This month’s In Focus analyzes the Islamic State in Al-Sham Province (Syria.) The group has maintained a relatively high pace of insurgency in comparison with 2023, while carrying out SVBIED attacks against their enemies. In addition, we examined the attack that killed Abu Maria al-Qahtani – a high-ranking member of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – in the Idlib countryside and the possibility of the Islamic State’s involvement.
The Islamic State Khorasan Province has boasted attacks in Afghanistan as part of a campaign against the Taliban. Alongside known targets and TTPs, the targeting of economic-related assets, such as a bank in Kandahar and a group of tourists in Bamyan, was evidenced. This strategy was backed by propagandist materials which, in addition to the known accusations on religious grounds, criticized the Taliban’s forging of links with other countries, such as China, Iran and Russia, and questioned the organization’s funding sources.
Since February 2024, a new chatroom affiliated with the Islamic State, launched on RocketChat, has disseminated instructional information for carrying out jihadist activities. The publications shared in the chatroom provide guides and practical knowledge on topics such as maintaining operational security on the web, disabling vehicle tracking capabilities, countering human intelligence exploitation, preparing for a law enforcement raid, and more.
This month’s Who’s Who? analyzes a Facebook profile affiliated with the Pattani United Liberation Organization, presumably located in Pattani Province, in southern Thailand. In addition to his support for the PULO, the person of interest also supports Salafi jihadist groups, in particular the Islamic State.
This month’s Instant Messaging Applications analysis focuses on two radical groups on WhatsApp – one affiliated with a Syrian Salafi-jihadi group, and the other with the Iranian proxy group, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba. The first group actively recruits people to its ranks, and it includes several American and European country code numbers. The second group includes mostly Syrian and Iraqi phone numbers.
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