The latest spate of ISIS attacks in Iraq has raised fears the group is exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to step up its attacks: rudaw.net/english/middle…

So is ISIS really escalating? Or is this seeming 'escalation' just more of the group's continuing insurgency?

• THREAD • Over the past several weeks, ISIS has claimed more aggressive, direct attacks on Iraqi security forces.

These attacks would mark a seeming shift from mostly preying on civilians and taking asymmetric shots at Iraqi forces: crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

2/13

This here is bananas: nytimes.com/2020/03/27/wor…

What do people think it actually means to "destroy" a group like Kataib Hizbullah?

1/8 The idea that the U.S. can just deliver some decisive blow to this group, or others like it, is strategically illiterate.

Bombing Kataib Hizbullah would not "destroy" the group – it would only be the start of more conflict, not some clearly punctuated end.

2/8

In statement, Al-Qaeda's General Command hails U.S.-Taliban agreement on U.S. exit from Afghanistan – "a manifest victory" and "a humiliating defeat for America and its allies" – and implicitly instructs the global jihadist movement on how to understand the deal.

• THREAD • We know that jihadists globally have been following U.S.-Taliban negotiations (e.g., ebaa.news/opinion-articl…).

What we know less about is how those militants – given their very particular backgrounds, eccentric worldview, etc. – are internalizing the Taliban's experience.

2/9

In new issue of Islamic State's newsletter "al-Naba," schadenfreude-infused editorial welcomes death of Qassem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and attendant U.S.-Iran conflict regionally as expression of God's divine will: jihadology.net/2020/01/09/new…

• THREAD • The editorial venerates the mujahideen, who fight on Earth to realize God's command – but recalls that victory belongs ultimately to God, Who chooses to deliver it at a time and through means of His choosing, and in ways that may not be evident to His followers.

1. Notes on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's apparent death in Syria's Idlib province:

• THREAD • 2. Baghdadi's death seems unlikely to have an immediate impact on the group's operations.

U.S. officials told @CrisisGroup they believed the Islamic State's top leadership was issuing broad guidance to the global organization, not day-to-day direction: crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

1. Having read this biography of Abu Ali al-Anbari (available in PDF via @colebunzel's piece), I have to agree with @colebunzel – it doesn't support @hxhassan's revisionist contentions about Zarqawi's centrality to the Islamic State in his latest (theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…).

https://twitter.com/AbuJamajem/status/1070965403411759105

2. To illustrate some of @colebunzel's points: @hxhassan plays up the relationship between Anbari and Zarqawi, but the biography relates only limited early interactions between the two, and not on a timeline that suggests Anbari informed Zarqawi's strategic sectarianism.