Benefiting from sectarian strife

Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate
London: Saqi Books, 2015
Pp. 256 

In this book, London-based, Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan connects the dots of daily news reports to give a comprehensive picture of what he calls Islamic State [Daesh] — its origins, leaders, mode of operation, funding and the keys to its success. Ranking high among the latter is inventive use of the Internet: “Without digital technology it is highly unlikely that Islamic State would ever have come into existence, let alone been able to survive and expand.” (p. ix)

While Al Qaeda has used the internet, it is the new generation of jihadists, who are attracted to Daesh, that pioneered in harnessing the outreach offered by social media and virtual private networks for the purpose of propaganda, recruitment, battlefield logistics, procuring funds, and more.

It seems equally unlikely that Daesh would have come into existence without the chaos and sectarian strife created by war, which it was ready and able to exploit to its advantage. Relying on hard facts gleaned from extensive research and interviews with key players, Atwan traces the origins of Daesh to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, highlighting the role of failed US policy. “Two 2006 studies, one by the Saudi government and one by an Israeli think tank, found that most foreign fighters [in the Iraqi resistance] were not jihadists before the 2003 invasion of Iraq but had been radicalised by the American occupation.” (p. 50) 

A pivotal moment, in Atwan’s view, came in 2008, when the US handed over the Sons of Iraq Sunni tribal forces it had trained, to the sectarian Maliki government that dismissed them without compensation. “Many were absorbed back into the insurgency… In 2014, they then became the backbone of Islamic State’s army. Having been trained by American personnel and having fought alongside them, they had invaluable insight into the modus operandi of the ‘enemy’.” (p. 53) 

This is only one example where Atwan faults the West for contributing to the rise and expansion of extremism, first via unwarranted intervention and later, as in Syria, via hesitation. It is noteworthy that Atwan doesn’t resort to simplistic conspiracy theories, but patiently reconstructs the sequence of events: At a time when Al Qaeda was in retreat owing to the US invasion of Afghanistan, the US destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure and victimisation of its people created nurturing conditions for the renewed extremist upsurge which now threatens people across the region. Since then, “the tech-savvy cyber jihadists have been able to attract frustrated, marginalised and vulnerable young people to its ranks and to convince them of its world vision, predicated on reviving the golden age of Islamic conquest, resisting American hegemony and pitting the ‘believers’ against the ‘infidels’ and ‘crusaders’. The West’s own actions continue to feed into this narrative.” (p. 218)

Reports of this trajectory are not new, but the value of Atwan’s book is that it synthesises scattered details into a coherent whole that suggests ways of defeating Daesh. One of the basics is ending sectarianism, for as Atwan contends, “sectarian conflict is now the main driver for Islamic State’s expansion, fomented by the Sunni extremists and sustained by Shi’a Iran on one hand and Sunni Saudi Arabia on the other”. (p. 224)

An especially interesting part of the book is Atwan’s analysis of the ideological battle within the jihadist movement, which he sees partly as a generational conflict, dating back to Osama Ben Laden’s and Ayman Al Zawahiri’s disagreements with Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. While the older leaders were more ascetic and scholarly, Atwan profiles Zarqawi as “a worldly, tattooed, Jordanian street-thug-turned-jihadist… [with] a Rambo-style obsession with physique”. (p. 61)

Reportedly, Zarqawi’s masterminding of the triple hotel bombings in Amman was the breaking point. Ben Laden and Zawahiri felt that this terrorist act would alienate potential supporters. 

While the whole jihadist movement reveres Ben Laden, according to Atwan’s account, it is Zarqawi who presaged Daesh by glorifying extreme violence and the takfir doctrine of purging those who do not adhere to a particular interpretation of Islam, i.e., sectarian cleansing. The book gets a bit terrifying as it names the many former Al Qaeda branches and new jihadist groups across the region and internationally that have signed on to the new ultra-extremist trend represented by Daesh. 

While Atwan is clearly horrified and condemning of Daesh’s ideology and atrocities, he doesn’t waste time on rhetoric or haranguing. The book is a sober assessment of what Daesh really is, its strengths and weaknesses — unfortunately, the former seem to predominate — and the dangers it poses. In his succinct summation of a wide-ranging, complicated phenomenon, Atwan clearly intends to inform those wishing to devise a workable counter-strategy. As such, this book is a must-read for the public and policymakers around the world.