Daesh back on the warpath

The massacre at a public event in Moscow last week, which killed at least 140 people, was one of the largest terrorist attacks in recent years, coming just a few weeks after another mass-fatality attack in Iran at the tomb of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

In a message marking the 10th anniversary of the group’s 2014 expansionary phase, Daesh’s spokesman celebrated these recent attacks and urged his audiences to migrate to join the group’s many branches around the world, while also inciting Muslims in the West to carry out attacks.

Observers warn we may be on the cusp of a new wave of expansionist global terrorist activity; particularly after the thwarting of plots in locations like Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France and Turkiye, along with dozens of recent terrorism-related arrests. European governments have moved to their highest alert levels for many years.

The entity accredited with many of these audacious plots is Daesh’s “Khorasan” branch, or Daesh-K, which is based in Afghanistan and is active throughout Central and South Asia. This branch appears to have exploited security shortcomings by prioritizing for recruitment Central Asian diaspora populations that are able to migrate between states like Russia and Turkiye with minimal visa requirements; particularly with Moscow desperate to supplement its labor force after losing hundreds of thousands in the senseless Ukraine carnage.

Russia’s sprawling security services fatefully took their eyes off the ball during the Ukraine conflict, while being unproductively used to crack down on Vladimir Putin’s political enemies. More embarrassingly for the Kremlin, it had been given prior specific intelligence from its arch-enemy, the CIA. Not only did it fail to successfully act on this intelligence — it then clumsily sought to blame America and Ukraine after the attack. The unusually brutal, highly publicized torturing of the Tajik attack suspects is likely to further inflame disenchanted Muslim minority populations in Russia. Such abuses were quickly exploited in Daesh’s propaganda to incite further “massacres.”

Images of mutilated babies, shattered families and levelled cities in Gaza are perfect recruitment fodder.

Baria Alamuddin

Daesh-K appears keen to distinguish itself from rival branches through audacious mass-casualty attacks and a deluge of fire-breathing propaganda in a plethora of languages, inciting violence against a broad spectrum of enemies. Although the Taliban have had some successes cracking down on Daesh operations inside Afghanistan, Daesh-K appears to be positioning itself as the principal proponent of global religious extremism. Despite their shared origins, the Taliban and Daesh are mortal enemies, denouncing each other as “sellouts” or “extremists” while locked in a furious vicious circle of tit-for-tat attacks.

For several years, Daesh appeared to be languishing in the doldrums and out of the public eye, with attacks in its former “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria decreasing year on year and the deaths of numerous leadership figures. However, attacks have recently surged in Syria — including during a 10-day campaign this January, during which the group claimed more than 110 attacks worldwide. There was also a flurry of mass-casualty, Daesh-claimed attacks around Pakistan’s recent elections. Experts warn that, since the demise of the so-called caliphate, Daesh has developed increasingly sophisticated means of communicating and transferring funds and munitions between far-flung branches via obscure terrorism transit hubs.

The Gaza crisis has been energetically exploited by extremists, who are appealing to those angered by Israel’s genocidal campaign to join their ranks. Images of mutilated babies, shattered families and levelled cities are perfect recruitment fodder. US national intelligence director Avril Haines warned that “the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism.” Nevertheless, America and Israel failed to learn their lesson: that war crimes and atrocities will inevitably be exploited by terrorist groups. Clumsy Western messaging — such as states like Britain and Germany uncritically siding with Israel as the Gaza death toll soared — was a gift to propagandists.

The most fertile areas of expansion for Daesh and Al-Qaeda in recent years have been across sub-Saharan Africa, where 86 percent of these organizations’ claimed attacks during 2023 occurred. Along with Al-Shabab’s continued onslaught in Somalia, early 2024 saw a surge in extremist activity in northeastern Mozambique, increased attacks against Christian civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and dozens of assaults against military forces in the Lake Chad region.

The principal crucible has been the Sahel region, where a flurry of military coups brought forth regimes that banished Western troops and cozied up to Russia. The use of Wagner Group forces seemingly exacerbated the problem, with Al-Qaeda exploiting military massacres against civilians to declare war on these regimes. As UN forces departed bases in northern Mali during late 2023, religious extremists and separatists surged into the resulting vacuum. Burkina Faso alone accounted for a quarter of global terrorism deaths in 2023, according to the Global Terrorism Index. And Niger, since its army coup, has suffered a succession of brutal mass-fatality attacks by Daesh against military targets.

Daesh was never definitively “defeated” in Syria and Iraq, and these murderous groups have bounced back from bigger setbacks in the past. With Iran and Israel fomenting instability in Syria, the perfect breeding ground is perpetuated for Daesh, which has been encouraging militants to ready themselves for fresh attacks on the immense detention centers that hold vast numbers of terror suspects and family members. A mass breakout would be a perfect opportunity to replenish their ranks.

As we witnessed in 2014, the manpower, wealth and battle-readiness of extremist groups can increase exponentially, almost overnight, mobilizing supporters through the cynical exploitation of emotive issues like Palestine.

Global leaders who appear incapable of grappling with more than one foreign policy crisis at a time must quickly get serious about the terror threat. It is insufficient for intelligence agencies simply to increase domestic vigilance for halting imminent plots. Terrorists must be prevented from freely exploiting social media platforms like Telegram. Vast ungoverned spaces throughout failed states like Syria, Yemen, Mali, Somalia, Libya and Afghanistan cannot be allowed to again become havens for the planning and staging of worldwide terror operations. The Gaza slaughter must be brought to an immediate halt.

If the civilized world and global organizations had not spectacularly failed in their duty to promote stability and development in the planet’s poorest states, terrorist groups would have had nowhere to gain a foothold in the first place. Like bloodsucking leeches, entities like Daesh thrive and feast upon the evil and instability already present in the world, compelling us to work infinitely harder to promote peace, justice and humanitarian values.
 

• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.