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Aleppo is an ancient metropolis, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it has been inhabited since perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC. The city’s significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, which passed through central Asia and Mesopotamia. When the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo ceded its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, as well as the important railway connecting it to Mosul.
But little has changed for the besieged residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo neighborhoods, who have been enduring acute shortages of food and medicine, as the fighting remains too fierce for aid to be delivered, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and humanitarian workers operating in the area say.
Syrian state news agency SANA says that the rebels have not broken the siege of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. The agency reports that government troops had inflicted “heavy losses” on rebel groups in the fighting raging in the south and southwest of the city. More here from CNN.
A coalition of Rebel Forces Has broken the siege of Aleppo according to reports Rebels say they have breached the siege imposed by the Syrian government on opposition neighbourhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, in a major military breakthrough after intense fighting.
The Syrian Regime seized the only route into rebel-held areas in northern Aleppo last month, prompting a rebel counteroffensive from the city’s south.
A monitoring group reported sporadic clashes in Aleppo on August 7, a day after Syrian opposition fighters said they broke a three-week government siege of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that a road opened to the south of Aleppo was too dangerous for civilians to use, and that intermittent clashes and air strikes were taking place.
Doctors at the Omar bin Abdulaziz hospital told the Telegraph patients and staff took cover in the basement for most of night. “Everyone is staying in the safest room,” said Dr Fatima AlMousalem, whose hospital has been targeted several times in recent weeks. “We expected this bloody attack from the Assad regime.
Syrian opposition fighters vowed to capture all of Aleppo after breaking a weeks-long siege of the northern city that has become a critical battleground of the country’s five-year civil war. Fierce battles raged in several parts of Aleppo, Syria’s
Washington: The Syrian military was foundering last year, with thousands of rebel fighters pushing into areas of the country long considered to be government strongholds. The rebel offensive was aided by powerful tank-destroying missiles supplied by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Intelligence assessments circulated in Washington that the Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad, was losing his grip on power.
Tal Ajaja: When Daesh captured Tal Ajaja, one of Syria’s most important Assyrian-era sites, they discovered previously unknown millennia-old statues and cuneiform tablets, and then they destroyed them. The terrorist group, which has ravaged archeological sites under its control in Syria and Iraq, was chased from Tal Ajaja in northeastern Hasakeh province in February by Kurdish fighters.
At least 10 people, including three children and four women, have been killed in air strikes on a hospital in northwestern Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province. Al Jazeera’s Adham Abu Hossam, reporting from the site of the attack in Meles, a town about 15km from Idlib city, said Saturday’s raids had also left many in critical condition.
When Ajwad Al Zoubi, a tall, stocky man who for years drove trucks across the Middle East, saw the emailed photo of his beloved home with the bountiful orange trees burned to the ground, he turned into a pool of tears. They come suddenly, even now, when he talks about it.
Munzer Khattab likens German bureaucracy to a game of snakes and ladders. When the 23-year-old from Latakia on the Syrian coast arrived and registered in Berlin last year, he was given the address of a job centre in another part of the city. But when he turned up at the address, the building was shut for renovation.
There is scant evidence that Britain would reach the target set by David Cameron last year of resettling 20,000 Syrian refugees in the country by 2020, MPs have said in a damaging report which calls the response to the refugee crisis of 2015-16 a “Europe-wide failure”.
Adele was the star performer at the Glastonbury Festival this year But she has declined to offer a song from her set to a new charity album All profits generated will be split between Oxfam and the Jo Cox Fund Adele was the undisputed queen of this year’s Glastonbury festival and her show-stopping performance propelled her latest album back to the top of the charts.
Swimmer Yusra Mardini, who survived a harrowing sea crossing a year ago and is now among 10 refugees competing under the Olympic flag in Rio, won her preliminary heat in the 100-meter butterfly Saturday. But the result wasn’t enough to advance her to the semifinals.
Primer for this interview: Why did Baraq Obama put Chuck Hagel in as Secretary of Defense? Global Zero. Further, while everyone is caught up in the election cycle, it is important to know that Obama has removed our first strike option to deploy a nuclear weapon. Kinda don’t need that pesky nuclear football that is with Obama at all times.
This week, Trevor interviews Jeffrey R. Nyquist, geopolitical expert and author of “Origins of the Fourth World War: And the Coming Wars of Mass Destruction.” This particularly frightening episode of LoudonClear delves into what happened to the communists after the cold war, the Russian propaganda machine and Donald Trump’s Russian ties.Hat tip to NoisyRoom. Related reading:
That should keep you busy for a while and provide an in sight into how the willing accomplices within our government are either carrying the baton for the Kremlin or are too stupid to know otherwise.
ISIS captured loads of US weapons and equipment after repelling an joint US/Afghan attack on Nanjarhar. An American flag, an American ID card, a rocket, and many hand grenades were seized by the terror group.
According to local media sources, Islamic State fighters were able to counter Afghan government attacks in Kut, Shadal, Dah Bala, Adel Khail, and Pandar that were backed by tanks and heavy air cover.
The source presumed that the American equipment most likely belonged to American soldiers that may have been injured carrying out military operation in the past few weeks.
ISIS has steadily grown over the past few years in the war-torn country fighting both the Afghan government forces and Taliban, which it accuses of not being Islamic enough due to its interactions with several foreign states.
As noted by Heavy: UPDATE 8/6/16 @ 7:10 pm EDT: According to Resolute Support, US Army SPC Ryan Jay Larson is present and accounted for. Read the original story below.
The Islamic State has purportedly released photos of documents and gear of United States soldiers, including the identity card of Ryan Jay Larson in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. The photos were released on ISIS terrorist channels on August 6 with the description: “Exclusive: Amaq Agency received photos in which American weapons and military equipment can be seen that have been captured by fighters of the Islamic State in Nangarhar. One of these pictures shows the identity of a US soldier named Ryan Jay Larson, whose fate is unknown, as well as bags, ammunition vests, a rocket, a US flag and several hand grenades. A media source reported that the fighters of the country managed to attack the US and Afghan troops in the territories Kot, Schadal, Dah Bala, Adl Khil and Bandar, when tanks and heavy air support were used to ward off [Islamic State militants].” It is unclear if ISIS is claiming to have only captured the equipment of soldiers, or Larson also. Terrorism analyst Michael S. Smith II suggests another translation for the fate of Larson as, “his destiny is unknown.” An earlier description of the photos by ISIS suggested the capture of Larson, writing “Photos of equipment and documents of US soldiers who had been captured by fighters of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.”
At least five U.S. troops were wounded this week by small-arms fire and shrapnel while fighting alongside Afghan forces to expel ISIS from strongholds in eastern Nangarhar province, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday.
Two of the wounded troops quickly returned to duty after treatment, and three others were medically evacuated from the country.
“We expect a full recovery” for all five troops, said Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan.
The wounded troops were believed to be the first U.S. casualties in Afghanistan in fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria offshoot, called Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or IS-K.
In a video briefing from Kabul to the Pentagon, Nicholson said the U.S. casualties occurred during an ongoing offensive by the Afghan National Defense Security Forces to rout ISIS from Nangarhar. He said ISIS’ areas of control in the province had been reduced from 10 districts to three while inflicting heavy casualties on the terror group.
“We have killed many Daesh commanders and soldiers,” Nicholson said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS, and “Daesh fighters are retreating south” into the mountains on the Pakistani border.
He said ISIS’ force had been reduced from an estimated 3,000 fighters to about 1,500.
Nicholson said the U.S. casualties occurred “in recent days,” but the Pentagon later put out a clarifying statement. One was wounded on July 24 and the other four were wounded in a separate engagement on July 25, the statement said. “I characterize it as a clearing operation,” Nicholson said of the effort in Nangarhar called Operation Shafak (Dawn).
In June 2015, when reports emerged of an ISIS presence in Nangarhar, U.S. military officials said that the group appeared to consist of disaffected members of the Taliban who were “self-branding.”
However, Nicholson said that IS-Khorasan Province (a reference to a historical region including parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan) now had direct financial and communications links with the self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.
Nicholson told the Associated Press earlier this week, “They have applied for membership, they have been accepted, they had to meet certain tests, they have been publicized in Dabiq,” the ISIS magazine. The ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan included members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Nicholson said.
He said that planning for the offensive in Nangarhar, which is home to the U.S. base in Jalalabad, began before the suicide bombings claimed by ISIS in Kabul last Saturday that killed at least 80 — the worst terror attack in the capital since 2001. “The fact that they could conduct a high-profile attack should not be perceived as a sign of growing strength,” Nicholson said.
In January, President Obama authorized the U.S. military to launch airstrikes against ISIS in Afghanistan. Airstrikes had previously been limited to supporting U.S. troops or Afghan forces who were in danger of being overrun. In June, Obama loosened the rules of engagement again to allow airstrikes against the Taliban.
“I’ve been using those [new] authorities daily,” Nicholson said in his first briefing to the Pentagon as Afghan commander since taking over from the now-retired Army Gen. John Campbell in March.
Since January, the U.S. has conducted a total 470 airstrikes in Afghanistan, with about 180 of those defined as “counter-terrorism” missions, Nicholson said. Since June, about 40 of the counter-terror airstrikes have targeted the ISIS affiliate, he said.
Nicholson was also using the new rules to boost the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan past the authorized level of 9,800. The additional troops were being deployed for counter-terror missions on a short-term basis, Nicholson told The Wall Street Journal.
“If I need to, I can bring in additional assets, and this could be reconnaissance, it could be air assets, it could even be ground assets,” Nicholson said. “We brought in additional assets this time” for the offensive in Nangarhar, “and we’ll do it again as needed to defeat” ISIS. He did not specify how many U.S. troops were in Nangarhar.
Previous U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have pointed to progress in the campaign against the Taliban and improvements in the capabilities of the Afghan forces only to have the Taliban prove their resilience with more attacks, but Nicholson echoed the same theme.
“Our mission in Afghanistan is on a positive trajectory,” Nicholson said, and “We’re cautiously optimistic the Afghan security forces are on a positive trajectory” despite mounting casualties. He said that fatalities for the Afghan forces were up 20 percent in the first six months of 2016, compared to the estimated 20,000 killed in 2015.
The Afghan forces conducted successful operations north of Kunduz to prevent another attack on the city, which was briefly overrun by the Taliban last year, Nicholson said. He also said a revitalized Afghan 215th Corps was having success in southwestern Helmand province, where the Taliban gained territory last year in Afghanistan’s biggest poppy-producing areas.
The Afghan forces, backed by U.S. advisers now embedded with them, were operating under what Nicholson called a new “sustainable security strategy.”
“The idea is that the Afghans will focus their efforts in certain areas and mainly it’s the key population centers, the ring road, major economic arteries in the country,” Nicholson said. “So these areas are generally designated as areas they will hold or will fight for.”
“So if it’s a hold or fight area, the Afghan security forces will immediately act to interdict [or] defeat any enemy effort to gain ground in those areas,” he said. “There are other areas of the country where they will disrupt enemy operations, but they’re not seeking to hold or fight for those areas.”
President Obama recently changed course on the number of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan next year. Rather than reducing the troop level from 9,800 to 5,550 as originally planned, Obama said he was authorizing about 8,400 U.S. troops for Afghanistan in 2017.
In recent remarks to reporters in Kabul, Nicholson gave more exact figures and outlined the missions for the troops.
He said that 8,448 U.S. troops had been approved by the White House for deployment in Afghanistan in 2017. Of that number, about 2,150 would be involved in counter-terror missions, another 3,000 would serve as advisers to the Afghan forces, and the remaining troops would provide support missions, Nicholson said.
The image here is a DVD cover of a recording of Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri, a top jihadi strategist. He is described as “min alma‘ mufakkiri al-qa‘ida tamma rasd khamsat malayin dular min qibali al-hukuma al-amrikiyya lil-qabd ‘alayhi” (“one of al-Qa‘ida’s brightest thinkers for whom the American government has offered a sum of 5 million dollar for his capture”). The cover portrays the recording as “jalsa ma‘a shabab bilad al-haramayn; min akhtar ma qila ‘an al-wad‘ fi bilad al-haramayn wa-mustaqbal al-haraka al-jihadiyya” (“a meeting Saudi youth; one of the most interesting accounts of the situation in Saudi Arabia and the future of the jihadi movement”). CTC
TerrorismWatch: This paper takes a look into the life and work of Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, jihadist theorist, and argues that he should be considered the architect of the extant Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This is done by way of an examination of his own writings, as well as secondary literature on al-Suri, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. A key point that emerges out of this analysis is that ISIS is likely to continue its two-pronged strategy: of individual attacks offshore, and consolidating territory in Iraq and Syria.
1. Introduction
In 1994 a young man of Syrian origin, who had then recently acquired Spanish citizenship, moved with his wife to Neasden, a dreary suburb of London. Neasden is home to immigrants of many nationalities (it has the largest Hindu temple outside of India), so it was not too strange for this young, cash-strapped family to have decided to relocate there from Madrid. The man’s wife – a Spanish-born Moreno – explained to her family that they were relocating to London as her husband had found a job there as an editor for a small newspaper. The young family’s daily life was not that different from other immigrants’ – it was not unheard of in Neasden to be broke and in debt, with a doting wife doing her best to support her bright, ambitious husband through careful house-holding and not infrequent penny-pinching. The life of the Setmariams could have been out of a Maupassant or a Zola story; except it was not.
Fast-forward to 31 October 2005, when Pakistani security forces stormed an Islamist front in Quetta in Balochistan, and arrested the man from Neasden as he waited for iftar with a colleague. That colleague was killed in the operation. The man – Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Mus’ab al-Suri and 47 years old – carried a bounty of five million dollars as announced by the US government. In all likelihood, Pakistan transferred the custody of al-Suri to the US Central Intelligence Agency which, in turn, rendered him to Syria where he remains in prison till date.
Al-Suri impressed almost everyone who met him. Peter Bergen, the first western journalist to have interviewed Osama bin Laden (a meeting facilitated by al-Suri himself) described al-Suri as “intelligent, intense, and well informed and very very serious.” Bergen went on say that he came to “admire his intellect.”[1] The Norwegian counterterrorism expert Brynjar Lia – whose definitive book on al-Suri remains standard reading for counter-Islamist-terrorism analysts – described al-Suri as an autodidact intellectual in the classic mould:
An avid reader, with an encyclopaedic memory, he impressed acquaintances with his knowledge of literature, classical music, history, politics, and the sciences […][2]
Another journalist had described al-Suri as “possess(ing) of a romantic streak and surprised friends by doting on his Spanish-born spouse.”[3] Physically, wrote an AP reporter, he resembled “an Irish pub patron”.
For counterterrorism experts, al-Suri was notorious: he had been suspected of involvement in a number of terrorist attacks in Europe, including the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London bombings, though these charges were never established mostly because he was not tried for the bombings, in the first place. Whether or not he had a hand in those bombings, what had rattled the Americans and their European counterparts was his role as al-Qaeda’s leading strategist, and the extent to which his guidance had influenced that group in general, and Osama bin Laden, in particular. One gauge of his influence is the consistent reference in many academic and popular writings of him as ‘architect’. Cruickshank and Hage Ali, for example, write: “[…] no other individual has done more to conceptualize al-Qaeda’s new strategy after 9/11.”[4] Lawrence Wright, meanwhile, identifies theorists like al-Suri as tutors to a “third generation of mujahideens” – as Al-Suri himself calls them – who, after having fought in Iraq – will “add their expertise to the new cells springing up in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and many European nations.”[5]Jason Burke writes:
If al-Awlaki was the propagandist who did most to shape today’s threat against the West, and al-Zawahiri and al-Baghdadi are currently the most influential commanders, then al-Suri is the strategist of greatest relevance.[6]
As Burke indicates, al-Suri’s reach – and the efficacy of his strategy – far exceeds al-Qaeda, and could be seen as laying the foundations of the strategy that has been adopted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Al-Suri’s book, The Global Islamic Resistance Call – key parts of which are excerpted in Lia’s book, and is available on the SITE intelligence website[7] – shows an eerie similarity with the strategic and tactical thinking of ISIS, going beyond al-Suri’s original concept of ‘individual-terrorism jihad’. Indeed, a close reading of al-Suri as an ISIS strategist has been absent in the discourse around the group – perhaps for the simple reason that in the mental framing of many analysts, al-Suri’s name conjures al-Qaeda more than any other group. (A notable exception is a short article in the Atlanticpublished late June this year.[8])
2. Fathers of Mu’sab
The goal of the present paper is to look at al-Suri’s book itself (as a primary source) as well as academic literature on his work, with ISIS’s ideology and modus operandi in mind. To better appreciate the intellectual influence of al-Suri on ISIS, a trace must first be made of actual links between the man and the group.
The story of the evolution of ISIS is beyond the scope of this paper; there is no dearth of literature on the subject. It suffices to say that the present-day ISIS evolved out of the rubble of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and was largely driven by one man: Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian criminal-turned-terrorist, was influenced by jihadi ideologue Abdullah Azzam’s sermons enough to travel to Afghanistan for jihad against the Soviets in the early 1980s.[9] By 2005, al-Zarqawi was at his peak, leading his al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers. But by January 2006, he had amalgamated his group with other Islamist outfits to form the Mujahideen Shura Council of Iraq[10] which, after his death in a US air-strike in June 2006, morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq – the direct precursor of ISIS as the world knows the group today.
Al-Suri and al-Zarqawi’s paths first crossed in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule. Both controlled semi-independent camps there — al-Suri in Kabul and al-Zarqawi in Herat.[11] Both disdained bin Laden, and insisted on greater autonomy, something bin Laden resisted.[12] (This fissure would become full-blown much later. By October 2015, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor, was directly challenging ISIS and the legitimacy of its self-proclaimed Caliph.[13]) By 2004, the US Central Command in Dubai suspected that al-Suri had joined al-Zarqawi in Iraq, “acting as deputy and mentor”, something al-Suri himself denied.[14]Nevertheless, the links between the two lasted long after the fall of the Taliban: Ameer Azizi, a protégé of al-Suri’s, is suspected to have travelled to Iraq to work with al-Zarqawi. The ideological link between the two was cemented by Jordanian/Palestinian cleric, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, al-Zarqawi’s “foremost spiritual mentor”[15] and who is considered an influence on al-Suri’s own thinking.[16] Al-Maqdisi’s student Turki al-Bin’ali, in turn, is now reputed to be a prominent authority in the Islamic state.[17] Finally, long after al-Suri was incarcerated, the first issue of ISIS’s flagship publication Dabiq indirectly acknowledged al-Suri’s influence on the organisation, by attributing al-Suri’s strategies to al-Zarqawi.[18]
Yet the affinity between the group and the man who influenced it does not end with ideology. As much as one face of al-Suri was that of a theorist, he was capable of great violence himself. Cruickshank and Hage Ali interviewed a former jihadi who knew al-Suri personally. According to this interviewee, al-Suri “personally tracked down and killed individuals” who had deserted his Kabul camp.[19] His exhortation to indiscriminate violence – “Kill wherever and don’t make a distinction between men, women and children” – and anti-Shia stance would all find resonance in later ISIS behaviour. Incidentally, as Burke notes, al-Qaeda had invested significantly in reducing fitna (discord) between Muslims and non-Muslims.[20] ISIS, al-Zarqawi, as well as al-Suri had no problems with the same – a marked departure from al-Qaeda’s stance. This had significant tactical advantages for al-Zarqawi. By opening up the sectarian Shia-Sunni divide, the group had hoped to capitalise on Sunni support. This was also buttressed by growing Shia influence in the post-war Iraq.
3. A Military Theory of ‘Jihad’
Al-Suri’s strategic thought was presented, as noted earlier, in his 1,600-page opus. Analysts who have had access to videotapes of his lectures in jihadist camps in Afghanistan have also discerned a few more themes related to that book’s overall thrust. When it comes to applicability of his thoughts to ISIS’s grand strategy, two key ideas emerge: “Individual-Terrorism Jihad”, and “Open-Front Jihad.” Al-Suri’s strategic theory also suggests a way to structure a jihadist organisation that meshes the two into one functional unit. But it is also important to situate al-Suri’s programme within the larger context of Islamist resistance.
3.1. Syed Qutb: Precursor theorist
Al-Suri started his career as an Islamist extremist under the umbrella of the Syrian Brotherhood. He would eventually have a falling-out with the Brotherhood, as he blamed it for the brutal crackdown under then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 1982. Ideologically – and methodologically – the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was extremely close to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan. In fact, al-Suri himself noted that his trainer “pledged allegiance to Sheikh Hassan al Bannah […] He accompanied Sayyid Qutb […].”[21]
Al-Banna and Qutb remain prominent ideological figures for both al-Qaeda and ISIS. Jihadi-salafism (commonly referred to as ‘jihadism’) is a mixture of two strains: the ideology of the Ikhwan, led by al-Banna (whose chief theoretician was Sayyid Qutb), and Wahhabism which promotes a version of Sunni exclusivism.[22] Initially these two strains were separate – the Brotherhood Ikhwan “not implacably hostile” towards Shi’ism[23] – but under the ideological influence of the theoretician Qutb – groups (which would serve as forerunners to al-Qaeda and ISIS) arose in the Arab Middle East that were influence by both.[24] Lia notes:
He studied the writings of Sayyid Qutb and Abdallah Azam, both of whom had significant influence on his subsequent development as a jihadi theorist. [emphasis added][25]
It is therefore important to situate al-Suri’s thinking within that of Qutb’s – a full-length work in itself. But even a cursory reading shows continuity and congruence between the two men’s thinking.
Sayyid Qutb’s formative years, 1919 to 1952, included a stay in the United States that was to prove extremely significant in his subsequent radicalisation in prison for almost a decade. The latter was for opposing Nasser and his conception of the Egyptian state – it was in 1952, the year Nasser assumed office, that Qutb developed the fundamental concept of jahilyya.[26] This concept is expansive is nature. Qutb himself defined it – in his influential work, Milestones, for which he was ultimately executed by Nasser[27] – as:
Jahilyyah […] is one man’s lordship over another, and in this respect it is against the system of the universe and brings the involuntary aspect of human life into conflict with its voluntary aspects.[28]
Jahilyyah can be understood as being in a state of ignorance about the need to surrender to God (the literal meaning of the word “Islam.”) This included the Western political-social order, as well as the pre-Islamic pagan society of which Qutb found Nasser’s Egypt to be an example.[29] Qutb and his followers saw Islam as a “complete and total system” which had no need for influence from the outside.[30]
Qutb’s call was to create a group which would “separate itself from jahili society,” and resist it from the outside.[31] This would be the central purpose of jihad. But jihad was to be, for Qutb and other Islamists after him, more that the “defence of the ‘homeland of Islam’” in a geographical sense of the term.[32] The geographical ‘homeland of Islam’ was merely a nerve-centre for the entire faith; the correct interpretation of the phrase ‘defence of the Islamic homeland’ was the “defence of the Islamic beliefs, the Islamic way of life, and the Islamic community.” Ultimately, it was jihad as resistance to obtain “the freedom of man from the servitude to other men” – one of the characteristic features of jahili societies – that was to influence later jihadi-theorists in a marked way, al-Suri included. Such servitude would, by definition, put some individuals above others. These individuals would include lawmakers and other secular authorities, according to Qutb and other theorists. The goal of the Islamist resistance project would be to oppose these individuals as disbelievers. Al-Suri writes:
There is very clear evidence, in the Qur’an and the Sunna, of the faithlessness of those who have given themselves the right to legislate laws in what is forbidden and permissible, and to change the laws, and to confront the sovereignty of God, to become worshipped gods.[33]
Like Qutb before him, al-Suri saw the fall of the Islamic Caliphate in 1924 as a watershed for political Islam – leading to the “catastrophe”[34] of a splintered Islamic state. Reversing this splintering would prove to be a major cause for him and for ISIS.
3.2. “System Not Organization”
The first, and perhaps most important, element of al-Suri’s thinking is that of jihad through Nizam la Tanzim – “System Not Organization.” In his book, al-Suri described his vision of al-Qaeda:
Al-Qaeda is not an organization, it is not a group, nor do we want it to be […] It is a call, a reference, a methodology.[35]
The etymology of the word ‘al-Qaeda’ helps us understand this statement to some extent. Al-Qaeda-al-sulbah “can also mean a precept, rule, principle, maxim, model, or pattern,”[36] other than the commonly-used meaning of “the base” (interpreted in a physical-geographical sense). To understand the strategic import of the statement is to – like al-Suri himself – appreciate that regional-secret-hierarchical tanzims did not fare well post the end of the Cold War and till right after the fall of the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001. Al-Suri writes:
Throughout the last decade of the 20th century, programs for fighting terrorism were able to disband those organizations security-wise, militarily defeat them, isolate them from their masses [of followers], damage their reputation, dry out their financial resources, make their elements homeless, and put them in a constant state of fear, starvation, and lack of funds and people.[37]
Not all of this was due to western agencies alone. One other factor was the changing geopolitics of the world following the end of the Cold War. As al-Suri explains, when the world was bipolar, one organisation that was proscribed under one pole could find shelter with another.[38] A case in point is the Afghan jihad of the 1980s which was supported by the United States. But local governments were also to be blamed for the fall of the secret-hierarchical tanzims.
For example, Al-Suri blames Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt for putting “an end to all the jihadi organizations in Egypt, one after the other.”[39] Why – according to al-Suri – was this the case? In a lecture in 2000 at the Al Ghuraba training camp in Afghanistan for new al-Qaeda recruits, al-Suri drew the following diagram depicting the structure of these failed tanzims (modified by this author from a sketch in Cruickshank and Hage Ali[40]).
Figure 1: A Schematic Description of a Hierarchical Centralised Structure
In this structure – as depicted in figure 1 – if any one individual (nodes) is arrested or otherwise compromised, the whole network – which is hierarchical, top-down, and centralised – would be compromised. As al-Suri noted: “In case you are caught, they are all caught.”[41] But beyond this tradecraft consideration laid al-Suri’s deep distrust of centralisation of command – which had manifested in his not-infrequent run-ins with bin Laden. The goal of resistance through individual terrorism is not a struggle of the elite, al-Suri wrote.[42] He explained:
The Call is to convoy the idea in succinct and detailed ways in order to enable the youth, who are determined to fight a jihad, to enter this call and form their own Units independently.[43]
What al-Suri is referring to is not the same as what the press calls “lone wolves,” or “leaderless jihad.” Indeed, according to al-Suri, what connects these decentralised units responding to “the Call” to the larger System is an ideological link comprising of (1) a common aim, (2) common name, (3) common doctrinal jihadi program, and (4) a comprehensive educational program. Al-Suri requires his individual terrorists to commit to nothing “other than to believe in the idea, be absolutely certain in his intention, join the Call, and educate himself and those with him according to the Call’s program […].”[44] Tures – in a debunking of the lore of lone-wolf terrorism – writes:
These “lone wolves,” are therefore anything but “lone.” Though the media, government, and even terrorists like ISIS themselves use the term, these new terror recruits are still connected to the group, even if such people do not have face-to-face contact or fly to the Middle East or some domestic compound for training.[45]
Indeed, consider what happened in San Bernardino on 2 December 2015 where a married couple – self-radicalised (or “self-educated,” as al-Suri would have put it) killed 14 people. These were not “lone wolves”; rather, they were following a path al-Suri laid out for them. In other words, ISIS’s claim – that the couple were soldiers of the Caliphate[46] – is literally true if the organisation has taken a leaf out of al-Suri’s individual terrorism strategy. But for the de-centralised form of individual terrorism to be truly successful, al-Suri recognised the need for mass mobilisation. One way to mobilise Muslims, al-Suri suggested at the Al Ghuraba lecture, was to harangue on the “degeneracy of the Western world” with “its sins, gays and lesbians.”[47] [emphasis added] The attack on an Orlando gay nightclub in June this year – the worst mass-shooting in American history – seems to be right out of al-Suri’s Machiavellian playbook. The shooter, Omar Mateen, had pledged bay’at to ISIS.
The conception of nizam la tanzimand “individual-terrorism jihad” stands out in sharp relief to al-Qaeda. While the network structure of that organisation was known, bin Laden – according to many analysts – was seen as “promoting ‘a worldwide, religiously-inspired, professionally guided Islamist insurgency [emphasis added].”[48]Professional guidance for al-Suri for individuals responding to the ‘Resistance Call’ individually is limited in the sense of “education” being the individual’s initiative. However, al-Suri would advocate the spreading of the requisite “legal, political, military and other sciences and knowledge that the Mujahidun need in order to carry out Resistance operations,” without compromising the decentralised structure of the system.[49]Social media would prove handy for ISIS in implementing this tactic.
3.3. “Open-Front Jihad”
Al-Suri did recognise that the ultimate goal for the Islamic Resistance, as he called this putative global jihadi system, was holding physical territory. His conception of al-Qaeda had three key elements: a physical base (one meaning of Qaeda); a leadership; and a global world-view.[50] The importance of the first cannot be underestimated in al-Suri’s world-view: in fact, the “greatest loss,” from the ensuing US invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, “was not the destruction of the terrorist organization but the downfall of the Taliban, which meant that al-Qaeda no longer had a place to train, organize, and recruit.”[51] Al-Suri was categorical on the importance of seizing territory in the ‘Resistance Call,’ which he called the “strategic goal” of the whole enterprise.[52] (His sub-theory of decentralised jihad, in contrast, was a tactical tool.) This is also something he shared with al-Qaeda’s then ‘Number Two’ Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who wrote:
If the successful operations against Islam’s enemies and the severe damage inflicted on them do not serve the ultimate goal of establishing the Muslim nation in the heart of the Islamic world, they will be nothing more than mere nuisance, regardless of their magnitude, that could be absorbed and endured, even if after some time, and with some losses.[53]
Al-Suri imagined that this physical territory that could be controlled by the Islamic resistance system would also serve as a site for “Open-Front Jihad,” where enemies could be drawn in for asymmetric warfare. In fact, he identifies areas in the greater Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa for such activity – preconditions related to geography, population, and political factors.[54] Geography plays a particularly important role in his analysis – the ideal site for Open-Front jihad was to be “spacious in terms of area,” “varied with long borders,” “difficult to siege,” with inhospitable topography, and yet with sufficient resources for human sustenance.[55] But his analysis was not generic in identifying most of the places in this vast area as suitable for Open-Front jihad. In fact, his analysis showed that the vast majority of the 55 states in this area were unsuitable for this kind of activity in not meeting one or more of the preconditions he listed.[56]
He then goes on to identify the “Levant and Iraq,” as an ideal site for Open-Front jihad. “It has all the preconditions for the Open Fronts,” al-Suri writes.[57] His reading of the situation in that area was striking in his analysis – written long before the so-called Arab Spring, the series of protests and uprisings that erupted in the Arab world as 2010 came to an end. He wrote:
The now emerging American occupation has declared its determination to remain on a long-term basis. They also prepare to extend their aggression to Syria in order to control the whole Levant […][58]
In al-Suri’s strategic theory, such a move by the Americans will draw them into an un-winnable conflict where the ‘defenders’ (the putative Islamic resistance) would have tactical as well as strategic advantage. This seems to also be the guiding principle of ISIS. Victory in this asymmetric conflict would lead to:
[…] victory for the Muslims, that [front] will be the centre of an Islamic Emirate, which should be ruled by God’s sharia. It will be a centre and destination for those around it emigrating to fight jihad in the cause of the country.[59]
The extent of ISIS’s intended-Islamic State was mapped in March 2016 by the Financial Times (FT).[60] That map, along with another one drawn up by the Institute for Study of War in July 2016[61] show how remarkably close ISIS’s territory-control/territory-of-influence strategy has been to al-Suri’s geographical prescriptions. At the time of writing this paper, the core ISIS control zone has a filamentary structure which would make it exceedingly difficult to attempt to seize it using ground troops. The control zone is embedded in a support zone that is vast, geographically speaking, and stretches from Fallujah to Mosul (in Iraq), from Mosul to Ayn al-Arab (in Syria), and all the way to Dera on the border of Jordan. Most of the territory controlled by ISIS is also of relatively low-altitude, which makes manoeuvres, and obtaining supplies, relatively easy.
3.4 Organising the ‘Resistance Call’
Al-Suri conceptualises how both the tactical, de-centralised structure of individual jihad and the strategic structure of open-front/territorial jihad mesh in terms of concentric circles. The innermost circle (around the centre who is the putative Caliph) is that of the “centralized unit,” tasked with “guidance, counselling, and calling to jihad,” as well as maintaining military balance in Open-Front areas.[62]Essentially, this is the leadership circle.
The circle of “centralized unit” lies inside the circle of “de-centralized units” of fighters that are permitted to operate like a traditional secret organisation – trained directly, and to be “spread across the world.”[63] Essentially, one may call these the garden-variety ISIS jihadists who travel to Syria or Iraq for training and return to their homelands to carry out attacks when called to do so.
This circle, in turn, is embedded within the final “Da’wah” circle “who participates in the Resistance without any organizational links with the Centre [i.e. Centralized Unit].”[64]This circle has been responsible for most of the recent attacks in the US and Europe. The important point here is that authority radiates outwards from the centre – the Emir or the Caliph – and is managed through the institution of bay’at – the binding allegiance to the figurehead.
Figure 2 depicts al-Suri’s organisational-structure theory. The centralised unit is circle 1, the circle of de-centralised units is 2, and the Da’wah circle is 3, in that figure. Note that the entire structure is governed by the institution of bay’at (depicted by arrow B). Note, also, that as one moves from circles 1 to 3, individuals and units become more geographically dispersed (as depicted by arrow G). While individuals and units in circles 1 and 2 are allowed to communicate with each other and to their adjacent circles (depicted through connecting arrows), such is not the case with the outer circle 3.
How does al-Suri’s organisational structure match the typologies of attackers being advanced in light of the recent terrorist attacks in Europe? Gartenstein-Ross and Barr – in way of debunking the “myth of lone wolf terrorism,” advanced one such typology.[65] In their analysis, there are four kinds of attackers and attacks. In the first kind, attackers are sent by an outfit from abroad to carry out operations. In al-Suri’s jargon, these would be attackers in circle 2. Then there are attackers – in the Gartenstein-Ross and Barr typology – who are in touch with each other virtually, for purposes of coordination. In al-Suri’s structure, these would also be attackers in circle 2 – or between circles 2 and 3. The third category of attackers are ones “who are in contact with a militant group via online communications but do not receive specific instructions about carrying out an attack.” These would be – according to al-Suri – individuals in the Daw’ahcircle 3. Finally, in the Gartenstein-Ross and Barr typology, there are true lone wolves who act completely independently of the ‘parent’ network. This, too would be, according to al-Suri’s theory, individuals in circle 3 – only if they pledge allegiance to the Caliph or the Emir (who is al-Baghdadi, in case of ISIS). The similarity between the Gartenstein-Ross and Barr typology and al-Suri’s theory is remarkable.
Figure 2: A Schematic Description of Al-Suri’s Organisational Theory
4. Al-Suri’s ISIS: The Way Forward
If ISIS indeed operates out of al-Suri’s playbook, what is in store for that organisation?
One would expect to see the frequency of individual jihadistsattack to continue and keep pace, fuelled by self-radicalisation. Al-Suri, as this paper has explained, placed a premium on this tactic. One would also expect ISIS to continue to hold territory even at significant military costs. After all, as al-Suri explains, the whole point of the enterprise of Islamic Resistance is to control territory and establish an Islamic State. Therefore analysts who expect ISIS to completely morph into a de-centralised structure would be well-advised to rethink their assumptions.
Al-Suri had displayed a great interest in weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). A US government assessment of al-Suri puts him as “an expert in the use of poison.”[66] Individual expertise aside, al-Suri is known to have worked quite closely with al-Qaeda’s leading expert on unconventional weapons Abu Khabab al-Masri.[67] Al-Suri himself is said to have written on biological weapons, and has called for the use of WMDs against the US and allies “to reach a strategic decisive outcome.”[68]ISIS has already used chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq, but the real question is whether it would do so outside its own ‘territory’.[69] It is unlikely if most of the attacks outside Syria and Iraq are carried out by individual jihadists in the Daw’ah circle. Therefore the most likely ISIS WMD-use threat lies against American and allied troops in any possible ground invasion.
The most important point with the al-Suri-and-ISIS story is polemical. Blinded by indiscriminate violence, it is easy to conclude that ISIS is a nihilistic group driven by eschatological motives. It is rather more difficult to accept instinctively that there may be a concrete strategic theory behind their actions. But to strive to understand is not the same as to extend empathy. This paper has argued that the foundation of ISIS strategy was provided by one man – Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. Indeed, in order to dissect ISIS strategy, more research is needed about ideologues and theorists like al-Suri – without empathy, for sure, but not without curiosity.
The author thanks the two individuals who served as referees for their useful remarks which helped improve the quality of this paper. He also thanks Ms. Nisha Verma, ORF Librarian, for arranging research material at short notices.
[1] Paul Cruickshank and Mohannad Hage Ali, “Abu Musab Al-Suri: Architect of the New al-Qaeda,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30 (2007), 5.
[2] Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri(London: Hurst & Company, 2007), 2.
[3] Craig Whitlock, “Architect of New War on the West,” Washington Post, May 23, 2006.
[4] Cruickshank and Hage Ali, “Abu Musab Al-Suri,” 1.
[5] Lawrence Wright, “The Master Plan: For the New Theorists of Jihad, al-Qaeda is Just the Beginning,” New Yorker, September 11, 2006.
[6] Jason Burke, The New Threat From Islamic Militancy (London: The Bodley Head, 2015), 164.
[7] Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 347-484; “Abu Musab al-Suri’s Military Theory of Jihad,” SITE Intelligence Group, January 15, 2014, https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Articles-Analysis/suri-a-mili.html. This Paper will use the first source as primary material unless noted otherwise.
[8] Kathy Gilsinan, “ISIS: An Organization – and an Idea,” Atlantic, June 26, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/06/tunisia-kuwait-france-isis/396932/.
[9] Burke, The New Threat From Islamic Militancy, 61.
[10] Burke, The New Threat From Islamic Militancy, 69.
[13] Yaseer Okbi and Maariv Hashavua, “ISIS vs. al-Qaida: Zawahiri Says Baghdadi is Not the Leader of the Muslim World,” Jerusalem Post, June 10, 2015, http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/ISIS-vs-al-Qaida-Zawahiri-says-Baghdadi-is-not-the-leader-of-the-Muslim-world-421090.
[14] Cruickshank and Hage Ali, “Abu Musab Al-Suri,” 2.
[16] Joas Wagemakers, The Quietest Jihadist: The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 177.
[17] Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, 11.
[18] Michael W.S. Ryan, “Dabiq: What Islamic State’s New Magazine Tells Us about Their Strategic Direction, Recruitment Patterns and Guerrilla Doctrine,” The Jamestown Foundation, August 1, 2014, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=42702&no_cache=1#.V44aCLh97IU.
[19] Cruickshank and Hage Ali, “Abu Musab Al-Suri,” 7.
[20] Burke, The New Threat From Islamic Militancy, 17.
[21] Cruickshank and Hage Ali, “Abu Musab Al Suri,” 3.
[22] Cole Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World Analysis Paper No. 19 (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2015), 7-8.
[23] Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, 7.
[24] Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, 9.
[45]John A. Tures, “The Myth of the Lone-Wolf Terrorist,” Huffington Post, November 14, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/the-myth-of-the-lone-wolf_b_8563886.
[46] Rukmini Callimachi, “Islamic State Says ‘Soldiers of Caliphate’ Attacked in San Bernardino, New York Times, December 5, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/world/middleeast/islamic-state-san-bernardino-massacre.html?_r=0.
JudicialWatch: The upcoming Hollywood movie about traitor Edward Snowden—criminally charged by the U.S. government under the Espionage Act—portrays the National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor who leaked top secret information as a courageous patriot. Nothing surprising there considering the film’s Academy award-winning director, Oliver Stone, referred to Snowden as a “hero”back in 2013 when he fled to Moscow to avoid prosecution after betraying his country. Snowden’s illegal disclosures have helped terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and led to the death of innocent people. Last year Snowden began openly engaging with ISIS and Al Qaeda members and supporters via social media.
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“Snowden has done incalculable damage to the NSA and, in the process, to American national security,” according to University of Virginia Law School Professor Robert F. Turner, who specializes in national security issues and served as Counsel to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board at the White House. “Officials in position to know said good people have already lost their lives thanks to Snowden. Countless more are likely to lose theirs now that our enemies know our most closely guarded sources and methods of communications intelligence collection.” Turner adds that Snowden is hailed as a hero and “whistleblower” by those who are clueless to the devastation he’s done. “When all of the smoke clears, it may very well be proven that Snowden is the most injurious traitor in American history.”
This would make it illegal to profit from his crimes and the Department of Justice (DOJ) should confiscate all money made by the violators. Snowden is no whistleblower. In fact he violated his secrecy agreement, which means he and his conspirators can’t materially profit from his fugitive status, violation of law, aiding and abetting of a crime and providing material support to terrorism. It’s bad enough that people are profiting from Snowden’s treason, but adding salt to the wound, the Obama administration is doing nothing about it. Judicial Watch has launched an investigation and is using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain records. True whistleblowers and law-abiding intelligence officers such as Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, FBI Special Agent Robert G. Wright and Valerie Plame got release authority in accordance with their secrecy agreement and did not seek money or flee to Russia. A federal appellate court has ruled that government employees, such as Snowden, who signed privacy agreements can’t profit from disclosing information without first obtaining agency approval. The case involved a CIA agent (Frank Snepp) who violated his agreement with the agency by publishing a book. A federal court denied Snepp royalties from his book and an appellate court upheld the ruling, reiterating that the disgraced agent breached the “constructive trust” between him and the government.
Furthermore, Snowden, Stone and the producers of a 2014 Oscar-winning Snowden film titled “Citizenfour” may be in violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), which forbids providing material support or resources for acts of international terrorism. Many deep-pocketed institutions have been sued under the law for providing terrorist organizations or affiliates resources that assisted in the commission of terrorist acts. Just last month the families of victims killed and injured by Hamas filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Facebook under ATA for providing the terrorist group with material support by letting it use its services to help carry out attacks. A number of banks have also been sued under the law for financing terrorist activities, albeit unknowingly.
Both Stone and “Citizenfour” director Laura Poitras had clandestine meetings abroad with Snowden. Stone told a Hollywood trade publication he met Snowden in Russia and that he moved production overseas because filming in the U.S. was too risky. “We didn’t know what the NSA might do, so we ended up in Munich, which was a beautiful experience,” Stone said. Poitras actually collaborated with Snowden’s defection to China then Russia and had email communication with him before he committed his crimes so she had foreknowledge. This is all included in her documentary. On May 20, 2013 Snowden flew to Hong Kong to meet with British journalists and Poitras. He gave them thousands of classified documents and Poitras became known as the woman who helped Snowden spill his secrets, or rather commit treason. When Citizenfour won the 2015 Academy Award, Poitras was joined by Snowden’s girlfriend during her acceptance speech at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California. “The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” Poitras said in her acceptance speech. “Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers.”
Snowden remains a fugitive from U.S. law protected by Russia. On June 14, 2013, federal prosecutors charged him with “theft of government Property,” “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.” Al Qaeda keeps using information leaked by Snowden to help its fighters evade surveillance technology, according to a British newspaper report. “The terrorist group has issued new video guidance based on what they have learnt about Western spying methods from the Snowden disclosures which have been made public on the internet,” the article states. “The move confirms the worst fears of British and American intelligence chiefs who warned that Snowden’s betrayal would play into the hands of the terrorists. The video even uses footage of news reports of the Snowden leak, highlighting how ‘NSA is tracking millions of phones.’”
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