Tag: ISIS

Jacob Siegel casts doubt on ISIS’s ability to extend the reach of its “caliphate” beyond Iraq, given that its Sunni rebel allies there don’t share its objective of world conquest:

There is a paradox to ISIS’s power. The caliphate has grown to rival al Qaeda for prestige in the global jihad movement but it becomes clearer with every day that, within Iraq, the Islamic State doesn’t extend very far outside of Mosul. As an attacking force, ISIS might be the most powerful army in Iraq, able to ambush the army in lightning assaults that have either scattered or slaughtered government and militia soldiers. But the skills and composition that have led to ISIS successes on the battlefield haven’t set them up to rule in any more than a handful of cities. They are too small to impose their authority over extended territory. For that they rely on their allies, using them until the day they are no longer needed, just as they, in turn, are being used.

ISIS’s victories and social media theatrics have won it a flock of Internet supporters and death-seeking recruits, but most of its potential followers in Iraq aren’t looking online to choose a cause, they take orders from tribal leaders or other local authorities.

Likewise, Yezid Sayigh contends that “in fact ISIS is following a well-worn path for taking power and consolidating it in the limited geographical space of a single nation-state where its true social base lies”:

To legitimize itself ideologically and acquire leverage over its partners and competitors, ISIS calls Muslims to jihad, labels western governments “crusaders,” and pledges to free Palestine. This again mimics Saddam, who appealed to pan-Arabism and the Gulf monarchies to support his war against revolutionary Islamist Iran in 1980, and in 1990 linked his invasion of Kuwait to the liberation of Palestine and evoked Islamic solidarity by having “Allahu Akbar” inscribed on the national flag.

But Saddam remained an Iraqi leader in the Iraqi setting, benefitting from the country’s oil wealth to cement his rule internally but remaining bound by its limitations, especially its deep social cleavages and weak national identity. ISIS is even more dependent than he was on its societal balances and alliances within the narrower domestic demographic base of the Arab Sunnis of Iraq, a vulnerability that is not seriously compensated by its partial extension into Syria.

Meanwhile, back in the hellhole of Iraq, the “Islamic State” has issued an ultimatum to Christians in the areas it controls:

In the statement, Isis said Christians who wanted to remain in the “caliphate” declared earlier this month in parts of Iraq and Syria must agree to abide by terms of a “dhimma” contract – a historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy known as “jizya”. “We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract – involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,” the announcement said.

A resident of Mosul said the statement, issued in the name of the Islamic State in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, had been distributed on Thursday and read out in mosques. It said that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which the group has now named Caliph Ibrahim, had set a Saturday deadline for Christians who did not want to stay and live under those terms to “leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate”. “After this date, there is nothing between us and them but the sword,” it said.

Juan Cole comments on the flight of Christians from Mosul, which leaves the city without a Christian community for the first time since the dawn of the faith itself:

Mosul’s fleeing Christians have largely gone to Dohuk or Irbil in Kurdistan, and Kurdish officials have urged Kurds to give them refuge. Shiite shrines and institutions in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala have also offered to shelter the displaced Christians. Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians had earlier gone to Syria and Lebanon, though it seems likely that they will try to get to Europe.

Christians are not the only group at risk. There are many small unorthodox Shiite communities in northern Iraq, and they are recipients of the same threats being directed against the Christians. There are also Mandaean Gnostics. In the period of the American occupation, the predecessors of IS such as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, had routinely target Christians and heterodox Shiites for bombings and attacks.

Tim Stanley wonders why that persecution of Iraqi Christians continues to inspire little outrage in the West:

It could be that no Westerner wants to return to Iraq, that politicians fear that even discussing the country will lead voters to fear yet another invasion and yet another bloody occupation. Or it could be that we feel embarrassed about the very idea of Christians as a persecuted minority. The reporter John Allen argues that Westerners have been trained to think of Christians as “an agent of aggression, not its victim” – so we’re deaf to pleas for help. That opinion is supported by Ed West in an excellent e-book, and its consequences have been condemned by religious leaders here in the UK. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has compared the suffering of Middle East Christians with Jewish pogroms in Europe and reminded everyone of the words of Martin Luther King: “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

It would indeed be awful to think that the West might remain silent as violence rages purely out of a failure to recognise that Christians can be victimised, or out of a reluctance to cast aspersions on certain brands of Islam. It would make this the first genocide in history to be tolerated out of social awkwardness.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Amichai Magen take a broader look at some of the governance problems jihadists face in their fanatical attempts to impose Islamic law:

Jihadist groups’ rigid religious outlook drives their belief that sharia must be imposed and also the shape that sharia takes for them. Washington Institute for Near East Policy scholar Aaron Y. Zelin notes that the Islamic State’s city charter after the group captured Mosul on June 10 provided for amputation of thieves’ hands, required timely performance of all required prayers, and forbade drugs and alcohol. Further, “all shrines and graves will be destroyed, since they are considered polytheistic.”

This charter has much in common with previous jihadist governance efforts: They tend to have a legalistic and all-encompassing interpretation of sharia, insisting upon even obscure rules. In a previous period of jihadist rule over Mosul – when the Islamic State’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), controlled the city until May 2008 – citizens were required to follow intricate and bizarre rules. AQI banned the side-by-side display of tomatoes and cucumbers by food vendors because the group viewed the arrangement as sexually provocative, in addition to banning a local bread known assammoun, the use of ice, and barbers’ use of electric razors. These restrictions might be Monty Python-esque, but the punch line was grim: Iraqis were killed for violating them.

Previous Dish on the plight of Iraqi Christians under ISIS here.

(Photo: Iraqi Christians attend a mass at the Saint-Joseph church in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on July 20, 2014. Hundreds of Christian families fled their homes in Mosul on July 20 as a jihadist ultimatum threatening their community’s centuries-old presence in the northern Iraqi city expired. By Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)

Juan Cole’s list of recent “disturbing” news items from Iraq begins with some major developments regarding the Kurds:

1. Last Wednesday Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki angrily lashed out at the Kurds, accusing them of harboring the terrorists of the so-called ‘Islamic State.’ Since the Kurds have in fact fought the IS radicals, al-Maliki’s charge is hard to take seriously. Rather, it appears to be a sign of how angry he is that Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani is pressuring him to step down. I don’t think al-Maliki can get a third term without Kurdish support.

2. Barzani responded that al-Maliki is “hysterical.” The Kurds then withdrew from al-Maliki’s cabinet, in which they had been his coalition partners. The ministries will likely go on running all right, but the move is symbolic of the break between al-Maliki and his erstwhile backers. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, one of those who suspended participation, says it will be hard for the Kurds to work with al-Maliki unless he apologizes.

3. On Friday, the Kurds seized two important oil fields in the Kirkuk region. Since their willingness to supply Turkey with petroleum seems to be one of the reasons Ankara has increasingly made its peace with Iraqi Kurdistan becoming independent, the Kurds are now in a position to remunerate Turkey even more generously for acquiescing in their national aspirations.

By seizing these oil fields, Keith Johnson fears, the Kurds risk antagonizing the Iraqi government and further escalating tensions between Baghdad and Erbil:

The big questions now are:

How much more will the move strain the unity of an Iraqi government still struggling to push back against a spring offensive by Islamist insurgents? And how will the Kurds actually sell the additional oil they now control? As a solely regional government, the KRG has hit major obstacles in finding international buyers for its crude since it began trying to sell abroad earlier this year — largely because of Baghdad’s threats and diplomatic pressure.

The Kurdish seizure will aggravate U.S. goals of getting Iraq’s Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish populations to work together to fight the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS. Coupled with strident talk of an independent Kurdish state, it further complicates efforts to broker a truce between Baghdad and Erbil, especially regarding international oil sales. “

Luke Harding provides a glimpse of what life is like in Kirkuk these days:

Iraq’s disintegration has affected the city in multifarious ways. It has, for example, touched on the fortunes of Kirkuk’s football club. Nowzad Qader, the head of Kirkuk’s FA, said Iraq wasn’t able to complete its league this year, with players unable to travel to Baghdad. It was too dangerous, he said, since Isis controlled the road. “Isis doesn’t like humanity much, let alone football,” he observed. “If Iraq still exists next season we’ll resume.” Nearby, youths kicked a ball around in the early evening heat.

Qadar said the local FA reflected Kirkuk’s tradition of coexistence, at odds with the sectarian mayhem in the rest of the country. He was a Kurd, his deputy a Turkman and the secretary an Arab. “It’s like a microcosm of Iraq. We work together in brotherhood,” he declared. Maureen Nikola, a volleyball coach, said girls who played on her team came from all of Kirkuk’s ethnic groups. Some of her Christian players had emigrated with their families after 2003, she said. Nikola, a Christian herself, added: “If the peshmerga weren’t here, we would have had to flee, like Mosul.”

Previous Dish on the prospect of an independent Kurdistan here.

That’s how Osama al-Nujaifi, the most recent speaker of Iraq’s parliament and one of the country’s leading Sunni lawmakers, understands the insurgency from which ISIS emerged as the lead actor:

Yes, it is a revolution. But at the same time, the terrorists are taking advantage of it. It’s a revolution that started a year and a half ago, as peaceful demonstrations. [The government] didn’t deal with it according to the constitution. Instead, they faced it with force. So it turned into a military movement. But it wasn’t as broad as we see now. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) [which now calls itself the Islamic State] took advantage of the gap between the government and the people, and they invaded and occupied Iraqi cities.

ISIS controls important military areas, but the wider geographical area is in the hands of tribes and armed groups who are rebelling against the government, and who before that were fighting the Americans. We need to differentiate between these groups and the terrorists. We need to face ISIS militarily. But these other groups should be dealt with politically.

For this reason, Owen Bennett-Jones suggests that the Islamic State will eventually fall apart, but he argues it’s likely to take Iraq, and maybe even Syria, along with it:

The disintegration of Iraq fits into larger trends challenging the established order in the Middle East and it isn’t only jihadis who are driving the changes. In a development that would have been unimaginable a few years ago, Western companies are now buying oil from the Kurds despite the opposition of the central government in Baghdad. In Syria, Isis controls some oilfields but the output still gets to market. As for borders, it is no longer outlandish to consider the possibility of an Alawite redoubt in western Syria and of Kurdish self-rule: a de facto independence that would change not only Iraq but also Turkey, Syria and Iran.

Meanwhile, Patrick Cockburn considers the prospects for an ISIS assault on Baghdad:

Iraq’s acting national security adviser, Safa Hussein, told me that ‘many people think’ Isis will ‘synchronise attacks from inside and outside Baghdad’. He believed such an assault was possible though he thought it would lead to defeat for Isis and the Sunni rebels who joined them. The Sunni are in a minority but it wouldn’t take much for an attacking force coming from the Sunni heartlands in Anbar province to link up with districts in the city such as Amariya, Khadra and Dora. Much depends on how far Isis is overextended, surprised by its own victories and lacking the resources to strike at the capital. …

A rational calculation of the balance of forces in any prospective battle for Baghdad shows that Isis has shot its bolt for the moment and can’t advance out of Sunni-dominated provinces. But Baghdadis are wary of assuming that they’re safe because they know they have to take into account the gross incompetence of the ruling elite around Maliki, which clings to power as if it had not just lost half the country. Even the generals who openly abandoned their troops in Mosul, Ali Ghaidan Majid and Abboud Qanbar, still hold their old jobs, two of the three most important in the army. ‘I still see them turning up to military meetings in Baghdad and they often sit in the front row as if nothing had happened,’ a senior official said despairingly. ‘It is beyond a joke.’

Ariel Ahram argues that the oil and water resources ISIS has captured are forcing it to behave more like a state and less like an insurgency:

Oil and water, unlike diamonds or drugs, contribute to the coherence to the Islamic State and the discipline of its governance. While both the United States and (even more significantly) Iran have dispatched military advisers to Iraq, full-blown outside intervention is difficult to imagine. Other forms of non-violent interventions, such as placing sanctions or embargoing IS’s oil production, are unlikely to be effective. Alternatively, coming to agreements on the disposition and distribution of water and oil resources could form the basis for some modes of negotiation. IS has already cooperated with the Assad regime in the distribution of electricity. While arrangements for sharing water and oil will not bridge the profound ethno-sectarian and ideological gap separating IS from the KRG, Iraq, Syria and the myriad of other belligerents, it could provide a basis for conflict management that mitigate the worst violence and spares civilians further harm.

In the meantime, ISIS’s control over Iraq’s central oil fields is becoming a major revenue stream for the jihadist operation. Steve LeVine highlights its million-dollar-a-day oil smuggling business:

According to an investigation by Iraq Oil Report (paywall), ISIL rapidly captured one and possibly two oilfields south of Kirkuk soon after storming Iraq a month ago. The fields, in the Hamrin mountains, produce relatively small volumes—just 16,000-20,000 barrels a day. But that earns a tidy income even at the knock-down local black market rate of about $55 a barrel, according to the report.

The description of ISIL’s smuggling route into Kurdistan continues the narrative of a ruthlessly managed, financially savvy rebel group that has emerged over the last year first in Syria and now Iraq. That includes control over Syria’s oilfields—on July 3, ISIL captured al-Omar, the country’s largest oilfield—plus some $420 million in Iraqi dinars snatched up in the June capture of Mosul. In all, ISIL may have a cache of some $1.3 billion. If you look at the capture of Iraqi territory as a business expansion, the prudent thing for ISIL to do is to establish new lines of revenue to support its added expenses. This is what the Hamrin mountain oil-smuggling network looks like.

Overall, however, Douglas Ollivant stresses that much less of Iraq’s oil is at risk in this conflict than many assume:

The bulk of Iraq’s oil production, now at about three million barrels per day, occurs in the far south of the country, in and around Basra province. A few smaller but still significant fields in the far northeast of Iraqi Kurdistan contribute another few hundred thousand barrels a day. Neither of these regions are anywhere near the current fighting. Further, each is buffered—by the mountains that rise in the KRG to the northeast, and by hundreds of kilometers of almost exclusively Shia Iraqi geography in the south. The Baiji refinery, a facility that has become a battleground in recent weeks, is focused exclusively on internal oil refinement and distribution and is not a part of Iraq’s export infrastructure. So Iraq is still on a path to be producing four million barrels a day by the end of this calendar year, or shortly thereafter.

The fighting will doubtless slow the further expansion of Iraq’s oil production. Baghdad’s inability to process hydrocarbon contracts, combined with increased security and insurance costs for international oil companies means, that we should now be less optimistic about predictions that Iraq will be producing 6 million barrels a day by the end of the decade. But the idea that Sunni jihadists will be overrunning Iraq’s southern oil fields is extremely far fetched.

Previous Dish on the Iraq conflict’s oil dimension here and here, and on the water dimension here and here.

Keating notices that their declaration of a caliphate isn’t rallying many other jihadists around its flag:

So far, there hasn’t exactly been a rush of other jihadi groups pledging allegiance to [Abu Bakr al-] Baghdadi. A number of Islamist groups in Syria, including al-Qaida’s official branch there, al-Nusra, have denounced the announcement. The caliphate has gotten a few pledges of support from groups in Egypt and Libya as well as a factions of the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. But we’ve yet to hear from senior leaders like AQAP’s Nasir al-Wuhayshi or al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb under Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud. All in all, considering the power-play ISIS just mounted, it hasn’t gotten a particularly impressive show of support from the international movement it purports to now lead. As terrorism analyst J.M. Berger put it, “it’s starting to look like that time ISIS threw a caliphate party and nobody came.”

Richard Bulliet doesn’t expect the title of “caliph” to do much for Baghdadi either:

[T]he success or failure of an ISIL caliphate will have little to do with the history of either the title or the office. None of the OIC states will recognize Baghdadi’s grandiose proclamation, and without such recognition, it will remain meaningless.

ISIL may well continue to enjoy military success against the feeble and embattled Syrian and Iraqi regimes, and that success may well draw in recruits. But the benefit to ISIL of a claim to the medieval caliphate of Baghdad is nil. In fact, it already draws more ridicule than support. Yusef al-Qaradawi, a spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, declared that ISIL’s declaration “is void under sharia and has dangerous consequences for the Sunnis in Iraq and for the revolt in Syria.”

There is an outside chance that ISIL’s Islamic State could become a regional polity with some degree of staying power, like the Sokoto Caliphate. But if that does happen, it will be due almost entirely to the fortunes of war rather than the fallacious founding of a caliphate.

Meanwhile, Robert Ford sees potential to peel other Sunni groups away from the Islamic State’s coalition:

In a reversal of their thinking after 2003, many Sunni Arabs also now call for a Sunni Arab region modeled off the Kurdistan Regional Government that they so bitterly opposed 10 years ago, during the drafting of the present Iraqi constitution. The present constitution would allow a Sunni Arab regional government with its own security forces and a wide margin of self-rule. They are surely also thinking about the share of Iraq’s big oil revenues from southern and northeastern Iraq that would go to their region, which would be centered in western Iraq. This suggests that there is space to negotiate with at least some of the Sunni Arabs. These figures would likely be willing to stop the fight against Baghdad in return for a reformed central government and an agreed path to decide if and where to establish another regional government in Iraq.

Nevertheless, Paul Miller contends that “the Middle East is now a more favorable operating environment for jihadist groups than ever before”:

Today there is no serious ideological rival left to Islamist politics in most Middle Eastern countries. Nationalist and Marxist politicians discredited themselves with decades of corruption, mismanagement, and autocracy that left the region nearly worst in the world for human development. The groups gaining ground in the political ferment of the last few years tend to espouse variations of Islamism — of the peaceful sort, where possible, as in Tunisia (the Ennahda Party) and Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood has publicly foresworn violence since the 1960s), but of the violent sort elsewhere.

[T]here is now a wide swath of territory across Iraq and Syria that is essentially safe haven for jihadist militants. This is probably the greatest strategic setback to the United States in its long war against jihadists since al Qaeda declared war on the United States in 1996. That a menagerie of like-minded jihadist militant groups are alive and well and capturing territory suggests the irrelevance of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s claim in 2011 that al Qaeda was nearing “strategic defeat.” The fate of al Qaeda is simply one small piece of a much larger problem. The situation is all the worse today because jihadist groups can now exploit the international border between Iraq and Syria to their advantage. In a move familiar to anyone watching the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, terrorists plan, train, and hide on one side of the border, unmolested by the local government because they only carry out operations on the other side.