| Freelance journalist in London | Previously in China + Jordan |
Written for @TimeOutShanghai, @TheSliceTowHam, @ThePIENews, @DefensePost and more.
Apr 26, 2019 • 34 tweets • 15 min read
I'm going to start a thread cataloguing the activities of the new IS province Central Africa (ISCA). It was first mentioned in a speech by IS leader Al-Baghdadi in August 2018.
In December I published an article with The Defence Post talking about the tentative ties between IS and the ADF, a DRC based militant group. It is likely ISCA is made up of ADF member who have pledged allegiance to IS.
1) One of the #SriLanka church suicide bombers is reportedly Zahran Hashim. In late 2017 I did some research on pro-Islamic State Sri Lanken Facebook accounts. His was one of the accounts I looked at, where he was a self styled 'Islamic Preacher' who held some pro-IS views. 2) Zahran Hashim was reportedly the suicide bomber at the Shangri La Hotel according to @CNNnews18. One of the several locations hit in the #SriLanka terror attack that has killed almost 200.
Thread/ In several instances the Islamic State developed and used remote control guns in Iraq and Syria. This short thread will take a look at those weapons. 2/ The first pictured instance of IS using a remote control gun was near kirkuk in 2015. A dragenov was attacked to a metal frame which provided horizontal and vertical movement via a connected controller.