Islamic State’s Newsletter Attacks Qatar, the World Cup, ‘Personal Freedom’, and Profiles an Afghan Jihadist
Islamic State’s Newsletter Attacks Qatar, the World Cup, ‘Personal Freedom’, and Profiles an Afghan Jihadist
QATAR AND THE WORLD CUP
Last week, on 24 November, the Islamic State (IS) released the 366th edition of its newsletter, Al-Naba, and the main editorial was a ferocious attack on Qatar for polluting the Arabian Peninsula by hosting the FIFA World Cup—and a gloating remonstration with those Islamists who saw Doha as an ally until this event, and have now become disturbed at the way things have unfolded.
IS begins by noting that it is “equally” hostile to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, all of whom collaborate with “the Jews and Christians”, who really control the Arabian Peninsula, to “propagate their shirk [idolatry] and their evil”. But while many—especially Islamists—had seen through the Saudis and the U.A.E., it had taken Qatar bringing in “hundreds of thousands of Christians, Jews, and others” for them to see “the truth about this taghuti emirate, which has been fighting Islam since it was a British protectorate!”
Al-Naba asks rhetorically: “Was it necessary for Qatar to host this malicious event for some ‘Islamists’ to realise its … danger to Islam after they used to see it as a ‘friend’ and ‘supporter’, or at least as a ‘neutral’?! Was Qatar not dangerous when it hosted the American Al-Udeid base?! Was it not dangerous when it tamed the armed movements and transferred them from the trenches to hotels?”
In Al-Naba’s considered judgment, the “Crusaders” have given the Qataris this “cup of scum” as a reward for “nearly two decades of sponsoring interfaith dialogues aimed at spreading unrestricted pornography” and creating a moral environment prizing “‘humanity’, which equates good and evil, Islam and kufr [disbelief], heaven and hell!” As an explanation for how the World Cup ended up in Qatar, this is at least novel.
While people “talked about the ‘Emirati role’ in the war against Islam”, Al-Naba goes on, Qatar tended to get a pass, but even now there is criticism of Qatar there is still no incitement to violently overthrow the government and murder its leaders, which IS finds disappointing.
Al-Naba reiterates IS’s view that “Qatar’s role in the war against Islam is not recent”, and wonders aloud about the timing of the “recent awakening”, suggesting that perhaps it is a belated and opportunistic way to “express their feelings of being let down by Qatar after it turned its back on them, robbing them of the ‘Taliban’ by turning it into a guardian of American interests!” In IS’s perception, the Taliban is an American proxy, installed by the Americans, and sustained in office with American help to protect American interests, like thwarting IS’s war on Afghan Shi’is.
IS claims it has been vindicated in its call to make war on all of these governments—Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Turkey—and mocks the anti-IS Islamists who were until recently “accusing the Islamic State of collaborating with all these parties combined”. The reality, says Al-Naba, is that IS always stuck to Islam’s guidance to draw only a single line—between faith and apostasy—and “did not differentiate between one taghut and another”.
IS concludes by attacking the Qatari media, without naming Al-Jazeera, and those who appeared on the station and were amplified by it, for their apparent role in turning Muslims against IS. Al-Naba expresses confidence that Muslims will now see their error, as Qatar brings Christians and Jews into their midst on the Arabian Peninsula, and that all of the compromises and moderation that was urged upon them in years past will be set aside in favour of an absolute prioritisation of “monotheism”. Once people recognise the “disease”, says Al-Naba, IS is right there with the “medicine”.
PROFILE OF AN AFGHAN ISLAMIC STATE JIHADIST
At the end of Al-Naba 359, published on 6 October, IS had a profile of a jihadist, as it sometimes does. The man in question this time is named as Abd al-Rahman al-Khorasani (Abu Ibrahim al-Khorasani).
Born in “western Khorasan” (Afghanistan)—no further details about place or timing are given—“in a house of etiquette, morality, and decency”, Abd al-Rahman had a “righteous upbringing”, learning the shari’a from his father and brothers, and becoming an imam, with a “desire to enter Paradise” and a dread of “[hell] fire, sin, and bad manners”.
Abd al-Rahman “was loved in private and in public, by relatives and strangers”, says Al-Naba, for his good nature, being “shy and polite, loving his brothers, pitying the poor, the needy, and the weak, and helping his relatives and friends during times of trouble; he became famous for that. He … was an example in calling people to God, with his deeds and words”. Al-Naba claims Abd al-Rahman memorised the Qur’an and “many of the authentic Hadiths”, and is at pains to stress “he … was not one of those who memorised the texts … and then ignored acting upon them”; all fasts and prayers were carried out.
This is all, it must be said, highly formulaic, as is the claim that Abd al-Rahman was approached by someone offering him worldly delights in exchange for not joining the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISKP). Abd al-Rahman, of course, refused, in Al-Naba’s telling: “he could not sit by while the blood of the Muslims was being spilled, and their honour was being violated, so he rolled up his sleeves and armed himself with faith and relied on God”.
The story of how Abd al-Rahman joined the ranks of IS is where things start to get interesting: “when God bestowed favour upon His mujahid slaves by announcing the [restoration of the] caliphate, [Abd al-Rahman] hastened to announce his pledge of allegiance (bay’a) to the Caliph of the Muslims”, and “urged his brothers” to do likewise, according to Al-Naba, “especially” because he saw this moment as a golden opportunity for an ingathering of the Muslims who had been scattered across the world. Al-Naba reiterates that Abd al-Rahman was “very happy with this auspicious announcement [of the caliphate] and began to be very active in persuading and inciting his brothers to catch up with it.”
This, then, would mean Abd al-Rahman joined IS in Afghanistan around June 2014, very early in IS’s expansion into the country, but the timeline Al-Naba gives of Abd al-Rahman’s activities confuse this picture (perhaps intentionally):
God enabled brother Abu Ibrahim [Abd al-Rahman], and his companion and brother in God, to prepare for hijra (emigration) to the House of Islam in Wilayat Khorasan, but God destined that they fall into captivity as they were on the way to mobilisation. When he entered prison, he gathered with his brothers from among the muhajirun (“immigrants”, foreign fighters) and ansar (“partisans/supporters”, local jihadists), and took the initiative to serve them for several months in Nangarhar prison. When the soldiers of the caliphate attacked Nangarhar prison, and broke its walls, he got out of prison.
But God destined him to fall into captivity again, so they transferred him to Pul-e-Charkhi prison [in Kabul, the largest under the Republic]. As usual, Abu Ibrahim worked there teaching his brothers the creed (aqeeda), [Qur’anic] exegesis (tafsir), and hadith. He established with his brothers in prison a school in the name of Yusuf al-Siddiq, and … ministered to his brothers in prison with patience and steadfastness, telling them: “[Have] a little patience, for the abode either of Islam or paradise is as wide as the heavens and the earth.”
If Abd al-Rahman declared his loyalty to IS around the time of the caliphate declaration in the summer of 2014, it does not make sense that he could have been arrested “on the way” to join the group in Afghanistan and spent “several months” in Nangarhar prison until the IS prison break, because the prison break was in August 2020, the de facto first operation in IS’s renewed “Breaking the Walls” campaign.
Back in prison from soon after the Nangarhar breakout, Al-Naba uses the chance to tell what it directly refers to as “nice stor[ies]” about Abd al-Rahman helping other jihadist prisoners, particularly the foreigners, “even putting their needs above his own”. One story has Abd al-Rahman given a cloak for Eid and the man who gave it to him sees him at the feast that night not wearing it. When questioned, Abd al-Rahman supposedly said: “Don’t be sad, my brother … I gave it to one of my Uyghur immigrant brothers.” Another story, a case of what might be called chain hesitancy or circular altruism, a “brother from Kabul” had fruit, but gave it away to a jihadist from Badakhshan, who in turn gave it to a jihadist from Faryab, and on it went until the fruit was given to Abd al-Rahman—who gave it back to the jihadist from Kabul.
Al-Naba says that Abd al-Rahman “stayed in prison for two years”, which could be true, though this would mean Abd al-Rahman got out in the summer of 2022, when it would be more logical for him to have escaped in the summer of 2021, during the takeover of Afghanistan by Pakistan’s Taliban-Qaeda jihadists. Either way, Abd al-Rahman went straight into jihadist work, both teaching shari’a for the Diwan al-I’lam (Media Department/Ministry/Office) and helping manufacture explosives for the Diwan al-Dawa wal-Masajid (the Office of Preaching/Proselytism and Mosques).
Abd al-Rahman was killed by “the apostate Taliban militia”, according to Al-Naba. The narrative of how exactly this happened has the feel of a template story—displaying heroism and ideological orthodoxy. Al-Naba says that when the Taliban raided the IS safehouse that Abd al-Rahman was in, he held them off long enough for women, children, and “some of the brothers” to escape. Abd al-Rahman and those jihadists who stayed with him were “brave” and held off the Taliban siege for two hours, only being overwhelmed after the Taliban brought in reinforcements. So says Al-Naba, which reports that Abd al-Rahman took “a few moments before his death” to “clarify” why the Taliban falls short when it comes to jihadist ideology. As with Abd al-Rahman’s birth, no date or exact location is given for his death.
AN OVERVIEW OF RECENT AL-NABA EDITIONS
Previous newsletter posts have looked at Al-Naba from May to July, and its releases in August, as well as focusing in more detail on some of the content, from jihadist profiles to military tactics to individual attacks.
Following the pattern seen for most of this year, the front pages of the eleven issues of Al-Naba released from mid-September to early December (editions 357 to 367) have been from Africa, with the sole exception of Al-Naba 362, which had IS’s account of its attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine in Iran on the cover. The majority of the African front pages, six of them, were from Nigeria; two were from Mozambique; one (Al-Naba 363) was coded from “Wilayat al-Sahel”, with the accompanying article describing operations in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso; and one (Al-Naba 364) was from Egypt. A lot of the articles from West Africa celebrate not only attacks against security forces, but atrocities against Christian civilians and their property—pictures of burning Christian homes are a regular occurrence.
Most Al-Naba issues contain reports of attacks in Iraq, against the “official” security forces and Iran’s Hashd al-Shabi militia conglomerate, and in Syria, usually against the SDF/PKK, though a few attacks are noted against the Asad regime, mostly near the Tabqa airport in Raqqa province, and one in Aleppo. There are also generally reports from IS’s African provinces: Nigeria; the West African triangle of Mali, Nigeria, and/or Burkina Faso; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Egypt, specifically the Sinai. The Egyptian reports are less frequent than the others, but the trendline is upward: Sinai operations have appeared in five of these eleven issues, and in three of the last four. The other almost invariable presence in Al-Naba is attacks on the Taliban (or its supporters) in Afghanistan and assassination of “spies” and/or policemen within Pakistan.
The only reported attacks outside this general pattern were one in the Philippines (bringing down a communications tower) and one in Somalia (a near-assassination)—both recorded in Al-Naba 362.
An excerpt from current IS spokesman Abu Umar al-Muhajir’s third speech, published on 13 September 2022, was printed at the end of Al-Naba 363 (3 November). And Al-Naba 365 had an excerpt from a speech given in August 2018 by the fallen caliph, Ibrahim al-Badri (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi). The two clippings had roughly the same message: that Muslims should proceed by faith alone (i.e., IS’s interpretation of Islam), without any other attachments, such as nation, and be prepared to confront a world where all of Islam’s (IS’s) enemies are aligned, and are collaborating with internal enemies like Shi’is.
In terms of Al-Naba editorials, their main ideological statements, a couple stood out.
The editorial in Al-Naba 359 gives a good overview of IS’s view of the danger from the West, not in military terms, but as the source of an ideological contagion that is undermining Islam. What is notable is that IS’s focus is less on the West as a subversive agent, though that is certainly present, and more on the internal danger because liberalism is proving so attractive to Muslims.
IS says that alongside the infidels’ sometimes direct military invasions of Islamdom and their control of large parts of it through their agents and puppets, there has been a “dangerous ideological invasion”. Muslims were encouraged by Western notions to pursue their own desires—indeed, anything except Islam, says Al-Naba—but, even amid this torrent of “poison” and “falsehood” that caused seditious questions about the truth of Islam, IS finds that one idea towered over the others as “the most dangerous”: “personal freedom”.
“[I]n the name of this so-called ‘freedom’,” says Al-Naba, “the immoral infidels dared to challenge the essence of God Almighty, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the End of Days.” (The exact phrase used is “Yawm al-Akhar”, which literally means “The Other Day”, but in context it seems to refer to Islamic notions of eschatology.) Struggling to manage its shock and the depth of its fury at such notions, IS notes that left to these people a Muslim would be able to abandon Islam and be “free in his belief”; “it would be okay for him to do as many abominations as he wants”—he would be able to act as he wished, to “cease prayer, fasting, zakat, and all acts of worship”—just “as long as it does not harm anyone else”. There are educated people who will advocate these ideas in public, on television, says Al-Naba: even those who “do not turn people away from their deen [faith, Islam] completely, the least evil of them open the door to questioning the nature of God”.
Al-Naba goes on: “[T]he danger of these ‘liberal’ heretics in our own time is increasingly dangerous, as compared to previous times, due to their spread and penetration [of their ideas] among Muslims, and the support given to them by the infidel and apostate governments”. (The word used for “heretics” is “al-zanadiqa”.) The spread of these liberal ideas about “personal freedom” is “attacking Islam in its foundations”, says Al-Naba: it is making Muslims less jealous over their doctrines and insistent on their supremacy. A consequent general “spread of immorality, alcohol, and other deadly abominations” is noted, but Al-Naba feels that the worst consequence is an increasingly widespread reluctance to kill apostates.
Al-Naba 359 comments that there have been political and legal arguments to the effect that “Islam calls for personal freedom!!” Those “lying and slandering God” in this way are roundly denounced. IS is particularly annoyed at the misuse of the Qur’anic verse saying, “There is no compulsion in faith (al-deen)”. What this means, says Al-Naba, is that “proofs [of Islam’s truth] are clear, and it does not need anyone to be forced to enter into it”. Rather, when God guides a man to the faith it is by bringing him to understand the evidence. What this does not mean, says Al-Naba, is that once a man has accepted Islam, he can abandon it, or that “the People of the Book” (Jews and Christians) can be freed of their need to pay the “tax” (jizya) recognising their subordinate status, as “these ‘liberal’ heretics call for”.
IS sets out its stall plainly:
Islam has given us the freedom to give the People of the Book a choice between adopting Islam, paying the jizya on behalf of minors, or having their throats cut and their body parts scattered. And Islam gave us the freedom to sever the heads of apostates from God’s deen as an example to others. This is freedom in Islam, which means absolute slavery to God Almighty alone.
Islam liberates people from worshipping people and turns them to worshipping the Lord of people, says Al-Naba: “These advocates of freedom are in fact slaves to their whims and demons.” In Islam, the Devil is most often presented as a tempter who whispers in the hearts of men, and that idea is clearly operating in this editorial. (It is the idea behind the Islamic Republic of Iran’s mania about “Westoxification”.) Al-Naba calls for men to “fortify themselves, their families, and their brothers” against the temptations of these “imported ideas” that advance “in the name of ‘liberation’ and ‘development’ and ‘democracy’.” Unless they follow the example of “the deen of Abraham” and disavow these ideas, they will be lost to hellfire. Naturally, IS concludes that jihad is the path to ensuring Muslims find their way to salvation, rather than being lost to their whims, lusts, and the pull of money.
The editorial in Al-Naba 360 takes up this idea that “jihad” is key to the faith and that its abandonment is what has led to the weakness and division with Islamdom. Various Hadith are brought in as evidence. The conclusion instructs that “jihad is the only way to salvation for Muslims, and its path is the path of their Prophet, Muhammad”.
IS devoted the editorial in Al-Naba 361 to Syria, attacking the rebel factions who continue to use Islamist terminology like “conquest” (fatah) for their military operations, to cry “Allahu Akbar”, and to speak of “jihad”, while distancing themselves from “terrorism”, seeking international recognition, and being reduced to being playthings of outside states. IS charges that this sad state of affairs is what happens when factions try “ruling by other than what God has revealed, [show] loyalty to the infidels against the Muslims, and try to satisfy the infidel ‘international system’ and gain its sympathy or recognition, just like the rest of the apostate governments in the region”. That “some of these factions try to hide their apostasy” and claim “disbelief in ‘democracy’,” only makes it worse: all of them attacked IS for not having “al-hadina al-shabiyya” (lit. “popular incubator”, a popular base), and in trying to please the whims of majority sentiment for the sake of this “incubator”, these groups “deviated from their deen and betrayed God”—and it did not even bring them the support of the “international community” and material victory they sought, Al-Naba goes on.
By contrast, says Al-Naba 361, “The Islamic State has followed the straight path of God, … in which there is no room for deviance or ambiguity”, free from the dictates of external patrons and personal interests. The “costs are great”—it united the rebels (and everyone else) against IS—but God’s ultimate reward is sure. Al-Naba concludes with an attack on the religious jurists and authorities in the region, whom IS evidently feels played some part in the jihadist failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf, and Algeria. These clerical figures, like the Syrian “Awakening” (Sahwat), have to free themselves from the agendas of the regional apostate states and return to “God’s law”, Al-Naba concludes.
Al-Naba 363’s editorial was given over to an anti-Shi’a ideological polemic justifying the attack on the shrine in Iran the week before. The messaging in the immediate aftermath of the attack had focused on it as ‘revenge’ for the Companions (Sahaba) of the Prophet Muhammad, and the Naba 363 editorial picks up this theme, referring to “the shirk of the Rafida (derog. Shi’is) and their war against Islam and defamation of its Imams, such as Abu Bakr and Umar and the rest of the Companions”. The editorial makes explicit what could be inferred at the time: the kunya for the Shiraz shrine attacker, Abu Aisha al-Umari, was chosen as a demonstration he had “avenged our mother Aisha … and her father and the rest of the Companions … God healed the hearts of the believing people through [Abu Aisha’s] hands”.
IS seeks to score points against its rivals, especially other Islamists, who “stop … at the limit of talking about the crimes of the Rafida”, while IS attacks them directly, and seeks to weave this present interest into a broader framework, where IS’s war against Shi’ism is merely the latest iteration of a “religious-historical enmity” (adawa deeniya tarikhiya) between (Sunni) Muslims and Shi’is:
The history of the Rafida is replete with [examples of their] war against Islam and treachery against its people. The Rafida are idolatrous apostates (murtadeen mushrikeen), who are not part of the people of Islam, even if they claim otherwise, for they worship humans and deify them and sanctify them and seek help from them and call upon them and claim their infallibility, and they claim that the family of the House (ahl al-bayt) … are their Lords (arbab)!
They did not separate from the Christians by a single inch, and both the Christians and the Rafida are included in the words of God Almighty in Surat Bara’ah [or Tawbah (9:5) in the Qur’an]: “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive, besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.”
IS insists that its war against the Shi’a is not bound to one place: it is engaged in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, “the Jazeera” (Saudi Arabia), Afghanistan, and “in their stronghold and the source of their evil [in these other places], Magian Iran”. IS claims to have struck Iran four times: it counts the simultaneous attacks in June 2017 on the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum separately; then there was the September 2018 attack on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) parade in Ahvaz; and now the October 2022 attack on the shrine in Shiraz.
“The Islamic State declares that its jihad is based on sound foundations”, Al-Naba 363 goes on: it is a campaign that is on the one side ideological, striking the very idols that are being “worshipped other than God” and taking revenge for the Companions, and on the other side it is practical. These “strategic targets” were chosen for their diversity, says Al-Naba, calculated to show IS’s range within Iran, to “bloody the nose” of the clerical regime within its own borders and “damage the morale of its followers outside”.
IS rejects the notion that lay Shi’is should be excused because of “ignorance”, and insists on a collective, genocidal targeting of all Shi’is. The Iranian regime has “killed countless Sunnis to extend their influence, expanded its territory, and spread its falsehood”, i.e. absolute wilayat al-faqih, not to mention preached that “all Sunnis are infidels”. Therefore, says Al-Naba, “it is obligatory for the Muslims to realise that there is no solution for [dealing with] the Rafida, except through warfare (qital).”
The editorial then quotes from IS’s most famous spokesman, Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani), who said in a speech in January 2014:
[O]ur battle with the battle with the Rafida is one battle across Iraq, Syria, Yemen, the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, and Khorasan [Afghanistan]. There is no difference between one location and another, and everyone who stands with them or allies with them or supports them or cooperates with them in any way is an enemy for us, and we will not differentiate between [the Rafida/Shi’is] and [those who support] them.
The Naba 363 editorial concludes by noting that there were condemnations of the attack in Iran from around the world—and this pleases IS, since it is grist for their ideological mill that casts all of its enemies as coordinating in a global conspiracy against it, and because it is written in “the Holy Qur’an … that every action that enrages the unbelievers or harms them is a righteous deed that will be rewarded”. IS intends to provoke further such outrage going forward with its jihad by trying to “shed [Shi’i] blood in every land and under every sky”.
The editorial of Al-Naba 364 is a largely boilerplate call to action: “Nothing will change if each of us mourns his fate and weeps over the tragedies of the Muslims … Then, as soon as this wave of emotion fades, … turns back” and takes his place in the maelstrom of the world, “waiting for another scene that will draw his tears, not his blood!” Al-Naba insists that “the umma today is in need of strong men, men who are true to God”, rather than those who care for worldly things and “sit around weeping like women”. All fairly standard.
The main interest of the Naba 364 piece is that it quotes in support of its thesis Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), the first proto-caliph when the IS movement formally became “the Islamic State” in 2006—and indeed quotes an excerpt from the very speech that announced “the State”:
O umma of Islam, today we do not need those who shed tears or those who compose empty slogans. We are today in need of those who make sacrifices and heed the words of Allah: “March forth, whether light or heavy” [Qur’an 9:41], and then broke his bed, stepped on it, brushed cowardice and lowness from his shoulders, and rode in the direction of jihad, his appearance no longer hidden.