This post addresses an increasingly and disturbing popular belief: once the Islamic State is defeated in Raqqa, their operational hub, the transnational terrorist group will no longer pose a threat. The post will argue the Islamic State still poses a significant threat to regional and global security.
Background
On July 9, 2017, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq declared that after a violent and bloody nine-month campaign that marked the conclusion of the conflict over the country’s second largest city.[1] According to uninformed pundits, Iraq’s defeat of the Islamic State in Mosul coupled with the collapse of Raqqa in the fall represented unmistakable evidence the threat posed by the transnational terrorist group would decline.
In an illustration of this thinking, Hal Brand argued, “The self-proclaimed caliphate’s morale, resources, manpower, and territory have been severely reduced; the organization is hanging on for dear life in its remaining strongholds. Barring some catastrophic US policy misstep, the defeat of the Islamic State—at least in Iraq and Syria—is probably just a matter of time.”[2]
In another rebuke, “presumptions that the Islamic State will vanish with territorial defeat are naïve. there are certainly large desert spaces in the border areas between Iraq and Syria (e.g. the Anbar-Deir az-Zor areas) where the Islamic State’s remaining core leadership can operate and maneuver even if it loses all towns under its control. Prospects of the Coalition or others clearing out and securing these vast spaces remain very remote, and they thus constitute the true “fallback” for the Islamic State.”[3]
Such wrong-head thinking was quickly dismissed by the US military. In a notable example, Lt. General Steve Townsend, the commander of US forces in Iraq, asserted “The International Coalition and our partner forces are steadily dismantling the physical caliphate of ISIS. Once ISIS is defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, there will be still a lot of hard fighting ahead, but this coalition is strong and committed to the complete annihilation of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.”[4]
The Islamic States’ Path To Renewal
It is easily argued the Islamic State has been degraded but not defeated. Further evidence may be gleaned from the following statement: “Depriving the Islamic State of its territory won’t extinguish the movement or its capacity to plan or inspire acts of violence. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point reported that … as of April, Islamic State fighters had launched 1, 468 attacks that had been wrestled from it control, resulting in nearly 2, 600….”[5]
In the view of Colin Clarke, “Over the course of the past year, ISIS has lost a significant percentage of the land it once controlled in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, including Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Libya, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Its finances are being constricted and its fighters are abandoning the organization in droves. Moreover, many of its leaders, including Abu Abdul Rahman, a top lieutenant of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and some of the group’s most prominent external operations planners, are being killed and captured faster than they can be replaced.”[6]
At another level, Clarke asserts, “even though ISIS’s regional affiliates have lost territory over the past year, there is serious potential for reinvigorated branches to emerge over the next three to five years in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and Egypt, just as Al Qaeda in Iraq and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula grew out of the al Qaeda core in Pakistan during the mid-2000s. In other words, the more tenuous command and control of these satellite groups become, the more likely they are to develop into highly capable and lethal entities in their own right. The threat from ISIS is global, but the response by Western and regional nations has been parochial.”[7]
The Islamic State long-ago established “virtual caliphate.” Thus, as the territorial caliphates’ central areas, Iraq and Syria, crumble, the social network continues to flourish. As Jack Moore acknowledges, “The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) is forging a “virtual caliphate” that will outlast the group’s territorial hold in Iraq and Syria, the European Union’s anti-terror chief has warned. Gilles de Kerchove, the EU counterterrorism coordinator, said tens of thousands of websites are circulating radical Islamist content.”[8] This of course in just in Europe, when counterterrorism officials there is have trouble dealing with the threat.
Globally, the participants in the Islamic States’ virtual caliphate is unknown. There is no known methodology that accurately characterizes the threat. Given this threat, there is another disheartening reality: counterterrorism and law enforcement officials are not close to defeating the threat. The reasons include paucity of law enforcement officials in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and to an extent, the United States.
If this were not problematic enough, if one considers the issue of encryption, and the fact that many coalition counterterrorism officials are unable to determine the content of the discussions of the Islamists, it is clear the Islamic State remains an existential threat to regional and global security.
There is considerable evidence the Islamic State has prepared for life able after the caliphate. As described in “The Management of Savagery,” the Islamic State is prepared to adjust their tactics to survive. There are several illustrations of the transnational terrorist groups strategies for survival.[9]
Hassan Hassan interviewed Abu Adnan, a leader of the Islamic State, about ISIS’s survival strategy. In the words of Adnan, “Our enemies are clever and determined. What we can do is to make sure the body of the state is strong, so that it can heal no matter how far they weaken it. So even if they destroy us in one area, you can be sure we’re still there. We don’t have to be exposed and visible.”[10]
As featured on the cover of Dabiq, a magazine of the Islamic State in November 2014, the motto of terrorist group is “Remaining and Expanding” represents a recognition of “the group’s defiance of efforts to destroy it and its ambition to spread its authority widely.”[11]
There are other troubling aspects that further demonstrate the strength of the Islamic State. For example, Tim Lister, author of “Islamic State 2.0. As the Caliphate Crumbles, ISIS Evolves,” argues, “ISIS has cultivated deep roots in Sunni parts of Iraq (less so in Syria where many jihadists regard it as an interloper). Over the past decade, the group has developed networks skilled at raising money, obtaining weapons and clandestine organization across a wide swathe of Iraq—from Diyala in the east to Rutbah close to the Jordanian border. Even as it is under pressure in Mosul, ISIS remains active … and is capable of carrying out suicide bombings in Baghdad, Tikrit and elsewhere.”[12]
It is often overlooked that many Islamic State fighters have returned to their homelands. As part of this homecoming, ISIS fighters are fomenting instability and establishing new sanctuaries that will reinvigorate support for the Islamic State which in turn will lead to the renewal of the movement.
At another level, the Islamic State “is reverting to insurgency tactics it relied on before June 2014….”[13] In Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere this means that there will be rise in car bombings, suicides, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), throughout the Islamic States’ sanctuaries around the world.
The Islamic State poses another dilemma during the coming post-caliphate period. This dilemma falls under the category of decentralization. For starters, consider the US and coalition allies in the war on terror have yet to adjust to Al Qaeda long after their central sanctuary in Afghanistan dissipated. Now, a new US-led coalition which confronts the Islamic State, during a period when their caliphate is dissipating, will soon comprehend why ISIS will emerge as far more dangerous threat than the one that existed before.
There is still another issue of significance: the US-led coalition has slowly but surely reduced the Islamic States territorial hold over Iraq and Syria. The ideology however still survives. As quoted in an Islamic State publication, “Caliphate Will Not Vanish,” the literature argues, “many have forgotten that the Islamic State is not a state of land and geographic spaces, but rather the goal from it is to spread true Islam and restore jihad to the Ummah [global Muslim community] after decades of humiliation and degradation.”[14]
Analysis
The prognostications of the Islamic States’ defeat are greatly exaggerated. In Iraq and in Syria the seeds that created the Islamic State still exist. That is, in Iraq the Sunni minority will argue it still is not a participant in the government and extreme elements of the Shiite majority along with the assistance from Iran is working to oppress them. In Syria, the Alawite minority, with support from Iran, Hezbollah, and the Russian government is oppressing the Sunni majority.
With these variables in place, the Islamic States’ propaganda will use “these twin oppressions” to rally the disaffected Sunni populations in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State propaganda will also use social media and exploit the internet with photos of destruction and displacement of Sunni’s to further rally new recruits to their cause.
Despite the loss of territory, “the Islamic State still argues their ideology is alive and well. the battleground defeats by the Iraqi army and the US-led Western coalition (which includes the UK, Germany and France), as well as Kurdish forces, have done little to dent the triumphalism of the jihadists. If you examine the terror group’s pronouncements and online messages, you will find that the optimism of its “glory days” in 2014 remains intact.”[15]
Thus, in the end, “Not only will the Islamic State remain in Iraq and Syria, it is also likely to persist as an international franchise even with loss of core territory. In several parts of the world, such as southeast Asia, the Islamic State has already moved beyond the insistence on territorial control and statehood, dropping the notion of claiming new “provinces.””[16]
The point is rudimentary: the Islamic State will remain a global threat well into the next decade unless a global strategy is created and implemented to destroy their ever-expanding sanctuaries around the world. President Donald Trump campaigned on vanquishing the Islamic State; here is hoping a sustained strategy is erected to achieve the objective.
[1] Tim Arango and Michael Gordon, “Iraqi Prime Minister Arrives in Mosul to Declare Victory Over ISIS,” New York Times, July 9, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/world/middle east/mosul-isis-liberated.html?mcubz=2.
[2] Hal Brand, “What Should Trump Do After the Islamic State Is Defeated?,” Foreign Policy, March 17, 2017. http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/17/what-should-trump-do-after-the-islamic-state-is-defeated/.
[3] As quoted in Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, “Can ISIS Survive the Caliphate’s Collapse?” Middle East Forum, May 16, 2017. http://www.meforum.org/6711/can-isis-survive-the-caliphate-collapse.
[4] Bassem Mroue, “US-Backed Syrian Force Attacks IS-Held Capital of Raqqa,” Chicago Tribune, June 6, 2017. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-syria-raqqa-islamic-state-20170606-story.html.
[5] Editorial. “Islamic State Has Been Degraded but Not Defeated,” LA Times, July 20, 2017. www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-mosul-isis-20170720-story.html.
[6] Colin Carke, “ISIS: Weakened but Still Potent,” Rand Corporation Blog, May 18, 2017.https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/05/isis-weakened-but-still-potent.html.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Jack Moore, “ISIS on the Web: Islamic State Has 30,000 Strong Virtual Caliphate’ Warns EU Terror Chief,” Newsweek, July 6, 2017. http://www.newsweek.com/isis-has-30000-website-strong-virtual-caliphate-warns-eu-terror-chief-632534.
[9] Hassan Hassan, “Is the Islamic State Unstoppable?”, New York Times, July 9, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/is-the-islamic-state-unstoppable.html?mcubz=2.
[10] Ibid.
[11] As quoted in Christopher M. Blanchard and Carla E. Humud, “The Islamic State and US Policy,” Congressional Research Service (CRS), February 2, 2017. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast /R43612.pdf.
[12] Tim Lister, “Islamic State 2.0. As the Caliphate Crumbles, ISIS Evolves,” CNN, July 6, 2017. http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/europe/isis-2-0/index.html.
[13] Hassan, “Is the Islamic State Unstoppable?”
[14] Al-Tamimi, “Can ISIS Survive the Caliphate’s Collapse?”
[15] Shiraz Maher, “Mosul has Fallen, but Islamic State is Far From Defeated,” New Statesman, July 14, 2017. http://www.newstatesman.com/world/2017/07/mosul-has-fallen-islamic-state-far-defeated.
[16] Al-Tamimi, “Can ISIS Survive the Caliphate’s Collapse?”