Chief jihadist media specialist at @BBC/ BBC Monitoring (monitoring.bbc.co.uk)
Joined June 2009
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19 Dec 2025
Hope this latest updated chart helps (these charts/data are based on IS's own claims, but collected and analysed by BBC Monitoring)
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May 28
🧵ISIS issues first comment on 16 May US strike in Nigeria, acknowledges activity in the country’s north-west for first time
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8/ Interestingly, IS attributed the attacks not to its Nigeria-focused West Africa Province branch (ISWAP), but to its Sahel branch active in Mali, Burkina Faso and south-western Niger. There have been reports since last year of possible expansion by IS's Sahel branch into Nigeria. My colleague Barry Marston has extensively written about this angle.
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9/ IS may also have chosen to announce for the first time its “expansion” into north-west Nigeria in the same al-Naba issue that acknowledged the US operation as a form of defiance - perhaps an attempt to eclipse, or at least soften, the impact of the US announcement that it had killed a senior IS figure in Nigeria.
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May 18
1/ IS (ISIS) supporters online have reacted derisively to the 16 May joint US-Nigerian operation in north-east Nigeria that was said to have killed Abu Bilal al-Minuki, whom President Trump described as IS’s global “second in command” and “the most active terrorist in the world”. IS itself has not commented on the strike and rarely responds immediately in such cases.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy72…
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4/ Meanwhile, numerous supporters also pointed to the flurry of IS attacks in Africa - namely in DR Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria and Somalia - claimed by the group over the weekend following the US announcement, portraying them as an "indirect" response and message of defiance from IS towards the US after its announcement.
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5/ Overall, this reaction is typical of IS and its supporters, who routinely seek to downplay leadership losses and territorial setbacks.
At the same time, the fact that few, if any, prominent supporters appeared to know much about Manuki or his actual role - beyond what could be gleaned from mainstream media reports - is indicative of how IS keeps its senior officials and their responsibilities deliberately opaque in order to avoid placing an even greater target on them. As far as I know, Manuki himself didn't have a public profile within IS’s official public messages or media output.
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May 15
1/ ISIS has called on former foreign fighters in Syria who settled in the country to join its ranks, seeking to capitalise on recent tensions between a group of Uzbek former fighters and the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa. IS warned foreign fighters that the Sharaa government would sooner or later move against them and eliminate them, either all at once or gradually, at the behest of external powers. It instead urged them to join forces with IS, which it claimed represented the only pure and uncompromised Muslim banner and project.
The appeal came in the editorial of IS's weekly newspaper, al-Naba, released on 14 May.
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2/ Although the message may not constitute an immediate threat, and despite the fact that most of these former fighters oppose IS's ultra-extremist ideology, a combination of government pressure on "independent" foreign fighters and the exploitation of these tensions by IS - as well as by hardline Islamist clerics, as seen recently - could risk driving at least some fighters into IS's arms. The circulation of unconfirmed or even false narratives during such episodes of tension also plays a key role in exacerbating and inflaming them, opportunities that IS is unlikely to miss exploiting.
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3/ It's worth pointing out, however, that during a similar bout of tensions last year between the Sharaa government and a group of "independent" foreign fighters - a term used for those who did not join either the government ranks or any opposing faction - IS also called on foreign fighters to join its ranks and was disappointed when they failed to do so. As a result, during the latest bout of tensions involving the Uzbek fighters, IS supporters largely gloated over their fate. In its latest editorial, IS said it could similarly gloat over the fighters' situation but preferred instead to invite them to join its ranks, adding that its doors remain open.
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May 5
My latest for BBC Monitoring: Does unrest in Mali confirm a shift in jihadist dynamics?
monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product…
It looks at JNIM’s messaging during its recent offensive, which suggests a deliberate strategy of pragmatism and restraint, aimed at winning local support while avoiding provoking regional and international actors.
This echoes trajectories seen with HTS in Syria and the Taliban in Afghanistan, but its roots lie within al-Qaeda itself. Notably, in July 2012, AQIM's then leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, issued guidance to jihadist commanders in Mali urging them to “blend in”, lower their profile, and avoid signalling regional or global ambitions, advice that may now be shaping JNIM’s approach.
But this flexibility and restraint may be temporary and tactical, reflecting a phase before jihadists reach “tamkin” (full power and authority).
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May 1
Does the Mali conflict confirm a shift in jihadist dynamics? My brief take on this
tinyurl.com/4x3am66u (BBCM website)
tinyurl.com/mt2pc8rx (LinkedIn)
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