About Jihad Intel

Jihad Intel educates law enforcement and the general public with intelligence on radical Islam and Islamic terrorist groups. We provide local and state police with tools to connect the dots before major terrorist incidents and to solve cold cases.

The Database: Identifying Islamic Terrorist Organizations

There are countless Islamic terrorist organizations and new ones form continually. Each have their own identifying symbols. Most recruit globally on social media. In cities across the West, recruits are undergoing radicalization – some have received training overseas and are plotting terror attacks.

Recruits of radical Islamic groups are often under the radar, but they leave a trail of identifying clues.

Jihad Intel has established a database of objective identifiers of over 125 Islamic terrorist groups – emblems, flags, headbands, graffiti, social media tags and other symbols used to radicalize locals and incite moderate Muslims to violence.

Knowledge of these identifiers is critical for police officers on daily patrol and searches.

Designated Terrorist Organizations

Jihad Intel considers an Islamic organization to be terrorist if a Western country has designated the organization as such.

Jihad Intel provides background information on each terrorist organization, including a list of Western countries which have designated the organization as terrorist. Jihad Intel does list a number of newer organizations that have yet to be designated as terrorist by a Western country; in those cases, the lack of Western designation is noted.

The most common designators of terrorist groups are:

• United States Department of State, under Executive Order 13224
• United Kingdom, Home Office
• Canada, Acts passed by Parliament
• United Nations, Security Council Sanctions List
• United Nations, Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee (lists entities associated with Al-Qaida)

Reporting Identifiers

If you see an identifier from Jihad Intel's database in your neighborhood:

Law enforcement officers, please contact your department head or homeland security officer.

Members of the general public, call your local police department immediately. Know it is not illegal to possess terrorist group identifiers in the United States. However, law enforcement should be aware of the location of these symbols, so they can monitor potential terrorist suspects.

Finding New Identifiers

If you find an identifier not in Jihad Intel's database, or if you need help analyzing a suspicious symbol you may find, please contact Jihad Intel's experts at jihadintel@meforum.org. Please attach a photo of the identifier. Alternatively, you may use the form on Jihad Intel's "contact us" page.

Jihad Intel's Experts

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is Jihad Intel's research fellow. Al-Tamimi has become the go-to source for intelligence on jihadists in Syria, Iraq and beyond. He recently testified before the House of Commons Defence Committee (UK) about the threat posed by ISIS. He has been cited by the Washington Post eight times in the last year. USA Today featured him as the source for an article about five Guantánamo parolees who returned to terror.

Major media sources have cited, quoted or interviewed Al-Tamimi more than a hundred times over the past year.

Al-Tamimi's articles have been published, among other places, in the Middle East Quarterly, BBC News, al-Ayyam (Damascus), American Spectator, Daily Star (Beirut), Ha'aretz, Jerusalem Post, and Kurdish Globe (Arbil, Iraqi Kurdistan).

The Middle East Forum

Jihad Intel is presented by the Middle East Forum. The Philadelphia-based Forum has been promoting American interests and protecting Western values for over 20 years.