Understanding Islamic State’s Global Comeback

July 19 2024

On Monday, armed men attacked a Shiite mosque in Oman, killing six and wounding dozens more. After the attack, Islamic State (IS) took credit; the Pentagon told reporters the next day that the terrorist group claimed responsibility for 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria during the first half of 2024, more than it carried out in those countries in all of the previous year. Further afield, IS has carried out major attacks in Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Niger, while police and security services have thwarted several planned attacks in Europe. Aaron Zelin argues that these activities are not the work of disparate branches all bearing the same brand name, but part of something better coordinated:

Islamic State today looks different than it did five years ago and is far more integrated now as an organization among its global network than al-Qaeda ever was. It has been ten years since Islamic State announced itself as a caliphate and more than five years since it lost its last vestige of territory in Syria. However, . . . there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the group operates today.

The most important body for understanding Islamic State today is its General Directorate of Provinces, which has previously been based in Syria, but new information suggests that at least at the highest levels of it might now [be centered] in Somalia.

The directorate, Zelin explains, plans and manages operations taking place from Somalia to Afghanistan and beyond. In other words, the increase in attacks suggests “an assault coordinated via its General Directorate of Provinces.”

Read more at War on the Rocks

More about: ISIS, Oman, Terrorism

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula