TARGET: BRITAIN
A new expose by England's Sky News has unearthed troubling details about Islamic State activity in the United Kingdom. The news channel reportedly established fictitious identities online as a way to interface with, and glean information from, extremist elements active within England. What they found was alarming - a network of radical activists affiliated with the Islamic State and seeking to perpetrate attacks against the British homeland. "From the start it became clear that IS wants its recruits to attack the UK and not travel to their so-called caliphate," the Sky News report details. The development is a new - and disturbing - one, because jihadis in England have historically sought to recruit associates and converts to travel to Iraq and Syria, rather than perpetrate terror at home. Doing the latter represents "an entirely new tactic by IS," Sky News contends. (Sky News, August 11, 2015)
A NEW LEADER FOR BOKO HARAM
The Islamic State's African affiliate has experienced a changing of the guard. According to Idriss Deby, the president of neighboring Chad, Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist group now has a new leader: a relative unknown named Mahamat Daoud. Daoud replaces Abubakar Shekau, who led the group since 2009 - and on whose watch Boko Haram became more active and more radical.Shakau's whereabouts are unclear, but he is believed to have been killed.
It is still not certain in what direction Daoud will take the group, and little is known about the new leader. But hopes are running high that he may oversee a change in direction for the militant movement. President Deby has said that, in contrast to his predecessor, he believes Daoud to be "open todialogue." (BBC, August 12, 2015)
TAKING STOCK OF THE ANTI-ISIS EFFORT
How is the West's war against the Islamic State going? The answer, according to one leading expert, is: not well at all. Writing in the online journal Perspectives on Terrorism, Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center judges that "the existing strategy" marshaled by the international community against IS "is neither sufficient in scale or design to effectively... transform tactical gains into long-term strategic progress" on the Iraqi and Syrian battlefields. Lister points to systemic problems - such as the weakness of the Iraqi military, sectarian divisions in Iraq, and multiple, competing opposition forces in Syria - in making his judgement. The Islamic State, moreover, "has operationally adapted in order to sustain an internal sense of momentum on the battlefield" - namely, by emphasizing the creation of "strategic depth" and using territories it holds as a "launching ground for varying levels of military and guerrilla activity."
The end result istactical success - but strategic failure. "While some success has been secured since August 2014, the current counter-IS strategy does not appear sufficient to produce a sustainable and peaceful post-phase," Lister writes. "There is today an urgent need for a bold and objective assessment of the thinking behind the coalition's current plan." Most of all, he notes, it is necessary to accept "that it will not be military action alone that stands a chance of degrading, let alone defeating an organization like IS." Rather, "the key to defeating IS is solving the societal and political failures in Iraq and Syria." And that requires a far deeper investment from the Obama administration and its coalition allies than exists currently. (Perspectives on Terrorism, Summer 2015)
HOW WEB 2.0 AIDS THE COUNTERTERRORISM FIGHT
In their efforts to combat the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria, coalition warfighters and opposition forces are increasingly relying on an unlikely ally: Google. Features offered by the computing company, like "Google Earth," have become an important "connecting tissue" between U.S. forces and Kurdish militias, supplementing military capabilities and allowing better targeting and coordination. Pentagon officials are bullish on the impact of this and other COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software on the lethality of U.S. and allied forces. The information gleaned from GPS coordinates, social media tracking, and other related serviceshelps "to facilitate Coalition airstrikes and minimize risk to civilians," they say. "This has been successful in countering ISIL, leading to their defeat in Kobani, their defeat at Tel Abyad, and forcing their retreat from several previously occupied areas." (QZ.com, August 11, 2015)
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