The Islamic State: A Comparative History of Jihadist Warfare

276 Pages·2018·2.83 MB·English

by  Anthony Celso

The Islamic State
The Islamic State
A Comparative History of Jihadist Warfare
Anthony Celso
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Celso, Anthony, author.
Title: The Islamic state : a comparative history of Jihadist warfare / Anthony Celso.
Description: Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018014961 (print) | LCCN 2018018418 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498569798 (electronic) |
ISBN 9781498569781 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: IS (Organization) | Middle East—History—21st century. | Jihad. | Islamic fundamentalism.
| War—Religious aspects—Islam.
Classification: LCC HV6433.I722 (ebook) | LCC HV6433.I722 C45 2018 (print) | DDC 363.3250956—
dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014961
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For Alicia, Diana and Jezebel
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Islamic State in Comparative Context
1 Jihadist Insurgency: Failure and Destruction Breed Regeneration
2 Islamic Regression, Jihadist Frustration, and Takfirist Hyper Violence
3 The Islamic State’s “Fifth Wave” Islamist Worldview
4 The Islamic State’s Impact on Jihadist Insurgency in Iraq and Syria
5 The Islamic State’s Reorientation of Jihad in Egypt and Libya
6 The Islamic State’s Impact on the Jihadist War in Nigeria and Mali
7 The Islamic State’s Totalistic War against the West
8 The Jihadist Forever War: Six Key Conclusions
Index
About the Author
Acknowledgments
This book builds upon the past scholarship of many noted authorities. Among
those, the ideas and research of Jeffrey Kaplan, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Aaron
Zelin, Jacob Zenn, Michael WS Ryan, Brian Fishman, William McCants,
Fernando Reinares, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi and Thomas Hegghammer have
been particularly influential. They have provided the corpus of ideas and body of
research without which this book is impossible. Comparable gratitude must also
be extended to the research done by The Long War Journal, The Institute for the
Study of War, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, The Combating
Terrorism Center at West Point, Elcano Royal Institute and the Jamestown
Foundation. The quality work done by these institutions is without peer. Finally,
the support I received from my colleagues (Dr. Bruce Bechtol Jr. and Dr.
William Taylor) has encouraged me to write this book.
Introduction
The Islamic State in Comparative Context
The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) resurgence from its near 2010 defeat and its later
territorial extension across the Levant was a significant development. The Syrian
civil war and the power vacuum left by the American disengagement in Iraq
after 2011 enabled ISI to reconstitute its terror network.1 Freed from American
influence the Iraqi regime led by Nouri al-Maliki pursued a sectarian agenda that
alienated the Sunni minority and allowed ISI to present itself as their defender.
Baghdad’s anti-Sunni policies became the wellspring of ISI’s popular support.
From 2011 to 2014 ISI’s terror and insurgent campaigns degraded Iraqi
security forces allowing the organization to conquer territory.2 Capitalizing on
Assad’s poorly defended eastern border with Iraq, ISI forces expanded into
Syria. With Damascus’s near abandonment of its border with Iraq, ISI steadily
displaced other rebel groups. Constructing a ministate around its administrative
capital Raqqa, ISI was able to create a transnational network later renamed as
Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).3
ISIS’s formation generated shock waves across the region. By summer 2014
ISIS routed the Iraqi army and seized territory in Northwest Iraq occupying
Mosul and much of Anbar Province. ISIS punctuated its territorial conquests
with high-profile massacres of Shi’ite soldiers and Iraqi Yazidi communities.4 In
late June 2014 ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani announced the
creation of a caliphate (called the Islamic State—IS) and an end to colonial-era
borders.5
Since August 2014 a US-led coalition of sixty nations has uprooted IS’s reign
across the Levant. By late 2017 Mosul and Raqqa were conquered. The IS’s
ability to withstand the coalition’s military assault for over three years was
remarkable. Destroying and degrading the caliphate was difficult. This
accomplishment should not be confused with the destruction of IS’s terror-
insurgent movement. It endures.
The network’s global reach is highlighted by its terrorist attacks in Paris,
Sousse, Barcelona, Manchester, London, New York, Stockholm, Nice, Brussels,
Dacca, Berlin, Beirut, Sana, Istanbul, St. Petersburg, San Bernardino, Orlando
and Ankara. The movement’s continued violence even after the demise of its
transnational state in 2017 suggests resiliency.
The IS’s ascent is unequalled among jihadist organizations. Its June 2014
caliphate creation satisfies an extremist aspiration that has endured since Turkish
leader Kemal Ataturk’s 1924 abolition of the Ottoman Empire. Such a desire
was considered a long-term goal by virtually all jihadists. Based on his
formation of a transnational jihadist state IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (self-
proclaimed as Caliph Ibrahim) controversially demanded the loyalty of the
Muslim world and urged their emigration [hijrah] to his caliphate.6 Though its
leadership of the Islamic extremist movement is contested by the Taliban and its
Al Qaeda (AQ) allies, the IS is the world’s most preeminent jihadist
organization.
The group’s threat to the international order transcends all other terror
networks including AQ. Its proto-jihadist state eclipsed the nineteenth-century
Sudanese Mahdist regime that also threatened Western interests. Its policy of
baqiya wa tatamaddad [remaining and expanding] drove it to conquer territories
in pursuit of its state-building project.7 This book analyzes the IS within a
comparative framework of past jihadist experiments.
Modern jihadism is notable for its failures making IS’s state-building project
puzzling. The Islamist record in the 1980s and 1990s is especially dismal with
jihadist movements in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Algeria defeated by security
services. What accounts for IS’s success in light of these debacles and will the
IS’s movement endure? These two questions shape this study. By employing a
comparative framework the book overcomes the limitations of singular studies
of terror movements. Though rich in theoretical and empirical detail, books by
William McCants, Loretta Napoleoni, Charles Lister, Patrick Cockburn, Michael
Weiss, J. M. Berger and Jessica Stern offer us an important snapshot of IS
without putting its development within a larger comparative context.8 Works by
Daniel Byman and Jason Burke are limited to a comparative assessment of AQ,
the IS and their affiliates without putting them into a deeper framework.9 It
neither effectively explains the resiliency and growing brutality of jihadist
insurgency.
A comparative model offers a richer canvass for exploration of why IS
succeeded and others failed. The IS’s accomplishments, moreover, may be
connected to previous failures. The network’s adaptive strategy compensates for