Summary:
ISIL is currently on the run and has lost most of the territory it captured. This book traces the evolution of Islamic fundamentalism from Al-Qaeda to ISIL. They do a good job of providing a timeline of the growth of ISIL and its various incarnations. The authors analyse Islam and terrorism carried out in its name with a good understanding of the religion, its adherents and their practices. The appendix in this book is invaluable in understanding Islam and its political aspects. It also provides a good understanding of how ISIS operates on the battlefield as well as the media and uses it to provide recommendations on how to handle ISIS and organizations like it. The book is written through Western lens and as such, the references to the carnage unleashed by ISIS is explained primarily by its impact on the Western world.
It is instructive to read about unintended consequences of self-righteous Western actions. US invasion of Iraq was driven forward by Western establishment that viewed Saddam Hussein in ideological and simplistic terms and proceeded to remove him in an impressive display of sustained military dominance. That colossal strategic blunder culminated in ISIL and its brutal savagery. Even though ISIL has been severely degraded, the underlying issues of political and religious freedom in the Middle East have not gone away. Even though some Middle Eastern countries have made noises towards reforming their political systems (Jordan, Saudi Arabia), it is only a matter of time before Islamic fundamentalism evolves again into a far more virulent strain.
Synopsis:
Religious tenets of Islam are as follows:
Quran - Full account of the revelations that came to Muhammad
Sunnah - Practices, deeds and words of Muhammad
Hadith - Collection of practices, deeds and words of Muhammad and his companions
Five Pillars - Essential practices enjoined upon all Muslims - Professing religion, Daily prayer, Alms, Fasting during Ramadan, Pilgrimage to Mecca
Additional definitions:
Founding - Muhammad received a series of visions around the age of 40 in Mecca. He was not able to convince everyone in Mecca of his message. Following tensions in the surrounding communities, he and his followers migrated to Medina (also referred to as Hijra or Migration). At Medina, he molded his followers into a religious and political community. He did not anoint a successor when he died in 632 AD.
Shia Islam - After the death of the 3rd Caliph after Muhammad, Shia believed that the successor should be a direct male descendant of Muhammad. Their candidate for the fourth caliph was a cousin of Muhammad, Ali who was assassinated. Ali's son, Husayn was killed in a battle with opposition Sunni Caliphate forces at Karbala (Iraq) and that event is mourned by Shia as the Ashura. In addition to Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, Shia also revere Karbala and Najaf (where Ali is buried) as holy sites.
Sunni Islam - Sunnis believed that the Caliph could be any male of Quraysh tribe chosen by leaders of the Muslim community. For Sunnis, Ashura coincides with arrival of Muhammad in Medina. Because they were able to hold onto the Caliph post, they are usually considered the establishment in Political Islam.
Salafism - Movement within Sunni Islam calling for a return to beliefs and practices of early Islam. Salafists can be classified under 3 categories - Political, Quietist or Jihadi.
Wahhabism - Ultra Conservative strain of Salafism - Began by Muhammad Ibn Abd al Wahhab to excommunicate idolatrous Muslims -Shias, Sufis etc. Allied himself with Muhammad Bin Saud, the progenitor of the House of Saud, the dynasty that currently rules Saudi Arabia.
Takfir - To declare someone a nonbeliever in Islam allowing for religious sanction to kill them. Political and Quietist factions of Salafism set a high threshold for classifying someone as Takfiri. Jihadists use a low threshold. Jihadist position on Takfir was advanced by Saayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi who founded Jamaat-i-Islami in British India. His position was further clarified by Sayyid Qutb in Egypt who advocated militant Jihad as a solution to get rid of what he considered to
be apostate Muslim leadership.
Jihad - Defined in Quran as an act of striving to serve God's purpose. Fundamentalists have changed it to stand for actions that punish anyone they consider apostate and use it as a means to spread Islam.
As is true with fundamentalists of any religion, the Islamic variety looks at world in starkly apocalyptic terms. The fact that apocalypse has not happened yet does not convince the adherents of the need to revisit their assumptions. On the contrary, it makes them double down on their original belief. That view has played a large part in the present day success of Al Qaeda and ISIL across the world. With the breakup of Ottoman empire and subsequent Anglo-French depredations courtesy of Sykes-Picot agreement, the current lay of the land in Middle East is biased towards power politics than geographical cohesiveness. That fact combined with the austere form of Islam and significant material wealth in Middle East explains why shining stars of Islamic fundamentalism have generally emerged from there.
In the 1980's, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan defeated the Soviet Union. The funding for the Afghan Mujahideen efforts came from Saudi Arabia (supported by US and other Western countries) and led to an expansion of Wahhabism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of the idealism and romanticism associated with Mujahideen, scores of foreign fighters flocked to Afghanistan and became veterans of the battlefield. Once the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, the Mujahideen fought each other in a destructive civil war that destroyed Afghanistan as a stable entity. The present day Zarqawis and Bin Ladens went through the Afghan experience where they gained combat experience and built extensive terrorist networks before returning home to their respective countries.
In the 1990's, Osama Bin Laden used his family inheritance to build Al-Qaeda with the express intention of removing US troops stationed in Middle East (after the First Gulf War) and targeted all his efforts at killing Americans there. Al Qaeda was conceived and built as a background operation to provide intellectual and financial support for Jihadists to carry out their operations. It saw itself as a vanguard of a global Islamic revolution, preparing the ground so Muslim masses could subsequently take over. With that purpose in mind, Bin Laden built the organizational structure replete with payroll and benefits departments. Al Qaeda was comfortable carrying out propaganda using magazines and DVDs that were sent through mail or distributed in person near mosques. As adoption of Internet broadened, Al-Qaeda cultivated Islamic supporters on message boards and forums that were tightly controlled by its representatives. However, the expenses involved in building up the infrastructure for Islamic terror drained Osama Bin Laden's financial reserves. When Islamic revolution did not happen as predicted by Al-Qaeda and its leadership, it was caught flatfooted and fumbled its adjustment to the new reality. That did not prevent it from carrying out attacks and encouraging its followers to kill scores of innocent people.
After September 11, Al Qaeda was not prepared for the US reaction. It wanted to stay in the background but the nature of 9/11 meant it landed squarely in the public eye. As a result, it squandered messaging opportunities afforded by success of 9/11. With secrecy as its main imperative after 9/11, it faced long delays in getting its message to both members and allies. When US smashed the Islamic terror infrastructure in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11, Al-Qaeda scattered and coalesced into disparate groups in the fighters' homelands. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was one of them. Zarqawi had participated in the last days of Afghanistan Mujahideen's war against Soviet Union and stayed back to fight his fellow fundamentalists in the civil war that followed. Later, he went back to Jordan and tried to lead a conventional life but got sucked into a life of Jihad in the late 1990's. He requested blessings from Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to lead a franchise operation but did not receive it. However, he was provided an opportunity to lead his own group in Herat in Afghanistan. After 9/11, he crossed into Iran border from Herat and made his way to the Kurdish region of Iraq where he joined Ansar al-Islam, another Islamic fundamentalist group.
In the 2000's, US was planning its invasion of Iraq. US had an opportunity to kill Zarqawi in an airstrike in 2003 but pulled back when Gen. Colin Powell and the State Department objected to it because they had planned to use Zarqawi as a prop in Powell's address to UN Security Council as proof that Saddam Hussein supported Islamic terrorism within Iraq. Notwithstanding the ground reality that Saddam Hussein strangled Islamic terrorism within the borders of Iraq, Powell used his address to paint Zarqawi's presence in Iraq as evidence of Saddam's complicity in abetting terrorism. US invaded Iraq in March 2003 and immediately found success militarily deposing Saddam Hussein. After the US invasion of Iraq, Insurgency in Iraq exploded when US Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul S Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army and promulgated the De-Baathification order that stripped Baath party members of any position of authority in Iraq. Saddam's regime had used Baath party as an instrument to keep Iraqis in line, whether they be in Army or a public school. People joined the party to avail themselves of government jobs in Iraq. In one stroke, US had put thousands of Iraqi Army personnel on the street with no way for them to feed their families.
After the US invasion, Zarqawi used the reprieve to regroup and form Al Qaeda in Iraq(AQI). Because of unrelenting US pressure in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al-Qaeda had shifted to a franchise model with franchises opening in Iraq (AQI), Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent and Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The cynical approach of US in the build up to Iraq invasion came back to bite it when the person they had elevated as the public face of terror in Iraq, Zarqawi, justified that billing after the war. With Al Qaeda leadership placing a premium on security, the franchisees took matters into their own hands - they asked for blessings from the leadership for their activities. They went ahead with some of their actions in spite of protests from the leadership. Zarqawi leveraged his popularity among Muslims by forming his own organization, Unity and Jihad till he was killed by an US airstrike after a meeting with his spiritual advisor. After his death, Al Qaeda in Iraq (under the leadership of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi) went on the run as the US troop surge in conjunction with Anbar Awakening (paying bribes to tribes in Sunni triangle) reduced the general level of violence so Iraqi PM Nuri Al-Maliki could invite Sunnis into the political process. Instead, Maliki targeted the same Sunni tribes that had been part of Anbar Awakening. As a result, former Baathist Army officers pledged their support Islamic State of Iraq (as AQI was now called).
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been a religious zealot more interested in the clerical aspect of Islam but was arrested by US forces and transferred to Camp Bucca in Iraq. US forces had established Camp Bucca to wean Iraqis away from violent Jihadism by putting Jihadists and non violent offenders together and providing them with life skills training. He used his prison time to sermonize among his fellow inmates and develop ideas about his future organization's structure. When Camp Bucca was closed in 2009, al-Baghdadi was released and he was recruited to join ISI because of his knowledge of Islamic law. When US airstrikes killed the Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (No.1) and Abu Ayyub al-Masri (No.2), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the leader.
In 2011, Arab Spring that started in Tunisia in 2010 spread to Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looked weak and his Army support remained shaky so US held back even when Assad took a harshly punitive approach to suppressing the protesters inside his country. Obama had become US President promising a pullback on US overseas commitments and as a result, he was very hesitant to use force to remove Assad. At the same time, US counter insurgency operations in Iraq were making life difficult for al-Baghdadi so he dispatched his friend Abu Muhammad al-Julani to start a branch of ISI called Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. al-Nusra became very active in its opposition to Assad regime and aligned itself with anti-Assad regime forces including Free Syrian Army that was supported by US. When Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on his own people, Obama dithered (in spite of having a drawn a bright red line on usage of chemical weapons) and as a result, the anti-Assad forces became demoralized. With the steadfast support of Russia, Assad forces took back lost Syrian territory that strengthened his position. Assad government remained in control of some parts of Syria and Syrian opposition forces controlled the rest. When al-Baghdadi announced that ISI was merging with al-Nusra front to form Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), Jublani refused and requested Al-Qaeda to intervene. By that time, al-Baghdadi had become strong enough among Jihadists to ignore pleas from Ayman al-Zawahiri about not causing a split among Jihadists. ISIL proceeded to occupy towns in Syria and Iraq starting with Raqqa. al-Baghdadi put his ideas into practice and instituted a harsh Islamic culture that attracted significant numbers of foreign fighters. In 2014, he declared the territory under ISIL to be a Caliphate which, per Islamic principles, enjoined all Muslims to come to its defense when attacked. He was disappointed when not many Muslims showed up to defend the Caliphate. With support from Russia, Syria and Iraqi Army under the new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi rolled back ISIL gains swiftly and currently, ISIL holds very little territory.
Even though ISIL started as a franchisee of Al Qaeda as AQI, it pushed the boundaries of what a terrorist organization could do, thereby heralding the next stage of Jihadist evolution. Al Qaeda operated from a defensive crouch where it portrayed all Muslims as victims and its strategic choices flowed from that assumption. It focused on hurting the enablers (Western governments, Israel) of what it considered to be heretical governments in Middle East. It hoped terrorist attacks would scare Western support away leaving Middle East governments exposed and vulnerable. At the same time, it encouraged Muslims to rise up and overthrow their governments in Middle East. As a result, it concentrated its attacks on what it called the 'Far Enemy' - Western and US installations and symbols of power while taking care not to hurt Muslims as much as possible. On the other hand, ISIL, for all its barbaric levels of violence that killed untold scores of innocent people (Muslims and non-Muslims), focused on building a state that hewed close to its conventional definition with taxation, administration and infrastructure. ISIL provided Islamic recruits a chance to build and defend an Islamic Caliphate, however short lived it may have been. Because ISIL was able to form a state, it could fund its operations through revenues from taxation and customs duties. Al-Qaeda's start up capital was Bin Laden's inheritance but it did not diversify its funding sources as a result of which it ended up being constrained by what it could collect from donations. In fact, Zawahiri was known to request ISIL assistance for funds. Al-Qaeda appealed to Muslims on an intellectual and organizational level whereas ISIL appealed to Muslims on a visceral level, offering them a chance to become a part of something bigger with the Caliphate.
The messaging and communications also pointed to difference in approaches between Al-Qaeda and ISIL. While Al-Qaeda released long videos from Zawahiri that had him droning on against a staid background for quite a long time, ISIL used social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to put out messages that were more action packed and slickly edited. Because Al-Qaeda leadership was on the run, their videos usually talked about an ideal Islamic Caliphate sometime in the future. On the contrary, ISIL released videos showing life in a current Islamic Caliphate. The videos started with a victimhood approach similar to Al-Qaeda but then shifted to swagger in subsequent episodes. al-Baghdadi used his learning in Islamic law to set up ISIL as representative of a Caliphate through its actions. When other clerics disputed his authority to declare a Caliphate, he ignored them. He could afford to do it because ISIL's foot soldiers included a preponderance of foreign fighters - mainly males between ages 18 - 29 from outside Middle East (Western countries, Caucasus etc.) and ISIL was their preferred choice. In contrast to other Jihadist organizations like Jabhat al-Nusra that used twitter to publicize their videos, ISIL leveraged the capability of social media to create twitter storms through apps (both through standard Android apps and Twitter apps that allow a consenting user's account to send out ISIL propaganda, thereby trending its tweets higher and higher).
The analogy that comes closest to me for Al-Qaeda and ISIL (not perfect in every way but it mostly holds) is the split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in Soviet Union before October Revolution. Both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks wanted to rouse the proletariat to rise against bourgeoisie but did not think the proletariat themselves would be able to achieve that goal. Both of them were involved in violent actions to achieve their goals but their tactics were different. While Mensheviks wanted to work with communists and socialists of other stripes (similar to Al-Qaeda), Bolsheviks (similar to ISIL) proceeded to spurn alliances unless it was even more radical than them (in which case they co-opted them). Because both sides were fanatic and their target audience were also fanatics, the more simplistic approach (Bolsheviks/ISIL) won out.
The response of social media platforms to ISIL's messaging is also fascinating. While the upside of Arab Spring wouldnt have happened without social media platforms, the downside of the rise of a Caliphate under ISIL would not have happened without it either. Google and Facebook moved quickly to tamp down Jihadist messages sympathetic to ISIL on their respective platforms, Youtube and Instagram, because they were public companies answerable to their shareholders for any liability concerns. Twitter was in private hands (who happened to be Libertarian) till 2013 and that heavily influenced its response to ISIL using its platform. Twitter had been hailed as the platform that drove Arab Spring forward and so, it was understandably circumspect when ISIL started using it to distribute its gory content. Only after Twitter became a public company, did it start cracking down on ISIL propaganda videos owing to liability concerns and worked with authorities to shut down accounts inciting violence. While critics slammed it as ineffective Whack-a-mole strategy (where you whack one mole and two more pop up somewhere else), it has been effective in putting hurdles in front of diehard ISIL supporters. With Twitter now sharing the user account data with governments, this Whack-a-mole strategy also allows identification of committed ISIL fighters and fervent supporters (casual followers seem to give up after 2 or 3 whacks whereas fighters and ardent supporters keep coming back after repeated whacks). It has led to desperation among ISIL supporters as leveraging media (particularly social media) is a crucial asset for any respectable Islamist organization.
The effectiveness of Twitter in slowing down ISIL's propaganda has shown the way forward for countering Jihadist usage on social media. Further, the book recommends that ISIS should be treated as a government with the formation of the Caliphate and publicize its malfeasance, failures and missteps in tribal relations. In addition, the book also asks the media not to portray ISIL's actions in overly melodramatic language. They recommend Western countries should encourage Middle Eastern countries to provide more political freedoms while making sure not to abridge civil liberties in their own countries. As the authors point out, societies that are most at risk for violent conflicts are usually in the transition phase from closed to open societies. Both authoritarian and well developed democratic societies are usually stable because they are predictable in setting expectations among their populace. Societies in transitions usually have difficulty in responding quickly and effectively to their people's expectations and that is when terrorist organizations become most effective, by taking advantage of people's grievances and weaponizing them as a means of capturing power.
Other Books of Interest:
Black Flags: Rise of ISIS - Joby Warrick
The Call to a Global Islamic Resistance - Abu Musab al-Suri
Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Islamic Nation Will Pass - Abu Bakr Naji
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution - Howard Rheingold
ISIL is currently on the run and has lost most of the territory it captured. This book traces the evolution of Islamic fundamentalism from Al-Qaeda to ISIL. They do a good job of providing a timeline of the growth of ISIL and its various incarnations. The authors analyse Islam and terrorism carried out in its name with a good understanding of the religion, its adherents and their practices. The appendix in this book is invaluable in understanding Islam and its political aspects. It also provides a good understanding of how ISIS operates on the battlefield as well as the media and uses it to provide recommendations on how to handle ISIS and organizations like it. The book is written through Western lens and as such, the references to the carnage unleashed by ISIS is explained primarily by its impact on the Western world.
It is instructive to read about unintended consequences of self-righteous Western actions. US invasion of Iraq was driven forward by Western establishment that viewed Saddam Hussein in ideological and simplistic terms and proceeded to remove him in an impressive display of sustained military dominance. That colossal strategic blunder culminated in ISIL and its brutal savagery. Even though ISIL has been severely degraded, the underlying issues of political and religious freedom in the Middle East have not gone away. Even though some Middle Eastern countries have made noises towards reforming their political systems (Jordan, Saudi Arabia), it is only a matter of time before Islamic fundamentalism evolves again into a far more virulent strain.
Synopsis:
Religious tenets of Islam are as follows:
Quran - Full account of the revelations that came to Muhammad
Sunnah - Practices, deeds and words of Muhammad
Hadith - Collection of practices, deeds and words of Muhammad and his companions
Five Pillars - Essential practices enjoined upon all Muslims - Professing religion, Daily prayer, Alms, Fasting during Ramadan, Pilgrimage to Mecca
Additional definitions:
Founding - Muhammad received a series of visions around the age of 40 in Mecca. He was not able to convince everyone in Mecca of his message. Following tensions in the surrounding communities, he and his followers migrated to Medina (also referred to as Hijra or Migration). At Medina, he molded his followers into a religious and political community. He did not anoint a successor when he died in 632 AD.
Shia Islam - After the death of the 3rd Caliph after Muhammad, Shia believed that the successor should be a direct male descendant of Muhammad. Their candidate for the fourth caliph was a cousin of Muhammad, Ali who was assassinated. Ali's son, Husayn was killed in a battle with opposition Sunni Caliphate forces at Karbala (Iraq) and that event is mourned by Shia as the Ashura. In addition to Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, Shia also revere Karbala and Najaf (where Ali is buried) as holy sites.
Sunni Islam - Sunnis believed that the Caliph could be any male of Quraysh tribe chosen by leaders of the Muslim community. For Sunnis, Ashura coincides with arrival of Muhammad in Medina. Because they were able to hold onto the Caliph post, they are usually considered the establishment in Political Islam.
Salafism - Movement within Sunni Islam calling for a return to beliefs and practices of early Islam. Salafists can be classified under 3 categories - Political, Quietist or Jihadi.
Wahhabism - Ultra Conservative strain of Salafism - Began by Muhammad Ibn Abd al Wahhab to excommunicate idolatrous Muslims -Shias, Sufis etc. Allied himself with Muhammad Bin Saud, the progenitor of the House of Saud, the dynasty that currently rules Saudi Arabia.
Takfir - To declare someone a nonbeliever in Islam allowing for religious sanction to kill them. Political and Quietist factions of Salafism set a high threshold for classifying someone as Takfiri. Jihadists use a low threshold. Jihadist position on Takfir was advanced by Saayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi who founded Jamaat-i-Islami in British India. His position was further clarified by Sayyid Qutb in Egypt who advocated militant Jihad as a solution to get rid of what he considered to
be apostate Muslim leadership.
Jihad - Defined in Quran as an act of striving to serve God's purpose. Fundamentalists have changed it to stand for actions that punish anyone they consider apostate and use it as a means to spread Islam.
As is true with fundamentalists of any religion, the Islamic variety looks at world in starkly apocalyptic terms. The fact that apocalypse has not happened yet does not convince the adherents of the need to revisit their assumptions. On the contrary, it makes them double down on their original belief. That view has played a large part in the present day success of Al Qaeda and ISIL across the world. With the breakup of Ottoman empire and subsequent Anglo-French depredations courtesy of Sykes-Picot agreement, the current lay of the land in Middle East is biased towards power politics than geographical cohesiveness. That fact combined with the austere form of Islam and significant material wealth in Middle East explains why shining stars of Islamic fundamentalism have generally emerged from there.
In the 1980's, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan defeated the Soviet Union. The funding for the Afghan Mujahideen efforts came from Saudi Arabia (supported by US and other Western countries) and led to an expansion of Wahhabism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of the idealism and romanticism associated with Mujahideen, scores of foreign fighters flocked to Afghanistan and became veterans of the battlefield. Once the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, the Mujahideen fought each other in a destructive civil war that destroyed Afghanistan as a stable entity. The present day Zarqawis and Bin Ladens went through the Afghan experience where they gained combat experience and built extensive terrorist networks before returning home to their respective countries.
In the 1990's, Osama Bin Laden used his family inheritance to build Al-Qaeda with the express intention of removing US troops stationed in Middle East (after the First Gulf War) and targeted all his efforts at killing Americans there. Al Qaeda was conceived and built as a background operation to provide intellectual and financial support for Jihadists to carry out their operations. It saw itself as a vanguard of a global Islamic revolution, preparing the ground so Muslim masses could subsequently take over. With that purpose in mind, Bin Laden built the organizational structure replete with payroll and benefits departments. Al Qaeda was comfortable carrying out propaganda using magazines and DVDs that were sent through mail or distributed in person near mosques. As adoption of Internet broadened, Al-Qaeda cultivated Islamic supporters on message boards and forums that were tightly controlled by its representatives. However, the expenses involved in building up the infrastructure for Islamic terror drained Osama Bin Laden's financial reserves. When Islamic revolution did not happen as predicted by Al-Qaeda and its leadership, it was caught flatfooted and fumbled its adjustment to the new reality. That did not prevent it from carrying out attacks and encouraging its followers to kill scores of innocent people.
After September 11, Al Qaeda was not prepared for the US reaction. It wanted to stay in the background but the nature of 9/11 meant it landed squarely in the public eye. As a result, it squandered messaging opportunities afforded by success of 9/11. With secrecy as its main imperative after 9/11, it faced long delays in getting its message to both members and allies. When US smashed the Islamic terror infrastructure in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11, Al-Qaeda scattered and coalesced into disparate groups in the fighters' homelands. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was one of them. Zarqawi had participated in the last days of Afghanistan Mujahideen's war against Soviet Union and stayed back to fight his fellow fundamentalists in the civil war that followed. Later, he went back to Jordan and tried to lead a conventional life but got sucked into a life of Jihad in the late 1990's. He requested blessings from Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to lead a franchise operation but did not receive it. However, he was provided an opportunity to lead his own group in Herat in Afghanistan. After 9/11, he crossed into Iran border from Herat and made his way to the Kurdish region of Iraq where he joined Ansar al-Islam, another Islamic fundamentalist group.
In the 2000's, US was planning its invasion of Iraq. US had an opportunity to kill Zarqawi in an airstrike in 2003 but pulled back when Gen. Colin Powell and the State Department objected to it because they had planned to use Zarqawi as a prop in Powell's address to UN Security Council as proof that Saddam Hussein supported Islamic terrorism within Iraq. Notwithstanding the ground reality that Saddam Hussein strangled Islamic terrorism within the borders of Iraq, Powell used his address to paint Zarqawi's presence in Iraq as evidence of Saddam's complicity in abetting terrorism. US invaded Iraq in March 2003 and immediately found success militarily deposing Saddam Hussein. After the US invasion of Iraq, Insurgency in Iraq exploded when US Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul S Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army and promulgated the De-Baathification order that stripped Baath party members of any position of authority in Iraq. Saddam's regime had used Baath party as an instrument to keep Iraqis in line, whether they be in Army or a public school. People joined the party to avail themselves of government jobs in Iraq. In one stroke, US had put thousands of Iraqi Army personnel on the street with no way for them to feed their families.
After the US invasion, Zarqawi used the reprieve to regroup and form Al Qaeda in Iraq(AQI). Because of unrelenting US pressure in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al-Qaeda had shifted to a franchise model with franchises opening in Iraq (AQI), Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent and Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The cynical approach of US in the build up to Iraq invasion came back to bite it when the person they had elevated as the public face of terror in Iraq, Zarqawi, justified that billing after the war. With Al Qaeda leadership placing a premium on security, the franchisees took matters into their own hands - they asked for blessings from the leadership for their activities. They went ahead with some of their actions in spite of protests from the leadership. Zarqawi leveraged his popularity among Muslims by forming his own organization, Unity and Jihad till he was killed by an US airstrike after a meeting with his spiritual advisor. After his death, Al Qaeda in Iraq (under the leadership of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi) went on the run as the US troop surge in conjunction with Anbar Awakening (paying bribes to tribes in Sunni triangle) reduced the general level of violence so Iraqi PM Nuri Al-Maliki could invite Sunnis into the political process. Instead, Maliki targeted the same Sunni tribes that had been part of Anbar Awakening. As a result, former Baathist Army officers pledged their support Islamic State of Iraq (as AQI was now called).
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been a religious zealot more interested in the clerical aspect of Islam but was arrested by US forces and transferred to Camp Bucca in Iraq. US forces had established Camp Bucca to wean Iraqis away from violent Jihadism by putting Jihadists and non violent offenders together and providing them with life skills training. He used his prison time to sermonize among his fellow inmates and develop ideas about his future organization's structure. When Camp Bucca was closed in 2009, al-Baghdadi was released and he was recruited to join ISI because of his knowledge of Islamic law. When US airstrikes killed the Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (No.1) and Abu Ayyub al-Masri (No.2), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the leader.
In 2011, Arab Spring that started in Tunisia in 2010 spread to Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looked weak and his Army support remained shaky so US held back even when Assad took a harshly punitive approach to suppressing the protesters inside his country. Obama had become US President promising a pullback on US overseas commitments and as a result, he was very hesitant to use force to remove Assad. At the same time, US counter insurgency operations in Iraq were making life difficult for al-Baghdadi so he dispatched his friend Abu Muhammad al-Julani to start a branch of ISI called Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. al-Nusra became very active in its opposition to Assad regime and aligned itself with anti-Assad regime forces including Free Syrian Army that was supported by US. When Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on his own people, Obama dithered (in spite of having a drawn a bright red line on usage of chemical weapons) and as a result, the anti-Assad forces became demoralized. With the steadfast support of Russia, Assad forces took back lost Syrian territory that strengthened his position. Assad government remained in control of some parts of Syria and Syrian opposition forces controlled the rest. When al-Baghdadi announced that ISI was merging with al-Nusra front to form Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), Jublani refused and requested Al-Qaeda to intervene. By that time, al-Baghdadi had become strong enough among Jihadists to ignore pleas from Ayman al-Zawahiri about not causing a split among Jihadists. ISIL proceeded to occupy towns in Syria and Iraq starting with Raqqa. al-Baghdadi put his ideas into practice and instituted a harsh Islamic culture that attracted significant numbers of foreign fighters. In 2014, he declared the territory under ISIL to be a Caliphate which, per Islamic principles, enjoined all Muslims to come to its defense when attacked. He was disappointed when not many Muslims showed up to defend the Caliphate. With support from Russia, Syria and Iraqi Army under the new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi rolled back ISIL gains swiftly and currently, ISIL holds very little territory.
Even though ISIL started as a franchisee of Al Qaeda as AQI, it pushed the boundaries of what a terrorist organization could do, thereby heralding the next stage of Jihadist evolution. Al Qaeda operated from a defensive crouch where it portrayed all Muslims as victims and its strategic choices flowed from that assumption. It focused on hurting the enablers (Western governments, Israel) of what it considered to be heretical governments in Middle East. It hoped terrorist attacks would scare Western support away leaving Middle East governments exposed and vulnerable. At the same time, it encouraged Muslims to rise up and overthrow their governments in Middle East. As a result, it concentrated its attacks on what it called the 'Far Enemy' - Western and US installations and symbols of power while taking care not to hurt Muslims as much as possible. On the other hand, ISIL, for all its barbaric levels of violence that killed untold scores of innocent people (Muslims and non-Muslims), focused on building a state that hewed close to its conventional definition with taxation, administration and infrastructure. ISIL provided Islamic recruits a chance to build and defend an Islamic Caliphate, however short lived it may have been. Because ISIL was able to form a state, it could fund its operations through revenues from taxation and customs duties. Al-Qaeda's start up capital was Bin Laden's inheritance but it did not diversify its funding sources as a result of which it ended up being constrained by what it could collect from donations. In fact, Zawahiri was known to request ISIL assistance for funds. Al-Qaeda appealed to Muslims on an intellectual and organizational level whereas ISIL appealed to Muslims on a visceral level, offering them a chance to become a part of something bigger with the Caliphate.
The messaging and communications also pointed to difference in approaches between Al-Qaeda and ISIL. While Al-Qaeda released long videos from Zawahiri that had him droning on against a staid background for quite a long time, ISIL used social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to put out messages that were more action packed and slickly edited. Because Al-Qaeda leadership was on the run, their videos usually talked about an ideal Islamic Caliphate sometime in the future. On the contrary, ISIL released videos showing life in a current Islamic Caliphate. The videos started with a victimhood approach similar to Al-Qaeda but then shifted to swagger in subsequent episodes. al-Baghdadi used his learning in Islamic law to set up ISIL as representative of a Caliphate through its actions. When other clerics disputed his authority to declare a Caliphate, he ignored them. He could afford to do it because ISIL's foot soldiers included a preponderance of foreign fighters - mainly males between ages 18 - 29 from outside Middle East (Western countries, Caucasus etc.) and ISIL was their preferred choice. In contrast to other Jihadist organizations like Jabhat al-Nusra that used twitter to publicize their videos, ISIL leveraged the capability of social media to create twitter storms through apps (both through standard Android apps and Twitter apps that allow a consenting user's account to send out ISIL propaganda, thereby trending its tweets higher and higher).
The analogy that comes closest to me for Al-Qaeda and ISIL (not perfect in every way but it mostly holds) is the split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in Soviet Union before October Revolution. Both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks wanted to rouse the proletariat to rise against bourgeoisie but did not think the proletariat themselves would be able to achieve that goal. Both of them were involved in violent actions to achieve their goals but their tactics were different. While Mensheviks wanted to work with communists and socialists of other stripes (similar to Al-Qaeda), Bolsheviks (similar to ISIL) proceeded to spurn alliances unless it was even more radical than them (in which case they co-opted them). Because both sides were fanatic and their target audience were also fanatics, the more simplistic approach (Bolsheviks/ISIL) won out.
The response of social media platforms to ISIL's messaging is also fascinating. While the upside of Arab Spring wouldnt have happened without social media platforms, the downside of the rise of a Caliphate under ISIL would not have happened without it either. Google and Facebook moved quickly to tamp down Jihadist messages sympathetic to ISIL on their respective platforms, Youtube and Instagram, because they were public companies answerable to their shareholders for any liability concerns. Twitter was in private hands (who happened to be Libertarian) till 2013 and that heavily influenced its response to ISIL using its platform. Twitter had been hailed as the platform that drove Arab Spring forward and so, it was understandably circumspect when ISIL started using it to distribute its gory content. Only after Twitter became a public company, did it start cracking down on ISIL propaganda videos owing to liability concerns and worked with authorities to shut down accounts inciting violence. While critics slammed it as ineffective Whack-a-mole strategy (where you whack one mole and two more pop up somewhere else), it has been effective in putting hurdles in front of diehard ISIL supporters. With Twitter now sharing the user account data with governments, this Whack-a-mole strategy also allows identification of committed ISIL fighters and fervent supporters (casual followers seem to give up after 2 or 3 whacks whereas fighters and ardent supporters keep coming back after repeated whacks). It has led to desperation among ISIL supporters as leveraging media (particularly social media) is a crucial asset for any respectable Islamist organization.
The effectiveness of Twitter in slowing down ISIL's propaganda has shown the way forward for countering Jihadist usage on social media. Further, the book recommends that ISIS should be treated as a government with the formation of the Caliphate and publicize its malfeasance, failures and missteps in tribal relations. In addition, the book also asks the media not to portray ISIL's actions in overly melodramatic language. They recommend Western countries should encourage Middle Eastern countries to provide more political freedoms while making sure not to abridge civil liberties in their own countries. As the authors point out, societies that are most at risk for violent conflicts are usually in the transition phase from closed to open societies. Both authoritarian and well developed democratic societies are usually stable because they are predictable in setting expectations among their populace. Societies in transitions usually have difficulty in responding quickly and effectively to their people's expectations and that is when terrorist organizations become most effective, by taking advantage of people's grievances and weaponizing them as a means of capturing power.
Other Books of Interest:
Black Flags: Rise of ISIS - Joby Warrick
The Call to a Global Islamic Resistance - Abu Musab al-Suri
Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Islamic Nation Will Pass - Abu Bakr Naji
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution - Howard Rheingold
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