A four-year study found that after examining 364 Palestinian Authority schoolbooks for grades one through 12 from the years 2013 to 2018, children are still learning that a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not an option, like reported by jns.org

A new study on Palestinian textbooks found that the Palestinians still support terror and destroying Israel, and funnel misinformation to their children, which doesn’t exactly surprise Israeli experts.

The four-year study by the Israel-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center found that after examining 364 Palestinian Authority schoolbooks for grades one through 12 from the years 2013 to 2018, children are still learning that a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not an option.

Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay, a former deputy head of the National Security Council of Israel, who today serves as director of research at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, told JNS that he is not surprised by the findings of the study demonstrating that Palestinian textbooks continue to incite against Israel and Jews.

“One of the major problems with our relations with the Palestinians is that our expectation was that the Palestinians really wanted to put an end to the conflict, and not just go through a political process between the two parties,” he said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, and I don’t see it happening in the near future.”

“The Palestinian media and textbooks all push the same consistent message because there is an expectation that this is what the Palestinian street wants,” explained Shay.

Shay puts the P.A. incitement into the context of its competition with Hamas for power in the Palestinian territories. “So, to expect the P.A. to suddenly turn 180 degrees in the opposition direction is not realistic.”

The Israeli expert noted that the same arguments about the conflict were going on when former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was alive. Arafat spoke differently when he spoke to different audiences—in one way in English and the other in Arabic. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is similar in this way, he added.

Researchers at the Meir Amit center were disheartened to find continued material in textbooks that relate to incitement against Jews and Israel. One such reference found in the history-studies book for grade 11 mentions the “1972 Munich operation,” where 11 members of the Israeli Summer Olympics team were murdered. “Those who carry out such actions are called ‘self-sacrificing ones [Fidais]’ and those among liberation struggle is liberating the Muslim holy place of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem from the Jews’ sway.”

The struggle is not limited to the West Bank and Gaza, but includes the entire area of Israel from the Jordanian River to the Mediterranean Sea, continued the report. “Even Israel’s very name is replaced in the text in the vast majority of cases by ‘the Zionist Occupation’ or ‘the Zionist Entity,’ which should be extirpated from the Middle East (History Studies, Grade 12).”

Ido Zelkovitz, head of the Middle East Studies program at Yezreel Valley College and a policy fellow at Mitvim think tank, says that incitement in Palestinian media and textbooks continues regardless of the U.S. administration decision to cut funding to UNWRA, the U.N. agency charged with Palestinian relief.

“The political culture in Palestinian society is against Israel and in a state of mind that is not interested in compromising,” he said, going on to add that “the struggle over the textbooks is important, but not the main issue, which is the human dimension.”

He explained his opinion by pointing out that U.S. President Donald Trump will not be able to dictate to the Palestinians what their children can study.

Textbook incitement leads to pessimism on peace process

“If the Palestinians are going to change their state of mind, it must be their own decision, and I don’t see that happening in the short- or long-run,” said Zelkovitz, a senior research fellow at the Ezri Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa.

The Israeli expert dismisses the chance of financial pressure changing Palestinian attitudes, noting that they will simply turn to Europe or elsewhere for funds.

“It would take at least 40 years to change Palestinian attitudes, and to do this, the education curriculum must be altered,” he added.

The European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee is supposed to vote on whether to freeze more than 15 million euros ($17 million) in aid to pay for school textbooks for the Palestinian Authority unless it removes incitement against Israel.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, or IMPACT-se, which has analyzed the new Palestinian textbooks, presented a report to the European Parliament, noting that the P.A. “encourage[s] Palestinian children to sacrifice their lives in the name of religion,” and “glorified martyrdom and violent resistance.”

Zelkovitz does think that the Trump strategy of allying with Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to pressure the Palestinian leadership could produce results.

Asked where he sees the endgame going, he responded that he still believes the two-state as “the best solution.”

Pressed on the viability of the two-state solution and the talk of out-of-the-box alternative, Zelkovitz replied: “I don’t deny that the Palestinians, if they could, would push for a one Palestinian state solution without Israel.”

Still, he thinks the Palestinians may eventually be able to create a narrative of peace because without it, “they will never achieve their main goal of establishing a Palestinian state.”

In addition to the current threat of extremists and radicalised individuals, returning fighters are posing new challenges to state. Danish authorities have pioneered de-radicalisation programmes that focused on providing terrorists as well as former fighters the opportunity to reintegrate with mainstream society, like reported by eurasiareview.com.

Danish authorities have estimated that 145 of Denmark’s citizens have left for Syria/Iraq since 2012. At least half of them have returned to Denmark and nearly a quarter remains in the conflict zone. Another quarter is assumed dead. Danish fighters account for the second highest number of fighters per capita in Europe according to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) report in 2015.

The deradicalisation programmes initiated by Danish authorities have gained much attention worldwide because of its soft approach to returning fighters from Syria/Iraq as well as other extremists and radicalised individuals. It is based on holistic, collaborative efforts between various agencies. They include social-service providers, the education sector, health-care agencies, the police, and the intelligence and security services.

Finetuned Through Trial and Error

This collaborative effort stems from years of experience and benefits from other structures and processes designed to confront common criminal activity. These programmes have been developed in practice through trial and error by various local agency practitioners comprising schools, youth clubs and social services.

The state plays a role in providing guidelines and receives feedback from the practitioners before being implemented fully. Currently, de-radicalisation processes, in ways that echo more contemporary peace and conflict resolution measures, are continuously being developed from top-down and bottom-up consultations to suit the challenges faced.

Two Types of Programmes

The Danish government has implemented two types of de-radicalisation programmes. The first called “Deradicalisation – Targeted Intervention” aims at helping individuals leave extremist environments and/or prevent them from getting involved in extremist environments.

It is achieved through developing tools that provide the youth with social support and advice to distance themselves from extremist circles. This programme comprises two approaches – Mentor support and Exit talks.

The Mentor support approach is the development of methods for individual mentorship for individuals who are showing signs of radicalisation. Mentors and resource personnel provide advice, guidance, counselling and social support that is needed for radicalised individuals to stay out of extremist circles.

The Exit talks approach is the concept of preventive talks targeted at individuals who are assessed to be in the process of radicalisation and who accept violence as a legitimate means to achieve personal and political goals. Counsellors are assigned to foster an understanding of the consequences of an extremist and criminal way of life; at the same time, they offer legitimate alternatives to the infatuation experienced by people joining extremist circles for the first time.

Back on Track

The second programme called “De-radicalisation – Back on Track” aims at helping prison inmates who have been convicted of terrorism or charged with criminal activities involving hate crimes by providing the necessary support needed to get “back on track”. It also serves as a tool to support them in leaving far-right, far-left or religious extremism behind and their efforts to reintegrate into mainstream society upon their release.

The approach is established within the framework of an existing mentoring programme targeted at terrorist inmates who are placed in special units where they cannot exert their influence over other inmates. Mentors will then be assigned to their designated inmates and assessment made to facilitate the mentorship process better.

The local network of social service, healthcare providers and schools also participates in the rehabilitation process. It is a requirement for the detainees to participate in all aspects of the rehabilitation programme to be released on parole.

Guiding Principles

The Danish experience comprises three main guiding principles. The first is the principle of inclusion rather than exclusion or stigmatisation. This principle of inclusion denotes meaningful participation in common cultural, social, and societal life. It means that the Danish government recognises these individuals are no different from the rest of Danish citizens who can get an education and a job, provided detainees put violence by the wayside in efforts to achieve their goals.

The idea of inclusion is embedded in the concept of modern democracy and pluralism in Denmark which is built by legal participation of many different communities in finding the best possible solutions to emerging challenges. It is, therefore, the aim of the programme to transform the personal, social, cultural, and political motivations into legal modes of participation and citizenship.

The second principle is the importance of quality relationships between different private sector bodies and institutions working with various government agencies in the implementation process. At the national level, the focus is on building capacity and supporting these local initiatives by offering skill enhancement activities, developing concrete methods in combating extremism and radicalisation, and counselling workshops.

Scientific Discipline

The third principle is that the programme is based on a scientific discipline called Life Psychology. Developed by the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at the Aarhus University, it provides a theoretical grounding in the understanding of radicalisation processes, risk factors, and resilience.

The basis of Life Psychology lies primarily in the presumption that every individual aspires for a “good life”. And to achieve that, one must overcome various obstacles, challenges and setbacks to achieve his or her aspiration. The second presumption is that to have a “good life”, the person must possess sufficient skills to enable him or her to cope with life tasks.

These tasks involve daily activities that fall into the realm of social, work or leisure domains and emphasise the process of making important decisions. The third presumption lies in the fact that every individual regardless of gender, life history and religious, social and cultural background, encounters the same fundamental life tasks.

Challenges

The use of existing structures to counter extremism and radicalisation has proven to be valuable, and the model itself boasts sufficient capacity and resources. Its effectiveness, however, remains difficult to measure.

There are challenges in the implementation of the de-radicalisation programme in Denmark. Some experts are of the opinion that there should be a greater focus on punitive measures and they contest whether the soft approach is effective. Another challenge is the question of to what extent the government should be allowed to intervene in the lives of citizens in a welfare state; this remains unanswered.

Although the challenges faced may not be completely addressed by the authorities in a short period, the experiences of various stakeholders in Denmark dealing with de-radicalisation show that the challenges can be dealt with. In the broader sense, the stakeholders managed to perform a huge task with minimum resources available through intensive cooperation with each other.

The existence of African militias in southern Libya had become known to everyone. It is announced that the African militias are controlling important areas in south Libya.

Last few days had witnessed clashes between Chadian militias and armed groups in the area of Um-Alaraneb in the south to provide new evidence of the spread of the African militias in different southern regions.

A source in the southern areas told to libyaprospect.com that the Chadian militias are spread out in the regions from Um-Alaraneb to the crossing borders with Chad. The source added that the people of the areas had decided to defeat and expel those militias even without any support from the eastern or western Libyan governments. He pointed out that the two governments entirely ignore the southern side of Libya, and the services and the living situations are terrible.

The Red Crescent Society in the city of Sabha announced on 6 October that it had started talks with African militias and succeeded to release more than ten kidnapped civilians.

However, the Government of National Accord (GNA) had done nothing more than issuing statements condemning the situation. On the other hand, members from the House of Representatives (HoR) had admitted that the African groups are controlling some areas in the south.

Some HoR members stated that the southern areas are out of control, adding that mercenaries are very active in smuggling drugs and illegal migrants. They also called for bringing the commander of the Dignity Operation, General Khalifa Haftar, before the HoR for accountability about the situation in the south and ask him to talk about the attitude of his forces regarding the crisis.

The crisis hadn’t come suddenly to the scene; there are historical accumulations that should be considered in understanding what is going on in the south.

After the collapse of Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, the tribal disputes and rivalries took place. The troubles between Awlad Sleman and Al-Gadadfa tribes had were raised in Sabha; even between Tawareg and Tabu tribes in Ubari, as well as other disputes between other tribes in Al-Kufra.

In 2012, the General National Congress (GNC) had ordered the battalion “Third Force” to control the areas as a neutral side. But the political problems and divisions that were started in 2014 made the Third Force the enemy of Haftar’s forces who had armed tribal forces in the areas.

In 2015, the tribal disputes based on historical reasons. Some leaders of Tabu announced their support to Haftar’s Dignity Operation. Since then, relations between the Dignity Operation’s supporters in Tabu started a relationship with the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movements who had gathered Haftar’s forces to support him in his war.

On the other side, Haftar’s opponents in the south had communicated with the Chadian opposition and rebels. Chadian militias announced, that time, their existence on the Libyan lands. Chadian sources had circulated news that there were about eleven thousand elements from the Chadian rebels spread in Libya.

The existence of the Chadian and Sudanese oppositions and rebels in the areas had worsened the situation and made the vision unclear. The worse situation had vanished the Third Force while the forces affiliated with the GNA unseen in the regions. The only troops had remained in the areas were Haftar’s forces in some sites but without intervening to limit the chaos and stop the attacks on the civilians.

Experts from the areas said that the disputes in the south were inspired by some African sides which carry out the operations of abductions and illegal trade as well as terrorism in the regions from north Chad to other African countries including Niger, Mali, and Algeria. The troubles then moved to the areas of the south-east and south-west of Libya. Therefore, the disputes are actually between African tribes but on the Libyan lands to try to control the gold mines and the ways of smuggling and kidnapping civilians.

On the other hand, observers said that the south had become an area for international rivalries between France and Italy. Haftar is not far from the scene as he knows how to play games on those tribal disputes. The internal political loyalties played the role of deepening the social issues and dismantling the social mosaic.

The observers stated that France is trying its best to support Haftar to control the southern regions. Furthermore, some eyewitnesses said that there are forces loyal to Gaddafi’s regime. The forces mainly stationed in Ghat city nearby Algeria’s borders.

In 2018 Russia has quickly developed ties with the Central African Republic (CAR) through the signing of a defence co-operation agreement and the hosting of talks between rival militias from that country, like reported by ountry.eiu.com.

Access to natural resources and potential sales of Russian weaponry appear to explain Russia’s actions. These developments fit in with Russia’s willingness to reassert its presence on the global stage, with the aim of equality with the US in this respect and, in Africa, to provide a counterweight to traditional Western powers and to China. 

In late August Russia and Sudan hosted talks in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, between a number of rival militias from the CAR. This resulted in the signing of a declaration of understanding between those present, including three ex-Séléka rebel groups (mainly Muslim) and the head of the largest Christian armed groups, the anti-Balaka. The agreement is believed to have committed the groups to respect human rights and ensure the free movement of humanitarian organisations. The agreement also endorsed the African Union (AU) mediation mission, which is recognised by the UN and the CAR’s government. The AU ran a parallel meeting at the end of August to establish a framework for militias (at least 14 rebel groups are believed to be active in the country) to engage with the CAR government. However, rival ex-Séléka factions are operating almost independently and without a clear chain of command, weighing on the prospects of achieving a lasting peace agreement.

Russia’s involvement in the militia talks illustrates an increasing boldness in its relations with the CAR, and Africa in general. This has developed rapidly during 2018. In December 2017 Russia won an exemption from the UN arms embargo to provide small arms and ammunition to the CAR’s military. Russia delivered this assistance early this year, and five Russian military and 170 civilian instructors were sent to train military personnel on the ground. Given that the UN’s CAR mission, MINUSCA, is overstretched and the CAR’s national army (known by its French acronym, FACA) is poorly trained and supplied, Russia has provided much-needed assistance. However, building the capacities of the CAR’s armed forces will take time, especially given the complex security picture in the country.

Russia’s role goes further than arms donations

In August Russia and the CAR signed a military co-operation agreement. This was described by Alexander Fomin, the Russian deputy defence minister, as a framework agreement for co-operation, including exchanges of delegations and education. Russian military personnel have been deployed to the volatile cities of Sibut and Bangassou in support of the CAR armed forces. They are escorting convoys to carry materials to build hospitals and are also guarding existing Russian-donated hospitals.

Natural resources and selling Russian weaponry are the motives

A significant motivation for Russia relates to natural resources and mining interests—including timber, gold, diamonds and uranium—in the CAR. Russia has been explicit about this. After a meeting in October 2017 between Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and the CAR’s president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, in Sochi, a Russian sea resort, the Russian foreign ministry noted Russia’s interest in “mutually beneficial development of Central African natural resources”. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, met Mr Touadéra in the Russian city of St Petersburg in May 2018; after the meeting, Mr Putin reiterated Russia’s desire to boost bilateral economic relations. Russia may be hedging this interest by conducting negotiations with rebel groups, as these control some of the resource-rich parts of the CAR. This is despite the CAR’s preference for the AU-led negotiations; this strategy could prove a source of tension between the CAR government and Russia.

Russia also is keen to provide Russian weaponry (as has been the case in Syria) to the conflict-torn CAR, with the hope of future arms deals should the situation stabilise. However, there is a risk that the weapons already supplied to the CAR under the UN exemption could contribute to further instability. In August a UN panel of experts noted that the UN-approved supply of weapons to the CAR military had led rebels to rearm by procuring more weapons in Sudan.

Counterbalancing Western and Chinese influence

Russia’s new interest in the CAR is indicative of Russia’s willingness to increase its influence on the African continent and to counterbalance the influence of traditional powers such as the US, the UK and France. In addition, by filling a security and defence gap in African countries in conflict or in those recovering from conflict, Russia is positioning itself for future economic gains at a time when the West appears to be focusing on migration and security in its relations with African countries. Finally, Russia also provides a counterbalance to Chinese influence, which has increased in recent years owing to China’s large-scale infrastructure Belt and Road Initiative. In view of the construction since early 2018 of a Chinese base in Djibouti, and with the announcement in September by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, of US$60bn in financial support to Africa, Russia appears eager to be seen as a serious alternative player in the region.

Not just about the CAR

Aside from recent military co-operation agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mozambique and Morocco, Russia reached an agreement in late August to build a logistics base in Eritrea. If it is built, such a base would give the Russian naval forces access to the Red Sea. Russia has also renewed ties with Egypt, recently signing agreements to establish a Russian Industrial Zone; to build a nuclear-power plant; and to supply helicopters and MiG-29 fighter jets. Russia has also offered military training to Sudan’s armed forces. These developments indicate Russia’s interest—and, so far, its success—in bolstering its presence in Africa.

In September, a warning from the chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces, Gadi Eizenkot, that there was a high probability of violence in the West Bank passed without much notice. But Israeli and American officials would be wise to pay attention, as such a warning is credible, like reported by carnegie-mec.org.

The danger is not that the leadership of the Palestinian Authority will seek a confrontation with Israel, as most indications suggest the contrary. Rather, violence may erupt as a consequence of the despair that is rampant among Palestinians, mounting pressure from the Trump administration, and the lack of any viable option for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Israel. Just as the first Intifada erupted spontaneously, a new outbreak could come at any time, fueled by a population that feels it has little to lose.

According to Israeli press reports, Eizenkot warned the Israeli security cabinet that there was a “60–80 percent chance” of a major outbreak of violence by Palestinians in the West Bank. He reportedly attributed the increased risk to several factors: U.S. measures against the Palestinians, including cuts in aid; the loss of Arab support for Palestinians; the failure of reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas; the Palestinians’ perception that their security forces in the West Bank are aiding Israel; and uncertainty over the longevity of 83-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was especially noteworthy that Eizenkot highlighted U.S. pressure on the Palestinians as a potentially destabilizing factor. Such pressure has been a central element of the Trump administration’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The anti-Palestinian moves began with the decision in late 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there, breaking with decades of U.S. policy. Then came a cutoff in assistance—not only economic assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) but also humanitarian assistance to private hospitals in East Jerusalem unaffiliated with the PA as well as to people-to-people programs promoting contacts between ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. The administration also ended all U.S. funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the U.N. body that provides health, education, and social services to Palestinian refugees.

Finally, the U.S. ordered the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission in Washington. Israeli press reports suggested that the Israeli armed forces and the security services told the Israeli government that rapid cuts in U.S. assistance to the Palestinians and UNRWA could be destabilizing. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored these warnings and signaled his support for President Donald Trump’s decisions.

Eizenkot’s warning may have been informed by a recollection of the events that led to the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987, another period when peace efforts had run their course and the Arab world was focused elsewhere. In 1982, U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian talks on autonomy for the West Bank and Gaza that were part of the Camp David Accords had ended in failure. In mid-1987, progress between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and King Hussein of Jordan on a so-called “Jordan Option” had been torpedoed by then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. When the Arab League summit convened in Amman in November 1987, Arab leaders were preoccupied by the Iran-Iraq war and gave little attention to Palestinian concerns. In December 1987, with scant hope for a resolution to the conflict and little support from the Arab world, the Intifada broke out spontaneously in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, before spreading rapidly throughout the occupied territories.

Events rarely repeat themselves exactly as in the past, and Israel’s armed forces are better positioned today than they were in 1987 to deal with an outbreak of violence. They are no longer deployed inside major Palestinian population centers, and the PA security forces can control limited protests on their own. However, frequent incursions by Israeli forces into Palestinian-controlled areas and the many settlers moving around daily inside the West Bank offer points of friction, and possible targets for attacks. The standoff along the Gaza border also has the potential to turn into a nasty conflict between Israel and Hamas, and could trigger clashes in the West Bank.

It is in this volatile environment that the Trump administration is planning to present its peace plan, the so-called “deal of the century.” While the details and timing of such a plan remain unclear, recent comments by Trump before the United Nations General Assembly suggest that his preferred approach is a two-state model, but with many of the key issues—Jerusalem, refugees, security—addressed in a way that favors Israeli interests.

While the Palestinian reaction to such a plan will inevitably be negative, Abbas has consistently opposed violence and maintained security coordination with the Israelis. He continued to do so even after the steps taken by the Trump administration. But Palestinian anger and hopelessness could lead to an explosion, despite Abbas’ preferences and the efforts of his security forces.

The Trump administration should be mindful of this reality and avoid steps that further inflame the situation. Misguided American actions could be harmful not only for the Palestinians but for Israel as well. If the administration truly wants to advance peace, it must rethink its hostile approach to the Palestinians and devise a plan that takes into account the vital interests of both parties.

A new analysis of ISIS control, battle and support zones in Syria and Iraq reflects that the Islamic State “is reconstituting a capable insurgent force in Iraq and Syria despite efforts to prevent its recovery” by the U.S.-backed anti-ISIS coalition, like reported by pjmedia.com.

While the Defense Department consistently states that one or two thousand ISIS fighters are estimated to remain in Syria’s Middle Euphrates River Valley, an August report to Congress from the U.S. Lead Inspector General estimated “roughly 14,000 fighters” still in Syria and “15,500 to 17,100 ISIS fighters” remaining in Iraq at the end of June.

“ISIS is waging an effective campaign to reestablish durable support zones while raising funds and rebuilding command-and-control over its remnant forces,” the Institute for the Study of War in D.C. said last week. “On its current trajectory, ISIS could regain sufficient strength to mount a renewed insurgency that once again threatens to overmatch local security forces in both Iraq and Syria.”

The assessment takes into account not just areas in which ISIS controls and governs the civilian population — territory that has dramatically shrunk since the peak of the caliphate — but zones where ISIS can conduct logistic and administrative support functions and territory in which ISIS actively conducts insurgent attacks.

“The U.S. Anti-ISIS Campaign has not eliminated the global threat posed by ISIS despite largely accomplishing its stated objectives in Iraq and Syria,” ISW stated. “…ISIS is finding new sources of revenue and rebuilding command-and-control over its scattered remnant forces in order to prepare for a future large-scale insurgency in both Iraq and Syria.”

The terror group “was able to smuggle as much as $400 million out of Iraq and reinvest it into legitimate businesses across the wider Middle East” and “continues to engage in lucrative criminal activity including extortion, smuggling, theft, and money laundering” to raise funds.

Money-laundering front companies established by ISIS in Iraq reportedly include car dealerships and pharmacies. ISIS fighters also raided a clinic near Kirkuk last month and stole a cache of drugs that they could sell or use to treat their wounded in the future.

Just how much revenue ISIS is generating right now is unknown.

Messages earlier this year calling on ISIS cells to activate “suggest that ISIS deliberately embedded operatives to conduct future attacks in recaptured areas across Iraq and Syria,” ISW noted, but ISIS may also be taking steps to piece back together an operational-level command structure. These include the formation of two new ISIS province in Iraq and Syria on July 20 and the resurrection of ISIS releasing weekly military activity statistics.

ISIS is “steadily scaling up the rate” of attacks in Iraq, and “is also reconstituting as an insurgent force across Syria.”

“ISIS is also infiltrating Al-Qaeda’s areas of operations in Northern Syria in order to gain access to logistics routes through Turkey. It may also intend to tap into flows of Al-Qaeda-aligned foreign fighters. ISIS has also demonstrated that it retains the ability to mount attacks in areas held by the U.S. Anti-ISIS Coalition and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) including Ar-Raqqa City, Hasaka City, and Qamishli,” ISW reported. “ISIS is likely regenerating support networks across its former territorial holdings in Northern and Eastern Syria.”

The assessment predicts that ISIS’ resurgence in Iraq will pick up steam as fighting the terror group falls on the priority list of the Iraqi government.

“The U.S. and its allies must take action to set the political conditions necessary to sustain a long-term campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria,” ISW concluded. “ISIS otherwise threatens to return yet again in a form even more dangerous and more capable than its rise to global prominence in 2014.”

A recent case in Denmark involved the arrest of two individuals who were accused of violating Danish anti-terror laws for purchasing drones they intended to send to members of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, like reported by soufangroup.com.

And although there have been few additional details revealed about the case, what it portends for the future of terrorism is troubling. Indeed, the use of weaponized drones by terrorists is no longer simply a concern for the future, but in fact has been slowly unfolding over the past years. In Yemen, Houthi rebels used unmanned aerial systems to attack Saudi air defenses. Hezbollah, perhaps the world’s most advanced terrorist organization, has used drones against the Islamic State in Syria. Drones can be employed by terrorists and insurgents for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, or they can be weaponized, as witnessed by the Islamic State using a drone to drop a grenade on an adversary’s military base. And in early January, Turkish-backed rebels used drones to conduct ‘swarming’ attacks on two Russian bases in Syria.

Terrorists can harness the power of drones and other emerging technologies with the help of state sponsors, as with the case of Hezbollah and Iran, or by learning on their own. The barriers to entry for individuals and small groups determined to learn the intricacies of small unmanned aerial systems are incredibly low. The Internet provides a bevy of ‘do-it-yourself’ manuals for mastering drones and an array of commercial-off-the-shelf technologies. A ‘black swan’ event—something that has a low likelihood of occurring but has significant consequences if it does—is an attack where terrorists use drones to disperse chemical or biological agents against civilians in a crowded location. Al-Qaeda and other millenarian groups have long sought to execute such an attack, perhaps modeled on the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attack launched by Aum Shinrikyo. That attack killed a dozen people, but achieved the attackers’ primary objective of perpetuating the psychological dimension of terrorism.

The sheer ubiquity of future private-sector commercial and personal use of drones will lead to a highly congested airspace, which could allow terrorists to camouflage their drones amidst the regular air traffic that comes to define major cities and urban areas. Moreover, it is not only drones that terrorist will seek to exploit in the future: other emerging technologies will likely prove attractive to terrorists as well. These include virtual currencies, new advances in encrypted communications, and artificial intelligence. 3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been used by individuals to print various weapons that are difficult to trace. Furthermore, what is worrisome is not simply the use of technologies in isolation, but the combination of these technologies coupled in real-time with an actual kinetic attack that could prove overwhelming for law enforcement, intelligence services, and security forces.

What the case in Denmark shows is that terrorist groups will continue to seek access to advanced weaponry and disruptive technologies. The relative ease with which commercial off-the-shelf technologies can be obtained is of obvious concern to governments. In August, there was an assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro using two armed drones. The attempt failed but the potential implications are enormous. Crafting an adequate defense to combat this threat will require sustained coordination at multiple levels of government. Current countermeasures include electronic jamming, but this response is far from foolproof. What’s more, it is often unavailable to law enforcement and security services at local levels, where this threat is likely to be most acute. As has occurred in other areas, the proliferation and advance of new technologies typically outpaces the laws and policies designed to govern them.

Saeed is the pseudonym of a 22-year-old Afghan who has been fighting in Syria for the last four years. He serves in the Armored Unit of the Liwa Fatemiyoun Unit, which was set up by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), like reported by iranwire.com.

According to reports, throughout the war in Syria, IRGC has been drafting Shia Afghan immigrants in Iran to fight with the unit, deploying them to various combat zones across Syria.

Many Afghan refugees looking for a citizenship status or financial benefits have joined the army, so I asked Saeed how he ended up in Fatemiyoun. “I had heard about a small group called ISIS who were committing horrible crimes in the name of Islam,” Saeed told me. “I saw some of those horrible video clips of [ISIS] decapitating human beings and killing innocent children, which really bothered me. At first, I didn’t even know where Syria was on the map, but after more research and watching a documentary on TV, I was certain that I must go to war against these people. Finally, I found a phone number of a person in charge of Fatemiyoun recruitment and contacted him.”

After meeting with the recruitment agent, Saeed found out that he needed to fill out official paperwork in order to join the corps, for which he needed references. He also had to hire a lawyer and agree to sign away his rights and protection so that the IRGC would not be held responsible in case anything bad happened to him. “What they mean by references and lawyer is people you know. It’s even better for them to be friends and family members because if you have no one, you can’t join Fatemiyoun. These are the people who will receive your body and belongings after your death, and who are entitled to your martyrdom benefits.”

After thinking it over for a night, Saeed joined the force the next day. Afterward, he was promised a pilgrimage to the holy shrines in Syria and 15 million Iranian rials (US$350 at the time of publishing) as a monthly salary. “At first I thought this would be a good opportunity to see some new places and visit the holy shrines. But after getting there I completely changed my mind and decided to stay.”

A few days after the registration, Saeed went to a boot camp for military and combat training. He did not provide any detail about the whereabouts of the camps but he did give other information. “In an intensive course [lasting] 20 days, we learned how to work with different weapons, from heavy automatic rifles to handguns. We also learned about the military tactics and strategies that could be useful in our situation.” After training, Saeed and his fellow soldiers were deployed to Syria, flying into Damascus. At the time, there was a huge battle near the shrine of Hazrat Zainab — the daughter of the third Shia Imam — and ISIS was bombing the shrine. “The airport and the surrounding area was under Fatemiyoun control,” Saeed said.

His training continued for 10 more days, during which he learned how to work with T-72 tanks. “At first, I served as a tank rocket launcher in Liwa Fatemiyoun,” he told me.

Religious and Financial Motives

Some people have said that the Afghan soldiers join Fatemiyoun because of financial needs and the benefits offered by the Iranian government, but Saeed told me religious beliefs were also an important factor. He wanted to guard the holy shrines and fight against the cruelty of ISIS.

“These two are mutually dependent. If I came here to fight against ISIS because of my beliefs, there should be someone at home to take care of my family’s financial needs. As you might know, most of the Fatemiyoun fighters are the men in their families and need to financially support them. But If I only considered the financial benefits, you might not know, but ISIS pays its fighters more. So, as you can see these two are mutually dependent.”

According to some reports, the Iranian government forces young Afghan immigrants who took refuge in the country to fight in Syria. But Saeed says he was not forced join, and he was not influenced by propaganda. “If that was the case, maybe a 1,000 people would get fooled and join the corps, but Fatemiyoun has more than 30,000 soldiers who all are very well informed and educated,” he said.

In fact, he says the government told him from the very beginning that there was a high chance of him getting killed in the war. They would only recruit him if he willingly accepted the danger, and if he failed to do so, he should forget about joining the Fatemiyoun brigade, he said.

“The establishment of Fatemiyoun changed the Iranian view of Afghan immigrants for the better and caused them to treat them with respect and less harassment,” Saeed said. “Our victories in Syria even made us popular in Iranian society, which is the greatest achievement for Afghan immigrants.”

No Chance to Defend at Home

But what do Afghan people think about their fellow Afghans joining Fatemiyoun? As Saeed admits, most Afghans do not have a positive opinion on the issue. They criticize Fatemiyoun soldiers and want to know why they didn’t join their own national army instead of the Fatemiyoun Brigade. “We hear this a lot — why don’t you defend your own country? I tell them you need to first establish an organized and efficient army, then ask us to join it,” says Saeed. “When there is not such an organized army in Afghanistan, where can we serve? Iran is organized and using our help, why won’t you?”

Saeed has gained significant military and combat experience and says there are no Afghan or Iranian commandos who have the same level of experience as he does, since he learned everything first hand and during the course of actual combat.

In 2017, the Taliban attacked the largely Shia town of Mirzawalang in northern Afghanistan and murdered many of the locals. At the time, Saeed was in Kabul on a short period of leave. He along with some of his friends decided to join the Afghan army and fight against the Taliban in Mirzawalang, but the Afghan government did not let them.

Saeed says as soon as the Afghan government gives the green light, he is ready to join the national army and fight against terrorist groups, and to share his experience with Afghan soldiers.

And yet, like many other young Afghans, Saeed dreams of a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan: “My goal is to use my experience and expertise for the safety and peace of my own people and country if the government allows. We want our people to help us come back and serve our own country. The Syrian war is over. But I don’t want Iran to intervene in the politics of Afghanistan.” He says the country has suffered enough from foreign intervention over the decades.

The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Al-Ahwaz has claimed credit for the recent terrorist attack at a military parade in Iran’s Khuzestan Province that killed 25 people and wounded 60. It should surprise no one that this occurred in the heavily Arab province. Separatist Arab groups have regularly struck at the clerical regime, killing regime officials, allied locals, and civilians, like reported by weeklystandard.com.

An autonomous region until the coming of Reza Shah Pahlavi, who squashed independent tribal confederations throughout Iran in the 1920s, Khuzestan is oil-rich but poor. Although Sunni Arabs may be on the cutting edge of anger against the central government, many Shiites, who are the overwhelming majority of the Arab denizens of the region, appear to be similarly inclined to remonstrate violently against their Iranian overlords. As in Iraq, where Shiite Arabs are becoming more openly hostile to Iranians and the Iraqi militias allied to them, the ancient “Arab-Ajam” divide in Persia can transcend Shiite fraternity.

In modern times, Iran has had a stubborn, often violent minorities problem that goes far beyond the Arabs. Kurdish leaders and oppositionists have been assassinated at home and abroad, most famously by an Iranian hit team at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin in 1992. Periodically, large swaths of Iranian Baluchestan become no-go areas at night for Iranian security forces, especially when a fierce localism overlaps with the drug trade that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tries more to control than stop. Ethnic clashes often go unreported and misreported in the Western press. We really don’t know the exact ethnic balance in Iran—census figures in the Middle East, a region of fragile national and competitive religious identities, should never be trusted.

The clerical regime rules over many obstreperous peoples that might well bolt if they were allowed to do so: the Baluch of southeastern Iran, the Kurds of the northeast, the Arabs of the southeast, and even possibly the Turkish-speaking Azeris, who may represent as much as 25 percent of the country’s population and dominate the four provinces of Iranian Azerbaijan and the southern environs of the national capital, Tehran. When appropriately Persianized, Azeris move easily within the clerical regime’s elite, and yet “proper” Iranians when among themselves never fail to distinguish who is Irani and who is Turk. Azeris exercise the same precision. And religious differences often sharpen these ethnic/linguistic divisions: The Baluch are overwhelmingly Sunni and the Kurds are probably majority Sunni. The Iranians de souche—the inhabitants and descendants of the Iranian plateau, Parsa in Old Persian—may even be a minority in the lands that now comprise the Islamic Republic.

“Proper” Iranians, of course, want to believe that Persian culture transcends all the divides. The Persian language and literature and the pride that went with them withstood the 7th-century Arab invasion and its magnetic tongue, eventually absorbing most of the Arab settlers into the Persian oikumene. Then appeared the Turks, who first came as slave soldiers and then as all-conquering horse-mounted dynasties. The centripetal eminence of Persian culture absorbed them, too. Ditto the Mongols. (The stunning survival of Persian as a spoken and written language deserves comparison to that of English, another indefatigable and innovative language.)

For the Iranians de souche, the geography of modern Iran is settled. Any ethnic irredentism is illegitimate if it threatens the sovereignty of the boundaries that have held since Persians stopped losing territory to Russians in the early 19th century. Go into any Western foreign-language broadcasting company—for example, the BBC or Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty—and watch the Persian service eye Azeri broadcasters warily. When Azeri journalists try to get footage of Iranian Azerbaijanis illegally singing Azeri nationalist songs at soccer matches in Iran onto Persian-service broadcasts, the reception isn’t warm. It isn’t hard to find Iranian Azeris in former Soviet Azerbaijan willing to talk about the Persian heavy-handedness that they endure. Hang out with Iranian expatriates campaigning for democracy and human rights in their homeland and they can get cagey quickly when it comes to the right of self-determination for the minorities of the Islamic Republic. Iran may be the last of the great Middle Eastern empires but for Persians, a prideful people, it is an indissoluble nation-state.

The accusations of the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif after the attack in the city of Ahvaz—blaming the Saudis, the Israelis, and behind them the Americans—are a good example of the geographic paranoia that Iranian officials can often indelicately express. Although the regime has become adept at certain kinds of self-criticism so long as nothing cuts too deeply (the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has certainly turned criticism of his underlings into an art form), this disposition stays far away from questions of ethnicity. Acknowledging some corruption, police brutality, even the occasional ugliness of some sharia law practices (child marriage remains a hot button in Iran) is acceptable; confessions about heavy-handed bigotry against the Kurds, Arabs, Baluch, or Azeris are verboten.

To be fair to Zarif: It’s certainly possible that the Saudis had a hand in this attack. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has said that he wants to fight Iran inside Iran. It is far more likely, however, that Khuzestani Arabs who hate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps undertook this mission without Saudi guidance and support. Historically, Khuzestani Arabs have had sufficient group identity and anger at Tehran to generate militant underground organizations. They don’t need Saudi help to pull off such operations. The Guard Corps, the target of the Ahvaz attack, is the primary outfit enforcing the writ of the clerical regime. More than any other Iranian security service, it’s the guards who thump on the minorities when they organize or express themselves too independently. It is the corps that has done the heavy lifting in Syria, where Iran has been on the cutting edge of a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs and driven millions from their homes and homeland. In Iraq, in the deep Shiite south that revolves around Basra, the natives have been openly damning the influence of the Revolutionary Guards and their proxies. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the opening of the Iran-Iraq border, Mesopotamian Arabs have again become kissing cousins. Iranian intrusion into Iraqi society likely has an obverse that has so far gained little attention.

It may only be a matter of time before the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the Israelis start thinking programmatically about ways to make Iran’s ethnic divisions bloody fissures. Iranian Shiite imperialism—the willful use of religious sectarianism to extend Tehran’s influence throughout the Middle East—is deeply threatening to the Sunni Gulf monarchies, and to Israel because of the clerical regime’s implacable hatred of the Jewish state. (Anti-Semitism is creedal among Iran’s revolutionary elite, especially the Revolutionary Guards.) Given Iran’s development of a deployable foreign legion comprised of Shiite Arabs, Afghans, and Pakistanis, given its ever-improving missiles, given the continuing development of easily concealed advanced centrifuges, given the military alliance between Tehran and Moscow and the retrenchment of American power, Sunni Arabs and the Israelis will certainly try to find new, ideally low-cost, means to check, or at least harass, the clerical regime. With Tehran having used the Shiite and militant Islamist cards against the Sunni monarchies and everyone in the Middle East thinking about ethnicity and identity every waking hour, it would be natural for the Gulfies and the Israelis to explore the possibilities of turning ethnic pride against the Persians, hoping that internal discord will weaken the clerical regime abroad.

That may be bad analysis: Legitimacy denied at home, be it among Iranians de souche or the minorities, may lead Tehran to seek greater legitimacy elsewhere, especially in its sectarian foreign mission and the continuing struggle against Zionism. But if Iran did experience substantial internal discord (and ethnic disquiet can easily play into the larger, nondenominational Iranian distaste for theocracy), then it could paralyze the central government. A small-scale version of this—the aftershocks of the nationwide December demonstrations, the American withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the scary Donald Trump “he-might-just-bomb-us” factor—may have temporarily paralyzed Iranian foreign policy on the nuclear issue. It may well have caused Khamenei so far to avoid unleashing allied Arab militias against Americans in Iraq.

It costs little for Saudi Arabia and Israel to investigate how to support “national” grievances inside the Islamic Republic. It’s a decent guess that if Persian nationalism is rising in the Islamic Republic (and the increasing rot of the revolution’s Islamic idealism appears to be amping-up the non-Shiite part of the Persian identity), its ascent may well increase the national consciousness of Iran’s other peoples. Call it complementary friction. And dream up all the worst-case scenarios of Iran fracturing along ethnic lines or just exploding violently in a spasm against the mullahs, and it’s hard to see how any of these eventualities are bad for Saudi Arabia or Israel. Loose nukes would be a problem, but the clerical regime without the JCPOA is still years out from developing atomic weapons. A vengeful Revolutionary Guard military operation aimed against the Saudi oil industry undoubtedly would worry Riyadh, but such attacks would immediately trigger the U.S. Navy, which could be life-threatening for the Iranian military. The clerical regime probably isn’t stupid enough to allow its outrage to open itself up to American firepower.

The Saudis do have to fear Iranian mischief among the Saudi and Bahraini Shia. But the Iranians haven’t been passive bystanders in attempts to exploit enormous Shiite grievances against the Sunni royal families in the peninsula. Saudi and Bahraini security services appear to have gotten pretty good at handling Shiite unrest and Persian mischief—better than Iranian services currently trying to squelch violent discontent among Iran’s Arabs. In Saudi Arabia, the government has literally built walls and trenches around the towns where Shiite radicalism and rebellion may have taken hold in the Eastern Province. Whether from the bold, reckless temperament of the Saudi crown prince or a larger consensus within the royal family that traditional Saudi timidity towards Iran is no longer viable, Riyadh just might have the guts (or the hubris) to think that it can go head-to-head against the Islamic Republic in covert operations.

But reality will likely intrude into any Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli gaming of possible ethnic tumult. Beyond sending money to insurrectionists in Iran, which isn’t hard, Riyadh and Jerusalem may discover that there really isn’t much potential in such projects. Covert logistics is always a pain in the tush. With the possible exception of the Arabs in Khuzestan, Iran’s minorities are pretty hard to reach efficaciously. Arming Iranian Kurds, for example, when Iraqi and Turkish Kurds may not want to be helpful (intra-Kurdish politics are fluid, mind-bending, and, for everyone involved, frustrating) would be challenging. The Pakistanis—that is the Punjabis, Sindhis, and Pashtuns who dominate the Pakistani military and intelligence services—have zero reason to aid Baluch separatism in Iran given the spillover potential in Pakistan. And we have seen no evidence that the Azeris, the Achilles’ heel of the Iranian regime, want to make their grievances violent. The Sunni Gulfies and the Israelis could try the “shit-against-the-wall” theory of covert action—keep trying things until something sticks. But that could lead to just sending money, which would probably rule out the Israelis, who run the cheapest foreign intelligence service in the West.

Which brings us to the Americans and the speculation that the Trump administration might try something beyond sanctions to heighten internal unrest in Iran. By far, Washington is the weakest player in this mix, since the age of lethal covert action—barring another national trauma on the scale of 9/11—is over. Even if the Trump White House wanted to, and there is scant evidence that the president has any intention of adopting a muscular containment or regime-change strategy against the clerical regime, any lethal covert action would require the buy-in of both the leaders of the national-security establishment and the bipartisan leadership of the concerned committees on Capitol Hill. That isn’t likely. Defense secretary James Mattis would have no part of this, and Democrats would leak like crazy, effectively killing any program. There are lots of good reasons why the United States shouldn’t support a clandestine policy of ethnic friction in Iran (American interests and ideals do not align perfectly on this issue with the Israelis’ and Saudis’), but those reasons are irrelevant given the larger reluctance of the Trump administration, particularly the White House, to commit itself to a meaningful containment policy.

Once upon a time, Washington had a pretty solid bipartisan consensus on the Islamic Republic. Differences of opinion and style certainly existed, but the kind of strategic approach advanced by Barack Obama—a sustained attempt to draw near the Islamic Republic, which led in 2009 and 2010 to willful distancing between Washington and the millions of protesters who’d hit the streets in Tehran against tyranny and in 2015 to a short-term nuclear deal that guaranteed the theocracy a vast nuclear-weapons-capable infrastructure—would have been unthinkable. The most determined and “successful” American president on Iran policy since 1979, Obama, sensing that unsatisfying wars had opened new possibilities, shattered fundamental attitudes about the Islamic Republic and the bipartisan will to resist Iranian aggression. What is striking is that Donald Trump, who also exuberantly ran on a foreign policy of retrenchment, has halted, for now, the Republican retreat on Iran. Republicans remain, more or less, where Republicans and Democrats were in 1996, after Tehran bombed the American military in Saudi Arabia at Khobar Towers. This could change rapidly, of course, if the president flipped. Although Trump is adjectivally incontinent, his recent tweet about Iranian president Hassan Rouhani being “an absolutely lovely man” leaves open the possibility that Trump could follow Obama.

The Iranian regime, however, isn’t likely to work through the covert-action limitations of its enemies. The paranoid ruling elite, always thinking that the Americans, the Gulfies, and the Israelis are driving their internal problems, will likely crack down even harder on the minorities since they may fear that a bit of foreign aid could make the volcano explode. Can the Islamic Republic’s security services keep a lid on all the unrest? A betting man would say “yes.” They have survived severe tests by mixing extreme brutality, bribery, controlled elections, and clever neglect to neutralize popular disgust from effectively organizing against the theocracy. But a perfect storm may be brewing in Iran. “Proper” Persians are in an agitated state. So, too, it’s a decent guess, are the peoples of the Iranian periphery.

Mohammad Tahir Khedri returned home from his carpentry workshop in the evening of September 5.

He had just made it home when his phone rang: a suicide bomber had shot dead the guard of a wrestling club and then blew himself up inside the gym.

Khedri, a 30-year-old father of four, rushed to the scene to help evacuate the wounded. He passed by a car packed with explosives that was parked nearby. The bomb went off.

“We found him dead in a hospital,” says Mohammad Ali, Khedri’s elder brother. “It was horrible and unbearable”, like reported by thediplomat.com.

Khedri was among 20 other civilians as well as two local journalists that lost their lives in the twin blasts in a Shiite-dominated area of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Seventy others were injured, mostly young athletes.

Sympathizers of the Islamic State (ISIS) claimed to have been behind the suicide bombing on the wrestling center in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi. The neighborhood is home to many members of Afghanistan’s Shiite minority, who also belong to the minority Hazara ethnic group.

The wrestling center bombing was the latest brutal raid conducted against the Shiite community of Afghanistan by the Islamic State’s branch in the country.

“Daesh [the Islamic State], an extremist group, was formed mainly based on anti-Shiite agendas for taking over Shiite governments in Syria and Iran,” Javed Kohistani, a retired general and political expert, told The Diplomat. He notes that Iran mobilized Shiite militias to fight against ISIS in Syria.

“Iran’s recruitment of many Afghans and creation of Fatemiom Brigade, which is entirely Afghan Shiites,” have pushed fighters of the Islamic State to seek revenge, he adds.

The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) first emerged in Afghanistan in 2014 when NATO combat troops withdrew from the country. The group released a propaganda video that showed a number of jihadists declaring the Islamic State’s branch in the war-ravaged country.

Militants of ISKP gained strongholds in parts of eastern Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the border with Pakistan, where the Taliban group made some resistance against ISKP.

Two years later, in July 2016, the Islamic State carried out its first high profile attack against Shiites in Kabul, targeting Afghan Shiite ethnic Hazaras who were protesting. Twin suicide bombers ripped through the peaceful rally, killing over 80 and wounding more than 400.

Since the emerge of ISKP, the U.S. counterterrorism forces along with Afghan Special Forces have conducted large scale operations against strongholds of ISIS-affiliated fighters in Nangarhar province and elsewhere in the country.

The United States dropped the so-called mother of all bombs on ISKP’s sanctuary in the eastern part of the country. Over the last three years, U.S. forces and the Afghan government have confirmed the death of four emirs of the group. Hafiz Saeed Khan, the group’s first emir, was killed on July 26, 2016. His successor, Abdul Hasib, was killed on April 27, 2017. Four months later, on July 11, 2017, Abu Sayed, the next emir of the group, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Kunar province. This year, on August 25, the U.S. military said that it killed Islamic State’s emir for its Khorasan province, Abu Saad Orakzai.

But for civilians, particularly residents of the Shiite neighborhood of Kabul, things have not changed much. On November 21, 2016, a suicide bomber affiliated with the Islamic State set off a bomb inside Baqir-ul Ulum Mosque, a Shiite mosque in the Dar-ul Aman neighborhood of Kabul. The suicide bombing killed 32 civilians, wounding dozens of others.

Nearly one year later, on October 20, 2017, armed men carried out an attack on Imam Zaman mosque, in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul. Worshipers had gathered for evening prayers when an initial bomber threw two grenades into the female section of the mosque, killing six women and injuring four. Later he blew himself up in the male section of the mosque. The attack on Imam Zaman mosque killed 65 civilians and wounded more than 40 others, including children. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

Months later, as the country began preparing for the parliamentary elections in October 2018, the Shiite community of Kabul was hit yet again. People, including women and children, had lined up outside a voter registration center on the Sunday morning of April 22, 2018, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives, killing 57 and wounding 117 people.

Five of the dead were children; reportedly they were students at a nearby high school. The Islamic State claimed its fighter killed Shiites in the western part of Kabul.

The fast-growing list of high-profile attacks on the Shiite community has wreaked havoc and created an atmosphere of terror.  “Chaos, terror, and fear … is spread around the community,” says Mohammad Zahir Mohcini, a Shiite resident of Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood. “People are being chased by attacks everywhere.”

He adds the attacks have pushed people “into a dark hole.”

Meanwhile, a public elementary school in Pul-e-Khushk area of Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi banned its students from carrying bags to school. “We have been told to not carry bags due to the fear of explosives in the bags,” Shukurllah, an elementary student at the school, told The Diplomat. “We carry plastic bags, where stuff inside is visible.”

The pervasive fear is not only about suicide bombings but also about the possibility of a big shift in the Afghan war. To this point the war has been political, not sectarian, but the Afghan branch of the Islamic State is trying to tip the war into ethnic or sectarian conflict.

“We have information, though not sufficient evidence, about efforts underway by regional countries, presumably Inter-Security Intelligence of Pakistan, aimed at promoting ethnic division among Afghans,” says Javed Kohistani, who has previously served as an officer in the Afghan intelligence community. “Pakistan or/and other regional countries support the Islamic State to carry out the attacks.”

On the other hand, he also highlights ethnic division among Afghan social media users, adding that failure of the Afghan government to protect Shiites has led them to believe there is a conspiracy between the Islamic State and the government. “You can notice very little sympathy of Pashtuns with victims of these attacks.”

“This shows that attacks have created lines between ethnic groups of the country,” Kohistani emphasizes.

Regardless of whether a lack of sympathy from Pashtuns implies that ethnic division has deepened, the fear and pains on shoulders of Afghan Shiites will take time to heal. Already the high-profile attacks have resulted in two separate cemeteries being established for victims of suicide bombings.

First, the July 2016 suicide bombing on the peaceful rally moved people to set up a separate cemetery, which is located on a nearby hill in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi area. Four long rows of graves were prepared and over 80 victims were buried in the same graveyard. Later, a mile away, another hill turned into a cemetery for high school students that now sleep eternally next to each other as just they used to sit next to each other in school.

On the evening of August 15, a suicide bomber entered Mawoud education center, which specializes in preparing students between the ages of 16-20 for university exams.

“It was a break between two classes,” says Ahmad Ibarhimi, an 18-year-old high student who came from the central province of Daikundi to prepare for university exams. “I was watching football on my friend’s smartphone, thinking the phone exploded.”

He recalls that he lost consciousness: “I woke up and saw blown-up ceilings of the class… I searched for the phone. I couldn’t find it, neither [could I find] two of my friends.”

His friends’ names were on the long list of causalities of the bombing. Afghan officials put the death toll at 48 dead, confirming 67 others had been wounded.

“That night,” says Ibarhimi, “I could not sleep.”