Author: Atta Barkindo

Published in: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 12-17 (6 pages)

Publication Date: March 2023

Publisher: International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research

Abstract:

In November 2015, the Islamic State (IS) dedicated the eighth issue of its English-language monthly propaganda magazine, Dabiq, to the propagation of strict Islamic governance in Africa, with the title “Sharia Alone will Rule Africa”. It was done to counter the growing tentacles of Al-Qaeda (AQ) in Africa. The issue also outlined IS’ strategy on how to mobilize, create and support various regional groups, known as provinces or wilayat, around the continent, whose members carry out violence in its name. In early 2014, different jihadist groups around Africa, such as Boko Haram, began pledging allegiance to then IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leading the region to become the new IS wilayat in Africa. While each province undertook IS-approved activities in terms of violence and governance, one unifying element was total submission to the vision of a self-styled global Sunni caliphate. Today, some African militant groups have regional partners with networks spanning the North African region and straddling the Sahara into East and West Africa. At the same time, it has become an IS recruitment hub, with the terror group co-opting indigenous partners and interfacing with local imams (prayer leaders) to control, influence or intimidate other Islamic sects with similar ideologies to join their cause. Since early 2022, IS has conducted half of its claimed global operations in Africa. This means Africa has emerged as the new center of gravity for IS. With existing structural issues of poverty and dispossession across different African regions, there is the potential for IS to consolidate its presence and serve as a threat to the global order. Against this backdrop, this article examines the place of Boko Haram-Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in this expanding terror network of IS across Africa. It highlights the future scenarios that could emerge if this trend is not checkmated.

Read the full text HERE.

Source: JSTOR

This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. Specifically, it will examine the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in the religio-political mobilization of Shii communities.

The volatile political situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant radical Sunni movements such as ISIS and the sectarianization of current geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts of clerical authorities and their networks to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community).

Focusing on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic and exilic connections to Syria, Kuwait and Britain, this project provides the first comparative study of the historical processes that led to the transnational religio-political mobilization of Shii communities and to the current articulations and manifestations of modern Shii communal identities both in the Middle East and in Europe.

Oliver will be joined by four postdoctoral researchers and three PhD students over the course of the five-year project, which starts in January 2018. This project is supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 724557).

Source: University of Birmingham

Abdel Nasser El Nadi, former principal of Vetenskapsskolan school in Gothenburg, was allegedly involved in transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to bank accounts abroad.

El Nadi was arrested in May by Swedish police along with four other clerics who were considered security threats. A new administration took over and changed its name to the Sapphire School but officials said problems persisted.

El Nadi was born in Egypt but has lived in Sweden since 1992 and has twice had Swedish citizenship applications turned down.

It was found that the 450 pupils at the school were still at risk of being “subjected to radicalization and recruitment to environments that accept violence or serious crime as a method of political change”.

It was claimed that one member of the school’s new board had shared ISIS propaganda online. “Because there are links to previous owners who are deemed to be a threat to the security of the state, the Swedish School Inspectorate assesses that there is a serious risk to the school’s students,” the decision to close the school read. The school is expected to appeal against the decision. Last month calls for it to be closed began to grow.

Source: The National

Therefore, Islamic Research and Information Center has prepared a revelatory article about the so called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) concerning their brutal mayhems’ origins and its flawed notional framework has been penned and distributed as a pamphlet among the English speaking pilgrims on 10^th November 2017, in Arbaeen Ceremony in Karbala – Iraq.

It included the following headings:

• A Critique of ISIS’s Brutal Thought
• The Claim of the Priority of War Against Near Enemy
• Delusive Understandings of the Verse
• Contradicting the Prophet’s way of Life (The Sirah)
• Quran’s and Narratives’ Prohibition from Excommunicating of the One Who Declares Being Muslim
• Excommunication of Muslims Standing Against Takfiris
• Takfiris’ Negligence to the Distinction of Belligerent and Civilian Unbelievers
• Takfiris’ Disdain to the Conditions of War, Even Against Militant Unbelievers

You can read this article HERE or download it as PDF.

Millions of black-clad Shia pilgrims are converging on the holy city of Karbala for the Arbaeen religious commemoration, the largest annual gathering of people anywhere on earth. Walking in long columns stretching back unbroken for as much as 50 miles, sleeping and eating in tents erected by supporters beside the road, the event has become an overwhelmingly powerful display of Shia belief and solidarity.

Arbaeen is the living symbol of the rise of the Iraqi Shia, a highly significant development in the Middle East, but it has happened only recently. Karim, 48, a tribal leader from Najaf, who provides free food for the pilgrims, recalls that when he first took part in an illegal Arbaeen walk under Saddam Hussein, “we had to take a roundabout route by the river [Euphrates] and try to keep hidden because, if we were caught, we would put in prison or executed”.

The Arbaeen has provided many modern-day Shia martyrs, murdered by Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and Isis, but its purpose is to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the revered Shia leader, killed in the battle for Karbala in AD680. The long ritual walk to his golden-domed shrine in that city – some walkers spend 10 or 12 days on the road from Basra or Kirkuk, others two or three days from Najaf – comes on the 40^th day of the mourning period as religious fervor reaches its peak among the faithful.

Shia cities, towns and villages all over Iraq empty out during a 20-day period as their people take to the roads in an elaborately organized and well protected mass movement not seen anywhere else in the world. Estimates vary of the total attending, from highs of 15-17 million to a low of 6-7 million, but it includes at least two million Iranians whose numbers are easier to calculate because they require documentation to enter Iraq. Mohammed al-Hilli, the author of a book entitled The Arbaeen: the Walk, says that “the city of Karbala can only contain two or three million people at one time, but, since pilgrims are coming and going over a long time, the total attending will be much higher.” … Pilgrims from all over the world head for Najaf, Iranians being much the most numerous, but they also come from Pakistan, India, Azerbaijan, Lebanon and places where the Shia community must be tiny. Many of the pilgrims are teenagers or in their twenties.

The US shows little sign of having learned much about the Iraqi Shia community in the 14 years since the invasion. It certainly still underestimates them. The Arbaeen was not a victory rally for the Shia as Isis is defeated, but they may well feel that, in Iraq, their day has come.

Source: The Independent

The project aimed to raise awareness and insight into the revival of Imam Hussein^(a) movement and held in Italy, Germany, Norway, Austria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The main purpose of the project was to introduce the Ashura movement and the true face of Islam to the public and non-Muslims in different cities in Europe.

One of the main activities of the union in recent years has been introducing Imam Hussein^(a) to non-Muslims in order to promote and revive his words and ideology. This year, the union distributed bottles of water, roses and informational brochures to non-Muslims in different cities, including London, Bradford, Rome, Turin, Milan, Paris, Bergen, Vienna, Hague, Aachen and Berlin.

These brochures were designed to answer questions about the uprising of Imam Hussein^(a), to demonstrate the true face of Islam and distinguish it from extremism. It is also designed and distributed to confront the wave of Islamophobia in the West and to declare that Islam condemns injustice and terrorism. The brochures are available in indigenous languages (English, Italian, Dutch, French, German, and Norwegian). The brochures also introduced the Arbaeen walk and contained great quotations made by public figures in respect of Imam Hussein^(a).

Volunteers with flags and white scarves with the motto “I am in a battle against injustice. Will you join me?” were offering bottles of water, which symbolizes the thirst of Imam Hussein^(a) and his companions, as well as roses, a symbol of unity and friendship, along with information about the life of Imam Hussein^(a) and Ashura.

It should also be noted that this movement was planned and implemented with the help and support of various Islamic centers in different parts of Europe.

Source: Islam Today Magazine

Around 300 imams in Austria have signed a declaration calling ISIS the “black sheep” of the Islamic faith and called for fellow Muslims to take a greater role in society.

The Islamic Religious Community of Austria (IGGÖ) signed the declaration against “extremism, violence and terror” in Vienna which “holds that atrocities of the IS terrorists are contrary to Islam and must be condemned most severely”.

“These IS terrorists misuse our peaceful Islam religion to reach their political goals,” it added. Around 180 imams who signed gathered outside a mosque in the city to unfurl a banner saying “United against extremism and terror”.

​IGGÖ President Ibrahim Olgun said in a speech that “a religion that stands for peace cannot have fundamentalist, terrorist or radical features” and that the Islamic faith was “polluted” by the actions of violent extremists.

The declaration said: “We, the Austrian imams, will continue to do everything they can to maintain peaceful coexistence here in Austria as part of this society.

“Nothing will stop us from using ourselves for peace, freedom, justice, equal opportunities for men and women, and social security based on reason and solidarity, and to make our active contribution to the preservation of society.”

Source: The Independent

Many in Greater Manchester’s sizable Muslim population — about 15 percent of the area’s 2.5 million people, many of whom have lived in the metropolis since the 1960s — now wonder how safe they are on the streets, and in their mosques and schools. Generally, people have been united in their solidarity, said Zahid Hussain, a local author and poet who is Muslim. “People are coming together — but there have been skirmishes.”

The city feels tense. Hussain received calls on Tuesday evening about a 14-year-old Muslim girl being mocked at school. And a Jewish friend told him he hadn’t sent his children to school that day. “They thought an attack may be imminent in their own community,” he said. Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell MAMA, which monitors and records hate crimes against Muslims, reported there had been a “measurable” spike in incidents after the attack, including verbal abuse, spitting and headscarves pulled from the heads of Muslim women.

A door at a mosque in Oldham, just outside of the city, was burned just hours after the attack on Sunday evening. Police officers were also put on patrol outside Glasgow’s Central Mosque in Scotland after the building’s outside wall was vandalized with graffiti: the word “ISIS” enclosed in a heart.

Musa Naqvi, another Manchester resident who works in the public health sector, worries about hateful sentiments manifesting online. “There is a gap that needs to be bridged between the security services, the police and the Muslim community,” Naqvi said. “Because if Muslims still get bashed in the media and told to be more proactive, they (the authorities) are not going to win the hearts and minds of the community…It was really surreal for me,” he said. “This guy (Abedi) lives five minutes down the road from my house. This is the middle of Manchester — not an industrial area . . . How did he get ahold of a bomb and make it in the first place? It’s very disturbing . . . and rings alarm bells and anxiety about the area we’re living in.”

Source: Religious News Service (RNS)

They awaited those arriving for the afternoon prayer at the Muslim American Society Katy Center. As people streamed in, the group waved and handed them pins with more heart shapes. “We just want to give love to our neighbors,” they told those arriving.

At a time when calls have arisen to ban all Muslims from entering the country and while hate crimes targeting Islam have jumped, Muslims throughout the nation have expressed new fears, which have been elevated since the presidential election of Donald Trump. As a counterpoint, this group of about 25 people at the MAS Katy Center gathered on the bitterly cold Friday to illustrate a message of unity.

Kristin Miller, a 50-year-old Katy resident who works at a fine arts nonprofit, organized the gathering largely through social media, calling it a “day of solidarity.” The event came in direct response to the negativity she said Muslims have felt lately, particularly during the election season.

During his campaign, President-elect Trump discussed having a Muslim registry and called on all Muslims to be banned from entering the United States until “our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on” in relation to terror threats, a statement he walked back but which some Muslims still fear.

Many Americans have grown weary towards Muslims because of groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS, which has become notorious for carrying out acts of terror throughout the Middle East in the name of Islam and influenced individuals in western countries to follow suit.

In the day’s after Trump’s Nov. 8 election, hate crimes, which are defined as being motivated by prejudice, reportedly spiked across U.S. school campuses and elsewhere. Incidents included stories by female Muslim students saying people attempted to remove their head coverings.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also said in their latest hate crime report that anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. rose about 67 percent from 154 incidents in 2014 to 257 in 2015. Overall hate crimes increased by 6.8 percent in the same time frame.

While Houston is an area that typically celebrates its diverse population, its Muslim citizenry remains troubled by the rise in hate crimes…Not surprisingly, Friday’s gathering couldn’t escape some politics.

Inside the mosque, Dr. Main Al-Qudah, a visiting Imam from the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, spoke a message of unity to a congregation of dozens of mostly men.

Source: Houston Chronicle

In a grab bag of promises to battle the Islamic State organization together with Russia and anyone else who wants to join the fight, the Republican nominee underlined the need to improve intelligence and shut down militant propaganda, recruiting and financing.

But he provided few specifics on how he would expand such efforts beyond those already underway. “My administration will aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS,” Trump said in a speech in Youngstown, Ohio, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “International cooperation to cut off their funding, expanded intelligence sharing and cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable their propaganda and recruiting… It’s got to be stopped.”

In a semantic softening of his previous position restricting immigrants or visitors from ­Muslim-majority countries, Trump said he would “temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism.” As he has in the past, Trump said he would keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that Obama has unsuccessfully tried to close for more than seven years.

At the same time, Trump said he would “call for an international conference” to “halt the spread of radical Islam,” partnering with Israel, Jordan and Egypt, among others.

Continue reading at: The Washington Post