Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #jasdj
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Some very interesting info from @SimNasr here on Shekau's 2015 allegiance to the Islamic State... #BokoHaram #JASDJ #ISWAP According a cleric who facilitated the conversation, Abou Malek, the IS had reservations and set its conditions. A thread.
This included an end to end of hostage taking of children of other communities (presumably Christians?), Shekau's replacement in PR by a spokesperson, and the centralisation of media.
I find it telling that this had a lot to do with image-control - the IS wanting to preserve its brand... and clearly not keen on Shekau's demotic style of propaganda.
As #ISWAP and #JASDJ #BokoHaram fight it out, I am going through an old-ish audio by Habib Yusuf aka Abu Musab al Barnawi about the difficult reunification of jihad in Borno following the death of Shekau. New to me, but dating from early 2022 or before. A thread…
Habib explains and comments in Kanuri an audio sent by the Islamic State – in this instance Abu Hamzat al Qurayshi al Muhajir, who was the IS spokesperson until his death in February 2022. The audio mentions Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi as IS Caliph, who was also killed in Feb 2022.
So the audio dates somewhere between Shekau’s death in May 2021 and February 2022.
Some more news about the #Bakura faction and its malcontents... Following the killing of Sahalaba by Bakura, a group of #JASDJ #BokoHaram went their own way... a mini-thread...
So it really was the case that Bakura had a beef with Sahalaba, who had taken over as imam of JASDJ after Shekau's death in May 2021. Sahalaba was a well established religious scholar, who used to be a qadi. His religious legitimacy was key to his ascension to the imamate.
But Bakura, who used to be the top military commander (amir ul fiya) of pro-Shekau jihadis on Lake Chad , was not happy to be supplanted as top dog because of his insufficient religious knowledge.
Some notes about #ISWAP, #JASDJ #BokoHaram. Mamman Nur & Habib Yusuf broke away from Abubakar Shekau in 2016 with a strong reform agenda. I think it can be summed up as a rationalisation / bureaucratisation of jihad. Just one example of this: penal reform. A thread...
Shekau was famous for the spectacular violence he visited upon people he deemed criminals (adulterers, thieves, drugs dealers and users). Executions, chopping hands and feet, brutal flogging… He and his men made shows of this, for the education of the masses.
There, we are squarely in the realm of the spectacle of extreme violence: brutal, but intermittent. The ruthless affirmation of sovereignty and quest for purity.
Hearing about #JASDJ #BokoHaram used to designate not only Islamic courts to implement sharia law, but also a level down, mediators who would try to resolve local conflicts before they were taken to the courts...
As @AdamBaczko and others have shown, part of the edge that territorialised jihadi organisations can have is their capacity to provide cheap and relatively efficient and credible governance.
Yes, #JASDJ and other jihadi structures have not shied from implementing and demonstrating gruesome and gory huddud punishments... But under that, there has been a lot more going on, an attempt to address discrete daily conflicts.
Seeing new #JASDJ #BokoHaram videos doing the rounds… Different groups of fighters in different settings, talking in different languages (Arabic, Buduma, Kanuri, Kanembu and Arabic). Clearly, we are near the Lake. A thread. 
In these videos (complete with antics à la Shekau), they affirm their loyalty to their imam, Abu Umaymah (mentioned in a prior video as replacement for Sahalaba, recently executed by JASDJ). It's not a pledge, though. It's about rejecting unambiguously any agreement with #ISWAP.
JASDJ does not name ISWAP. They call them apostates and “murjiah”, a term that refers to an old interpretation of Islam according to which one has to delay (irja) passing judgment on people, God being the only judge. In modern Salafi-jihadi parlance, this means “softies”.
De ce point de vue-là, et puisque la question revient régulièrement, on peut citer le travail remarquable de @SmallArmsSurvey sur le Niger, cas intéressant, puisque le pays est au croisement des deux zones du djihad ouest-africain: le Sahel central et le Lac Tchad/Borno.
Dans l'étude ci-dessous, Small Arms Survey essaie de tracer la provenance des armes saisies par les forces nigériennes sur ces deux fronts. Pour le Lac Tchad, le gros des armes utilisées sont bien des prises de guerre. smallarmssurvey.org/sites/default/…
Autre résultat très intéressant: les deux fronts du djihad ouest-africain sont deux bassins de circulation très peu connectés (à l'époque, en 2017 - on se demande bien sûr ce qu'il en est maintenant).
A thread on recent events in Sambisa. There are some reasons to think #ISWAP has largely prevailed for now in the struggle that broke out in August with malcontent #JASDJ groups who refused to rally. #BokoHaram
A 15-minute ISWAP video has been circulating for a few days, which discusses the issue of the JASDJ dissenters. The video comprises of four segments.
First, there is a short extract by Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, the official spokesperson of the Islamic State, taken from a speech he made after Shekau’s death. The extract chosen welcomes the victory of ISWAP over the “khawarij”, the “extremists”.
About the reports on #BokoHaram associates defecting in Cameroon & Nigeria... a thread... First, it is a welcome development, and it is clear that it has a lot to do with the Lake Chad states setting up and advertising defection/reintegration programmes.
Jihadis would not come out if it were not for those programmes, which make clear to them that there is a safe way out. It seems previous defectors play a big role in facilitating additional exits, too - informing potential defectors & contacting the authorities on their behalf.
So much for critics of these programmes... Yes, these pgs come with flaws, but if they can get some people to stop fighting, they are useful.
I must say that this one time, my sense is different from yours, @bulamabukarti. In the #ISWAP video, there is at least Tahiru Baga, the English-speaking old man, a Yusufiyya pioneer and hisbah leader.
Also, I can't help noticing that reported attacks on civilians by #JASDJ have dropped drastically in Cameroon - one plausible interpretation is JASDJ is falling in line with ISWAP policy. Bakura is the exception here (and there are still attacks against civilians in Chad).
Plus ISWAP has already claimed four attacks in areas that used to be JASDJ areas. And they attacked Damboa from both sides, from Alagarno and from Sambisa.
1. Habib Yusuf (aka Abu Musab al Barnawi), the new ad interim boss of #ISWAP responds in a 50-minute audio in Hausa to “the one who calls himself Imam al Shekawi”. A thread…
2. Most of it is a response to Shekau’s criticism of ISWAP's doctrine in the audio testament in Kanuri & Hausa that he put out on 18 May, shortly before blowing himself up (discussed in a previous thread). There are also interesting bits about Shekau’s pledge to the IS in 2015.
3. Why Habib does that while Shekau is dead is clear at the end of the audio: he addresses Shekau’s followers. He mentions Sambisa and Lake Chad… but also, interestingly Zamfara and Niger… does that mean they consider that there are indeed Shekau affiliates there?).
0. OK, so now I have a readout on the video by Bakura Sahalaba of #JASDJ I discussed earlier today... This is thread time... and then I have a Moscow Mule to close the day.
1. Bakura Sahalaba begins by saying that Islam did not die after the death of Muhammad - a good way to say Shekau's way maintains even after his death.
2. While he never mentions Shekau's name, he mentions his title ("imam"), saying notably that the imam did not leave behind girls/women behind, but men who will defend the religion - an admission of Shekau's death... (no brownie points for gender awareness here)
1. This is #BokoHaram thread-day, it seems… This time about the situation now prevalent in the Sambisa. I indirectly got some feedback from the #JASDJ side… It looks like, with Shekau gone, the incorporation of JAS into ISWAP is well on its way.
2. First, some info about the recent events gets additional verification. Yes, there was fighting in Sambisa (and JAS fighters did not lose it all). Yes, Shekau blew himself up, killing some ISWAP members. Yes, Abu Musab is ISWAP’s leader.
3. JAS now counts 20 subgroups, each presumably under a qaid (did some qaed die during the ISWAP push? Not known. Also, is Bakura counted as one of the 20?)
1. In the long version of the audio released in Hausa before his death on 18 May, Abubakar Shekau, the leader of #JASDJ #BokoHaram, gives interesting bits about the events that were leading to his ultimate defeat. He also sheds light on more long term issues. A thread…
2. Shekau confirms that ISWAP (never named) entered Sambisa, and that some fighting took place. He also insists that ISWAP flipped over a number of JAS members.
3. He notes that ISWAP was pressing him to pledge allegiance to Abu Ibrahim, the current Islamic State Caliph, adding that they promised him he would be acknowledged as wali of “the whole African continent” if he did.
