With IMU's increased interest in a regional Islamic state, the terrorist entity shifted from attacking strictly Uzbek targets to attacking coalition forces in Afghanistan and U.S. diplomatic facilities in Central Asia.  However, IMU's repeated defeats in these anti-Coalition engagements have all but completely destroyed the group.

Brigades of Islamic Anger, Islamic Rage Battalion

The Islamic Rage Brigade is a terrorist group operating in Iraq with alleged connections to al-Qaeda Organization of the Land of the Two Rivers. Given the organization's name, the Brigade is assumed to be religiously-motivated.  <P><br />Little is known about the Islamic Rage Brigade, which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of civil engineer Aban Elias, an Iraqi-American from Denver. Elias was abducted by armed gunmen on May 3, 2004 while working on a construction project near Fallujah. Construction workers are frequent targets as militants attempt to hamper reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Shortly after the abduction, group members released a video in which a blindfolded Elias, who is a Muslim, calls upon Islamic organizations to intervene on his behalf. However, in the video, the Brigade did not state any demands to ensure his release. Elias' current whereabouts and condition remain unknown.  <br />

Most recently, in June 2004, the group abducted a Lebanese man for allegedly spying on Iraq. He was released a month later, unharmed. Kidnappings, especially those of foreign nationals, have become a frequent and often profitable occurrence in Iraq for both political and criminal objectives. The Islamic Rage Brigade has not claimed responsibility for any attacks in the last two years. However, its members may be conducting terrorist activities under the name of other militant groups. It is assumed that the group is active.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) -- Ally (Suspected)

The Islamic Renewal Movement, a Jordanian nationalist group, was active in Amman from the early to mid-1990s.  They solely attacked foreign targets in Jordan, and in doing so hoped to remove the presence of non-Muslim influence from the country.  The scope of their attacks suggests that the group was small, but they allegedly had ties to the much larger Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).  Little information is available for the group's leader, Sabel Muqbel, beyond that he is Palestinian and received a seven year prison sentence in 1996 for possession of explosives and machine guns.  He was 44 years old at the time of sentencing.  <P>   <br /><br />On February 24th, 1995, two members of the Movement, Salem Bakit and Ahmad Khaled, assaulted and then shot a French diplomat who was on vacation with his wife in southern Amman.  The diplomat sustained a serious wound to the chest, but it was not fatal.  It is unclear which of the two assailants actually fired the shot.  The attack was a direct response to the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian Peace Agreement, which recognized both countries' sovereignty and served to boost Israeli tourism in Jordan.  After their arrest, Bakit and Khaled stated that they thought the diplomat was Israeli, and thus assaulted him to make other Israeli tourists fearful of traveling to Jordan.  Both Bakit and Khaled were tried and convicted for attempted murder, and were sentenced to life in prison plus ten years each for "conspiring to carry out terrorist actions."<br />