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A police officer was fatally shot and another wounded in Serbia near the western town of Loznica, around midnight, on July 18. The alleged gunman was Faton Hajrizi, an ethnic Albanian from the neighboring country and former Serbian province of Kosovo. The two officers apparently pulled Hajrizi over at a checkpoint in Lipnički Šor (which lies along the border with neighboring Bosnia & Herzegovina) while he was riding in a Mercedes-Benz along with another person, before Hajrizi exited the vehicle and began firing a handgun, hitting a 34-year-old officer in the chest and his partner in the shoulder, according to Serbian authorities.

A manhunt then ensued which included the assistance of Serbia’s counter-terrorism unit. According to Serbia’s Ministry of Interior, police finally caught up with Hajrizi, still in the vicinity, and a brief gunfight ensued before the latter was “liquidated”—as they put it. Pictures appeared on social media of what is allegedly Hajrizi’s body, along with a handgun. Serbia’s government describes the checkpoint shooting as a terrorist attack and Hajrizi as an “inveterate criminal”.

The person who had been driving Hajrizi was arrested, along with a couple of “Serbian nationality”. When police searched the vehicle, they found a passport from Kosovo and an identification card from Germany belonging to Faton’s younger brother, Artan, initially leading them to misidentify the shooter. Serbian officials believe that Faton stole his brother’s documents after escaping from Smrekovnica prison in Kosovo—his ninth escape—about ten days prior to the shooting. He had been serving a 27-year sentence for killing a Russian peacekeeper in Kosovo when he was just 15 years old.

Rather brazenly, and according to his own brother, Faton traveled to Germany very briefly after his escape, which is when he stole Artan’s documents from his residence before disappearing. Serbian authorities believe he traveled back to the Presevo Valley in the south of Serbia, and they are seeking his brother’s extradition from Germany for allegedly aiding the fugitive.

Faton was barely a teenager during Kosovo’s devastating 1998-1999 war with Serbia, which killed some 13,000 people. The war pitted a ragtag group of ethnic-Albanian guerrillas, known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, or UÇK in the Albanian language of Shqip), against what remained of a dramatically diminished Yugoslavia, following a minor conflict with Slovenia and two serious and often intertwined wars with Croatia and Bosnia, then finally the peaceful secession of Macedonia.

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As an adult, Faton Hajrizi is widely accepted to have been a major KLA sympathizer by both Serbs and Albanians familiar with this story, and there has been speculation that he might have even had a guerrilla affiliation with the group prior to Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 (presumably either before his arrest in 2000 or during one of his several prison escapes), though these claims remain difficult to confirm.

The Russian peacekeeper he shot was a soldier attached to the greater NATO-led KFOR mission following the end of hostilities in the country, which, as legend has it, happened after Faton took his own rifle from him. (It is worth noting that Russian foreign policy heavily favored Belgrade both before and after the war.)

Assuming the photographs released by Serbian authorities are genuine, the pistol Faton is said to have used in the checkpoint attack and subsequent shootout has a prominent KLA insignia displayed on the wooden grip(s), supporting his status as a sympathizer and perhaps even suggesting he had significant connections with former guerrillas.

Despite his clear sympathies for and possible affiliations with the KLA, Faton Hajrizi’s overall adult background paints him as more of a recidivist with connections to the criminal underworld as much if not more than to the world of former guerrillas. It is highly unlikely that he planned to “attack” the police checkpoint near Bosnia. Rather, given all early reporting available, it appears he was caught by surprise and, determined not to be recaptured, he reacted violently before fleeing in a bit of a desperate situation. The fact that he was killed while still in the vicinity of Loznica further suggests that he lacked the immediate network and resources to get much farther from the scene.

Serbia has never recognized Kosovo’s independence, and relations between the two countries remain fraught with a host of bilateral issues, many centered around the rights of the remaining ethnic-Serb minority—most of which is concentrated in the north of Kosovo and makes up an approximate total of 10% of the overall population. These bilateral issues have a tendency to remain at a steady simmer until occasionally boiling over before a return to an uneasy peace.

In a bizarre and still-not-entirely understood incident that occurred in September 2023, heavily armed ethnic-Serb gunmen took over an Orthodox monastery in the north of Kosovo, before shooting it out with Kosovar police units and then fleeing back across the border into Serbia, some with gunshot wounds. During the police siege of the monastery, one Kosovar officer was killed and another wounded. Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, accused Belgrade for having trained and equipped the gunmen and still demanded that they be handed over to authorities in Pristina.

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Recently, Kosovo has seen some of the worst political violence that the country has known in its short and turbulent history since the end of its war with Serbia in 1999. On May 29^th, outraged over the installation of ethnic Kosovo Albanians (Kosovars) as mayors of four Serb-majority towns after the former were elected in a vote that most Serbs boycotted, Kosovo Serbs mobilized for a large demonstration outside of the mayor’s office in the northern town of Zvečan. Hundreds of Serbs chanted and sang “Come out baby,” taunting Kosovar police officers and soldiers serving in the NATO peacekeeping mission (KFOR). Members of a special police division, the Regional Operational Support Unit (ROSU), confronted the demonstrators alongside KFOR troops outfitted in riot gear. The demonstration was arguably raucous, though it remained peaceful until stun grenades and tear gas began to fly into the crowd from behind the phalanx of security forces.

Once crowd control munitions were deployed, the demonstrators briefly dispersed and then regrouped, charging ROSU police and KFOR soldiers. A violent melee ensued, in which security forces were pummeled with rocks, bottles, clubs, and Molotov cocktails. According to an official KFOR statement, 30 peacekeepers were injured in the fray, with many of them having suffered from burns caused by improvised incendiary devices. 11 of those injured were from the Italian NATO contingent, while the remaining 19 were Hungarian soldiers—three of which were reportedly shot by masked Serbs brandishing firearms, though their injuries were not life-threatening. According to Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić, 52 Serbs were injured, one critically, and four were arrested during the clashes.

The violent demonstrations materialized after NATO forces sealed off administrative buildings in the small northern municipalities of Zvečan, Leposavić, and Zubin Potok on May 26th, hoping to secure them for the incoming mayors. Fighting between ROSU riot police and Serbs broke out then as well, and a police car was torched in Zvečan. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds on that day as well.

Scenes from Zvečan on the 29^th showed groaning ROSU officers and KFOR troops lying bloodied on the street as their comrades tended to them and loaded them into armored vehicles for medical evacuation. The skirmishes were brutal and were characterized by hand-to-hand combat in the town’s main square. KFOR troops ended up withdrawing and staging support forces in Leposavić to the north of Zvečan and in Mitrovica to the south—typically a hotbed of ethnic tensions, but which remained surprisingly calm during the weekend’s unrest. As KFOR forces withdrew, Serb demonstrators spray painted large Zs on NATO vehicles that were left behind during their retreat—a symbol associated with Vladimir Putin’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine—along with the Serbian cross and smiley faces.

As the May 29^th clashes were unfolding, President Vučić put the Serbian army on high alert and deployed troops to the border with Kosovo. (This was not the first time he has done so, but previous incidents were arguably less volatile than those over the past days.) NATO has since pledged to commit another 700 troops to the KFOR mission, and on May 30^th the US Air Force flew a Rockwell B1-B Lancer over the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo—likely as a regional show of force, but clearly signaling to Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, who has expressed separatist ambitions and is becoming increasingly close with Moscow. The majority of the incoming NATO troops will be drawn from Turkey’s 65^th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, and on June 5^th, the Turkish Ministry of Defense published to social media video of a commando battalion deploying to the country, with troops wearing the KFOR mission patch.

We at Militant Wire spoke with an ambassador of a western Balkan country to get their expert take on the recent spate of violence in Kosovo, and the country’s trajectory. The source told us that in their opinion, Kosovo Serbs in the north of the country are in a somewhat helpless position and many have skeptically thrown their lot in with the Vuĉić administration, despite much of the community suspecting Belgrade of abandonment or outright betrayal of the Serb cause in Kosovo. The ambassador expressed their puzzlement over the lack of Kosovo Serb support for their own politicians in the recent election and added that local ballots in the Serb-majority north are probably their best bet at being fairly represented in the country. The ambassador also remarked on Washington and Brussels’s lack of clear policy in the western Balkans, outside of forcing Pristina into a hurried peace plan, which Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government ultimately accepted, but which was arguably undermined by heavy-handed police actions in the north of the country following the late April elections.

Pristina was sharply criticized by Western allies for their actions in the north, and a working plan for the establishment of a largely autonomous Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo Albanian President, Edi Rama, which was met with strong opposition from prominent Kosovar politicians.

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Reports circulated on December 20th confirmed the arrest of Antonio Oseguera Cervantes “Tony Montana”, brother of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes “El Mencho'' and a lead figure within the Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel organization (CJNG). Antonio was arrested through a joint operation by the National Guard, Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), National Center for Intelligence Fusion (CENFI), and the Prosecutor General's Office of Mexico (FGR). Authorities seized seven firearms, two vehicles, and a package reportedly containing cocaine.

The Federal Security Cabinet has placed the states of Michoacan, Colima, and Jalisco under “Maximum Alert” after the arrest due to CJNG’s heavy presence in the region. The United States Embassy also issued an alert in the state of Jalisco due to Antonio’s arrest. These alerts are commonly issued in anticipation of the violent backlash criminal groups in Mexico often unleash on communities after arrests of high-ranking members, usually in an attempt to force security forces into releasing detainees or as a message that any actions against the groups will result in severe retaliation.

Cervante’s capture on December 20th came after authorities received information about his potential whereabouts within the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, Jalisco, a location that allegedly acted as a logistical and support hub for CJNG. At the moment of writing, Antonio has been sent to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation Number 1 “El Altiplano”, in the state of Mexico. 

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Born August 10th, 1958, in Aguililla, Michoacan, Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, like his brother Nemesio, has a long criminal history stemming from within both Mexico and the United States. Antonio operated as a principal figure within the organization, providing financial and logistical support by laundering funds CJNG received through illicit activities and then using the funds to acquire firearms and fabricate homemade armored vehicles known as “Monstruos” for CJNG. Reports claim Antonio had been ordered to infiltrate all three levels of the Mexican government in order to obtain critical intelligence that CJNG would use to evade authorities, giving the group a substantial advantage in the narco-conflict.

Seven years before his 2022 arrest, Antonio was captured in the same municipality, Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, Jalisco on December 3rd, 2015. Antonio attempted to evade a police checkpoint and was detained alone with one kilogram of methamphetamine and multiple firearms while assuming a false identity under the name “Joel Mora Garibay”.  As a result, Antonio was sent to a prison in Hermosillo, Sonora, under charges of possessing a firearm exclusively for military use and drug possession only to be freed on June 15th, 2016, due to the lack of a judge's signature on court documents. Antonio remained free until his recent capture.

Antonio’s recent arrest follows multiple high-profile arrests of CJNG members, including Nemesio’s wife, Rosalinda González Valencia, a high-ranking financial supporter within the organization, who remains imprisoned in Morelo’s female prison since her arrest for money laundering in 2021. These arrests are part of the Mexican government’s attempt to dismantle and hopefully eliminate CJNG, which has been named one of the most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world by the US Department of Justice.  

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The Islamic State’s (IS) greater war strategy against the Taliban in Afghanistan includes a kinetic militant component geared to inflict violence on state and civilian targets paired with a media campaign purposed to delegitimize the Taliban as a governing body and discredit it as a religious authority. Regarding the latter, IS and its Afghanistan-based branch—the Islamic State Khurasan Province (ISKP)—are crafting narratives about the Taliban’s governing failures and criticizing their policies. One such emergent theme is the Taliban’s acceptance of foreign aid from states deemed by IS as enemies of Islam, with Uzbekistan being the latest example.

There has been an increased amount of attention paid to Uzbekistan in IS circles as of late, especially since the ISKP rocket attack targeting the Uzbek locality of Termez on April 18th. An Uzbek-language audio statement released under the umbrella of al-Azaim, ISKP’s official branch media network, alleged the US is conspiring with Tashkent to spread democracy in the Khurasan through the railway project set to run from Uzbekistan to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif through Kabul to Pakistan’s Peshawar. The speaker vowed that the Islamic State would violently resist and ultimately prevent this plan from being implemented.

The notion of Uzbekistan actively asserting religiously corrosive influence in Afghanistan surfaced once again on April 30th in a statement published by the ISKP-aligned Uzbek-language Tawhid News outlet. The group denounced the Uzbekistan government’s provision of humanitarian aid to its “Taliban allies,” detailing how the “apostates who enslave their people and spread blasphemy are supporting the Taliban under the pretext of helping the Afghans.” Further, Tawhid News claims Tashkent is protecting the Taliban to use them as a proxy to fight against the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

Speaking on the strategic purpose behind the IS movement’s creeping emphasis on foreign humanitarian assistance to the new Afghan rulers, Jonathan Schroden, Director of CNA's Countering Threats and Challenges Program, told Militant Wire:

By focusing on foreign aid to the Taliban, ISKP seeks to highlight the Taliban’s shortcomings as a government. Pointing out the Taliban’s dependencies on foreign entities—especially ones that ISKP claims are “apostate” governments—serves as a complementary line of narrative to others that ISKP advances against the Taliban: that the latter are unable to secure Afghans from attack (including recent attacks from the Pakistani Air Force), unable to provide sufficient jobs and economic opportunities, and unable to provide necessary comforts of daily life (e.g., regular electricity). Foreign aid from “apostate” governments is one more failure of the Taliban to be a self-sustaining, “pure” Islamic government to which ISKP can point in its efforts to undermine Taliban legitimacy.

The core narratives on the topic are not entirely new, as the Taliban has been chided by ISKP supporters in the past for accepting aid from other states in the region. In late December 2021, for instance, there was a surge in this kind of rhetoric throughout pro-ISKP Telegram channels when news broke about the Chinese sending humanitarian aid from Xinjiang to Afghanistan by train. The Taliban was criticized for pursuing friendly relations with and “begging” for help from a country that oppresses Uyghur Muslims in “East Turkistan.”

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On April 24th, 2022, the al-Qaeda branch Jama´at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, JNIM) published a report through its official Az-Zallaqa media outlet claiming a series of attacks in Mali.

The claimed operations include a rocket attack on UN peacekeeping forces in Mali (MINUSMA) in the Kidal region on February 7, an IED attack on a Malian military vehicle near the village of Mora on April 14, and an IED attack against the Malian army, this time near the village of Mora, on April 16.

However, what stands out in the statement is JNIM’s claim that it captured a mercenary belonging to the Russian Wagner Group, a private military company operating in the area.

JNIM stated:

In the first week of the month of April, Allah granted upon his mujahidin servants the capture of a soldier from the Russian Wagner forces in the mountainous region in the state of Segou, those criminal forces which have participated with Malian forces in air landing operations on the Mora village market and clashed with a number of mujahidin in it, and after that village for a period of five days and killed hundreds of defenseless innocents, and there is no might nor power except in Allah the Mighty.

Their remark about the murder of innocents is in reference to the killing of between 200 and 400 people in Central Mali. The Malian Army and the Russian PMC are being blamed for the incidents, which took place between March 27 and April 1. Said parties denied these allegations and instead claim that the people killed in their operation were terrorists. They added that they would investigate the reported abuses. According to military sources, 200 people were killed after receiving information about a meeting between jihadist leaders in the area.

Nineteen witnesses state that Malian troops along with Russian mercenaries arrived by helicopter and exchanged gunfire with alleged jihadists. Reportedly, both militants and civilians, along with security personnel were killed in the firefight. After this, the troops are alleged to have deployed to the town and summarily executed local men.

The mercenaries were also accused of gathering unarmed people from their homes and taking them to the bank of a nearby river. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch many of the individuals arrested were traders from surrounding villages who came to the town livestock market. Others were said to be jihadist infiltrators. The prisoners were reportedly held for five days under the sun before being randomly selected for execution by gunshot. The bodies were then piled into three mass graves.

A survivor explained how he heard gunshots and afterwards, Russians approached him. Later, he reported how the mercenaries searched locals and their houses. Then, the military took people east of the village, near the river, with another 100 men. This same man’s brothers were allegedly killed by a separate group of government troops.   

The JNIM statement continues by bragging about its battlefield success against its enemies:

The mujahidin also repelled the air landing operations which the mercenary armed forces undertook above the mountains of Banjagra about 70 kilometers from Sifari, and the mujahidin looted some of the mercenaries’ weapons who escaped and ran and got away and praise be to Allah.

JNIM concludes by noting that they only mentioned some of their recent operations and, therefore, may have carried out more.

Their claim of capturing a Wagner operator, if true, is a significant propaganda victory, and it is possible that the group will release further details over time.

The group may attempt to use their captive as leverage—perhaps for a prisoner exchange with the Malian government, concessions by the Kremlin, or simply a payout. However, their captive’s status as a private military contract might diminish his value.

This is seemingly the first incident of its kind involving jihadists and Wagner mercenaries in Mali. In the future, it is possible that we will see more Russian military contractors captured or killed by militants as the former becomes more entangled in the region.

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The Peoples’ United Revolutionary Movement (HBDH) has just claimed the deadly April 20th attack that killed one prison guard and injured others in Bursa, Turkey, four days ago. A bus transporting roughly 30 prison guards was traveling through the Osmangazi district of Turkey’s fourth-largest city when an IED was remotely detonated beneath the center-right side of the shuttle around 8:00 AM. It was the first such HBDH attack in a major Turkish city since 2017.

Analysts initially looked toward the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed organization considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the US Department of State and the European Union. If it is true, today’s HBDH claim would confirm PKK involvement in the attack, as the latter is one of nearly a dozen core militant left-wing Kurdish and Turkish organizations that comprise the HBDH alliance.

The Governor of Bursa Province told Turkish reporters at the scene that the IED had been fixed to an electrical pole and detonated as the bus passed by, indicating the attackers were aware of the bus’s route. One of the wounded remains in serious condition.

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The HBDH was formed on March 12th, 2016, in order to combine “Turkey and Kurdistan revolutionary and socialist forces in all areas, including armed struggle against the collaborationist fascist AKP”—or the ruling right-wing Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As the communique announcing its formation states, the HBDH is somewhat of a grand coalition comprised of both Turkey’s many armed Marxist-Leninist guerrilla outfits and those left-wing Kurdish organizations currently engaged in armed struggle against the Turkish state, most of which having direct ties to the PKK. The PKK are themselves a principal of HBDH, while many of the Turkish communist organizations making up the HBDH have also been directly involved in assisting Kurdish militants against Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) in neighboring Syria’s Rojava region.

HBDH guerrillas seem to have stepped up their urban campaign in Turkish cities as the TAF intensifies its operations against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. One day after the bus bombing, HBDH militants claimed to have attacked two police officers using hand grenades in the mostly-Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey. Footage of the attack was posted on social media, but it is unclear whether either officer was killed or injured. HBDH attacks typically target either the TAF or members of the Gendarmerie General Command. In July 2016, just after the announcement of its formation, HBDH ambushed Turkish police officers with small arms including automatic rifles and hand grenades in an attack that Turkish media says killed three officers and wounded others, while the HBDH claimed to have killed eleven officers.  

In their claim for the fatal April 20th bus bombing in Bursa, the HBDH say that they specifically targeted prison guards for the treatment of their comrades and sympathizers in Turkish prisons, and add that they killed one while injuring another thirteen officers—the latter figure being disputed by the Turkish press:

The action we took to account on April 20 is also a warning to prison directors, guards, and Forensic Medicine officials who signed the reports that approved the murder of the prisoners. Do not add to your crimes! Stop the attacks on the prisoners thrown in the dungeons for fighting for freedom, justice and socialism! […]

We encourage every young person, every woman, every poor, every worker, whose heart beats with the passion for freedom and justice, to embrace this just, humane, honorable and moral struggle, to support the people's militia and the guerrilla, to join the ranks of the united revolution, to support our peoples of Turkey and Kurdistan, to support our peoples of fascist and denial colonialism. To raise its voice against the invading genocidal attacks it has relaunched in Zap, Metîna and Avaşîn, and the fascist state terrorism that it is preparing to increase in the coming months, from Istanbul to Amed, from Izmir to Kars; We call on the oppressed to organize the united resistance and turn the working-class districts into demonstration areas. […]

Destroy the Dungeons, Freedom to the Prisoners!

Freedom to Revolutionary Prisoners!

We Will Destroy Fascism, We Will Win Freedom!

Next… Further…

With the launch of the TAF’s operation against PKK forces in the north of neighboring Iraq, it is likely that there will be more similar attacks within Turkey itself and, consequently, an increase of TAF security operations within Turkey as its drones and manned aircraft continue to pound Kurdish guerrillas in their mountain hideouts. The HBDH will likely continue to look for targets of opportunity in urban centers that both afford them plenty of solidarity capital with aligned movements, while imposing tangible costs upon Turkish security forces.

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On January 20th, the Islamic State (IS) launched significant operations in both Syria and Iraq, demonstrating the organization’s enduring will and continued capacity to project power throughout the region. In fact, the assault on al-Sina’a prison in Syria and ensuing gun battles are said to be the most violent clashes since the last vestiges of caliphate territory were erased in 2019.

Syria Prison Assault
The Islamic State’s raid in Syria kicked off with the detonation of two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) against the outside walls of al-Sina’a prison — which is the world’s largest detention facility for IS prisoners, estimated to house 3,500 of them. The prison is located in the city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria and is run and defended by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed Kurdish militia.

Following the blast, dozens of IS militants laid siege to the facility as IS prisoners simultaneously rioted inside. The assault sparked a protracted firefight, with gunfire heard almost 24 hours after the attack began. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 39 IS gunmen and 35 SDF personnel were killed in the fighting.

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It was reported that a number of imprisoned IS fighters managed to escape and videos were posted online of some being recaptured. The SDF released a statement claiming they caught 89 of the escapees in total.

The Islamic State’s official media organ Amaq News Agency claimed the prison raid on Friday, stating that “Islamic State fighters launched a broad offensive on the Ghweiran prison in al-Hasakah governorate, aiming to free the prisoners inside” also adding that the “clashes have been ongoing”.

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It is notable that the Islamic State did not release its weekly al-Naba newsletter as it usually does on Thursdays. However, the attack was not mentioned in the issue that was eventually released.

Prison breaks hold an important place in IS organizational culture, and the group has formally promoted an operational strategy of assaulting prisons and inciting riots called “Breaking the Walls”. These operations serve the practical purposes of freeing prisoners to bolster IS’s ranks, while also providing inspirational propaganda victories. The campaign is global in scope, as IS elements have attempted prison breaks — from outside, inside, or both — in the Sahel, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia.

Iraq Barracks Raid
Elsewhere on Thursday, in Iraq, the Islamic State conducted another successful operation; in this case, it was a clandestine raid against an army barracks located north of Baghdad. IS gunmen reportedly entered the facility around 3 a.m. local time and shot Iraqi soldiers as they slept, killing 11. The death toll makes it one of the most significant IS attacks targeting Iraqi forces in recent months.

The Islamic State officially claimed the attack on Friday and released photos from the incident:

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Greece’s newest network of anarchist urban guerrillas, the Direct Action Cells (DAC), has claimed an arson attack on a construction company’s Thessaloniki offices in the early morning hours of January 1st, 2022. The “Casus Belli Cell” released a communique on the same day, stating that a Molotov cocktail attack against the offices of PRAXIS EE Technical Contractors was in retaliation for the previous evening’s eviction of a 34-year-old squat in the Aristotle University’s School of Biology building. A separate attack, in which the Agios Pavlos cathedral in Athens was targeted with an improvised incendiary device (IID) also on the morning of January 1st, 2022, has yet to be claimed, yet bears all the hallmarks of previous DAC operations.  

As a part of an ongoing policy of the New Democracy government to uproot squats across urban spaces in Greece, and reintroduce police to university campuses, the “Hangout Biological” squat on Aristotle University Thessaloniki’s (AUTh) campus was evicted early on the morning of January 1st. Police escorted workers, who breached an outer wall of the squat with sledgehammers, gaining entry to the classroom and seizing various equipment, from fire extinguishers to doweling rods with anarchist flags affixed to them. The space had been squatted since ca. 1988. In response to the eviction, a newly declared cell of the DAC, the Casus Belli Cell, attacked the offices of PRAXIS in Thessaloniki, which has been awarded a €1.3m redevelopment contract by AUTh. The attack claim accuses the university rector of collaborating with the Mitsotakis administration’s law-and-order policy regarding Greek university campuses and beyond.  

(Eviction of the “Hangout Biological” Squat in AUTh)

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From the claim:

The academic community officially opens its arms to militarism and repression, with the rubbish of the rectory sending its excited thanks personally to Mitsotakis himself. This is the AUTh: a matrix of collaborators of repression in which the officials of the uniformed Republic are hatched […]

We take responsibility for the arson attack on the building of the construction company Praxis, at 49 Kromnis Street in Kalamaria shortly before the change of time. Praxis is the contracting company that undertook the demolition work of the occupation. We will strike each one individually that accompanies the repression against the liberated territories and the world of struggle.

Our attack is the first reflexive movement of practical solidarity in the world of struggle that defends to the end the squatters and the self-managed areas of struggle, solidarity and attack. A message of strength, support and complicity with each comrade and comrade individually who insists on denial, on questioning, on war. You will find us by your side in every moment of conflict, in every roadblock because we are not finished. We are preparing a new cycle of attacks in the war of attrition, organizing new Direct Action Cells. And in this war we call on every struggling initiative to take action, sharpening the confrontation quantitatively, qualitatively and operationally. We respond to war with war […]

-Direct Action Cells

-Casus Belli Cell

Prior to this, most DAC attacks in Thessaloniki have been claimed by the local cell, the Organization of Anarchist Action, who have specifically targeted high-ranking members of the Hellenic Police.

Separately, a blast shook the Omonia neighborhood of Athens in the early morning hours of January 1st, as an IID was detonated outside of the cathedral of Agios Pavlos. The device was said to be fashioned from “gas canisters,” which would suggest but not confirm a DAC attack, as the DAC cells in both Athens and Thessaloniki have made frequent use of a unique IID construction employing butane gas canisters. Despite the similarity of methods to those of DAC’s, it should however be noted that the Greek Orthodox Church is a popular target for a variety of groups operating domestically in Greece. Furthermore, the DAC’s Athens cells seem to favor executing multiple attacks before releasing batch claims which attribute responsibility for multiple similar attacks employing IIDs with the familiar butane canister construction, or Molotov cocktail barrages and are often filmed or photographed by the perpetrating cell. As of now, there is no connection between the Agios Pavlos attack and a local Athens cell of the DAC.

2021 was the year of the DAC’s operational debut, and their attacks have been consistent in terms of methods, targets, and rhetoric found in their accompanying communiques. The group’s primary strategic aspirations are to develop a network of “revolutionary violence” not just in Greece, but throughout the world, encouraging ideologically aligned members of the hard-left and anarchist movements to carry out attacks on targets of “state and capital”. So far, they have been successful in establishing this network throughout mainland Greece, from Athens up through Volos and Thessaloniki. Whether the network spreads across Greece to include, for instance, communities on Crete, or even further into Europe where such groups have sympathies, such as in Italy or Germany, remains to be seen, but so far has not been realized.  

(Typical IID construction in Greece)

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Al-Qaeda released a 38-minute-long video through its official As-Sahab media branch solely focused on criticizing the United Nations (UN) as being incompatible with and hostile towards Islam. The stated purpose of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s speech is to “warn the Islamic nation about the threat that the United Nations poses.”

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Al-Zawahiri states that “the United Nations was created by the victorious powers in the Second World War with the aim of imposing a political system and doctrine on the entire world, and with a view to establishing their hegemony over the rest of mankind.” Thus, he argues, the UN’s rulings, the Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be rejected, as they were formulated by “an organization created to control the world and to impose on it an irreligious and immoral ideology that contradicts the Islamic Shariah.” He asserts that “accepting UN membership implies accepting adjudication by laws other than the Islamic Shariah and hence the total abandonment of the Shariah.”

In particular, he criticizes the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) — China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States — who he says “enjoy a sacrosanct status above all, for they pull the strings in the UN,” referring to them as “the biggest criminals on the face of the earth.” Rather than it being an “organization for international cooperation,” he says, it is instead “an organization created by the biggest criminals to change the belief system of the rest of mankind, specifically Muslims.”

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And, according to al-Zawahiri, not only is the organization geared towards oppressing Muslims, but the UN is, in large part, designed to protect the status quo and stifle any attempt to liberate occupied Muslim territories or prevent violence against their coreligionists.

He explains:

The Charter emphasizes the protection of the political sovereignty of the member
state and the sanctity of their territorial borders and forbids the use of force by a member state against another. Therefore, if a state signs the Charter, it gives per se recognition to the usurpation of Muslim territories by other states and affirms their right to hold on to these territories.

Thus:

If the Muslims in Palestine were to strive for the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation, and other Muslims were to offer them help, this would be considered unlawful on the basis of the UN Charter given the fact that Israel is a member state, and it is not in Israel’s interest that the Mujahideen help the Palestinians against it. The same analogy applies to Russia’s occupation of Chechnya and Muslim territories in Central Asia and the Caucasus, India’s occupation of Kashmir, Spain’s occupation of Ceuta and Melilla, China’s occupation of East Turkistan, Ethiopia’s occupation of Zila and Harar, Tanzania’s occupation of Zanzibar, Kenya’s occupation of Somalia and the French occupation of Mali … the signing party must respect the territorial integrity and political independence of member states, including Israel, India, Russia, China, Spain, Ethiopia, Kenya and other states that occupy Muslim lands. This occupation must therefore be respected and recognized as being lawful.

This, he says, contradicts the Shariah which “makes fighting a binding obligation to liberate these lands and the people living therein from the hegemony of the disbelievers.” To underscore this point, an audio clip is included of Abdullah Azzam speaking on how “jihad is a binding duty today on the entire Muslim Ummah,” and saying, “this binding duty ends when we regain every inch of land that was once under the flag of “La ilaha ila Allah” (There is no God but Allah).”

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Al-Zawahiri then discusses the UN’s role in creating the state of Israel and, speaking to the “Muslim brothers, Mujahideen, and truthful scholars,” says that all member states from the Muslim world have given recognition to the state of Israel by signing the Charter. He also argues that member states are “subjugated” and “used as tools in wars to secure the interests of the five major criminals who control the organization.” He adds that “Muslims are obliged to support the UN against their Muslim brothers, against whom the UN wages war,” “Muslims may not support other Muslims who are aggressed upon by the UN or its member states,” and, “hence, Muslims end up becoming slaves of the major criminal powers and cannon fodder in wars initiated for securing the interests of these powers.”

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The high-ranking communist rebel leader Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos was killed by government forces in Bukidnon, Mindanao this weekend, according to both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The AFP described Ka Oris as the “topmost wanted NPA (New People’s Army) commander in the country” and accused him of committing “murder, multiple murders with double frustrated murder, and robbery with double homicide and damage to properties.”

The military claims the rebel leader was killed in a firefight, while the CPP alleges he was unarmed and ambushed on his way to receive medical treatment. Marco Valbuena, the chief information officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines, even accused Philippine government forces of staging airstrikes after the fact to “conceal their crime of murdering unarmed revolutionaries and create a false picture of an armed encounter.”

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The elimination of Ka Oris marks yet another significant counter-insurgency success for Philippine security forces, coming on the heels of an operation conducted the day before — also in Mindanao — that killed Salahuddin Hassan, the jihadi leader of Daulah Islamiya.

Jorge "Ka Oris" Madlos
Not only was Ka Oris a prominent Maoist rebel figure, but his operational longevity is quite rare in modern militant history. He, a former student activist, is said to have gone underground in the 1970s to link up with the communist resistance in the countryside, joining the ranks of the New People’s Army. In 2011, a reporter named him as one of five pre-martial law (declared and signed by President Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1972) activists still in the movement, while Ka Oris said the figure was “about 10.”

Carolyn Arguillas describes how when martial law was announced, “the campus of the Central Mindanao University in Musuan, Bukidnon teemed with student groups discussing what options they would take now that the rumoured declaration of martial law had come true.” Ka Oris recalled how, eventually, “about a hundred [students] chose to go to the hills.”

He was reportedly incarcerated in Camp Crame from 1989 to 1991 and had been suffering from a debilitating illness since 1987, which could explain why he was killed alongside a medical aide and why, according to the CPP, he was on his way to receive treatment.

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Over time, Ka Oris ascended to become a spokesperson for the New People’s Army and a highly respected public figure and writer within the political and military wings of the communist rebel movement in the Philippines. His death is being mourned and his life celebrated online and off by ideological sympathizers around the world.

Meanwhile, others have taken to social media to thank Philippine security forces for killing a leading figure of an insurgent movement they see as terrorizing swathes of the country.

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The urgent concern voiced by the Philippines’ red fighters about the spectre of an intensifying US-China security competition in the region is well captured by the proverb “when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” The outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) insurgent forces are avowed Maoist internationalists, however, they are also hardliners when it comes to matters of national sovereignty and self-determination. This fundamental impulse animates their drive to resist foreign interference by the great powers in Philippine domestic affairs.

The communist guerrillas, given their location, function as a kind of geopolitical weathervane in detecting the momentum of US-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. The insurgents are highly vocal in their opposition to the “imperialism” of the United States and China, and it is worth noting that the group has killed American service personnel in the past and has explicitly threatened attacks against Chinese nationals and interests.

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The shock announcement of the Australia–UK–US (AUKUS) agreement elicited an emotive reaction from the insurgent network, with Marco Valbuena, the chief information officer of the CPP, describing it as the latest escalation in the “rising aggressive policy of the United States in the Asia-Pacific.” AUKUS, he warns, “is certain to turn the region into a playground of imperialist bullies” and adds “the sovereignty of countries in the region are bound to be trampled upon by the US and its allied military forces.”

Valbuena argues the move “will surely heighten a costly arms race between the imperialist countries to the detriment of the people,” urging that “the Philippines must continue to assert its national sovereignty against both Chinese and US imperialist military intervention.” Interestingly, the CPP sees an opportunity to leverage the fast-developing multipolarity in that the “Filipino people must take advantage of inter-imperialist conflicts to assert Philippine sovereignty and oppose subordinating or surrendering any part of the country to either imperialist power.” Valbuena says the populace must “firmly resist the build-up of Chinese military presence in the West Philippine Sea” and, likewise, “expose and reject plans to expand the construction of US military facilities” in the country.

Jose Maria Sison, the writer and activist who founded the CPP, recently addressed Chinese encroachment in a statement criticizing Philippine President Duterte as “increasingly beset by complaints of retired and active officers of the reactionary armed forces who are outraged by his traitorous sell out to China of Philippine sovereign and maritime rights in the West Philippine Sea.”

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The CPP issued a subsequent statement condemning the US for providing the Philippine government with five Black Hawk helicopters and four ScanEagle UAVs. Valbuena claims the equipment supplied to defend against “threats of Chinese military incursions in the South China Sea” is instead more likely to be used against communist militants in the countryside. “These weapons are being employed in the increasingly brutal war of terror … marked by heightening aerial bombardment, shelling, and strafing,” the group alleges.

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Visual Citations: Images sourced from official CPP media outlets

Figure 1.1: Type 69 RPG Launcher, PGO-pattern scope and Type 69-1 HEAT Projectiles.

The RPG Launcher, scope, and projectiles all appear to be made in China. However, it is possible to see that another seized weapon came from a place closer to the area:

Figure 1.2: A shortened Zastava M70AB2 rifle along with large quantity of 7.62x39mm bullets and magazines.

AK-type weapons produced in the Balkan countries can be observed in the black market and attacks in many countries in the region. A weapon of the same model was also used in the attack undertaken by ISIS in Vienna on November 2, 2020 (although the barrel length of the weapon here was standard size).

Apart from the weapons mentioned above, at least two well-preserved AK-type assault rifles and possibly even one heavy machine gun receiver were also seized. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to fully identify these weapons and materials that were wrapped for preservation.

Figure 1.3: Captured and wrapped AK-platform rifles and explosives.

Figure 1.4: Possible wrapped HMG receiver on the far right.

In addition to the explosives seized, it is possible to see that at least two different types of grenades were seized by the security forces. These grenades appear to be the F-1 and RGD-5 hand grenades.

Figure 1.5: Two F-1 and three RGD-5 hand grenades without fuzes.

Figure 1.6: F-1 pattern hand grenade, UZRGM pattern fuze, a detonator (perhaps an SPD) and possible TNT blocks.

In addition to the explosives, bullets and weapons, a quadcopter drone, BaoFeng BF-F8HP radios and money were seized from the suspects.

Figure 1.7: Captured quadcopter drone.

Figure 1.8: BoaFeng BF-F8HP radios.

Figure 1.9 & 1.10: Seized money from the suspects.

It should be also noted that, according to various sources, the suspects had bought from the Kosovo Police during a simulated sale on October 7th. Therefore, it can be said that the police followed the suspects from the moment of sale. Therefore, it is conceivable that the guns sold were previously seized by the police from different criminals. This scenario seems likely, given that the arrested suspects were under police pursuit prior to the purchase of these weapons.

Nevertheless, the seized surveillance, communication tools as well as explosives and weapons show that they had enough, if not more, materials in their possession to carry out an extremely effective and dangerous attack/attacks in the region.

All photos are taken from the Facebook page of “Kosovo Police.”

Other Sources: BalkanSight.com, Telegrafi.com

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The Islamic State (IS) has issued a statement through its official propaganda organ, Amaq News Agency, taking responsibility for a suicide bombing carried out at a mosque in Kunduz on Friday. The incident appears to be the Islamic State Khurasan Province’s (ISKP) deadliest attack on Afghan soil since the August 26th suicide operation targeting a crowd near Kabul airport. The bombing is currently estimated to have killed 46 people and wounded 143, marking the latest incident in the Islamic State’s campaign of violence against minority groups in the region. In this instance, the victims were members of Kunduz’s Hazara community who were attending a Shia Muslim mosque for Friday prayers.

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The attack comes as part of ISKP’s protracted guerilla campaign against the Taliban and serves, in part, to undermine the newly formed government’s rule and legitimacy. It is also the Islamic State’s latest follow-through on its running promise to continue striking ethnic/religious minority groups in order to punish the Taliban for its accused nationalism and perceived integration of said communities.  

The IS statement notes that the suicide bomber was a Uyghur militant (“Muhammad al-Uyghuri”) and alleges that “the Taliban has pledged to expel and oust [Uyghurs] at request of … China and its anti-Muslim policies there.” The description of the perpetrator’s ethnic identity and the inclusion of explicit anti-China messaging is quite notable, as it is consistent with the developing and established narratives purveyed by the Islamic State and its regional ISKP network.

IS’s Amaq media release draws upon grievances relating both to China’s domestic security measures in Xinjiang as well as its working foreign relations with the Taliban. The Chinese government is viewed as an influential supporter of the Taliban and an oppressive force in the region, and IS has made a concerted propaganda effort to frame the organization as an ally to, and even proxy for, the alleged great power enemies of Islam such as China, the United States, and Russia.

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