I Need a New Map, Trouble in Iraq, Collateral Damage in Kashmir and Other Updates

It has been quite a while since I have put together a Terror Update so I may not cover as many details as I normally would instead focusing on trends and generalities. It is my hope that this will get us all caught up on the goings on in the world of Terrorism.

• Unfortunately, the interactive Terror Story Map on ESRI, based on data accumulated by ESRI and PeaceTech Lab, utilizing Wikipedia, has been discontinued. You can read their entire statement here. For me, this is very disappointing as I felt the information gained there was incredibly helpful in identifying macro trends by aggregating all of the micro events. Ultimately, they determined the crowdsourcing from Wikipedia was not reliable. They state:

From July 2016 until June 2020, the StoryMaps team published an ongoing worldwide map of terrorist attacks. The map showed cumulative activity over time, filterable by date, location and perpetrator group. It was sourced from information curated by a Wikipedia discussion community. The crowdsourcing aspect of this project made the map unique and allowed for an up-to-the-hour view of activity. It also, as we were quick to point out, meant that the dataset was less than fully authoritative. 

Still, we thought the experiment was worthwhile. If you took the map with the appropriately sized grain of salt and were guarded about the conclusions you drew, it provided a good first draft of events.

Alas, in recent months, the editing activity on these Wikipedia pages has become very irregular, and we have lost confidence in the integrity of the data (even taking into account the above the disclaimers). Therefore, we have decided to discontinue this map. 

For the past four years, this project generated quite a bit of interest. At its best, it also offered a lot of information. And for us, the challenge of getting the data from the web pages on to a map provided a lot of lessons. If you’re interested in what we’ve learned, please read on.

• We have several stories from Reuters, we will start things off with: Advisor’s killing deepens Iraqi leader’s face-off with militias. This has the potential to be an enormous story in the power struggle that continues in Iraq between the U.S. and Iran. If you click on one article today this should be it. What happened?

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi talked tough after the killing of a high-profile analyst and government advisor, pledging to hunt down his assailants and curb the actions of armed groups…

 A series of bold moves by Kadhimi in his first two months in office, including two unsuccessful arrest raids against militias, showed the limits of his power in the face of hostile groups with influence across state institutions, according to government officials, politicians and diplomats.

Why is this important:

But the face-off between the U.S.-friendly Iraqi leader and powerful Iran-backed militias whom his entourage privately blames for Monday’s murder of Hisham al-Hashemi indicates how difficult this will be…

Kadhimi’s supporters say without standing up to militias any efforts at political and fiscal reform in Iraq will be piecemeal. But they said his decision to go after militias so publicly could put his leadership in jeopardy and will hamper his ability to undertake any reform…

One senior politician said Kadhimi needed to focus less on his busy social media posting and more on strengthening his position before taking on powerful armed groups…

“Things are looking bad. Kadhimi made a big mistake in raising expectations about what he wants to deliver, and he’s losing face. His move against Kataib Hezbollah was right but at the wrong time,” he said.

The future of Iraq may be determined in the next few months depending on how successful Kadhimi is. This is definitely something that we need to keep an eye on.

• The fight in Yemen continues: Iran denies U.S. seizure of Iranian arms on way to Houthis in Yemen. While this seizure of arms effects the fight in Yemen this is really all about Iran.

Iran on Thursday denied that U.S. forces had seized a boat carrying Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, saying the charge was aimed at extending a U.N. arms embargo on Tehran…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a hardline with the United Nations to push it to strengthen the embargo on Iran, saying that lifting it would allow Tehran to acquire weapons that could fuel conflicts in the Middle East.

• While not directly terror related: Russia fails at U.N. in bid to cut Turkey border aid access to Syria. The larger fight for influence with Syria continues. There is without a doubt many different groups vying for power and influence there and this is just a small piece in a much larger game.

Russia and China cast vetoes on Tuesday to block the council from extending its approval for a year of aid deliveries to Syria from Turkey through two border crossings. Russia then put forward its own text that would only approve one of those crossings for aid access for six months…

Craft accused Russia and China of wanting to end all cross-border humanitarian assistance for Syria in an effort to help “prop-up” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

• In another non-terror story but important nonetheless: Turkish verdict paving way for Hagia Sophia mosque expected Friday: officials. This is a deeply disturbing story that I believe will only further widen the chasm between Islamic and Western relations:

A Turkish court is likely to announce on Friday that the 1934 conversion of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a museum was unlawful, two Turkish officials said, paving the way for its restoration as a mosque despite international concerns.

• Over at Deutsche Welle (DW) we have a story about the rise of the right: Germany security report: Number of right-wing extremists sharply rose in 2019. While violence has not yet been linked to these groups it seems as though it is only a matter of time. I wonder what are the matrices used to determine who is/isn’t considered ‘Right / Left wing?’

Right-wing extremism increased in Germany last year, the country’s domestic intelligence agency has reported, with over 32,000 extremists identified. The report also found that more suspects are prepared to use violence…

And the left:

The report also noted an uptick in left-wing extremists, logging 33,500 extremists from the far-left spectrum in 2019 compared to 32,000 the year before.

“Characteristic of the left-wing extremist scene is its pronounced heterogeneity,” the report said. “The left-wing extremist scene can be divided into two camps — violent and non-violent left-wing extremists.”…

The others:

Islamic terrorism also remains a significant threat, the report found.

“The danger of [Islamic] terrorism in Germany is still very high,” Seehofer said, adding that the BfV had identified nearly 650 cases of the threat of Islamic terror last year.

It is very concerning that the rise of the left and right is a global phenomenon. I hope the old maxim, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” often attributed to Mark Twain, is not true here with ‘rhymes’ harkening back the early 1900’s.

• Also at Deutsche Welle (DW) reporting on Africa: ICG: Regional armies must ‘share intelligence’ to defeat Boko Haram. Stories like this are good to read, I only hope that they can maintain the commitment to the fight.

The four countries of the Lake Chad basin — Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, plus Benin, formed a joint military force in early 2015 to counter jihadist insurgencies in the region.

The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which is authorized by the African Union, has since carried out periodic military operations against Boko Haram and other terrorist groups operating around Lake Chad.

The article is very good and you can get lost in a number of rabbit holes that include:

Opinion: Boko Haram — no end in sight

Increased terror attacks in Africa amid coronavirus pandemic

What Role for the Multinational Joint Task Force in Fighting Boko Haram?

And many others. This is an excellent article on the fight there against Boko Haram and the challenges that they face. Like all fights against the terror ideology, a military response will not be enough:

But, he stressed, governments also need to a much better civilian response, particularly in Nigeria’s Borno state, which has been racked by violence and conflict for more than a decade.

• Meanwhile, the conflict in Kashmir that blurs the lines between terror and state conflict continue: Kashmiri children: The everlasting scars of a deadly conflict. The collateral damage is captured here and it is tragic.

Last week, pictures of a toddler lying on the body of his dead grandfather sparked outrage in India-controlled Kashmir. Bashir Ahmed Khan was allegedly shot dead by Indian police. “Locals said that Khan was brought out of his car and shot dead by the forces,” Farooq Ahmed, a nephew of Khan, told the AFP news agency.

• Narco Terror in Honduras is covered in New York Times in: Inside Gang Territory In Honduras ‘Either They Kill Us or We Kill Them’ . This is truly an excellent piece of reporting but here is money quote from the article:

Since the turn of this century, more than 2.5 million people have been killed in the homicide crisis gripping Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Igarapé Institute, a research group that tracks violence worldwide.

The region accounts for just 8 percent of the global population, yet 38 percent of the world’s murders. It has 17 of the 20 deadliest nations on earth.

And in just seven Latin American countries — Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela — violence has killed more people than the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen combined. (emphasis mine)

• Also in the New York Times: In Iraq, a New Prime Minister Takes Stock of His Bloodied Land. Again, the collateral damage from years of war is chronicled. The New Prime Minister has a lot of work to do to try to put the country back together.

MOSUL, Iraq — From the moment Iraq’s new prime minister stepped off the Iraqi Army MI-17 helicopter for a tour of Mosul, the city most damaged by the Islamic State’s takeover in 2014, he plunged into a landscape of loss.

Everywhere there were wrecked buildings, communities shredded, and the shadow of “the disappeared” — people taken by the Islamic State and never found, and those killed or imprisoned by Iraqi forces or militias, whose families never learned what happened to them.

• Over at Foreign Policy there is this report: In Pakistan, the Army Tightens Its Grip. It’s premium content so I don’t want to say too much but I am conflicted on this story. Pakistan has not exactly been an ally in the war on terror but a weakened Pakistan is not good either as only the Jihadist’s will benefit.

 Pakistan has faced an unprecedented set of challenges this year—from a locust invasion that threatened to infest 40 percent of the agrarian economy’s major crops to a pandemic that brought business activity to a grinding halt, prompting layoffs, falling household incomes, and a decline in purchasing power.

But when Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration unveiled the federal budget for the fiscal year 2020-2021 last month, a response to those calamities was nowhere to be seen. The budget allocated 1.29 trillion rupees ($7.7 billion) to defense expenditure, an 11.8 percent increase from last year’s budget and almost 18 percent of the total budget. Health, on the other hand, received 25 billion rupees ($148.6 million) in the central budget. Even after provincial governments stepped in to allocate an additional 467 billion rupees ($2.7 billion), health spending totaled a third of the military budget. As opposition Sen. Sherry Rehman said in a tweet, this is “not a national #budget for a country facing a crisis.”

• There are several really good articles over at The Long War Journal and I encourage you to stop by and read the rest of them but I want to focus on two stories. First, we will discuss: Explosions damage site at Iranian missile complex and nuclear facility . This story has been all over the news lately and it has been difficult to determine what actually happened there. While most have concluded that it is sabotage, I wonder if it is merely an accident? I have to wonder who benefits either way. Regardless, this is an excellent summary of what happened.

Over the last two weeks, explosions have taken place at the Khojir missile production complex in Tehran and the Natanz nuclear complex. While Iranian officials have downplayed the events, it is likely that both blasts at the facilities were acts of sabotage…

Adding to what may have caused the fire at Natanz, The New York Times reported the incident was a deliberate act of sabotage.

“The blast was caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility. The explosion, he [anonymous intelligence official] said, destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility where new centrifuges — delicate devices that spin at supersonic speeds — are balanced before they are put into operation,” The New York Times reported.

Again, this is a very good report but I am left with questions. Primarily, if it was sabotage why have the Iranian not been forceful in saying so?

If Israel is behind the attacks, it will be another act of sabotage added to a long list of operations carried out against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A response by Iran is anticipated, whether it’s through cyber warfare or military action remain to be seen.

I suppose we will find out soon enough…

• The other article I would like to cover is: Taliban attempts to cover up images posted by an Uzbek jihadist group in Afghanistan. There is no question that the Taliban is lying for political gain here but, and I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow always am by their use of media to gain advantages when trying to build a narrative or responding to criticism.

Yesterday, FDD’s Long War Journal reported on new images released by the Afghanistan branch of Katibat Imam al-Bukhari (KIB), an Uzbek jihadist group loyal to the Taliban that fights under its banner.

The Taliban, which has consistently lied about the presence of foreign fighters in Afghanistan, was not happy with our coverage.

In a tweet released earlier today by its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban claimed that “these images have been stolen from our archive.”

Mujahid tweets that the images were “falsified by anti-peace circles for propaganda.” The same photo produced by KIB, but without the group’s watermarks, was also tweeted out by Mujahid.

This exchange is fascinating and the mere fact that it somehow surprises me probably is a reason they have been winning the information war there. I believe we have vastly underestimated their ability to use social media to influence public opinion.   

I am not going to discuss each of the podcasts that I normally do, only link to them if you are interested. Honestly, with my recent vacation, I have not listened to them yet either. The only one that I can truly vouch for is the Generation Jihad podcast that I liked to yesterday. It was excellent. Anyway here you go:

• Here are the latest Generation Jihad Podcast brought to you by the Long War Journal’s, Thomas Joscelyn & Bill Roggio’s, :

Generation Jihad Ep. 16 – Al Qaeda’s Never-ending Problems in Syria

Generation Jihad Ep. 17 – The CIA in Libya

Well, we covered a lot today as I get back in the swing of things. I am very disappointed that ESRI will no longer produce the terror map. I guess my search will continue for something similar. In addition, we covered more regions that we typically do and I think that it is a good thing, terror is not limited to the U.S. and Middle East. If I missed any important stories or you disagree with any of my commentary please let me know in the comments section below.