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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.

On the Ceasefire Babies, the Inheritance of Trauma, and the Legacy of Lyra McKee

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by Natasia Kalajdziovski

Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

‘Derry tonight. Absolute madness’. These were the last words tweeted out by Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee on the evening of 18 April 2019, before she was shot in the head by the dissident republican group The New Irish Republican Army (New IRA). A promising young voice for her generation – one which has been dubbed the ‘Ceasefire Babies’ – McKee was murdered just a week after the twenty-first anniversary of the signing of The Good Friday Agreement (GFA)[1] which brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland.  Although the Troubles, as it is colloquially called, formally ended over two decades ago, its legacy continues to claim the lives of people in Northern Ireland.

The context which led to McKee’s death is not unfamiliar to those with knowledge of the Troubles. McKee had recently moved to Londonderry, or Derry,[2] from her hometown of Belfast to be with her partner, Sarah Canning. A night of rioting had engulfed the Creggan Estate and McKee – in her role as a journalist and extensive writer on life in Northern Ireland – went to observe. This was a kind of rioting that was far from unknown to Derry and its people. The city housed some of the first civil rights events during the Troubles, including the march on 5 October 1968 – frequently cited as the true starting point of the conflict – in which the province’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), baton-charged protesters in full view of television cameras broadcasting the event. It was also the site of the infamous Battle of the Bogside, a three-day riot in August 1969 between the RUC, the B-Specials, and civilians which led to the establishment of ‘Free Derry’, a self-declared Irish republican ‘no-go’ enclave of the city. Rioting spread to other parts of Northern Ireland and the fallout of the event, most notably, firmly entrenched Westminster into Northern Irish affairs through its deployment of the British Army on its own soil – one which would come to be the Army’s longest continuous deployment in its history.

The potential for violence in spring 2019 was not unexpected: it was April, a time in which the Easter Rising of 1916 was always marked, and the New IRA – alongside their political wing, Saoradh – had been more vocal on their social media channels leading up to the GFA’s anniversary on the 10th. In the week between the latter’s anniversary and McKee’s murder eight days later, local social media posts showed a convoy of police crossing the River Foyle in preparation for any potential clashes. The intervening days witnessed boys in hoodies, tracksuits, and scarves come together to hurl petrol bombs and other ‘missiles’ at the police, resulting in a van being set alight, followed by a car.

By this juncture, a riot such as this – of the police coming in; of local youth responding in kind – had become a kind of orchestrated dance, a playing of parts, so well-versed after more than fifty years of repetition on the same stage. For McKee, her experiences of the riot would have been similar to so many others who had come before her in Derry: the civil rights marchers; the Bogsiders; the civilians who were met with bullets on Bloody Sunday in 1972. McKee would meet the same fate as those who were killed on Bloody Sunday, this time silenced by the guns of dissident republicans intent upon continuing the armed struggle despite the protestations of an exhausted society who overwhelmingly want nothing to do with it.

For McKee and the Ceasefire Babies, it was not supposed to be like this – it was not supposed to be more repetitions of the past on a well-worn stage. McKee wrote extensively on the Ceasefire Babies, a generation to whom, being born in 1990, she belonged. They are, in her words, ‘those too young to remember the worst of the terror because we were either in nappies or just out of them when the [1994 ceasefire] was called’, although it is a name she has ‘always hated’, for it suggested that ‘growing up in the 90s in Belfast was a stroll’.

In a ground-breaking 2016 article entitled ‘Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies’, McKee found that in the 16 years which proceeded the end of the Troubles, more people had taken their own lives than died during them at the hands of paramilitary or state violence – a staggering reality. While suicide had most strikingly affected those who had lived through the worst period of Troubles-related violence, from 1970-1977, it had disproportionately affected the Ceasefire Babies, too. They were the ones who were supposed to reap the greatest benefits from a newly peaceful Northern Ireland – and yet, nearly one-fifth of suicides recorded since 1998 come from this generation who had no direct experience of the violence. In just over a six-week period in 2004, the Ardoyne area of Belfast alone saw 13 Ceasefire Babies, all young men, kill themselves – an incomprehensible level of loss for one community at an unfathomable generational cost.

Further, according to findings presented in McKee’s investigation, 39% of the Northern Irish population suffers from post-traumatic stress related to events experienced during the conflict. But it seems, too, that the inter-generational trauma of violence has seeped its way into the lives of McKee’s generation – either from a mental health perspective or, in McKee’s case, in the physical manifestation of that lingering connection to the past. Perhaps most unjustly, however, the Ceasefire Babies have little interest in the baggage of the past which they are invariably forced to carry. Writing in 2014 about the irrelevance to her generation about the old constitutional debate, McKee put plainly: ‘I don’t want a united Ireland or a stronger Union. I just want a better life’.

It is perhaps McKee’s general observations of the conflict and its ongoing memory that bear most repeating:

Many people have grown to dislike the use of the word ‘war’ to describe what happened here. The term ‘the conflict’ became a more acceptable alternative, even if it made a 30-year battle sound like a lover’s tiff. It’s got the ring of a euphemism, the kind one might use to refer to a shameful family secret […] I witnessed its last years, as armed campaigns died and gave way to an uneasy tension we natives of Northern Ireland have named ‘peace’, and I lived with its legacy, watching friends and family members cope with the trauma of what they could not forget.

Living with – and dying as a result of – the legacy of the Troubles has unfortunately come to define Lyra McKee’s life. And yet, its legacy is not just the burden to bear of the people of Northern Ireland; rather, it is arguably that of the British state, too.

At McKee’s funeral, British Prime Minister Theresa May and Northern Irish Secretary Karen Bradley – alongside Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Irish President Michael D. Higgins – were all in attendance as both a sign of solidarity and as a collective condemnation of the violence which had led to McKee’s death. After the funeral, Canning – McKee’s partner – revealed in an interview that when they had come to shake her hand during the service, she ‘took each of them to task for failing to take responsibility for Northern Ireland, thus creating a vacuum that Lyra’s killers had occupied’. Although in mourning, Canning was not acting in grief. Rather, she took her chance to speak a kind of truth to powers which had, alongside the actions of violent paramilitary groups operating during the conflict, left a legacy for which not all lingering questions felt addressed. The lack of answers, the lack of closure, the lack of truth and reconciliation, can only work to impede the civilian population’s ability to cope with, in McKee’s words, ‘the trauma of what they could not forget’.

The legacy of the Troubles, however, need not be one that is solely defined by its trauma, injustice, and violence. It is one defined by hope, too, and the potential for change – and the responses to McKee’s death are a testament to that hope. A few days after her death, on the famous ‘Free Derry’ corner that defines the Bogside area of the city, someone had spray-painted ‘Not in Our Name. RIP Lyra’, to reflect the revulsion felt about her murder. Further, dissident slogans spray-painted around the city were graffitied over, including one which removed the ‘un’ from the infamous republican phrase ‘unfinished revolution’. One Sinn Féin councillor in the city, Kevin Campbell, noted the kind of sea change that such action had marked by unknown activists, in which dissident republican messaging had been previously untouchable. In Campbell’s words, such action ‘shows they’re not afraid of them’.

Murals related to the conflict, of which Belfast and Derry are famous, are part of that collective memory of the conflict, used most frequently to honour and exonerate paramilitary men killed during the Troubles, and many remain untouched today. And yet, slowly things change, and new heroes are defined. Around the corner from where McKee grew up on the ‘Murder Mile’ in Belfast – a Catholic area once known as the stalking ground for the murderous loyalist paramilitary group, the Shankill Butchers – another mural has emerged in the time since her death. It is one of McKee laughing, posed beside the words she had written to her 14-year-old self, about what it was like to come out in a largely religious society. These words are not those of gun- and bomb-toting men intent on violent political change; rather, they are the words of a young and promising journalist who just wanted more for her generation, and for Northern Ireland:

‘It won’t always be like this. It’s going to get better’.

If you have been affected by any of the themes in this article and need to talk, you can reach Samaritans in the UK and the Republic of Ireland at 116 123, CALM in the UK at 0800 58 58 58, and Lifeline in Northern Ireland at 0808 808 8000.

[1] Formally, The Belfast Agreement (1998).

[2] For those familiar with the politics of Northern Ireland, the name of Londonderry/Derry remains contentious. To avoid delving deeply into this debate, and to avoid any potential accusations that the author has taken a political position on the city’s name, this article will ascribe to the BBC’s news style guide, which states that: ‘The city should be given the full name at first reference, but Derry can be used later’. As such, hereafter throughout the remainder of the article, the city shall be called ‘Derry’. For more, see: BBC. “BBC News Style Guide”. 14 August 2020. Accessed 27/10/2020. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/d

Natasia Kalajdziovski is a senior editor at Strife.

She is a PhD candidate at Middlesex University, where she was awarded a fully funded research studentship to complete her studies. She holds a first-class MA from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and an Honours BA from the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Broadly speaking, her research examines the role and conduct of intelligence practice in counterterrorism in the national security context, using historical case studies as the foundation of her research. Outside of academia, Natasia frequently contributes to publications in the counterterrorism field, and she consults with various organisations as a subject-matter expert in her areas of research expertise. She is also a junior research affiliate with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS) and an elected postgraduate member of the Royal Historical Society.

Female Suicide Bombers: An Uncomfortable Truth

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By Anne Preesman

Black Widow ready for action (Daily Star, 2010)

In the early 2000s, Russia engaged in a violent war with its southern republic of Chechnya. During the conflict, the Chechen insurgents increasingly resorted to terrorist attacks, the hostage crisis in a Moscow theatre in 2002 being one of them. The attacks were characterised by female suicide bombers who the press named ‘Black Widows’ because many had lost their husbands during the conflict. These women are not unique; other terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda, also employ female jihadis as suicide bombers.

There is a broad literature on how conflict is related to gender roles; Enloe, for instance, argues in her work ‘Bananas, Beaches, and Bases’ that militarisation enforces the masculine social order. At the same time, we observe that women take over traditionally ‘male’ roles during war, such as working in military factories. However, society tends to be more uncomfortable with the idea of women being active combatants. Elshtain argues that this is caused by the fact that society tends to view women as ‘life-givers’ instead of ‘life-takers’. According to Cook, this leads to women’s roles in war and terrorist organisations not being accurately recognised.
Although women historically played a more passive role during times of conflict because they were often not conscripted, we should not neglect those who were active in combat. For example, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) sent women to occupied France to sabotage German operations during the Second World War. Female suicide bombers are, thus, not the first women to act as active combatants during times of conflict. Still, female suicide bombers are unique because of their high commitment; they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause. The common view of female suicide bombers is that they are from highly traditional Islamic societies where they have an inferior position. Although this piece will focus on Islamic female suicide bombers, it is essential to note that not all female suicide bombers are connected to Islam. Furthermore, the idea that women in Islamic societies have an inferior position is a Western perspective; instead, the Quran argues against female oppression in various verses. 

However, it remains interesting to study if women’s social status pushes them to suicide attacks; therefore, I ask: Does a woman’s place in society push her towards suicide bombing roles?

Although women have been active in combat for centuries, men have actively resisted the idea of using women as a weapon, let alone employing their weaponised bodies as a tactical ‘tool’. It namely conflicts with the idea of women as ‘life-givers’. Using women, however, offers a tactical advantage. Women can pass security checks with greater ease, allowing them to have better access to potential targets. This makes female suicide attacks often more lethal than male attacks. Female attacks also receive more media attention, giving the terrorist group a broader reach. The Chechens were not the only ones trying to benefit from these tactical advantages. One of the first known attacks dates back to 1985 when a teenage girl drove a bomb-laden car into an Israeli defence force in Lebanon. In the modern day, other acts of terrorism committed by women can be found in Sri Lanka, Israel and Palestine, Turkey, Nigeria, and Russia.

In the literature, views on female suicide bombers and their motivations differ enormously. There is the idea that female suicide bombers are ‘failed women’; they are divorcees, infertile, victims of rape, or they lost their husbands, meaning they cannot fulfil their designated societal roles as wives or mothers. This can have two reinforcing consequences. First, these grievances can cause women to commit to the cause and make them willing to participate in suicide attacks. Interestingly, research finds that female empowerment is only a minor motivating factor for women joining a terrorist group, let alone perpetrating a suicide bombing. Second, being more controversial, one could also argue that such ‘failed women’ feel useless in society, making them useful to terrorist groups. These women may feel that the only way to become worthy to society again is by sacrificing themselves. Additionally, because women are hardly ever found in leadership positions, they are ‘replaceable’ to the group and thus suitable suicide bombers. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Samantha Lewthwaite, the White Widow who likely orchestrated the terrorist attack on a university in Kenya. Still, terrorist organisations remain very much a man’s world. 

However, it should also be pointed out that not all female suicide terrorists are necessarily ‘failed women’. We also see highly educated, politically engaged, and/or married women committing suicide terrorism acts. Furthermore, female suicide bombers are not only from non-Western states; Western women have committed suicide bombings too, Muriel Degauque being a notorious example.

In short, it would be incorrect to argue that there is one specific ‘type’ of female suicide bomber. At the same time, however, the attacks also affect women’s roles after they have occurred. Female participation does not necessarily lead to emancipation; instead, suicide attacks can reinforce women’s inferior positions. Although some female suicide bombers have been romanticised, like Palestinian Wafa Idris, most of them are perceived as ‘failed women’ after being involved in terrorism. Palestinian terrorism especially, elevates men but shames women. Thus, women who were unsuccessful in perpetrating their suicide attacks are not only forced back into their traditional roles; their positions are even worse than before they joined the fighting. Finally, it should also be noted that not all female suicide bombers are voluntary perpetrators. Boko Haram, for example, is known to coerce women into committing suicide attacks, although it denies these allegations. For these women, suicide bombings are not a process of female liberation but a method of female oppression and a sign of male domination.

The presence of female suicide bombers shows that women are not only passive actors in times of conflict. However, there is no exact ‘type’ of woman that commits such attacks; different female suicide bombers can come from different societal positions. These women do have in common that their attacks do not elevate the positions of women in their societies. Although some women become martyrs, most societies look down on their terrorist acts. If women were to survive their time in a terrorist group, their positions are more likely to deteriorate instead of improve.

 

Anne Preesman is an MA student taking Intelligence and International Security. She is interested in the role of women in terrorist groups and conflict in the Post-Soviet space.

Influence on the Arabic world by Macron’s Al Jazeera interview

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By Clara Didier

 

What the Article I of the 1958 French Constitution has never been that threatened in decades and even more recently with the beheading of the French teacher, Samuel Paty. The Article I is at follows: ‘France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs.’ In this article, we are going to analyse how France is fragilized between respecting all religions and denouncing religious extremism. For this purpose, a survey has been conducted, regrouping 24 answers from 87.5% being students both French or English, between 20-30 years old, 57.1% of woman, all from different religious backgrounds or none. 

The three simultaneous terrorist attacks which happened the 13th of November 2015 in Paris, killed 130 people and injured 413. But not only they have hurt people, but they also explicitly attacked freedom and freedom of expression written in the articles 10 and 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Since then, a campaign against Islamism was ordered by François Hollande, the former French president. This fight against extremism, violence, reinterpretation of Islam is now continued by Mr Macron. Nonetheless, he is being misunderstood and we can ask ourselves if his policies towards Islamism are the right ones. 

President Macron has enacted several controversial laws and actions. The first law on separatism at school and the second one being the authorization – or at least letting it happen – of circulating cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in schools. It happened in a context of national mourning, with the death of the French teacher Samuel Paty, decapitated because he showed those cartoons in class. But this authorization created an outrage among the Muslim community, both French and abroad. Boycotts were implemented against France and the French President has been severely criticized by numerous leaders and populations, it involved Turkey, Bangladesh, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even said that ‘Macron needs mental treatment’. 

In this context, Mr Macron delivered an interview with Al-Jazeera, a Qatari satellite television channel. French newspaper Liberation, talks about a ‘well-calibrated clarification operation’. Not only because of the Qatar-based channel’s notoriety and extensive Arabic-speaking audience, but because it has been at the forefront of relaying anti-French criticism across Arab-Muslim countries. The interview was given a day after the attack in Nice’s church. What can be remembered from his speech is his feeling of being widely misunderstood. Indeed, the Arab-Muslim world understood that he was the one authorizing cartoons to be showed to children. The cartoons of the Prophet were not published at the initiative of the government but by ‘free and independent newspapers’, he explained. He underlined, ‘I understand that one can be shocked by cartoons, but I will never accept that violence can be justified. Our freedoms, our rights, I consider that it is our vocation to protect them.’ Translations of his speeches were incorrect and as his interviewer Salam Kawakibi explains: ‘It is a lesson that is necessary in countries where all expression is locked by power and where people cannot imagine that a newspaper publishes what it wants without a green light from above’.

Through the survey I have made, I analysed the repercussion of this interview. I noticed a clear divergence of opinion, on the one hand some people thought that the speech was ‘inflammatory’, ‘unnecessary’ or even ‘paternalist’. On the other hand, some people thought it was a ‘straightforward communication from Macron’, ‘he clearly distinguishes between Islamist terrorists and moderate Muslims who practice their faith peacefully’ and that ‘any accusations of Islamophobia regarding Macron’s speech are totally unwarranted (and unfortunately politically motivated)’. 54.2% think that the last law from the French government regarding separatism and secularity is not Islamophobic, against 41.7% who think it is. Subsequently, 62.5% do not believe that showing cartoons of the Prophet in schools is Islamophobic. Almost all of those interviewed, knew the difference between Islam and Islamism. Furthermore, 70.8% condemn the boycotts against France.

Through the analysis of this survey, it has come to my understanding that it is still unclear for people how Macron is handling Islamism in France. Answers by French individuals were more straightforward and informed contrary to English ones. So, was his interview understood by everyone? And more importantly by the Arabic world? According to Qatari newspaper, the French president’s interview was ‘a world-class media event’.

Probably one of the most spectacular reactions is from the UAE Foreign Minister, Anwar Gargash. In the German daily Die Welt, he said: ‘You should listen to what Macron really said in his speech: he doesn’t want the ghettoisation of Muslims in the west, and he is absolutely right’. He added: ‘with his attacks on France, Erdogan is manipulating a religious issue for political purposes’, Muslims ‘are in need to be integrated in a better way; the French state has the right to search for ways to achieve this in parallel with combating extremism and societal closure.’ The Egyptian editorialist Waël Qandil wrote in the columns of the Qatari website Al-Araby Al-Jadid ‘Macron: more than a step back, almost an excuse’. According to him, ‘he has completely changed his language and adopted a conciliatory tone’. This statement is to be put in contrast with his last column before the interview, calling Mr Macron an ‘obsessive racist’ who ‘shoots hate bullets’ at Muslims. This reaction from some Arab media outlets suggests that this interview did have a positive impact, even if considered as an ‘excuse’, the Arabic world (for most countries), better understand Macron’s policies now. 

Nonetheless, when we look at the other end of the Arab political spectrum, with Hakem Al-Mutairi for example, one of the founding members of the Salafist movement in Kuwait, reacted on his Twitter account: ‘Macron’s retreat on Al-Jazeera is a diabolical ruse. The Islamic boycott must continue until the official stop of the exhibition of the drawings and until there is a real apology for this serious aggression against Islam’. 

On Monday 7 December 2020, Mr Macron met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi. The latter told the press at the Elysée that religious values must have supremacy over human values and that ‘human rights come second’. His French counterpart replied: ‘The value of man is superior to everything’. Once again, the French president shows his determination to govern a secular country that respects everyone. However, the award of the Legion of Honour given to the Egyptian president was a sensation, once again questioning the words and convictions of President Macron. 

To conclude, France is attacked on all its fronts, on all its borders and on all its values but will never stop to respect everyone.

 

My name is Clara Didier, I’m a 20 years old French International Relations MA student at King’s College. I would like to become a war reporter in the future and work especially in two regions, the Middle-East and South America. I’ve always been interested in war related subjects as my father taught history and geography when I was younger. And more recently, since the Bataclan’s attacks as a family member was in the front line, in terrorism. Regarding war I am particularly interested in secret wars, secrecy, hidden intelligence, what is happening backstage and the results of it, sometimes leading to dirty consequences. Regarding terrorism, it’s a human and sociological curiosity that pushed me in studying how someone (especially citizens in democratic countries) can decide to enroll, radicalise and use violence.

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.