Islamic State
Wilayat al-Sham- Idlib
Number: m.a/08/43001
Date: 8 Muharram 1443 AH [17 August 2021 CE]
Subject: request for a directive
Praise be to God who ennobles Islam through supporting it, and lowers idolatry through vanquishing it, and deals with matters by His command, and lures the disbelievers through His scheming- He who has determined the days as alternations of fate through His justice. And prayers and peace be upon the one by whose sword God made high the lighthouse of Islam. As for what follows:
To the virtuous sheikh: al-Muthanna al-Jazrawi deputy wali of al-Sham (may God Almighy protect him and aid him):
As-salam alaykum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu.
I ask God that this message should reach you while you are well and in good health, dignified and enabled, and that He should plant firm your feet, make right your path, and open up at your hands the land and hearts of men. He is the trustee of that and capable of it. As for what follows:
Our dear sheikh, there is in our region a battalion called the Ansar Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and it is an independent battalion targeting the Turkish convoys in particular. They have sent to me with a supporting brother a request that we should support them with materials to equip a car rigged with explosives, in order that they should target a Turkish convoy, the axis of whose movement they have tracked. They have offered also to work with us and informed the brother they are ready to participate in any large operation the group undertakes. The brother has sent me statements of manhaj by them in which they declare takfir on the Jowlani Commission and the Sahwa forces and declare it obligatory to fight them. The supporter brother is called Abu Malik and our brother Shaddad sent you his dossier last month.
Our dear sheikh, we hope you can direct us on how to deal with this matter.
May God reward you best.
This is so and God Almighty is loftier and knows best.
Islamic State
Wilayat al-Sham
Idlib
[deputy]?
cc. Archive (for the record)
NB: this document was shown in a documentary by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s security apparatus on the cells that comprised the Ansar Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Squadron and the Abdullah bin Unais Group and their targeting of the Turkish army and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. The document establishes that there was contact between the Islamic State and the Ansar Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Squadron with a request for support to target the Turkish army. However, according to ‘Khayal al-Manhaj‘ (aka Wadah al-Hamawi/Abu Aqlama) who was the intellectual figure behind these cells and is featured in the documentary, there were meetings between the Islamic State and multiple “independent groups.” In one meeting involving the Ansar Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Squadron and the Islamic State representative Abu Osama al-Azeri, the latter suggested establishing an alliance between the two, but no mutual agreement was reached and so the matter was not implemented.
The Islamic State Archives 