Analysis No. 516 of the Islamic State’s al-Naba weekly.

Propaganda and operations of IS provinces

The Islamic State publishes its al-Naba magazine every week, providing significant information on the group’s military, ideological, and propaganda activities in its provinces.

Objectives of the analysis: Analysing the weekly issue of the al-Naba newsletter, the Islamic State’s official media product, allows one to assess the jihadist organisation’s threat in operational terms.

Source/Methodology: Direct analysis of propaganda and military information contained in the current issue (photos, statements, claims).

Limitations: Incomplete information (sometimes IS reports and claims in al-Naba tend to exaggerate numbers or often include attacks and photos not officially claimed in the past), bias of sources, possibility of propaganda and disinformation. Over the years, it has been noted that the attack data provided by the Islamic State in its propaganda is real and verifiable in the field; usually, the exaggeration is in the number of damages/deaths caused (in the case of unverified attacks, the author will indicate this directly in the analysis, as was the case for some attacks carried out in Uganda in early 2025).

Structure of the analysis: brief overview of the weekly magazine/newsletter, photos and analysis of the magazine, summary and translation of military activities in the various areas and provinces of IS, analysis of the number of attacks, graphs and statistics, photos, areas, conclusions and assessments.

The weekly newsletter reached number 516 last Thursday.

Issue 516, eight pages long, covers the week of 10 to 16 Rabi al-Thani 1447, from 2 to 8 October 2025.

Al-Naba generally includes most of the statements and photos published daily over the past week on its official channels, although often with new elements or additional details, both written and photographic. However, al-Naba won’t include unpublished statements or messages.

The main infographic summarises the areas affected by military operations during the week mentioned above: Nigeria, Niger, Syria, Somalia, Mozambique, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

IS claims to have conducted 23 operations in all the mentioned areas and to have caused 56 deaths and injuries.

This issue of al-Naba also features an infographic dedicated to the military activities of the Province of Mozambique (ISMP) over the last two months (from 10 August to 8 October).