Militant Leadership Monitor – January 2015 Issue

The January 2015 issue of Militant Leadership Monitor begins with two briefs on Syrian fighters by Nicholas Heras. Shaykh Muhammad Sa’ad al-Din al-Baridi is the leader of Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk; Jabhat al-Nusra recently accused al-Baridi of defecting to the Islamic State. Rafid Abd al-Razaq Taha, the leader of Liwa Usud al-Islam, may have also declared allegiance to the Islamic State. Next, a profile of Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesperson for the TTP and now Jamaat ul-Ahrar, is provided by Udit Thakur. Farhan Zahid follows with a glimpse of the mastermind of the Peshawar school attack, Umar Mansoor. Bakhsuruf al-Danquluh, a leading AQAP figure who is very influential on jihadist forums and Twitter, is then profiled by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. In closing, Ali Alfoneh gives a post-mortem analysis of IRGC Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi, who was killed by an Islamic State sniper in Samarra, Iraq.