Isis, a year of the caliphate: What is it that the so-called 'Islamic State' really wants?
In the third instalment of our series, we ask apanelof experts what are the group’s short, medium and long-term goals
- Adam Withnall,Danny Romero
- Monday 29 June 2015
When it declared its territories as a caliphate one year ago, Isis stated its ultimate aim as the establishment of a single,globalstate under its interpretation of Islamic rule.
Conquering the whole world is clearly a target for the extreme long term – particularly for a group which appears to be struggling toadvancemuch beyond its swathe of northern Syria and Iraq.
So what does Isis really want? Here we ask a panel of leading experts what goals the militants claim to have – and how much of that they can practically achieve.
To expand like the Nazis did in Europe
Joseph Willits is an official with the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) and a former teacher based in Syria
Isis’s main goal is create a state under a Caliph in Muslim-majority lands. Its expansion should be regarded in similar terms to that of the Nazis in Europe, and the ambitions it has on the key capitals of the region; namely Baghdad and Damascus.
Isis has already begun the eradication of the borders of Iraq and Syria and would like to do the same elsewhere. It will focus on the most tempting targets where similar conditions existed prior to their takeover in much of Iraq and Syria. The weakening of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) could allow for expansion there.
To consolidate their rule
Daniel Koehler is the director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies (Girds)
Their ultimate goal has ever been the establishment of the caliphate, i.e. controlling a certain geographical area and turning into a “real” state. This is the ultimate goal for all jihadist groups.
Practically, right now it is to hold their territory and consolidate their rule, while they also have to push away competing jihadist groups. I also think that after thinking they could overrun Iraq they are concentrating more on Syria and Assad right now.
To establish an effective state
Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, via a spokesperson
What is abundantly clear is that Isil (another name for Isis) falsely uses the name of Islam to commit barbaric atrocities against Muslims and non-Muslims.
Isil claims to have established an effective state for Iraqis and all Sunni Muslims. But the reality is the reverse – people face hunger, disease and violence. Our focus is on keeping the British people safe from the threat posed by Isil. If we allow Isil to grow, the level of threat to this country would increase.”
To rule all the world
Patrick Cockburn is The Independent’s Middle East correspondent
Isis wants all Muslims to declare allegiance to its caliphate and the caliphate to rule all the world. Its more practical objectives are to survive and expand which it has so far succeeded in doing.
To challenge the great enemies of the past
Peter Welby is an analyst for Religion & Geopolitics, part of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation
The final aspect of the Isis narrative is a focus on the end times, drawing extensively on Hadith literature, selectively (and occasionally figuratively, in contrast to the group’s claims to literalism) applied.
This explains the focus on ‘Rome’ (or Byzantium, read: the United States) and ‘Persia’ (Iran), the two great enemies of the growing Islamic empire in the eighth century and beyond. It also draws on the location of the battle.
The town of Dabiq, in northern Syria, features in some prophecies as the location of one of the great battles of the end times. In every issue of the propaganda magazine of the same name, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is quoted: "The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify – by Allah's permission – until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq.”
To top the ‘pyramid of terror’
Dr Natasha Underhill is an expert on terrorism in the Middle East at Nottingham Trent University and author of Countering Global Terrorism and Insurgency
The goal of achieving a caliphate is one shared by many extremist Islamic organisations, al-Qaeda included. The aim of Isis is to actually reach this goal and it is well on its way to doing so.
The group is also extremely intelligent in terms of expanding its remit and as we may see in the coming months, political objectives will begin to come more to the forefront than ever before.
Its first goal would be to control as much of the Middle East as physically possible. This would provide it with legitimacy and give it more credence in the eyes of its followers.
The second goal would be to carry off a spectacular attack against the West. A 9/11-esque attack would once and for all place Isis on the top of the 'terrorist pyramid' and for it and its followers signal the death knell for al-Qaeda.
To reach a generation of Muslims
Farah Pandith is a former Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the US State Department and senior fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics
Isis has stated that it wants to build a caliphate, and they have a careful, steady and organised plan to demonstrate the strength of their conviction and purpose, their military strength and the strength of their right to be the saviours of what they see as Islam.
So while they are aiming towards a long-term strategy, they have very specific ways in which they’re doing it.
I think that their ability to get to their goals will only be prevented if we understand that we all need to believe and act. A quarter of the planet is Muslim. That’s 1.6 billion people, 62 per cent of that number is under the age of 30. So that matters to us and we need to understand that the threat is not just Isis but the demographic that is being affected, and the virtual armies that will be around long after Isis is gone.
The sky is the limit
Hassan Hassan is the co-author of Isis: Inside the Army of Terror and associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House
The group is expansionist and thrives on gaining more territory. The sky is the limit for it, unless it is forced to remain in its territories and then shrink. Its ideology is global and inspires like-minded adherents throughout the world.
Just to survive
Charlie Winter is an analyst with the counter-extremism think-tank Quilliam
Being a cynic I think Isis’s goal is quite simple – just to survive.
That survival comes through the perception of momentum and expansion, but at the same time Isis’s narrative only works if it is seen to ensure stability and consolidation.
That means its appeal doesn’t just extend to ideological supporters of jihad – it also draws in those who are sick and tired of war.
In the next few months Isis will be trying to establish a sense of stability, then publicise it. Because everything – theirbrand, recruitment, attacks abroad – all of it is geared towards increasing their relevance.
They talk about the apocalypse, taking Rome, raising the black flag over Buckingham Palace, but I think that’s all just rhetoric. There may be those in their ranks who want to do that. But for the group it is a way of drawing in new recruits – just to survive.
at is the Islamic State?
Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December,The New York Timespublished confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.
RELATED STORY
What to Do About ISIS?
The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been its leader since May 2010, but until last summer, his most recent known appearance on film was a grainy mug shot from a stay in U.S. captivity at Camp Bucca during the occupation of Iraq. Then, on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations—upgrading his resolution from grainy to high-definition, and his position from hunted guerrilla to commander of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing.
Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.
The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.
We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways. First, we tend to see jihadism as monolithic, and to apply the logic of alQaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it. The Islamic State supporters I spoke with still refer to Osama bin Laden as “Sheikh Osama,” a title of honor. But jihadism has evolved since al-Qaeda’s heyday, from about 1998 to 2003, and many jihadists disdain the group’s priorities and current leadership.
Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)
We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first bookHoly War, Inc.in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohamed Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.
An interview with Graeme Wood: The author describes how he tracked down the world’s most influential recruiters for the Islamic State—and how they reacted after reading this story.
There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State’s officials and supporters themselves. They refer derisively to “moderns.” In conversation, they insist that they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.
To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)
But Adnani was not merely talking trash. His speech was laced with theological and legal discussion, and his exhortation to attack crops directly echoed orders from Muhammad to leave well water and crops alone—unless the armies of Islam were in a defensive position, in which case Muslims in the lands ofkuffar, or infidels, should be unmerciful, and poison away.
The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic.VeryIslamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.
Control of territory is an essential precondition for the Islamic State’s authority in the eyes of its supporters. This map, adapted from the work of the Institute for the Study of War, shows the territory under the caliphate’s control as of January 15, along with areas it has attacked. Where it holds power, the state collects taxes, regulates prices, operates courts, and administers services ranging from health care and education to telecommunications.
I. Devotion
In November, the Islamic State released an infomercial-like video tracing its origins to bin Laden. It acknowledged Abu Musa’b al Zarqawi, the brutal head of alQaeda in Iraq from roughly 2003 until his killing in 2006, as a more immediate progenitor, followed sequentially by two other guerrilla leaders before Baghdadi, the caliph. Notably unmentioned: bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al Zawahiri, the owlish Egyptian eye surgeon who currently heads alQaeda. Zawahiri has not pledged allegiance to Baghdadi, and he is increasingly hated by his fellow jihadists. His isolation is not helped by his lack of charisma; in videos he comes across as squinty and annoyed. But the split between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State has been long in the making, and begins to explain, at least in part, the outsize bloodlust of the latter.
Zawahiri’s companion in isolation is a Jordanian cleric named Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, 55, who has a fair claim to being al-Qaeda’s intellectual architect and the most important jihadist unknown to the average American newspaper reader. On most matters of doctrine, Maqdisi and the Islamic State agree. Both are closely identified with the jihadist wing of a branch of Sunnism called Salafism, after the Arabical salaf al salih, the “pious forefathers.” These forefathers are the Prophet himself and his earliest adherents, whom Salafis honor and emulate as the models for all behavior, including warfare, couture, family life, even dentistry.
The Islamic State awaits the army of “Rome,” whose defeat at Dabiq, Syria, will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse.
Maqdisi taught Zarqawi, who went to war in Iraq with the older man’s advice in mind. In time, though, Zarqawi surpassed his mentor in fanaticism, and eventually earned his rebuke. At issue was Zarqawi’s penchant for bloody spectacle—and, as a matter of doctrine, his hatred of other Muslims, to the point of excommunicating and killing them. In Islam, the practice oftakfir, or excommunication, is theologically perilous. “If a man says to his brother, ‘You are an infidel,’ ” the Prophet said, “then one of them is right.” If the accuser is wrong, he himself has committed apostasy by making a false accusation. The punishment for apostasy is death. And yet Zarqawi heedlessly expanded the range of behavior that could make Muslims infidels.