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Could Terrorists Use Afghanistan to Conduct External Ops Sooner than the Biden Administration Wants the World to Believe?

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Portrait of the terrorists who perpetrated a mass-casualty attack at a Shiite mosque in Kandahar during Friday prayers on October 15, 2021, distributed on Telegram Channels used to manage distribution of ISIS’ official propaganda (Source: Michael S. Smith II)

Nearly 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, United States President Joseph R. Biden, Jr decided to withdraw US military and other governmental personnel from Afghanistan. Once the withdrawal was underway, it became evident that the Taliban could and would reclaim control of most of the country. Since then, the Biden administration has strived to assuage concerns that either al-Qaeda, which has a longstanding alliance with the Taliban, or Islamic State (ISIS), which has a sizable presence of members in the country, could immediately use Afghanistan to conduct external operations. A notable example was seen in remarks issued by Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl during an open US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. In an exchange with the committee’s chair, Dr. Kahl advised, “I think the intelligence community currently assesses that both ISIS-K and al-Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the US, but neither currently has the capability to do so.” History suggests this is a problematic assessment. Because the external operations programs managed by al-Qaeda and ISIS are much more dynamic than the one overseen by Usama bin Ladin on September 11, 2001. Plus, the situation in Afghanistan may be increasing their capabilities to conduct newer forms of external operations sooner than Dr. Kahl has led the Senate Armed Services Committee—thus the world—to believe either terrorist group can.

 A New Paradigm of External Operations

When the American born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki partnered with Samir Khan to launch a new ezine named Inspire, a sea change in al-Qaeda’s global jihad came into clearer view.

Already, al-Awlaki’s online activities had indicated al-Qaeda was keen to expand its capabilities to generate buy-in for an ideology that could imbue some new adherents in the West with a sense of urgency to “defend” their faith vis-à-vis acts of terrorism. Before Khan moved from the US to Yemen to join forces with al-Awlaki, authorities’ responses to his online activities provided al-Qaeda with evidence that the US Government was not prepared to tackle such innovative efforts to build support for the group’s global jihad. As Khan put it in the second issue of Inspire while expressing his surprise that federal agencies had not disrupted his plans to travel overseas to join al-Qaeda in October 2009, “I was quiet [sic] open about my beliefs online and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out I was al Qaeda to the core.”[i] Indeed, prior to Khan’s departure for Yemen, then-Congressman Sue Myrick, a member of the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and chair of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus who represented the North Carolina congressional district in which Khan resided, had expressed concerns about his online activities to the FBI.[ii] In a recent discussion with me about open source intelligence’s (OSINT) potential utilities in counterterrorism, Congressman (Ret) Myrick noted, “When he was in Charlotte, working out of his parents’ basement, he changed servers constantly, used foreign ones, so they never could charge him,” adding:  “It was a total screw up by the FBI.”

Perhaps more importantly, al-Qaeda also had evidence that al-Awlaki’s blog posts and YouTube content had likely helped stimulate Nidal Hasan’s interests in perpetrating a terrorist attack at Fort Hood in November 2009. Regardless of whether al-Awlaki should be painted as the radicalizing force, Hasan had contacted al-Awlaki via e-mail to try to confirm that attacks targeting US military personnel would be permissible, according to al-Awlaki’s notions of sharia (Islamic law). That al-Awlaki did not reply to Hasan’s e-mail with a message contesting the legitimacy of the following directive issued by bin Ladin and other Salafi-Jihadist luminaries in their 1998 declaration of war with the US and Jews was almost certainly the stuff of inspirational silence:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it …

Yet, prior to 2010, al-Awlaki’s online activities had not offered such concrete evidence that he aimed to expand al-Qaeda’s capabilities to orient the interests of his target audience towards using items in their mothers’ kitchens to make bombs and perpetrate terrorist attacks. This was made clear with a how-to feature story in the first issue of Inspire that was published online in 2010.

Also made clear by the first issue of Inspire was al-Qaeda’s interest in establishing direct and safe lines of communication with individuals in the West who may be willing to serve as agents in its external operations program. Not only did al-Awlaki and Khan provide Gmail, Hotmail, Fastmail and Yahoo e-mail addresses that could be used to contact them; they published a four-page tutorial on how al-Qaeda enthusiasts in the West could use an encrypted correspondence tool to exchange messages with them.

That al-Qaeda’s second and presumably current leader determined there was profit to be garnered from the model of online incitement developed by al-Awlaki and Khan is made evident from the continued publication of Inspire and variations thereof following their deaths in 2011, as well as al-Qaeda’s expanded use of popular and “dark” social media since. Notable dividends include the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013 and the attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. According to the US Justice Department’s chief expert witness in the prosecution of Dzokhar Tsarnaev, perpetrators of the former plot gathered instructions for producing their bombs from the aforementioned article published in the first issue of Inspire, titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.” A victim targeted in the latter attack in France was featured in a hit list that was published in the tenth issue of Inspire, which was published online in the spring of 2013.

As I noted in testimony for a US Senate hearing in 2017, following the declaration of its so-called “caliphate,” ISIS took al-Awlaki’s online model for expanding al-Qaeda’s capabilities to wage jihad in the West to “new heights.” In 2014, it should have been clear to officials in the US Intelligence Community who were briefing senior officials like then-Vice President Biden that ISIS’ intensely incitement-focused propaganda was intended to support its external operations. Abu Mohamed al-Adnani (d. 2016), the group’s spokesman who declared ISIS had established a “caliphate” in 2014, was also managing its external operations program. This indicated that orchestrating attacks in the West would feature prominently in how ISIS leaders would seek to define perceptions of the group. So too did the abundance of threats against Western nations in the group’s propaganda. Additionally, by the end of 2014, the most prominent narrative directed at consumers of the group’s propaganda that was tailored for (prospective) supporters in the West emphasized the following action items:  According to Islamic traditions, all Muslims must give baya (allegiance) to ISIS’ “caliph,” and this allegiance is demonstrated with one of the following two actions:  Making hijrah (emigrating) to the “caliphate” to support the group, or, if one is unable to do so, perpetrating terrorist attacks in their home country.

Since then, ISIS has used its propaganda that is tailored to present an image of strength and durability—thus worthiness of support—paired with an aggressive exploitation of social media technologies, along with more user-friendly encrypted communication tools than were available to al-Awlaki, to orchestrate exceedingly more attacks in the West than al-Qaeda. In many cases, these attacks have been perpetrated by terrorists not trained in either conflict zones or “sanctuaries.” In most cases, their selections of targets and tools used to perpetrate attacks have reflected adherence to directives devolved in ISIS propaganda. So too have these terrorists’ efforts to firmly define their actions as contributions to ISIS’ global jihad pursuant to the following guidance that was published in the fourth issue of its infamous ezine Dabiq in October 2014:

At this point of the crusade against the Islamic State, it is very important that attacks take place in every country that has entered into the alliance against the Islamic State, especially the US, UK, France, Australia and Germany. … It is important that the killing becomes attributed to patrons of the Islamic State who have obeyed its leadership. … Otherwise, crusader media makes such attacks appear to be random killings.

By ensuring their actions were understood as efforts to fulfill expectations for group supporters’ conduct set in ISIS propaganda, these de facto agents of ISIS’ external operations have done more than just demonstrate their faithful adherence to the group’s gudiance. They have also helped ISIS—which al-Adnani claimed was the true steward of bin Ladin’s manhaj (methodology) weeks before declaring it had established a “caliphate”—appear as a more competent and dedicated manager of a global jihad than al-Qaeda under the leadership of bin Ladin’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Current Situation in Afghanistan:  New Fuel for the New Paradigm of External Operations?

The current situation in Afghanistan could be used by both al-Qaeda and ISIS to conduct external operations sooner than the Biden administration apparently wants the world to believe. It enhances each group’s capabilities to project an image of strength and durability. This, in turn, fuels their powers of persuasion that factor centrally in their capabilities to conduct effective recruitment-cum-incitement campaigns in the cyber domain focused on grooming agents for external operations here in the West.

For al-Qaeda, the hasty withdrawal of the US military has enabled the group to meet a key expectation set by bin Ladin’s external communications:  al-Qaeda and its allies can survive “long wars” with the United States and its closest allies, which bin Ladin believed would “bleed” America of vast amounts of financial resources, influence in the Muslim world and the political will to deny participants in the wider Salafi-Jihadist movement capabilities to pursue their chief goal of restoring a caliphate. This intensifies the perceptibility of al-Qaeda as a credible organization that is pursuing a viable strategy for achieving that inspirational goal. The optics of a Taliban “victory” corresponding with the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks also reinforces the view of al-Qaeda as not only an important force in, but also a key beneficiary of the apparently successful effort to transition Afghanistan back into an “Islamic Emirate.” Indeed, that the Taliban has not disavowed al-Qaeda conveys a message to al-Qaeda’s wider support base that Afghanistan is likely to be a safer haven for the group than ever before. Here, it is useful to consider that, as demonstrated by ISIS following the declaration of its “caliphate,” de facto control of territory factors importantly in Salafi-Jihadists’ capabilities to fashion a group as a legitimate enterprise that is worthy of support—including support furnished in the form of terrorist attacks perpetrated in the West.

For ISIS, recent developments in Afghanistan have rendered an abundance of opportunities to further contrast the group with al-Qaeda. Further, it is doing this in ways that can provide particularly potent incentives for individuals who share these groups’ goal of restoring a caliphate to help ISIS assert dominance in the wider Salafi-Jihadist movement. Notably, by seizing on the opportunity to perpetrate attacks targeting American military personnel at Hamid Karzai International Airport, ISIS simultaneously highlighted two things that are almost certainly of great interest to prospective recruits, including members of competing groups like al-Qaeda who may be willing to defect into ISIS’ ranks:  There were substantial opportunities to kill US military personnel, but neither al-Qaeda, nor its chief ally, the Taliban, were seizing them. This reinforces ISIS’ claims that al-Qaeda has deviated from the path of jihad charted by bin Ladin. Thus, as al-Adnani put it in an address just before he declared ISIS had established a “caliphate,” al-Qaeda is no longer the “base of jihad.” Moreover, the spectacular effects produced by the attack at the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021 that was perpetrated by a single ISIS member—in particular, the deaths of 13 US military personnel—paired with the surge of ISIS-claimed attacks in Afghanistan thereafter, are successes that can help the group animate aspirations among supporters in the West to perpetrate attacks here.

Ultimately, the situation in Afghanistan is very likely to stimulate interests among sympathetic consumers of al-Qaeda’s and ISIS’ propaganda here in the West in doing things to help these groups advance their global agendas. Given the increased emphasis among the US and its closest allies on denying prospective aspirant terrorists capabilities to travel abroad to join these groups, one of the easiest things al-Qaeda and ISIS enthusiasts here in the West can do to support them is volunteering to serve as agents in their external operations. This makes amplifying the notion that neither group can immediately capitalize on the situation in Afghanistan to help them orchestrate attacks in the US a risky business, both in terms of the Biden administration’s political and national security management concerns. Not only could this undermine confidence in President Biden if attacks occur, potentially offering Donald Trump and other prospective contenders for the presidency renewed opportunities to harness concerns about counterterrorism policies to boost their candidacies the way that Trump did in 2016; it creates additional incentives for al-Qaeda and ISIS to increase their efforts to push supporters in the US to perpetrate attacks. Indeed, as bin Ladin clearly understood, defying expectations about Salafi-Jihadists’ capabilities to advance their agendas that are set by their powerful enemies can help inspire confidence in groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Thus, perhaps it is not a coincidence that, right now, there is a push underway to help increase al-Qaeda’s capabilities to attract support from English speakers by increasing the availability of English-language translations of its propaganda.

[i] Citing the transliteration of the group’s name used by Khan.

[ii] The author was a contributing expert to the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus.

Five ways in which Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale and the Caliphate of ISIS share similarities

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Hulu series ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ filming at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC USA.
Photo Credit: vpickering, licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Television programmes have an undeniable influence, both positive but also negative over one’s behaviour. We can take the example of Sex and the City which emancipated women’s voices when talking about sex and enormously increased the sale of sex toys but also, how Thirteen Reasons Why, unfortunately influenced young girls to kill themselves, who wanted to follow the same pattern of the main character. Thus, we cannot deny the repercussions that these programmes and platforms such as Netflix can have: repercussions that are either voluntarily desired or collateral damage of their own fame. Moreover, some try to replicate real world events and portray on our screen true metaphors of reality. But the latter can also be done unconsciously. My understanding is that the country of Gilead (former United States of America) in the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, can be compared to the Caliphate of ISIS. Nonetheless, I do not believe that these similarities were made consciously. Indeed, Margaret Atwood explained in an interview that she was inspired by real-life events of baby stealing such as the ones in Argentina, the ones made by Hitler but also the ones on indigenous children in Australia, Canada and in the United States. Notwithstanding, as her dystopia is not something unrealisable, several comparisons can be made such as the one with the Islamist Caliphate. Indeed, in an interview, Margaret Atwood who followed closely the shooting of the show, said that what The Handmaid’s Tale display is not a dystopia that could never happen. On the contrary, she highlights the fact, when referring to the election of Donald Trump, that “the United States is not an authoritarian dictatorship, yet”. One rule for her book and the filming of the show “you can’t put anything that hasn’t already happen”.

A little context first, especially for those who haven’t watch the series. The Handmaid’s Tale retraces the history of June, a woman captured while trying to escape from Chicago with her husband and child. She is now prisoner of an authoritarian state that will transform her as a sexual slave. Indeed, she is taken to be a second-class citizen, a handmaid, with the purpose of bearing children for childless government officials of Gilead. The latter is actually the Northeastern coast and the Great South of the United States’s territory which is now governed by a religious-based autocracy. Gilead’s Officials’ explanation for such drastic measures is that the world is witnessing an unprecedented crisis, with fertility dropping among both men and women, this new society is made around the need to procreate. Thus, this television show has some interesting parallels in leadership and the treatment of humans which I will further elaborate upon. The Caliphate on the other hand, is the political-religious state comprising the Muslim community and the lands and peoples under its dominion in the centuries following the death (632 CE) of the Prophet Muhammad, that has been ill-revised by terrorist organisations such as ISIS, in order to proclaim their state.

First of all, both terms “Caliphate” and “Gilead” are referring to leadership. Indeed, Caliphate literally means “government of a caliph”, the caliph being a spiritual leader of Islam, the successor of the Prophet Muhammad. In Arabic, khalifa means “successor”. In Margaret Atwood’s creation, Gilead can be translated by Galaad which in the Bible represents a mountainous territory located in Jordan but also, the great-grandson of Joseph, son of Jacob. And the leaders of the Gilead’s Republic are called the Sons of Jacob. So here, in both cases being an official of the state is being someone linked to their religion.

Secondly, the place of women in both territories is similar. As Saltman and Frennet explain, ISIS’s pull factors regarding recruitment are based on (1) utopian ideals of building the Caliphate state, (2) individual duty and identity building, and (3) romanticization of the experience, both in travel and in forming a union with a jihadist. Furthermore, there is an idealization of gender roles where the roles of being a wife and a mother are emphasized. Contrary to the Islamic Caliphate, Gilead skip the recruitment phase as they kidnap all the handmaids. Nonetheless, this romanticization and idealization of the woman’s role in society is widely shared by other women present in Gilead, who willingly participate in this new society, such as the commander’s wives and the aunts (the women “educating” the handmaids). Women in both religious systems share the belief that they have the sacred duty to procreate[1], to give life to a new society where abortion is prohibited.

Thirdly, the narrative in both is very extremist and religiously fanatical. Gilead is a militarised, authoritarian, and theocratic regime, driven by religious fundamentalism. Through a series of coordinated attacks, Jacob’s sons assassinate the US President and members of Congress. In the series, White House staff and all nine Supreme Court Justices are also killed. Soon the US Constitution is suspended, bank accounts are frozen, and all women are fired. Outside of fiction, on June 29, 2014 the “State of the Islamic Caliphate” was declared by ISIS. This political-religious act is based on Qur’anic foundations of caliphal power. ISIS proclaims that it follows the principles of Islam, the Quran and Sharia law, that they are the drivers of their society[2]. Hence, the caliphate of today is the Islamist reappropriation of a classical political-religious ideal as Gilead is the reappropriation of the Bible by religious extremists.

Fourthly, following this ultra-extremism, in both societies, LGBTQ+, women committing adultery, people from other religions, and those breaking the law are rejected or even killed. In Gilead, the word “gay” doesn’t exist, they are rather qualified as ‘gender traitor’ and women committing adultery or from another religion or who broke the law are qualified as unwomen. On the other side of the spectrum, it is no secret that ISIS persecutes gay people. We have  footage and proof of ISIS members killing gay individuals, or even suspected gay individuals, multiple times. For example, in 2015, an ISIS judge in Palmyra, Syria, sentenced two homosexuals to death, throwing them from the roof of a hotel.

Finally, both societies are built upon hatred of the Other. Indeed, after taking power, Jacob’s sons in Gilead blamed “Islamic fanatics” (more explicitly stated in the novel but not so much in the TV show), and thus the military declared a state of emergency. On the other hand, we have the Caliphate which is powered by the hatred of the West. More precisely, they believe in the existence of a War on Islam. This conspiracy theory considers that Islam is under an existential threat and that the West wishes to destroy it. Hofstadter wrote that Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups believe in a conspiracy generalized by the Judeo-Christian-Capitalist quest to destroy Islam. Hence, both societies articulate around an enemy to hate.

To conclude, both societies are gender-segregated parallel institutions. While one is fictive, the other exists and tries to survive in our modern world. I do not infer that the analogy made in this article is that simple. Rather, I have tried to find some similarities and give another reading of The Handmaid’s Tale. This exercise shows how we can apply theories and academic knowledge of terrorism to a contemporary product. Nowadays, we cannot deny the power of platforms such as Netflix, HBO or Hulu which broadcast TV programmes that do have some educating roles. Indeed, these programmes are evolving alongside our societies and some try to have a moral, that the audience learns a lesson. It can be very interesting and pertinent to make analogies of this kind in order to understand the political but also societal messages hidden in some series. To finish with the words of Margaret Atwood, “some of the states in the United States have gone all the way to Gilead pretty much, regarding the outfits”, maybe what we see on TV that seems outrageous and unbelievable is actually happening just in front of our eyes and not so far away.

[1] Nonetheless, I do not say that everything is black and white, especially in the Islamist Caliphate. Indeed, there are also many accounts of women being given birth control, in some cases against their will, because it was thought that some men would be less willing to be martyrs if they had children.

[2] ISIS lecture of Islam is a violent one, as many say “terrorism has no religion”. So, even though ISIS claims that it follows Islam principles, they actually read and interpret Islam as they see fit.

The role of women in ISIS: From Wives and Mothers to Soldiers

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by Christina Chatzitheodorou

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

In much of the academic discourse on terrorism, the role of women tends to be overlooked. However, women have held a variety of roles in terrorist organisations. Such roles vary from logistics support to espionage, giving birth to a new generation of fighters, and sometimes operational and leadership positions. Ideology tends to have an effect on the roles women can hold in each organisation. For instance, in leftist organisations, women tend to hold more operational positions than in Islamist organisations, where their participation tends to be more about being a wife, a mother, a proselytiser, and a teacher. In the case of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the role of women changed from being wives and mothers of the fighters to more combatting roles out of operational necessity due to its territorial losses, or as Rita Katz mentions, “How Do We Know ISIS is Losing? Now it’s asking women to fight”. 

More precisely, up until 2019, when ISIS lost its last piece of territory, many women travelled to join ISIS despite its exceptional violence against women. Since its zenith in 2014, women have joined ISIS for the same reason that men decide to get involved: attraction of a new, noble cause to fight for and sentiment of inequality and marginalisation in their current societies. For the above reasons, some women travelled to Iraq and Syria to get involved romantically with ISIS members. Despite the reasons behind women’s decisions to join the terrorist organisation, their roles have been underexamined in the literature, especially the ones concerning the combat operations.

 Therefore, despite ISIS’ treatment of women, which has placed the organisation among the world’s worst perpetrators of gender-based violence, women support the organisation through various roles, from simply being wives and mothers of ISIS fighters or even by recruiting new members to participate in the jihad, in a struggle against non-believers and a moral betterment against one’s sinful proclivities. Consequently, even though the mistreatment of women in ISIS does not need further analysis, women were recruited both willingly and unwillingly, which shows women’s agency and the lack of it respectively and depending the case. Since 2015, 15 per cent of voluntary migrants to the Caliphate have been women, which makes it difficult to support a manichaeistic division, where women in ISIS are seen either as complete victims of sexual violence or women as independent agents that willingly travelled from the West to fight for the organisation. 

The most popular role of women in ISIS that was presented in the Western media revolves around the notion of the jihadist bride. Both women who travelled to Iraq and Syria and locals were expected to marry an ISIS fighter and give birth. The issue was first mentioned when the religious police female al-Khansa Brigade published a manifesto setting out the ideal role of women in the caliphate. As such, in 2014, their role could be summarised in giving birth to as many children as possible, as the concept of family in building the caliphate was essential. Women were to stay hidden, and only remain in the background, as keepers of the Islamist family values and morals. ISIS opposes the notion of gender equality and female education, which leads to abandonment of family values. Contrary to the expendability of men, women need to stay alive and give birth to the next generation of jihadists. Accordingly, it was common for jihadist brides to celebrate their husbands’ martyrdom and, at the same time, re-marry as soon as possible. However, it must be mentioned that even though women in ISIS had to build and maintain the Ummah and theoretically were prohibited from combat roles, it was an oxymora that the al-Khansa Brigade, acting as a hisba, a morality police force, were patrolling the streets with rifles in their shoulders. 

Moreover, women also helped recruit new members. Especially if a woman was a widow or remained unmarried, it was more possible to assign her such roles. Additionally, ISIS’s strategy relied on Western female recruits in order to motivate more women from abroad to join the organisation. Those women were also responsible for helping newly possible female members with technical issues on what to bring with them and what not to, any vaccinations that may be needed, and navigating them through the whole process.

Even though ISIS at its zenith repeatedly refused engaging women in qital, which means fighting in the way of Allah and it is not such a broad term as jihad, it reconsidered its firm position as soon when it started losing most of its territory. Such shift became apparent in 2017, when women’s involvement in combat operations from tenuous became permissible under circumstances. The abandonment of that ideological approach towards the role of women came as a result of ISIS territorial and military losses, which made the use of women in combat roles necessary. For instance, the Zura Foundation, a female-focused media platform aligned with ISIS, influenced women’s opinion in a variety of issues from carrying guns to cooking for ISIS fighters. The platform pointed out that it is permissible for women to fight due to operational necessity, at least in a defensive context and if they were instructed to by their emir, in case there are not enough men to defend their land. Moreover, in October 2017, ISIS openly called on women to fight against unbelievers and engage themselves in qital.  ISIS did not frame the participation of women in such extended roles as a result of losses, but as a natural extension of woman’s duty to defend the caliphate by using examples of women that fought for the Prophet. Their participation in the fight was seen as necessary in order to fight against evil, and hence, it was legitimised through the defence of their collective honour.

Some women also became suicide bombers in the name of faith and religion. Such a development came as a result of the sustained attack against the organisation. Therefore, in comparison with Boko Haram in Nigeria, where female suicide bombers became a famous tactic already since 2014, the first incident of female suicide terrorism in the caliphate only took place in 2017. It was in Mosul, in the last ISIS-held territory, that the Iraqi television crews filmed a woman being exploded with her baby. Since then, dozens of female suicide bombers have tried to approach the Iraqi troops with explosives, which points out the change of attitude concerning women’s participation in combat. 

Hence, as Charlie Winter argues, despite the established convention that derives from a doctrine dating back to the early years of Islam, where women stayed in the private sphere and were not supposed to fight, there are specific circumstances in which this becomes permissible. Accordingly, ISIS tried to reconcile its radical Islamist ideology, where women are not supposed to bear guns, and the practical need of recruiting women for combat roles due to its territorial losses to the Iraqi and Syrian government. These losses shifted IS strategy from the offensive to defensive and as a response to this new reality its rhetoric on women bearing arms also changed. 

In sum, women’s participation in combat has been justified based on operational needs, where the need for survival led to an ideological rationalisation that justifies the participation of women in combat roles due to the existential threat against the caliphate. The bifurcation of gender roles where women are seen as wives and mothers and men as the provider and the protector, or what Guidere calls the “theology of sexuality,” remained as long as it was beneficial to the organisation. However, the ideological change that appeared may end up more decisive for losing the support of its population base than the military and territorial losses in the area since 2017, as the gender division based on traditional roles was one of the elements that united the caliphate. Subsequently, other terrorist organisations may gain the support of a radicalised population by presenting themselves as the true believers in comparison with ISIS. 

Born and raised in Greece, Christina Chatzitheodorou studied International, European and Area Studies at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. She has a keen interest in strategic studies, irregular warfare and conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.

She currently studies War Studies at King’s College London and she volunteers in the Churchill War Rooms. She speaks English, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish and she is currently learning German and Arabic.

An ‘Islamic State of Al-Andalus’: a too distant dream?

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By Georgina McDonald

Figure 1 The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba (Image credit: Author’s own, G.M.)

Cementing and expanding the Islamic State is of the utmost importance to its leaders and supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who, broadly, advocate for the destruction of the West, a return to traditional Wahhabism for all Muslims and the restoration of an Islamic caliphate to unite Muslims worldwide under their leadership. ISIL rejects traditional nation-state identities, instead favouring an absolutist Islamist identity. This was reflected in a 2014 speech by former ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi upon the declaration of the Caliphate, who exclaimed ‘Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis’.  Consequently, multiple branches of ISIL have emerged across the world. Most recently and ferociously in Africa, where the Islamic State of the Central African Province, Islamic State of Somalia, and the Islamic State in Greater Sahara, for example, have appeared to spread their influence. However, if ISIL yearns for a restoration of the Caliphate, then why has Andalusia, or Al-Andalus, the region which holds the ‘Ka’aba of the West’, been neglected from this vision? Why have we not seen an ‘Islamic State of Al-Andalus’? 

Historical Background

The region of Andalusia spans nearly 90,000 square kilometres across the southern most land of Spain. It boasts incredible mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevada and stunning beaches along the Costa del Sol. However, it is in the architecture in the cities of Seville, Granada and Córdoba where the history of the region comes to light. This history is rich in culture and by walking the city streets one is easily able to identify Andalusia’s historic rulers.

In 711 CE, under the leadership of Tariq ibn Ziyad, an Islamic army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier. Within seven years they had conquered the region of Andalusia, ending Visigoth rule, and beginning an 800-year Muslim rule which eventually expanded as far as the borders of León, Castille, Navarra and Barcelona. During this period, the region became known as Al-Andalus. The invasion is generally viewed as an extension of the Muslim conquest of North Africa and a successful attempt to expand territory and influence. 

Stability was henceforth brought to the region by the Umayyad Caliphate in 756 CE. Amir Abd al-Rahman I had travelled from Damascus to Córdoba where he united the various Iberian Islamic factions under his rule. Later, in 929 CE, Abd al-Rahman III became Caliph and so, the Caliphate of Córdoba emerged. Arabic architecture and influence can be found in almost every city and town in Andalusia as a result. In Córdoba, the mosque, or mezquita, was converted from a Visigoth place of worship by al-Rahman in 786 CE, and is the main tourist attraction, known for its hidden Christian cathedral within. In Seville and Granada, the Giralda and the Alhambra respectively, evidence the intensifying rule which swept through Al-Andalus. 

The significance of Al-Andalus to the Islamic State has not been completely lost, however. After the 2017 Barcelona attacks claimed by the Islamic State, for the first time the terrorist organisation released a propaganda video in Spanish. One of the men in the video identifies himself as Al Qurtubí, the Arabic name for ‘the Córdoban’. Al Qurtubí threatened Spanish Christians, claiming that Al-Andalus will once again belong to the caliphate. Despite this acknowledgement, ISIL and its affiliates have not used terrorist tactics in the major cities of the region such as Seville, Málaga, Granada or Córdoba. Instead, their attacks have been focused on Barcelona and Madrid.

Barriers to retaking Al-Andalus

Theoretically, and historically, Andalusia should have great significance for Islamists. Reconquering the region would represent a remarkable step towards the return to the caliphate to unite Muslims worldwide. However, there are significant barriers to this vision. Firstly, the reason that ISIL was able to gain such large ground in Iraq and Syria was a direct result of existing political instability in the region. ISIL remarkably exploited the power vacuum which the US invasion and the capture of Saddam Hussein created in Iraq. Similarly, post-2011 saw ISIL exploit the collapse of the Assad regime and eventually control an area larger than the size of Great Britain. However, as an economically stable, democratic, western nation, Spain and the Spanish government have fortunately not experienced political strife on the level of that in Iraq and Syria. Without a power vacuum, ISIL could not take advantage of a lack of stable government in the same way it has done previously. Furthermore, many Iraqis and Syrians joined the ISIL citing economic reasons. In their war-torn communities where work was scarce, and with ISIL paying recruits, some felt they had no option. And some did not have an option at all. Many men were forced to join the terrorist organisation or face certain death. Fortunately, the inhabitants of Andalusia do not face the same difficulties, therefore are less likely to feel forced to seek aid from a terrorist organisation. 

In Europe, ISIL has mainly targeted major cities such as London, Paris, Barcelona and Brussels. This is more than likely a strategic move, to attract attention to their cause from politicians, the press and the public. Due to not being capital cities, the cities of Andalusia are less likely to draw as much attention. However, if ISIL was to attack Córdoba, for example, and it was framed in such a way that the attack indicated a resurgence of the old Muslim Caliphate, this then may draw more European eyes and instil more fear than any attack on London or Paris. Using a historical connection to the region as reasoning for attacks would potentially add legitimacy to their stake in the land in the eyes of their believers. Fortunately, this would not stand with the Spanish government nor with any Muslim who did not hold extremist Islamist views in Spain. Therefore, any attempt at resurgence into the area would undoubtedly be suppressed by Spanish civil and military authorities. 

Finally, Andalusia, while once a flourishing Muslim Caliphate, today does not have a large Muslim community in comparison to countries where ISIL thrived at its peak. In 2020, out of a total 8.4 million inhabitants in Andalusia, there were approximately 149,000 Muslims in the region with Spanish nationality, and a further 145,000 with Moroccan nationality. While a large Muslim population is of course not necessary for ISIL to commit terror attacks, it is perhaps more necessary, or at least helpful, for a realistic takeover of the region and formation of an Islamic State as seen in Iraq and Syria. ISIL attempts to use Islamic teachings in order to justify its actions, and while it could encourage a minority of those of the Muslim faith to join the cause, it is more likely fall on deaf ears of Andalusians as the majority are of different faiths or no faith at all.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that the region of Andalusia in the past has flourished under Muslim rule for an 800-year long period, it seems today that the Islamic State are not interested in developing an ‘Islamic State of Al-Andalus’. Perhaps they do not see the value of expending resources to commit terror attacks in a region in order to reclaim it as they know the Spanish civil and military authorities would quickly thwart their efforts. In addition, committing attacks in major European capital cities draws more attention to their cause. At this stage in the Islamic State’s existence, perhaps just gaining attention from the western world is more important than attacking with the aim to conquer. And in order to rule, having the popular support of the population, or at least marginal support, is significantly beneficial. Spain’s stable economy means its inhabitants are not forced to turn to extreme ideas and with only a marginal Muslim population, the Islamic States reliance on old Islamic scripture will not persuade the numbers they need to succeed in a resurgence. For these reasons, it seems an ‘Islamic State of Al-Andalus’ will likely remain a distant dream for Al Qurtubí and the Islamic State. 

 

Georgina is a recent graduate of King’s College, London where she studied for an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society, for which she achieved a Distinction. This article is Georgina’s first contribution to Strife but she hopes to write further blogs on topics including terrorism, international relations and foreign and domestic policy.

Franchise Jihad: The Role of the Bedouin for ISIL in Sinai

by

by Joseph Jarnecki

A snapshot of life for civilians in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula – a region wracked by conflict between Sinai’s ISIL affiliate and Egyptian security forces (Image Credit: 2017 CGTN)

The fall of Baghouz – the last bastion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – was meant to mark the end of the US-led coalition’s war. Instead, the battle was yet another milestone in the evolution of the self-appointed Caliphate. Stripped of contiguous territory, the pseudo-state now pursues its global Jihad by franchising its own brand of militancy to those groups it established, supported, or co-opted whilst at its height.[i]

The grouping Wilayat Sinai (WS) – or “Sinai Province” – which operates in Egypt’s easternmost region, the Sinai Peninsula, is an exemplar franchise. Swearing allegiance to ISIL in 2014, the group originally coalesced in 2011 from a diverse array of militant outfits under the name Ansar Bayat al-Maqdis (ABM – “the Partisans of Jerusalem”).[ii] Spearheading Sinai’s militant activity since its founding, WS’s campaign alone has inflicted over 1,200 casualties on security forces since 2014, leading Human Rights Watch (HRW) to classify the Peninsula as host to a Non-Intentional Armed Conflict (NIAC).[iii] Appreciating this context then, a broadened understanding of the enabling factors behind WS is fundamental to tackling both intra-Egypt militancy and the next steps of ISIL.

In this article, I will highlight the harmful nature of regime governance and its targeting of Sinai’s majority Bedouin population. Historic marginalisation of the Bedouin by Cairo, I believe, has been crucial to creating a climate in which WS could emerge and thrive.

Sinai’s Bedouin population: a rough outline of tribal land (Image credit: 2017 Discover Sinai and 2009 Clinton Bailey)

The return of Sinai and the reincorporation of the 15-20 Bedouin tribes whose lands criss-cross the Sinai/Israel/Palestine border in 1982 was a hollow victory for those Bedouin who gathered intelligence and facilitated Egyptian espionage whilst under Israeli occupation.[iv] The Cairo government pushed a narrative that quickly branded the Bedouin as Israeli ‘collaborators’ for taking available economic opportunities whilst under Israeli rule.[v] This perception has since been institutionalised and cements Egyptian nationalist sentiment wherein Bedouin identity is synonymous with primitiveness, criminality, and terrorism.[vi] A comment made by an Egyptian security official operating in Sinai that ‘the only good Bedouin is a dead Bedouin’ typifies this attitude.[vii]

Perceptions of Bedouin as “non-Egyptian” – emphasised by Cairo – then legitimise discriminatory policies which formalise the Bedouin as second-class citizens and Egypt as the Bedouin’s ‘fourth colonizer’.[viii]  Strategies reflecting this perception include the confiscation of over 200,000 acres of tribal land since Egyptian reoccupation, stripping the Bedouin of access to an agrarian livelihood.[ix] Meanwhile, this stolen land is given to Nile Valley settlers – as part of government plans to ‘Egyptianise’ Sinai [x] – or sold to state-linked tourism developers in South Sinai, promoting an industry in which Bedouins are barred from participating.[xi] Moreover, beyond the private sector, the Bedouin are excluded from the security forces and until 2007 were unable to vote.[xii] Both these measures exemplify the contempt with which the Bedouin are held by the government. Specific day-to-day governance in Sinai extends this contempt to broader securitisation of the Bedouin (wherein speech acts by the Egyptian government transform Bedouin communities from political constituencies into security threats)[xiii] with arbitrary mass arrests and forcible disappearances becoming ‘part of daily life’.[xiv]

Many Bedouins who are disaffected with government and are cut adrift from legitimate economic opportunities have in desperation turned to clandestine alternatives. Tribes, especially those with strong Gazan links and with lands which straddle the Israeli-Egyptian border now smuggle arms, drugs, and, more infrequently, militants. The 2008 escalation between Hamas and Israel as well as the imposition of an Egyptian supported embargo of Gaza has only increased this activity. Estimates now put the annual revenue from smuggling at $300 to $500 million [xv] and in just 2008 an expansion of smuggling and its related activities shrunk the estimated formal and informal unemployment rate of Rafah – a large North Sinai town – from 50% to 20%.[xvi]

As a result of smuggling, ‘sophisticated and heavily armed gangs’[xvii] have emerged which provide economic opportunities and a chance of retaliation against the security forces. At the same time, because of their inability to provide similar incentives, tribal leaders have lost influence, especially over ‘new generations of disgruntled youth’.[xviii] These gangs smuggle for WS who have used ISIL’s funds and its ideational authority to source sophisticated weaponry and recruit approximately 1,500 combatants.[xix] Some of these fighters are young Bedouins who work the smuggling lanes and are either radicalised or lured by the chance to get back at security forces.[xx] Examples of WS Bedouin are few, however, with the ISIL affiliate being mostly composed of deserters from Egyptian security forces, ‘persistent local insurgents,’ and foreign veteran insurgents.[xxi] The prevalence of the last category within WS means local guides and boltholes, crucial to operating an insurgency that relies on asymmetrical information to combat superior armed forces, are needed and are most easily sourced from amongst the Bedouin.

In the  ‘880 attacks between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2016’ [xxii] carried out by WS, Bedouin assistance has been indispensable, providing local knowledge without which the militant’s hit-and-run tactics would fail in the face of an estimated ‘500:1 [military] power’ imbalance.[xxiii] Their provision of auxiliary support by procuring weapons and personnel whilst also acting as guides and maintaining safe havens demonstrates the true cost of their marginalisation for the Egyptian government.

Despite the generation’s worth of persecution faced by the Bedouin, the current status quo does not have to continue. The relationship between the Bedouin, even those in charge of smuggling operations, and WS is not positive. Replicating ISIL strategies, WS has sought to seize areas and enforce their interpretation of Islam.[xxiv] To this end, they operate ‘multiple detention sites where they interrogate detained civilians,’ including Bedouins.[xxv] Additionally, extensive attacks on Sinai’s Christian population ostracise some Bedouin like the Jebeliya tribe, who has deep-rooted historical links to Sinai’s Christian orthodox population. Moreover, a WS crackdown on cigarette and marijuana smuggling damages relations with those same Bedouin smugglers on whom they rely.[xxvi]

In light of this, the door is not closed for a rapprochement between Bedouin tribal leaders and Egypt’s government, though the intricacies of this process will require careful handling. The first step must be to reincorporate Sinai as an integral part of Egypt’s identity and to acknowledge the Bedouin’s place within the Peninsula. By legitimising their status as citizens and bringing arbitrary arrests to an end, the government may win over those Bedouin who are on the front-line of insurgent violence. Reconciliation with the Bedouin, however, will also require an end to their economic exclusion from agriculture and tourism. As Bedouins integrate within the legitimate economy, WS will be deprived of the auxiliary support on which they must rely to survive.  Whilst Sinai only offers a snapshot into the future of ISIL, it is an important one. A central lesson the conflict offers is that when a franchise of ISIL emerges, we must look beyond its links to the self-appointed Caliphate and examine the unique structural conditions which facilitate its existence where it arises.

Joseph is a third-year BA student in International Relations at the King’s War Studies Department. His main areas of focus are conflict and (in)security in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly Egypt, and on theories of subjectivity within International Relations. His dissertation project aims to incorporate these areas of interest when investigating how critical military studies – specifically its reappraisal of militarism – contribute to analyses of formerly colonised spaces. Before joining King’s Joseph interned with the Huffington Post and established a school magazine on a diverse range of subjects. You can follow him on Twitter @Jarnecki.

[i] Michael Hart, ‘The Troubled History of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula’, International Policy Digest, 2016 <https://intpolicydigest.org/2016/05/30/the-troubled-history-of-egypt-s-sinai-peninsula/> [accessed 10 June 2019].

[ii] Iffat Idris, Sinai Conflict Analysis (Britghton: Institute of Development Studies, 2 March 2017), p. 3 <https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/13052> [accessed 29 May 2019].

[iii] Human Rights Watch, ‘If You Are Afraid for Your Lives, Leave Sinai!’: Egyptian Security Forces and ISIS-Affiliate Abuses in North Sinai (Human Rights Watch, 2019), pp. 2 & 35 <https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/egypt0519_web3_0.pdf>.

[iv] Sahar F. Aziz, ‘Rethinking Counterterrorism in the Age of ISIS: Lessons from Sinai’, Nebraska Law Review, 95.2 (2016), 308–65 (p. 322).

[v] Oliver Walton, Conflict, Exclusion and Livelihoods in the Sinai Region of Egypt (Governance and Social Development Resource Centre, 20 September 2012), p. 7 <http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/hdq834.pdf> [accessed 6 November 2019].

[vi] Sahar F Aziz, De-Securitizing Counterterrorism in the Sinai Peninsula (Washington and Doha: Brookings Institution, April 2017), pp. 13–14 <https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/de-securitizing-counterterrorism-in-the-sinai-peninsula_aziz_english.pdf> [accessed 3 June 2019]; Idris, pp. 8–10.

[vii] Wikileaks, Internal Security in Sinai–an Update (Egypt Cairo, 14 March 2005) <https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05CAIRO1978_a.html> [accessed 1 August 2019].

[viii] Angela Joya and Evrim Gormus, ‘State Power and Radicalization in Egypt’s Sinai’, The Researcher: The Canadian Journal for Middle East Studies, 1.1 (2015), 42–40 (p. 52).

[ix] Sahar F. Aziz, p. 327.

[x] Joya and Gormus, p. 55.

[xi] Idris, p. 10.

[xii] Walton.

[xiii] Ole Wæver, Securitization and Desecuritization (Centre for Peace and Conflict Research Copenhagen, 1993).

[xiv] Human Rights Watch, p. 3.

[xv] Idris, p. 10; Sahar F Aziz, p. 3.

[xvi] Sahar F. Aziz, p. 337.

[xvii] Walton, p. 6.

[xviii] Sahar F. Aziz, p. 328.

[xix] Hart.

[xx] A Batrawy, ‘Egypt’s Most Extreme Hardliners in Sinai Revival’, Associated Press, 2012 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10392343>.

[xxi] Omar Ashour, ISIS and Wilayat Sinai: Complex Networks of Insurgency under Authoritarian Rule, DGAP Kompakt (Berlin: Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, 2016), p. 8 (p. 6) <https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/54270/ssoar-2016-ashour-ISIS_and_Wilayat_Sinai_Complex.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y&lnkname=ssoar-2016-ashour-ISIS_and_Wilayat_Sinai_Complex.pdf>.

[xxii] Omar Ashour, ‘Sinai’s Insurgency: Implications of Enhanced Guerilla Warfare’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 42.6 (2019), 541–58 (p. 546) <https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1394653>.

[xxiii] Ashour, ISIS and Wilayat Sinai: Complex Networks of Insurgency under Authoritarian Rule, pp. 5–6.

[xxiv] Human Rights Watch, p. 9.

[xxv] Human Rights Watch, p. 37.

[xxvi] Idris, p. 4.