The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for yesterday’s attack on a train in the German city of Würzburg. Several people were wounded in the assault. Amaq News Agency, a propaganda arm of the so-called “caliphate”, released a video allegedly showing the attacker, a teenager identified as “Muhammad Riyad.” In the video, Riyad calls on all Muslims to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
The radical Shia cleric responded to the US military deployment of an additional 560 troops to aid in the fight against the Islamic State by threatening to attack them.
Amaq News Agency, a propaganda arm of the Islamic State, reports that Abu Omar al Shishani has been killed south of Mosul. In March, Amaq denied that Shishani was killed in an American airstrike in Syria.
The Iraqi military’s takeover of Qayyarah Airfiled West, or Q-West, coincided with US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s visit to Iraq and the announcement that an additional 560 US troops will be deployed to aid in the Mosul offensive.
Russia initially denied that a helicopter was downed east of Palmyra, Syria. After the Islamic State posted a video of the attack, the Russians conceded that two pilots were killed when the chopper was struck by Islamic State terrorists. Russian propaganda has blamed an American-made TOW missile for bringing down the helicopter, but the video seems to show anti-aircraft fire hitting the tail rotor of the chopper.
According to statistics provided by Amaq News Agency, which is part of the Islamic State’s propaganda machine, the so-called caliphate deployed 589 suicide bombers in Iraq, Syria and Libya during the first six months of 2016. The figures published by Amaq cannot be independently verified and other sources indicate the figure may be lower. But Amaq’s aggregate statistics are generally consistent with the scale of the Islamic State’s fighting.
The Department of Justice announced today that Munir Abdulkader, a 21 year-old man living in Ohio, has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. Abdulkader was in contact with Junaid Hussein, an Islamic State recruiter who encouraged him to carry out attacks in the US. Hussein established ties to a number of Islamic State suspects in the West prior to his demise in an August 2015 American airstrike in Raqqa, Syria.
The tactic of separating Muslims from non-Muslims and then executing the latter, which was pioneered by al Qaeda, has not been used by the Islamic State in the past.
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has claimed responsibility for today’s attack on a cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The claim still needs to be verified, but the jihadist threat inside Bangladesh has steadily grown over the past two years.
ODNI released some information on counterterrorism raids as part of an effort to provide more transparency on these operations. US intelligence claims that between 2,372 to 2,581 combatants and between 64 to 116 civilians were killed in 473 strikes in areas outside of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria since President Obama took office.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a Hezb-i-Islami faction, has toyed with the Afghan government in the past and withdrew from peace talks under similar circumstances.
This suicide bombing is the first attack of its kind in Jordan since the civil war in Syria began.
The video is the culmination of the Islamic State’s build up of its propaganda and activity in the region.
A short clip has circulated on Arab Twitter accounts claiming to show an Iranian who was arrested in Fallujah, Iraq. [Update: the video is from 2005]
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency claims that three Russian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Syria. The claim could not be immediately verified. In recent days, the Russian-Syrian-Iranian axis has suffered setbacks along the same road where the Russians were allegedly killed. [Update: A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman subsequently denied Amaq’s claim.]
Omar Mateen mentioned his allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi at least twice during a 911 call the night of his attack on a LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He also discussed his allegiance to Baghdadi during a call with the Orlando Police Department’s Crisis Negotiation team and may have posted his fealty on Facebook as well. The Islamic State specifically instructs followers to swear allegiance before dying.
After Usman Ghazi, the last emir of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, joined the Islamic State’s Khorasan province, the group split in two and a core cadre remained loyal to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Amaq News Agency, a propaganda arm of the Islamic State, says that one of the group’s fighters was responsible for the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.
The infographic gives information on how many Filipino troops have been killed in Islamic State operations and how many “fighting battalions” it has in the country.
The Islamic State is losing ground around Sirte, Libya, which is the so-called “caliphate’s” capital in North Africa. Al Bunyan Al Marsoos military operations room, which draws fighters from Misrata, and other forces have been closing in on Sirte since late May. However, the current status of the fighting is murky.
Amaq News Agency claims that the Islamic State has carried out 489 “martyrdom operations” in Iraq, Syria and Libya during the first five months of 2016, with 119 in May alone. If Amaq’s figures are accurate, then the Islamic State is executing more suicide attacks per month in 2016 than all terrorist organizations combined in 2015.
With increased social media presence and video and news releases by official Islamic State channels, Islamic State presence, activity, and interest in the Philippines is growing.
Iranian-supported militias such as Hezbollah Brigades, Asaib al Haq, Harakat al Nujaba, Kata’ib Imam Ali, and Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada are taking part in the effort to wrest Fallujah from the Islamic State.
The US Treasury Department has designated 5 members of al Qaeda’s international “facilitation and fundraising” network, as well as one of the Islamic State’s “critical facilitators” in North Africa. One of the newly designated jihadists, known as Abu Sulayman al Muhajir, was as an extremist preacher in Australia before relocating to Syria and joining Al Nusrah Front.
There are now eight Islamic State branches throughout the world designated by the US as terrorist entities – Khorasan, or Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Caucasus; the Egyptian Sinai; Algeria; and Nigeria.
Harakat al Nujaba’s leader said that the Shia militia is operating in the Fallujah corridor and has prepared its forces to participate with the Anbar Brigade to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State.
Rutbah has been a key center of activity for the Islamic State in Anbar. It is the latest population center in the western province to be liberated by the Iraqi military.
The mobile app is designed to teach the Arabic alphabet to children of Islamic State supporters around the world. The vocabulary featured within the application is littered with jihadist and militaristic terminology.
Abu Wahib has been waging jihad in Iraq for more than a decade. He fought for al Qaeda in Iraq, was imprisoned and escaped during an al Qaeda assault on a prison in 2014, and is responsible for the Islamic State’s successes in Anbar province.
Al Jazeera has reportedly obtained an audio message from Adnan Abu Walid al Sahrawi in which he threatens to attack Morocco. Little has been heard from Sahrawi since May 2015, when he broke from Al Murabitoon and declared his fealty to the Islamic State. If the message is authentic, then it could indicate that he and his men plan on initiating new operations.