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The development and use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, is one of the defining features of conflict in the early 21st century. While the primary role of drones on the battlefield has been that of surveillance, they have also been used for the purposes of conducting strike operations, particularly by the US military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on the battlefields of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). While drones have been largely used by state actors, non-state actors have also used drones for multiple purposes. Notably, since 2014 groups like the Islamic State (IS) have used small, off-the-shelf drones for both reconnaissance and strike missions. Furthermore, drones have been used as parts of attacks against national political leaders. These attacks include both the 2018 attempted assassination of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the 2024 attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The war in Ukraine, which expanded in early 2022 to a full-blown state-on-state armed conflict, has brought about the use of small drones for the purposes of strike operations where previously they were almost exclusively conducted by much larger systems, which portends a rapidly arriving era of cheap and effective political assassinations.

When discussing drone assassinations, many people think of the US security services’ use of large drones such as the Predator and Reaper fixed-wing drones on the battlefields of the GWOT. The Predator and Reaper are roughly the size of a light airplane and are often armed with Hellfire Missiles. The US government conducted a number of high-profile targeted killings, commonly referred to as assassinations, over the course of the 20-year GWOT. Some of these notable operations include the killings of: Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s leader after the death of Osama bin Laden; Anwar al-Awlaki a US citizen jihadist propagandist; and Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian general, who the US held responsible for numerous attacks against Americans and American interests throughout the Middle East. Typically, the US government would employ drones in either personality or signature strikes.; the former targeting a specific individual based on their identity, with the latter targeting unknown persons based on their behavior and the belief that said behavior indicates that they are engaged in terrorist or combatant activities. (It is important to note that under Executive Order 12333, the US government prohibits assassinations.)

However, the definition of “assassination” is not given in the executive order and is therefore unclear. Yet, a working definition of something like: “an assassination may be viewed as an intentional killing of a targeted individual committed for political purposes…in peacetime” likely fits the bill. While some of the GWOT’s drone strikes were carried out by the CIA under Title 50 of the US Code, which provides the legal frameworks for the intelligence operations of the US government, the majority of them were conducted by the US military under Title 10 authority, which provides the justification (albeit ambiguous) for military operations of the US government. Importantly, all the individuals killed under the GWOT’s drone targeted killing program were killed for what amounts to military reasons. Even targets such as Anwar al-Awlaki and Qasem Soleimani were engaged in military or terrorist action against the United States government. While some people would argue that the targeted killings carried out by the US government during the GWOT were assassinations, especially killings carried out outside of a declared warzone, these killings still have a very different valence from the killings of, say, Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer, who was killed by poisoning with Polonium-210, or Ngo Dinh Diem, the first President of South Vietnam who was executed following a CIA-backed coup. The US government’s program of targeted killings using drones has historically relied upon large drones that use weapons such as missiles and munitions to conduct strikes in the same manner as do conventional aircraft. However, these kinds of drones were out of reach of non-state actors, but the introduction of small commercial drones has empowered these less well-resourced entities to use drones as well.

Widely available, cheap, and easy-to-fly commercial drones did not come to market until the 2013 release of the DJI Phantom. Once these drones were available, IS almost immediately used them. Initially, IS used drones to conduct reconnaissance and record attacks for propaganda purposes. However, by 2016 IS was also using drones to conduct strike missions. In the case of small drones (often “quad-copter” (rotary)) strikes are conducted either by dropping a munition such as a grenade or mortar round onto a target, or come in the form of a kamikaze attack where the drone is flown into or close to a target and detonated by proximity or impact (“FPV”, or first-person-view, drones). By 2016, but as early as 2015, IS was using drones for both of these types of strikes. The use of small drones by IS was such a problem that in 2017 the then-commander of US Joint Special Operations Command identified it as one of the greatest threats that his command was dealing with. That said, IS isn’t the only non-state actor in the Middle East that is using drones in conflict. Notably, Houthi rebels used Iran-supplied Qasef-2K loitering munitions to target Yemeni military leadership in 2019. This latter kind of attack was conducted in an effort to kill specific individuals. Though, the targeted individuals were members of the military and the strike occurred during a time of war, thereby making it more similar to the US government's targeted killing program than to a political assassination, which would be aimed at a civilian political figure during peacetime.

The most notable cases of attempted political assassinations in peacetime using drones happened in 2018 and 2024. The first was the attempted assassination of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro has been ruling Venezuela as an autocrat since 2013 when he replaced socialist strongman Hugo Chávez following the latter’s death from cancer. Maduro’s persecution of political opponents through actions such as jailing members of opposition parties, arming and backing radical leftwing paramilitary gangs known as colectivos that harass and murder opponents of socialism, and the use of government death squads known as Special Actions Forces (FAES), has earned Maduro many enemies in his own country. On August 4, 2018, some of Maduro’s opponents attempted to assassinate him via drones laden with explosives. Two DJI Matrice 600 drones with what Venezuelan authorities claim was C4 plastic explosive were flown toward Maduro as he made a speech in front of members of the Venezuelan National Guard. Neither of the drones made it close enough to harm Maduro, though seven members of the Venezuelan National Guard were injured. In this case, the drones were used for a strike in a kamikaze-style attack. The attack itself proved to be unsuccessful because the drones detonated prematurely before they had reached their target. It is unknown how their payload was detonated.

The second was the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump. In this case, a drone, only identified as from the manufacturer DJI, was used to scout the area where Trump would be speaking later in the day. The actual assassination attempt was conducted by a sniper, who miraculously missed the President.

Since the failed 2018 assassination attempt on Nicolás Maduro, small-strike drones have made dramatic technological progress, and they will pose a much larger danger to political figures around the globe, and it is not likely that future assassination attempts that use drones will only use them for surveillance.

Since the Winter of 2022 and the expansion of the war in Ukraine, small drones have been used increasingly for strike missions. The most notable innovation has been the use of FPV drones in kamikaze-style attacks. Working in concert with drone teams using DJI-style camera drones for surveillance, Ukrainian and Russian forces will fly FPV drones laden with rocket-propelled grenade warheads, mortar rounds, and improvised explosives into targets. These FPV drones were designed for activities such as drone racing, and are much faster and more agile than a standard DJI camera drone. The basic tactics for the use of drones in combat in Ukraine are similar to sniper teams that use spotters and shooters in concert to locate and attack targets. The technology to build FPV drones is widely available and affordable on the hobby market, and the amount of training and practice needed to become a skilled enough pilot needed to fly an FPV drone into a man-sized target is well within the reach of an average person.

The proliferation of affordable and easily piloted FPV drones, along with the larger numbers of skilled operators that the war in Ukraine is generating, likely heralds a future where FPV drones are used in attempted political assassinations with some degree of regularity. Already, assassination attempts are being conducted with the use of drones as in the cases of Nicolás Maduro and Donald Trump. So too are improvised weapons being used, as in the case of the successful assassination of Shinzo Abe. The greatest barrier to the use of drones for peacetime political assassinations will likely be the assassin’s ability to obtain and safely work with a suitable explosive payload for the drone to be used in the attack. With the technology and skilled operators widely available, the world awaits the first attempt for this new type of method to be used in a peacetime political assassination attempt. This is a danger that would increase substantially in the event that autonomous or semi-autonomous drones were to become ubiquitous.

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A Brief History of the Yugoslav Wars
In 1980, the president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, passed away. In the lead-up to his death and especially since, many have posited that Yugoslavia was destined to disintegrate without Tito, arguing that his sole personality held the country together rather than the League of Communists or any shared ideology. What was a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional western Balkan nation of people with a broadly common culture and a bloody commingled history would violently break apart into seven separate states whose current bilateral relationships are often antagonistic and even edge towards renewed conflict.

Originally comprised of six socialist republics and two semi-autonomous provinces, all but one of the resulting states gained independence from Yugoslavia with varying degrees of violence, either in the form of direct conflict with the remnant Yugoslav government or in that of internal violence between different ethnic populations following secession.

Slovenia was the first to declare independence, which it gained after ten brief days of minimal fighting in 1991. North Macedonia remarkably seceded that same year without hostilities between themselves and Yugoslavia but experienced a brief yet deadly insurgency in 2001 which pitted ethnic Albanian guerrillas against Macedonian forces and still haunts the country today. Croatia also declared independence in 1991, following Slovenia, after armed clashes had already broken out between ethnic Croat and ethnic Serb populations. Croatia’s struggle to secede spiraled into four years of brutal fighting between Croat forces, the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), and eventually Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) troops once the conflict spilled over into the neighboring Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ending in a détente between Croat and Bosniak forces in 1994 and official Croatian independence in 1995. The contiguous Bosnian War (1992-1995) was by far the most destructive and the bloodiest of the Yugoslav Wars, and it was succeeded by Kosovo’s war with Serbia (1998-1999), where we are likely to see renewed hostilities between Kosovo Albanians (Kosovars) and Kosovo Serbs at any contemporary moment, despite Kosovo gaining widely-recognized and NATO-backed independence in 2008. Only Montenegro separated from its union with Serbia without any concomitant political violence, following a referendum in 2006. However, growing divisions in Montenegrin society have signaled that perhaps even this small and mostly mono-confessional NATO country might not be spared political violence that is ultimately rooted in the breakup of Yugoslavia.

As for the Bosnian War, fighting between Bosnian Muslims, Catholic Croats, and Eastern Orthodox Serbs broke out in the spring of 1992 after Bosniaks and Croats voted for independence in a referendum boycotted by Bosnian Serbs. The latter, organized into armed units and led by now-convicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić, occupied a majority of the country and began laying siege to the capital Sarajevo, committing massacres along the way in an effort to create a Serb republic, and arguably in retaliation for atrocities committed against ethnic Serbs. The war was in fact characterized by bitter fighting and war crimes on all sides. In 1995, following international shock and outrage at the Srebrenica massacre, NATO began an offensive air campaign against Bosnian Serb troops, escalating the alliance’s presence in the region by enforcing a no-fly zone, leading to a US-brokered peace deal between all three factions and an eventual end to the fighting.

At the height of the Bosnian War, outgunned and outnumbered, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović welcomed Muslim foreign fighters (mostly of Arab descent) to join the conflict, officially forming the Mujahideen Battalion in 1993, which at its peak grew to around 1,500 volunteer foreign fighters. The presence of these foreigners not only introduced a segment of Bosnian Muslims to stricter interpretations of Sunni Islam than the notably casual form of the religion that many Balkan Muslims are known to practice, but it also left behind the concept and legacy of global jihad, likely having much to do with the more than 300 Bosniaks who traveled to Syria and Iraq with intentions of joining the Islamic State around 2015.

Jihad Comes to Bosnia
The Bosnian War saw many atrocities against Muslims.[1] Civilians were expelled from their long-time homes, mass murders occurred, and women were raped in groups. Mosques were destroyed and their minarets toppled. Despite some measures by the international community, the atrocities continued. The suffering of Bosniaks spoke to many Muslims around the world, who saw the conflict as one between their coreligionists and armies of marauding Christians. According to jihadi foreign fighters, they were defending Muslims against the infidel Christian Serbs and did not want to turn away while their brethren were being persecuted. Serb and Croat forces were accused of carrying out a new “crusade” with the complicity of western countries. The West itself was accused of being indifferent because the victims were “just Muslims”. This view was presented repeatedly at political rallies. The UN arms embargo on all Yugoslav territories hobbled the ability of the new Bosnian army (ABiH) to defend Bosniak citizens, while Bosnian Serbs were being supplied with arms by the JNA. The tragedy in Bosnia was compared to the 1492 Reconquista of Muslim Spain and the ongoing plight of Palestinians.

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Despite all sides of the war having experienced atrocities against their people, it seems that Muslims suffered the most, and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre is the most notable example of this suffering, in which between 7,000 and 8,000 Muslim boys and adult males were summarily executed and buried in mass graves.

Throughout the ABiH there were religious advisors, and amongst the mujahideen, “assistants for morale and religious affairs”, giving religious instruction to the fighters. As early as 1992, Muslim fighters killed in the war began to receive the label “šehid,” or martyr. And in 1994, a seminar was held in which the speakers presented “Islam as the spiritual force of the defense” of Bosnia. This notion was expected to bolster the Bosniak fighting spirit and constitute the primary motivation for Muslim soldiers.

Scholar John R. Schindler says that President Izetbegović’s Party of Democratic Action (SDA) had a measurably successful war-time policy project that sought to “re-Islamize” Bosnia’s Muslims.[2] “While most Muslims remained relatively secular, the religious-minded had become more so, and some of them had evolved into militant Islamists of a kind almost unknown in prewar Bosnia.”[3] Irrespective of this policy’s success, Muslim Bosnia still retains much of its religiously relaxed qualities. Nonetheless, the fact that Bosnia had more foreign fighters per capita than any other European country who traveled to fight in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s remains an interesting data point to be considered in the context of the 1990s Bosnian War. Schindler further asserts that the Bosnian Muslim leadership’s political causes had long aligned with deepening the Islamic piety among the nation, a cause which arguably found tremendous breathing room during the 1990s war.[4]

Overall, the foreign mujahideen made up approximately 1% of the ABiH’s fighting force. Yet questions concerning the impact of foreign fighters’ presence in Bosnia during its Muslim population’s struggle for survival and statehood still exist, not only as they concern the nature of Bosnia itself, but as they concern both the phenomenon of European foreign fighters in the Middle East, and perhaps of more immediate importance to western analysts, the issue of battle-hardened Europeans returning as combat veterans from foreign battlefields to home countries on the European continent. Schindler asserts that Al-Qaeda formed a firm and even lasting network in the country by the war’s end. Many have cast doubt on this notion, however. In Vlado Azinović’s 2007 book, Al-Qaeda in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Myth or Present Danger?, he argues that Bosnia “is an ideal breeding ground for militant ideologies, while Wahhabism provides extreme, yet simple, answers to almost every challenge that arises from Bosnia's post war reality.” Contrary to lower figures that put the number of mujahideen who fought in Bosnia at around 1,500, Azinović estimates their numbers to be between 3,000-4,000 and says of the few hundred that remained after the war, dozens of these are likely still living in Bosnia. Another figure estimates that a total of 5,000 foreign fighters joined the war in Bosnia, but this presumably includes those foreigners who fought on the Serb and Croat sides as well, such as the Greek Volunteer Guard who were present at Srebrenica on the Serb side.

The Bosnian Mujahideen
When the Soviet-Afghan War ended in 1989, the Soviets had been defeated by a guerrilla army with several foreigners in its ranks. The Arab veterans that fought the Soviets there wanted to continue their now-global mission of jihad. The news coming from Bosnia was a sign of[5] God for these veterans. Propaganda from Bosnia brought Arab and European Muslims together to relieve their brothers. Most of these fighters came from the Arab world, although some came from Western countries like France and Germany. Many Arab fighters saw Bosnia as a support base for the jihad[6] they were fighting or hoped to fight in their home countries. They ran guns from Bosnia, using Europe as a road, in order to get weapons to countries like Algeria[7]. Others found the prospect of fighting in Bosnia far more attractive than the realities awaiting them back home.

Foreign fighters that arrived in Bosnia created a brigade and named it “El Mudhzahid” in order to serve as a volunteer force under the ABiH. The brigade was first led by Abd el-Rahman al-Dawsary (aka “Barbaros,” meaning Red Beard). He was then succeeded by a Libyan, an Algerian, and finally an Egyptian. They were headquartered in Zenica, about an hour’s drive outside of Sarajevo. The brigade was disbanded after the Dayton Agreements in 1995, prompting its fighters to spread out around the world, although some remained[8] in Bosnia. Their presence was appreciated by many Bosnians, in the midst of the government’s failure to stop the carnage, although they were also accused of sullying the images of Bosnians in the West and criticized for committing war crimes. By October 1994, Saudis were the most represented nationality in the ranks of El Mudzhahid, followed by Egyptians and Algerians.

There were two waves of mujahideen traveling to the Balkans. The first was in the summer and fall of 1992, with Arabs coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The second wave took place after the Mecca pilgrimage in 1994. These were part of a group prepared by radical preachers from the Arabian Peninsula. The first lot of mujahideen came from Libya, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Algeria, and Sudan. Then, an organized group of fanatical volunteers arrived in Bosnia. They hailed from well-known Koranical schools in the Arabian Peninsula.

Among the famous jihadists that fought in Bosnia was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.[9] Another was Amer Azizi, the mastermind of the Madrid Train Bombings in 2004. Two of his assistants, Saud al-Otaibi and Abdel Karim al-Meyati, also fought in Bosnia. Yet another important veteran was Egyptian UK-based preacher, Abu Hamza al-Masri, a spiritual father of the London 2005 bombers. Bin Laden’s bodyguard, Abu Jandal (real name Nasir al-Bahri), fought in Bosnia as well. 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi, were themselves veterans of the Bosnian war.

The rather long list of famous jihadists who fought in Bosnia includes: Nasser bin Ali al Ansi, a deceased al-Qaeda member; Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Daniel Pearl; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was involved in the USS Cole bombing; the mastermind of this attack, Jamaal al-Badawi, also fought in Bosnia; Mahmud Salim, who took part in the 1998 Kenya and Tanzania US embassy bombings; Zakiur-RehmanLakhvi, one of the terrorists of the 2008 Mumbai attacks; Reda Seyam, a German-Egyptian member of the Islamic State, who held the highest position for Germans; Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, al-Qaeda terror mastermind in Saudi Arabia who was responsible for attacks on westerners there, including the murder of US citizen Paul Johnson, worked as a trainer in Bosnia; Abu Anas al-Shami, lieutenant to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; Al-Qaeda in Iraq commander, Abu Ibrahim al-Tunisi, also fought in Bosnia.

Conclusion
Much has been said and written about the Bosnian mujahideen, their impact on the country, and their implications for the future of foreign fighters traveling from and back home to European countries. Furthermore, the notable roster of notorious jihadists who traveled to Bosnia during the war continues to be a topic of discussion among terrorism analysts. It does, however, appear that early fears of radicalized Bosnians traveling home from foreign battlefields in the Middle East only to commit a terrorist attack in Europe have so far been overblown. In fact, since 2015, the few instances of terrorism perpetrated by known Muslim extremists have all targeted local authorities. The perpetrator of the 2015 Zvornik attack, which killed a Bosnian Serb police officer and injured another, though known Islamic extremists associated with Bosniak veterans of the war in Syria, might have had personal motivations for the attack rooted in the violence of the 1990s. As it turns out, his father was one of the civilians massacred by Serb forces outside of Zvornik in June 1992.

Sources:
[1] Byman, Daniel. Road Warrior: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad (Oxford University Press, 2019),  41.

[2] Schindler, Robert R. Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2007), 277.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, 15.

[5] Byman, Daniel. Road Warrior: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad (Oxford University Press, 2019), 46.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid, 53.

[9] Ibid, 54.

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At 3:50 AM on February 3rd, 1998, a bomb exploded outside of a McDonalds in the Chalandri borough of Athens, Greece, toppling tables and chairs and throwing glass across the empty restaurant. Approximately ten minutes later another bomb exploded outside of a second McDonalds location, one borough north in Vrilissia. “No one was hurt in either attack and the material damage was minimal.” Both bombs consisted of two sticks of dynamite, a clock and a battery—familiar trade-craft of Greece’s oldest extant domestic terrorist organization. The early morning McDonalds bombings were part of a series of attacks that would take place in Athens between February and April of that year. All would be claimed by the Revolutionary Organization—17 November (17N), then in the 23rd year of their operational career.

Two weeks after the McDonalds bombings, an improvised explosive device was detonated just after midnight outside the showroom of a General Motors dealership on Kifissias Avenue, also in northern Athens. On March 12th a bomb was detonated under a car in the lot of a Chrysler dealership in Athens, this time leading to significant damage but again no casualties. Five minutes later, a bomb that had been placed outside of the boiler room in the garage of an Opel dealership in Athens exploded, also causing extensive damage. (At the time Opel was owned by General Motors.) Finally, near midnight on April 7th, someone fired an anti-tank rocket into the offices of a Citibank location in Athens.

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Just after the rocket attack on Citibank, 17N released an eight-page communique to Greek daily newspaper Eleftherotypia claiming all six attacks. According to the claim, the spate of bombings and the rocket were in retaliation for US and NATO foreign policy, particularly in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. Two years earlier, Greece had nearly gone to war with neighbor and fellow NATO ally Turkey over a pair of uninhabited islets between Greece’s Dodecanese Island chain and the Turkish coast. Though the issue was resolved without any territorial losses to Greece, lingering tensions between the two countries coupled with a perceived history of American imperialism favoring the Turks in the region added to an anti-US sentiment that had long since existed in Greece and which endures today.

Flag Wars in the Aegean

In the winter of 1995-1996, a curious little maritime incident nearly brought Greece and Turkey to war with each other, nominally over a pair of uninhabited rocks (save for a herd of Greek sheep) jutting out of the Icarian Sea near the Turkish coastal city of Bodrum, which the Greeks call “Imia” and the Turks call “Kardak”. On December 26th Turkish cargo vessel “Figen Akat” ran aground on the easternmost point of the littlest Imia islet and radioed for help. The captain was contacted by the Kalolimnos Port Authority and notified that a Greek tugboat had been dispatched to assist. When the tug arrived, the Turkish captain insisted that he was aground in Turkish territory and that he would wait until Turkish vessels arrived to free him. The captain of the Greek tug, however, was intent on collecting the salvage fees from the Figen Akat after they had made it back to port. The captain of the Figen Akat eventually relented, and when the cargo vessel made it back to the nearest Turkish port with the assistance of the Greek tug, the latter’s captain filed the formal paperwork to claim his salvage fees, which was immediately disputed by the skipper of the Figen Akat, who maintained that he never left Turkish territory and was appropriately awaiting Turkish rescue.

What should have been a mundane dispute sorted out by bureaucrats instead escalated into a serious international incident, largely owing to the politically weak positions of both the Greek and Turkish governments domestically. Some initial diplomatic confusion, or at the least a misunderstanding, also seems to have played a role, though nationalists on either side were allowed to steer the conversation in their own countries and the situation spiraled into a genuine crisis after both sides claimed sovereignty over Imia/Kardak. Newly elected Greek Prime Minister, Kostas Simitis, was surrounded by a cabinet full of nationalists, and by early January 1996, the Greek press began pressuring him on the Imia/Kardak issue.

On January 25th, “Greeks who lived on the nearby island of Kalymnos sailed to Imia and raised the Greek flag there. Turkish media suddenly took notice, and a team of reporters from the newspaper Hürriyet were dispatched to the islets […] to unfurl their own country’s flag on live television.” The Greek and Turkish navy took to posturing around the islets as the prime ministers of both countries traded barbs. Turkish armored units moved towards the Green Line dividing Cyprus, and Greek Cypriot forces were put on high alert. On the 28th and 30th of January, special forces teams from both countries made separate landings on the islets to again raise the Greek and Turkish flag respectively, and then, predictably, tragedy struck. Around 5:30 AM on January 31st, a Greek helicopter took off from the deck of the Navarino on a reconnaissance mission and crashed, killing three Greek naval officers: Christodoulos Karathanasis, Panagiotis Vlahakos, and Ektoras Gialopsos. “Although the incident was covered up at the time, there are allegations the helicopter had been fired upon by Turkish forces.”

Talks between the two sides became impossible. In the end, it was the all-night phone line efforts of then-US Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke, that managed to de-escalate the crisis and get both sides to return to the status quo ante. Though the crisis was resolved between the two nations, it proved politically damaging for the Simitis administration, whom fellow Greeks accused of treason.

The Imia crisis nearly brought the two countries into open military conflict with one another, but it was not the only or even the worst such incident since the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Two decades prior to the Imia crisis, Greece and Turkey had gone to war for four weeks on the island of Cyprus, during which thousands were killed on both sides and thousands more ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriot civilians were displaced. Turkey still occupies the northern 35% of the island today.

Tensions remain high between Greece and Turkey, especially in the Aegean and broader Eastern Mediterranean. But at the end of the 1990s, when the United States shared a much closer relationship with Turkey than it does today under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, US and NATO foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean was the primary motivation for terrorist attacks perpetrated by Greece’s red urban guerrillas, who by the end of the decade had made Greece the most dangerous country in Europe for western diplomats and businessmen.

“The Greek Waterloo”
At 11:45 PM on the 7th of April 1998, someone parked a car on the street about six meters away from the outer windows of a Citibank office in Athens, Greece. After leaving the immediate area, the driver or an associate used a garage door opener to remotely fire an anti-tank rocket into the building from a makeshift launcher fixed atop of the car. The rocket penetrated the office but it did not explode, and no one was killed or injured in the attack. The Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group Revolutionary Organization—17 November would release a claim for the rocket attack and five previous bombings that year in an eight-page communique, which they sent to Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia.

The indignation expressed in the claim regarding both the Imia crisis itself as well as its conclusion is significant. The author(s) call the incident “the Greek Waterloo,” and begin the claim by addressing a resurgent anti-American sentiment in Greece, which perhaps peaked a year later with the NATO air campaign targeting Yugoslavia:

According to a poll conducted and published in a pro-government newspaper in January '97, a year after Imia, 68.9% of respondents were asked whether Greece should rely on US mediation to resolve the Greek-Turkish dispute. When asked if they have confidence in US mediation in resolving the Cyprus issue, 85% answered in the negative and only 13% have confidence in the US.

In another poll conducted in June 1997 and published in another pro-government newspaper, only 23.1% answered positively for the foreign policy of the Simitis government and 47% negatively. Finally, according to the first poll, the negative opinions about the USA do not come from a certain political space as before, but from all political spaces from the left to the right.

These numbers are impressive considering that they come from opinion polls, that the USA is an "ally and friend country," that Prime Minister Simitis publicly thanked them in Parliament for their role on the night of the crisis in Imia […]

[The polls] show unequivocally that the vast majority of the Greek people consider that the USA as the only sovereign superpower today is not only neutral but that it is primarily responsible for both the ongoing Turkish occupation of Cyprus and for all the provocative Turkish claims to of the sovereign rights of the country in the Aegean.

Over another seven pages, the claim goes on to accuse the US of seeking to divide the Aegean and positions Turkey as America’s “over-equipped” gendarme in the region. The author/s fault the US for forbidding Greece from purchasing weapons systems “from present-day capitalist Russia” so that Greece might approach military parity with Turkey and cite US intervention in the South Korean purchase of Russian S-300 air defense systems as an example of this policy in practice elsewhere. The claim further condemns both the Greek elite and bourgeoisie for effectively decamping from the country in terms of their greater loyalties in favor of a western hegemony with which they cannot compete, placing the fighters of groups like 17N as the country’s remaining patriots, whose nationalism they contrast with the “racism” of their right-wing nationalist countrymen.

So, we decided to strike at American imperialism-nationalism for what it is plotting against the sovereign rights of the country. For being the main one responsible for the perpetuation of the Turkish occupation in Cyprus, for the Turkish claims in the Aegean at the expense of the sovereign rights of the country, for the planned division of the Aegean and the placement of the over-equipped Turkish soldier as a gendarme [over half of the] Aegean. We are responsible for the bombings against two branches of the American chain of stores McDonalds, the American car dealership General Motors, Chrysler, Opel (a subsidiary of General Motors in Germany) and the rocket attack at Citibank.

   - Revolutionary Organization 17 NOEMBPH, Athens April ‘98

Enduring anti-US/NATO Sentiment in Greece

One of the notable aspects of 17N’s winter/spring campaign of 1998 is that it was non-lethal, where so many of their attacks had claimed the lives of high-level western intelligence officers, diplomats, journalists and businessmen. On the very same avenue where they rather benignly blew up an SUV from Chrysler’s retail inventory, 17N would carry out their last successful operation which like many of their previous was both a high-profile and bloody affair: the assassination of British military attaché Brigadier Stephen Saunders in which two members of 17N on a motorcycle pulled up alongside Saunders on Kifissias Avenue while driving to the British embassy and shot him dead in morning traffic. That a group with such capability would take the time to bomb a franchise restaurant is somewhat remarkable, and surely speaks to the symbolic importance that 17N attached to McDonalds, in this case, as a symbol of capitalism and US imperialism. (Incidentally, 17N’s equally capable successor urban guerrilla group, Revolutionary Struggle, also dynamited an Athens McDonalds in 2009.)

As for the anti-American, and especially the anti-NATO sentiment that motivated 17N’s 1998 campaign, though it might have ebbed and flowed since 1998, it seems to again be on the rise. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has somewhat divided both the Greek right and left, but the parliamentary communist KKE party and its counterparts have maintained a firm stance against NATO and any further enlargement of the organization. Recently, members of KKE and the affiliated KNE threw red paint on a frigate of the Royal Canadian Navy docked in Greece’s Piraeus Port. In a similar scene, port workers and members of left-wing trade unions tried to halt a convoy of NATO military vehicles traveling through Greece to Ukraine, in which they spray painted anti-NATO slogans on some vehicles using red paint.

Today’s urban guerrillas in Greece are overwhelmingly anarchists, rather than Marxist-Leninists. And though they share many of the same critiques of NATO, the United States and of the West in general with those of their Marxist counterparts, the issues presently facing them are much different. Though there is no shortage of American fast-food franchises and other signs of US imperialism throughout the tourist-heavy areas of Greece, modern urban guerrillas would probably argue that there are US corporations today that are more insidious than McDonalds, such as AirBNB. As neighborhoods like Exarcheia in downtown Athens are increasingly gentrified to accommodate tourists at the expense of locals, for example, we can expect a more contemporary target-selection from today’s urban guerrillas in Greece, and the McDonalds may not be as vulnerable as, say, the Amazon delivery van.

NATO itself will remain in the cross-hairs of Greek insurgents. Greece’s latest anarchist urban guerilla outfit, the Direct Action Cells (DAC) detonated an improvised incendiary device fashioned from butane gas canisters outside of a Hellenic Army barracks adjacent to NATO facilities north of Thessaloniki in 2021. However, the nature of the device itself when compared to the IEDs employed by older groups such as 17N, as well the DAC’s history of similarly crude attacks suggests that they lack the capability to carry out the kind of sophisticated campaign of assassinations and bombings that was executed by 17N.

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In late summer 2008, the Uyghur-led Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) gained international media attention for threatening to attack the Beijing Olympics. The group, little known at the time, released a six-minute video featuring promises of “fire targeting China” and scenes of the Olympic logo in flames.

Abdullah Mansour, who would go on to lead the group for a period, appeared in the production with an automatic rifle and said: “We, members of the Turkestan Islamic Party, have declared war against China. We oppose China’s occupation of our homeland of East Turkestan, which is a part of the Islamic world.” He also warned Muslims to stay clear of the events for their own safety: “Please do not be around Chinese people while in the same building, in the same shop, in the same bus or same train. Please do not fly with Chinese people in the same airplane.”

The threats were taken seriously at the time as, during the previous month, TIP commander Seyfullah had claimed responsibility for several attacks inside China and likewise threatened violent action against Olympic festivities.

The Turkistan Islamic Party and the 2022 Winter Olympics
China and the TIP have each grown and changed in fundamental ways since the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing — the regional security environment is also very different.

China has risen to become the second most powerful country in the world and has vastly increased its influence internationally and throughout Asia. Moreover, the TIP has evolved into a battle-hardened and highly capable fighting force with operational footprints in both Afghanistan and Syria.

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Xinjiang, the cradle of the Turkistan Islamic Party and the source of much militant-related anxiety for Beijing, is also a different place now than it was in 2008. China has harshly put down unrest and stabilized the region through a series of heavy-handed policy measures. This, combined with enhanced border security, makes it comparatively more difficult for jihadis to run operations into the country from Xinjiang if they decided to do so.

The TIP in Afghanistan, though it is now a much more formidable insurgent force, faces significant structural restraints that did not exist in the late 2000s when it was free to aggressively issue explicit and high-profile public threats towards China.

At that time, the group was fighting in tandem with the Afghan Taliban which was predominantly focused on perpetuating an insurgency and was much less concerned about the complex intricacies of foreign relations. Now, the Taliban is back in power and is making the transition from guerilla force to governing body. Accordingly, they face severe economic troubles and a looming humanitarian crisis. In hopes to help alleviate these problems, the new government is actively lobbying for foreign aid, outside investment, and access to frozen funds and international institutions. TIP attacks on China would likely hinder these efforts, and thus the Taliban has reassured Beijing that Afghan soil will not be used by hostile actors to strike neighboring states.

The TIP has longstanding and deep ties to the Taliban, having fought and bled alongside them for years, including in their more recent role supporting the Taliban’s final push to take power.

But, despite this alliance, the Taliban seems to have issued directives to TIP leadership to stop releasing propaganda showing their fighters present in Afghanistan — or perhaps the TIP made this decision on their own or through an agreement with the Taliban to avoid creating problems for their host. This is indicated by the fact that the TIP has refrained from releasing videos from Afghanistan since Kabul fell. This became further evident in late October when a TIP-linked Instagram account posted images of what are assumed to be its militants posing with weapons in front of a captured Navistar Defense vehicle in Afghanistan. The pictures subsequently drew online attention, and the account ended up removing the photos — presumably at the behest of the Taliban, ranking TIP authorities, or both.

The Taliban has also reportedly taken risk avoidance measures to relocate Uyghur militants away from the Afghan-China border.

All considered, there is still some possibility of the Turkistan Islamic Party, or rogue elements associated with the group, deciding to attack Chinese interests in the area. However, this would draw immense pressure onto the Taliban from Beijing and create greater difficulties for Uyghurs seeking haven in Afghanistan. The TIP’s stated cause is to liberate ‘East Turkistan’ (Xinjiang) from what it views as Chinese occupation, but the aforementioned practical concerns undoubtedly factor into leadership decision-making.

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The Islamic State has fostered a potent culture of violent incitement and its organizational directives have streamlined the jihadi attack process. From the official ranking leadership down to online supporters on Telegram, the message has been made clear and is now largely self-perpetuating: when it comes to the enemies of IS, choose a target wherever you are, use whatever weapon you are able to access, and do not hesitate or ask for permission. These calls have resonated with the Islamic State’s supporters, who have conducted attacks using crude objects and simple weapons such as golf clubs, hammers, and kitchen knives. In observing the IS movement’s incitement rhetoric and advice on how to conduct successful operations, the promotion of arson and the use of fire is recurrent and quite notable. This tactic is not exclusive to the Islamic State; however, the frequency of such calls for violence and the heavy symbolic value placed on incendiary attacks are striking aspects of their media strategy.

Official Islamic State Media
The Islamic State markedly increased its international scope in 2014 and notably accelerated its incitement campaign against its expanded list of declared enemies around the world. IS’ approach is perhaps best encapsulated by the speeches of Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, the organization’s spokesman at the time. Al-Adnani pursued a highly aggressive strategy in calling upon IS followers to act in accordance with their perceived obligation to defend their religion.  

Al-Adnani’s “Indeed, Your Lord Is Ever Watchful” speech was perhaps his most consequential and would set the tone for the broader movement’s violent activity around the globe. One particular segment of this speech would go on to be clipped, paraphrased, and included in official IS propaganda as well as unofficial pro-IS media content translated into numerous languages.

He exclaimed: “O muwahhidīn … do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawāghīt … If you can kill a … disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers. Both of them are considered to be waging war [the civilian by belonging to a state waging war against the Muslims].”
 
Although he did not explicitly call for the use of fire, his directive would lead IS propaganda operatives, pro-IS media networks, and online supporters to generate media content towards this end, improvise, and disseminate this messaging.

The following year, al-Adnani purported that “any Muslim who has the ability to shed a single drop of crusader blood” must do so “whether with an explosive device, a bullet, a knife, a car, a rock, or even a boot or a fist.”
 
Out of these simplified tactical recommendations emerged a broader emphasis on using fire to inflict damage upon the enemies of the Islamic State. Arson is amongst the simpler forms of attack and requires only a few easily accessible items and substances.

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Naturally, the Islamic State has made it a point to promote and celebrate the use of fire in official media publications such as Rumiyah magazine, their weekly newsletter Al-Naba, and a video by Al-Hayat.

The January 2017 issue of Al-Hayat’s Rumiyah magazine features an article titled “Just Terror Tactics” exalting IS-inspired attackers and calling upon others to follow their example. The piece is centred upon “Arson Attacks” and includes subsections on “How to Make a Molotov Cocktail and Napalm,” “Steps for Making a Molotov Cocktail,” “Steps for Making a Napalm Molotov Cocktail,” “How to Use the Molotov Cocktail,” “Ideal Target Locations,” “Execution,” “Multiple Simultaneous Attacks,” and “Claiming Responsibility for the Attack.”

The Rumiyah article is highly detailed and, in addition to carefully walking the reader through the process, discusses how “throughout history, incendiary attacks have played a significant role in modern and guerilla warfare, as well as in ‘lone wolf’ terrorism.” In terms of effectiveness, IS says arson attacks “have been behind the destruction of towns, neighbourhoods, and public, private, and governmental property, while likewise claiming numerous lives.” They add how “with some simple and readily accessible materials (i.e. flammables), one can easily terrorize an entire nation.” Incendiary attacks “can destroy the property of the Crusaders and, in some cases, kill several of them, sending them from the fire of this world to the inferno of Hellfire.”
 
The Islamic State also explains how “many flammables are a part of everyday living, arson attacks are extremely difficult to prevent,” and the procurement of these substances and materials “should not arouse any suspicion.”

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In May 2019, IS claimed responsibility for a series of wildfires in Iraq and Syria, boasting of the economic damage inflicted and how “many agricultural lands have been destroyed” which included “tons of crops.” IS addressed the “soldiers of the caliphate” and informed them that they can inflict damage on their enemies by igniting “millions of acres… their plantations, fields and homes, as well as their economic foundation.” The Islamic State’s official media branches have frequently claimed responsibility for, and released visuals of, incendiary attacks against political, economic, civilian, and security targets in numerous conflict zones around the world.

In July 2020, the Islamic State’s Al-Hayat Media Center released “Incite the Believers,” a video specifically focused on incendiary attacks. The narrator, in a similar way to the Rumiyah article, cites the history of the tactic and notes how “people have used it since ancient times to harm their enemies.” He justifies such attacks as retaliation for how coalition forces “bomb with their fire … cities and villages.”

Speaking to the simplicity of the required objects, he describes a match or a lighter as being “that weapon which is in reach to every hand and even children are proficient in using it.” And to further highlight the efficacy of arson, he points to the death, destruction, and economic damage caused by wildfires in Australia, Greece, and the US. The video then concludes with advice on scouting out locations and tips on how to properly dispose of the evidence once the act is completed.

Pro-Islamic State Media

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The Islamic State has constructed a robust organizational media apparatus that is supported by a global network of online sympathizers and regional/local pro-IS propaganda groups. These supporting elements produce videos, design images, and make memes reinforcing the Islamic State’s messaging. And, accordingly, these actors have followed suit in promoting incendiary attacks against the enemies of the Islamic State.

A few weeks ago, for example, the pro-Islamic State Hind Province (ISHP) Voice of Hind magazine urged its readers to torch vehicles and provided a bullet point list of instructions on how to conduct such attacks and avoid detection. In India, ISHP has publicized its arson attacks against police barracks, as well as a temple and agricultural land owned by Hindus.

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In December of 2020, online IS supporters created and disseminated visuals with accompanying French and English nasheeds calling for attacks in America, France, Belgium, Russia, and elsewhere. They encouraged the use of fire against these countries and their interests, urging IS supporters to “turn their night into day and their day to flames and flames to terror and devastation” and to burn their “house, car, business, or destroy their cultivation.”

Islamic State-Inspired Incendiary Plots and Attacks
Incendiary attacks by IS insurgents are quite common in active conflict zones, but there have also been a number of incidents throughout the West and in other areas with comparatively low levels of IS activity. It is difficult to ascertain the degree to which the perpetrators and plotters were influenced by the Islamic State’s specific calls for arson, however, there have been some rather noteworthy cases.

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In 2015, four Arab Israelis were charged with forming an IS cell and planning Molotov cocktail attacks against police — the suspects had allegedly firebombed businesses that sell alcohol prior to their arrest. In 2016, there was an IS-inspired arson attack against an Islamic community centre in Sweden, three men burned down a Shiite mosque in Australia, and a cell of women tried to ignite a car filled with gas canisters outside of the Notre Dame Cathedral in France. In 2019, an Australian man torched a truck laden with gas cylinders before stabbing someone to death. In 2020, an IS supporter committed a string of arson attacks against shops owned by Turkish immigrants in Germany, the Islamic State claimed its first attack in the Maldives after jihadis burned four docked boats, and a man was arrested in Russia for plotting attacks while in possession of Molotov cocktails.

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Fewer than 48 hours after Abu Muhammad al-Adnani’s June 29th, 2014 declaration of the caliphate, the Islamic State’s (IS) Al-Furqan Media Foundation released the newly nominated caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s historic ‘A Message to the Mujahidin and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan’ audio statement, wherein he spoke of “the extreme torture and degradation of Muslims in East Turkistan” and also excoriated China for “preventing” the faithful “from receiving their most basic rights.” The speech marked a new phase in the Islamic State’s media warfare activity against Beijing. Such anti-China narratives have since gained rhetorical traction within the wider movement’s discourse, have been purveyed by a broader range of IS elements, and have been championed by the organization’s more recently established regional branches in Asia.

The Islamic State’s criticism of China is based on the government’s domestic security clampdown in, and its perceived occupation of, Xinjiang as well as an expanding list of accused Chinese foreign policy transgressions. Additionally, the IS movement has actively taken up the ‘East Turkistan’ cause, incorporated Uyghur fighters into its milieu, and produced propaganda content specifically designed for Muslims in Xinjiang.

Official Islamic State Media
The Islamic State movement’s history dates to the 1990s and members of the organization’s previous iterations had before voiced criticism of China as well as support for Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Soon after the Urumqi riots in 2009, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), part of Al-Qaeda’s international network at the time, released a 39-minute-long martyrdom video advocating for the Uyghurs, threatening Beijing, and urging violent action against China.

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However, it was not until the organization’s formal split with Al-Qaeda and its official declaration of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014 that the network really began to intensify its messaging and more consistently direct its media wrath toward China. The greater internationalization of the Islamic State’s scope drew China in from the margins and placed it more firmly into the movement’s sights.

The Islamic State’s leadership set a clear tone for the organization from the time of the caliphate’s inception in the summer of 2014. On July 1st of that year, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi spoke forwardly about how “Muslims’ rights are forcibly seized in China.” He then set forth a value-positive case for IS as a unifying force and publicly confirmed the presence of Chinese fighters in the organization’s ranks, stating, “it is a khilafah that has gathered the … Chinese, … American, French, German, and Australian.”

The next year, in May 2015, he questioned Saudi inaction on the plight of the Uyghurs, asking, “where is the relief of the rulers of Mecca and Medina for the Muslims in China?” Speaking about anti-IS forces the following December, he alleged, “if it were an Islamic coalition, atheist China would not have supported it and requested to join it” and proceeded to call upon Muslims to rise and “support your people and your brothers in Sham, Iraq, … Turkistan, Bangladesh, and in every place.”

The Islamic State’s spokesman at the time, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, lamented in September 2014 about the “hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, and imprisoned Muslims, and the millions displaced … all over the world at the hands of the Jews, crusaders, Rafidah, Nusayriyyah, Hindus, atheists, and apostates, in … China, the Caucasus, and elsewhere,” then later scorned the Chinese “atheists” in 2016 for committing “massacres, crimes and atrocities against the Muslims in … Turkistan.”

The Islamic State movement’s media approach towards Beijing has been distinctly bellicose, and the organization has been notably explicit in its criticisms and threats. Al-Hayat Media Center’s Dabiq magazine (July 2014 - July 2016) contained several references to China, while its successor series, Rumiyah (September 2016 - September 2017), also included multiple mentions throughout. The publications featured segments of Baghdadi and Adnani speeches touching upon Chinese affairs, and both magazines spoke of reconquering East Turkistan. During this period, maps illustrating the caliphate’s territorial ambitions were circulated online which included swaths of Xinjiang.

Quite strikingly, the ‘Wali of Khurasan Shaykh Hafidh Sa’id Khan’ spoke from Afghanistan about the necessity of geographical expansion into China in an interview with Dabiq magazine:

Wilayat Khurasan has great importance to Islam and the Muslims. It had once been under the authority of the Muslims, along with the regions surrounding it. Afterwards, the secularist and Rafidi murtaddin conquered some of these regions, and the cow-worshipping Hindus and atheist Chinese conquered other nearby regions, as is the case in parts of Kashmir and Turkistan. So the Wilayah, by Allah’s permission, is a gate to re-conquering all these regions until they are ruled once more by Allah’s law, and so the territory of the blessed khilafah is expanded.

Al-Hayat’s propaganda operatives have made it a point to emphasize Chinese association with Russia, Iran, Syria, and the broader web of anti-IS alliances, and, likewise, the Islamic State, in its weekly Al-Naba newsletter, has criticized China for supporting Bashar al-Assad’s government in what is described as an open war against Muslims.

The Islamic State’s media apparatus also released a series of targeted productions aimed specifically at Xinjiang’s Muslims while also providing them with translations of its publications. An October 2014 video with Chinese subtitles celebrated “a Chinese brother before he did a martyrdom operation (suicide bomb attack) in the town of Suleiman.” In July 2015, a video released through Al-Hayat Media Center featured an 80-year-old cleric from Xinjiang urging viewers to join IS and kill “Chinese infidels” also showing young Uyghurs in a classroom with one child proclaiming, “O Chinese infidels ... we will come to you and raise this flag in Turkistan.” In November 2015, the Islamic State confirmed the execution of Chinese hostage Fan Jinghui and featured a full-page spread of him in Dabiq magazine, and the following month, Al-Hayat Media Center released a Mandarin-language nasheed calling upon Muslims to “wake up” and “take up weapons to fight” China.

Then to ring in New Year 2016, an individual or group identifying with IS hacked a website belonging to Tsinghua University, one of China’s most prestigious academic institutions, and posted a photo and audio message calling for holy war. A February 2017 Al-Furat Media video featuring Uyghur foreign fighters included a segment in which a militant threatened China before executing an accused informant: “Oh, you Chinese who do not understand … We are the soldiers of the caliphate, and we will come to you … with the tongues of our weapons, to shed blood like rivers and avenging the oppressed.” A short while later, Amaq News Agency claimed responsibility for killing two Chinese nationals in southwestern Pakistan.

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As a rising economic dynamo on the world stage, China is increasingly viewed as a colonial and imperial power by jihadis, sometimes drawing comparisons to the British East India Company. In 2019, the Islamic State published an article in Al-Naba that discussed China’s expanding global influence and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The organization accused Beijing of using “the method of investment” to “strengthen its ties with tyrannical governments.” IS called upon Muslims to prepare for a long war against China and urged attacks on Chinese nationals, interests, and diplomatic targets. The directive implored readers “to wage war against the idolators of China everywhere” urging “killing and capture … seizure and sabotage.” IS surmised that militarily, “it will not be long before [the Chinese] intervene [in the Muslim world] directly through war with soldiers, aircraft, missiles, and warships.”

The Islamic State-supporting Al-Battar Media Foundation threateningly questioned the BRI’s feasibility, asking, “can China complete the silk road project which because of it they killed Muslims?” The statement iterates that “the Islamic State declared war on China in direct backing and support for Uyghur Muslims,” and asserts that the “war includes all the interests of the communist state.”

China has also been criticized for mass-scale resource exploitation and causing environmental degradation in Muslim lands. An Al-Naba article published earlier this year speculated that “Chinese companies are ambitious to find for themselves a foothold” in Mozambique’s “huge reserves of different natural resources,” and it was reported in August of 2020 that IS-linked insurgents were targeting Chinese-owned sawmills in the country.

Pro-Islamic State Media
IS’ anti-China narratives gradually spread eastwards — from the traditional core of command-and-control power in Iraq and Syria to the organization’s other regional branches in Asia, including the Islamic State’s Hind Province (ISHP), Pakistan Province (ISPP), and Khurasan Province (ISKP) — as it built out its global network of militant hubs. During this process, the Islamic State’s list of stated grievances against China expanded and became more nuanced.

Naturally, the groups operating in closer proximity to China have a more intimate understanding of and experience with Chinese activity and influence in the region. The Voice of Hind (VOH) magazine, a pro-ISHP publication, demonstrates this kind of regional familiarity, as does the official and supporter-generated propaganda content from the ISKP media ecosystem.

Issue 6 of VOH, published in July of 2020, includes a sizable passage on Chinese policy in Xinjiang, assuring Uyghurs that IS has not forgotten their plight and vowing to avenge them. Earlier this year, the magazine again reminded readers of their “obligation of fighting the disbelievers” noting how “it does not matter if the people of the disbelief are represented by Europe, America, Russia, China, or India.” Subsequent magazine issues have described China as an imperialist power and referred to the “Chinese atheists” as “the Gods” of the Pakistani government.  

Covid-19
The Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan and the virus’ ultimate progression to become a global pandemic was a powerful impetus for the proliferation of anti-China jihadi sentiment and rhetoric. During the early months of 2020, the Islamic State organization and its supporters portrayed the contagion as divine retribution against China for the government’s harsh treatment of Xinjiang’s Muslim population, referring to the coronavirus as a “soldier of Allah.”

Pro-IS Quraysh Media was actively producing online posters of this kind with one image featuring an individual wearing a hazmat suit and respirator that read, “China: coronavirus … A promise is a debt we must not forget.” Islamic State supporters on Telegram celebrated the damage inflicted on China and posted messages such as: “May God punish China with death, as they had brought death to Muslims,” “as China beats Uyghur Muslims, coronavirus is now beating China,” and “the virus is God’s army that destroys the kafir (infidels).”

In Indonesia, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) detected a surge in Islamist anti-Chinese sentiment on social media with the onset of the coronavirus’ spread. This is a country where Islamic State supporters have frequently threatened China, and the IS-linked perpetrator who stabbed former chief security minister Wiranto in 2019 had allegedly discussed attacking Chinese workers in reprisal for the government’s repression of Uyghurs.

Islamic State Khurasan Province Targets Taliban-China Relations
The emergence of ISKP in 2015 raised a series of security concerns in Beijing, and both Dabiq and Rumiyah detailed Chinese anxieties about the specter of Islamic State operational expansion in Afghanistan following US withdrawal. The Islamic State Khurasan Province is primarily active in Afghanistan, though not exclusively, and has developed a robust regional media apparatus supported by local pro-ISKP propagandists.

The Islamic State Khurasan Province and pro-ISKP elements have, in part, focused their aim on the Taliban’s relations with China, the United States, and Russia to delegitimize the organization and frame it as an ally to, and proxy for, the great power enemies of Islam — a shortlist on which China is increasing included. Researcher Riccardo Valle pointed out how IS supporters even launched a hashtag campaign on social media accusing the Taliban of being “Blackwater in white.”

A recent production by Khalid Media, a local ISKP media outlet, included multiple clips of Taliban officials socializing and shaking hands with Chinese diplomats while also showing images of Uyghurs being detained and abused by security forces in Xinjiang, and a video released by the pro-Islamic State Asawirti Media on August 20th displayed an image of a Taliban delegate greeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Their intent in doing this, of course, is to highlight the alleged hypocrisy and moral corruption of the self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Valle noted how in an August 14th statement released through Al-Millat Media, ISKP’s official propaganda organ, Khalid Omar Khaksar took a similar line in chiding the Taliban for their cordial public-facing relations with Beijing, describing China as guilty of arresting Muslim women for wearing hijab. He faults the Taliban as responsible for their sisters and daughters descending into apostasy and, thus, argues that the group will make no effort to help the oppressed Muslim women of China.

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Speaking on the Taliban’s conduct and diplomatic ties with declared enemy states of IS, an August 19th editorial in Al-Naba remarked:

Whenever we consider the circumstances and programs of the drum beaters and promoters of the model of the 'new Taliban,' we become more certain of the soundness of the path that the Islamic State has adopted to support Tawheed and establish the Shari'a, for supporting Islam does not pass through the hotels of Qatar nor the embassies of Russia, China, and Iran!

Similarly, a statement released through Khurasan Wilayah News criticized Taliban representatives for their luxurious accommodations in Beijing, Moscow, and Doha in addition to a host of other related offenses.

This month’s Voice of Hind stated that the “murtad Taliban … just like their masters the murtad ISI, lick the boots of the crusaders and now Russia and China as well,” again contrasting them with “the soldiers of the khilafah” who “do not bow down to anyone except Allah.”

Assessing the Islamic State’s Anti-China Hostility
The Islamic State movement has markedly increased its anti-China rhetoric since 2014. In addition, such narratives are being purveyed by a more diffuse and varied range of IS elements.

And for the sake of accuracy, it is necessary to contextualize this assessment by acknowledging that China is not, currently, a top-tier priority for most Islamic State actors. Despite its multitude of accused transgressions, China’s foreign policy in the Muslim world has been much less militaristic than the US or Russia, for instance, and thus it has received comparatively less media and operational attention from IS.

But the direction of momentum is quite clear. The Islamic State’s mediatic escalation is pronounced, China continues to rise on a scale that is structurally unignorable for the globe-spanning IS network, and anti-China ideological currents and sentiments are permeating deeper throughout the broader movement.

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Visual Citations: Image 1 and 4 were sourced from Jihadology.net