Sheikh Zaid Badri - Rising Star of ISKP
For the past two years, Sheikh Zaid Badri has been the main protagonist of the Farsi language branch of Al-Azaim Foundation, ISKP mouthpiece
Since late 2022, the Farsi branch of Al-Azaim Foundation - the ISKP media arm that coordinates the media warfare of the organization - has been relying on one figure to conduct religious and ideological training among ISKP supporters, covering Farsi/Dari and Tajiki speaking audience.
Al-Azaim Foundation’s linguistic branches usually feature a number of either ideologues or speakers to present their audio and video contents. For instance, the Pashto branch frequently releases audio lessons and sermons read by ISKP Mufti, Abu Fateh Khorasani (Ziauddin Zarkheredi), and other top ideologues, such as Abu Abdulrahman and Abu Huzaifa. In contrast, the Tajiki branch employs several speakers who deliver concise statements on a number of different issues, mostly motivational ones addressing supporters.
However, Al-Azaim Foundation’s Farsi branch features one young and versed religious figure, Zaid Badri.
The personal background of Zaid Badri is not known, and the only details available about him are deduced from Zaid Badri’s propaganda products featured in his own channels and in Al-Azaim’s. He emerged in late 2022 when he started to publish some videos commenting on the right aqeeda (creed) that is being propagated by the Islamic State. The series counted 14 episodes and became the first media product of Zaid Badri. In the videos, Zaid Badri appears masked and holding a gun; however, he does not provide any detail about his background, and the videos do not bear the logo of Al-Azaim Foundation, hinting that he produced such lessons alone.
Around the same time, Zaid Badri published another round of 14 lessons about the importance of jihad and the ruling of fighting while waging it. Similarly to the religious lessons, this series also did not feature Al-Azaim Foundation’s mark but were independently recorded. The series was subsequently complemented by other smaller series - five to seven episodes long - commenting on other aspects of jihad, such as answering to scholars who undermine the importance of jihad; limiting jihad to inner struggle; or arguing that the time of jihad has ended in certain geographical areas. Zaid Badri refutes all these positions by claiming that the Islamic State, today, is the only group upholding the concept of jihad.
Zaid Badri’s speeches, coupled with his apparently young age, were widely circulated online among Farsi and Dari-speaking ISKP supporters, such as in the main unofficial pro-ISKP Telegram channel Bazargasht-e-Khilafat, with hundreds of ISKP supporters allegedly from Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Self-declared online students of Zaid Badri started to circulate a message praising Zaid Badri’s skills and commitment to IS ideology, asking other youngsters to follow his example. The poster was written in Tajiki language and translated into Farsi, too.
Evidently, Zaid Badri entered into contact - or was directly recruited - by Al-Azaim Foundation’s Farsi wing between early-mid 2023, as he started pumping out new audio series bearing the introduction of Al-Azaim Foundation, where the latter explicitly mentioned that the program was provided by the ISKP media wing and presented by Zaid Badri. Hence, Zaid Badri released two main series: a 28-episode-long series on the Afghan Taliban and another 11-episode-long series on the characteristics of the khawarij (those ostracized from the fold of Islam). While the latter is the audio summary of an ISKP book published in Farsi language in May 2022, mostly criticizing the Afghan Taliban, the former is a long series explicitly framed in order to challenge the new regime in Afghanistan and Afghan Taliban’s policies by juxtaposing them to the Islamic State. In both series, Zaid Badri amplifies ISKP message aimed at eroding support for the Afghan Taliban and luring militants into the folds of ISKP. Around the same time, Zaid Badri also started to translate from Arabic language into Persian some editorials of the Islamic State’s al-Naba weekly newsletter, including numbers from 397 to 417 (June-November 2023).
Zaid Badri also collaborated with Mubarezeen Media, another pro-ISKP media affiliated with Al-Azaim Foundation publishing in Pashto, Farsi, and Tajiki languages. The media house published a brief religious series featuring Zaid Badri around the same time he started collaborating with Al-Azaim Foundation.
Al-Azaim Foundation also broadcasted again the 14 lessons in jihad published by Zaid Badri by adding Al-Azaim Foundation’s introduction at the beginning, hence elevating Zaid Badri’s production to official ISKP propaganda. The same treatment was reserved for all other pre-Al-Azaim Foundation propaganda products published independently by Zaid Badri.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of Zaid Badri became evident between March and April 2024, after the Crocus City Hall attack claimed by the Islamic State in Moscow. Shortly after the attack, prominent jihadi scholar and Tajik national Sheikh Abu Muhammad Madani termed the attack a conspiracy made by Russian and Tajik authorities and condemned it because it resulted in the killing of many civilians. Abu Muhammad Madani, who had studied in Uzbekistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, according to his personal biography, was revered by Tajik supporters of ISKP as a beacon of religious knowledge; while he never openly declared his support for IS, he frequently used terminology and ideology aking to IS, paralleling its themes and anti-state rhetoric. However, after he rejected the Crocus City Hall attack, thrice, he was takfired (ostracized and sentenced to death), by ISKP when Al-Azaim Foundation published a 4-page-long book against him, followed by a shorter audio version. A couple of weeks later, another ancillary media of Al-Azaim Foundation, Risana al-Hadeed published a 56-page-long book that reinforced its criticism against Abu Muhammad Madani.
It became evident that the author behind the books - at least the Al-Azaim Foundation’s one - is Zaid Badri himself, who also provided the audio summary. Zaid Badri published three more detailed videos where he discussed in depth why the Islamic State takfired Abu Muhammad Madani, directly challenging the scholar. Since the two booklets represent the most significant and entirely original pieces of propaganda recently produced by Al-Azaim Foundation’s Farsi branch, they highlight Zaid Badri’s position as a key ideologue for ISKP. Furthermore, it is important to note that Zaid Badri’s propaganda and sermons are widely shared among supporters from Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, and, in some instances, even among Iranian Kurdish supporters, who are present in Persian-speaking IS groups.
Among Zaid Badri’s most recent series, there is also a small audio-video production where he draws inspiration from ISKP propaganda and answers point-by-point sermons released by Afghan Taliban’s Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada.
Zaid Badri’s supporters continue to share his propaganda production on different social media platforms and messaging apps, while the militant himself occasionally releases new audio messages.
Interesting