Subscribe now

Since the outbreak of the US/Israel–Iran war on February 28, 2026, the Islamic State (IS) has treated the conflict as both a propaganda windfall and an operational opportunity. Through a sequence of Al‑Naba editorials and a renewed tempo of inspired plotting, the group has attempted to reinsert itself into the center of global jihadist dynamics and to re-energize attacks in the Western homelands. IS‑linked attackers have again struck the U.S. homeland, with the Old Dominion University shooting standing out as the most significant successful operation since the January 1, 2025, New Orleans truck attack on Bourbon Street. At the same time, the narrative constructed around the war and Ramadan is explicitly framed as global, which heightens the threat not only to the United States but also to Europe and the broader West, where IS has a long record of exploiting external wars to incite “lone actor” and small‑cell operations. The recently disrupted plot in Spain, linked to IS branches in Somalia and the Sahel, further demonstrates that the current wave of incitement is knitting together multiple regional branches into a threat network that directly targets Europe. The IS Khurasan Province (ISKP) arrest in Italy earlier this year further indicates the continued expansion of the organization’s more multivectored external operations strategy and threat to the West.

IS Incitement Propaganda and Operational Momentum Leading Up to the Conflict
In the months leading up to the US/Israel vs Iran conflict, the Islamic State’s 2025 attack and plot campaign created a foundation for intensified calls for violence against Jews, Christians, and the wider Western public across North America, Europe, and the Pacific. From New Orleans and Bondi Beach to Villach, Berlin, Mulhouse, Bielefeld, Manchester, and disrupted conspiracies in the United States, Europe, and Turkey, the group repeatedly targeted religious holidays, memorials, markets, nightlife districts, and other soft targets, thus turning Christmas, New Year, and Jewish festivals into focal points for terror. Bondi, the Hanukkah mass shooting at Sydney’s waterfront that killed 15 and injured more than 40 on December 14, 2025, became both the apex of this wave and a springboard for renewed incitement in early 2026, as IS media and supporter channels treated it as a model for lone‑actor and small‑cell operations.

Al‑Naba quickly codified Bondi’s significance. “The Pride of Sydney” celebrated the “glorious deed of Sydney,” boasted that “the Jews are bleeding in Australia’s streets,” and urged believers who had absorbed IS’ “jihadist code” online to attack Jews and “Crusaders” at festivals and gatherings, presenting online guidance as sufficient for a single reader to “set out like the whirlwind” against synagogues, churches, and holiday crowds. A subsequent editorial, “The Season of Terrorism,” framed Christmas, New Year, and Jewish holidays as a “season of terror and anxiety” for “Crusader” societies, argued that heightened security and disrupted celebrations showed the battle had been “transferred to their homes,” and urged low‑tech violence such as vehicle rammings and attacks with heavy tools so that “there be a kill with every blow.” These texts explicitly folded Jews and Christians into a single enemy category “from Yobi to Bondi” and treated any Western crowd as legitimate blood.

Read more

Subscribe now

It had previously been identified and examined as one of the kamikaze drones (One-Way Attack UAVs, OWA-UAVs) employed by pro-Iranian groups in their recent attacks. (Articles: Kamikaze Drones Used by Pro-Iranian Militant Groups in Iraq and Lebanon and Islamic Resistance in Iraq Using Stealth Kamikaze Drones)

The first guided missile to be introduced in the conflict was a short-range ballistic missile known as “The Striker” (Arabic: “Al-Qāriʿ”). It initially appeared in propaganda footage released by “Guardians of Blood Brigades” (Arabic: “Saraya Awliya al-Dam”), a subgroup affiliated with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. In the following period, it was used in attacks targeting U.S. bases in Iraq during the escalation of hostilities in the region.

Read more

Subscribe now

On March 25, 2026, Morocco dismantled an Islamic State (IS)‑affiliated cell operating across its northern cities and Spain — an operation that offers a concrete glimpse of how Islamic State Somalia (IS‑S) is becoming embedded in a wider ecosystem of transnational support structures that stretch from East Africa to Europe. While the underlying case centers on a joint Moroccan-Spanish operation led by Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations and Spanish security services, it also illustrates the kind of recruitment, online indoctrination, and travel facilitation pipelines that IS‑S increasingly seeks to exploit as it internationalizes and looks beyond its Puntland strongholds towards North African and European networks. In this sense, the March 2026 Morocco-Spain cell can be read as part of the broader architecture through which IS‑S content circulates into diaspora communities, sympathizers seek to move toward active combat zones, and intermediaries help connect would‑be recruits to Islamic State nodes abroad, including in Somalia.

Viewed through the lens of IS‑S’s evolution, the activities described in this case underscore three overlapping threat vectors: external operations, guided plots, and inspired attacks. External operations become more plausible as cells in Morocco and Spain develop the capability to channel money, recruits, or operational information to and from hubs like IS‑S, effectively serving as forward extensions of a Somalia-centered command and facilitation system. Guided plots are enabled when individuals in such cells receive direction, encouragement, or technical input from actors linked to IS‑S, whether on target selection, timing, or attack methods, turning local networks into instruments of a geographically distant leadership. Finally, the focus on propaganda, online radicalization, and recruitment highlights the enduring risk of inspired attacks, in which self‑radicalized supporters in Morocco, Spain, or elsewhere in Europe consume IS‑S branded or aligned content and then act on its calls to violence without direct tasking, making the March 2026 Moroccan-Spanish case a warning sign of how IS‑S’s growing reach into European spaces can translate into diverse and hard-to-predict attack scenarios. Examining this case also serves as an entry point to have a closer examination of how IS‑S itself emerged and evolved into a pivotal node within the global Islamic State movement.

IS-S has evolved from a small splinter group in Puntland into one of the most strategically important components of the international Islamic State organization and global movement, but this rise now coincides with heavy military pressure and battlefield losses. Since late 2024, a large-scale Puntland campaign, often referred to as Operation Hilaac and backed by U.S. airpower and other international support, has overrun key strongholds in the Cal Miskaad and Al Miskad mountains, killed hundreds of fighters including many foreigners, captured senior commanders, and reduced IS‑S’s territorial presence in Bari region by well over half according to Puntland officials, forcing surviving cadres into scattered hideouts and stressing the group’s command and control and recruitment pipelines. Yet even as a heavily degraded IS‑S absorbs these losses on the ground, it continues to operate as a regional and transnational command, financial, and propaganda hub with a history of international recruitment, overseas facilitation, and plots, and this combination of attrition at home and persistence in its transnational functions underpins its emerging role as a concrete external operations threat, particularly to Europe and North America.

Historical Background on IS-S’s Internationalization
IS‑S emerged in October 2015 when Abdulqadir Mumin defected from al-Shabaab with roughly thirty fighters in Puntland and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s central leadership. Initially a marginal faction, its prominence rose after it briefly captured the port town of Qandala in 2016 and was recognized as a province in 2017. It consolidated two main operational zones: mountain strongholds in Puntland’s Al Madow range and urban cells in Mogadishu, from which it has conducted dozens of attacks annually against Somali security forces, Puntland units, AU missions, and government officials. Despite a modest manpower estimate of 500 to 700 fighters, IS‑S’s strategic importance has grown disproportionately to its size because it increasingly functions as a regional hub for coordination, finance, and transnational recruitment.

This transformation centers on the Al Karrar regional office, established in northern Somalia by late 2018 under Mumin’s leadership. Al Karrar acts as a combined command and financial center responsible for Islamic State activity across eastern, central, and southern Africa, including Islamic State Central Africa Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Mozambique Province. United States and United Nations reporting now describe Al Karrar as one of the movement’s most important leadership and revenue generation structures worldwide, with some assessments suggesting that Mumin may hold a broader global role beyond Somalia.

Read more

Subscribe now

On the night of March 11 to 12, fighters linked to the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) mounted a coordinated assault on Chinese gold mining facilities in Muchacha and nearby Mavuvu in Mambasa territory, Ituri province, in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). People were killed or kidnapped while others fled the area. This ISCAP attack on Chinese run-mining sites in the DRC is notable not only for its brutality, but because it may mark an expansion of Islamic State’s anti-China campaign from Asia into Africa, where previous IS attacks on Chinese interests and nationals have been almost exclusively concentrated in South and Central Asia. The operation in northeastern Ituri therefore needs to be read alongside a nearly decade-long record of Islamic State (IS), and especially Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), targeting Chinese nationals, projects, and symbols as part of a broader propaganda and operational strategy that casts China as both an oppressor of Muslims in Xinjiang and an exploitative power across conflict-affected regions. Furthermore, it marks the second IS attack against Chinese interests in less than two months — the other being a suicide bombing in Kabul in mid January.

For this latest attack, soldiers from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which had pledged allegiance to ISCAP, mounted the assault in Ituri. Targets included installations linked to the Chinese Kimia or Kimiya Mining Enterprise and MCC Resources, which operate industrial gold sites in the area. The attackers first struck Congolese army positions guarding the perimeter, then overran the mine itself, according to official statements and subsequent reporting. Islamic State propaganda released soon after claimed responsibility and circulated photographs showing fighters attacking the barracks, entering the Chinese-run site, torching vehicles and heavy equipment, and burning workers’ living quarters and camp structures. Images and local reports described extensive destruction: trucks, tractors, processing infrastructure, accommodation blocks burnt, and with the Muchacha site left heavily damaged.

Read more

Subscribe now

It had previously been identified and examined as one of the kamikaze drones (One-Way Attack UAVs, OWA-UAVs) employed by pro-Iranian groups in their recent attacks. (Article: Kamikaze Drones Used by Pro-Iranian Militant Groups in Iraq and Lebanon)

More recently, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) has begun employing a new model of kamikaze drones. These drones are the Iranian-manufactured “Hadid-110”.

Read more

Subscribe now

Following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the intense strikes carried out by Israel and the United States against Iran, several Iran-backed groups operating in Iraq and Lebanon launched a series of attacks targeting Israel, the United States’ assets abroad, and their allies, some of which were carried out using kamikaze drones, also known as One-Way Attack Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (OWA-UAVs).

Read more

Subscribe now

The Kurdistan Freedom Party (Partî Azadîyê Kurdistan, PAK) is an armed separatist militant organization operating in Iran, while its headquarters are located within the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq.

The PAK organization maintains cells in several cities across Iran, including the capital, Tehran, and carried out a number of armed attacks against Iranian security forces during the anti-regime protests that began in December 2025.

Read more

Subscribe now

A deadly bombing at the Chinese Noodle restaurant in Kabul’s Shahr‑e‑Naw district, which killed at least six Afghans and one Chinese national and injured many others, marks the latest flashpoint in the steadily intensifying confrontation between the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISKP) and China. Claimed by the local Islamic State branch, the attack struck a venue run by a Chinese Muslim from Xinjiang in a heavily guarded area of the capital, starkly illustrating both the vulnerability of Chinese nationals in Afghanistan and the limits of Taliban security guarantees at a moment when Beijing is pressing Kabul to deliver stronger protection for its citizens and investments.

The official Islamic State (IS) claim noted that the suicide bomber “entered the hotel and stayed there for nearly 30 minutes, waiting for a large number of Chinese to gather, before detonating his explosive vest among them, causing significant destruction to the hotel.” “Chinese hotel visited by Chinese nationals in the secure “Shahr-e Naw” area, which houses embassies and government offices and is inhabited by officials and foreigners in the center of Kabul”. The statement concludes by putting China on notice, asserting “The Islamic State in Afghanistan has placed Chinese nationals on its target list, especially in light of the increasing crimes committed by the Chinese government against the persecuted Uyghur Muslims.”

Read more

Subscribe now

For over a decade, Islamic State (IS) and its affiliates, such as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), have refined a strategic doctrine that transforms great power rivalry, regional conflicts, and stretched Western security resources into operational advantages. As geopolitical tensions intensify and great power competition accelerates across multiple theaters, U.S.-China strategic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific over Taiwan and trade wars, Russia-West confrontation in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Western retrenchment from the Sahel enabling Russian influence expansion, and regional power struggles involving Iran, Israel, and Gulf states, IS has positioned its jihadist operations within these fault lines to maximum effect.

The recent Al-Naba editorials (issues 526, 527, and 528) released between December 11, 2025, and January 1, 2026, represent not an isolated surge in incitement, but the culmination of a long-established pattern: capitalizing on divided attention, stretched resources, and the inability of competing powers to maintain unified counterterrorism coordination. This doctrine, articulated through sophisticated propaganda, validated through high-profile attacks, and sustained across multiple theaters, reveals IS as an organization that has internalized the mechanics of asymmetric warfare in a multipolar world fractured by competing strategic priorities.

Read more

Subscribe now

The beginning of 2026 was marked in Germany by a serious attack on the country’s power grid, affecting hundreds of thousands of people in Berlin during the cold early days of January, followed by another attack that got less attention, just outside of Düsseldorf in the village of Erkrath. Both attacks were acts of arson claimed by “left-wing” groups.

In the early morning hours of January 3rd, electrical distribution cables crossing a bridge over the Teltow Canal leading to the gas-fired Lichterfelde power plant were seen in flames. What was soon determined to be an act of arson disrupted power to some 45,000 homes and 2,200 businesses across southwest Berlin—including hospitals and other critical infrastructure—according to German and Western news outlets. For many, the power took up to five days to be restored. The attack was claimed by a known militant eco-activist group, Vulkangruppe—or “Volcano Group”. They denied that so many people would be affected when they released their claim the following day. Major news outlets further report that the effects of the outage included burglaries, train stoppages, and heating outages.

Vulkangruppe has been active since circa 2011 and has a notable resume of similar non-lethal sabotage actions, mainly arson attacks, targeting infrastructure, Big Tech, industrialists, and other perceived enemies of the earth and the environment. In 2024, they attacked an electricity pylon using an improvised incendiary device (IID), shutting down a Berlin-area Tesla auto factory for several days.

It is important, in this article, to examine sections of the claim that was released on an anti-authoritarian website the morning after the direct action. The header for the claim, which was repeated, reads “Shutting down fossil fuel power plants is manual labor. Courage. Militant New Year’s wishes.” It then begins:

We can stop the overexploitation of the earth. The earth is exhausted, depleted, burned, mistreated, set on fire, violated, destroyed by the greed of energy […] We know that we must stop this destruction […] Tonight, we successfully sabotaged the gas power plant in the Berlin district of Lichterfelde. There were power outages in the wealthy districts of Wannsee, Zehlendorf, and Nikolassee. The goal of the action was not the power outages, but the fossil fuel sector. We apologize to the less wealthy people in southwestern Berlin. For the many villa owners in these districts, our compassion is limited […] The attack on the gas power plant is an act of self-defense and international solidarity with all those who protect the earth and life. Infrastructures that serve the ‘technological attack’ and promote the destruction of the earth can be sabotaged. Fossil fuel energy production can be stopped. Smart cities, which is what Berlin is supposed to become, can be avoided […] For us, it is clear that we have at all times ruled out any risk of endangering human lives…

Read more

Subscribe now

It is widely known that the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela (Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana, FANB) have recently acquired a variety of weapons from several countries, most notably Russia and China. These acquisitions include MANPADS, Surface-to-Air missile systems, sniper rifles, and automatic rifles.

In a recently released video, several Venezuelan soldiers are equipped with 7.62×39mm KLF assault rifles manufactured by Iran’s Defense Industries Organization (DIO).

Read more

Subscribe now

Islamic State’s (IS) 2025 campaign of attacks and plots in the West shows how the group continues to weaponize online spaces to deadly effect, targeting Jewish, Christian, and general populations across North America, Europe, and the Pacific. From New Orleans and Bondi Beach to Villach, Berlin, Mulhouse, Bielefeld, Manchester, and disrupted conspiracies in Canada, the United States and across Europe, IS propaganda has turned sacred times and ordinary public spaces into preferred theatres of terror, with attack planning repeatedly intersecting with Christmas, New Year and Jewish holidays.

Islamic State has capitalized on the post–October 7 environment by sharpening its focus on explicitly anti‑Jewish and anti‑Christian violence, casting both communities as core enemies and urging followers to strike them “in their homes, markets and festivals.” This is not a new departure but an extension of a longstanding position: from its inception IS has vilified, threatened and repeatedly targeted Jews, Christians and surrounding Western publics in its propaganda and operations, and now presents any crowd of Western civilians—Jewish, Christian or otherwise—as a legitimate target so long as it can be labeled part of a “Crusader” society.

Religious and Holiday Targeting Across the West

The Bondi Beach shooting, where a father and son killed 15 people and injured more than 40 at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s waterfront, illustrates the convergence of offline violence, religious hatred and online incitement. Authorities confirmed IS inspired the attack, and analysis notes the pair’s travel to the southern Philippines, a hub for IS-aligned militants, before returning to target Jewish worshippers and families at a festival of faith; Bondi immediately reverberated across IS-linked channels, where the attackers were praised and copycat violence during the holiday period was openly encouraged.

This reaction was codified in a new al-Naba editorial titled “The Pride of Sydney” that framed the “glorious deed of Sydney” as a model for future lone-actor attacks on Jews and Christians. The text dismisses critics who claim IS does not truly fight the Jews, boasts that “the Jews [are] bleeding in Australia’s streets,” and urges supporters who have absorbed its “jihadist code” online to seek out Jewish and “Crusader” targets at festivals and gatherings, presenting cyberspace-delivered guidance as a deliberate strategy in which a single believer who reads IS material in Arabic or translation can “set out like the whirlwind” against synagogues, churches and holiday crowds with little preparation, leaving Western states in what it calls an “unending conundrum of attrition.”

Read more

Subscribe now

AQAP’s latest statement fits into a broader trend of Al‑Qaeda branches adopting increasingly hostile rhetoric and kinetic action against Chinese interests, even when Uyghurs or Xinjiang are not explicitly mentioned. Beyond AQAP’s own messaging, groups such as Al‑Shabaab have used attacks, kidnappings, and propaganda to frame China as an adversarial power whose economic and political footprint in Africa is fair game for jihadist violence, while JNIM has targeted foreign workers without building a specific anti‑China narrative. As China rises as a great‑power rival to the United States and deepens its influence in Muslim‑majority regions, militant focus on Beijing is likely to intensify.

AQAP’s New Threat to China

In a recent audio statement circulated on jihadist channels, AQAP emir Sheikh Saad bin Atef al‑Awlaqi opens by praising “all the heroic operations carried out against Jews and Americans throughout the world,” describing them as part of a righteous struggle against a “dual evil.” He urges “every honorable and zealous Muslim, and every free, courageous, and noble person” to “take the initiative and hasten to eradicate this dual evil: Jews and Americans, wherever they may be found,” branding them “the root, substance, and filthy swamp of all calamity” and “the raw material, root, and vile seed of evil.”

Al‑Awlaqi then pivots to China, declaring that “the pagan, infidel Chinese regime must understand that we are monitoring every move it makes against our Uyghur Muslim brothers.”

Read more

Subscribe now

In 2025, Russian forces conducted several operations against Islamic State (IS) cells operating in Moscow, Pskov, and Dagestan. As a result of these operations, numerous IS militants were killed, and various weapons were seized.

Read more

Subscribe now

On March 31, Al-Qaeda’s Somalian branch, Al-Shabaab, released a 32-minute-long video through its Al-Kataib propaganda outlet. The footage includes propaganda against the Somali government and also displays the group's militants training at the Sheekh Bashiir Sheekh Yuusuf military camp.

During the training, militants were seen using more than one Chinese-made 12.7x108mm Type 85 heavy machine gun.

Read more

Subscribe now

On January 21^st, 2025, Islamic State’s Khurasan Province (ISKP) jihadists using automatic rifles shot a Chinese mining worker to death in Afghanistan’s Northeast Takhar Province while being driven with his interpreter to the Dasht-e-Qala district when their vehicle was ambushed. The Islamic State (IS) officially claimed the attack not long after, which is the latest in ISKP’s intensifying campaign of targeting foreign nationals.

ISKP has become the spearhead of the global IS movement’s anti-China militant and propaganda campaign. Previous violence against Chinese nationals includes the May 2017 kidnapping and execution of two Chinese teachers in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, the deadly December 2022 assault on a Kabul hotel frequented by Chinese nationals, and a January 2022 suicide bombing outside of the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry building just as a Chinese delegation was scheduled to arrive.

ISKP has a growing list of grievances with China, which have driven its anti-China propaganda rhetoric and actions. These include the persecution and religious suppression of Uyghur Muslims, China’s perceived imperialism and economic exploitation of Islamic resources, its foreign policy and relations with IS’s stated enemies such as Pakistan and the Taliban, and more.

Read more

Subscribe now

In 2024 and 2025, the State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG) carried out operations against Islamic State (IS) Cells in various locations, including the capital Tbilisi.

In these SSSG operations, militants associated with IS were arrested, and various explosives, bombs, and weapons were seized.

In an operation conducted in Tbilisi in 2024, the SSSG seized a Soviet-made AKM assault rifle along with 7.62x39mm ammunition. It is seen that the fixed buttstock of the gun was removed to increase its concealment.

Read more

Subscribe now

It was previously known that various weapons produced by Sudan appeared on different fronts from time to time before the civil war between the Sudanese Army and Rapid Support Forces that started in Sudan in 2023. Examples of this incident include 82mm and 120mm Sudanese mortars supplied to the Ukrainian Army and HJ-8 anti-tank guided missiles of Chinese origin used by anti-Assad groups in Syria.

During the civil war that began in Sudan in Ramadan 2023, it was observed that Sudanese-made weapons - although still in very limited numbers - appeared in the hands of other militant groups.

Read more

Subscribe now

After the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024, violent clashes erupted between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian National Army (formerly known as the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army—or TFSA), particularly in the Manbij, Tishrin, and Qara Qawzak regions of Aleppo Governorate.

During these clashes, the SDF has used a variety of weaponry including guided missiles, kamikaze drones (aka “loitering munitions”), and thermal optics.

One of the group’s most common attack methods employs drones. During the clashes, SNA positions and vehicles were attacked with HE-Frag munitions dropped from numerous FPV (first-person-view) drones and DJI Mavic 3T drones with thermal vision.

Read more

Subscribe now

The Shaheen Brigade, also referred to as the Falcon Brigade, is a prominent unit within the Syrian opposition forces currently storming across the country, mostly led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and particularly active in the recent rebel offensive that – in less than two weeks – managed to capture four major cities and oust President Bashar al-Assad after 24 years of rule. This unit has been integral in the development and deployment of innovative drone technologies, improving the military effectiveness of HTS and affiliated opposition forces in the recent offensive.

This ingenuity of asymmetric drone use stems from over a decade of technological experimentation and battlefield adaptation, making the brigade a pioneer in drone warfare within the Syrian security context and among regional non-state actors.

While some reports suggest that Ukrainian operatives may have provided training and expertise to enhance these capabilities, concrete evidence of such links remains unverified. Nevertheless, the sophistication of HTS’s drone operations underscores the impact of cheap, commercial technology as it relates to local insurgency tactics, further exemplified by similar developments in Myanmar, Yemen, and other conflict zones.

Read more