TERRORISMIslamic State Affiliates Pooling Resources, Growing Capabilities: U.S.
U.S. officials tasked with tracking Islamic State are seeing worrisome signs that the terror group’s core leadership is strengthening control over its global network of affiliates despite a series of key losses. Specifically, the United States is raising concerns about the group’s General Directorate of Provinces, a series of nine regional offices set up over the past several years to sustain the group’s reputation and global capabilities.
U.S. officials tasked with tracking Islamic State are seeing worrisome signs that the terror group’s core leadership is strengthening control over its global network of affiliates despite a series of key losses.
Specifically, the United States is raising concerns about the group’s General Directorate of Provinces, a series of nine regional offices set up over the past several years to sustain the group’s reputation and global capabilities.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday highlighted the threat posed by these regional offices, designating the leaders of the offices in Iraq and in Africa’s Sahel region as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
‘Not Yet Done’
“We remain focused on cutting off ISIS’s ability to raise and move funds across multiple jurisdictions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, speaking to a meeting in Riyadh of the global coalition that has been working to defeat Islamic State, also known as ISIS, IS or Daesh.
“For all our progress, the fight is not yet done,” Blinken added.
A separate State Department statement Thursday noted the terror group maintains connections to the global financial system and that IS’s core leadership has “relied on its regional General Directorate of Provinces offices to provide operational guidance and funding around the world.”
The new designations specifically name Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’I, the former emir of IS’s Iraq province, as the leader of the Iraq-based Bilad al-Rafidayn Office, and Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Mainuki as the leader of the al-Furqan office, which oversees operations in the Sahel.
Concern about the regional offices has been growing for more than a year, with a U.N. report warning in July 2022 that the offices were key to the terror group’s plans for “reviving its external operational capability.”
The U.N. report cited the al-Furqan office, located in the Lake Chad Basin and charged with overseeing the terror group’s efforts in and around Nigeria and the western Sahel, as one of “the most vigorous and best-established [ISIS] regional networks.”
The report further warned that the Al-Siddiq office in Afghanistan and the Al-Karrar office in Somalia were likewise playing critical roles in Islamic State’s expansion.
Intelligence shared by U.N. member states at the time, however, suggested some of the other regional offices, including those in Turkey, Libya, Yemen and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, were struggling, and in some cases nonfunctional.
