ISIS

Spotlight on Global Jihad (September 3-9, 2020)

Syria: in the Idlib area, routine incidents continued, consisting mainly of exchanges of artillery fire between the Syrian army and the rebel organizations, chiefly the Headquarters for the Liberation of Al-Sham. In Iraq, the intensity of ISIS’s attacks this week decreased, after several weeks of intensive activity. However, the Iraq Province continues to be the epicenter of ISIS’s activity. In northern Sinai, the Egyptian army appears to have regained control of most of the area of Rabi’a. In Mozambique, the security forces of Tanzania and Mozambique failed to regain control of the port of Mocimboa da Praia, in the northeast of the country. According to ISIS, 20 Tanzanian soldiers were killed or wounded in the failed counterattack.
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (August 13-19, 2020)

This week as well, high-intensity incidents continued in the Idlib region between the Syrian army and the Headquarters for the Liberation of Al-Sham and the other rebel organizations. One noteworthy attack this week was the activation of an IED against one of the Turkish vehicles in the joint Russian-Turkish patrols. A network calling itself the Chechen Khattab Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. After the end of the wave of attacks (the “Raids of Attrition”), ISIS resumed its “routine” attacks.
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (August 6-12, 2020)

Following the wave of attacks referred to by ISIS as the Raids of Attrition, there has been a decrease in the number of ISIS attacks around the world, and its activity in the various provinces has resumed its “routine” characteristics. One noteworthy attack last week was carried out by ISIS against the Mozambican army in the northeast part of the country. The latest issue of ISIS’s Al-Naba' weekly included an article calling for the release of prisoners by force. In the ITIC’s assessment, the article was published in light of the attack on the prison in Nangarhar (Afghanistan), which may have increased ISIS’s motivation to carry out additional attacks to release the prisoners, especially in Syria and Iraq.
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (July 30 – August 5, 2020)

The wave of terrorist attacks called "raids of attrition" which began on July 22, 2020, ended on July 31. 2020. During its ten days more than 100 attacks were carried out (similar to the previous wave, between May 14 and 24, 2020). The largest number of attacks was in Iraq, which continues to be ISIS's main arena of activity. Most of the attacks were routine (detonating IEDs, attacking military facilities and camps, sniper fire, executions).
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An ISIS large-scale attack in the northern Sinai Peninsula demonstrates well the improvement in its operational capabilities and the weakness of the Egyptian security forces

On July 21, 2020, ISIS carried out a large-scale combined attack against an Egyptian army camp near the village of Rabi’a, west of Bir al-Abd (near the coastal highway, about 30 km from the Suez Canal). According to ISIS’s claim of responsibility (which is in line with Arab media reports), 40 members of the Egyptian security forces were killed, and over 60 were wounded.
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ISIS’s current strategy: Relinquishing territorial control and focusing on intensifying local activity in the various provinces, mainly in Iraq

ISIS’s activity in the past year has been marked by efforts to recover from two severe blows that it suffered (the collapse of the Islamic State and the killing of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi). These blows damaged its military and financial capabilities, eroded the “ISIS brand” which had been cultivated for years, and forced it into a process of changing its operating methods and the goals that it had set for itself.
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