The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock, among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to jttmsubs@memri.org with "Membership" in the subject line.)
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The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
From July 15 to 16, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden is slated to make a historic visit to Saudi Arabia and arrive in the kingdom on a direct flight from Israel. It is believed that one of the aims of the visit is to promote the creation of a kind of regional NATO, to comprise Israel alongside Arab countries, in order to contend with the security threats to the region, first and foremost those posed by Iran.
By: S. A. Ali*
Over the past few weeks, the official media of the Islamic State (ISIS) has reiterated the organization's growing interest in establishing a Caliphate in Africa, similar to its 2014 model in Iraq and Syria. The group's recent media efforts employ two complementary messaging tactics: the first aimed at projecting an image of strength to its global audience, while the second presents the group's "soft side" to African audiences, in an attempt to attract local recruits.
EXCLUSIVE: Pro-Al-Qaeda Women's Magazine Rails Against LGBTQ Advocacy As War 'Against Nature'
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
On July 10, 2022, a pro-Al-Qaeda media outlet released a new issue of its women's magazine for Al-Qaeda supporters. The 96-page issue included Arabic, English, and French articles about issues of relevance to Muslim women, as well as transcripts from lectures delivered by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in 2022.
On July 9, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) in Syria, an Uyghur jihadi group with close ties to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), published holiday greetings on its website to the Islamic nation in honor of Eid Al-Adha, in the Arabic and Uyghur languages.
On July 5-7, 2022, jihadis on social media continued to react to Saudi authorities' appointment of Muhammad Al-'Isa, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars and Secretary General of the Muslim World League, to deliver the sermon and lead the Day of 'Arafa prayer at the Namira Mosque on Friday, July 9, 2022, the day before Eid Al-Adha, which Muslims consider to be the best day of the year.
On July 12, 2022, a Syrian opposition news website posted a two-minute video clip which claims that a Hizbullah shipment of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles from Lebanon recently reached the southern rural region of Homs, Syria, a known Hizbullah stronghold in the country.
On July 10, 2022, the Islamic State's (ISIS) Yemen Province claimed responsibility — for the first time in Almost two years — for a suicide operation carried out by a single operative against a convoy of officials belonging to Yemen's Houthi Ansar Allah movement, a.k.a. the Houthis, in Bayda' province in central Yemen.
ISIS In India Claims Killing Of Three Indian Police Officers In Kashmir
On July 12, 2022, the Islamic State's (ISIS) India Province announced that its operatives had fired handguns on a patrol of the "infidel" Indian police forces.
On July 12, 2022, the Pentagon announced that there was an Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) strike outside Jindires, in northwest Syria, that targeted "two senior [Islamic State] ISIS officials on July 12, 2022.
On July 7, 2022, the Islamic State (ISIS) released issue 346 of its weekly newsletter, Al-Naba'. The issue's feature article – titled "Jihad And Slogan Shouters" – lauded the group's adherence to the "path of jihad" and "Allah's commands," in contrast to other groups, which claim to wage jihad but in fact fight for personal interests, on behalf of their donors, or for a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society.
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Issue Nine of "Voice of Khurasan," a monthly English-language magazine released by Al-Azaim Foundation, the media arm of the Islamic State's Khurasan Province (ISIS-K), included an article titled "The State Of Al-Salul Is Inching Toward Democracy" criticizing Saudi crown-prince Muhammad bin Salman for introducing far-reaching changes in the country's orthodox society such as driving rights for women, music concerts, and pro-democracy reforms.
Issue Nine of "Voice of Khurasan," a monthly English-language magazine released by Al-Azaim Foundation, the media arm of the Islamic State's Khurasan Province (ISIS-K), announced the launch of a special series of articles to arouse Muslims to take to the path of jihad.
Issue Nine of "Voice of Khurasan," a monthly English-language magazine released by Al-Azaim Foundation, the media arm of the Islamic State's Khurasan Province (ISIS-K), included an article titled "India – Between Pain And Hope" criticizing Hindus in India in the wake of the recent targeting of Muslims in the country by the politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Following the June 29, 2022 French court ruling of a life sentence for Salah Abdeslam, who participated in the November 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people, a pro-ISIS outlet published a poster titled "Eternal Glory" in praise of Abdeslam.
On July 8, 2022, the official media outlet of Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia, Harakat Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen (Al-Shabab), released a 56-minute video address by the group's leader, Ahmed Diriye aka Abu 'Ubaydah Ahmad 'Umar, titled "Not Equal are the Evil and the Good," a quotation from Quran 5:100.
On July 11, 2022, the media wing of the Somali Al-Shabab movement released a 49-minute video as an Eid Al-Adha "gift," released with transcripts in Arabic, Somali, English, and Swahili.
Al-Qaeda's Somali Affiliate Al-Shabab Releases Photos Of Operatives, Locals Celebrating Eid Al-Adha
On July 12, 2022, the media arm of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Somali group Al-Shabab, posted a 25-page pictorial report documenting Eid Al-Adha celebrations in "the Islamic provinces under the rule of Al-Shabab."
On July 9, 2022, the media arm of the Yemen-based jihadi group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), posted a video with a speech by senior AQAP official, Sudanese national, and former Guantanamo detainee Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Qousi aka Khubayb Al-Sudani, which was delivered on the occasion of the Muslim Eid Al-Adha holiday.
On July 6, 2022, the "General Security Service" (GSS), affiliated with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), announced that, "after a series of operations," it has managed "to arrest most of the members of [a group] which is responsible for many security incidents" against Turkish forces.
On July 10, 2022, a magazine published by a group of Idlib-based independent jihadi clerics, was released on Telegram. The publication featured several articles, including an unattributed editorial marking the Muslim season of pilgrimage to Mecca, which argues that the pilgrimage is a celebration of monotheism amid the intensifying "war on Islam."
On July 11, 2022, an anti-Islamic State (ISIS) channel on the Al-Qaeda-operated Rocket.Chat server released what is said was a series of correspondences between ISIS's Directorate of Remote Provinces and its Yemen Province, during the fall of 2015.
Between July 7-8, 2022, Telegram channels affiliated with Iran-backed militias in Iraq mocked UK Prime Minster Boris Johnson for announcing his resignation on July 7.
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
In a message released July 6, 2022, on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha (the three-day feast of sacrifice beginning July 9 in the Islamic world), Afghan Taliban emir Mullah Hibbatullah Akhundzada reiterated the principle of al-wala' wal-bara' ("loyalty to Muslims and enmity to non-Muslims").
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
On July 8, 2022, Afghan media outlets reported on an official visit of the Taliban interim government's acting Defense Minister, Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid, to Qatar, where he met with several top Qatari officials to discuss defense and security bilateral cooperation.
In a message released on the eve of Eid Al-Adha (the three-day feast of sacrifice that in 2022 began on July 9), Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, the emir of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Movement of Pakistani Taliban, TTP), has vowed to ensure the enforcement of shari'a in Pakistan, saying that this goal has not been achieved despite more than seven decades of its creation.
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
The Pakistani jihadi organization, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (the Movement of the Pakistani Taliban, TTP), has expressed grief over the death of the mother of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist sentenced in the United States to 86 years in prison after she was detained in Afghanistan's Ghazni province in 2008 for her alleged links with al-Qaeda and reportedly tried to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan while she was in custody.
