growth. First, the core needs to be hammered and deprived of territory. This pressure clearly degrades capacity. Second, the West needs to be vigilant against more confident and strong affiliates as they can become the core threat. Third, it needs to understand the nature of individual links between groups. Targeting key individuals may disrupt connections between groups. However, according to the law of unintended consequences, there might be some instances of degrading, while in some other cases there may be individuals whose rise will pose a greater menace. All of this provides a pen portrait for how aggressive counterterrorism activity, as well as careful management of regional affiliates is at the core of understanding how to manage the threat from the group.

All of this is taking place as the threat from Al-Qa’ida core continues to exist. As Hamza bin Laden’s latest message illustrates, the progenitor organisation continues to want to stay relevant and is trying to re-appropriate the concept of lone-actor terrorist attacks (an attack methodology it had long advocated but was unable to weaponise as effectively as Daesh), showing the longevity of these sorts of threats. While Daesh seeks to distinguish itself in many ways from Al-Qa’ida and there are strong tensions between the two groups, their ideologies and outlooks remain similar. Daesh’s methods of attack, direction and radicalisation may have developed from Al-Qa’ida’s, but in many ways this is due to changes in the way people communicate since Al-Qa’ida’s heyday in the mid-2000s. And while Daesh’s relative youth and wanton brutality have somewhat distinguished it from Al-Qa’ida, the biggest danger in many ways is that the two threats may end up fusing.

While this may seem a far-fetched notion at the moment given the leadership tensions, it is not an outcome that can be completely discounted, especially if we see a Daesh that fragments back to its affiliates as the core becomes weakened. In this scenario, we could see enhanced affiliates drawing on both groups support to launch concerted regional campaigns both in their immediate areas, but also against the West.

The unfortunate reality is that it is likely that both threats will be with us for some time yet. While there are some clear lessons in how to manage the threat down from the struggle against Al-Qa’ida, that conflict has shown how hard it is to eradicate such groups. Patience, focus and a long-term plan will be the only way to manage the threats from such international terrorist organisations.

Raffaello Pantucci
Director, International Security Studies, RUSI.

What Islamic State will do in 2017

Posted: January 19, 2017 in New Statesman
Tags: daesh, Iraq, ISIS, Syria, terrorism

Slightly belated piece for the New Statesman to kick the year off looking at ISIS, tries to sketch out what is likely to happen with the group this year. Separately spoke to the Neue Zircher Zeitung about the threat that Germany faced in the context of the broader European threat.

What Islamic State will do in 2017

In retreat across Syria and Iraq, will the newer terror group emulate the strategy honed by al-Qaeda?

Any predictions of Islamic State’s demise are premature. During the surge towards Mosul at the end of last year, commentators repeatedly suggested this marked the beginning of the end for the extremist group. Yet, it still has the ability to launch attacks against its enemies both within Iraq and Syria, but also further afield. These trends are likely to continue, although security forces are increasingly learning how to mitigate the threat the group poses. The risk, however, is that the threat will continue to mutate.

The prospect of IS finding a way to regroup on the ground in Syria and Iraq can’t be ruled out. While Iraqi forces are pursuing a systematic approach to retaking Mosul, it is possible the group will melt into the countryside and wait for attention to shift before surging back. How the Iraqi forces take back the city and whether they provide those in Sunni areas with reassurance over their political future will determine whether IS is able to find a supportive base from which it can rebuild. In Syria, while confusion continues to reign, it will continue to find a way to embed somewhere.

But there is no doubt that the group has lost some of its lustre and power. While there are still some individuals choosing to go and fight alongside the group, the numbers have fallen dramatically. A report in September last year from US intelligence indicated that from a peak of 2,000 a month, only about 50 individuals were assessed as crossing the border each month to go and fight alongside a range of groups including IS in Syria and Iraq.

In fact, the biggest concern is the flow of people back. Foreign fighters disenfranchised by losses on the ground or tired after years of conflict are heading home. Some are no doubt eager to seek a conflict-free life, but others are being sent back to build networks or launch attacks. German authorities believe they disrupted at least two such cells in June and September of last year, linking them to the Paris bombers and unclear whether they were sent back to launch attacks or prepare ground for others. Similarly, Italian intelligence has raised concerns about the return of Balkan jihadists as a threat to Europe, pointing to the believed return to the region of Kosovan IS leader Lavdrim Muhaxheri with somewhere between 300-400 ISIS fighters. They have already been linked to one specific plot against a football game, and suspected of potentially again laying ground for others.

These individuals will join the continuing ranks of “lone wolf” or “failed traveller” attackers that we have seen in Europe and around the world in the past year. In Anis Amri’s attack in Berlin, or the murder of the priest in Rouen, we see individuals who apparently aspired to travel to Syria, failed to do so, and instead perpetrated attacks in Europe. We also see individuals latching on to the group’s violent ideology to launch attacks. This includes Omar Mateen, who butchered 50 in a shooting at an Orlando nightclub which he claimed to be doing on behalf of the group – although no clear link was uncovered. Given the basic methods used and the broad range of targets, it is highly likely that more of these loners (either instigated or self-starting) will emerge to wreak havoc in the coming year.

Finally, it is important to not forget IS affiliates around the world like Boko Haram in Nigeria, IS in Khorasan (Afghanistan), Sinai, Libya, or Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. There has always been some element of scepticism around the legitimacy of the links these groups have to the core operation, with speculation that some of their pledges of allegiance are more an expression of anger at al Qaeda or some other local group. Yet there is usually some evidence to support the association – most prominently with IS core in the Levant acknowledging them in their material. As we see the group’s core shrink in strength, these regional affiliates could rise up to take greater prominence or to take on a greater leadership mantle.

It is also possible that the core group in Syria/Iraq will use these affiliates to launch attacks or re-establish themselves. We have already seen how individuals linked to the Paris attacks were reportedly killed in Libya, and there is growing evidence that IS in Khorasan, the Afghan affiliate, has seen some back and forth of fighters. In future, it is possible that we may see these groups rise up in a more pronounced way. More acute problems might start to emerge from Libya, Afghanistan and Sinai where substantial affiliates appear to operate, or Nigeria, Pakistan or Southeast Asia where there is a more confusing aspect to the ISIS affiliates. There, the degree of strong connection with the core organisation is unclear, with it sometimes seeming that the adoption of the IS banner is rather an expression of local divisions between militant groups. If the pressure on the group in the Levant intensifies over the next year, these groups might look like tempting ways of distracting western security agencies through attacks that cause governments to re-allocate resources away from the Levant and thereby take some pressure off the group’s leadership in Syria and Iraq.

This would emulate al-Qaeda’s strategy. There have been moments historically when the core organisation pushed its affiliates to launch attacks to try to take pressure off the core group. This happened between al-Qaeda core in Pakistan and its Yemeni affiliate between 2003-2009. Similarly, al-Qaeda has realised that sometimes not declaring loud Caliphates and committing public atrocities such as televised beheadings, but instead committing targeted acts of terror and endearing itself to local populations to build support from the ground up, is a more productive way forwards.

How the outside world will react is a further unknown element. Donald Trump has stated he will eliminate the group, but he has not outlined a strategy for how he will achieve this. There is little evidence that the US could do much more than deploy greater force on the ground (whose ultimate goal and success would be unclear). The announced Saudi alliance to counter the group has not so far done a huge amount, and European powers remain secondary players. It is unclear that any country is preparing a Russian-style push with the potential human and political risks attached, meaning we are unlikely to see a dramatic change.

For IS, the conflict they are fighting is a millennial one for God’s greater glory and temporal timelines like our calendar are largely irrelevant. Dramatic events like the loss of cities or leadership figures may change its dynamic, and in some cases significantly degrade its capacity, but are unlikely to eradicate the group. Rather, it will continue to evolve and grow regionally primarily, but also internationally, with attacks against western targets a continuing interest.

Once the war in Syria settles down, and Iraq becomes unified, discussions may be possible about how to eradicate the group, but this is unlikely to take place in the next 12 months given the continuing fighting on the ground in the face of a ceasefire which in any case includes neither IS or al-Qaeda affiliates, meaning another year of the world remaining in state of high alert is likely. Were peace to break out, IS would find itself in a complicated situation, but this would require a very substantial change of situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq. That, unfortunately, looks some way off.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of ‘We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Mujahedeen’

Battle for Mosul: will this be the end of Islamic State?

Posted: October 19, 2016 in New Statesman
Tags: daesh, ISIS, Islamic State, Mosul

And a final short piece in a latest burst of commentary posting mostly around Mosul, this time for the New Statesman looking a bit more at the history of ISIS.

Battle for Mosul: will this be the end of Islamic State?

The militant group’s grip on power is slipping but it has proved resilient in the past.

The battle for Mosul is the latest stage in the long struggle to defeat Islamic State. The group has been around since the late 1990s in one form or another, constantly mutating in response to its environment. Undoubtedly its ejection from Mosul will be a significant moment in the group’s history, but it is unlikely to be its final chapter. The destruction of the group will only be complete when some fundamental changes occur within Iraq and the war in Syria comes to an end.

IS’s roots go back to a training camp established by the militant Islamist Abu Musab al Zarqawi in the late 1990s in Herat, Afghanistan. Founded as an army to overthrow the apostate regimes of the Levant, it fled to northern Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan post-9/11 where it re-established itself as a force alongside Ansar al Shariah, a hardline Salafi jihadi organisation.

As American attention shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq, the group was ideally placed to become one of the leading lights in the post-Saddam Iraqi insurgency. Brutally announcing itself to the world in August 2003 with successive attacks on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, the UN headquarters and a Shia shrine in Najaf — the latter being the deadliest attack in Iraq that year with a death toll of 95 — the group grew to assume the mantle of al-Qaeda in Iraq. By 2006 this brand had become somewhat damaged through the brutal sectarian campaign the group waged, and when its founder, Zarqawi, died it sought to reinvent itself as the Mujahedeen Shura Council. This incarnation did not last long either, and eventually it assumed the title of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), alongside a more Iraqi leadership.

This was the start of a diffcult period in the group’s history. Its excesses in Iraq (including indiscriminate slaughter of Shia Muslims to stir sectarian hatred and filmed decapitations of prisoners) lost it local support and led to the tribes in Sunni Iraq rising up and supporting the government in Baghdad’s fight back against the group. By 2009, when the west abruptly stopped paying attention and withdrew from Iraq the group was largely perceived as in decline, with the Shia Muslim-led Iraqi government appearing to slowly assert itself more effectively across the country.

The terrorist attacks by the group continued. And the new government started to advance an increasingly sectarian agenda. These two played off each other in a downward spiral that was given a fresh boost of blood when the civil war in Syria erupted in 2011. Drawing on its existing networks (that were leftovers from when Syria was used as a staging point by the organisation to launch attacks into Iraq), the leadership sent a cell to Syria to explore what opportunities existed within the emerging fight there. This cell became the seed that grew into Jabhat al Nusrah and ultimately IS – a label the group adopted when in June 2013 IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi decided it was time to reveal this link between his Iraqi group and Jabhat al Nusrah. This led to divisions and the breaking up of the two organisations.

For IS, however, it was the beginning of an upward trajectory, building on this division to grow itself substantially in Syria (with Raqqa as its capital) and in 2014 taking over Iraq’s second biggest city of Mosul. We then reach the apex of IS’s success and the biggest expansion of the group yet.

It now seems that this growth had a shelf life of just two-and-a-half years. As the group appears to be losing Mosul, it is likely that we will see the beginning of a period of retraction. But this will not be its end – rather, it will flee back to the hills and the ungoverned spaces in Iraq and Syria from where it will continue a persistent terrorist strategy in both countries. Here it will bide its time until the moment presents itself to rise up. Waiting until the governance in Iraq and Syria fails its people again, the group can paint itself as the protector of Sunnis and once more build on that group’s disenfranchisement to win supporters and occupy a space vacated by local governments.

IS’s grip on power might currently be slipping but as history has shown, it has waxed and waned depending on the context it is operating in. We are now going to see a period of withdrawal, but unless attention is paid by the global community, it will expand again in the future.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Visit his website at http://www.raffaellopantucci.com

What happens after Mosul? Chaos – unless the West keeps its eye on the ball

Posted: October 19, 2016 in Telegraph
Tags: daesh, foreign terrorist fighters, ISIS, Islamic State, Mosul, terrorism

Another piece for the Telegraph, this time after the fall of Mosul, looking in particular at the worrying consequences subsequently if attention is not paid to the fall out.

What happens after Mosul? Chaos – unless the West keeps its eye on the ball

It has been a dramatic weekend for Isil. The symbolically significant town of Dabiq in Syria fell over the weekend, and then, this morning, the assault on Mosul, their capital in Iraq, has begun.

This likely heralds the beginning of a period of retrenchment for the group, as they find themselves in retreat and unable to project the same vision of power and victory and before. The consequences for the West are important.

Undoubtedly the threat from the group will evolve, and work needs to be done now to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. We must lay the groundwork to properly eradicate the group, rather than let Iraq sink into sectarianism as it did in the past.

A major concern is what will happen now to the mass of foreign fighters who will be suddenly left without a home. Rudderless but with a sense of revolutionary purpose, this group will present a menace to security officials around the world for years to come. In terms of the numbers of fighters who have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq, it is hard to find an exact precedent. The closest is the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s when the mujahedeen rallied to fight the Soviet Union. This produced the beginnings of the network that later developed into al Qaeda, but also created a cadre of warriors who sensed an opportunity to use the battlefield experience they had honed in Afghanistan on overthrowing regimes in their home countries.

In some cases, the revolutionary fighters kept on going, seeking another struggle to join, be it in Algeria, Chechnya, Kashmir or Bosnia. The war’s aftermath created clusters of militants with links to each other across the Eurasian continent, North America and Asia – cells that later turned into the base for al Qaeda plots for years to come.

How this will replicate now is difficult to predict. The speed and nature of the flow of fighters that went to Syria and Iraq to fight with Isil is different. But there’s a high probability of a threat and it will be a combination of things. There is an obvious risk of directed cells. Isil has shown a capacity to send individual fighters back hidden among the flow of refugees coming to Europe. This will likely continue, with a confusing mix of individuals returning home feeling that their fighting days are over, alongside individuals tasked with establishing networks or even launching attacks. Keeping track and understanding this flow, then preventing any plots emerging now or in the future will be a major concern to European authorities for some time.

Communities of Arab, South-east Asian, Central Asian, Russian and North African fighters may also decide to start heading home. In some of their home countries, the injection on a large scale of well-trained and battle-hardened fighters may become too much for authorities to cope with. This may lead to instability and violence which in some cases may be targeted against western nationals.

The fall of Mosul is likely to exacerbate this flow. As various reports appear to indicate, the numbers of disenfranchised fighters who are seeking to leave the Caliphate is increasing. The loss of Mosul will shatter the vision of the group as an all-powerful entity which controls a nation with major cities, something that will inevitably reduce its appeal as a destination for people to go to.

In many ways, however, it is exactly now that the longer-term danger rears its head. As the group is pushed back from Mosul, not only will its threat evolve, but there is also the possibility that western attention will drop off once again. Last time the West seemed to score a victory in Iraq, western powers rapidly lost attention and withdrew. The result was a sectarian mess in Iraq that provided the groundwork for Isil, creating the environment from which it was able to grow. In addition, while the group is losing ground in Syria – as evidenced most recently by the loss of Dabiq – it is still a force on the ground and the brutal civil war there rages on.

The danger is now that with thi precipitous loss of territory, the rich world’s attention will wane. And in taking our eye off the ball, the stage may be set for Isil to re-group and re-establish itself. The pressure must be kept up on the battlefield, but also in terms of finding ways of rebuilding communities and cities that have been torn apart by conflict. All of this is a long-term struggle that the West has failed to follow through on in the past. It is essential to make sure that this same mistake is not made twice.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and author of ‘We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists

How can we fight Islamic State when our allies Saudi Arabia are also extreme Islamic fundamentalists?

Posted: October 19, 2016 in The Question
Tags: daesh, Gulf terrorism, ISIS, Islamic State, Saudi Arabia

Another short piece off the longer interview with Andrew for the new site The Question, this time looking at ISIS in its Gulf regional context.

How can we fight Islamic State when our allies Saudi Arabia are also extreme Islamic fundamentalists?

There was a moment, which was very embarrassing, when people noticed that some Islamic State schools in Syria were using official Saudi school textbooks – which certainly suggests some proximity of outlook, at the very least, between the two places.

But they key difference is that Saudi Arabia is not at war with us. Saudi Arabia is actually helping to disrupt these terror networks, to counter these problems, and is ultimately a strategic ally – with many flaws and many problems, but an ally which fights with us.

Saudi Arabia realises that an organisation like Islamic State is going to come after them, at some point. For an Islamist organisation like Islamic State or al-Qa’ida, the Saudi regime is one of the most evil things on the planet. They see these guys not as austere practising Muslims who are living according to the prophet’s Sharia, but as a group of very rich people who are stealing money, and leading these incorrect, impure lives.

If you think back to al-Qa’ida, they had two levels of enemy that they were focused on: the near enemy and the far enemy. The far enemy was the West, and the near enemy was the various regimes in the Gulf, who they saw as impure, and incorrect, and puppets of the West. So Saudi realises that Islamic State are a problem, and that they’ve got a huge problem with their people going to fight in Syria and Iraq – and with what might happen when those people come home.

I’ve not seen categoric evidence that Saudi Arabia is supporting terrorist plots against the West. I have seen evidence that they have disrupted terrorist plots against the West. But are there potentially people in senior positions who may actually be more interested in supporting the other side because that’s who they’re more ideologically aligned with? I don’t discount that. But do I think that the state of Saudi Arabia is hell-bent on fighting against us? No.

Saudi Arabia is one of many important elements involved in the fight against Islamic State. They’re a very important power in the region, so which way they go on any issue is influential. They’re very significant when we look at Syria, especially. Islamic State will only be able to survive as an organisation as long as there’s chaos and trouble in Iraq and Syria. Saudi Arabia can certainly play a role in stabilising that.

And because of the unfortunate reality that Saudi Arabia has so many young men who’ve gone to fight alongside groups like Islamic State, they’ve got very good intelligence capacities about these organisation,. That’s very important when it comes to preventing them striking against the West, or elsewhere.

Is Islamic State losing its war?

Posted: October 12, 2016 in The Question
Tags: AQ, daesh, ISIL, ISIS, terrorism, terrorist groups

A short piece (that was done in the form of an interview with Andrew Mueller who then published it) for a new site called The Question that is focused on answering key questions about specific topics of the day.

Is Islamic State losing its war?

In the short term, at least, they seem to be on the back foot. The land they control in Syria in Iraq is shrinking – and they controlled, for a time, a territory the size of the United Kingdom. Their leading people on the battlefield, quite senior people, are being killed. Their capability to launch the sort of attacks they have before is ebbing away, which suggests a period of relative decline.

Their goal was always to turn the entire planet to God’s greater glory – to bring about the end of days and the second coming of the Lord. This is a group that ultimately has a milleniarian vision of transforming the world in God’s image. That’s a very high bar to clear, but they start with what they start with, and build upwards. For IS, they were always very focused on their Levantine space, and if you read the ancient texts, you’ll see that those lands are very important, as the place where the war that will transform everything will start. So they had a vision of the world as it should be, but they’re also people who don’t much like the governments in those places, which leads to this mesh of personal angers and a bigger ideology which knit quite tightly together.

What is still going well for them is that they continue to exist, and are able to launch some quite substantial attacks, and to control a certain amount of territory. For a group like this, survival is important. And the attacks outside their territory are important, in a number of ways. They’re attacks on an enemy – you’re fighting us, so we’ll fight you. And there’s a political idea behind it as well – they’re trying to stir an ultimate clash of civilisations between the West and Islam and bring about the end of days.

With the taking out of their leaders, there’s a debate in the counter-terrorism community about what it actually means. Some people think decapitation of a terrorist organisation leads to bigger problems – what you’ll sometimes see is that after the removal of a senior figure, factions within the organisation will want to rise up and prove themselves, which they’ll do by doing something more atrocious than the last guy.

You look at al-Shabab in Somalia for example – their leader was killed, the next guy comes in, and you see the Westgate mall attack. The other model is that if you decapitate groups, they sometimes wither and die. You think of the Shining Path in Peru – their leader was taken out, and it kind of disappeared, because it turns out it was really a one-man band.

But an aggressive attrition of the middle ranks of people does have an impact on a group’s ability to function. If you keep hammering that middle level, you break the fighters away from the leadership, and that’s what we’ve seen happening to Islamic State recently. The leaders have to stay hidden, and aren’t in contact with many people. But if you take out the people around them, their ability to direct the organisation changes – if the guy who was looking after the accounts gets killed, who has that information now? Maybe there was a guy who knew where all the safe houses were. Look at Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who was very involved with Islamic State’s external operations – when he was killed, a lot of those would have been lost, or confused. A lot of these relationships are built on trust, and that doesn’t automatically transfer to the next guy.

The numbers which have been circulating recently suggest that the numbers of people from Europe going to fight with Islamic State is down to 10% of what it was last year. There are two main reasons for that. One is that security forces in Europe and elsewhere have a much better understanding of how recruitment networks function, and how to disrupt them. The other is the fact that the attraction of the group has reduced: Islamic State is no longer as powerful and successful as it was. If I’m going to go off and fight for someone, I don’t want to fight with a bunch of losers.

Raffaello Pantucci is the author of We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists.

Why is Daesh Able to Inspire More Attacks Than Al-Qa’ida?

Posted: October 5, 2016 in Royal United Services Institute
Tags: Al Qaeda, AQ, AQAP, daesh, ISIS, lone actor, terrorism

A late posting of a recent piece for my institutional home RUSI exploring the question of al Qaeda versus ISIS/Daesh/ISIL and the degree to which they are able to advance the lone actor strategy. Lots of longer form writing going on at the moment which is keeping me busy and will eventually land.

Why is Daesh Able to Inspire More Attacks Than Al-Qa’ida?

The fact that there are more and more Daesh-inspired lone-actor terrorist attacks may be the product of technological changes, rather than a different approach to terror.

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Daesh appears to have intensified its efforts to encourage individuals to carry out lone-actor terrorist attacks, as events over the weekend in the US indicate. But this trend has been observed for quite some time, and it may be the product of technological changes, rather than a different approach to terror.

The US was rocked this weekend by a series of terrorist attacks. While Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS or IS) claimed responsibility for the stabbing spree in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the New York and New Jersey explosions have not yet been claimed by any terrorist group. Given the uncertainties at this stage in the investigation, it is unclear if there is any deeper meaning to this distinction, but the speed with which Daesh claimed responsibility for one terrorist attack and not the other suggests a rationale. The Minneapolis attack was an example of the lone-actor methodology that Daesh has managed to appropriate from Al-Qa’ida with a high degree of success. A key unanswered question is this: why has Daesh has proven so much more effective at delivering this sort of attack than Al-Qa’ida?

The first thing to note is that the approach which Daesh appears to be so good at promoting is not novel. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) Inspire magazine used to advocate a similar methodological approach. It aped various prominent mainstream advertising campaigns – including Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign – and offered easily accessible attack methodologies for aspirant warriors. And there was some evidence that it worked, with the bomb recipe offered in the magazine repeatedly showing up in terrorist plots. From the limited available evidence at the moment, the latest New York bombs seem to emulate a recipe in Inspire.

Yet it was never clear that the group was able to instigate and steer such attacks. Numerous Al-Qa’ida leaders spoke of the lone-actor methodology as one that adherents in the West should copy, but very few terrorist attacks seem to have actually taken place as a result. Occasional plots seemed to hint in this direction, but it was almost impossible to draw a direct causal link between Al-Qa’ida and these attacks. And, according to one letter found in his lair in Abbottabad, Osama Bin Laden did not entirely approve of all of the various random mass murder methodologies Inspire used to offer its readers.

Fast-forward to today, and we see repeated attacks using small bombs, knives, guns and other weapons to attack innocent citizens in the West, with Daesh regularly claiming responsibility for them. And while some appear to be over-eager claims by the group – like the case of Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June – in a growing number of cases there appears to be clear evidence of some sort of connection with Daesh.

Three factors appear to have changed since the heyday of Inspire magazine that may help explain Daesh’s effectiveness in inspiring lone-actor terrorist attacks.

First, the ideology that Daesh espouses comes in the wake of Al-Qa’ida and it is louder, brasher and more attractive, projecting an image of power and control of territory; markedly different to Al-Qa’ida’s image of a secretive menacing organisation.

Second, the definition of ‘terrorist attack’ has been diluted, with the range of actions that are considered terrorist attacks now broader. Whereas in the past only large-scale bomb or plane attacks would be considered terrorist attacks, now using a vehicle or knives against other citizens can constitute a terrorist attack. Furthermore, the targets have now become diffuse – cafés, churches, people’s houses, among others, are all in the crosshairs. This means that a terror attack is no longer the complicated large-scale endeavour that it used to be. And if it is easier to carry out a terrorist attack, then there are a wider range of attacks for Daesh to be able to claim. This lower threshold is something that Daesh has eagerly embraced, in contrast to Al-Qa’ida, which has allegedly had reservations about this approach.

Third, it turns out that a number of these attacks are not actually as lone or detached as they seem prima facie. After an investigation, the German authorities uncovered clear evidence of contact with Daesh in an axe attack on a train in Wuerzburg and an attempted bombing in Ansbach in July this year. The June murder of a police officer and his girlfriend at their home in Magnaville, 55 km west of Paris, and the subsequent July murder of a priest in Rouen, as well as the attempted car bombing in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, were all linked back to the same French Daesh leader: Rachid Kassim. Previously, a network of British plotters in the Syrian city of Raqqa – Junaid Hussain, Reeyad Khan and Sally Jones – were talking and instigating various attempted attackers in the West.

In many of these cases, it was subsequently discovered that the plotters on the ground were involved in quite intense conversations with Daesh handlers or directors. Apparently using apps such as WhatsApp, Kik or Telegram, the attackers were communicating with their Daesh handlers. The Ansbach bomber, for example, was quite literally directed in his attack by his handler outside Germany. So, although the perpetrators may seem to have been alone in their actions, they both had some backing and plenty of connections.

In some ways, this is likely a product of the way we communicate these days. Daesh, therefore, appears to be in part a product of its time; the communication apps that are now available were not accessible to Al-Qa’ida when it was promoting a similar message, and Daesh’s more contemporary audience is simply using the tools in everyday life. The phenomenon also builds on what came before it: Al-Qa’ida had already started to sketch out the path of lone-actor attacks that Daesh has so eagerly embraced. And in part it is a product of a leadership in Daesh that sees value and strategy in low-grade random attacks, in contrast to Al-Qa’ida, which appears fixated on more large-scale, dramatic attacks.

Daesh has not invented a new strategy of launching attacks; what we are witnessing instead seems to be an attempt on the part of Daesh to increase the incidence of a particular form of terrorism, lone-actor terrorism, an upward trajectory that was most likely to happen anyway. Daesh’s attacks seem a product of their times, rather than a completely novel strategic approach.

Friends, Sponsors and Bureaucracy: An Initial Look at the Daesh Database

Posted: May 3, 2016 in Royal United Services Institute, Sky News
Tags: al muhajiroun, daesh, foreign fighters, ISIS, leaked documents, omar bakri mohammed

A new piece for my institutional home RUSI and Sky News, which is part of a collaboration we are doing with them institutionally looking at the Daesh documents which were leaked recently. The piece was both published on the RUSI site and Sky News. My excellent colleague Clare Ellis was the lead on this work, so thanks to her for pulling it all together. More on this topic to come!

Friends, Sponsors and Bureaucracy: An Initial Look at the Daesh Database
Clare Ellis and Raffaello Pantucci
Commentary, 3 May 2016
Terrorism, Al-Qa’ida, Terrorism

A preliminary analysis of leaked Daesh recruitment files by RUSI experts suggests that the social processes underlying the radicalisation and mobilisation of foreign fighters still mirrors those of Al-Qa’ida.

In March 2016 it was revealed that a defector from Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS or IS) had obtained a memory drive containing the personal details of thousands of foreign fighter recruits. Sky News has shared the information with RUSI, and while its researchers are still conducting detailed analysis of the records, a preliminary examination has revealed a number of insights.

The majority of the documents appear to be arrival forms, completed by or for Daesh recruits as they sought entry into Daesh-controlled territory between early 2013 and late 2014. They are bureaucratic in nature, with 23 fields recording details from basic biodata to level of Sharia-related knowledge; there is even a space on the form where the date of the individual’s death can be entered, should the recruit die while fighting with Daesh.

While of evident value, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of this database. They offer only a partial snapshot of those who travelled to Syria and Iraq – it is impossible to know how many others travelled during this period, or how this specific dataset compares against the broader picture. Nevertheless, they provide important details not only about individuals but also about how Daesh administers its territory; about the recruitment, radicalisation and mobilisation of foreign fighters; and about how the group has learned from the experiences of its precursor organisation, Al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI).

A Militant Bureaucracy

Examining the format of the documents, it is clear that they represent an attempt to impose control and implement state administration. There are some similarities with AQI’s practices: these forms record similar information to that found in the AQI archive known as the ‘Sinjar records’, including the recruit’s route of entry, his or her facilitator and the personal belongings being deposited.There are also indications that AQI’s initial model has been further developed to record the knowledge and experience of incoming fighters. There are additional fields, not found in the Sinjar documents, to record the recruit’s level of Sharia knowledge and his or her previous experience of jihad. There is also evidence that further notes were made to record any potentially relevant skills or knowledge beyond those relevant to combat.

The bureaucracy of ‘state’ administration points to the dual nature of Daesh. As the group has come under increasing military pressure in Syria and Iraq, it has amplified its efforts to inspire, instigate and direct attacks against the West. Former Director General of MI5 and RUSI Senior Associate Fellow Jonathan Evans has categorised this strategy as ‘chaotic terrorism’, with some attacks directed by the group, but many undertaken by ‘disparate individuals who may have no actual contact with the group but are encouraged through its propaganda’. There are therefore stark contrasts between these dual roles: Daesh is simultaneously a tightly controlled and bureaucratic ‘state’, and a loosely controlled ‘chaotic’ global terrorist movement.

With a Little Help from My Friends

Examining Al-Qa’ida’s recruitment practices, Marc Sageman encapsulated the importance of social bonds in what became known as his ‘bunch of guys’ theory. He showed that bonds of kinship, or friendship, often predate recruitment and radicalisation. Similarly, anthropologist Scott Atran’s research finds that kinship and friendship are crucial to understanding why people radicalise and embrace violence: ‘people don’t simply kill and die for a cause. They kill and die for each other.’Daesh has skilfully exploited social media to spread their message to a global audience; however, as Peter Neumann at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) has argued, social media is a powerful propaganda tool but it has not displaced the importance of these real-world connections in mobilising people to action. Initial analysis of the leaked documents reinforces this insight, revealing evident geographic clustering within foreign fighter recruitment.

Just as analysis by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) of the Sinjar records revealed a high proportion of AQI recruits arriving on the same day as others from their hometown, these documents show many British fighters arriving in groups. The fact that some of these groups hail from the same place, with notable concentrations from Coventry, Cardiff and Portsmouth, underlines the importance of offline interactions in radicalisation; were social media the crucial element, then (as Neumann has explained) recruits would be dispersed across the country rather than clustered in specific locations.

A Word from the Sponsors

Moreover, the documents confirm that in gaining admittance to Daesh-controlled territory, it is necessary to declare a sponsor. Like Al-Qa’ida before it, Daesh seeks to verify the identity of its new recruits to limit possible infiltration. One individual who appears in this role is particularly noteworthy: Omar Bakri Mohammed, the Syrian preacher who founded the group Al-Muhajiroun in the UK in the late 1990s (an extremist group that was later proscribed in 2010). In the wake of the July 2005 bombings, he fled the UK, and was subsequently barred from returning by the Home Secretary.From his base in Lebanon, Omar Bakri appears to have continued his radicalising activity. While this is not a new revelation, it is striking that he is cited as a sponsor numerous times in the Daesh database. Previously dismissed as a ‘loud-mouth’ – most amusingly characterised as the ‘Tottenham Ayatollah’ in Jon Ronson’s 1996 television documentary – Bakri now appears able to facilitate access to Daesh. This highlights the continuing threat from charismatic extremists, as well as the persistence of jihadist networks – in this case both still posing a threat more than two decades after their emergence.

Conclusion

Daesh has clearly learned lessons from Al–Qa’ida, and AQI in particular, so that it can hold territory more successfully and more effectively utilise the skills of its recruits. However, the evidence from the Daesh database suggests that the fundamental mechanisms of terrorist recruitment and radicalisation are still the same.Social media has given the group greater access to a global audience, but the social processes underlying the radicalisation and mobilisation of foreign fighters still mirrors that seen among the recruits of Al-Qa’ida. Behind the bureaucracy, foreign fighters are still just a bunch of guys.

Brussels attacks show that terrorists can strike at will

Posted: March 26, 2016 in Financial Times
Tags: Belgium, Brussels terror attack, daesh, EU security, European jihadis, European terrorism, France, ISIS, jihad

It has been a busy week after the sad events in Brussels. A lot of links and posting to catch up on, but am on the road so not so easy to do. For the time being, here is my preliminary thoughts on the attack for the Financial Times. More to come soon.

Brussels Attacks Show That Terrorists Can Strike at Will

The surveillance problems can no longer be described as Belgian alone, writes Raffaello Pantucci

It is still unclear exactly what Brussels has faced just prior to Easter. The random nature of the date and targeting suggests a plot that may have been brought forward, while the scale of the attack suggests it must have been in the pipeline for some time. The Isis network, also linked to November’s Paris attacks, has claimed responsibility. The bigger issue, however, is not who is to blame for this atrocity but rather how much Europe will warp to address an acute terrorist threat, with cells apparently able to launch large-scale atrocities on an increasingly regular basis.

The first questions raised will focus on Belgium’s response to the problem on their home ground. Authorities may have scored a victory by capturing Salah Abdeslam, one of the Isis-aligned plotters linked to the Paris attacks, but they missed a network planning an atrocity with heavy weapons and explosives. This suggests gaps in the understanding and surveillance of the terrorist threat. Given that Brussels sits at the political heart of Europe, this points to a problem that can no longer be described as Belgian alone.

While for some the terrorist atrocities in Paris was a wake-up call, for security forces it had been expected for a while. Terrorist groups, from al-Qaeda to Isis, have long sought to launch a terrorist attack in the style of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and a string of plots have been disrupted or launched from a francophone network emanating from Brussels. The Paris attack was the realisation of these fears from a depressingly predictable place.

The networks of radicalised individuals with links to Isis have grown as the group continues to hold sway on the battlefield and send back peopleand plots to their original bases in western Europe. Given the tempo of attacks and the ease with which the networks appear able to acquire weapons and move freely around the continent, Europeans will ask themselves how much longer they will face this threat. Is this the start of a regular diet of such atrocities or the breaking of a wave? Given that terrorist groups have been able to launch three big, ambitious plots in Europe in the past year and half, the sense will be that we are in the thick of this threat with no end in sight.

The choice of targets is predictable. Terrorist groups have long fetishised aviation as a target, both as a way of visibly lashing out against the globalised political establishment but also for the high impact. Mass transport systems by their very nature have to be open to the public, which makes them tempting targets as they offer an easy opportunity to strike at the heart of a society. Questions will be asked about ramping up security levels but this will bring costs and further inconvenience to the daily lives of citizens. Think of the ramifications of a plot in 2006 where a cell planned to use liquid bombs on a series of transatlantic flights. Liquids are still banned on aircraft today.

The Brussels attacks will also play badly against the backdrop of Europe’s migration crisis. It will not be entirely surprising if elements close to the recent attacks found ways of slipping into the country alongside refugees from the Middle East. An already tense situation in Europe will grow more fraught, and this will have inevitable political ramifications too.

This is the biggest problem with which security planners will have to contend. It is often said that the best response to a terrorist threat is to keep calm and carry on. This is sage advice but in the face of a network that appears able to strike with impunity, and a political environment growing more toxic by the day, it will be ever harder for security forces and politicians to ensure that Europe maintains its values in the face of the terrorist threat from within.

The writer is director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute and author of ‘We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists’

The Islamic State Threat to Britain: Evidence from Recent Terror Trials

Posted: March 18, 2016 in CTC Sentinel
Tags: daesh, ISIS, ISIS threat to UK, lone actor, terrorism, UK, UK terrorism

A new piece for the CTC Sentinel looking at recent terrorist attack planning in the UK, trying to identify the specific nature of the threats. For the most part, there has been little evidence at trial of direct attack planning though it certainly is something that lurks in the background of a couple. Undoubtedly a topic there will sadly be more on as time goes forwards.

The Islamic State Threat to Britain: Evidence from Recent Terror Trials

March 17, 2016

Author(s): Raffaello Pantucci

While clearly at the top of the Islamic State’s targeting list, the United Kingdom so far has been spared from any major terrorist atrocities at home with direct links to the Islamic State. A review of the trials of those accused of terrorist plotting in the country between 2013 and 2015 reveals that the violent Islamist threat picture has instead been dominated by lone-actor plots, with some demonstrating connections of some sort to individuals on the battlefield in Syria or Iraq. Going forward, however, the threat is likely to become more acute as the Islamic State pivots toward international terror.

In the wake of November’s terrorist attack in Paris, a series of Islamic State videos suggested the United Kingdom was next on the target list.[1] For British officials, the threat was not new. As British Prime Minister David Cameron put it days after the Paris attack, “Our security services have stopped seven attacks in the last six months, albeit on a smaller scale.”[2] Earlier this month, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, who oversees counterterrorism efforts for the London Metropolitan Police, warned, “In recent months we’ve seen a broadening of that—much more plans to attack Western lifestyle, going from that narrow focus on police and military as symbols of the state to something much broader. And you see a terrorist group which has big ambitions for enormous and spectacular attacks, not just the types that we’ve seen foiled to date.”[3]

This article takes stock of the threat to the United Kingdom, drawing on court documents of recent British terror trials of those accused of plotting between 2013 and 2015. Currently, most of the cases that have passed through Britain’s courts have not shown clear evidence of Islamic State direction, though the plots covered in these cases for the most part predate the group’s active surge of international plotting last year that culminated in the Paris attacks in November. Up to this point, most plotting seen in the United Kingdom appears to demonstrate an ideological affinity to the Islamic State, with most plots fitting the lone-actor model and having no clear command and control from Islamic State operatives in Syria and Iraq. Going forward, however, security officials see a growing, direct threat from the Islamic State, with Richard Walton, the former head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-terrorism Command, stating in January, “We are concerned about Daesh’s external ambitions to project their terror overseas rather than them just trying to consolidate their so-called caliphate.”[4][a]

Alleged Instigation Overseas: The Erol Incedal Case
In October 2013, as part of a series of coordinated arrests, four men were detained for allegedly plotting to launch a “Mumbai-style” attack in London. Two men were released soon afterward while Erol Incedal, a British passport holder of Turkish-Alawite descent, and Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, a British-Algerian were brought to trial. Rarmoul-Bouhadjar pleaded guilty to possession of a bomb-making manual and was sentenced to three years in prison while Incedal instead chose to fight the charges against him. In a first for the British judicial system, the trial was held partially under secret circumstances for reasons that were not publicly revealed.

The public part of this trial shed light on the accused’s travels and contacts. In late 2012 the two men tried to reach Syria through Turkey. Rather than getting across the border, however, they ended up in a safe house in Hatay full of people “engaged somewhat in the resistance against Assad.”[5] Here they met “Ahmed,” a British-Yemeni extremist who would become a key figure in the prosecution’s case. Ahmed had spent time in France, and he claimed to have fled to the Syrian-Turkish border area as he felt under pressure from security services in the United Kingdom. In court, Incedal described him as having ‘“sympathies with the global jihad”[6] though Incedal was also quick to highlight that he was angry at the West since some of his family members had reportedly been killed in drone strikes in Yemen.

By early March Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar were bored of the inactivity at the safe house and told Ahmed they were going to head back to the United Kingdom. According to Incedal, Ahmed told them, ““Bruv, you know, you are going back, I wish, you know, you could do something in the UK” do some – he actually said “shit,” “do some shit in the UK, blow these guys up” and, you know, basically do an attack in the UK.””[7] In court Incedal stated that Ahmed’s view was not shared by all in the safe house. “The majority of the people there were thinking more specific to Syria and not worried about the West,” he testified. Nevertheless, Ahmed apparently saw value in the men back in the United Kingdom, telling them, “It would be nice to keep in touch and maybe you can help us in this global cause in the U.K.”[8]

Once back in the United Kingdom, the men entered into a world of semi-criminal activity and partying. An Azerbaijani friend named Ruslan who was connected to wealthy Azeris provided them with an entrée into London’s high life. Incedal appears to have been close to the sons of the Egyptian extremist cleric Abu Hamza, who, according to Incedal, were now involved in post office robberies “because their father [had] given them the right to do it.”[9] Incedal appears to have considered ways of working with them and of raising money to buy guns for protection during drug deals.[10] During this time, Incedal appears to have maintained contact with Ahmed (who was either in Turkey or Syria) through Skype conversations during which they discussed sourcing weapon “straps,” getting detonators sent to the United Kingdom from Syria, and whether Rarmoul-Bouhadjar still remembered any bomb-making training he had received at the safe house.[11]

In the end the jury cleared Incedal of the charges of plotting a terrorist attack, he was found guilty of possessing a bomb-making manual and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.[12] Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, who had pleaded guilty to the same charge, served some time in prison and was discharged on restrictive release.

In the second half of 2014, British authorities disrupted several separate plots involving attack planning. The missing element from this cluster of cells, however, was clear direction from the Islamic State, though there were clear sympathies.

Stay-at-Home Jihadi: The Brusthom Ziamani Case
The first of these cases was that of Brusthom Ziamani, an 18-year-old extremist known as Mujahid Karim, from Peckham in south London. Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Ziamani was thrown out of his family’s home after converting to Islam. He subsequently moved (or moved deeper) into the orbit of al Muhajiroun, a British extremist grouping supportive of the Islamic State. In June 2014 he was arrested on an unrelated charge, and during a search of his belongings police found a letter addressed to his parents in which he declared:

“Because I have no means ov gettin there [Syria and Iraq] I will wage war against the british government on this soil the british government will have a taste ov there own medicine they will be humiliated this is ISIB Islamic States of Ireland and Britain.”[13]

Under interview he confirmed that the letter was his but denied he was planning an attack in the United Kingdom. He praised Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the murderers of the British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May 2013, and stated that the letters were “written in case he went abroad and died fighting there, or if the U.K. became an Islamic state, in which case he would join in the uprising.[14] He was bailed, and officials working in the British government’s deradicalization program “Prevent” repeatedly tried to engage him to see if he could be moved off a path of violent extremism. These efforts failed, and Ziamani continued to seek out radical material online. On the morning of August 19 he appeared at his ex-girlfriend’s house with a black backpack in which he showed her he had a large knife, a hammer, and an Islamic flag. He told her, “Me and the brothers are planning a terrorist attack,” though not a bombing. “No, not like that, basically to kill soldiers.”[15]

Later that afternoon police stopped him as he was walking in the street in East London. Searching his belongings, they found his weapons and took him into custody, charging him with terrorist offenses. Months later he told a security officer in prison that he “loved” Michael Adebolajo and had handed out leaflets with him. He also confessed, “I was on my way to kill a British Soldier at an army barracks. I was going to behead the soldier and hold his head in the air so my friend could take a photograph.”[16] There was no evidence provided that Ziamani had any co-conspirators, though in passing a 22-year sentence, Justice Pontius stated that “he had little doubt that, like Adebolajo and Adebowale before him, he fell under the malign influence of al-Muhajiroun fanatics who were considerably older, and had been immersed in extremist ideology far longer, than him but he was, nevertheless, a willing student and all too ready to absorb and adopt their teaching.”[17]

The Power of the Fatwa: The Tarik Hassane Case
In the second plot disrupted, police arrested a cluster of young men in West London in late September and early October 2014. Over a year later in January 2016, the trial began for four of the men arrested for planning to shoot a security officer with a Baikal gun and silencer that they had procured. The plot was alleged to have started on July 9, 2014, when one of the alleged co-conspirators—Tarik Hassane, then based in Sudan—announced to a Telegram group that some of the men were part of that he had made bay`a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[b]

Soon after this, Hassane came back to the United Kingdom via Jordan, and planning for an attack appears to have intensified. The group started to discuss obtaining something from “Umar,” later identified as Nyall Hamlett, a man currently on trial who was identified as being involved in London’s criminal fraternities and had access to weaponry. Using all sorts of coded references, Hassane, Suhaid Majeed (an accused co-conspirator also still being tried who was studying physics at King’s College in London), and others discussed trying to obtain “straps” or “creps.” They looked for a garage in Shepherd’s Bush using an online rental manager.[18] They also sought to obtain a moped.[19] By September 21, with Hassane still in Sudan, the group appears to have finally been close to obtaining a gun. Majeed told the group to “make serious dua [prayer] for me,” which the prosecution suggested was the moment at which the group knew they were obtaining their weapon.[20]

A day after senior Islamic State figure Muhammad al Adnani released his infamous fatwa calling on followers around the world who had pledged bay`a to kill disbelievers “in any manner” wherever they can find them, Majeed went through an elaborate transaction to obtain a Baikal gun, ammunition, and a silencer.[21] Once home, he searched for videos about how to handle the weapon on YouTube and spoke to his friends abroad. Not wanting to take any chances, British police moved in to arrest all of the individuals under surveillance. As Majeed’s parent’s property was being searched by armed police a gun and equipment were tossed out of the window.[22] During the search of co-defendant Nathan Cuffy’s premises they found a series of four different guns and ammunition.[23]

All of this activity was taking place as Hassane was still abroad. On September 30 he returned home and was arrested soon afterward. Hassane pleaded guilty to the charges against him, while the other three continue to fight their charges.[24]

Frustrated Travelers: The Nadir Syed Case
The al-Adnani fatwa also provided an inflection point for a third plot disrupted in the second half of 2014. The alleged co-conspirators, Haseeb Hamayoun and cousins Nadir Syed[c] and Yousaf Syed, were all from London and of Pakistani origin. The story of their plot begins in December 2013 when Nadir Syed was arrested for public order incidents and released under strict bail conditions.[25] In breach of these, on January 19, 2014, he was stopped from boarding a plane trying to travel to Turkey, alongside his cousin Yousaf and a third man, Luqman Warsame. While Nadir was prevented from traveling, Yousaf and Warsame continued their journey. Yousaf Syed returned after spending some time in Turkey, but Warsame joined the Islamic State in Syria, from where he remained in contact with the two Syeds.[26] Warsame’s current status is unclear. Yousaf Syed was stripped of his freedom to travel in April 2014. Nadir Syed also remained stuck in the United Kingdom, but in October 2014 he applied for a new passport from the Home Office.[27]

Like Ziamani, the group appears to have had a fixation with the murder of Lee Rigby and knives. Evidence was introduced at trial of Nadir Syed talking to others about the two Woolwich killers in 2013. Also introduced into evidence were the trio’s September 2014 WhatsApp conversations in which they shared images of the Woolwich attackers and their activity.[28] In the wake of an attack in Australia on September 23, 2014, in which Numan Haider, a Melbourne teenager tried to stab a pair of policemen after his passport was canceled and was instead shot by the officers,[29] the men praised the attempt and compared it to Michael Adebolajo, praising Adebolajo as a “diamond geezer” in their discussions.[30] After a court appearance by Nadir Syed on November 6, 2014, for his public order offense charges, Haseeb Hamayoun met him outside the courtroom and the men seem to have gone straight to a kitchen shop.[31] Soon after this, authorities decided to intervene, and all three men were arrested separately later that same day.

In the end, the court was unable to reach a conclusion about Hamayoun and Yousaf Syed, though Nadir was found guilty of planning to murder a security official around Remembrance Day with a knife.[32] Hamayoon and Yousaf Syed face a retrial.[33] The reasoning behind Nadir Syed’s plot is best discerned from Nadir’s online commentary after Adnani’s September 2013 fatwa: “These governments need to rethink their policy…esp after Adnani’s speech, why the hell would you let an ISIS supporter stay here….in other words the muslim in the west is left with two choices, either turn back from your deen or end up in jail,” he stated.[34]

Other Cases: The Disconnected, the Very Young, and the Isolated
The fourth plot thwarted in the second half of 2014 was that of Kazi Islam, the nephew of Kazi Rahman, a former jailed terrorist linked to the 7/7 cell. Arrested in November 2014, Islam was jailed in May 2015 for “grooming” another young man to try to build a bomb or conduct a terrorist attack. An apparent attendee of al Muhajiroun lectures, Islam was undone when the 18-year-old he was spurring on to launch an attack failed to get the right materials to build a bomb and told friends about the plan.[35] Although the exact nature of the plot is not entirely clear, Islam appears to have been pushing the boy to build bombs, obtain knives, and think about targeting security officials.[36]

In late March 2015 police in northwest England arrested a 14-year-old boy from Blackburn after he threatened to behead his teachers, accusing him of being involved in instigating a terrorist plot in Australia linked to attacking a security official on Australia’s day of remembrance, Anzac Day. The boy was accused of talking to Australian Sevdet Besim, a radicalized teenager who was part of a larger community of concern in Australia and spurring him on “to run a cop over or the anzac parade & then continue to kill a cop then take ghanimah and run to shahadah?”[37] Besim was further connected to Numan Haider, the Melbourne teen shot by police in September 2014.[38] While the exact role of Islamic State behind this network is unclear, the group was all connected to the now-deceased[39] Neil Prakash, a notorious Australian jihadi fighting alongside the group in Syria also known as Abu Khaled al Kambodi.[40] The boy was found guilty, becoming the youngest convicted terrorist in the United Kingdom.[d]

The shambolic nature of Kazi Islam’s November 2014 “grooming” plot was matched in May 2015 when police arrested the married couple Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan after Mohammed Rehman tweeted from his Twitter account,[e] “Silent Bomber,” the question “Westfield shopping center of London underground? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”[41] The question—seeking suggestions about which target he should attempt to attack—caught the attention of authorities. Investigators uncovered Mohammed Rehman, an unemployed drug addict still living with his family. His wife, Sana Khan, also lived at home with her parents who disapproved of Rehman. The two decided that they wanted to launch a terrorist attack against the London Underground or a shopping center, with Rehman seeking chemicals online to detonate a bomb while Khan provided the funding. The couple discussed bomb tests, and Rehman eventually tested a bomb in his backyard. Two weeks after they were detected online, the couple was arrested, and after a short trial, they were given life sentences.[42]

In neither case was there any clear evidence of direction by a terrorist group overseas or links to any other plots. Both appear to be fairly classic, disconnected lone-actor plots with the only clear connections to the Islamic State being either through consumption of radical material (magazines like Dabiq), statements of intent to join the group (which apparently Kazi Islam made to his friends), or a letter that Rehman left pledging his allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[43]

Alleged Communication with the Islamic State: The Junead and Shazib Khan Case
An alleged plot targeting the RAF Lakenheath airbase, home of the U.S. Air Force 48^th fighter wing, disrupted in July 2015 was more clearly linked to external networks, though any degree of external direction is unclear and the trials are ongoing.[44] Junead Khan and his uncle Shazib Khan (the two were so close in age, they refered to each other as cousins) from Luton are currently standing trial for planning to join the Islamic State, with Junead also accused of wanting to launch an attack in the United Kingdom against “military personnel” at military bases in Lakenheath or Molesworth.[45] Junead apparently knew and admired another local Luton man who had gone to fight (and was subsequently killed) named Rahin Aziz.[46] The men were allegedly in contact with a number of fighters in Syria, including the notorious British Islamic State operative Junaid Hussain who allegedly told Junead via the encrypted messaging app Surespot that “I can get u addresses but of British soldiers” and that “I can tell u how to make a bomb.”[47] There was further evidence presented at trial from his computer and phone that he was seeking instructions on how to make explosives. The case is ongoing and is due to conclude next month.

Conclusion
Since the emergence of the Islamic State as a major terrorist force in the Middle East, there has not been clear-cut evidence presented at trial of plots being directed by the leadership of the Islamic State against the United Kingdom. The cases formally prosecuted through the courts all suggest a threat picture that remains dominated by lone-actor terrorism, in some cases inspired by the Islamic State. The United Kingdom has also seen plots by extremists blocked from traveling to join the Islamic State, something also seen in Australia and Canada.[f]

The trials have not yet revealed clear direction by the group against the United Kingdom. There have been reports that Islamic State recruiters are seeking out Europeans with links to Germany or the United Kingdom to help facilitate attacks there,[48] but thus far, the evidence offered in courts is not as clear cut. Security authorities certainly see an escalating threat, something reflected in Assistant Commissioner Rowley’s warning that British authorities fear a spectacular Paris-style attack.

While the nature of the threat in the United Kingdom is different than in France in certain respects —for example, there is easier access to heavy weaponry and ammunition on the European continent—the Islamic State itself has made clear that the United Kingdom is a priority target. Until now the public threat picture has been dominated by lone-actor plots. Going forward, however, with the Islamic State appearing to pivot toward international terrorism and around 1000 British extremists having traveled to Syria and Iraq, half of whom are still there,[49] there is a growing danger of Islamic State-directed plots against the British homeland.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists. Follow @raffpantucci

Substantive Notes
[a] The British government refers to the Islamic State as Daesh.

[b] Hassane went on to post his pledge in full: statement that showed “that I, poor servant of Allah, Tariq Hassan (sic), swear allegiance to the Amir of [leader] of the faithful, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abullah Ibrahim ibn Awad al-Quraishi al-Husseini, Caliph of the Muslims, he owes me to listen and obey him through thick and thin as much as I can.” Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al, January 15, 2016, p. 26.

[c] Nadir Syed was part of the broader community around the al Muhajiroun community in the U.K., most clearly as part of a WhatsApp group called ‘the lads’ with prominent figures Abu Waleed and Abu Haleema. See Lisa O’Carroll, “Man convicted of planning Isis-inspired Remembrance Sunday attack,” Guardian, December 14, 2015.

[d] He received a life sentence with a review in five years to see if he had been de-radicalized prior to him ascending into the adult prison population. “Anzac Day terror plot: Blackburn boy sentenced to life,” BBC News, October 2, 2015.

[e] His Twitter account profile photo was an image of Islamic State executioner “Jihadi John.”

[f] The Australian case was the aforementioned case of Numan Haider. In Canada, Quebec attacker Martin Couture-Rouleau was blocked from traveling to join the Islamic State, and Ottawa shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was blocked from traveling to the region. See Allan Woods, “How Martin Couture-Rouleau became an aspiring Islamic State fighter,” Star, October 26, 2015; “How Michael Zehaf-Bibeau went from petty criminal to the face of homegrown terrorism,” National Post, November 7, 2014.

Citations
[1] Raya Jalabi, “Isis video threatening UK claims to show Paris attackers in Syria and Iraq,” Guardian, January 25, 2016.

[2] David Cameron interview with BBC Radio 4 Today program, November 16, 2015.

[3] Vikram Dodd, “Isis planning ‘enormous and spectacular attacks’, anti-terror chief warns,” Guardian, March 7, 2016.

[4] Paul Cruickshank, “A View from the CT Foxhole: An Interview with Richard Walton, Head, Counter Terrorism Command, London Metropolitan Police,” CTC Sentinel 9:1 (2016).

[5] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 13.

[6] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 16.

[7] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 41.

[8] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 49.

[9] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 13, 2015, p. 49.

[10] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 12, 2015, p. 41.

[11] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 12, 2015, pp. 7-8.

[12] “Erol Incedal Jailed for 42 months over bomb-making manual,” BBC, April 1, 2015.

[13] (Typos as rendered in the document) Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015, p. 4.

[14] Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015, p. 6.

[15] Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015.

[16] Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015.

[17] Regina vs Brusthom Ziamani, Sentencing remarks of HHJ Pontius, Central Criminal Court, March 20, 2015.

[18] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 68.

[19] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 69.

[20] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 87.

[21] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 95.

[22] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 101.

[23] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 109.

[24] Sebastian Mann, “Terror accused have told ‘buffed and polished’ lies to mask guilt, court hears,” Evening Standard, March 8, 2016.

[25] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 6.

[26] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 9.

[27] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 9.

[28] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 11.

[29] Melissa Davey, “Police had no choice but to shoot Numan Haider, inquest hears,” Guardian, March 7, 2016.

[30] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 21.

[31] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 34.

[32] Lisa O’Carroll, “Man convicted of planning Isis-inspired Remembrance Sunday attack,” Guardian, December 14, 2015.

[33] Tom Whitehead, “Extremists allowed to leave UK to ease home terror threat,” Telegraph, December 15, 2015.

[34] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p.20.

[35] Duncan Gardham and Amanda Williams, “Teenage Islamic terrorist who groomed man with learning difficulties to carry out Lee Rigby-style attack on British soldier is jailed for eight years,” Daily Mail, May 29, 2015.

[36] Ibid.

[37] “Anzac Day terror plot: Blackburn boy sentenced to life,” BBC News, October 2, 2015.

[38] Dan Oakes, “Numan Haider inquest: Anzac Day terror accused Sevdet Besim called to give evidence,” Australia Plus, March 7, 2016.

[39] Joshua Robertson, “Neil Prakash, Australia’s most senior operative in Islamic State, reported dead,” Guardian, January 31, 2016.

[40] Oakes.

[41] Regina vs Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan, November 14, 2015.

[42] Tom Whitehead, “7/7 suicide bomb plot couple jailed for life,” Telegraph, December 30, 2015.

[43] Tom Whitehead and David Barrett, “Middle class daughter of magistrate who turned to suicide bomb plotter,” Telegraph, December 30, 2015.

[44] “Man allegedly planned Lee Rigby-style attacks on US soldiers in UK,” Guardian, February 17, 2016.

[45] Regina vs Junead Ahmed Khan and Shazib Ahmed Khan, February 12, 2016.

[46] “Alleged extremist accused of ‘planning attack on RAF base in East Anglia’ takes stand in trial,” Cambridge News, March 4, 2016.

[47] Regina vs Junead Ahmed Khan and Shazib Ahmed Khan, February 12, 2016.

[48] “You will lose the feeling of being a human being,” BBC Radio 4 PM, February 22, 2016.

[49] Patrick Wintor and Shiv Malik, “Hundreds of Britain caught trying to join jihadis, says Foreign Secretary,” Guardian, January 15, 2016.

Raffaello Pantucci

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