Forgeries: The Fake Internal Islamic State Letters of Asaad Almohammad

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

To our brothers in the Islamic State, you must deal with the security and media files particular to the organisation [in cooperation] with the higher security office entrusted to the mujahid brother Abu Humam al-Amni, and also see the Supreme Majlis Shura affiliated with the organisation.

And God is the guarantor of success.

Abu Liqa’

2 May 2018

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

[Stamp]: Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
Unified Amni Diwan
Wilayas sector

Decision: 1323

Letter directed to the personnel of the Islamic State. We ask all the brothers in the organisation on ribat inside and outside the areas of the Islamic State to hurry to form the covert [/security?] Diwans with the help of your brother Abu Humam al-Amni and the brother Abu Ayub al-Ansari. Please also refer a letter via the brothers to the Diwan of Amirship regarding this matter. All the sectors are requested to comply with the orders of the amni brothers, and in the event of there being any fault, the central committee for public security is to be informed, and God is the One behind the intention.

Unified Amni Diwan
Abu Muhammad al-Hashimi

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

[Stamp]: Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
Unified Amni Diwan
Eastern Sector

Copy: 23

The mujahid brother Abu Osama al-Iraqi is entrusted with tracking the formation of the security matters inside the wilyas and contacting the Unified Amni Diwan as well s bringing all the security portfolios particular to the muhajirin to the Diwan al-Wilaya.

5 March 2018

Amni Diwan
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
[Stamp]: Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
Unified Amni Diwan
Eastern Sector

All the muhajirin and ansar brothers operating inside the media offices and media teams affiliated with the agencies of the Dawla must go and see the security office to get to know the nature of the course of work in addition to suggesting a mechanism of operation regarding the news of the organisation and the victories. This should take place in a period not exceeding one week.

And God is the one behind the intention.

6 April 2018

Amni Diwan
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
[Stamp]: Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

Analysis

In October 2019, the New York Times published forged Islamic State receipts that purported to show payments made by the group to members of the al-Qa’ida-loyalist Hurras al-Din. Those receipts came from Asaad Almohammad, who at the time was a senior fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism (GWUPOE) and was hawking the receipts and other documents with GWUPOE’s director Lorenzo Vidino as advance media hype for a study Asaad was going to publish with GWUPOE allegedly showing the Islamic State’s strategy of co-opting Hurras al-Din. In my own commentary on the affair, I had mentioned that I had been given a set of purported “internal letters” to look at that had also been supplied by Asaad Almohammad. I determined at the time that they were forgeries and I present them above in their originals with translations. They are forgeries for reasons I stated in that post back in 2019. Indeed I must add that they are very poor forgeries. Retrospectively also, I should note that the same ‘Abu Humam al-Amni’ character who appears in two of the above forged letters also appears in the forged receipts, establishing a link between the two sets of forged documents, despite the contrary impression conveyed by Asaad at the time. To be clear, we can all fall for forgeries on occasion and make mistakes, but in this case these forged letters are of such poor quality that I strongly question the judgement of anyone who would endorse them in the first place.

I publish these forgeries now because I have noticed that people still cite Asaad’s other published work on Islamic State from time to time, as though it is somehow separate from these forgeries. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Consider the data he contributed as part of a co-authored study for West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center. The same study talks repeatedly about a supposed “Unified Security Center” that clearly corresponds to the “Unified Amni Diwan” in these poor forgeries. There is no attestation of these bodies in authentic documentary evidence or other lines of evidence. The same “Unified Security Center” also appears in the data he contributed to a co-authored study in Perspectives on Terrorism.

The justification that some of his work was peer-reviewed prior to publication is also not a basis to take the work as reliable. Peer-review is a human and flawed process. Precise details can escape the attention of peer-reviewers who might only be concerned with giving a general picture, personal biases can come into play etc. Moreover, as is the case with fact-checking at newspapers, there is a major gap in the review process whereby sometimes the only data you have to go by are the data supplied by the writer, with no independent way for the peer-reviewer to verify them. If an author writes a study based on supposed interview data collected from remote locations inside of Syria or Afghanistan (for example) with subjects whose existence cannot be independently confirmed or who cannot be independently accessed, then the reviewer essentially has to take the author’s data on trust. For an author who is not so scrupulous or dishonest or who relies largely or entirely on outsourcing of interviews to individuals whose existence cannot be verified, there is very little in peer-review or fact-checking to prevent fabrication and manipulation of data.

Forgery: Purported Hisba document from Deir az-Zor region

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Islamic State

Diwan al-Hisba
Wilayat al-Sham
al-Khayr

No. 0361

Praise be to God and prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of God. As for what follows:

To the individual called [redacted], living in the village of Jadid Aqeedat and owner of the oven: the Islamic State gives you a deadline of three days at most from the issuing of this statement 28 Rajab 1442 AH to distribute bread through agents. And we will never be content with the queue of women at the bakery and appointment of an agent particular to the women and the poor and displaced families.

And if you do not respond to the demands of the Islamic State, we will blow up this bakery by the permission of God. And the one who has warned has been excused.

Stamp and signature:

Abdullah al-Ansari

Islamic State
Wilayat al-Khayr
Diwan al-Hisba

[Comment: this odd document, which looks like a poorly composed electronic forgery, has numerous signs pointing to its forgery. First, the stamp is unclear and bears the marking of ‘Wilayat al-Khayr’ even though this is supposed to be a document issued in the name of Wilayat al-Sham (all Syrian territories come under this wilaya currently, with the smaller region wilayas having been cancelled some time ago). In addition, there is no reason why the Islamic State’s Diwan al-Hisba should threaten a bakery owner in some village not under its formal control to distribute bread. Comparison of the format of this document also shows many parallels with a forgery that is a purported Islamic State list threatening individuals in Deir az-Zor].

Forgery: Alleged Circulars from the General Supervisory Committee

[Document on right]:

Islamic State
Caliphate on the Prophetic Methodology
General Supervisory Committee

No. 1003
Date: 1 May 2016

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

To: Wilayat al-Fallujah
Subject: Mobilising of forces

Praise be to God and prayers and peace and salutations be upon the Messenger of God and his family. As for what follows:

As-salam alaykum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu

The Almighty has said: ‘If you do not go forth, He will inflict a painful torment on you and replace you with a people and you will do no harm to Him and God is capable over everything’- (al-Tawba 39).

To the mujahideen muhajireen brothers God has blessed our state with tamkin but the news points to the undertaking of an attack on your city, the city of glory and dignity, at the hands of the Safavid Army and the sectarian Hashd. And we would like to explain to you the methods of withdrawal:

1. The muhajireen brothers of the leadership must return to the land of the Caliphate (the city of Mosul) then to Turkey and spend a period of leave permit there extended to one month while other assignments are received.

2. The fighting brothers of the muhajireen must return to the land of the Caliphate in the city of Mosul and rest in it until the issuing of instructions.

——————————-

[Document on the left]:

Islamic State
Caliphate on the Prophetic Methodology
General Supervisory Committee

No. 685
Date: 26 March 2016 CE

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

To: all the wilayas
Subject: Reinforcements

Praise be to God and prayers and peace and salutations be upon the Messenger of God and his family. As for what follows:

As-salam alaykum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuhu:

After God blessed you with successive victories against the Rafidites in all the wilayas, you will be supplied with ammonium nitrate that will be received via the state of Qatar.

2. The receipt will be via the supplier of the wilaya in coordination with the general supplier and with speed in order to prolong the operations.

[Comment: there are numerous signs of forgery in these documents. First, the Gregorian dating is marked in an abbreviated form (with 2016 marked as 16) and no indication is given that this is Gregorian dating and no hint is given of the Hijri dating. In addition, by the time these documents were supposed to have been issued, the General Supervisory Committee had become the Delegated Committee. Moreover, the documents contain some familiar tropes of local Iraqi discourse such as the idea that Turkey and Qatar have been supporting the Islamic State].

Forgery: List of individuals purportedly wanted by Islamic State

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, and prayers and peace be upon the most noble of the creation of God- Muhammad bin Abdullah- and on all his family and companions.

Statement issued by the Islamic State with the names of some of the traitor collaborators with the Assad regime and to the SDF forces.

1. [list of names redacted]

2. [redacted] assistant in the police.

3. [list of names redacted].

And we have not wronged them for they were wronging themselves.

Date of this statement: 3 Sha’aban Hijri 1442.

[Islamic State stamp on left-hand side].

[Comment: this document, published in the outlet Jesr Press, is a very poor forgery created electronically with an unclear copy of an Islamic State stamp inserted on the side. Besides the unusual opening (it is more usual to say ‘praise be to God’ before saying ‘and prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of God…’), there are also crude spelling errors, such as spelling the Islamic State’s name with ha letters where ta marbutas should be used and spelling the forms of the verb ظلم incorrectly].

Forgery: Alleged Islamic State Documents Exposing Relations with Turkey

[Document on right]

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
Administration of the Muhajireen in Wilayat al-Khayr

Assignment

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Praise be to God the Lord of the Worlds and prayers and peace be upon the most noble of the creation of God entirely.

According to the aforementioned statement from the Amir al-Mu’mineen, the Ansari brother Hussein Muhammad al-Ali is assigned with travelling to Turkey and from there the amni brother present in Turkey is tasked with sending him and defining the destination of his travel to Germany in order to work on the basis of the statement of the Amir al-Mu’mineen (may God protect him)..

18 Safr 1437 AH

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.

[Document on left]

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham
Administration of the Muhajireen in Wilayat al-Khayr

Assignment

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Praise be to God the Lord of the Worlds and prayers and peace be upon the most noble of the creation of God entirely.

According to the aforementioned statement from the Amir al-Mu’mineen, the Ansari brother Ali Hamoud al-Eisa is assigned with travelling to Turkey and from there the amni brother present in Turkey is tasked with sending him and defining the destination of his travel to Germany in order to work on the basis of the statement of the Amir al-Mu’mineen (may God protect him)..

21 Safr 1437 AH

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.

[Comment: these documents first appeared on the pro-PYD site Hawar News Agency. The documents purportedly date from 30 November 2015 CE and 3 December 2015 CE but are clear forgeries. They use the old name of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham and an old stamp even though these documents date well after the cancellation of that name in June 2014 CE. There is also no other attestation of a body called ‘Administration of the Muhajireen’ within Islamic State administration].

Forgery: Alleged Islamic State Demand for Individual to Pay Zakat

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham

Indeed your trustee is God and His Messenger and those who have believed and those who establish prayer and give zakat and they are those who are humble in doing so.

To the brother

[redacted], it has been obligatory for you to pay zakat for a sum whose extent is [redacted] dollars to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham. And if you do not pay the required sum, you will be a target for the Islamic State.

Beware of public exposure.

Islamic State
Wilayat al-Baraka
Military administration

[NB: there is also a faded stamp at the top of the document that is not legible]

[Comment: this document appeared to accompany an article on Jisr Press in November 2020 about alleged Islamic State extortion activities in Deir az-Zor countryside. However, there are multiple features of the document that make me sure that it is a forgery. First, the document uses the old name of the group (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham) that was cancelled in 2014. Second, the document uses an old provincial stamp (Wilayat al-Baraka) when in fact Islamic State currently designates all Syrian territories under the name of Wilayat al-Sham. It also makes little sense that a document demanding zakat should bear the stamp of a ‘military administration’ rather than a zakat department stamp or heading. It may be that someone found an old Islamic State stamp and used it to issue a threat to a local under the name of Islamic State].

Forgery: Alleged Islamic State List Threatening Individuals in Deir az-Zor

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Islamic State
Number: 01199

Wilayat al-Sham
al-Khayr
Diwan al-Amn al-Aam

[list of names, which I have redacted from document]

Peace be upon the one who follows the guidance. As for what follows: ‘And whoso of you stands with them is one of them.’ And therefore, these names have fallen into apostasy from loyalty to the Nusayris and the Kurdish councils and joining the ranks of the atheists. And therefore we say to you: repent before power is gained over you. Otherwise: we will kidnap you on the roads and in the markets and in the mosques even. And we will enter upon you in the homes and we will certainly destroy them over your heads and know that we see you even as you do not see us. So announce repentance from all apostasy in the mosques and before the people. So the one who repents, he makes his blood sacrosanct. And his news will come to us and we make sure from his state of affairs whether he is to be believer or if he is of the liars. And whoso does not repent, he has made his blood permissible to be shed and he only has the sword in our view. And the one who has warned has been excused, and God is predominant over His affair but most of the people do not know.

And these names are particular for the village of Jadid Akeidat (and to be continued).

Published on date 10 March 2021 CE
26 Rajab 1442 AH

Islamic State
Wilayat al-Khayr
Diwan al-Amn al-Aam

[Comment: this document, which appeared on the site Deir az-Zor 24, contains a number of suspicious features that make me sure it is a forgery. First, the typing format looks odd. Second, the document combines the new Islamic State ‘Wilayat al-Sham’ designation for the Syrian territories with an old stamp at the bottom featuring ‘Wilayat al-Khayr’ (Deir az-Zor province). Third, it is strange the document should list the wanted names first and then proceed to explain they are wanted for falling into apostasy. Fourth, the line ‘peace be upon the one who follows the guidance’ at the beginning of the explanation is very irregular. It would be more usual to begin ‘Praise be to God (etc.)…and prayers and peace be upon the (e.g. one sent with the sword as a mercy to the worlds) and (e.g. all his family and companions)].