Publications

Africa File, March 28, 2024: Islamic State Resurgent in Mozambique; al Shabaab’s Ramadan Offensive

March 28, 2024 - ISW Press

ISMP is massing forces, temporarily holding and governing territory, and operating across a geographic scope unseen since at least 2022. ISMP began increasing its rate of attacks in December 2023 and maintained a higher rate in January and February 2024 as part of the Islamic State’s global “Kill Them Where You Find Them” attack campaign. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Database (ACLED) recorded that ISMP has initiated 57 attacks since December 19, 2023. This rate is more than double the roughly nine attacks per month it averaged from January to November 2023. The group carried out six attacks in the first half of March, putting it on pace to surpass its monthly average in 2023 despite its offensive peaking in February. The group has sustained this increased activity despite Mozambique’s annual rainy season from January to March, when adverse weather conditions have historically caused attacks to decrease.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 28, 2024

March 28, 2024 - ISW Press

Ukraine is currently preventing Russian forces from making significant tactical gains along the entire frontline, but continued delays in US security assistance will likely expand the threat of Russian operational success, including in non-linear and possibly exponential ways. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in an interview with CBS News published on March 28 that Ukrainian forces managed to hold off Russian advances through winter 2023–2024 and that Ukrainian forces have stabilized the operational situation.

Iran Update, March 27, 2024

March 27, 2024 - ISW Press

Israeli forces continued operating in and around al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on March 27. Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinian fighters and located unspecified military infrastructure and weapons in the hospital area. Israeli Army Radio reported that the IDF surrounded three buildings in the hospital compound, where approximately 30 senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) personnel are located. The IDF published footage on March 26 of its forces questioning a PIJ fighter, who said that Hamas and PIJ personnel are “scattered in the buildings” at al Shifa Hospital. The IDF published an infographic of three Hamas and PIJ officials detained at the hospital, including a leader in Hamas’ Security and Protection Department.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 27, 2024

March 27, 2024 - ISW Press

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) released its 38th report on the human rights situation in Ukraine on March 26, confirming several of ISW’s longstanding assessments about Russia’s systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in occupied territories and towards Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs). The HRMMU report details activities between December 1, 2023 and February 29 2024, and includes new findings about Russia’s abuse of Ukrainian POWs during this timeframe, based on interviews with 60 recently released male POWs. Nearly all of the POWs that HRMMU interviewed detailed how they were tortured by Russian forces with beatings and electric shocks and threatened with execution, and over half of the interviewees experienced sexual violence.

Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success

March 27, 2024 - ISW Press

The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin’s real strategy and only real hope of success. The Kremlin must get the United States to the sidelines, allowing Russia to fight Ukraine in isolation and then proceed to Moscow’s next targets, which Russia will also seek to isolate. The Kremlin needs the United States to choose inaction and embrace the false inevitability that Russia will prevail in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s center of gravity is his ability to shape the will and decisions of the West, Ukraine, and Russia itself.

Iran Update, March 26, 2024

March 26, 2024 - ISW Press

Senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) officials have traveled to Iran likely to coordinate their ongoing efforts against Israel in the Gaza Strip and across the Middle East. Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh and PIJ Secretary General Ziyad al Nakhalah both arrived in Tehran on March 26.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 26, 2024

March 26, 2024 - ISW Press

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the Crocus City Hall attackers originally fled toward Belarus not Ukraine, directly undermining the Kremlin narrative on Ukraine’s involvement, possibly to head off questions about why the attackers headed toward Belarus in the first place. During a visit to Belarus’ northwestern Ashmyany raion on March 26, Lukashenko reported that the Crocus City Hall attackers may have been planning to escape Russia’s Bryansk Oblast to Belarus, but that Belarus introduced a heightened security regime that forced the attackers to change course towards the Russia-Ukraine border. Lukashenko stated that the attackers “couldn’t enter Belarus” and praised high levels of cooperation between Russian and Belarusian special services for leading to the attackers’ arrests.

Iran Update, March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024 - ISW Press

Shin Bet announced on March 25 that the IDF seized a “significant amount of advanced arms from Iran” that Iran had smuggled into the West Bank to support Palestinian militia attacks targeting Israel. The captured arms included 83 small arms, five anti-tank mines, four grenade launchers, 15 RPGs, and 25 kilograms of plastic explosives. Shin Bet also said that a Fatah official based in Lebanon and affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah and the IRGC assisted the Iranian effort to smuggle arms into the West Bank, but Shin Bet did not provide further details. Shin Bet added that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force organized the effort to smuggle Iranian weapons into the West Bank, which is consistent with previous Western reporting.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024 - ISW Press

The March 22 Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall is a notable Russian intelligence and law enforcement failure, and explaining currently available open-source evidence does not require any wider and more complicated conspiracy theory either within or against the Russian state. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed during an address on March 25 that “radical Islamists” committed the attack, but immediately and baselessly accused the United States of trying to cover the “Ukrainian trace” of the attack, directly accusing Ukraine of being the “customer” of the attack. ISW continues to assess that the attack itself, as well as the claim pattern following the attack, is highly consistent with the way IS conducts and claims such incidents and has observed no evidence that Ukraine was involved in the attack.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 24, 2024

March 24, 2024 - ISW Press

Ukrainian forces struck a Black Sea Fleet communications center in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea, and reportedly struck an oil depot and at least partially damaged two BSF landing ships on the night of March 23.

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