For more than a decade, the Sahel has been subject to a protracted insurgency carried out by affiliates of the global terror networks of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. As the first country affected by this insurgency, Mali has responded by drastically modifying its response to violent extremism.
Following is the September 2024 installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. All previous 2024 monthly installments can be found here, as well as a review of developments throughout 2023, 2022, and 2021. A full background and analysis of ISIS’s resurgence in Syria, including the methodology used to collect this data, can also be explored here, here, and here.
My family is experiencing what they say is ‘the worst stage of genocide’ as Israel attempts to empty and annex northern Gaza.
Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza, where I was born and raised, has been facing relentless, indiscriminate Israeli bombing, targeting concentrations of displaced Palestinians.
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar will not end the operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Sinwar’s death is unlikely to trigger a rethink within Hamas about its basic strategy, which is to survive the war and secure a ceasefire that results in a total Israeli withdrawal.[i] Sinwar will be replaced by capable military commanders in the Gaza Strip and equally extreme political leaders abroad. A total Israeli withdrawal would be akin to Israel’s surrender in this war and would enable Sinwar’s capable successors to rebuild Hamas’ military organization over the next decade to threaten Israel once more.
The Israel-Hamas War is a prelude to future Iranian aggression in the Middle East. Iranian military leaders are explicitly drawing lessons from the war to develop concepts for fighting and destroying Israel. Senior Iranian officials are arguing that the war has revealed critical Israeli vulnerabilities that they can exploit. They are specifically examining ways to use proxy forces and terror to destabilize the Israeli state and Israeli society. Iran is sharpening these concepts because it is increasingly confident that its “Axis of Resistance”—the collection of Iranian-backed partners and proxies, including Hamas, across the region—is winning the current war against Israel and could fight and win a larger war too. Iran will not be able to fight a war at this scale for the foreseeable future, to be sure. But this Iranian thinking reflects Tehran’s regional aspirations and the current tenor of regime discourse. This thinking also underscores the importance of seeing the Israel-Hamas war within the context of the broader Iranian effort to dominate the Middle East. Narrowly focusing on the situation in the Gaza Strip ignores the war’s long-term implications and risks for the United States and its partners.
When Niger’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown in a July 2023 coup, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) moved within days to impose punitive measures that it hoped would force a return to constitutional order. This included financial sanctions on Niger and the closure of all member states’ borders with the country.1 The bridge over the Niger River, linking the Beninese city of Malanville and the city of Gaya in Niger – a key transit point for migrants and both licit and illicit trade – was therefore officially closed.
In June 2024, fighters from the Katiba Serma sub-group of Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) redoubled their efforts to cut off the town of Boni, in the Mopti region of central Mali.1 This is the latest iteration of a blockade that the jihadist group had intermittently imposed for more than nine months on the Route Nationale (RN) 16.2 Blockades are very much part of JNIM’s toolkit in its areas of influence not just in Mali, but also in neighbouring Burkina Faso.
Since 2023, Islamic State Sahel Province (IS Sahel), a violent extremist organization affiliated to the Islamic State, has shifted from perpetrating high levels of indiscriminate violence against civilians towards building community support in areas where it has consolidated its influence. It has also begun actively reviving local economies (including illicit activities) that had been heavily undermined by its earlier indiscriminate use of violence.
Israel’s recent success in eliminating Hamas and Hezbollah commanders has been attributed by influential Iranian theologian Mustafa Karami to nothing less than an army of jinn that Israel has enlisted to serve it. In the Middle East, it is still believed that jinn, who according to the Koran were created before Adam from a smokeless flame, can influence the fate of the world. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, for example, calls them the country’s main enemies, along with the United States and the coronavirus. And in Saudi Arabia, there is even a special anti-magic unit in the Ministry of Justice that has the authority to arrest and interrogate those suspected of witchcraft.
In connection with the new wave of discussions about the history of the withdrawal of funds from Probusinessbank, The Insider publishes its analysis of the key episodes of what happened, based on numerous previously unpublished interviews with Zheleznyak and Leontyev, which the author of this text conducted 4 years ago. A study of the documents they provided and their own explanations allows us to conclude that the infrastructure built by Zheleznyak and Leontyev was actively used to launder hundreds of millions of “prosecutor’s” dollars, evade regulation provided by law, and transfer funds to offshore accounts, where a significant portion of the funds disappeared even before the arrival of the DIA.