APPENDIX B
PROFILES OF SIGNIFICANT ISLAMIST EXTREMISTS AND INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST GROUPS AND STATE SPONSORS

The following profiles are taken from U.S. Department of State reports on terrorist organizations and state sponsors, augmented by other sources. The Department of State officially designates groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) in a process that involves various federal agencies and the U.S. Congress (and even provides for input by the groups themselves). In addition, the department designates a country a “state sponsor” of terrorism if its government has provided support for repeated acts of international terrorism. As of 2011, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria were so designated. While these designations and supporting information are generally recognized as reliable, it is important to recall they reflect the analysis, opinions, and diplomatic objectives of the U.S. government.¹ For example, the State Department does not list Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism despite reports that its intelligence service has supported terrorist groups and specific operations against US, Afghan, and Indian targets.

The authors have grouped the profiles topically rather than alphabetically and provided editing and consistent spelling, additional entries, data, and context where appropriate.

SUNNI EXTREMIST TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

Sunni Islamist groups remained the most deadly terrorist threat in the years after 9/11. Al-Qaida “core” or “central,” the group’s traditional leadership in Pakistan, was seriously weakened by the killing of Bin Ladin and, perhaps as importantly, the devastation of its command structure by U.S. drone strikes and other attacks. Though weaker, Al-Qaida (AQ) maintained the desire and capability to launch attacks, as well as inspire them. It sought to establish ideological leadership and operating alliances with affiliates and emerging extremist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and other areas. These included Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LT); Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP); and the Haqqani Network, a guerilla group fighting against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

As a result, U.S. attention shifted to a broader range of groups interested in attacking the homeland. For example, TTP provided support to U.S. citizen Faisal Shahzad, who sought to carry out a car bombing in Times Square in May 2011. Along with many other operations abroad, it succeeded in raiding a Pakistani navy base near Karachi, raising questions about the security of Pakistani facilities holding nuclear weapons. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) demonstrated growing ambitions and the drive to launch attacks abroad. AQAP followed up its December 25, 2009 attempt to destroy an airliner bound for Detroit with an October 2010 effort to blow up U.S.-bound airplanes with bombs designed to detonate in their cargo holds. Also in 2010, information about potential AQ plots in Europe prompted several European countries to raise their terror alerts and at the end of the year a car bomb and suicide bomber exploded in a combined attack on Stockholm.

Al-Shabaab gained strength in Africa, conducting its first major attack outside Somalia, claiming responsibility for the 2010 suicide bombings that killed 76 people in Kampala, Uganda, during the World Cup. Al-Shabaab’s widening scope of operations, safe haven in Somalia, and ability to attract U.S. militants made it a continuing threat. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) generated cash through kidnap and ransom operations, despite U.S. attempts to discourage payment to the group. Less successful was Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). While still capable of launching large suicide bombings, it was diminished by military strikes and the decision of Sunni leaders to support the Iraqi political process. Across the Middle East, tension between Islamist extremism and broader political participation remained a crucial dynamic as 2011’s “Arab Spring” toppled long-standing regimes.

In addition to operations, al-Qaida affiliates assumed a greater share of the propaganda work. AQAP created an English-language magazine and various interactive outlets, reflecting the operational and ideological leadership of U.S.-Yemeni citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi. Such efforts were linked to increasingly cases of homegrown Islamist plots abroad and in the United States (discussed in the Appendix).

Major terrorist groups include:

Abu Sayyaf Group

a.k.a. al Harakat al Islamiyya

Description: The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) was designated as an FTO on October 8, 1997. ASG is the most violent of the terrorist groups operating in the southern Philippines and claims to promote an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, though the goals of the group appear to have vacillated over time between criminal objectives and a more ideological intent. The group split from the much larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the early 1990s under the leadership of Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, who was later killed in a clash with Philippine police in December 1998. His younger brother, Khadaffy Janjalani, replaced him as the nominal leader of the group. In September 2006, Khadaffy Janjalani was killed in a gun battle with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Radullah Sahiron is assumed to be the ASG leader.

Activities: The ASG engages in kidnappings for ransom, bombings, beheadings, assassinations, and extortion. The group’s stated goal is an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, areas in the southern Philippines heavily populated by Muslims. The group’s first large-scale action was a raid on the town of Ipil in Mindanao in April 1995. In April 2000, an ASG faction kidnapped 21 people, including 10 Western tourists, from a resort in Malaysia. In May 2001, the ASG kidnapped three U.S. citizens and 17 Filipinos from a tourist resort in Palawan, Philippines. Several of the hostages, including U.S. citizen Guillermo Sobero, were murdered. A Philippine military hostage rescue operation in June 2002 freed U.S. hostage Gracia Burnham, but her husband Martin Burnham, also a U.S. national, and Filipina Deborah Yap were killed.

U.S. and Philippine authorities blamed the ASG for a bomb near a Philippine military base in Zamboanga in October 2002 that killed a U.S. serviceman. In February 2004, the ASG bombed SuperFerry 14 in Manila Bay, killing at least 116 people, making this one of the most destructive acts of maritime violence to date. In March 2004, Philippine authorities arrested an ASG cell whose bombing targets included the U.S. Embassy in Manila. In 2006, the Armed Forces of the Philippines began “Operation Ultimatum,” a sustained campaign that disrupted ASG forces in safe havens on Jolo Island in the Sulu archipelago, and that resulted in the killing of ASG leader Khadaffy Janjalani in September 2006 and his deputy, Abu Solaiman in January 2007. During 2009, the ASG staged multiple kidnappings, beheadings, and assassinations, including the January kidnappings of three Red Cross workers in the southern Philippines who were later released.

The group increased its activities in recent years with multiple attacks on civilians, humanitarian organizations, a church, and military and police personnel. There were six reported kidnapping incidents targeting Christians and other civilians. ASG’s most complex attack occurred on the island of Basilan in April 2010 when the group launched a synchronized assault including the use of a vehicle borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) which resulted in at least 11 deaths and 10 injured. In the attack, armed operatives detonated two VBIEDs and fired weapons at several targets. A third improvised explosive device (IED) targeting a judge was later disarmed by police. In December 2010, Madhatta Asagal Haipe, a founding member of Abu Sayyaf, was extradited to the United States and sentenced in U.S. District Court, Washington, DC, to 23 years in prison for his role in a 1995 kidnapping of U.S. citizens.

Strength: ASG is estimated to have approximately 200 to 400 members.

Location/Area of Operation: The ASG was founded in Basilan Province and operates primarily in the provinces of the Sulu Archipelago, namely Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi. The group also operates on the Zamboanga peninsula, and members occasionally travel to Manila. The group expanded its operational reach to Malaysia in 2000 with the abduction of foreigners from a tourist resort there. In mid–2003, the group started operating in Mindanao’s city of Cotobato and on the provincial coast of Sultan Kudarat, Mindanao. The ASG was expelled from Mindanao proper by the MILF leadership in mid–2005.

External Aid: The ASG is funded through kidnappings and extortion, and may receive funding from external sources such as remittances from overseas Filipino workers and Middle East-based extremists. The ASG also receives funding from regional terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiya (JI), whose operatives have provided training to ASG members and helped to facilitate several ASG terrorist attacks. In October 2007, the ASG appealed for funds and recruits on YouTube by featuring a video of the Janjalani brothers before they were killed.

Al-Qaida

AL-QAIDA

a.k.a. Variant spelling of al-Qaida, including al-Qaida and al-Qaeda; translation “The Base”; Qa’idat al-Jihad (The Base for Jihad); formerly Qa’idat Ansar Allah (The Base of the Supporters of God); the Islamic Army; Islamic Salvation Foundation; the Base; The Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites; The Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places; the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders; the Usama Bin Ladin Network; the Usama Bin Ladin Organization; al-Jihad; the Jihad Group; Egyptian al-Jihad; Egyptian Islamic Jihad; New Jihad

Description: AQ was designated as an FTO on October 8, 1999. Established by Usama bin Ladin in 1988, it was originally consisted of members who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. The group helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamist extremists for the Afghan resistance. AQ’s strategic objectives include uniting Muslims to fight the United States and its allies, overthrowing regimes it deems “non-Islamic,” and expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries. Its ultimate goal is the establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate throughout the world. AQ leaders issued a statement in February 1998 under the banner of “The World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders,” saying it was the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S. citizens, civilian and military, and their allies everywhere. AQ merged with al-Jihad (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) in June 2001.

Activities: AQ, its allies, and those inspired by the group were involved attacks in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia including suicide bombings and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

AQ and its supporters claim to have shot down U.S. helicopters and killed U.S. servicemen in Somalia in 1993, and to have conducted three bombings that targeted U.S. troops in Aden in December 1992. AQ also carried out the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, killing up to 300 individuals and injuring more than 5,000. In October 2000, AQ conducted a suicide attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, with an explosive-laden boat, killing 17 U.S. Navy sailors and injuring 39.

On September 11, 2001, 19 AQ members hijacked and crashed four U.S. commercial jets—two into the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon near Washington, DC; and the last into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania—leaving over 3,000 individuals dead or missing.

In November 2002, AQ carried out a suicide bombing of a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya that killed 15. AQ probably provided financing for the October 2002 Bali bombings by Jemaah Islamiya that killed more than 200. In 2003 and 2004, Saudi-based AQ operatives and associated extremists launched more than a dozen attacks, killing at least 90 people, including 14 Americans in Saudi Arabia. Bin Ladin’s deputy al-Zawahiri claimed responsibility on behalf of AQ for the July 7, 2005 attacks against the London public transportation system. AQ likely played a role in the 2006 failed plot to destroy several commercial aircraft flying from the United Kingdom to the United States using liquid explosives.

The Government of Pakistan accused AQ, along with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), of being responsible for the October 2007 suicide bombing attempt against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that killed at least 144 people in Karachi, Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan stated that Baitullah Mehsud, a now-deceased TTP leader with close ties to AQ, was responsible for Bhutto’s December 27, 2007 assassination.

In January 2009, Bryant Neal Vinas—a U.S. citizen who traveled to Pakistan, allegedly trained in explosives at AQ camps, and was eventually captured in Pakistan and extradited to the United States—was charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder. Vinas later admitted his role in helping AQ plan an attack against the Long Island Rail Road in New York and confessed to having fired missiles at a U.S. base in Afghanistan. In September 2009, Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant and U.S. lawful permanent resident, was charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, to commit murder in a foreign country, and with providing material support to a terrorist organization as part of an AQ plot to attack the New York subway system. Zazi later admitted to contacts with AQ senior leadership, suggesting they had knowledge of his plans. In February 2010, Zazi pled guilty to charges in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. U.S. officials have described the alleged bombing plot as one of the most serious terrorist threats to the United States since the 9/11 attacks.

Strength: AQ’s organizational strength is difficult to determine in the aftermath of extensive counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. The arrests and deaths of mid-level and senior AQ operatives have disrupted communication, financial, facilitation nodes, and a number of terrorist plots. Additionally, supporters and associates worldwide who are “inspired” by the group’s ideology may be operating without direction from AQ central leadership; it is impossible to estimate their numbers. AQ serves as a focal point of “inspiration” for a worldwide network that is comprised of many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, including some members of the Gama’at al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Jihad Union, Lashkar i Jhangvi, Harakat ul-Mujahadin, the Taliban, and Jemaah Islamiya. TTP also has strengthened its ties to AQ.

Location/Area of Operation: AQ was based in Afghanistan until Coalition Forces removed the Taliban from power in late 2001. Since then, they have resided in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. AQ has a number of regional affiliates, including al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

External Aid: AQ primarily depends on donations from like-minded supporters as well as from individuals who believe that their money is supporting a humanitarian cause. Some funds are diverted from Islamic charitable organizations. In addition, parts of the organization raise funds through criminal activities; for example, AQI raises funds through hostage-taking for ransom, and members in Europe have engaged in credit card fraud. U.S. and international efforts to block AQ funding have hampered the group’s ability to raise money.

Al-QAIDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

a.k.a. al-Qaida in the South Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaida in Yemen, al-Qaida of Jihad Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, Tanzim Qa’idat al-Jihad fi Jazirat al-Arab, AQAP, AQY

Description: Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was designated as an FTO in January 2010. In 2009, the leader of al-Qaida in Yemen (AQY), Nasir al-Wahishi, publicly announced that Yemeni and Saudi al-Qaida operatives were working together under the banner of AQAP. This announcement signaled the rebirth of an al-Qaida franchise that carried out attacks under this name in Saudi Arabia between 2004 and 2006. AQAP’s self-stated goals include establishing a caliphate in the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Middle East as well as implementing Sharia law.

Activities: AQAP has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts against both internal and foreign targets since its inception in January 2009. Attempted attacks against foreign targets include a March 2009 suicide bombing against South Korean tourists in Yemen, the August 2009 attempt to assassinate Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayif, and the December 25, 2009 attempted attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan. AQAP was responsible for an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the British Ambassador in April 2010 and a failed attempt to target a British embassy vehicle with a rocket in October. Also in October 2010, AQAP claimed responsibility for a foiled plot to send explosive-laden packages to the United States via cargo plane. The parcels were intercepted in the United Kingdom and in United Arab Emirates.

Strength: AQAP is estimated to have several hundred members.

Location/Area of Operation: Yemen

External Aid: AQAP primarily depends on donations from like-minded supporters.

AL-QAIDA IN IRAQ

a.k.a. al-Qaida Group of Jihad in Iraq; al-Qaida Group of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers; al-Qaida in Mesopotamia; al-Qaida in the Land of the Two Rivers; al-Qaida of Jihad in Iraq; al-Qaida of Jihad Organization in the Land of The Two Rivers; al-Qaida of the Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers; al-Tawhid; Jam’at al-Tawhid Wa’al-Jihad; Tanzeem Qa’idat al Jihad/Bilad al Raafidaini; Tanzim Qa’idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn; The Monotheism and Jihad Group; The Organization Base of Jihad/Country of the Two Rivers; The Organization Base of Jihad/Mesopotamia; The Organization of al-Jihad’s Base in Iraq; The Organization of al-Jihad’s Base in the Land of the Two Rivers; The Organization of al-Jihad’s Base of Operations in Iraq; The Organization of al-Jihad’s Base of Operations in the Land of the Two Rivers; The Organization of Jihad’s Base in the Country of the Two Rivers; al-Zarqawi Network

Description: Al-Qaida in Iraq was designated as an FTO in 2004. In the 1990s, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant, organized a terrorist group called al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in opposition to the presence of U.S. and Western military forces in the Islamic world and also the West’s support for and the existence of Israel. He traveled to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and led his group against U.S. and Coalition forces there until his death in June 2006. In late 2004 he joined al-Qaida and pledged allegiance to Usama bin Ladin. After this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), and al-Zarqawi was given the al-Qaida title, “Emir of al-Qaida in the Country of Two Rivers.”

In January 2006, in an attempt to unify Sunni extremists in Iraq, AQI created the Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC), an umbrella organization meant to encompass the various Sunni terrorist groups in Iraq. AQI claimed its attacks under the MSC until mid-October 2006, when Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, took the first step toward al-Qaida’s (AQ’s) goal of establishing a caliphate in the region by declaring the “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI), under which AQI now claims its attacks. Iraqis comprise over 90 percent of the group’s membership. While a disproportionate percentage of AQI’s senior leadership was foreign-born earlier in the organizational history, today AQI leadership is predominantly Iraqi. In an attempt to give AQI a more Iraqi persona, the AQI-led ISI was created with Iraqi-national Abu Umar al-Baghdadi named its leader. Al-Baghdadi and AQI’s other top leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri were killed in a raid in April 2010, after which AQI subsequently named Abu Baker al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi as ISI’s head and Abu Ibrahim al-Issawi as his Minister of War.

Activities: AQI’s predecessor group, led by al-Zarqawi, was established in 2003 and swiftly gained prominence, striking numerous Iraqi, Coalition, and relief agency targets such as the Red Cross. In August 2003, AQI carried out major terrorist attacks in Iraq when it bombed the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, which was followed 12 days later by a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attack against the UN Headquarters in Baghdad that killed 23, including the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Since its founding, AQI has conducted high profile attacks, including improvised explosive device (IED) attacks against U.S. military personnel and Iraqi infrastructure throughout 2004, videotaped beheadings of Americans Nicholas Berg (May 11, 2004), Jack Armstrong (September 22, 2004), and Jack Hensley (September 21, 2004), suicide bomber attacks against both military and civilian targets, and rocket attacks. AQI perpetrates the majority of suicide and mass casualty bombings in Iraq, using foreign and Iraqi operatives.

AQI, acting through its front organization ISI, was highly active in 2010, perpetrating almost daily attacks on Coalition forces, Iraqi civilian targets, and military assets. It continued to launch significant attacks in 2011.

Strength: Membership is estimated at 1,000–2,000, making it the largest, most potent Sunni extremist group in Iraq.

Location/Area of Operation: AQI’s operations are predominantly Iraq-based, but it has perpetrated attacks in Jordan. Some suspected its involvement in the 2011 suicide bombing of Coptic Christians in Egypt, which occurred not long after AQI had reportedly threatened Christians in Egypt and Iraq. The group maintains a logistical network throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Iran, South Asia, and Europe. In Iraq, AQI currently conducts the majority of its operations in Ninawa, Diyala, Salah ad Din, and Baghdad provinces and is working to re-establish its capabilities in Al Anbar.

External Aid: AQI probably receives most of its funding from a variety of businesses and criminal activities within Iraq.

AL-QAIDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHREB

a.k.a. AQIM; Group for Call and Combat; GSPC; Le Groupe Salafiste Pour La Predication Et Le Combat; Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat

Description: The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) was designated as an FTO on March 27, 2002. After the GSPC officially merged with al-Qaida (AQ) in September 2006 the organization became known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). On February 20, 2008, the Department of State amended the GSPC designation to reflect the change and made AQIM the official name for the organization. Some senior members of AQIM are former Armed Islamic Group (GIA) insurgents. AQIM remains largely a regionally-focused terrorist group. It has adopted a more anti-Western rhetoric and ideology and has aspirations of overthrowing “apostate” African regimes and creating an Islamic Caliphate. AQIM numbers under a thousand fighters and is significantly constrained by its poor finances and lack of broad general appeal in the region. Abdelmalek Droukdel, aka Abu Mus’ab Abd al-Wadoud, is the leader of the group.

Activities: In 2007, AQIM bombed the UN building and an Algerian government building just outside of Algiers killing over 60 people. In 2008 and 2009, even as it was under significant pressure by Algerian security forces, AQIM continued to conduct small scale attacks and ambushes in northeastern Algeria against Algerian security forces and regularly used improvised explosive devices there. In June 2010, an AQIM attack resulted in the death of 11 Algerian soldiers and the kidnapping of a customs official who was later executed by the organization. That same month, AQIM was responsible for a detonation of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) at a police checkpoint, which resulted in the death of seven national police officers and three civilians. In Niger, the group conducted its first vehicle-borne suicide attack in March and in August used similar tactics in an attack on a Mauritanian military base. In total, AQIM attacks in Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger resulted in the deaths of over 80 people in 2010.

AQIM factions in the northern Sahel (northern Mali, Niger, and Mauritania) conducted kidnap for ransom operations and conducted small scale attacks and ambushes on security forces. The targets for kidnap for ransom are usually Western citizens from governments or third parties that have established a pattern of making concessions in the form of ransom payments or the release of operatives in custody. In 2010, AQIM kidnapped French aid worker Michel Germaneau in Niger, later moving him to Mali. He was killed in retaliation for the death of six AQIM operatives during a failed attempt by France and Mauritania to free him. AQIM in 2010 also claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of seven people, including five French nationals working at a mine in Niger.

Strength: AQIM has under a thousand fighters operating in Algeria with a smaller number in the Sahel.

Location/Area of Operation: Northeastern Algeria (including but not limited to the Kabylie region) and northern Mali, Niger, and Mauritania.

External Aid: Algerian expatriates and AQIM members abroad, many residing in Western Europe, provide limited financial and logistical support. AQIM members engage in hostage-taking for ransom and criminal activity to finance their operations.

Al-Shabaab

a.k.a. The Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahidin; al-Shabab; Shabaab; the Youth; Mujahidin al-Shabaab Movement; Mujahideen Youth Movement; Mujahidin Youth Movement

Description: Al-Shabaab was designated as an FTO on March 18, 2008. Al-Shabaab was the militant wing of the former Somali Islamic Courts Council that took over parts of southern Somalia in the second half of 2006. In December 2006 and January 2007, Ethiopian forces routed the Islamic Court militias in a two-week war, which became a protracted insurgency over the next two years. Since the end of 2006, al-Shabaab and disparate clan militias have led a violent insurgency using guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia. Several senior al-Shabaab leaders have publicly proclaimed loyalty to AQ. These leaders founded and supported a number of training camps in southern Somalia for young national and international recruits to al-Shabaab. In some camps, AQ-affiliated foreign fighters often led the training and indoctrination of the recruits. Rank and file militia fighters from multiple clan and sub-clan factions that are aligned with al-Shabaab are predominantly interested in indigenous issues. In January 2010, the organization announced its support for militants in Yemen. In December, despite past clashes over territory, al-Shabaab entered into a tenuous merger with a severely weakened, nearly defunct faction of Hizbul Islam, another clan-based insurgent group fighting against the TFG.

Activities: Al-Shabaab has used intimidation and violence to undermine the Somali government, forcibly recruit new fighters, and kill activists working to bring about peace through political dialogue and reconciliation. The group has claimed responsibility for several high profile bombings and shootings throughout Somalia targeting African Union troops and TFG officials. It has been responsible for the assassination of numerous civil society figures, government officials, and journalists. Al-Shabaab fighters or those who have claimed allegiance to the group have conducted violent attacks and targeted assassinations against international aid workers and nongovernmental organizations. During 2010, al-Shabaab carried out multiple attacks, including a number in Mogadishu against the TFG and African Union Mission in Somalia. Among the most deadly were a series of attacks in March, which killed at least 60 people and wounded 160 more; and a string of attacks in late August, which killed at least 87 people and wounded 148. Also in August, al-Shabaab suicide bombers entered the Muna Hotel in Mogadishu and killed 31 people, including six members of parliament and four other government officials, when they detonated their explosives on the roof of the hotel. In the organization’s first attack outside of Somalia, al-Shabaab was responsible for the July 11 suicide bombings in Kampala, Uganda during the World Cup, which killed nearly 80 people, including one American citizen. In total, al-Shabaab is estimated to be responsible the death of over 900 people in 2010.

Location/Area of Operation: Ethiopian troops left Somalia in late January 2008 and the subsequent security vacuum in parts of central and southern Somalia has led divergent factions to oppose al-Shabaab and its extremist ideology. However, hardcore al-Shabaab fighters and allied militias conducted bold attacks in Mogadishu and other outlying areas, primarily in South-Central Somalia, causing the organization’s area of control to expand in 2010. In May, al-Shabaab launched a major offensive in Mogadishu, gaining control over parts of the capital. Al-Shabaab—by understanding the historical conflict between the Ogadeni and Marehan sub-clans of the Darood—gained primary control over the southern port of Kismayo in late 2009. Al-Shabaab’s victories can also be tied to their ability to play upon clan fissures and the military weakness of the Somali Government. Furthermore, July’s attack in Uganda demonstrates al-Shabaab’s desire to expand operations outside of Somalia.

Strength: Precise numbers are unknown, but al-Shabaab is estimated to have several thousand members when augmented by foreign fighters and allied clan militias.

External Aid: Because al-Shabaab is a multi-clan entity, it received significant donations from the global Somali diaspora; however, the donations were not all specifically intended to support terrorism. Rather, the money was also meant to support family members. Al-Shabaab leaders and many rank and file fighters have successfully garnered significant amounts of money from port revenues and through criminal enterprises, especially in Kismayo.

Foreign al-Qaida operatives operated in Somalia under al-Shabaab’s protection. These included Fazul Abdullah Mohammed (aka Harun Fazul) and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, wanted for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and a 2002 hotel bombing in Kenya, both of whom were eventually killed in Somalia (the latter reportedly by U.S. Navy Seals).

[Authors’ note: By 2011, some 40 U.S. citizens had joined al-Shabaab, at least fifteen of whom were killed fighting with the group (including one via a suicide bombing), according to a report from the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security. The report and other sources note an increase in the number of Somali-Americans involved in homegrown violent extremism, based at least in part by recruiting by al-Shabaab and its supporters.]

Asbat al-Ansar

a.k.a. Asbat al-Ansar; Band of Helpers; Band of Partisans; League of Partisans; League of the Followers; God’s Partisans; Gathering of Supporters; Partisan’s League; AAA; Esbat al-Ansar; Isbat al-Ansar; Osbat al-Ansar; Usbat al-Ansar; Usbat ul-Ansar

Description: Asbat al-Ansar was designated as an FTO on March 27, 2002. Asbat al-Ansar is a Lebanon-based Sunni extremist group composed primarily of Palestinians with links to al-Qaida (AQ) and other Sunni extremist groups. Some of the group’s goals include thwarting perceived anti-Islamic and pro-Western influences in the country. Asbat al-Ansar’s leader, Ahmad Abd al-Karim al-Sa’di, a.k.a. Abu Muhjin, remained at large despite being sentenced to death in absentia for the 1994 murder of a Muslim cleric.

Activities: Asbat al-Ansar first emerged in the early 1990s. In the mid–1990s, the group assassinated Lebanese religious leaders and bombed nightclubs, theaters, and liquor stores. The group has also plotted against foreign diplomatic targets. In October 2004, Mahir al-Sa’di, a member of Asbat al-Ansar, was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for his 2000 plot to assassinate then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, David Satterfield. Asbat al-Ansar-associated elements have been implicated in Katyusha rocket attacks against Israel occurring in December 2005 and June 2007.

Asbat al-Ansar has no formal ties to the AQ network, but the group shares AQ’s ideology and has publicly proclaimed its support for al-Qaida in Iraq. Members of the group have traveled to Iraq since 2005 to fight Coalition Forces. Asbat al-Ansar has been reluctant to involve itself in operations in Lebanon due in part to concerns over losing its safe haven in Ain al-Hilwah. However, according to the Lebanese press, a woman was killed by a rocket propelled grenade in 2010 during a clash between Asbat al-Ansar and another militant group in Ain al-Hilwah.

Strength: The group has fewer than 2,000 members, mostly of Palestinian descent.

Location/Area of Operation: The group’s primary base of operations is the Ain al-Hilwah Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon in southern Lebanon. The group is also present in Iraq where the group has engaged in fighting U.S. forces.

External Aid: It is likely that the group receives money through international Sunni extremist networks.

Ansar Al-Islam

a.k.a. Ansar al-Sunna; Ansar al-Sunna Army; Devotees of Islam; Followers of Islam in Kurdistan; Helpers of Islam; Jaish Ansar al-Sunna; Jund al-Islam; Kurdish Taliban; Kurdistan Supporters of Islam; Partisans of Islam; Soldiers of God; Soldiers of Islam; Supporters of Islam in Kurdistan

Description: Ansar al-Islam (AI) was designated as an FTO on March 22, 2004. Its goals include expelling the western interests from Iraq and establishing an independent Iraqi state based on Sharia law. AI was established in 2001 in Iraqi Kurdistan with the merger of two Kurdish extremist factions that traced their roots to the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan. AI has ties to al-Qaida (AQ) central leadership and to al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). Since Operation Iraqi Freedom, AI has become one of the most prominent groups engaged in anti-Coalition attacks in Iraq behind AQI.

Activities: AI has conducted attacks against a wide range of targets including Iraqi government and security forces, and U.S. and Coalition forces. AI has also conducted numerous kidnappings, executions, and assassinations of Iraqi citizens and politicians. One of the more notable attacks was a March 2008 bombing at the Palace Hotel in As Sulamaniyah that killed two people. The group has either claimed responsibility or was believed responsible for a total of 13 attacks in 2010 that killed 15 and wounded at least 39. On January 7, six Iraqi civilians, including a child, were killed along with one Iraqi police officer in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in al-Anbar Province, Iraq, for which AI was believed responsible. On May 17 and 18, seven Iraqi civilians died in IED attacks in Mosul and Baghdad for which AI claimed responsibility.

Strength: Although precise numbers are unknown, AI is considered one of the largest Sunni terrorist groups in Iraq.

Location/Area of Operation: Primarily northern Iraq but maintained a presence in western and central Iraq.

External Aid: AI received assistance from a loose network of associates in Europe and the Middle East.

Caucasus Emirate (CE)

The North Caucasus-based Caucasus Emirate (CE) group has the stated goal of establishing an Islamic emirate through violence in the North Caucasus, Southern Russia, and Volga regions of the Russian Federation, with Umarov as its Emir.

Under the leadership of Doku Umarov’s, CE has conducted suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism. CE has launched terrorist attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), vehicle-born IEDs, and suicide bombers. Umarov has claimed responsibility for various terrorist attacks, including the January 2011 bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, which killed 36 people, March 2010 suicide bombings of two Moscow subway stations, which killed 40 people, and the November 2009 bombing of the high-speed Nevsky Express train in which 28 people were killed.

Umarov has issued several public statements encouraging followers to commit violent acts against CE’s declared enemies, which include the United States as well as Israel, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of State designated Umarov as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The designation provides the U.S. government with the legal means to disrupt Umarov’s financial support network. In 2011, the U.S. government announced at $5 million for him.

Gama’a al-Islamiyya

a.k.a. al-Gama’at; Egyptian al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya; GI; Islamic Gama’at; IG; Islamic Group

Description: Gama’a al-Islamiyya (IG) was designated as an FTO on October 8, 1997. IG, once Egypt’s largest militant group, was active in the late 1970s, but is now a loosely organized network. The majority of its Egypt-based members have renounced terrorism, although some located overseas have begun to work with or have joined al-Qaida (AQ). In 2010, the external wing, composed of mainly exiled members in several countries, maintained that its primary goal was to replace the Egyptian government with an Islamic state. IG’s spiritual leader, Sheik Umar Abd al-Rahman, is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Supporters of Sheikh Abd al-Rahman still remain a possible threat to U.S. interests and have called for reprisal attacks in case of his death in prison.

Activities: In the 1990s, IG conducted armed attacks against Egyptian security and other government officials and Coptic Christians. IG claimed responsibility for the June 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The group also launched attacks on tourists in Egypt, most notably the 1997 Luxor attack.

Strength: At its peak, IG probably commanded several thousand hardcore members and a similar number of supporters. Security crackdowns following the 1997 attack in Luxor and the 1999 cease-fire, along with post-September 11 security measures and defections to AQ have probably resulted in a substantial decrease in what is left of an organized group.

Location/Area of Operation: The IG maintained an external presence in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. IG terrorist presence in Egypt was minimal due to the reconciliation efforts of former local members.

External Aid: IG may have obtained some funding through various Islamic non-governmental organizations.

Haqqani Network (HQN)

The Haqqani Network is a Taliban-affiliated group of militants that operates from North Waziristan Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. It has been at the forefront of insurgent activity in Afghanistan, responsible for many high-profile attacks. The Secretary of State designated Haqqani Network (HQN) Commander Badruddin Haqqani under Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. As a result of the designation, all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which Badruddin Haqqani has any interest is blocked and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with him.

Badruddin Haqqani is the son of HQN founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and his brothers are Nasiruddin Haqqani and Sirajuddin Haqqani, all Specially Designated Global Terrorists under E.O. 13224 and listed at the United Nations 1267 Sanctions Committee.

Badruddin sits on the Miram Shah Shura, which has command and control over all Haqqani Network activities, and helps lead insurgents and foreign fighters in attacks against targets in southeastern Afghanistan.

Badruddin is also believed to be in charge of kidnappings for the Haqqani Network. In November 2008, Badruddin accepted responsibility for keeping New York Times reporter David Rohde hostage (Rohde escaped in June 2009). During his captivity, Badruddin forced Rohde to make videos and write letters demanding money and a prisoner exchange as conditions for his release. Badruddin threatened Rohde’s two Afghan companions in order to compel him to cooperate, and threatened to kill all three of them if his demands were not met. [Authors’ note: In September 2011, US Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused the Haqqani Network of high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, including against the US Embassy. Mullen asserted the attacks, and the Haqqani Network itself, were supported by the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency. The Haqqani Network was also supported by the US during its resistance to Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.]

Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI)

a.k.a. HUJI, Movement of Islamic Holy War, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami, Harkat-al-Jihad-ul Islami, Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami, Harakat ul Jihad-e-Islami, Harakat-ul Jihad Islami.

Description: Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) was designated as an FTO on August 6, 2010. HUJI was founded in 1980 in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the organization re-focused its efforts on India. HUJI seeks the annexation of Indian Kashmir and expulsion of Coalition Forces from Afghanistan. In addition, some factions of HUJI espouse a more global agenda and conduct attacks in Pakistan as well. HUJI is composed of militant Pakistanis and veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war. It has also supplied fighters for the Taliban in Afghanistan. HUJI has experienced a number of internal splits and a portion of the group has aligned with al-Qaida (AQ) in recent years, including training its members in AQ training camps.

Activities: HUJI has been involved in a number of terrorist attacks in recent years. On March 2, 2006, a HUJI leader was the mastermind behind the suicide bombing of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, which killed four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy, and injured 48 others. HUJI is also responsible for terrorist attacks in India including the May 2007 Hyderabad mosque attack, which killed 16 and injured 40, and the March 2007 Varanasi attack, which killed 25 and injured 100. In January 2009, a U.S. District Court indicted HUJI and AQ leader Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri for conspiracy to murder and maim and for providing material support for terrorism in connection with an attack against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark.

Strength: HUJI has an estimated strength of several hundred members located in Kashmir and Pakistan.

Location/Area of Operations: HUJI’s area of operation extends throughout South Asia, with its terrorist operations focused primarily in India and Afghanistan. Some factions of HUJI conduct attacks within Pakistan.

External Aid: HUJI’s access to resources is unknown.

Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami/Bangladesh

a.k.a. HUJI-B, Harakat ul Jihad e Islami Bangladesh; Harkatul Jihad al Islam; Harkatul Jihad; Harakat ul Jihad al Islami; Harkat ul Jihad al Islami; Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami; Harakat ul Jihad Islami Bangladesh; Islami Dawat-e-Kafela; IDEK

Description: Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami/Bangladesh (HUJI-B) was designated as an FTO on March 5, 2008. HUJI-B was formed in April 1992 by a group of former Bangladeshi Afghan veterans to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. The group was banned by Bangladeshi authorities in October 2005. HUJI-B has connections to the Pakistani militant groups such as Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LT), which advocates similar objectives. The leaders of HUJI-B signed the February 1998 fatwa sponsored by Usama bin Ladin that declared American civilians legitimate targets for attack.

Activities: Three HUJI-B members were convicted in December 2008 for the May 2004 grenade attack that wounded the British High Commissioner in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Bangladeshi courts issued warrants in December 2008 for the arrest of eight HUJI-B members for the bombing at a festival in April 2001 that killed 10 and injured scores of people. In May 2008, Indian police arrested HUJI-B militant Mohammad Iqbal, a.k.a. Abdur Rehman, who was charged with plotting attacks in Delhi, India. In December 2010, five leaders of HUJI-B were arrested in a raid on a training camp in Bangladesh. The detained HUJI-B members admitted to running the training camp, and authorities seized explosives, grenades, and bomb-making manuals in the raid.

Strength: HUJI-B leaders claim that up to 400 of its members are Afghan war veterans, but its total membership is unknown.

Location/Area of Operation: The group operates primarily in Bangladesh and India. HUJI-B trains and has a network of madrassas in Bangladesh.

External Aid: HUJI-B funding comes from a variety of sources. Several international Islamic non-governmental organizations may have funneled money to HUJI-B and other Bangladeshi militant groups. HUJI-B also draws funding from local militant madrassa leaders and teachers.

Islamic Jihad Union

a.k.a. Islomiy Jihod Ittihodi; Islamic Jihad Group; al-Djihad al-Islami; Dzhamaat Modzhakhedov; Islamic Jihad Group of Uzbekistan; Jamiat al-Jihad al-Islami; Jamiyat; The Jamaat Mojahedin; The Kazakh Jama’at; The Libyan Society

Description: The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) was designated as an FTO on June 17, 2005. The IJU is a Sunni extremist organization that splintered from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The group opposes secular rule in Uzbekistan and seek to replace it with a government based on Islamic law.

The IJU primarily operated against Coalition forces in Afghanistan but continued to plan and carry out attacks in Central Asia. The group first conducted attacks in March and April 2004, targeting police at several roadway checkpoints and at a popular bazaar, killing approximately 47 people, including 33 IJU members, some of whom were suicide bombers. In July 2004, the group carried out near-simultaneous suicide bombings of the Uzbek Prosecutor General’s office and the U.S. and Israeli Embassies in Tashkent. In September 2007, German authorities disrupted an IJU plot by detaining three IJU operatives, including two German citizens. The operatives had acquired over 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide and an explosives precursor stockpiled in a garage in southern Germany. The materials were thought to have been used in multiple car bomb attacks in Western Europe including at Frankfurt International Airport and U.S. military installations such as Ramstein Air Base. The IJU subsequently claimed responsibility for the foiled attacks. The IJU claimed responsibility for attacks targeting Coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2008, including a March suicide attack against a U.S. military post. It also claimed responsibility for two May 2009 attacks in Uzbekistan. In 2010, the Government of Kazakhstan arrested dozens of suspected IJU members, who were plotting attacks against western interests in the country. There were also reports of IJU members arrested in Uzbekistan and Pakistan. The IJU remained active in Germany, where they have made inroads, are recruiting locals, and have been planning attacks within Europe.

Strength: Unknown.

Location/Area of Operation: IJU members are scattered throughout Central Asia, Europe Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

External Aid: Unknown.

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

a.k.a. IMU

Description: The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was designated as an FTO on September 25, 2000. The IMU is a coalition of Islamic extremists from Uzbekistan, other Central Asian states, and Europe, whose goal is to overthrow the Uzbek regime and to establish an Islamic state. For most of the past decade, however, the group has focused on fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The IMU has a relationship with the Taliban and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan.

Activities: The IMU primarily targeted Uzbek interests before October 2001 and is believed to have been responsible for several explosions in Tashkent in February 1999. In August 1999, IMU militants took four Japanese geologists and eight Kyrgyz soldiers hostage. In May 2003, Kyrgyz security forces disrupted an IMU cell that was seeking to bomb the U.S. Embassy and a nearby hotel in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In November 2004, the IMU was blamed for an explosion in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh that killed one police officer and one terrorist.

Since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, the IMU has been predominantly occupied with attacks on U.S. and Coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. In late 2009, NATO forces reported an increase in IMU-affiliated foreign fighters in Afghanistan. Government authorities in Russia arrested three suspected IMU-affiliated extremists in November 2009. In 2010, the IMU the group claimed credit for the September 19 ambush that killed 25 Tajik troops in Tajikistan.

Strength: Several hundred members.

Location/Area of Operation: IMU militants are located in South Asia, Central Asia, and Iran.

External Aid: The IMU receives support from a large Uzbek diaspora, terrorist organizations, and donors from the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Jemaah Islamiya

a.k.a. Jemaa Islamiyah; Jema’a Islamiyah; Jemaa Islamiyya; Jema’a Islamiyya; Jemaa Islamiyyah; Jema’a Islamiyyah; Jemaah Islamiah; Jemaah Islamiyah; Jema’ah Islamiyah; Jemaah Islamiyyah; Jema’ah Islamiyyah; JI

Description: Jemaah Islamiya (JI) was designated as an FTO on October 23, 2002. Southeast Asia-based, JI is a terrorist group that seeks the establishment of an Islamic caliphate spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, and the southern Philippines. More than 400 JI operatives, including operations chief and al-Qaida associate Hambali, have been captured since 2002. The death of top JI bomb maker Azahari bin Husin in 2005 and a series of high-profile arrests between 2005 and 2008, in combination with additional efforts by the Government of Indonesia, likely reduced JI’s capabilities.

Since 2006, many high profile JI operatives have been either captured or killed. These include the 2006 arrests of several members connected to JI’s 2005 suicide attack in Bali, the 2007 arrests of former acting JI emir Muhammad Naim (a.k.a. Zarkasih) and JI military commander Abu Dujana, the 2008 arrests of two senior JI operatives in Malaysia, the mid–2008 arrest of a JI-linked cell in Sumatra, and the September 2009 death of JI-splinter group leader Noordin Mohammad Top in a police raid. Progress against JI continued in 2010 when a crackdown on JI’s base in Aceh, Indonesia resulted in the capture of over 60 militants and led authorities to JI leader Dulmatin, one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombing. Dulmatin was killed in March outside of Jakarta. In June, wanted JI commander Abdullah Sunata was captured while planning to bomb the Danish Embassy in Jakarta. In August JI co-founder Abu Bakar Bashir was arrested while planning multiple attacks in Jakarta. In December, JI weapons expert Abu Tholut was also captured by Indonesian police.

Activities: In December 2000, JI coordinated bombings of numerous Christian churches in Indonesia and was involved in the bombings of several targets in Manila. In December 2001, Singaporean authorities uncovered a JI plot to attack the U.S., Israeli, British, and Australian diplomatic facilities in Singapore. Other significant JI attacks included the September 2004 bombing outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, the August 2003 bombing of the J. W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, and the October 2002 Bali bombing, which killed more than 200. JI’s October 2005 suicide bombing in Bali left 26 dead, including the three suicide bombers.

A JI faction led by Noordin Mohammad Top conducted the group’s high-profile attack on July 17, 2009 at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta when two suicide bombers detonated explosive devices. The attack killed seven and injured more than 50, including seven Americans.

Strength: Estimates of total JI members vary from 500 to several thousand.

Location/Area of Operation: JI is based in Indonesia and is believed to have elements in Malaysia, and the Philippines.

External Aid: Investigations indicate that JI is fully capable of its own fund-raising through membership donations and criminal and business activities, although it also has received financial, ideological, and logistical support from Middle Eastern contacts and non-governmental organizations.

Jundallah

a.k.a. People’s Resistance Movement of Iran (PMRI); Jonbesh-i Moqavemat-i-Mardom-i Iran; Popular Resistance Movement of Iran; Soldiers of God; Fedayeen-e-Islam; Former Jundallah of Iran; Jundullah; Jondullah; Jundollah; Jondollah; Jondallah; Army of God (God’s Army); Baloch Peoples Resistance Movement (BPRM)

Description: Jundallah was designated as an FTO on November 4, 2010. Since its inception in 2003, Jundallah, a violent extremist organization that operates primarily in the province of Sistan va Balochistan of Iran, has engaged in numerous attacks resulting in the death and maiming of scores of Iranian civilians and government officials. Jundallah’s stated goals are to secure recognition of Balochi cultural, economic, and political rights from the government of Iran and to spread awareness of the plight of the Baloch situation through violent and nonviolent means. In October 2007, Amnesty International reported that Jundallah has by its own admission, carried out gross abuses such as hostage-taking, the killing of hostages, and attacks against non-military targets.

Activities: In March 2006, Jundallah attacked a motorcade in eastern Iran, which included the deputy head of the Iranian Red Crescent Security Department, who was taken hostage. More than 20 people were killed in the attack. The governor of Zahedan, his deputy, and five other officials were wounded, and seven others were kidnapped in the attack. In May 2006, Jundallah barricaded a road in Kerman province and killed 11 civilians and burned four vehicles. The assailants then killed another civilian and wounded a child by firing at a passing vehicle. In 2007, Jundallah killed 18 border guards on the Iranian-Afghan border. Jundallah seized 16 Iranian police officers near the border with Pakistan in 2008. When the Iranian government refused to release 200 Jundallah prisoners in exchange for the hostages, Jundallah killed them. In May 2009, Jundallah attacked the crowded Shiite Amir al-Mo’menin mosque in Zahedan, destroying the mosque and killing and wounding numerous worshipers. An October 2009 suicide bomb attack in a marketplace in the city of Pishin in the Sistan va Balochistan province, which killed more than 40 people, was reportedly the deadliest terrorist attack in Iran since the 1980s. In a statement on its website, Jundallah claimed responsibility for the December 15, 2010 suicide bomb attack inside the Iman Hussein Mosque in Chabahar, which killed an estimated 35 to 40 civilians with 60–100 wounded. In July 2010, Jundallah attacked the Grand Mosque in Zahedan, killing approximately 30 and injuring an estimated 300.

Strength: Reports of Jundallah membership vary widely from 500 to 2000.

Location/Area of Operation: Throughout Sistan va Balochistan province in southeastern Iran and the greater Balochistan area of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

External Aid: Unknown

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi

a.k.a. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi

Description: Lashkar I Jhangvi (LJ) was designated as an FTO on January 30, 2003. LJ is the militant offshoot of the Sunni Deobandi sectarian group Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. LJ focuses primarily on anti-Shia attacks and other attacks in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan and was banned by Pakistan in August 2001 as part of an effort to rein in sectarian violence. Many of its members then sought refuge in Afghanistan with the Taliban, with whom they had existing ties. After the collapse of the Taliban as the ruling government in Afghanistan, LJ members became active in aiding other terrorists, providing safe houses, false identities, and protection in Pakistani cities, including Karachi, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi. LJ works closely with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Activities: LJ specializes in armed attacks and bombings and has admitted responsibility for numerous killings of Shia religious and community leaders in Pakistan. In January 1999, the group attempted to assassinate former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shabaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Punjab Province. Media reports linked LJ to attacks on Christian targets in Pakistan, including a March 2002 grenade assault on the Protestant International Church in Islamabad that killed two U.S. citizens. Pakistani authorities believe LJ was responsible for the July 2003 bombing of a Shia mosque in Quetta, Pakistan. Authorities also implicated LJ in several sectarian incidents in 2004, including the May and June bombings of two Shia mosques in Karachi, which killed more than 40 people.

In March 2010 LJ and TTP claimed responsibility for two improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on the Pakistani army, which killed 48 civilians, nine soldiers, and wounded over 130. In April 2010, the group claimed responsibility for an IED attack on a World Food Program relief distribution point in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkwa Province. The attack killed 43 Internally Displaced Persons, one journalist, and wounded 70 others. In September 2010, LJ and TTP claimed a grenade and suicide bomber attack on a Shia Muslim procession in Lahore, Pakistan that killed 40 and wounded 270. Two days later, a suicide bomber attack in Balochistan, Pakistan killed 66 civilians and one media worker, and injured over 180. LJ and TTP both claimed responsibility for this attack.

The group conducts brutal attacks for al-Qaida in Pakistan and TTP. It has stepped up suicide attacks against government officials, anti-TTP tribes, and Shia Muslims.

Strength: Probably fewer than 100.

Location/Area of Operation: LJ is active primarily in Punjab, FATA, Karachi, and Baluchistan. Some members travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

External Aid: Funding comes from wealthy donors in Pakistan as well as the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. The group also engages in criminal activity to fund its activities to include extortion and protection money.

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group

a.k.a. LIFG

Description: The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) was designated as an FTO on December 17, 2004. In the early 1990s, the LIFG emerged from the group of Libyans who had fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan and pledged to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi. In the years following, some members maintained a strictly anti-Qadhafi focus and targeted Libyan government interests. Others, such as Abu al-Faraj al-Libi (arrested in Pakistan during 2005), aligned with Usama bin Ladin, and are believed part of AQ’s leadership structure or active in international terrorism. On November 3, 2007, AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced a formal merger between AQ and LIFG. However, in 2009 LIFG members in the United Kingdom released a statement formally disavowing any association with AQ and members in Libya were released from prison after making similar pledges. When the uprising against Qadhafi began, a number of members returned to the battlefield and helped overthrow the Qadhafiregime in 2011.

Activities: By the late 1990s, LIFG had ceased most major operations in Libya, which included assassination attempts on Qadhafi, as members fled predominantly to Europe and the Middle East because of tightened Libyan security measures. Members of the group returned to Libya during the revolution in 2011.

Strength: Unknown.

Location/Area of Operation: Libya and other locations

External Aid: Unknown.

Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group

a.k.a. Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain; GICM

Description: The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) was designated as an FTO on October 11, 2005. GICM is a clandestine transnational terrorist group centered in the Moroccan diaspora communities of Western Europe. Its goals include establishing an Islamic state in Morocco. The group emerged in the 1990s and is composed of Moroccan recruits who trained in armed camps in Afghanistan, including some who fought in the Soviet war in Afghan. GICM members interact with other North African extremists, particularly in Europe.

Activities: GICM members are believed to be among those responsible for the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people. GICM members were also implicated in the recruitment network for Iraq, and at least one GICM member carried out a suicide attack against Coalition Forces in Iraq. GICM individuals are believed to have been involved in the 2003 Casablanca attacks. However, the group has largely been inactive since these attacks, and has not been attributed to or claimed responsibility for any attacks since the Madrid train bombings.

Strength: Much of GICM’s leadership in Morocco and Europe has been killed, imprisoned, or is awaiting trial. Alleged leader Mohamed al-Guerbouzi was convicted in absentia by the Moroccan government for his role in the Casablanca attacks but remains free in exile in London.

Location/Area of Operation: Morocco, Western Europe, and Afghanistan.

External Aid: GICM has been involved in narcotics trafficking in North Africa and Europe to fund its operations.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)

TEHRIK-E TALIBAN PAKISTAN

a.k.a. Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, TTP

Description: Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a Pakistan-based terrorist organization and was designated on September 1, 2010. TTP formed in 2007 in opposition to Pakistani military efforts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Previously disparate militant tribes agreed to cooperate and eventually coalesced into TTP under the leadership of now deceased leader Baitullah Mehsud. The group officially presented itself as a discrete entity in 2007. TTP is now led by Hakimullah Mehsud, who has been the group’s emir since August 2009. Other senior leaders include Wali Ur Rehman, the TTP emir in South Waziristan, Pakistan. The U.S. government designated the two senior TTP leaders, Mehsud and Rehman, as specially designated global terrorists under Executive Order 13224. The Rewards for Justice program announced a $5 million reward for any information leading to their arrest. Additionally, the Department of Justice filed an arrest warrant for Hakimullah Mehsud, charging him with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a WMD.

TTP’s goals include usurping the Government of Pakistan by waging a campaign of terror against the civilian leader of Pakistan, its military, and against NATO forces in Afghanistan. TTP uses the tribal belt along the Afghan-Pakistani border to train and deploy its operatives, and the group has a symbiotic relationship with AQ. [Authors’ note: U.S. officials and others have noted that the TTP is a group separate from the Afghanistan Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until being deposed by the U.S. military after 9/11. The two groups cooperate often, but not always, and differ in significant ways.]

Activities: TTP has carried out and claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts against Pakistani and U.S. interests; including a December 2009 suicide attack on a U.S. military base in Khowst, Afghanistan, which killed seven U.S. citizens, and an April 2010 suicide bombing against the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed six Pakistani citizens.

TTP is suspected of being involved in the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Most recently, TTP claimed to have supported the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad to detonate an explosive device in New York City’s Times Square on May 1, 2010. TTP’s claim has been validated by investigations that revealed that TTP directed and facilitated the plot.

Strength: Several thousand, precise number is unknown.

Location: Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan

External Aid: TTP and AQ have a symbiotic relationship. TTP draws ideological guidance from AQ, while AQ relies on TTP for safe haven in the Pashtun areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border. This arrangement gives TTP access to both AQ’s global terrorist network and the operational experience of its members. Given the proximity of the two groups and the nature of their relationship, TTP is a force multiplier for AQ.

SHIITE TERRORISM: HIZBALLAH AND STATE SPONSOR IRAN

While U.S. and allied military operations have reduced the potency of some Sunni terrorist groups since 9/11, Hizballah and Iran remain formidable. Actively supporting combat against U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have gained important experience and, if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, will have substantially greater tactical and strategic leverage. Importantly, despite the vicious history of sectarian violence among Muslims, Iran and Hizballah have proven willing to support Sunni groups in areas of mutual advantage.

Hizballah

a.k.a. the Party of God; Islamic Jihad; Islamic Jihad Organization; Revolutionary Justice Organization; Organization of the Oppressed on Earth; Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine; Organization of Right Against Wrong; Ansar Allah; Followers of the Prophet Muhammed

Description: Hizballah was designated as an FTO on October 8, 1997. Formed during 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Lebanese-based radical Shia group takes its ideological inspiration from the Iranian revolution and the teachings of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. The group generally follows the religious guidance of Khomeini’s successor, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Hizballah is closely allied with Iran and often acts at its behest, though it also acts independently. Hizballah also shares a close relationship with Syria, and like Iran, the group is helping advance Syrian objectives in the region. It has strong influence in Lebanon, especially with the Shia community. The Lebanese government and the majority of the Arab world still recognize Hizballah as a legitimate “resistance group” and political party.

Hizballah provides support to several Palestinian terrorist organizations, as well as a number of local Christian and Muslim militias in Lebanon. This support includes the covert provision of weapons, explosives, training, funding, and guidance, as well as overt political support.

Activities: Hizballah’s terrorist attacks have included the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983; the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984; and the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, during which a U.S. Navy diver was murdered. Elements of the group were responsible for the kidnapping, detention, and murder of Americans and other Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s. Hizballah was also implicated in the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and on the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires in 1994. [Authors’ note: U.S. officials criminally charged members of Hezbollah al-Hejaz (or Saudi Hizballah) with the 1996 explosion of a huge truck bomb at Saudi Arabia’s Khobar Towers housing complex for U.S. airmen, which killed 19 Americans. The group is related to other regional Hizballah organizations. The U.S. government connected the plot to the government of Iran, but there have also been claims of al-Qaida involvement.] In 2000, Hizballah operatives captured three Israeli soldiers in the Sheba’a Farms area and, separately, kidnapped an Israeli non-combatant in Dubai. Although the non-combatant survived, on November 1, 2001, Israeli army rabbi Israel Weiss pronounced the soldiers dead. The surviving non-combatant, as well as the bodies of the IDF soldiers, were returned to Israel in a prisoner exchange with Hizballah in 2004.

Since at least that year, Hizballah has provided training to select Iraqi Shia militants, including on the construction and use of shaped charge improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that can penetrate heavily-armored vehicles. Senior Hizballah operative Ali Mussa Daqduq was captured in Iraq in 2007 while facilitating Hizballah training of Iraqi Shia militants attacking U.S. and coalition forces. When captured, Daqduq had detailed documents that discussed tactics to attack Iraqi and Coalition forces. In July 2006, Hizballah attacked an Israeli Army patrol, kidnapping two soldiers and killing three, starting a conflict with Israel that lasted into August.

Senior Hizballah officials have repeatedly vowed retaliation for the February 2008 killing in Damascus of Imad Mughniyah, Hizballah’s military and terrorism chief, who was accused of involvement in attacks against Americans.

The group’s willingness to engage in violence and its increasing stockpile of weapons continues to threaten stability in the region. In a two-week period in May 2008, Hizballah’s armed takeover of West Beirut—which occurred after the Lebanese government announced its plan to remove Hizballah’s telephone network—resulted in more than 60 deaths. Egyptian authorities in late 2008 disrupted a Hizballah cell that was charged with planning to attack Israeli interests including tourists in the Sinai Peninsula, and Israeli ships passing through the Suez Canal. The network was also engaged in smuggling weapons, supplies, and people through tunnels to Gaza. In November 2009, the Israeli navy seized a ship carrying an estimated 400–500 tons of weapons originating in Iran and bound for Hizballah, via Syria. By 2011, the group was believed to have a massive stockpile of rockets and other weapons.

Strength: Several thousands of supporters and members.

Location/Area of Operation: Operates in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and southern Lebanon.

External Aid: Hizballah receives training, weapons, and explosives, as well as political, diplomatic, monetary, and organizational aid from Iran; and training, weapons, diplomatic, and political support from Syria. Hizballah also receives funding from private donations and profits from legal and illegal businesses, including from Lebanese Shia communities in Europe, Africa, South America, North America, and Asia.

Kata’ib Hizballah

a.k.a. Hizballah Brigades; Hizballah Brigades In Iraq; Hizballah Brigades-Iraq; Kata’ib Hezbollah; Khata’ib Hezbollah; Khata’ib Hizballah; Khattab Hezballah; Hizballah Brigades-Iraq Of The Islamic Resistance In Iraq; Islamic Resistance In Iraq; Kata’ib Hizballah Fi Al-Iraq; Katibat Abu Fathel Al A’abas; Katibat Zayd Ebin Ali; Katibut Karbalah

Description: Kata’ib Hizballah (KH) was designated as an FTO on July 2, 2009. Formed in 2006, KH is a radical Shia Islamist group with an anti-Western outlook and extremist ideology that has conducted attacks against Iraqi, U.S., and Coalition targets in Iraq. KH has threatened the lives of Iraqi politicians and civilians that support the legitimate political process in Iraq. The group is notable for its extensive use of media operations and propaganda by filming and releasing videos of attacks. KH has ideological ties to Lebanese Hizballah and may have received support from that group its sponsor Iran.

Activities: KH has been responsible for numerous violent terrorist attacks since 2007, including improvised explosive device bombings, rocket propelled grenade attacks, and sniper operations. KH gained notoriety in 2007 with attacks on U.S. and Coalition forces designed to undermine the establishment of a democratic, viable Iraqi state. KH was particularly active in summer 2008, recording and distributing video footage of its attacks against U.S. and Coalition soldiers. Using the alias “Hizballah Brigades in Iraq,” KH filmed attacks on U.S. Stryker vehicles, Abrams tanks, and Bradley armored personnel carriers. In 2009, KH continued to record and distribute Internet videos of attacks.

In 2010, U.S. Army General Ray Odierno cited KH as the reason behind increased security at some U.S. bases in Iraq. General Odierno also said that Iran continued to support KH with weapons and training. In 2011, the group killed a number of American troops in rocket attacks.

Strength: Membership is estimated at approximately 400 individuals.

Location/Area of Operation: KH’s operations are predominantly Iraq-based. KH currently conducts the majority of its operations in Baghdad but has been active in other areas of Iraq, including Kurdish areas such as Mosul.

External Aid: KH receives support from Iran and Lebanese Hizballah.

Iran

Overview: Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran has remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Senior Iranian government officials, members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Qods Force, or external operations branch, were indicted by the government of Argentina for their alleged roles in the 1994 terrorist bombing of the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA); according to the Argentine state prosecutor’s report, the attack was initially proposed by the Qods Force (and, as discussed above, allegedly also involved Hizballah). In 2007 Interpol issued a “red notice” for six individuals wanted in connection to the bombing. One of the individuals, Ahmad Vahidi, was named as Iran’s defense minister in August 2009.

Iran has remained the principal supporter of groups implacably opposed to the Middle East Peace Process. The Qods Force is the regime’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad. Iran provided weapons, training, and funding to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, including the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah conflict, Iran has assisted Hizballah in rearming, in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hizballah in Lebanon and has trained thousands of Hizballah fighters at camps in Iran.

Iran’s Qods Force provided training to the Taliban in Afghanistan on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons, such as mortars, artillery, and rockets. Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members, including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives. Iran has shipped a large number of weapons to Kandahar, Afghanistan aiming to increase its influence in the country.

Despite its pledge to support the stabilization of Iraq, Iranian authorities continued to provide lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to Iraqi Shia militant groups that target U.S. and Iraqi forces. The Qods Force continued to supply Iraqi militants with Iranian-produced advanced rockets, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, and mortars that have killed Iraqi and Coalition Forces, as well as civilians. Iran was responsible for the increased lethality of some attacks on U.S. forces by providing militants with the capability to assemble explosives designed to defeat armored vehicles. The Qods Force, in concert with Lebanese Hizballah, provided training outside of Iraq as well as advisors inside Iraq for Shia militants in the construction and use of sophisticated improvised explosive device technology and other advanced weaponry.

[Author note: Numerous governmental, U.N., and media reports suggest Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability. Analysts believe that even if such weapons are not shared with terrorist groups, their presence in the Iranian arsenal might allow Iran and Hizballah to engage in far more significant acts of terrorism without fear of major retaliation.]

Domestic Terrorist Incidents: Iran is also the target of terrorist attacks, most notably by Jundallah, discussed earlier, and the Mujahadin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), which is discussed below. These attacks have resulted in the death and maiming of scores of Iranian civilians and government officials.

Legislation and Law Enforcement: Iran has remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qaida (AQ) members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody. Iran has repeatedly resisted numerous calls to transfer custody of its AQ detainees to their countries of origin or third countries for trial.

[Authors’ note: See above allegations of an Iranian role in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing attack on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. criminal investigation showed “elements of the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hizballah” in the operation that killed 19 Americans.²]

GROUPS ACTIVE IN THE KASHMIR CONFLICT (MUSLIM AREA DISPUTED BY PAKISTAN AND INDIA)

Harakat ul-Mujahideen

a.k.a. HUM; Harakat ul-Ansar; HUA; Jamiat ul-Ansar; JUA; Al-Faran; Al-Hadid; Al-Hadith; Harakat ul-Mujahidin.

Description: Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM), designated as an FTO in 1997, seeks the annexation of Indian Kashmir and expulsion of Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. Reportedly under pressure from the Government of Pakistan, HUM’s long-time leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil stepped down and was replaced by Dr. Badr Munir as the head of HUM in January 2005. Khalil has been linked to Usama bin Ladin, and his signature was found on bin Ladin’s February 1998 fatwa calling for attacks on U.S. and Western interests. HUM operated terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan until Coalition air strikes destroyed them in 2001. Khalil was detained by Pakistani authorities in mid–2004 and subsequently released in late December of the same year. In 2003, HUM began using the name Jamiat ul-Ansar (JUA). Pakistan banned JUA in November 2003.

Activities: HUM has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir. It is linked to the Kashmiri militant group al-Faran, which kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; the five reportedly were killed later that year. HUM was responsible for the hijacking of an Indian airliner in December 1999 that resulted in the release of Masood Azhar, an important leader in the former Harakat ul-Ansar who was imprisoned by India in 1994 and then founded Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) after his release. Another former member of Harakat ul-Ansar, Ahmed Omar Sheik was also released by India as a result of the hijackings and was later convicted of the abduction and murder in 2002 of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl.

HUM is still actively planning and carrying out operations against Indian security and civilian targets in Kashmir. In 2005, such attacks resulted in the deaths of 15 people. In November 2007, two Indian soldiers were killed in Kashmir while engaged in a firefight with a group of HUM militants. Indian police and army forces have engaged with HUM militants in the Kashmir region, killing a number of the organization’s leadership in April, October, and December 2008. In February 2009, Lalchand Kishen Advani, leader of the Indian opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, received a death threat that was attributed to HUM.

Strength: HUM has several hundred armed supporters located in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan; India’s southern Kashmir and Doda regions; and in the Kashmir valley. Supporters are mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris, but also include Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war. HUM uses light and heavy machine guns, assault rifles, mortars, explosives, and rockets. After 2000, a significant portion of HUM’s membership defected to JEM.

Location/Area of Operation: Based in Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, and several other cities in Pakistan, HUM conducts insurgent and terrorist operations primarily in Kashmir and Afghanistan. HUM trains its militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

External Aid: HUM collects donations from wealthy and grassroots donors in Pakistan, Kashmir, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states. HUM’s financial collection methods include soliciting donations in magazine ads and pamphlets. The sources and amount of HUM’s military funding are unknown. Its overt fundraising in Pakistan has been constrained since the government clampdown on extremist groups and the freezing of terrorist assets.

Jaish-e-Mohammed

a.k.a. the Army of Mohammed; Mohammed’s Army; Tehrik ul-Furqaan; Khuddam-ul-Islam; Khudamul Islam; Kuddam e Islami; Jaish-i-Mohammed

Description: Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) was designated as an FTO on December 26, 2001. Based in Pakistan, the group was founded in early 2000 by Masood Azhar, a former senior leader of Harakat ul-Ansar, upon his release from prison in India. The group’s aim is to annex Indian Kashmir and expel Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, and it has openly declared war against the United States. Pakistan outlawed JEM in 2002. By 2003, JEM had splintered into Khuddam-ul-Islam (KUI), headed by Azhar, and Jamaat ul-Furqan (JUF), led by Abdul Jabbar, who was released from Pakistani custody in August 2004. Pakistan banned KUI and JUF in November 2003. In March 2010, five JEM members recruiting for operations in India were arrested in Bangladesh.

Activities: JEM continues to operate openly in parts of Pakistan despite the 2002 ban on its activities. Since Masood Azhar’s 1999 release from Indian custody—in exchange for 155 hijacked Indian Airlines hostages—JEM has conducted many fatal terrorist attacks in the region.

JEM claimed responsibility for several suicide car bombings in Kashmir, including an October 2001 suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly building in Srinagar that killed more than 30 people. The Indian government has publicly implicated JEM, along with Lashkar e-Tayyiba, for the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that killed nine and injured 18. In 2002, Pakistani authorities arrested and convicted a JEM member for the abduction and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. Pakistani authorities suspect that JEM members may have been involved in the 2002 anti-Christian attacks in Islamabad, Murree, and Taxila that killed two Americans. In December 2003, Pakistan implicated JEM members in the two assassination attempts against President Musharraf. In 2006, JEM claimed responsibility for a number of attacks, including the killing of several Indian police officials in the Indian-administered Kashmir capital of Srinagar. Indian police and JEM extremists have continued to engage in firefights.

Strength: JEM has at least several hundred armed supporters—including a large cadre of former HUM members—located in Pakistan, India’s southern Kashmir and Doda regions and in the Kashmir Valley.

Location/Area of Operation: Pakistan, particularly southern Punjab; Afghanistan; Bangladesh; and Kashmir.

External Aid: In anticipation of asset seizures by the Pakistani government, JEM withdrew funds from bank accounts and invested in legal businesses, such as commodity trading, real estate, and production of consumer goods. In addition, JEM collects funds through donation requests in magazines and pamphlets.

Lashkar e-Tayyiba

a.k.a. al Mansooreen; Al Mansoorian; Army of the Pure; Army of the Pure and Righteous; Army of the Righteous; Lashkar e-Toiba; Lashkar-i-Taiba; Paasban-e-Ahle-Hadis; Paasban-e-Kashmir; Paasban-i-Ahle-Hadith; Pasban-e-Ahle-Hadith; Pasban-e-Kashmir; Jamaat-ud-Dawa, JUD; Jama’at al-Dawa; Jamaat ud-Daawa; Jamaat ul-Dawah; Jamaat-ul-Dawa; Jama’at-i-Dawat; Jamaiat-ud-Dawa; Jama’at-ud-Da’awah; Jama’at-ud-Da’awa; Jamaati-ud-Dawa; Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq; Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation; FiF; Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation; Falah-e-Insaniyat; Falah-i-Insaniyat; Falah Insania; Welfare of Humanity; Humanitarian Welfare Foundation; Human Welfare Foundation

Description: Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LT), one of the largest and most proficient of the traditionally Kashmir-focused militant groups, was designated as an FTO in 2001. It has the ability to severely disrupt already delicate regional relations, most notably between nuclear powers India and Pakistan. LT formed in the late 1980s as the militant wing of the Islamic extremist organization Markaz Dawa ul-Irshad, a Pakistan-based Islamic fundamentalist mission organization and charity founded to oppose the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Shortly after LT was designated as an FTO, it changed its name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) and began humanitarian projects to avoid restrictions. LT disseminates its message through JUD’s media outlets. Elements of LT and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM) have combined with other groups to mount attacks under the name “The Save Kashmir Movement.” The Pakistani government banned LT in January 2002 and JUD in 2008 following the Mumbai attack. LT and Saeed continued to spread ideology advocating terrorism, as well as virulent rhetoric condemning the United States, India, Israel, and other perceived enemies.

Activities: LT has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Jammu and Kashmir since 1993, as well as several high profile attacks inside India. LT claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in 2001, including a January attack on Srinagar airport that killed five Indians. The Indian government publicly implicated LT, along with JEM, for the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament building. Indian governmental officials hold LT responsible for the July 2006 train attack in Mumbai, and multiple attacks in 2005 and 2006. Senior al-Qaida (AQ) lieutenant Abu Zubaydah was captured at an LT safe house in Faisalabad in March 2002, which suggested that some members were facilitating the movement of AQ members in Pakistan.

LT conducted the widely televised 2008 attacks in Mumbai against luxury hotels, a Jewish center, a train station, and a popular café that killed at least 183, including 22 foreigners, and injured more than 300. India charged 38 people in the case, including the lone surviving alleged attacker Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, who was captured at the scene. While most of those charged are at large and thought to be in Pakistan, Kasab was sentenced to death for his involvement in the Mumbai massacre. In 2010, as discussed earlier, Pakistani-American businessman David Headley pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to crimes relating to his role in the Mumbai attacks as well as a separate plot to bomb a Danish newspaper.

In recent years, LT has focused on operations in Afghanistan and the Kashmir region, including the assault on a Kabul hotel.

Strength: The actual size of LT is unknown, but it has several thousand members in Azad Kashmir and Punjab Pakistan and in the southern Jammu, Kashmir, and Doda regions. Most LT members are Pakistanis or Afghans and/or veterans of the Afghan wars. The group uses assault rifles, light and heavy machine guns, mortars, explosives, and rocket-propelled grenades.

Location/Area of Operation: LT maintains a number of facilities, including training camps, schools, and medical clinics in Pakistan. It has global connections and a strong operational network throughout South Asia.

External Aid: LT collects donations from the Pakistani expatriate communities in the Middle East and Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, Islamic non-governmental organizations, and Pakistani and other Kashmiri business people. LT coordinates its charitable activities through its front organizations JUD and, more recently, Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), both of which have provided humanitarian relief to the victims of various natural disasters in Pakistan.

PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT

Various terrorist groups focus their operations on the long-running dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. This dispute, and threats to destroy Israel, have become rallying cries for an even broader collection of Islamist groups, both Shia and Sunni.

Abu Nidal Organization

a.k.a. ANO; Arab Revolutionary Brigades; Arab Revolutionary Council; Black September; Fatah Revolutionary Council; Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims

Description: The Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), designated as an FTO in 1997, was founded by Sabri al-Banna (a.k.a. Abu Nidal) after splitting from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1974. In August 2002, Abu Nidal died in Baghdad. Present leadership of the organization remains unclear. ANO advocates the elimination of Israel and has sought to derail diplomatic efforts in support of the Middle East peace process.

Activities: The ANO has carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring almost 900 persons. The group has not staged a major attack against Western targets since the late 1980s. Major attacks included those on the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul, the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi in 1986 (allegedly with the assistance of Libya), and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in Greece in 1988. The ANO is suspected of assassinating PLO Deputy Chief Abu Iyad and PLO Security Chief Abu Hul in Tunis in 1991. In 2008, a Jordanian official reported the apprehension of an ANO member who planned to carry out attacks in Jordan.

Strength: Current strength is unknown.

Location/Area of Operation: The group has not launched an attack in recent years, although former and current ANO associates are presumed present in Lebanon.

External Aid: The ANO’s current access to resources is unclear, but it is likely that the decline in support previously provided by Libya, Syria, and Iran has had a severe impact on its capabilities.

[Authors’ note: In 2009, the U.S. government announced a reward of up to $5 million each for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Abu Nidal terrorists charged in the District of Columbia for their role in the 1986 Pan American hijacking, in which at least 20 passengers, including two Americans, were murdered. Five of the terrorists were released after serving prison terms in Pakistan. One was subsequently captured, tried, and imprisoned by the U.S. Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz al-Turki, Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain ar-Rahayyal, and Muhammad Ahmed al-Munawar remained at large. Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim was reportedly killed in 2010 by a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan.]

al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade

a.k.a. al-Aqsa Martyrs Battalion

Description: The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was designated as an FTO on March 27, 2002. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade comprises an unknown number of small cells of Fatah-affiliated activists that emerged at the outset of the second Palestinian uprising, or al-Aqsa Intifada, in September 2000. Al-Aqsa’s goal is to drive the Israeli military and West Bank settlers from the West Bank in order to establish a Palestinian state loyal to the Fatah.

Activities: Al-Aqsa employed primarily small-arms attacks against Israeli military personnel and settlers as the intifada spread in 2000, but by 2002 they turned increasingly to suicide bombings against Israeli civilians inside Israel. In January 2002, the group claimed responsibility for the first female suicide bombing inside Israel. After the June 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, al-Aqsa Martyrs cells in Gaza stepped up rocket and mortar attacks against Israel. In 2010, AAMB launched numerous rocket attacks on communities in Israel, including the city of Sederot and areas of the Negev desert. Al-Aqsa has not pursued a policy of targeting U.S. interests as a policy, although its anti-Israeli attacks have killed dual U.S.-Israeli citizens.

Strength: A few hundred members.

Location/Area of Operation: Most of al-Aqsa’s operational activity is in Gaza but the group also planned and conducted attacks inside Israel and the West Bank. The group also has members in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

External Aid: Iran has exploited al-Aqsa’s lack of resources and formal leadership by providing funds and guidance, mostly through Hizballah facilitators.

Army of Islam (AOI)

Description: Designated an FTO in 2011, the AOI is a Gaza Strip-based group, founded in late 2005, which has been responsible for numerous terrorist acts against the governments of Israel and Egypt, as well as U.S., British, and New Zealand citizens. The group is led by Mumtaz Dughmush and operates primarily in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian territories. It subscribes to a Salafist ideology of global jihad, together with the traditional model of armed Palestinian resistance.

Activities: These actions include a number of rocket attacks on Israel, the 2006 kidnapping of two Fox News journalists in Gaza (an American and a New Zealander), and the 2007 kidnapping of a British citizen, journalist Alan Johnston, in Gaza. The group is also responsible for early 2009 attacks on Egyptian civilians in Cairo and Heliopolis, which resulted in casualties and deaths.

Strength: Unknown

Location/Area of Operation: Gaza Strip and Palestinian territories

External Aid: AOI has previously worked with Hamas and in recent years has attempted to develop closer contacts with al-Qaida.

Hamas

a.k.a. the Islamic Resistance Movement; Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya; Izz al-Din al Qassam Battalions; Izz al-Din al Qassam Brigades; Izz al-Din al Qassam Forces; Students of Ayyash; Student of the Engineer; Yahya Ayyash Units; Izz al-Din al-Qassim Brigades; Izz al-Din al-Qassim Forces; Izz al-Din al-Qassim Battalions

Description: Hamas was designated as an FTO in 1997 and possesses military and political wings. It was formed in late 1987 at the onset of the first Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The armed element, called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, conducts anti-Israeli attacks, previously including suicide bombings against civilian targets inside Israel. Hamas also manages a broad, mostly Gaza-based network of “Dawa” or ministry activities that include charities, schools, clinics, youth camps, fund-raising, and political activities. A Shura Council based in Damascus, Syria, sets overall policy. After winning Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006, Hamas seized control of significant Palestinian Authority (PA) ministries in Gaza, including the Ministry of Interior. Hamas subsequently formed an expanded militia called the Executive Force, subordinate to the Interior Ministry. This force and other Hamas cadres took control of Gaza in a military-style coup in June 2007, forcing (PLO) Fatah forces to either leave Gaza or go underground.

Activities: Prior to 2005, Hamas conducted numerous anti-Israeli attacks, including suicide bombings, rocket launches, improvised explosive device attacks, and shootings. Hamas has not directly targeted U.S. interests, though the group has conducted attacks against Israeli targets frequented by foreigners. The group curtailed terrorist attacks in February 2005 after agreeing to a temporary period of calm brokered by the PA and ceased most violence after winning control of the PA legislature and cabinet in January 2006. After Hamas staged a June 2006 attack on Israeli Defense Forces soldiers near Kerem Shalom that resulted in two deaths and the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, Israel took steps that severely limited the operation of the Rafah crossing. In June 2007, after Hamas took control of Gaza from the PA and Fatah, an international boycott was imposed along with the closure of Gaza borders. Hamas has since dedicated the majority of its activity in Gaza to solidifying its control, hardening its defenses, tightening security, and conducting limited operations against Israeli military forces.

Hamas fired rockets from Gaza into Israel in 2008 but focused more on mortar attacks targeting Israeli incursions. In June 2008, Hamas agreed to a six-month cease-fire with Israel and temporarily halted all rocket attacks emanating from Gaza by arresting Palestinian militants and violators of the agreement. Hamas claimed responsibility for killing nine civilians, wounding 12 children and 80 other civilians in an attack at the residence of Fatah’s Gaza City Secretary in Gaza in August 2008. Hamas also claimed responsibility for driving a vehicle into a crowd in Jerusalem, wounding 19 soldiers and civilians in September 2008. Hamas fought a 23-day war with Israel from late December 2008 to January 2009, in an unsuccessful effort to break an international blockade on Gaza and force the openings of the international crossings. Since Israel’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire on January 18, 2009, Hamas has largely enforced the calm, focusing on rebuilding its weapons caches, smuggling tunnels, and other military infrastructure in Gaza. Hamas carried out multiple rocket attacks on Israel in 2009 but was relatively inactive in 2010. In September 2010, Hamas claimed responsibility for carrying out a series of drive-by shootings in the West Bank that killed four Israelis near Hebron.

Strength: Hamas is believed to have several thousand Gaza-based operatives with varying degrees of skills in its armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, along with its reported 9,000-person Hamas-led paramilitary group known as the “Executive Force.”

Location/Area of Operation: Hamas has a presence in every major city in the Palestinian territories. The group retains a cadre of leaders and facilitators that conduct diplomatic, fundraising, and arms-smuggling activities in Lebanon, Syria, and other states. Hamas also increased its presence in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, probably with the goal of eclipsing Fatah’s long-time dominance of the camps.

External Aid: Hamas receives the majority of its funding, weapons, and training from Iran. In addition, the group raises funds in the Persian Gulf countries and receives donations from Palestinian expatriates around the world. Some fundraising and propaganda activity takes place in Western Europe and North America. Syria provides safe haven for its leadership.

Kahane Chai

a.k.a. American Friends of the United Yeshiva; American Friends of Yeshivat Rav Meir; Committee for the Safety of the Roads; Dikuy Bogdim; DOV; Forefront of the Idea; Friends of the Jewish Idea Yeshiva; Jewish Legion; Judea Police; Judean Congress; Kach; Kahane; Kahane Lives; Kahane Tzadak; Kahane.org; Kahanetzadak.com; Kfar Tapuah Fund; Koach; Meir’s Youth; New Kach Movement; Newkach.org; No’ar Meir; Repression of Traitors; State of Judea; Sword of David; The Committee Against Racism and Discrimination (CARD); The Hatikva Jewish Identity Center; The International Kahane Movement; The Jewish Idea Yeshiva; The Judean Legion; The Judean Voice; The Qomemiyut Movement; The Rabbi Meir David Kahane Memorial Fund; The Voice of Judea; The Way of the Torah; The Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea; Yeshivat Harav Meir

Description: Kach—the precursor to Kahane Chai—was founded by radical Israeli-American Rabbi Meir Kahane with the goal of restoring Greater Israel, which is generally used to refer to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Its offshoot, Kahane Chai (translation: “Kahane Lives”), was founded by Meir Kahane’s son Binyamin following his father’s 1990 assassination in the United States (by an Islamist terrorist). Both organizations were designated as FTOs in 1997 after they were declared terrorist organizations by the Israeli Cabinet under its laws. This designation followed the group’s statements in support of Baruch Goldstein’s February 1994 attack on the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and its verbal attacks on the Israeli government. Palestinian gunmen killed Binyamin Kahane and his wife in a drive-by shooting in December 2000 in the West Bank. The group has attempted to gain seats in the Israeli Knesset over the past several decades but won only one seat in 1984.

Activities: Kahane Chai has harassed and threatened Arabs, Palestinians, and Israeli government officials, and has vowed revenge for the death of Binyamin Kahane and his wife. The group is suspected of involvement in a number of low-level attacks since the start of the First Palestinian Intifada in 2000. Since 2003, Kahane Chai activists have called for the execution of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and physically intimidated other Israeli and Palestinian government officials who favored the dismantlement of Israeli settlements.

Strength: Kahane Chai’s core membership is believed to be fewer than 100. The group’s membership and support networks are overwhelmingly composed of Israeli citizens, most of whom live in West Bank settlements.

Location/Area of Operation: Israel and West Bank settlements, particularly Qiryat Arba’ in Hebron.

External Aid: Receives support from sympathizers in the United States and Europe.

Palestine Liberation Front–Abu Abbas Faction

a.k.a. PLF; PLF-Abu Abbas; Palestine Liberation Front

Description: The Palestinian Liberation Front—Abu Abbas Faction (PLF) was designated as an FTO in 1997. In the late 1970s, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) splintered from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), and then later split into pro-PLO, pro-Syrian, and pro-Libyan factions. The pro-PLO faction was led by Muhammad Zaydan (a.k.a. Abu Abbas) and was based in Baghdad prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Activities: Abbas’s group was responsible for the 1985 attack on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the murder of U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer. In 1993, the PLF officially renounced terrorism when it acknowledged the Oslo accords, although it was suspected of supporting terrorism against Israel by other Palestinian groups into the 1990s. In April 2004, Abu Abbas died of natural causes while in U.S. custody in Iraq. The PLF took part in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentarian elections but did not win a seat. In 2008, as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hizballah, Samir Kantar, a PLF member, and purportedly the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israeli custody, was released from an Israeli prison. After going approximately 16 years without claiming responsibility for an attack, PLF claimed responsibility for two attacks against Israeli targets on March 14, 2008, according to media reports. One attack was against an Israeli military bus in Huwarah, Israel, and the other involved a PLF “brigade” firing at an Israeli settler south of the Hebron Mountain, seriously wounding him. On March 28, 2008, shortly after the attacks, a PLF Central Committee member reaffirmed PLF’s commitment to using “all possible means to restore” its previous glory and to adhering to its role in the Palestinian “struggle” and “resistance,” through its military.

Strength: Estimates have placed membership between 50 and 500.

Location/Area of Operation: Based in Iraq from 1990 until 2003. Current PLF leadership and membership are based in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

External Aid: Unknown.

Palestine Islamic Jihad–Shaqaqi Faction

a.k.a. PIJ; Palestine Islamic Jihad; PIJ-Shaqaqi Faction; PIJ-Shallah Faction; Islamic Jihad of Palestine; Islamic Jihad in Palestine; Abu Ghunaym Squad of the Hizballah Bayt Al-Maqdis; Al-Quds Squads; Al-Quds Brigades; Saraya Al-Quds; Al-Awdah Brigades

Description: Formed by militant Palestinians in Gaza during the 1970s, and designated as an FTO in 1997, PIJ is committed to the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine.

Activities: PIJ terrorists have conducted numerous attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings against Israeli civilian and military targets. PIJ continued to plan and direct attacks against Israelis both inside Israel and in the Palestinian territories. Although U.S. citizens have died in PIJ attacks, the group has not directly targeted U.S. interests. PIJ attacks in 2008 and 2009 were primarily rocket attacks aimed at southern Israeli cities, and have also included attacking Israeli targets with explosive devices. PIJ has continued operations in recent years, including firing rockets and mortars into Israel.

Strength: PIJ currently has fewer than 1,000 members.

Location/Area of Operation: Primarily Gaza with minimal operational presence in the West Bank and Israel. The group’s senior leadership resides in Syria. Other leadership elements reside in Lebanon and official representatives are scattered throughout the Middle East.

External Aid: Receives financial assistance and training primarily from Iran. Syria provides the group with safe haven.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

a.k.a. PFLP; Halhul Gang; Halhul Squad; Palestinian Popular Resistance Forces; PPRF; Red Eagle Gang; Red Eagle Group; Red Eagles; Martyr Abu-Ali Mustafa Battalion

Description: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as an FTO in 1997, is a Marxist-Leninist group founded by George Habash, who broke away from the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1967. The PFLP views the Palestinian struggle as a broader non-religious revolution against Western imperialism. The group earned a reputation for spectacular international attacks in the 1960s and 1970s, including airline hijackings that killed at least 20 U.S. citizens. A leading faction within the PLO, the PFLP has long accepted the concept of a two-state solution but has opposed specific provisions of various peace initiatives.

Activities: The PFLP stepped up its operational activity during the Second Intifada of 2000 to 2005. This was highlighted by at least two suicide bombings, multiple joint operations with other Palestinian terrorist groups, and the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001 to avenge Israel’s killing of the PFLP Secretary General earlier that year. The PFLP was involved in several rocket attacks, launched primarily from Gaza, against Israel in 2008 and 2009; and also claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza, including a December 2009 ambush of Israeli soldiers in central Gaza. The group has remained active, claiming responsibility for numerous mortar and rocket attacks fired from Gaza into Israel.

Strength: Unknown.

Location/Area of Operation: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

External Aid: Receives safe haven from Syria.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command

a.k.a. PFLP-GC

Description: Designated as an FTO in 1997, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command (PFLP-GC) split from the PFLP in 1968, claiming it wanted to focus more on resistance and less on politics. The group was violently opposed to the Yasir Arafat-led PLO. Ahmad Jibril, a former captain in the Syrian Army, led the PFLP-GC, which has been closely tied to both Syria and Iran.

Activities: The PFLP-GC carried out dozens of attacks in Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s and 1980s. The organization was known for cross-border terrorist attacks into Israel using unusual means, such as hot-air balloons and motorized hang gliders. The group’s primary recent focus was supporting Hizballah’s attacks against Israel, training members of other Palestinian terrorist groups, and smuggling weapons. The PFLP-GC maintained an armed presence in several Palestinian refugee camps and at its own military bases in Lebanon and along the Lebanon-Syria border. The PFLP-GC was implicated by Lebanese security officials in several rocket attacks against Israel in 2008. In May 2008, the PFLP-GC claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on a shopping center in Ashkelon that wounded at least 10 people. The PFLP-GC has remained active including with rocket attacks.

Strength: Several hundred to several thousand.

Location/Area of Operation: Headquartered in Damascus, with bases in southern Lebanon and a presence in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. The group also maintains a small presence in Gaza.

External Aid: Receives safe haven, as well as logistical and military support from Syria and financial support from Iran.

NATIONALIST

Basque Fatherland and Liberty

a.k.a. ETA, Askatasuna; Batasuna; Ekin; Euskal Herritarrok; Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna; Herri Batasuna; Jarrai-Haika-Segi; K.A.S.; XAKI

Description: Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), designated an FTO in 1997, was founded in 1959 with the aim of establishing an independent homeland based on Marxist principles encompassing the Spanish Basque provinces of Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa, and Alava; the autonomous region of Navarra; and the southwestern French territories of Labourd, Basse-Navarre, and Soule. Spain and the EU have listed ETA as a terrorist organization. In 2002, the Spanish Parliament banned the political party Batasuna, ETA’s political wing, charging its members with providing material support to the terrorist group. Spanish and French prisons together are estimated to hold a total of more than 750 ETA members.

Activities: ETA primarily has conducted bombings and assassinations. Targets typically have included Spanish government officials, businessmen, politicians, judicial figures, and security and military forces, but the group also targeted journalists and tourist areas. The group is responsible for killing more than 800 civilians and members of the armed forces or police and injuring thousands since it began a campaign of violence in 1968.

In March 2006, days after claiming responsibility for a spate of roadside blasts in northern Spain that caused no injuries, ETA announced that it would implement a “permanent” ceasefire. However, just months later ETA exploded a massive car bomb that destroyed much of the covered parking garage outside the Terminal Four of Madrid’s Barajas International Airport.

Between 2007 and 2010, more than 400 ETA members were arrested. Since 2008, Spanish and French authorities have apprehended six of ETA’s top leaders, and have seized ETA arms caches containing explosives, limpet bombs, and weapons and ammunition. Despite these law enforcement efforts, ETA has continued to carry out attacks resulting in extensive damage and casualties.

In March 2010, a Spanish judge charged members of the ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia with terrorist plots, including a plan to assassinate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. That same month, ETA claimed responsibility for killing a police officer outside of Paris, France. The group declared a cease fire in early 2011, though some observers were skeptical based on similar but broken promises in the past.

Strength: ETA’s exact strength is unknown, but current estimates by Spanish authorities and scholars put membership between approximately 100–300 operational personnel.

Location/Area of Operation: ETA operated primarily in the Basque autonomous regions of northern Spain and southwestern France, but has attacked Spanish and French interests elsewhere. Most recently, ETA safe houses have been identified and raided in Portugal.

External Aid: ETA financed its activities primarily through bribery and extortion of Basque businesses. In the past, it has received training in Libya and Lebanon, although there is no indication that such training continues. Some ETA members have allegedly fled to Cuba and Mexico, while others reside in South America.

Continuity Irish Republican Army

a.k.a. Continuity Army Council; Continuity IRA; Republican Sinn Fein

Description: The Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA), designated as an FTO in 2004, is a terrorist splinter group formed in 1994 as the clandestine armed wing of Republican Sinn Fein, which split from Sinn Fein in 1986. “Continuity” refers to the group’s belief that it is carrying on the original Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) goal of forcing the British out of Northern Ireland. CIRA cooperates with the larger Real IRA (RIRA).

Activities: CIRA has been active in Belfast and the border areas of Northern Ireland, where it has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, extortion, and robberies. On occasion, it provided advance warning to police of its attacks. Targets have included the British military, Northern Ireland security forces, and Loyalist paramilitary groups. CIRA did not join the Provisional IRA in the September 2005 decommissioning of terrorist weapons and remained capable of effective, if sporadic, attacks. In April 2010, authorities defused a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland for which CIRA claimed responsibility.

Strength: Membership is small, with possibly fewer than 50 hard-core activists. Police counterterrorist operations have reduced the group’s strength.

Location/Area of Operation: Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

External Aid: CIRA supported its activities through criminal activities, including smuggling.

CIRA may have acquired arms and materiel from the Balkans, in cooperation with the RIRA.

Real IRA

a.k.a. RIRA; Real Irish Republican Army; 32 County Sovereignty Committee; 32 County Sovereignty Movement; Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association; Real Oglaigh Na hEireann

Description: The Real IRA (RIRA) was designated as an FTO in 2001 after being formed in 1997 as the clandestine armed wing of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, a “political pressure group” dedicated to removing British forces from Northern Ireland and unifying Ireland. The RIRA has historically sought to disrupt the Northern Ireland peace process and did not participate in the 2005 weapons decommissioning. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement opposed Sinn Fein’s adoption in 1997 of the Mitchell principles of democracy and non-violence. Despite internal rifts and calls by some jailed members, including the group’s founder Michael “Mickey” McKevitt, for a cease-fire and disbandment, the RIRA has pledged additional violence and continued to conduct attacks.

Activities: Many RIRA members are former Provisional Irish Republican Army members who left the organization after that group renewed its cease-fire in 1997. These members brought a wealth of experience in terrorist tactics and bomb-making to the RIRA. Targets have included civilians (most notoriously in the Omagh bombing in August 1998), British security forces, and police in Northern Ireland. The Independent Monitoring Commission, which was established to oversee the peace process, assessed that RIRA members were likely responsible for the majority of the shootings and assaults that occurred in Northern Ireland in 2008. In November 2008, Lithuanian authorities arrested a RIRA member for attempting to arrange a shipment of weapons to Northern Ireland. In March 2009, the group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed two British soldiers outside a British Army barracks in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. In 2010, there were 12 attacks attributed to RIRA in Northern Ireland, including a car bombing.

Strength: According to the Irish government, the RIRA has approximately 100 active members. The organization may receive limited support from IRA hardliners and Republican sympathizers who are dissatisfied with the IRA’s continuing cease-fire and with Sinn Fein’s involvement in the peace process. Approximately 40 RIRA members are in Irish jails.

Location/Area of Operation: Northern Ireland, Great Britain, and the Irish Republic.

External Aid: The RIRA is suspected of receiving funds from sympathizers in the United States and of attempting to buy weapons from U.S. gun dealers. The RIRA was also reported to have purchased sophisticated weapons from the Balkans and to have occasionally collaborated with the Continuity Irish Republican Army.

Kurdistan Workers’ Party

a.k.a. The Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress; the Freedom and Democracy Congress of Kurdistan; KADEK; Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan; the People’s Defense Force; Halu Mesru Savunma Kuvveti; Kurdistan People’s Congress; People’s Congress of Kurdistan; KONGRA-GEL

Description: Founded by Abdullah Ocalan in 1978 as a Marxist-Leninist separatist organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or Kongra-Gel (KGK) was designated as an FTO in 1997. The group, composed primarily of Turkish Kurds, launched a campaign of violence in 1984. The PKK’s original goal was to establish an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey, but in recent years it has spoken more often about autonomy within a Turkish state that guarantees Kurdish cultural and linguistic rights.

In the early 1990s, the PKK moved beyond rural-based insurgent activities to include urban terrorism. In the 1990s, southeastern Anatolia was the scene of significant violence; some estimates place casualties at approximately 30,000 persons. Following his capture in 1999, Ocalan announced a “peace initiative,” ordering members to refrain from violence and requesting dialogue with Ankara on Kurdish issues. Ocalan’s death-sentence was commuted to life-imprisonment; he remains the symbolic leader of the group. The group foreswore violence until June 2004, when the group’s hard-line militant wing took control and renounced the self-imposed cease-fire of the previous five years. Striking over the border from bases within Iraq, the PKK has engaged in terrorist attacks in eastern and western Turkey and substantially escalated its attacks in 2011, including a strike that killed 13 Turkish troops.

Activities: Primary targets have been Turkish government security forces, local Turkish officials, and villagers who oppose the organization in Turkey. In an attempt to damage Turkey’s tourist industry, the PKK has bombed tourist sites and hotels and kidnapped foreign tourists.

Strength: Approximately 4,000 to 5,000, of which 3,000 to 3,500 are located in northern Iraq.

Location/Area of Operation: Operated primarily in Turkey, Iraq, Europe, and the Middle East.

External Aid: In the past, the PKK received safe haven and modest aid from Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Syria ended support for the group in 1999 and since then has cooperated with Turkey against the PKK. Since 1999, Iran has also cooperated in a limited fashion with Turkey against the PKK. In 2008, Turkey and Iraq began cooperating to fight the PKK. The PKK continues to receive substantial financial support from the large Kurdish diaspora in Europe and from criminal activity there.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

a.k.a. Ellalan Force; Tamil Tigers

Description: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was designated as an FTO in 1997. Founded in 1976, the LTTE became a powerful Tamil secessionist group in Sri Lanka. Despite its military defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan government in 2009, the LTTE’s international network of financial support persists. This network continued to collect contributions from the Tamil diaspora in North America, Europe, and Australia, where there were reports that some of these contributions were coerced by locally based LTTE sympathizers. The LTTE also used Tamil charitable organizations as fronts for its fundraising.

Activities: Although LTTE has been largely inactive since its military defeat, in the past LTTE was responsible for an integrated a battlefield insurgent strategy that targeted key personnel in the countryside and senior Sri Lankan political and military leaders. It conducted a sustained campaign targeting rival Tamil groups, and assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991 and President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka in 1993. Although most notorious for its cadre of suicide bombers, the Black Tigers, the organization included an amphibious force, the Sea Tigers, and a nascent air wing, the Air Tigers. In early 2009, Sri Lankan forces recaptured the LTTE’s key strongholds and killed LTTE’s second in command. LTTE members reportedly fled Sri Lanka and have since attempted to reorganize in India. Other LTTE members continued to procure weapons while the LTTE diaspora continued to support the organization financially. For example, in 2010, German police arrested six Tamil migrants living in Germany for using blackmail and extortion to raise funds for the LTTE.

Strength: Exact strength is unknown.

Location/Area of Operations: Sri Lanka and India.

External Aid: The LTTE has used its international contacts and the large Tamil diaspora in North America, Europe, and Asia to procure weapons, communications, funding, and other needed supplies. The group employed charities as fronts to collect and divert funds for their activities.

RELIGIOUS

Aum Shinrikyo

a.k.a. A.I.C. Comprehensive Research Institute; A.I.C. Sogo Kenkyusho; Aleph; Aum Supreme Truth

Description: Shoko Asahara established Aum in 1987, and the cult received legal status in Japan as a religious entity in 1989. It was designated as an FTO in 1997. The Japanese government revoked its recognition of Aum as a religious organization following Aum’s deadly sarin gas attack in Tokyo in March 1995. Despite claims of renunciation of violence and Ashara’s teachings, members of the group continue to adhere to the violent and apocalyptic teachings of its founder.

Activities: In March 1995, Aum members simultaneously released the chemical nerve agent sarin on several Tokyo subway trains, killing 12 people and causing up to 6,000 to seek medical treatment. Subsequent investigations by the Japanese government revealed the group was responsible for other mysterious chemical incidents in Japan in 1994, including a sarin gas attack on a residential neighborhood in Matsumoto that killed seven and hospitalized approximately 500. Japanese police arrested Asahara in May 1995; he was sentenced to death along with a number of his followers. Since 1997, the cult has recruited new members, engaged in commercial enterprises, and acquired property, although it scaled back these activities significantly in 2001 in response to a public outcry. In July 2001, Russian authorities arrested a group of Russian Aum followers who had planned to set off bombs near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo as part of an operation to free Asahara from jail and smuggle him to Russia.

Strength: According to a study by the Japanese government issued in December 2009, Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph membership in Japan is approximately 1,500 with another 200 in Russia. The study said that Aum maintained 31 facilities in 15 Prefectures in Japan and continued to possess a few facilities in Russia. At the time of the Tokyo subway attack, the group claimed to have as many as 40,000 members worldwide, including 9,000 in Japan and 30,000 members in Russia.

Location/Area of Operation: Aum’s principal membership is located in Japan; while a residual branch operates in Russia.

External Aid: Funding primarily comes from member contributions.

IDEOLOGICAL

Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army

a.k.a. CPP/NPA; Communist Party of the Philippines; the CPP; New People’s Army; the NPA

Description: The Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA), designated as an FTO in 2002, is a Maoist group formed in March 1969 with the aim of overthrowing the government through protracted guerrilla warfare. Jose Maria Sison, the chairman of the CPP’s Central Committee and the NPA’s founder, reportedly directsed CPP and NPA activity from the Netherlands, where he lived in self-imposed exile. Although primarily a rural-based guerrilla group, the NPA had an active urban infrastructure to support its terrorist activities and, at times, used city-based assassination squads.

Activities: The CPP/NPA primarily targeted Philippine security forces, government officials, local infrastructure, and businesses that refused to pay extortion, or “revolutionary taxes.” The CPP/NPA charged politicians running for office in CPP/NPA-influenced areas for “campaign permits.” Despite its focus on Philippine governmental targets, the CPP/NPA has a history of attacking U.S. interests in the Philippines. In 1987, the CPP/NPA conducted direct action against U.S. personnel and facilities when three American soldiers were killed in four separate attacks in Angeles City. In 1989, the CPP/NPA issued a press statement taking credit for the ambush and murder of Colonel James Nicholas Rowe, chief of the Ground Forces Division of the Joint U.S.-Military Advisory Group.

CPP/NPA operationshave continued in recent years, including successful attacks on army and police units.

Strength: The Philippines government estimated there are approximately 5,000 members.

Location/Area of Operations: The CPP/NPA operates in rural Luzon, Visayas, and parts of northern and eastern Mindanao. There are cells in Manila and other metropolitan centers.

External Aid: Unknown.

Mujahadin-e Khalq Organization

a.k.a. MEK; MKO; Mujahadin-e Khalq; Muslim Iranian Students’ Society; National Council of Resistance; NCR; Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran; the National Liberation Army of Iran; NLA; People’s Mujahadin Organization of Iran; PMOI; National Council of Resistance of Iran; NCRI; Sazeman-e Mujahadin-e Khalq-e Iran

Description: The Mujahadin-E Khalq Organization (MEK) seeks the overthrow of the Iranian regime through its military wing, the National Liberation Army (NLA), and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). It was designated as an FTOin 1997. While founded as a Marxist-Islamic Organization in 1963 by a group of college-educated Iranian Marxists who opposed the country’s pro-western ruler, the group has since exhibited cult-like elements. It participated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that replaced pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlaviwith a Shiite Islamist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, the MEK’s ideology—a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism—was at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, after France recognized the Iranian regime, the MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, which facilitated its terrorist activities in Iran. Since 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members have been encamped at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Activities: The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives. During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. In 1972, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the U.S. Information Service office (part of the U.S. Embassy), the Iran-American Society, and the offices of several U.S. companies to protest the visit of President Nixon to Iran. In 1973, the MEK assassinated the deputy chief of the U.S. Military Mission in Tehran and bombed several businesses, including Shell Oil. In 1974, the MEK set off bombs in Tehran at the offices of U.S. companies to protest the visit of then U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger. In 1975, the MEK assassinated two U.S. military officers who were members of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group in Tehran and the next year killed two U.S. employees of Rockwell International in Tehran. In 1979, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of an American Texaco executive. Though denied by the MEK, analysis based on eyewitness accounts and MEK documents demonstrates that members of the group participated in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, guarded the site and later argued against the early release the American hostages. But by 1981, MEK leadership was attempting to overthrow the newly installed Islamic regime; Iranian security forces subsequently initiated a crackdown on the group. The MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. The ensuing offensive forced MEK leaders to flee to France. For five years, the MEK continued to wage its terrorist campaign from Paris. Expelled by France in 1986, MEK leaders turned to Saddam Hussein’s regime for basing, financial support, and training. Near the end of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, Baghdad armed the MEK with heavy military equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces.

The MEK’s relationship with the former Iraqi regime continued through the 1990s. In 1991, the group reportedly assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard’s bloody crackdown on Iraqi Shia and Kurds who rose up against Saddam Hussein’s regime. In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and consular missions in 13 countries, including against the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. In June 1998, the MEK was implicated in a series of bombing and mortar attacks in Iran that killed at least 15 and injured several others. The MEK also assassinated the former Iranian Minister of Prisons in 1998. The next year the group assassinated the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff.

In April 2000, the MEK attempted to assassinate the commander of the Nasr Headquarters, Tehran’s interagency board responsible for coordinating policies on Iraq. The pace of anti-Iranian operations increased that year during “Operation Great Bahman” as the group launched a dozen attacks against Iran. One attack included a mortar attack against a major Iranian leadership complex in Tehran that housed the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President. At the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces bombed the MEK’s facilities in Iraq; MEK leadership soon negotiated a cease-fire with coalition forces and surrendered their heavy arms. After 2003, roughly 3,400 MEK members encamped at Ashraf in Iraq.

In 2003, French authorities arrested 160 MEK members at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks. Upon the arrest of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, MEK members took to Paris’ streets and engaged in self-immolation. French authorities eventually released Rajavi.

Strength: Estimates place MEK’s worldwide membership at between 5,000 and 10,000 members, with large pockets in Paris and other major European capitals. In Iraq, roughly 3,400 MEK members are gathered. As a condition of the 2003 cease-fire agreement with the U.S. and its allies, the MEK relinquished more than 2,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery. This left the group less well defended against pressure from the Iraqi government in recent years.

Location/Area of Operation: The MEK’s global support structure remains in place, with associates and supporters scattered throughout Europe and North America. Operations have targeted Iranian government elements across the globe, including in Europe and Iran. MEK has also obtained and shared sensitive security information about Iran, including data on the country’s nuclear program. The MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has a global support network with active lobbying and propaganda efforts in major Western capitals. NCRI also has a well-developed media communications strategy.

External Aid: Before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the MEK received all military assistance and most of its financial support from Saddam Hussein. The fall of Hussein’s regime has led the MEK increasingly to rely on front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.

The People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA)

A Maoist group operating in India, the PCPA claimed responsibility for sabotaging railroad tracks and derailing a train in May 2010, killing around 150 people. The group is associated with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which conducts guerilla and terrorist operations against the Indian government. (Maoist guerillas also fought a civil war against the government of Nepal, attempting to depose the King. Their political organization later became the nation’s governing party.)

Revolutionary Organization 17 November

a.k.a. Epanastatiki Organosi 17 Noemvri; 17 November

Description: The Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N) was designated as an FTO on October 8, 1997. 17N is a radical leftist group established in 1975 and named for the student uprising in Greece in November 1973 that protested the ruling military junta. 17N is opposed to the Greek government, the United States, Turkey, and NATO and seeks the end of the U.S. military presence in Greece, the removal of Turkish military forces from Cyprus, and the severing of Greece’s ties to NATO and the EU.

Activities: Initial attacks consisted of assassinations of senior U.S. officials and Greek public figures. Five U.S. Embassy employees have been murdered since 17N began terrorist activities in 1975. The group began bombings in the 1980s. In 1990, 17N expanded its targets to include Turkish diplomats, EU facilities, and foreign firms investing in Greece. 17N’s most recent attack was a bombing attempt in June 2002 at the port of Piraeus in Athens. After the attempted attack, Greek authorities arrested 19 17N members, including a key leader of the organization.

Strength: Unknown.

Location/Area of Operation: Athens, Greece.

External Aid: Unknown.

Revolutionary Struggle

a.k.a. RS; Epanastatikos Aghonas; EA

Description: Designated as an FTO in 2009, Revolutionary Struggle (RS) is a radical leftist group with a Marxist ideology that has conducted attacks against both Greek and U.S. targets in Greece. RS emerged in 2003 following the arrests of members of the Greek leftist groups 17 November and Revolutionary People’s Struggle.

Activities: RS first gained notoriety when it claimed responsibility for the 2003 bombings at the Athens Courthouse during the trials of 17 November members. From 2004 to 2007, RS claimed responsibility for a number of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) attack on the U.S. Embassy in Athens, which resulted in damage to the building. In 2009, RS increased the number and sophistication of its attacks on police, financial institutions, and other targets. RS successfully bombed a Citibank branch in Athens in March 2009, but failed in its vehicle-borne IED attack in February 2009 against the Citibank headquarters building in Athens. In September 2009, RS claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on the Athens Stock Exchange, which caused widespread damage and injured a passerby.

In 2010, the Greek Government made significant strides in curtailing RS’s terrorist activities. On March 9, Greek police engaged in a shootout with two suspected RS members who were attempting to steal a car, which resulted in the death of one the suspects. At the scene, important information was acquired that led to the arrest of other suspected RS members.

Strength: Unknown but numbers presumed to be small.

Location/Area of Operation: Athens, Greece.

External Aid: Unknown.

Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front

a.k.a. DHKP/C; Dev Sol; Dev Sol Armed Revolutionary Units; Dev Sol Silahli Devrimci Birlikleri; Dev Sol SDB; Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi; Devrimci Sol; Revolutionary Left

Description: The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), designated as an FTO in 1997, was originally formed in 1978 as Devrimci Sol, or Dev Sol, a splinter faction of Dev Genc (Revolutionary Youth). The group espouses a Marxist-Leninist ideology and vehemently opposes the United States, NATO, and Turkish establishments. Its goals are the establishment of a socialist state and the abolition of harsh Turkish prisons. DHKP/C finances its activities chiefly through donations and extortion.

Activities: Since the late 1980s, the group has primarily targeted current and retired Turkish security and military officials. It began a new campaign against foreign interests in 1990, which included attacks against U.S. military and diplomatic personnel and facilities. Dev Sol assassinated two U.S. military contractors, wounded an Air Force officer, and bombed more than 20 U.S. and NATO military, commercial, and cultural facilities. In its first significant terrorist act as DHKP/C in 1996, the group assassinated a prominent Turkish businessman and two others. DHKP/C added suicide bombings to its repertoire in 2001, with successful attacks against Turkish police in January and September. Since the end of 2001, DHKP/C has typically used improvised explosive devices against official Turkish targets and U.S. targets of opportunity.

Operations and arrests against the group have weakened its capabilities. In late June 2004, the group was suspected of a bus bombing at Istanbul University, which killed four civilians and wounded 21. In July 2005, in Ankara, police intercepted and killed a DHKP/C suicide bomber who attempted to attack the Ministry of Justice. In June 2006, the group killed a police officer in Istanbul; four members of the group were arrested the next month for the attack.

The DHKP/C was dealt a major ideological blow when its leader died in 2008. The group reorganized the next year and was reportedly competing with the Kurdistan Workers Party for influence in Turkey and the Turkish diaspora in Europe. In April 2009, a female DHKP/C member conducted an unsuccessful suicide bomb attack against former Justice Minister Hikmet Turk. In recent years, the Government of Turkey has made significant progress against the DHKP/C.

Strength: Probably several dozen members inside Turkey, with a limited support network throughout Europe.

Location/Area of Operation: Turkey, primarily in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Adana.

External Aid: DHKP/C raises funds in Europe. The group also raises funds through extortion.

Sect of Revolutionaries (SE)

Description: Made a “specially designated terrorist organization” (versus FTO) in 2011, SE is a Greek terrorist organization that uses violence to try to provoke a revolution and overthrow the Greek government.

Activities: Since its first attack against a police station in February 2009, SE has continued to threaten the Greek government and media interests. Between February 2009 and July 2010, SE claimed responsibility for two shooting attacks on a police station and a TV station and two separate murders of a police officer and a journalist.

Soon after each of its attacks, SE released a written proclamation taking responsibility for its violence and threatening to kill police officers, journalists, members of the judiciary, social workers, and others in order to harm the Greek economy and damage the country’s international reputation.

Strength: Unknown

Location/Area of Operation: Greece

External Aid: Unknown

Shining Path

a.k.a. SL; Sendero Luminoso; Ejercito Guerrillero Popular (People’s Guerrilla Army); EGP; Ejercito Popular de Liberacion (People’s Liberation Army); EPL; Partido Comunista del Peru (Communist Party of Peru); PCP; Partido Comunista del Peru en el Sendero Luminoso de Jose Carlos Mariategui (Communist Party of Peru on the Shining Path of Jose Carlos Mariategui); Socorro Popular del Peru (People’s Aid of Peru); SPP

Description: Shining Path (SL), designated as an FTO in 1997, was organized by former university professor Abimael Guzmanin the late 1960s, based on his Maoist teachings. SL’s stated goal is to destroy existing Peruvian institutions and replace them with a communist peasant revolutionary regime. It also opposes any influence by foreign governments. In the 1980s, SL was one of the most ruthless terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere. The Peruvian government made dramatic gains against SL during the 1990s, capturing Guzman in 1992 and killing a large number of militants. More recently, SL members have attempted to influence the local populace through indoctrination. SL responded to the government’s stepped up counterterrorism efforts with a series of bloody counterattacks in late 2008 and throughout 2009.

Activities: In the past, SL has conducted indiscriminate bombing campaigns, ambushes, and selective assassinations. However, in the last five years, SL activities have included intimidation of U.S.-sponsored non-governmental organizations involved in counternarcotics efforts, the ambushing of counternarcotics helicopters, and attacks against Peruvian police perpetrated in conjunction with narcotics traffickers.

In 2008, SL conducted over 64 attacks and killed at least 34 people in remote coca growing areas. In one of its most devastating attacks, on October 10, 2008, Peru’s military command said a bomb killed 12 soldiers and seven civilians in the country’s southeastern mountains. Activities in 2009 included attacks against Peruvian helicopters. In recent years, fighting has continued between SL and local security forces.

Strength: Unknown but estimated to be between 300 and 500 armed militants.

Location/Area of Operation: Peru, with most activity in rural areas, specifically the Huallaga Valley, the Ene River, and the Apurimac Valley of central Peru.

External Aid: None known.

CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA AND NARCO-TERRORISM

As discussed in Chapter 11, terrorist groups often engage in criminal activity to generate cash for operations. The drug trade offers a lucrative opportunity. While Mexican drug gangs are engaged in a virtual civil war with Mexico’s security forces, including combat near the U.S. border, many observers believe they are not terrorist groups as normally understood. However, groups in Colombia are.

National Liberation Army

a.k.a. ELN, Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional

Description: The National Liberation Army (ELN), an FTO as of 1997, is a Colombian Marxist-Leninist group formed in 1964 by intellectuals inspired by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. It is primarily rural-based, although it also has several urban units. Peace talks between the ELN and the Colombian government began in Cuba in December 2005 and continued through August 2007. To date, Colombia and the ELN have yet to agree on a formal framework for peace negotiations and talks stalled in early 2008, although sporadic efforts have been made to revive them. The ELN remains focused on attacking economic infrastructure, in particular oil pipelines and electricity pylons, and extorting foreign and local companies.

Activities: The ELN engages in kidnappings, hijackings, bombings, drug trafficking, and extortion activities. Historically, the ELN has been one of the biggest users of anti-personnel mines in Colombia. In recent years, the ELN has launched joint attacks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s largest terrorist organization. Authorities believe that the ELN was involved in numerous attacks in recent years, some of which were carried out jointly with the FARC.

Strength: Approximately 2,000 armed combatants and an unknown number of active supporters.

Location/Area of Operation: Mostly in rural and mountainous areas of northern, northeastern, and southwestern Colombia, as well as the border regions with Venezuela.

External Aid: The ELN has no known external aid.

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

a.k.a. FARC; Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia

Description: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is Latin America’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped terrorist organization, designated as an FTO in 1997. It has been degraded by a continuing Colombian military offensive, with U.S. support, targeting key FARC units and leaders that has, by most estimates, halved the FARC’s numbers and succeeded in capturing or killing a number of FARC senior and mid-level commanders. The FARC began in the early 1960s as an outgrowth of the Liberal Party-based peasant self-defense leagues, but took on Marxist ideology. Today, it only nominally fights in support of Marxist goals. The FARC is responsible for large numbers of ransom kidnappings in Colombia and in past years has held more than 700 hostages.

Activities: The FARC has carried out bombings, murder, mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, and hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military, and economic targets. The FARC has also used landmines extensively. The group considers Americans legitimate targets and other foreign citizens are often targets of abductions carried out to obtain ransom and political leverage. The FARC has well-documented ties to the full range of narcotics trafficking activities, including taxation, cultivation, and distribution. Over the years, the FARC has perpetrated a large number of high profile terrorist acts, including the 1999 murder of three U.S. missionaries working in Colombia, and multiple kidnappings and assassinations of Columbian government officials and civilians. In July 2008, the Colombian military made a dramatic rescue of 15 high-value FARC hostages including three U.S. Department of Defense contractors Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howe, who were held in captivity for more than five years along with former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

In 2010, the FARC was held responsible for an estimated 134 deaths, which included an attack in Ecuador, and has remained highly active since.

Strength: Approximately 8,000 to 9,000 combatants, with several thousand more supporters.

Location/Area of Operation: Primarily in Colombia with activities including extortion, kidnapping, weapons sourcing, and logistics in neighboring countries.

External Aid: Cuba provided some medical care, safe haven, and political consultation. The FARC often used the Colombia/Venezuela, Colombia/Panama, and Colombia/Ecuador border areas for incursions into Colombia and also used Venezuelan and Ecuadorian territory for safe haven, although the degree of government acquiescence is not always clear.

United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia

a.k.a. AUC; Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia

Description: The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was designated as an FTO in 2001. Commonly referred to as the paramilitaries, the AUC was formed in April 1997 and designed to serve as an umbrella group for loosely affiliated, illegal paramilitary groups retaliating against leftist guerillas, which in turn were fighting the Colombian government and the landed establishment. However, as the Colombian government increasingly confronted terrorist organizations, including the AUC, the group’s counter-guerilla activities decreased. After a large-scale demobilization process that began in 2010, most of the AUC’s centralized military structure has been dismantled, and all of the top paramilitary chiefs have stepped down. Despite AUC’s overall demobilization, the group’s armed wing Cacique Pipinta Front refused to demobilize.

Activities: The AUC has carried out political killings and kidnappings of, among others, human rights workers, journalists, teachers, and trade unionists. As much as 70 percent of the AUC’s paramilitary operational costs were financed with drug-related earnings. Some former members of the AUC never demobilized or are recidivists, and these elements have continued to engage heavily in criminal activities.

Strength: Unknown.

Location/Areas of Operation: Paramilitary forces were strongest in northwest Colombia, with affiliate groups in Valle del Cauca, on the West coast, and Meta Department, in Central Columbia.

External Aid: None.

STATE SPONSORS (SEE IRAN ABOVE)

Cuba

The Cuban government and official media publicly condemned acts of terrorism by al-Qaida and affiliates while at the same time remaining critical of the American approach, denouncing U.S. counterterrorism efforts throughout the world as a pretext to extend influence and power. Cuba apparently no longer supports armed struggle in Latin America and other parts of the world, which once included training, operational, and occasional financial support to Puerto Rican terrorists (on at least one occasion reportedly moving their loot via diplomatic pouch.³) Cuba was also connected with leftist and black separatist groups in the United States during the 1960s and ‘70s, although the historical record remains unclear on the Communist government’s level of support. A variety of anti-American international terrorist organizations also received training and other forms of assistance from the Cubans. However, Cuba has continued to provide physical safe haven and ideological support to some terrorists from that era, plus members of at least three current FTOs.

Overview: Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1982, the Government of Cuba maintained a public stance against terrorism and terrorist financing as of 2011, but there was no evidence that it severed ties with elements of the FARC, and media reports indicated some current and former members of the ETA continued to reside in the country. While information suggested the Cuban government maintained limited contact with FARC members, there was no evidence of direct financial or ongoing material support. In 2010, the Cuban government allowed Spanish Police to travel to Cuba to confirm the presence of suspected ETA members.

Cuba has been used as a transit point by third-country nationals looking to enter illegally into the United State. The government of Cuba is aware of the border integrity and transnational security concerns posed by such transit and has investigated third country migrant smuggling and related criminal activities. In 2010 the government allowed representatives of the US Transportation Security Administration to conduct a series of airport security visits.

Legislation and Law Enforcement: The Cuban government continued to aggressively pursue persons suspected of terrorist acts against Cuba. In 2010, Venezuela extradited Salvadoran national Francisco Antonio Chavez Abarca to Cuba for his alleged role in a number of hotel and tourist location bombings in the mid to late 1990s. In December, a Cuban court convicted Chavez Abarca on terrorism charges and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. Also in December, the Cuban Supreme Court commuted the death sentences of two Salvadorans, René Cruz León and Otto René Rodríguez Llerena, who had been convicted of terrorism, and sentenced them both to 30 years.

Regional and International Cooperation: The Cuban government has continued to permit U.S. fugitives to live legally in Cuba. These fugitives include convicted murderers as well as hijackers. According to government and media reports, U.S. fugitives in Cuba include Joanne Chesimard, wanted for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973, and Michael Robert Finney and Charles Hill, former radical black nationalists and alleged hijackers sought in connection with the murder of a New Mexico state police officer. Cuba also provides refuge to accused Puerto Rican terrorist Victor Manuel Gerena, one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives for his alleged role in a 1983 $7 million robbery in Connecticut by the Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist group Los Macheteros, and convicted bomb maker William Guillermo Morales of the allied FALN Puerto Rican terrorist group. Cuba permitted one U.S. fugitive, hijacker Luis Armando Peña Soltren, to voluntarily depart Cuba; Peña Soltren was arrested upon his arrival in the United States in October 2009, tried, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Syria

A signatory to most of the major international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, Syria has publicly condemned international terrorism but continues to insist on the distinction between it and attacks undertaken by what it considers legitimate “national liberation movements,” including Palestinian groups, Lebanese Hizballah, and members of the Iraqi opposition. The United States does not agree with this characterization and has designated a number of these groups as FTOs.

Overview: Designated in 1979 as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, Syria in recent years has continued its political support to a variety of terrorist groups affecting the stability of the region and beyond. It has also attacked its own citizens when they protested for greater democracy. Syria provided political and weapons support to Hizballah in Lebanon and allowed Iran to resupply the terrorist organization with weapons. The external leadership of Hamas, the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), among others, were based in Damascus and operated within Syria’s borders. Statements supporting terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah in their efforts against Israel have permeated government speeches and press statements.

Damascus historically has allowed terrorist leaders safe haven in Syria. Hamas Politburo head Khalid Meshaal and his deputies continued to reside in Syria with security escorts for their motorcades. Though the Syrian government has claimed periodically that it used its influence to restrain the rhetoric and activities of Palestinian groups, open source reports indicated that Hamas used Syrian soil as training grounds for its militant fighters.

In recent years Iraqi Baathists have congregated in the Syrian capital and some of them call for violence against the Iraqi government, Iraqi civilian targets, and American and coalition forces within Iraq. Al-Rai Television, a television station owned by Iraqi Baathist Mishaan al-Jaburi and broadcast from a suburban Damascus location, has transmitted violent messages in support of terrorism in Iraq.

Also troubling was the Syrian project to build a nuclear reactor, which some claimed was for military purposes and constructed with the assistance of North Korea. The facility was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2007.

Terrorist Incidents: A string of incidents over the past several years have increased concerns that militant groups can strike Syrian targets and have caused the authorities to strengthen their efforts to prevent attacks. Following a 2009 bombing near a Syrian security installation that killed 17, the regime attempted to portray Syria as a victim of terrorism rather than a purveyor of it. In 2010, the Syrian security services conducted a series of raids that netted operatives of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), accused of plotting and implementing terrorist attacks in neighboring Turkey.

More significantly, in 2011 large numbers of Syrian citizens demonstrated against the government and were crushed by military force, including reported assistance from Iran. The Syrian response generated denunciations from countries across the world.

Regional and International Cooperation: Syria has continued its strong partnership with fellow state sponsor of terrorism Iran and continued to be a staunch defender of Iranian policies, including that nation’s nuclear ambitions.

Syria exhibited a mixed record on Iraq. In the face of U.S. and other pressure, it increased border monitoring activities, instituted tighter screening practices on military-age Arab males entering its borders, and expressed a desire to increase security cooperation with Iraq. These activities likely contributed to some decrease in Iraq-bound foreign fighters. However, in recent years Syria has remained a key hub for foreign fighters en route to Iraq and a safe haven for Iraqi Baathists expressing support for terrorist attacks against Iraqi government interests and U.S. and coalition forces.

Legislation/Law Enforcement: Syria has laws on the books pertaining to counterterrorism and terrorism financing/money laundering, but largely used these legal instruments against only those groups perceived as a threat to the regime or country. Opponents of the regime, including Islamist activists and Kurdish separatists, were frequently charged with violating counterterrorism statutes. However, these laws have not been enforced against Hamas, Hizballah, or the various Palestinian rejectionist groups based in Damascus.

Countering Terrorist Finance: Syria remained a source of concern regarding terrorist financing. Industry experts reported that 60 percent of all business transitions were conducted in cash and that nearly 80 percent of all Syrians did not use formal banking services. Despite Syrian legislation that required money-changers to be licensed by the end of 2007, many money-changers in recent years continued to operate illegally in Syria’s vast black market, estimated to be as large as Syria’s formal economy. This raised significant concerns that some members of Syria’s government and business elite were complicit in terrorist financing schemes.

Sudan

Overview: Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1993, Sudan remained a cooperative partner in global counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaida (AQ) in recent years, working actively to counter AQ operations that posed a potential threat to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan. Sudanese officials have indicated they viewed continued cooperation with the United States as important and recognized the potential benefits of U.S. training and information-sharing.

2010 Terrorist Incidents: The Sudanese government has taken steps to limit the activities of foreign terrorist groups within its country and has worked to disrupt use of Sudan as a logistics base and transit point for violent extremists going to Iraq. Nonetheless, elements of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including al-Qaida-inspired terrorists, remained in Sudan, as gaps remained in the Sudanese government’s knowledge of and ability to identify and capture these individuals. Some evidence suggested that individuals who participated in the Iraqi insurgency have returned to Sudan and may be in a position to use their expertise to conduct attacks or to pass on their knowledge. Sudanese officials continued to view Hamas members, who conducted fundraising activities in Sudan, as representatives of the Palestinian Authority. Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also maintained a presence in Sudan.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continued to operate in the region, though there was no definitive proof the Government of Sudan provided support to the group. Operating in small cells, the LRA carried out attacks in areas where the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan intersect. The African Union (AU) announced the formation of an AU-backed joint brigade, with troops from Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, to pursue the LRA.

Legislation and Law Enforcement: In 2010, four Sudanese men sentenced to death for the 2008 killing of two U.S. Embassy staff members escaped from a maximum security prison. The Sudanese government made efforts to capture the fugitives, but three of them remained at large.

Countering Terrorist Finance: The Central Bank of Sudan and its financial intelligence unit circulated to financial institutions a list of individuals and entities that have been included on the UN 1267 al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee’s Consolidated List. Through increasing cooperation with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Sudan took steps in recent years to meet international standards in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

Regional and International Cooperation: Sudanese officials regularly discussed counterterrorism issues with U.S. counterparts. The government was generally responsive to the international community’s concerns and efforts on terrorism.

North Korea

Overview: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987. On October 11, 2008, the United States rescinded the designation of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism in accordance with criteria set forth in U.S. law, including a certification that the government of the DPRK had not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period and the DPRK’s assurances that it would not support acts of international terrorism in the future.

Four Japanese Red Army members who participated in a jet hijacking in 1970 continued to live in the DPRK. The Japanese government continued to seek a full accounting of the fate of 12 Japanese nationals believed to have been abducted by DPRK state entities in the 1970s and 1980s. The DPRK failed to fulfill its commitment to reopen its investigations into the abductions. There is also North Korea’s involvement in weapons proliferation, including its own nuclear weapons programs and violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874. North Korea has supported nuclear and other weapons programs involving state sponsors Iran and Syria.

Legislation and Law Enforcement: In 2010, the United States re-certified North Korea as “not cooperating fully” with U.S. counterterrorism efforts under Section 40A of the Arms Export and Control Act, as amended.

Countering Terrorist Finance: The DPRK became a signatory to the Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism and a party to the Convention Against the Taking of Hostages in 2001. However, there was no indication the DPRK has taken steps to counter money laundering and terrorist financing threats.

Regional and International Cooperation: The DPRK has generally not actively participated bilaterally or multilaterally in counterterrorism efforts.

[Authors’ note: The State Department does not include numerous North Korean armed attacks on South Korea, including both military strikes and assassination plots, in its discussion of terrorism sponsorship.]

China

[Not designated by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism, but accused of conducting or allowing cyber and other operations against American interests.] China has focused its counterterrorism efforts on the East Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), also known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group composed of Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group. The group has called for Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language and comprise a substantial portion of China’s western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), to conduct jihad against China. Ethnic rioting in the region has claimed the lives of both Uighurs and ethnic Chinese, many of whom settled there. In 2010, three people drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a crowd in the city of Aksu, XUAR, killing three civilians and three police officers, and wounding 15 others. The Chinese government attributed this incident to “separatists, extremists, and terrorists.”

More significant for U.S. homeland security is China’s significant role as a proliferator of WMD technology to state sponsors. U.S. officials have alleged that Chinese groups have sold missile and/or nuclear technology to countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and North Korea. Transfer of chemical weapons has also been reported. In many cases, the transfers have been conducted by companies, some state-owned. However, U.S. officials assert much of the trade has been condoned by the Chinese government.

As with Chinese involvement in cyber attacks (see Chapter 21), China may use companies or front groups to conduct sanctioned but deniable operations.

NOTES

1. U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2010” (August 18, 2011), http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm

2. U.S. Department of Justice press release, Statement by Attorney General John Ashcroft (June 21, 2001).

3. On Cuban support for the FALN, see, for example, Edmund Mahoney, “A Man and a Movement in Cuba’s Grip,” Hartford Courant (November 7, 1999), A1.