The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock – among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to jttmsubs@memri.org with "Membership" in the subject line.)
Note to media and government: For a full copy of these reports, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to media@memri.org. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.
Following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Asmatullah Muawiya, the Emir of JUnood-e-Hafsa and Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab:
Asmatullah Muawiya: "Oh Lord, we cannot bear to see these scenes – your mosques being deserted, your Koran being burnt, the daughters of the Islamic nation being left with no shelter. They are being destroyed by their own people. What ever happened to the 180-million-strong Pakistan? What snake bit them into stillness? Something sucked the blood from their veins. Their own daughter, sister Dr. Aafia [Siddiqui], was captured on the land of Pakistan and handed over to America, yet when sympathetic youths [Taliban] rise up to take revenge, they are labeled 'collaborators.'"
Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV
A member of jihadi group Ahrar Al-Sham was mistakenly beheaded in Syria by the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) after he was accused of being an Iraqi Shi'ite. According to Tweets posted by Omar Al-Qahtani, an ISIS commander, the beheaded member, who was identified as Muhammad Fares, was rushed to a hospital after suffering injuries.
Al-Qahtani wrote that Fares, who pretended to be Shi'ite as he feared for his life, started shouting names of the prophet's daughter Zainab and grandson Hussain. When the mujahideen from ISIS who had been in the hospital heard him, they came and killed him because they thought he was a Shi'ite.
On November 9, 2013, the Hizb Al-Tahrir organization in Jordan held a mass rally in the city of Al-Mazar in Al-Karak Province, titled "Be Supporters of Allah," attended by dignitaries, political activists and Hizb Al-Tahrir activists from various cities, including Ma'an and Al-Tafila.
The jihadi website Shomoukh Al-Islam posted a 13-minute video clip produced by Al-I'tisam, the media company for the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), and uploaded to YouTube on November 12, 2013. It is the 25th video in a series titled "A Look At The Battlefield."
The following are excerpts from the video:
First, the video shows ISIS fighters engaged in urban combat in the Rif Aleppo area.
Next, the commander of the Chechen jihadi forces in Syria, 'Omar Al-Shishani, can be seen addressing the camera in Arabic, with masked gunmen standing behind him. Al-Shishani explains that the area of fighting is 7 kilometers north of the Aleppo airport, that there are enough fighters, and that they are well-equipped and their morale is high.
The Shumoukh Al-Islam forum is currently offering step-by-step instructions on accessing the forum via its encrypted URL, as well as on verifying the forum's digital certificate.
The instructions were packaged under the "dissemination workshop" – a term used on jihadi forums to denote an important topic that jihadis seek to disseminate widely. Those behind the workshop provided an exhaustive list of Twitter and Facebook accounts, in addition to links to various websites, where the workshop was to be published.
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Al-Shabab Magazine Dedicated To Westgate Attack Threatens More Attacks On Kenya
On November 12, 2013, Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen published the fourth issue of its Swahili magazine Gaidi Mtaani ("Terrorism Street"). The magazine, aimed at the Kenian public, is very similar to Al-Qaeda's English-language magazineInspire both in its glossy design and in its messages praising jihad and the mujahideen. The current issue, posted on Al-Qaeda's online forum Al-Fida', is dedicated to Al-Shabab's September 2013 attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, in which at least 70 people were killed.
The issue, 46 pages long and titled "#Westgate" (a reference to a Twitter hashtag that was created during the four-day standoff at the mall) differs from previous issues of the magazine in that most of its articles are in English rather than Swahili. The English articles celebrate and justify the attack, and promise more attacks on Kenya. One of them is a photo essay featuring pictures of the carnage accompanied by tweets that were sent out during the raid by Al-Shabab's media team.
Pro-ISIS Weekly Newsletter Releases Its First Issue
On November 11, 2013, the first issue of the Sana Al-Sham newsletter was released online. The newsletter, which is planned to be released on a weekly basis, covers various topics related to the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) activity in Syria, with focus on news pertaining to Aleppo's northern rural region.
In recent years, Indian media has carried numerous reports which indicate that innocent Muslim youth are being arrested and imprisoned on fabricated terror charges by Indian security agencies. The Indian security agencies' role has come under scrutiny after dozens of terror suspects were freed by courts, leading to widespread confusion and mistrust among Muslims, with the Muslim leaders arguing that the so-called terror group "Indian Mujahideen" doesn't exist.
After a year-long investigation of a number of terror cases blamed on the Pakistan-backed "Indian Mujahideen," Indian journalist Ashish Khetan produced reports which seek to separate fact from fiction regarding the terror group. Based on a study of classified reports, Khetan argues that the security agencies, in their rush to solve bomb blast cases, have arrested innocent Muslim youth and implicating them in fabricated cases while their own subsequent reports establishing these youth's innocence are overlooked for different political reasons.
Following are excerpts from a Pakistani media report charting the jihadi career of Maulana Fazlullah, the new emir of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP):
"Fazlullah Became A Household Name In The Swat Valley Due To The Fierce Resistance His Privately-Raised Army [Shaheen Commando Force] Gave To Pakistan Army When It Had Launched A Military Operation In The Picturesque Valley In October 2007"
"The rise of Fazle Hayat [aka Maulana Fazlullah] from a manual chairlift operator on the Swat River to a fiery jihadi orator called Mullah Radio and his subsequent ascent to prominence as Pakistan's most wanted and equally brutal terrorist has been like a roller-coaster ride. Fazlullah became a household name in the Swat Valley due to the fierce resistance his privately-raised army [Shaheen Commando Force] gave to Pakistan Army when it had launched a military operation in the picturesque valley in October 2007 to eliminate the vast jihadi infrastructure of Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for Enforcement of Islamic Laws) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Before joining hands with Baitullah Mehsud following the July 2007 Red Mosque operation in Islamabad to become the Taliban emir in Swat, Fazlullah had been the emir of the Swat chapter of TNSM. Fazlullah is the son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the TNSM, which is an Al-Qaeda-linked militant Wahhabi organization."
According to an Urdu-language newspaper, two close aides of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri have been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officials. The arrest of the two aides followed information revealed by another Al-Qaeda militant recently.
A report in Roznama Nai Baat said that the Al-Qaeda militant who revealed their whereabouts is Yasir Ammar, who was captured from Karachi. Al-Zawahiri's two arrested aides were identified as Saifullah Shahid and his friend Hafiz Khalid Qatanawi.
On November 9, 2013, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) issued an official statement on the killing of TTP emir Hakimullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike, congratulating the Muslim Ummah on his 'martyrdom' and threatening revenge against the U.S. and its allies. Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike on November 1. The TTP statement was issued through a jihadi internet forum simultaneously in Arabic, Urdu, and English. It was produced by the Umar Media, the media production house of the TTP.
The statement begins by quoting a verse from the Koran (Chapter Al-Ahzab, 23): "Among the believers are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah; of them, some have completed their vow (to the extreme), and some (still) wait; but they have never changed (their determination) in the least." Next, it cites a saying of Prophet Muhammad from Muslim, a book of hadiths: "By him in whose hand Muhammad's soul is, I love to fight in the way of Allah and get killed, to fight again and get killed and to fight again and get killed."
It also cited another saying of Prophet Muhammad from two books: Al-Mustadrak and Muslim, both being collections of hadiths: "That I kill in the name of Allah is dearer to me than following the people of urban, and suburban [i.e. those living in camps]." The statement notes that Hakimullah Mehsud inculcated a view of global jihad among the mujahideen and supervised two major attacks: one on the CIA base in Afghanistan's Khost province, and the second on Times Square of New York by Faisal Shahzad, who is now imprisoned in the U.S.
Omar Khalid Khorasani (on the right)
In a new video interview, Omar Khalid Khorasani, the emir of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for Mohmand Agency, warns that the Taliban would avenge the killing of TTP emir Hakimullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike, noting that Americans could not have targeted him without intelligence being provided by Pakistan.
In the 15-minute video, the TTP commander is flanked by five fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades, light machineguns and AK-47 rifles in a mountainous area. Speaking in Pashtu, he responds to a number of questions posed by a person unseen in the video. Most of the TTP videos are produced and released by Umar Media, the broadcasting arm of the TTP, but this one does not carry any TTP logo.
TTP Video Shows Its Fighters Attacking Ansarul Islam Militants, Pakistan Army Troops In Tirah Valley
Hafiz Saeed Khan, TTP's emir for Orakzai Agency
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has released a video showing Taliban militants capturing and destroying a well-furnished compound belonging to Ansarul Islam, a pro-government militant group in the Maidan area of Pakistan's Tirah Valley.
The Tirah Valley is a key smuggling route between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Pakistan's lawless tribal district of Khyber Agency. The video, which is in two parts, begins with a verse from the Koran: "Permission (to fight in defense against mischief, disruption and exploitation) is granted to those against whom (aggressive) war is waged, because they were oppressed and Allah is doubtlessly all-powerful to help them (the oppressed)." (Chapter Al-Hajj, Verse No. 39)
The first part of the video is spread over 15 minutes and devoted to propaganda against Ansarul Islam. It contains an interview of Hafiz Saeed Khan, the TTP's emir for the bordering Orakzai Agency, who is guarded by two fighters armed with AK-47s. The second part of the video is one hour and 15 minutes long and is devoted to offensives by the TTP fighters against Ansarul Islam and Pakistani security forces. The video was released a few days before the death of TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike in North Waziristan on November 1.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has favored peace talks with the TTP
To avenge the November 1 killing of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Hakimullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, the TTP has sent a squad of suicide bombers to target Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members, according to a Pakistani daily.
The Pakistani intelligence agencies asked Sharif to avoid open gatherings for an indefinite period. "The warning has come amidst intelligence reports that a four-member group of fidayeen attackers has been dispatched to Lahore to target him through suicide bombers. The agencies have advised foolproof security cover for the prime minister's cavalcade, especially when he is in Lahore and travels to or from his Raiwind residence [in Lahore]," according to report in The News daily.
On November 7, 2013, Sheikh Khalid Haqqani was selected as the new deputy emir of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) while Maulana Fazlullah was appointed the new emir. Until recently, Sheikh Khalid Haqqani served as the TTP's emir for Swabi district.
In online jihadi videos recently released on the Internet forums, Sheikh Khalid Haqqani has appeared with his face obscured (as in the above image).
Given below are excerpts from some of his statements:
"Eliminating This System [Of Democratic Government In Pakistan] Is Impossible Without Jihad As The Koran Has Clearly Decided: 'If You Want The Revival Of Caliphate, Then There Is No Other Way, But Only Jihad In The Cause Of Allah'"
In September 2013, the TTP's Umar Media released a video in which Sheikh Khalid Haqqani outlined a global jihadi mission of the TTP. The video interview was produced sometime in May 2013. In the video, he answered a range of questions posed by an unseen interviewer.
Explaining the objectives behind the formation of the TTP, Khalid Haqqani stated: "The TTP has no separate status; rather it is a part of the Muslim Ummah. However, it has its own jihadist manifesto which gives it a unique status. The TTP was established for the revival of caliphate and enforcement of an Islamic system in Pakistan as well as throughout the world."
