New US intelligence report predicts ISIS will spread worldwide

THIS is a terrifying map. It shows just how far the Islamic State has spread in just 18 months. And the group’s ambitions extend even further.

A NEW US intelligence report predicts the Islamic State terror group will spread worldwide unless it incurs significant losses in Syria and Iraq.

The leaked report, commissioned by the White House prior to the Paris attacks and the San Bernardino shootings, comes on the heels of another huge gain by IS with the assassination of the governor of the Yemeni port city of Aden.

Major General Jaafar Mohammad Saad and at least six of his bodyguards were killed on Sunday when a car bomb ripped through their motorcade. The group’s attacks on Yemen started escalating in October when it started bombing Saudi oil interests.

The incursion on the tiny but strategically important country has frightening parallels with Libya, where Islamic State’s colonisation of Sirte on Libya’s Mediterranean coast has sent shock waves throughout Europe.

The new development comes as Islamic State’s grand plan is revealed in a leaked dossier, obtained by The Guardian, which shows in detail how the terror outfit is building its state.

The dossier exposes a group adamant on becoming its own entity, complete with government, treasury, education, and foreign relations.

Just as Libya is seen as a launch pad from which IS can carry out further attacks on the West, Yemen borders Africa and Saudi Arabia, creating many geographical and political advantages for

the group and its ambitions for a caliphate.

According to the Daily Beast, the new intelligence report was compiled by the Director for National Intelligence (DNI) with input by analysts from the Central intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defence Intelligence Agency, (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies.

It described how Islamic State now has a network of groups that have pledged allegiance or are vying for membership in a dozen countries, bringing its mission to establish a caliphate well within reach.

The DNI confirmed it had produced the intelligence report, but offered no comment.

Sobered by its grim conclusions, US President Barack Obama has reportedly asked Secretary of Defence Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine General Joseph Dunford to come up with new options to beat the group back.

In addition, defence chiefs have commissioned the military’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to host an interagency think tank of military, diplomatic and intelligence representatives to come up with other options, the Beast reports.

“This intel report didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” an unnamed official told the news site. “It was lots of great charts showing countries highlighted across the globe, with some groups having pledged allegiance to ISIS and others leaning towards it.”

Despite the attempt to downplay the situation, there is no doubt the report’s finding’s came as a shock to administration. Not only does it contradict earlier assurances by the White House that IS had been “contained” in Iraq and Syria but it indicates that the terror group’s ability to grow and recruit new followers is out performing the coalition bombing campaign.

Last week Mr Carter announced the establishment of a SOCOM targeting cell, a 200-person team which will carry out raids in Iraq and Syria. It will co-ordinate strikes through a separate 50-person cell embedded in northern Syria along with a band of US-backed guerillas known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

The DNI’s report in the wake of a spate mass shootings — both of the terrorist and non-terrorist variety — prompted President Obama to address to the nation yesterday.

It was only the third time he had done so since taking office and came four days after US-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his Pakistani wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire at a party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and wounding 17 others. The pair were killed hours later in a shootout with police.

Last week’s massacre, if proven to be linked to or motivated by foreign Islamist militancy, would be the deadliest such incident on US soil on Obama’s watch and since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Mr Obama said authorities would do everything in their power to hunt down anyone plotting attacks against the US and vowed to protect citizens from IS.

“The threat from terrorism is real but we will overcome it,” Mr Obama said in a nationally televised speech.

He condemned the couple’s attack as “an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people”, but also called it a “new phase” in the fight against Islamist militancy.

Reuters reports that the FBI is investigating the paramilitary-style attack as inspired by IS, which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq, and has shown an expanded reach beyond its Middle East strongholds, including complicity in the November 13 assaults in Paris that killed 130 people.

But Mr Obama said there was no evidence the assault was directed by a militant group overseas or part of a broader conspiracy at home.

Experts say the leaking of Islamic State’s masterplan overnight show how much the west has underestimated the group.

The blueprint includes a complete system of civil service and government as well as “Soviet levels of economic control,” according to the Guardian.

“Far from being an army of irrational, bloodthirsty fanatics, IS is a deeply calculating political organisation with an extremely complex, well-planned infrastructure behind it,” Charlie Winter, a senior researcher for Georgia State University told the newspaper.

Titled, “Principles in the administration of the Islamic State”, its 24-pages reveal how IS has grown to become the wealthiest and most feared terror groups of the last 50 years. And that’s only the beginning.

“[IS] is a project that strives to govern. It’s not just a case of their sole end being endless battle,” said Aymenn al-Tamimi, an academic researcher who, through a businessman working with IS, leaked the documents to the press.

Written by an Egyptian named Abu Abdullah, the text is a manual for “cadres of administrators” after the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria on June 28, 2014.

It also delves into the mundane — health, education commerce, communications, jobs — and provides a guide on how to organise government departments including military, public relations and education.

Children will receive “training on bearing light arms”, while “outstanding individuals” will be “selected from them for security portfolio assignments, including checkpoints, patrols”.

Foreign fighters and “natives” must unify under the new regimen, it says, while calling for “factories for local military and food production”.

The Guardian claims it obtained the masterplan from a businessman working with Islamic State via IS researcher Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, who translated it.

In a blog post, al-Tamimi estimates the document was written between June and October 2014.

“If the west sees IS as an almost stereotypical band of psychopathic killers, we risk dramatically underestimating them,” said General Stanley McChrystal (retired), who according to the Guardian, led the military units that helped destroy IS’s predecessor organisation in Iraq from 2006 to 2008.

“If it is indeed genuine, it is fascinating and should be read by everyone — particularly policymakers in the west.

“In the Principles in the administration of the Islamic State, you see a focus on education (really indoctrination) beginning with children but progressing through their ranks, a recognition that effective governance is essential, thoughts on their use of technology to master information (propaganda), and a willingness to learn from the mistakes of earlier movements.”