Militant Leadership Monitor – March 2015 Issue

The March 2015 issue of Militant Leadership Monitor begins with two briefs on Syrian militants. Muhammad al-Faris is a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad in Qamishli, a Kurdish-majority area of northeastern Syria. Major Yassir Abd al-Rahim is a defected Syrian artillery officer who is part of the newly formed Jaysh al-Fatih in the Aleppo area. Next, Farhan Zahid profiles Umme Hassan, the wife of Islamabad’s Red Mosque cleric Abdul Aziz and the principal of the affiliated girls’ madrassa; her students recently declared allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Zekerija Qazimi, a pro-Islamic State imam from Kosovo who was recently charged with terrorism, is then covered by Ebi Spahiu. A post-mortem analysis of Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari, a senior AQAP member who was recently killed in a drone strike in Yemen, is penned by Ludovico Carlino. Finally, Libya’s two competing prime ministers, Abdullah al-Thinni and Omar al-Hasi, are iluminated by Dario Cristiani.