CIA Chief Warns IS ‘Formidable’ Despite Losses

According to CIA Director John Brennan, the efforts of the US-led coalition that is fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS) group have failed to reduce its ability to carry out militant attacks.

Speaking to the Senate intelligence committee, in an update on the threat from extremists, Mr Brennan told the hearing that the group remains “formidable” despite territorial losses. He stated, “unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL (Islamic State) on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.” He indicated that he estimates that IS now has more fighters than al-Qaeda when that militant group was at its strongest, adding that there are as many as 22,000 IS fighters operating in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. He also indicated that the CIA is particularly concerned about the growth of Libya as an IS base.

While Mr Brennan indicated that the US-led coalition had made progress against IS, the group has “a large cadre of Western fighter who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West,” warning that “to compensate for territorial losses, ISIL will probably rely more on guerrilla tactics, including high-profile attacks outside territory it holds.”

Mr Brennan’s appearance comes just days after the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida. The gunman, Omar Mateen, had pledged allegiance to IS, however Mr Brennan told the hearing that the CIA had not uncovered any direct link between Mateen and foreign militant groups.

US Officials Warn No Links Between Boko Haram and IS

US officials indicated in early June that they see no evidence that Nigerian-based militant group Boko Haram has received significant operational support or financing from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, more than a year after Boko Haram pledged allegiance to it.

The assessment, which is detailed by multiple US officials, suggests that Bok Haram’s loyalty pledge has so far mostly been a branding exercise designed to boost its international jihadi credentials as well as to attract recruits and appeal to the IS leadership for assistance. The US view of Boko Haram as a locally-focused, homegrown insurgency, is likely to keep the group more to the margins of the US fight against IS in Africa. The US military’s attention is largely centred on Libya, which is home to IS’ strongest affiliate outside the Middle East and where the US has carried out air strikes. According to officials, no such direct US intervention is currently being contemplated against Boko Haram. One US official has disclosed that “if there is no meaningful connection between ISIL (IS) and Boko – and we haven’t found one so far – then there are no grounds for US military involvement in West Africa other than assistance and training,” adding, “this is an African fight, and we can assist them, but its their fight.”

In public comments, senior US officials have disclosed that they are closely watching for any increased threat to Americans from Boko Haram and any confirmation of media reports of deepening ties with IS.

The Iraqi Security Failure

On the 4^th of July 2016, once again Baghdad was severely hit by one of the major bombing in the history of terrorism and the deadliest single attack in the war-weary country in years. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in response to the battlefield setbacks, including the recent loss of the western city of Falluja. The militants have stepped up their attacks on civilians and this is the latest in a string of assaults during Ramadan, a period of fasting and prayer for Muslims; but also a time when jihadists launch operations against those they regard as their enemies.

Iraqi officials have raised the figure for the number of people killed in Sunday’s suicide bombing in Baghdad; the health ministry has reported 281 killed in the attack, which targeted a shopping complex in the mainly Shia Muslim Karrada district. In Sunday’s bombing, an explosives-laden lorry blew up outside a crowded, three-storey shopping centre where people were enjoying a night out after breaking their daily fast for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The bombing has sparked widespread anger among Iraqis, some of whom have accused the government of failing to protect them. When Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the bombing site, people threw stones and shoes at his convoy and called him a “thief”. In the following days the Prime Minister dismissed key officials, including the country’s intelligence chief and directors of six state-owned banks, as he is trying to push through government reforms in the face of growing popular protests.

One protester hacked an official Iraqi government website Sunday, causing the address to link to a Blogspot page that accused the government of using fake bomb detectors. The official government website stayed down for several hours. The hacker changed the homepage of the government website to an image of a bloody child and a drawing of a fake bomb detector with the ISIS symbol on it. Concerns have been raised for years about fake, non-functional, hand-held bomb detectors being sold to and used by Iraq’s government at security checkpoints. Many online echoed the hacker’s opinion, saying the deadly bombing could have been prevented. Shortly after the hack, the prime minister’s office issued a press release saying that Iraqi security agencies would “withdraw manually held devices at checkpoints” and reopen a previous investigation into whether or not many bomb detectors are in fact functional. The fake bomb detectors, based on cheap devices for finding golf balls, were sold in large numbers to Iraq by fraudsters. The fake detectors were still being used at checkpoints in Iraq until few days ago. The man behind the ADE 651, the fake bob detectors, is James McCormick. In 2013 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the ruse. The former policeman, of Langport, Somerset, who was found guilty of three fraud offences at the Old Bailey, is thought to have made more than £50m from selling three models based on a novelty £13 golf ball finder, to Iraq and other countries.

The type of explosive used for the attack remains classified. A forensic examination of the site has not yet publicly unveiled any data, however in the November 2015 attacks in Paris, TATP (triacetone triperoxide) was used as the primary explosive in a number of bombs and suicide belts during the hours-long siege. TATP was again used in the 2005 London bombings that killed 56 and was also confiscated from Najibullah Zazi in his failed plot to attack the New York City subway system in 2009. Moreover there is an ongoing investigation on the primary ingredient in the devices detonated during the bombings at Brussels airport and a metro station 2016. The attack could become the latest example of the chemical’s use in terrorist strikes across Europe. Acetone peroxide is an organic peroxide formed by the oxidation of acetone to yield a mixture of linear monomer and cyclic dimer, trimer, and tetramer forms. The trimer is known as triacetone triperoxide (TATP) or tri-cyclic acetone peroxide (TCAP) a highly unstable explosive. Acetone peroxide coalesces into a white crystalline powder with a distinctive bleach-like odor and can detonate when exposed to exothermic reactions, friction, or shock. As a non-nitrogenous explosive, TATP has historically been more difficult to detect, and it has been implicated as the explosive used in terrorist attacks. TATP is easy to make and hard to detect, but is also incredibly unstable. In fact, all it takes is a firm tap to explode TATP with a force that’s about 80% as strong as TNT. Regardless of the nature of compound the entrusted ADE 651 would have always failed to detect any threats or hazardous materials.

The ISIS success is primarily due to the failure of the security services. In an embarrassing admission, the government has had to order security personnel to stop using bogus bomb detectors that, for years, have been widely known to be useless and admitting the critical failure of the country’s security services.

Growing Concerns as IS Seen Making Inroads into Kenya

Recent arrests have indicated that the so-called Islamic State (IS) group’s presence in East Africa is growing, with officials indicated that they are recruiting young Kenyans for jihad abroad and raising fears that some of them will return to threaten the country, which has already been affected by Somali-based al-Qaeda aligned al-Shabaab.

Kenyan intelligence agencies estimate that around one hundred men and women may have gone to join IS in Libya and Syria. This has triggered concerns that some may chose to come back in order to stage attacks on Kenyan and foreign targets in a country that has already been the victim of regular, deadly terrorism. According to Rashid Abid, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank, which is based in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, “there is now a real threat that Kenya faces from IS and the danger will continue to increase.”

The first al-Qaeda attack in Kenya was the 1998 US embassy bombing and the most recent large attack was a university massacre in Garissa in 2015. The IS threat however is new and as yet ill defined. In March, four men appeared in court accused of seeking to travel to Libya in order to join IS. Then in early May, Kenyan police announced the arrest of a medical student, his wife and her friend. All three have been accused of recruiting for IS and plotting an anthrax attack. At the time, two other medical students were said to be on the run. Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet described a countrywide “terror network” linked to IS and led by Mohamed Abdi Ali, a medical intern at a regional hospital, “planning large-scale attacks” including one to “unleash a biological attack…using anthrax.” Three weeks later, police announced the arrest of two more members of “the ISIS (another acronym for IS) network that is seeking to establish itself in Kenya in order to conduct terror attacks against innocent Kenyans.” Police indicated that they had found “materials terrorists typically use in the making of IEDs” – homemade bombs – as well as “bows and poisoned arrows.”

While some experts have dismissed the suggestion of an imminent large-scale attack in Kenya, they have noted that the threat of IS radicalization, recruitment and return in the East African nation is genuine, with one foreign law enforcement official, who has examined the anthrax allegation, disclosing that “we cant see either the intent to carry out such an attack nor any real planning of it…But there is something in it: there is IS here, mainly involved in recruitment and facilitation.”   Other officials also note that the recent arrests show that radicalization continues to be an issue affecting the entire country. While officials note that recruitment into Somali-based al-Shabaab remains the primary danger, there are increasing credible reports that other groups, such as IS, are gaining ground.

For now, Kenyan authorities have struggled to manage the return of their nationals from Somalia, where hundreds of Kenyans make up the bulk of al-Shabaab’s foreign fighters. In the future, experts have noted that that they will also likely have to deal with returning IS extremists as well as self-radicalized “lone wolf” attackers who have been inspired by the group’s ideology and online propaganda.

The Islamic State Group in Libya (2014 – Present)

On 9 June, unity government force surrounded the so-called Islamic State (IS) group’s Libyan bastion Sirte, where clashes have erupted as the Unity Government attempts to oust the militant group. The jihadist group, which moved into the North African country in 2014 amidst chaos that followed the ouster of Moamer Kadhafi, has become yet another player in the lawless country, where rival authorities and militas are battling for control of territory and major oil reserves.

2014

• 19 November – The United States indicates that it is “concerned” by reports that radical extrmeists with avowed ties to IS are destabilizing eastern Libya, after having already seized vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.   News reports emerge indicated that the eastern coastal city of Derna is emerging as an IS stronghold.
• 27 December – A car bomb explodes outside the diplomatic security building in the capital city Tripoli. The attack, which is claimed by IS, causes no casualties.

2015

• 27 January – IS claims responsibility for an attack on Tripoli’s luxury Corinthia Hotel that kills nine people.
• 15 February – IS releases a video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, all but one Egyptians, that the jihadist say they filmed in January. Egypt carries out air strikes on IS in Derna
• 20 February – IS claims responsibility for suicide car bombings in Al-Qoba, which is located near Derna. Those attacks kill 44 people, with IS stating that the attacks are to avenge losses in the air strikes.
• 19 April – A new video depicts the execution-style killing of 28 Christians originally from Ethiopia.
• 9 June – IS announces that it has captured the city of Sirte, which is located east of Tripoli.
• 12 July – The group acknowledges that it has been pushed out of Derna after weeks of fierce fighting with members of the town’s Mujahedeen Council.
• 13 November – The US bombs IS leaders in Libya for the first time and states that it has killed Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. Libyan officials later identify him as the head of IS in Derna.

2016

• 7 January – A suicide truck bombing at a police school in Zliten, east of Tripoli, kills more than fifty people in what is the worst attack to take place in Libya since the 2011 revolution. IS claims responsibility for the attack.
• 5 February – US officials disclose that the number of jihadists has almost doubled in Libya to about 5,000.
• 19 February – A US air strike on a jihadist training camp located near Sabratha, west of Tripoli, kills about fifty people.
• 24 February – Some 200 jihadists briefly occupy the centre of Sabratha, however they are later ousted by militas.
• 30 March – The head of Libya’s United Nations-backed unity government, Fayez al-Sarraj, arrives at a naval base in Tripoli, despite the hostility of rival authorities.
• 31 May – UN special envoy Martin Kobler calls on all of Libya’s armed groups to untie against IS.
• 4 June – Unity government forces say that they have retaken a jihadist air base, Al-Gordabyia, which is located south of Sirte.
• 5 June – Sarraj rules out an international military intervention on the ground.
• 9 June – Unity government forces enter the centre of Sirte where clashes continue with IS.