Tag: islam

Mapping the Current Terrorist Terrain

On By TRF

Some know that the US government, specifically the State Department’s Bureau of Terrorism, maintains a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” list. I regularly consulted it when I was working as an analyst at US Special Operations Command, and a bit later when I taught a history of terrorism class to undergraduates. I last analyzed that list two years ago. I decided to do so again today after reading a perspicacious X post by the former Muslim @DanBurmawy, in which he pointed out–quite accurately–that modern Sunni Islam is far more violent than (Twelver) Shi`ism.

What follows is a breakdown of that FTO list, which was most recently updated very recently–July 8, 2025–when Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)/Jabhat al-Nusrah was delisted by the Trump Administration because that organization is now the de facto government of Syria. (For more detail on this topic, see this article.)

Major data points:

  • There are 78 total groups listed
  • 54 (69%) are Islamic
  • 47 of the 54 Muslim ones are Sunni, only 6 are Shi`i (five Twelver, one Fiver/Zaydi, in Yemen); one is Sufi
  • Next to Islam, the most prevalent ideology (if you can call it that) is Central/South American drug dealing with 9 groups (including Haitian gangs raises the level to 11)
  • Marxism comes in as the motivation for 8 organizations
  • Nationalism is behind 4 groups: two Irish, one Palestinian, one Sri Lankan
  • There’s one weird outlier: a Greek anarchist organzation.

As for location:

  • Largest contingent thereof is in Africa: 17, or 22%
  • South Asia (Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh) is second with 13 groups (17%)
  • Mexico and the Palestinian territories are tied with 6 groups each.

Some of these groups haven’t been active for years. Revolutionary Struggle, the Greek anarchist one, hasn’t done anything since 2016. The Continuity Irish Republican Army hasn’t done much but quaff pints and bitch about the Brits for a decade. Asbat al-Ansar, formerly a bunch of Palestinian Sunnis in a Lebanese refugee camp, has been moribund for two decades. So these groups should probably be delisted as well, going the way of Aum Shinrikyo and Kahane Chai.

The ideological percentages changed considerably when the Trump Administration added eight Latin American drug cartels to the list shortly after taking office. Just two years ago, Muslim groups made up 81% of the list. So they can thank the cartels for that change.

Still, Islamic terrorism (not “Islamist”) is the most prevalent type on planet Earth.

He was probably Sunni, NOT Shi`i.

From Yemen With Hate?

On By TRF

Seventeen years ago I was writing posts over at my old site Mahdiwatch about an Iraqi Shi`i Mahdist movement centered around one Ahmad al-Yamani. I even interviewed him virtually at one point, although I have since lost the notes. As near as I could ascertain, al-Yamani was claiming to be a representative, or herald, of the coming 12th Imam al-Mahdi–sort of a John the Baptist figure, mutatis mutandis. He also said that his movement was peaceful, although even then the Iraqi government alleged his followers were actually violent.

His Ansar al-Mahdi had not been heard from much in the intervening years. But two days ago, Shafaq News (an Iraqi, pro-Kurdish site) reported that Ahmad bin Hasan al-Yamani, “a senior leader of the Al-Yamani Movement in Najaf province” had been arrested. He was described as “the chief strategist behind the group, which has called for attacks on top religious figures.” Al-Yamani “had evaded capture for years.” The article went on to state, confusingly, that al-Yamani had claimed BOTH to be the “deputy of the Mahdi” AND “the first of twelve Mahdis who follow the twelve Imams.”

In mainstream Twelver Shi`ism "al-Yamani" (the Yemeni) is indeed an eschatology-adjacent figure who comes from Yemen and prepares Muslims for the arrival of the actual Mahdi, the End Times leader who will, along with the returned Muslim Jesus, bring the whole world under the sway of Islam. (This bit in the article about 12 Mahdis makes no sense. In Twelver Shi`ism, the the 12 Imams are descendants of Muhammad through Ali’s line, the final one of which will be the eschatological Mahdi. There are not 12 Mahdis in this branch of Islam.)

Mahdism has been a hugely potent strain in the world’s second-largest religion for over a millennium, as I outlined in this article (and in several of my books). Men claiming to be the Mahdi are often a thorn in the side of established rulers–as al-Yamani appears to be for Baghdad. Perhaps his followers were violent; or the Iraqi government simply needed to put him away, as a political and religious irritant, and ginned up accounts of planned assassinations. But arresting such figures is usually insufficient to stop their movements, as the Mahdist imperative is deeply embedded in both Shi`i and Sunni Islam and serves as a powerful tool for combating perceived unjust rulers.

Imam Mahdi and Signs of the Appearance: one of my many Arabic books on this topic.

Trump’s new MAGA: Making “Al-Muqaddimah” Germane Again!

On By TRF

Eight years ago I wrote “An Arab Muslim’s Prediction About the Fall of Western Civilization.” The gist of it was the following:

Western civilization has become spineless. This happens to all cultures, eventually—as described first, ironically, by the great 14th century North African Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun in his work The Muqaddimah. Ibn Khaldun, based on his study of ancient, Islamic and Christian history, ascertained a cyclical pattern of rise-and-fall among what he termed “dynasties” which, mutatis mutandis, is applicable to our culture as well. All of them go through three phases:

[1] The first is the one which establishes the society: “its members are used to privation and to sharing their glory with each other; they are brave….sharp and greatly feared. People submit to them.”

[2] Following that is the stage in which the society moves “from privation to luxury and plenty” and “the vigour of group feeling is broken…. People become used to lowliness and obedience. But many of the old virtues remain” and the people “live in hope that the conditions that existed in the first generation may come back, or they live under the illusion that those conditions still exist.”

[3] The final generation “has completely forgotten the period of…toughness, as if it had never existed…. because they are so much given to a life of prosperity and ease. They…are like women and children who need to be defended. Group feeling disappears completely….. When someone comes and demands something from them, they cannot repel him.”

The fourth phase, then, is the conquest of the civilization by another that is still in the robust, determined and, yes, dangerous phase.

Watching President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last night, and the Democrats’ reaction to it, reminded me of Ibn Khaldun’s typology. His first category describes traditional America, and what Trump+ MAGA hopes to resurrect; his second, establishment Republicans and “liberal” Democrats; the third, modern Leftists. The latter two now have far more in common with one another than either has with the “toxic masculinity” of the first–hence the hatred evinced by “Never Trump” Republicans and most Democrats towards those of us who hope and pray that Trump can indeed make America great again–which is the only way it will survive the Marxist and Muslim onslaught trying to destroy Western civilization in general, and this country in particular.

Another Mahdi in Sudan?!

On By TRF

While the world has been focused on conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, a bloody civil war has been raging in Sudan for the last year–one that has killed over 14,000 Sudanese and displaced millions. The government (such as it is), headed by Army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is fighting against its former proxy, the “Rapid Support Forces” (Quwwat al-Da`m al-Sari`), led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalu. The RSF, formed some years ago from provincial nomads, previously helped Khartoum against rebels and separatists. But last year its members decided to take over the country, and in fact control large sections of Sudan–to include the capital. Egypt and Iran (?) are said to be backing al-Burhan and the army, while the UAE is supporting Dagalu’s RSF. As too, allegedly, is Russia–which wants access to Sudanese gold to help offset Western sanctions.

The RSF logo, with its name on top and, below, the words “Equipped. Swift. Decisive.” Interestingly, this logo no longer has the word “Quds,” “Jerusalem, which the former one sported. (“Emblem of the Rapid Support Forces,” Wikipedia, Public Domain.)

But what’s a Sudanese Muslim conflict without some reference to the Mahdi? According to an expert at Omdurman Islamic University, Professor Ahmad Sabah al-Khayr, some of the supporters of the RSF view Muhammad Hamdan Dagalu as the Awaited Mahdi, “seeking to place him at the top of the pyramid of the Islamic Caliphate.” The professor also blamed “international intelligence services for the spread of [such] extremist movements” in Africa. Of course.

The Mahdi, for those who might not know, is Islam’s primary eschatological figure who will be sent by Allah to conquer the whole world. While more institutionalized in Shi`i Islam, the belief also exists in the larger Sunni world–thanks to a considerable number of hadiths (sayings of Muhammad) which predict his coming. And Sudan was the site of one of the most successful Mahdist movements in history: that of Muhammad Ahmad, who declared himself the Mahdi in 1880 and went on to lead a movement that conquered Sudan before his death in 1885. And which lasted until 1898, when it was destroyed by the British Army.

I do track modern Mahdist irruptions on this site, whenever they occur (see the archives). Sunni Mahdism shows up most often today as the domain of one-off madmen. But sometimes such transform into actual movements. The aforementioned Muhammad Ahmad. And, more recently, that of Juhayman al-Utaybi and his (puppet?) Mahdi, Muhammad al-Qahtani, in 1979 Saudi Arabia. (For more on eschatological rebellions, especially against the Ottoman Empire, see my 2020 book: The COIN of the Islamic Realm: Insurgencies and the Ottoman Empire, 1416-1916.)

Bottom line: while Mahdism has, historically, been prevalent in African Islam, that’s not the ONLY place it occurs; and while it’s often used as a populist-religious means of bolstering a leader’s legitimacy, it also can become a fervent belief. And that’s when Mahdism becomes quite dangerous.

“Muhammad Ahmad.” If only modern wanna-be Mahdis were so striking and dapper. (From “Muhammad Ahmad,” Wikipedia, Public Domain.)