During January 2023, leaders of far-right parties in Denmark and the Netherlands burned and tore up copies of the Quran, triggering a large-scale wave of responses, including statements of condemnation and numerous protests around the world. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were quick to condemn these acts, but while AQ focused on sermons and statements, IS skillfully harnessed its extensive propaganda apparatus and launched a campaign in support of the holy book. These incidents caused the toxic and tense atmosphere the European continent has experienced in recent weeks to escalate even more. In just two weeks, knife and machete attacks were carried out in Belgium, Germany and Spain, while in the UK, a man was arrested near a hospital in Leeds with a gun and a 13.7 kg pressure cooker IED. On January 11, 2023, three members of an IS terrorist cell were arrested in a joint operation by Spain’s National Police and Morocco’s General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance while three days earlier, German counterterrorism police arrested two Sunni Iranian brothers suspected of planning a chemical attack, for which they acquired toxic substances, such as cyanide and ricin.
In Pakistan, on January 30, 2023, 124 people were killed and more than 200 others were injured in a suicide bombing in Peshawar. Most of the victims were police officers, in what turned out to be the second high casualty bombing in Peshawar in the past year, and one of the deadliest in Pakistan in recent years. The brother and successor of slain Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan senior commander Umar Khalid Khurasani claimed the suicide attack in Peshawar is part of a series of revenge attacks for Khurasani, who was killed in August 2022, in Afghanistan. Notwithstanding, after the announcements, the official TTP Ummar Media released a statement denying the TTP’s involvement in the attack. In any case, the bombing sheds light on the rifts between various factions that fall under the umbrella of the TTP and their main leadership.
In Somalia, on January 20, 2023, official IS channels released a video titled, “Allah is the protector of the Believers” featuring IS’ branch in Somalia. Visual documentation includes several minutes from a six-hour exchange of fire between ISS fighters and local Puntland (northeast Somalia) security forces, amid US airstrikes, which may have happened on July 8, 2021, as well as an undated ISS ambush targeting Puntland forces outside the populated areas of Somalia. The second part of the video shows an interview with a veteran Kenyan jihadi. A few days after the video was released, on January 25, the US military conducted an operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the death of a number of ISS members, including Bilal al-Sudani, an IS leader in Somalia and a key facilitator for the IS global network.
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