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IS and the battle for the soul of jihad | Brookings Institution
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Daniel L. Byman and Jennifer R. Williams | March 24, 2015 11:32am
AQ vs. IS and the battle for the soul of jihad
This article originally appeared on Lawfare.
Almost overnight, the Islamic State sent its enemies reeling—and turned U.S. policy in the Middle
East upside down. As troubling as the Islamic State’s successes are for U.S. officials, there is
one person for whom they are even more troubling: Ayman alZawahiri. Although the Al Qaeda
leader might be expected to rejoice at the emergence of a strong jihadist group that delights in
beheading Americans (among other horrors), in reality the Islamic State’s rise risks Al Qaeda’s
demise. When Islamic State leader
Abu Bakr alBaghdadi rejected Al Qaeda’s authority and later declared a ca
liphate, he split the
fractious jihadist move
ment.
The two are now competing for more than the leadership of the jihadist move
ment: they are
competing for its soul.
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Who will emerge triumphant is not clear. But the implications of one side’s vic
tory or of continuing
division are profound for the Middle East and for the United States, shaping the likely targets of
the jihad
ist movement, its ability to achieve its goals, and the overall stability of the Middle East.
The United States can exploit this split, both to decrease the threat and to weaken the movement
as a whole.
The Islamic State and Al Qaeda fundamentally differ on whom they see as their main enemy,
which strategies and tactics to use in attacking that enemy, and which social issues and other
concerns to emphasize.
Although the ultimate goal of Al Qaeda is to overthrow the corrupt “apostate” regimes in the
Middle East and replace them with “true” Islamic governments, Al Qaeda’s pri
mary enemy is the
United States, which it sees as the root cause of the Middle East’s problems. The logic behind
this “far enemy” strategy is based on the idea that U.S. mili
tary and economic support for corrupt
dic
tators in the Middle East—such as the lead
ers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia—is what has
enabled these regimes to withstand attempts to overthrow them. By targeting the United States,
Al Qaeda believes it will eventually force the United States to withdraw its sup
port for these
regimes and pull out of the region altogether, thus leaving the regimes vulnerable to attack from
within.
The Islamic State does not follow Al Qa
eda’s “far enemy” strategy, preferring instead the “near
enemy” strategy, albeit on a re
gional level. As such, the primary target of the Islamic State has
not been the United States, but rather apostate regimes in the Arab world—namely, the Asad
regime in Syria and the Abadi regime in Iraq. Baghdadi favors first purifying the Islamic
community by at
tacking Shi’a and other religious minorities as well as rival jihadist groups. The
Islamic State’s long list of enemies includes the Iraqi Shi’a, Hizballah, the Yazidis (a Kurdish eth
noreligious minority located predominantly in Iraq), the wider Kurdish community in Iraq, the
Kurds in Syria and rival opposition groups in Syria (including Jabhat alNusra). And (surprise!)
the Jews.
Al Qaeda considers Shi’a Muslims to be apostates but sees killing sprees against them as too
extreme and thus detrimental to the broader jihadist project. Al Qaeda believes that the “Muslim
masses,” without whose sup
port Al Qaeda will wither and die, do not really understand or
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particularly care about the doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shi’a, and when they see
jihadists blowing up Shi’a mosques or slaughtering Shi’a civilians, all they see are Muslims kill
ing
other Muslims.
In fact, Al Qaeda believes in playing nice with other jihadists in general; the Islamic State does
not. Jabhat alNusra, Zawahiri’s designated affiliate in Syria and the Islamic State’s rival, works
with other Syrian fighters against the Asad regime and, by the low standards of the Syrian civil
war, is relatively restrained in attacks on civilians—in fact, at the same time the Islamic State was
making head
lines for beheading captured Americans, Jabhat alNusra made headlines for
releasing the UN peacekeepers it had captured. Having learned from Al Qaeda in Iraq’s (AQI)
disaster when the population turned against it, in areas Jabhat alNusra controls, it proselytizes
rather than terrorizes to convince Muslims to embrace “true” Islam. When U.S. forces bombed
Jabhat alNusra because of its links to Al Qaeda, many Syrians were outraged, believing
America was striking a dedicated foe of the Asad regime. Somewhat incredibly, the Islamic
State’s lesson from Iraq was that it didn’t use enough terror to ensure that the population stayed
in line.
Al Qaeda has long used a mix of strategies to achieve its objec
tives. To fight the United States,
Al Qaeda plots terrorism “spec
taculars” like 9/11 to electrify the Muslim world (and get Muslims to
follow Al Qaeda’s banner) and to convince the United States to retreat from the Muslim world.
The model is based on the U.S. withdrawals from Leba
non after Hizballah bombed the Marine
barracks and U.S. embassy there and the “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia and,
especially, the antiSoviet experience. In addition, Al Qaeda supports insurgents that fight against
U.S.backed regimes (and U.S. forces in places like Afghanistan, where it hopes to replicate the
Soviet experience). Finally, Al Qaeda issues a flood of propa
ganda to convince Muslims that
jihad is their obligation and to convince jihadists to adopt Al Qaeda’s goals over their local ones.
The Islamic State embraces some of these goals, but even where there is agreement in principle,
its approach is quite differ
ent. The Islamic State seeks to build, well, an Islamic state. So its
strategy is to con
trol territory, steadily consolidating and expanding its position. Part of this is
ideo
logical: it wants to create a government where Muslims can live under Islamic law (or the
Islamic State’s twisted version of it). Part of this is inspirational: by creating an Islamic state, it
excites many Muslims, who then embrace the group. And part of it is basic strategy: by
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controlling territory it can build an army, and by using its army it can control more territory.
Al Qaeda in theory supports a caliphate, but Zawahiri envisioned this as a longterm goal. Back in
the day, although Bin Laden and Zawahiri supported Al Qaeda in Iraq publicly, in private they did
not approve of its declara
tion of an Islamic state in Iraq. In particu
lar, Zawahiri feared that AQI
was putting the cart before the horse: you need full control over territory and popular support
before proclaiming an Islamic state, not the other way around. Indeed, Al Qaeda has never
shown much interest in taking or holding territory in order to set up an Islamic state and govern,
despite the fact that doing so is one of its stated goals; on the contrary, the only reason it has
ever shown interest in territory is as a safe haven and as a place to set up training camps.
The two groups’ preferred tactics reflect these strategic differences. Al Qaeda has long favored
largescale, dramatic attacks against strategic or symbolic targets. The Islamic State evolved out
of the civil wars in Iraq and Syria, and its tactics reflect this context. The Islamic State seeks to
con
quer, and thus it deploys artillery, massed forces and even tanks as it sweeps into new areas
or defends existing holdings. Terror
ism, in this context, is part of revolutionary war: it is used to
undermine morale in the army and police, force a sectarian backlash or otherwise create
dynamics that help con
quest on the ground. But it is an adjunct to a more conventional struggle.
In territory it controls, the Islamic State uses mass executions, public beheadings, rape and
symbolic crucifixion displays to terrorize the population into submission and “purify” the
community, and at the same time provides basic (if minimal) ser
v ices. This mix earns them some
support, or at least acquiescence, from the popula
tion.
Helping the Islamic State’s meteoric rise and its ability to attract tens of thousands of young men
to its ranks is its ability to use social media to disseminate its propaganda to its target
demographic: angsty Muslim males roughly between the ages of 18 and 35. The leaders and
members of the Islamic State are a generation younger than those of Al Qaeda (Baghdadi is
believed to be around 43 years old, whereas Zawa
hiri is 63 years old), and the genera
tion gap
shows.
On September 11, 2001, at the height of Al Qaeda’s power and influence, Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube didn’t exist. The way it disseminated its propaganda, therefore, was by sending written
statements and videos to news outlets such as Al Jazeera; launching big attacks guaranteed to
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make the international news; and communicating with other jihadists in relatively obscure online
forums. For the most part, the Al Qaeda core still mostly produces variants of the same tired old
content it has been putting out since 2001—long videos featuring senior Al Qaeda ideologues
pontificating about various aspects of jihad and quoting ex
tensively from the Qur’an.
The Islamic State, on the other hand, came of age in the world of smart phones, hashtags and
viral videos, and its recruitment tactics reflect this: the group issues propaganda in multiple
languages across multiple socialmedia platforms, even hi
jacking hashtags like “#WorldCup2014”
to get its message out. In part because the group hasn’t had to worry about producing content
safe enough to be shown on television (unlike Al Qaeda), it is able to create much more visceral
content, like the beheading videos and the short film Flames of War, which features rous
ing
music; dramatic explosions; and graphic, bloodsoaked images of dead enemies.
Which do you think is more likely to attract the attention of an 18yearold boy dreaming of
adventure and glory: a badass video with CGI flames and explosions, or a twohour lecture on
the Qur’an from a greyhaired old man?
For now, the momentum is still on the Is
lamic State’s side. Unlike Al Qaeda, it looks like a winner:
triumphant in Iraq and Syria, taking on the Shi’a apostates and even the United States at a local
level, and present
ing a vision of Islamic governance that Al Qaeda cannot match. But this may
not last. The Islamic State’s fate is tied to Iraq and Syria, and reversals on the battlefield could
erode its appeal. Like its predecessor organization in Iraq, the Islamic State may also find that its
brutality repels more than it attracts, diminishing its luster among po
tential supporters and making
it vulnerable when the people suddenly turn against it.
The United States and its allies should try to exploit the fight between the Islamic State and Al
Qaeda and, ideally, diminish them both. The infighting goes against what either organization
claims to want, and it diminishes the appeal of jihad if volunteers believe they’ll be fighting the
jihadist down the block rather than the Asad regime, Americans, Shi’a, or other enemies. Efforts
to stop foreign fighters should stress this infighting. The Islamic State’s social media strategy is
also a propa
ganda weakness: because the organization allows bottomup efforts, it risks allow
ing
the most foolish or horrific lowlevel member to define the group. Playing up its atrocities,
especially against other Sunni Muslims, will steadily discredit the group.
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Military efforts also matter tremendously. For Al Qaeda, the constant drone campaign has
diminished its core in Pakistan and made it harder for it to exercise control over the broader
movement. For the Islamic State, defeat on the ground will do more to diminish its appeal than
any propaganda measure. Washington should also work with regional allies to ensure
cooperation on in
telligence and border security.
Only time will tell how this all ends, but in the immediate future, some degree of continued
infighting between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State is the most likely outcome. The good news is
that the fight within may consume much of the two groups’ at
tention; the bad news is that anti
American violence or highprofile attacks in the Mid
dle East may become more intense as each
side seeks to outmatch its rival. Yet while spikes in violence may occur, such infighting will
undermine our enemies’ ability to shape regional politics, diminish both movements’ influence and
discredit jihadism in general.
Daniel L. Byman
Research Director, Center for Middle East Policy
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
@dbyman
Daniel Byman is the director of research and a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. His
research focuses on counterterrorism and Middle East security. He is also a professor at Georgetown University's
Security Studies Program. He served as a staff member on the 9/11 Commission and worked for the U.S.
government. His most recent book is A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (Oxford
University Press, 2011).
More Posts from Daniel > | View Expert Page >
Jennifer R. Williams
Research Assistant, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
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