AMID SURGING AFRICAN ISLAMIST VIOLENCE — I.S. MOVES TO LIBYA, & CAPTURED NIGERIAN WOMEN BECOME KILLERS

April 26, 2016

Islamic State Moves to Libya with the Promise of Fresh Plunder: Jonathan Spyer, The Australian, Apr. 23, 2016— The reconquest by the forces of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad of the town of Qaryatayn from Islamic State this month is the latest indication of the declining fortunes of the extremist organisation in Iraq and Syria, following the loss of Palmyra in late March.

Italy Left to Deal With Migrants By Sea: Globe & Mail, Apr. 21, 2016— Alas, there is no three-year-old Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach, and no corresponding photographer to compel the world’s compassion for the drowned and drowning migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

Boko Haram Turns Female Captives Into Terrorists: Dionne Searcey, New York Times, Apr. 7, 2016— Hold the bomb under your armpit to keep it steady, the women and girls were taught.

U.S. at Easter: When Christians Are Slaughtered, Look the Other Way: Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute, Mar. 27, 2016— Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamic extremist group, has killed more people in the name of jihad than the Islamic State (ISIS), according to the findings of a new report.

On Topic Links

Libya's Descent into Chaos: Yehudit Ronen, Middle East Quarterly, Winter, 2016

‘We Saw the Dead People With Our Eyes’: Two Men Describe Surviving Big Migrant Shipwreck Last Week: Elena Becatoros, National Post, Apr. 22, 2016

Libya Could ‘Open the Floodgates’ For Thousands Of Migrants Into Europe: Nick Hallett, Breitbart, Mar. 29, 2016

Tunisia's Fragile Post-Revolutionary Order: Daniel Zisenwine, Middle East Quarterly, Winter, 2016

ISLAMIC STATE MOVES TO LIBYA WITH

THE PROMISE OF FRESH PLUNDER

Jonathan Spyer

The Australian, Apr. 23, 2016

The reconquest by the forces of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad of the town of Qaryatayn from Islamic State this month is the latest indication of the declining fortunes of the extremist organisation in Iraq and Syria, following the loss of Palmyra in late March. Facing determined enemies on three fronts, the Sunni jihadis would appear to be adopting a policy of tactical retreat to preserve their forces for the vital battles to come. As Islamic State holdings in Iraq and Syria contract, the organisation is seeking to maintain its image and momentum by focusing on gains on other fronts.

Islamic State's slogan is baqiya wa tatamaddad (remaining and expanding). But in its home grounds, Islamic State is no longer expanding. The prospect of its eclipse there is visible, though still distant, on the horizon. Elsewhere, most notably in Libya, Islamic State is still moving forward. As its holdings in Iraq and Syria contract, Islamic State is seeking gains on other fronts.

Islamic State was never solely, or mainly, a ramshackle de facto governing authority in the badlands of western Iraq and eastern Syria. Had it been so, it almost certainly would have been left in place, just one florid example of brutal and dysfunctional governance in a neighbourhood where dictatorship is the norm.

Such a bargain would not have suited the Iraqi jihadis at the head of the organisation. They are not in business to rule a small and dusty emirate. Rather, they are deadly serious regarding the task of their caliphate: war against the non-Islamic world until the latter is defeated. More pragmatically, the sense of forward momentum is necessary to keep the foreign volunteers coming and the monetary contributions flowing.

For Islamic State, focus on other fronts means two things. The first is increased efforts to engage in international terrorism. The bloody attacks on Brussels airport and Maalbeek metro station on March 22 were the latest events in a discernible trend to offset defeats in the Levant by staging terrorist actions farther afield. The second is heightened efforts to expand territorial holdings in areas other than Iraq and Syria. The movement's holding in Libya is emerging as a place of concern. As Islamic State's territorial holdings continue to be whittled away, it is likely to attempt further international terrorist attacks.

Preparations for the retaking of Mosul city are under way. The Iraqi army is cutting supply lines to the city from Salah al-Din and Anbar provinces. Three army divisions have been moved to the Mosul area. Mosul, with more than a million inhabitants, will be a tough target to take. But the outcome of the war is clear and it is against the jihadis. The consequent need for vigilance, communication and co-operation between the security services of the democratic world has never been higher. Regarding the second issue, Islamic State claims authority over eight "provinces" in addition to its area of control straddling Iraq and Syria. The eight areas in question are in Sinai, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the north Caucasus and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.

These areas vary greatly in size and importance, and in the extent of control that Islamic State has over them. In some cases, such as the "provinces" of Saudi Arabia and Algeria, the term means relatively little. Both these areas are ruled by powerful states with strong security agencies. The groups in question have carried out terror attacks. But they are seen more properly as organisations supporting Islamic State rather than entities in control of territory analogous to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria itself. However, in areas where, as in Iraq and Syria, the state has lost control over territory, the threat represented by Islamic State "provinces" is of a more substantial nature. It is in these lawless and ungoverned or poorly governed spaces that a repeat of the Iraqi and Syrian experiences and the emergence of new de facto jihadi sovereignties is most possible.

Some of the countries listed above fit this description. But it is in Libya that Islamic State has made the most progress. In other areas, various factors have stymied the growth of Islamic State, but these factors are absent in Libya. In Yemen, Islamic State declared its wilayah (province) in November 2014. Its growth and activity, however, have been hampered by the presence in that country of a strong rival Salafi jihadi organisation. This is the branch of the core al-Qa'ida leadership in Yemen, known as al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP denounced the formation of Islamic State province in Yemen and its presence has limited the ability of Islamic State to grow. Nevertheless, the latter has carried out several attacks. These include suicide bombings in two Shia mosques in March last year and the murder by crucifixion of a Christian priest last month.

In northern Sinai, the former Ansar Bait al-Makdis organisation, now called Wilayat al-Sina (Sinai Province), is engaged in an insurgency against Egyptian security forces. The group also has vowed to carry out attacks against Israeli targets across the border. Wilayat al-Sina claimed responsibility for the downing of Russian Metrojet flight 9268. But the insurgency appears to be contained within Sinai, ongoing but with little likelihood of spreading into Egypt proper.

Libya is different. The importance of the Islamic State holding there derives from its location and the number of fighters under Islamic State command in the area. Islamic State controls an area of about 200km around the city of Sirte on the Libyan coast. The greater part of this area was secured last year against the backdrop of Islamic State setbacks in Iraq and Syria, and general chaos in Libya. The location of Sirte offers the possibility for Islamic State of infiltration into Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb. Sirte was the birthplace of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. It has extensive infrastructure, including an international airport, a seaport and oil installations.

Islamic State is thought to have about 4000 to 5000 fighters in Sirte, and is recruiting African migrants making their way to the coast. The movement also derives the depth of its support in the Sirte area from the loyalty of tribesmen. Clearly, the goal is to seek to replicate the model for success in Iraq and Syria: once a territorial base is established, a military force can be built up that can be used aggressively to expand the holding. Islamic State achieved its greatest successes this way, when its forces swept from eastern Syria into Iraq in 2014. In Libya, as in these countries, central government effectively has collapsed and the country is in a state of civil war. Two rival governments vie for power: an internationally recognised authority in Tobruk in the east and an Islamist de facto power in the capital, Tripoli, in the west…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

Contents

ITALY LEFT TO DEAL WITH MIGRANTS BY SEA

Globe & Mail, Apr. 21, 2016

Alas, there is no three-year-old Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach, and no corresponding photographer to compel the world’s compassion for the drowned and drowning migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. In this latest disaster, it’s far from clear how many people died – maybe 500, with only 41 survivors. One of the 41 survivors was three years old, the same age as Alan Kurdi.

April is the best, or rather the least bad, month to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe in an overcrowded boat with a dubious crew. But much has changed in one year. The shorter sea and land routes from western Asia to Europe have become very difficult, thanks to barriers raised by countries to keep migrants and refugees out. That leaves would-be migrants – perhaps 180,000 this year – to take the long, dangerous sea routes, setting out from anarchic, post-Gadhafian Libya, mostly having come from sub-Saharan Africa, far away to the south.

Last year in August, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said, “We can do this” – as if more than a million refugee claimants and migrants could be almost easily absorbed, housed and trained, relieving labour shortages and declining populations in Europe. There was some sense to that. But having changed her mind, or rather having realized her voters’ change of mind, Ms. Merkel has in effect said, “We can’t do this any more.”

Long ago, in the Second World War, Winston Churchill said that Italy was the soft underbelly of Europe (the basis for a dubious strategy at the time). This spring, Italy may be the least difficult destination for the migrants from Africa (though the few survivors of this latest boat to sink have now ended up in Greece). The Italian government feels as if it’s been left holding the bag. Matteo Renzi, the Prime Minister, has been trying to persuade the other members of the European Union to join in issuing “Eurobonds” to spread the burden of looking after the migrants, and trying to send many back. Good luck to Mr. Renzi. So far, he is not getting any encouragement from his EU colleagues.

Contents

BOKO HARAM TURNS FEMALE CAPTIVES INTO TERRORIST

Dionne Searcey

New York Times, Apr. 7, 2016

Hold the bomb under your armpit to keep it steady, the women and girls were taught. Sever your enemy’s head from behind, to minimize struggling. “If you cut from the back of the neck, they die faster,” said Rahila Amos, a Nigerian grandmother describing the meticulous instruction she received from Boko Haram to become a suicide bomber. Of all the many horrors of Boko Haram’s rampage across West Africa — the attacks on mosques, churches and schools; the mass killings of civilians; the entire villages left in ashes after militants tear through — one of the most baffling has been its ability to turn captured women and girls into killers.

Boko Haram, one of the world’s deadliest extremist groups, has used at least 105 women and girls in suicide attacks since June 2014, when a woman set off a bomb at an army barracks in Nigeria, according to The Long War Journal, which tracks terrorist activity. Since then, women and girls, often with bombs hidden in baskets or under their clothes, have killed hundreds of people in attacks on fish and vegetable markets, schools, a river dock and even camps for people who fled their homes to escape the violence.

“This isn’t something you can defeat or eradicate outright,” said Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the minister of communications in Cameroon, where 22 female suicide bombers have been identified since the start of this year. “You don’t know who is who. When you see a young girl moving toward you, you don’t know if she’s hiding a bomb.” Soldiers cannot open fire on every woman or girl who looks suspicious, he added. “They know where we have the Achilles’ heel,” Mr. Bakary said of Boko Haram.

Boko Haram’s abuse of women first shocked the world two years ago, when it stormed a school in Nigeria and fled with about 300 girls, many of whom were never found. Hundreds of other women and girls have been abducted, imprisoned, raped and sometimes intentionally impregnated, perhaps with the goal of creating a new generation of fighters. Ms. Amos, 47, said the fighters had come to her village in the morning, firing weapons as they spilled out of cars and rounded up women and children.

Not long afterward, Ms. Amos, a Christian, said she was forced to enroll in Boko Haram’s classes on its version of Islam, a first step on her way toward being taught the art of suicide bombing. After months of training, Ms. Amos said, she was finally able to escape her captors one day when they had assembled for evening preaching. She stayed behind, gathering two of her young children and a grandchild so they could make a run for the Cameroonian border. “I don’t want to take a bomb,” she said inside this refugee camp in Cameroon that stretches across a vast landscape dotted by tents and mud huts.

The authorities in Cameroon and Nigeria said that many of the experiences detailed by Ms. Amos matched the accounts of other women and girls who have escaped Boko Haram, or who have been arrested before they could detonate bombs. Ms. Amos’s descriptions are also strikingly similar to details recounted by other freed women and girls, including depictions of the funeral rites performed before female bombers were sent on missions.

The accounts offer insight into how Boko Haram, despite being under military pressure from a multinational campaign to wipe it out, has been able to strike fear across an expansive battlefield that now includes Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger. No longer able to control the territory as tightly as it once did, Boko Haram is sending out women and young girls as newly minted terrorists who can inflict a devastating toll.

Col. Didier Badjeck, a Cameroonian defense spokesman, said that after soldiers chased Boko Haram out of villages in recent weeks, they found homes that had been used as prisons for the women and girls. He said female hostages had reported being trained during their captivity — both in the Quran and in violence. “They are training them to maximize the number of victims,” Colonel Badjeck said. “We are sure about it.”

Boko Haram often sends male fighters to set upon mosques. But last month, a woman dressed as a man set off her explosives during morning prayers in a village in northeastern Nigeria. Another woman was waiting outside the mosque, and as people fled the first blast, she detonated her own explosives as well. In all, at least 24 people were killed. In Cameroon, many of the recent bombings have been carried out by girls in their early teens, leaving officials and analysts to wonder whether the girls were aware they were carrying bombs. Yet some of the bombers in recent attacks in Nigeria have been found to wear their hair pulled back from the face — a hairstyle reserved for burial rites, a sign they were ready to die.

But cracks are starting to show in the Boko Haram suicide-training system. In February, a girl sent to bomb a village in the Far North Region of Cameroon dropped her explosives and ran to the authorities instead. Her information led to a major raid on Boko Haram fighters. In northeastern Nigeria in February, three girls with bombs were sent into a camp for Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram. Two of the girls detonated their bombs, killing nearly 60 people there. But the third girl spotted her parents among the desperate people inside the camp. Overwhelmed, officials said, she threw her explosives in the bush.

Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State last year, has abducted as many as 2,000 women and children, both girls and boys, since 2012, according to a recent report from humanitarian groups. Young boys have been used as bombers, too. In many ways, female bombers are ideal weapons. At security points run by men, they are often searched less thoroughly, if at all. Tucked under the bunched fabric of dresses or religious gowns, explosives are easy to conceal. Female suicide bombers have been a trademark of extremists for decades. In the Chechnya conflict, they were nicknamed black widows. In Sri Lanka, they fought with the Tamil Tigers. In her book “Bombshell: Women and Terrorism,” Mia Bloom estimates that from 1985 to 2008, women committed a quarter of all suicide bombings.

One soldier who has engaged with Boko Haram said he believed that fighters must drug the girls’ food. Others who track the group question whether the bombs are remotely detonated. According to Ms. Amos, Boko Haram’s use of women as weapons is a carefully thought-out strategy, one some of the women accept. Ms. Amos said that of the 30 or so female captives enrolled in training with her, seven girls were enthusiastic about carrying out suicide missions. “It was a direct path to heaven,” she said the group was told…. [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

Contents

U.S. AT EASTER: WHEN CHRISTIANS ARE SLAUGHTERED,

LOOK THE OTHER WAY

Raymond Ibrahim

Gatestone Institute, Mar. 27, 2016

Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamic extremist group, has killed more people in the name of jihad than the Islamic State (ISIS), according to the findings of a new report. Since 2000, when twelve Northern Nigerian states began implementing or more fully enforcing Islamic sharia law, "between 9,000 to 11,500 Christians" have been killed. This is "a conservative estimate." In addition, "1.3 million Christians have become internally displaced or forced to relocate elsewhere," and "13,000 churches have been closed or destroyed altogether." Countless "thousands of Christian businesses, houses and other property have been destroyed."

The report alludes to a number of other factors that connect the growth of the Nigerian jihad to the growth of the global jihad. The rise of anti-Christian, Islamic supremacism "did not emerge in Northern Nigeria until the 1980s, when Nigerian scholars and students returned from Arabic countries influenced by Wahhabi and Salafist teaching. Each year, thousands of West African Muslims get free scholarships to pursue their studies in the Sunni Arab countries; this has had a major impact on Nigerian culture."

This "major impact" is not limited to Nigeria. Saudi Arabia annually spends over $100 billion disseminating "Wahhabi and Salafist teaching" — or what growing numbers of Muslims refer to as "true Islam". They also do so through European mosques and those in the United States. Behind the radicalization of ISIS, Boko Haram, and Lone Wolf Muslims, stand America's best Muslim friends and allies.

Another important finding from the report is that, "Not just radical Islam, Boko Haram being the most notable example, but also Muslim Hausa-Fulani herdsmen and the Northern Muslim political and religious elite are also major actors of targeted violence towards the Christian minority." Most recently, on March 2, Nigerian human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe sent an email saying: "I arrived Nigeria a few days ago to investigate what appears to be the worst massacre by Muslim [Hausa-Fulani] herdsmen… Over 500 Christian villagers were slain in one night." Similarly, according to a West African source, "Once Boko Haram is defeated, the problem will not be solved. Christians living under Sharia law are facing discrimination and marginalization and have limited to no access to federal rights."

The report finally finds that much of the anti-Christian violence derives from the historical "migration of Muslims into non-Muslim territories in northern Nigeria to promote the Islamic religious and missionary agenda in all parts of northern Nigeria." In other words, what Christians in Nigeria are experiencing is a live snapshot of what millions of Christians and other non-Muslims have experienced since the seventh century, when Islam "migrated" to their borders: violence, persecution, enslavement, and the destruction of churches.

All of these findings contradict the Obama Administration's official narrative concerning the unrest in Nigeria. For years, the administration refused to list Boko Haram — which has slaughtered more Christians and "apostates" than even ISIS — as a terrorist organization. It finally did so in November 2013, after several years of pressure from lawmakers, human rights activists, and lobbyists.

Even so, the Obama Administration refuses to associate Boko Haram — an organization that defines itself in purely Islamic terms — with Islam, just as it refuses to associate the ISIS with Islam. Although Boko Haram and its allies have yet to miss a year when they do not bomb or burn several churches during the Christmas or Easter celebrations, on Easter Day, 2012, after the organization had murdered 39 Christian worshippers, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said: "I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence" in the Muslim-majority north.

So what is? The administration attributes to Boko Haram the same motivation it attributes to the Islamic State — or as President Bill Clinton once memorably put it in a reference to Boko Haram's murder campaign: "inequality" and "poverty" are "what's fueling all this stuff." That assessment is similar to the Obama Administration's claim that "a lack of opportunity for jobs" is what created ISIS; or CIA John Brennan's claim that the jihadi ideology the world over is "fed a lot of times by, you know, political repression, by economic, you know, disenfranchisement, by, you know, lack of education and ignorance, so there — there are a number of phenomena right now that I think are fueling the fires of, you know, this ideology."…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

Contents

On Topic

Libya's Descent into Chaos: Yehudit Ronen, Middle East Quarterly, Winter, 2016—The overthrow of Libya's long-reigning dictator Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi by an international coalition in the summer and autumn of 2011was hailed at the time as paving the way for a "New Libya."

‘We Saw the Dead People With Our Eyes’: Two Men Describe Surviving Big Migrant Shipwreck Last Week: Elena Becatoros, National Post, Apr. 22, 2016—Two men who were among 41 people picked up over the weekend from a boat found adrift in the Mediterranean Sea described on Thursday surviving what they say was a shipwreck that might have killed up to 500 people.

Libya Could ‘Open the Floodgates’ For Thousands Of Migrants Into Europe: Nick Hallett, Breitbart, Mar. 29, 2016—While Europe prepares for a sharp rise in the number of migrant crossings as spring approaches, detention centres in the war-torn North African state warn they are severely underfunded and on the verge of collapse.

Tunisia's Fragile Post-Revolutionary Order: Daniel Zisenwine, Middle East Quarterly, Winter, 2016—On June 26, 2015, a lone gunman attacked a beachfront hotel in the Tunisian city of Sousse, exclusively targeting foreign tourists. By the time he was shot to death by the security forces, the 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui had murdered thirty-eight people, many of them British tourists vacationing in the seaside resort. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) quickly claimed responsibility for the atrocity.

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AMID SURGING AFRICAN ISLAMIST VIOLENCE — I.S. MOVES TO LIBYA, & CAPTURED NIGERIAN WOMEN BECOME KILLERS

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AMID SURGING AFRICAN ISLAMIST VIOLENCE — I.S. MOVES TO LIBYA, & CAPTURED NIGERIAN WOMEN BECOME KILLERS

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