CONTENTS

Cover
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Ali H. Soufan
Introduction
Notes
1 The Long Road to the Caliphate
Evolution over Time
Ideological Underpinnings
Goals and Objectives
Strategic Decision-making
Organizational Structure
Campaigns and Operations
Franchise Groups and Affiliates
Notes
2 The Inner Workings of the Islamic State
Operational Capabilities
Organizational Capabilities
Notes
3 The Coming Terrorist Diaspora
IS Affiliates Abroad
Other Locations
Notes
4 From “Remain and Expand” to Survive and Persist
Preparation
Adaptation
Opportunism
Strategy
Tactics
Ongoing Debates in Jihadi Ideology
The IS–Al-Qaeda Dispute
 The Future Is the Past
What Happens Next?
Notes
5 After the Caliphate: Preventing the Islamic State’s
Return
Dealing with Returnees
Endgame for IS or New Beginnings?
Notes
Index
End User License Agreement

Tables
Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Analysis of IS affiliates
Dedication
For my girls, Fiona and Maya
After the Caliphate
The Islamic State and the Future of
the Terrorist Diaspora
Colin P. Clarke

polity
Copyright © Colin P. Clarke 2019
The right of Colin P. Clarke to be identified as Author of this Work has been
asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act
1988.
First published in 2019 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3389-3
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Names: Clarke, Colin P., author.
Title: After the Caliphate : the Islamic State & the future of the terrorist
diaspora / Colin P. Clarke.
Description: Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018044631 (print) | LCCN 2018046064 (ebook) | ISBN
9781509533893 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509533879 (hardback) | ISBN
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Subjects: LCSH: IS (Organization) | Terrorism—Religious aspects—Islam. |
Terrorism—Prevention.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to many people for contributing to this
study and for their enduring support, without which this
effort would not have been possible. I owe so much to the
University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and
International Affairs (GSPIA), especially to Phil
Williams, who is both a mentor and a friend. At the
RAND Corporation, I would like to thank my friends and
colleagues Chad Serena, Christopher Paul, Patrick
Johnston, Brian Michael Jenkins, Seth Jones, Andy
Liepman, and Howard Shatz, among others, for
intellectually stimulating conversations over the years.
Also, special thanks are due to Valerie Nelson, who
helped me with the dozens of op-eds that originally
motivated me to write this book. Her help, but more
importantly her sense of humor and wit, were
indispensable to me while I was writing. At Carnegie
Mellon University, I thank Kiron Skinner and my
wonderful colleagues, as well as my students, with whom
I’ve spent countless hours speaking about the subjects
covered in this book.
At Polity, I would like to offer the sincerest thanks to
Louise Knight, Nekane Tanaka Galdos, and their team.
Polity was such a well-organized group and Louise’s
sense of humor helped push me through. Her patience,
encouragement, and kindness brightened many of my
days.
I would like to acknowledge the many named and
unnamed scholars and practitioners who took time away
from their busy schedules to avail me of their expertise
and knowledge in this area, whether in interviews or in
conversations about this subject which helped shape my
thinking, including Graeme Wood, Daniel Byman, John
Horgan, Bruce Hoffman, J. M. Berger, Haroro Ingram,
Aaron Zelin, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Michael Kenney,
Martha Crenshaw, Elisabeth Kendall, Fred Wehrey, Mia
Bloom, Derek Henry Flood, Zack Gold, Zachary Abuza,
Jason Warner, Craig Whiteside, Amir Jadoon, Hassan
Hassan, Amar Amarasingam, Charlie Winter, Rukmini
Callimachi, Brian Fishman, Assaf Moghadam, Tom
Joscelyn, Robin Simcox, Pieter Van Ostaeyen, Louis
Klareves, Jean-Marc Oppenheim, Mary Beth Altier, and
Sam Mullins.
I am so thankful to Ali Soufan and my colleagues at The
Soufan Center in New York City. I read about Ali and his
heroism when I was a graduate student and have always
admired him, even before I knew him. Especially given
the topic discussed in this book, which can be dark at
times, I think this world needs more heroes, and Ali is
one of mine. Moreover, sometimes people you idolize
from afar let you down once you meet them in person,
but not Ali. For all of his success, he’s an even better
person, so it’s surreal that I now have the opportunity to
work alongside him.
Many thanks to Alastair Reed, Renske van der Veer, Bart
Schuurman, Christophe Paulussen, Jos Kosters, and my
colleagues at The International Centre for Counter-
Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT); Michael Noonan and my
colleagues at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
(FPRI) in Philadelphia; and Seamus Hughes and his
team at the Program on Extremism at George
Washington University.
Most importantly, I would like to thank my family and
friends, who mean everything to me. I’ve been blessed to
have a tight-knit group of friends and we’ve done an
admirable job of keeping in touch over the many years.
It’s amazing to watch how our lives have changed as we
each raise families of our own. None of this would be
possible without my parents, Phil and Maureen, who
instilled in me the value of hard work, not by spelling it
out explicitly, but by quietly setting the example. I love
you guys. Thanks go to my brother Ryan and my sister
Katie, who are my siblings but, more importantly, my
friends. Lastly, I would like to thank my wife Colleen, an
amazing partner and mother and the rock of our family.
Her smile alone is enough to get me through my toughest
days. Without her help, this book would certainly not
have been possible.
Any and all mistakes contained here within are the sole
responsibility of the author.
Foreword
Ali H. Soufan

Almost 18 years ago, the United States was attacked by

al-Qaeda, a Salafi-jihadist terrorist organization of
around 400 members, based primarily in Afghanistan
and led by Osama bin Laden. The United States
responded swiftly, and, along with its allies and partners,
defeated that version of al-Qaeda. Today, however, a new
jihadist threat has emerged around the world. It consists
of many different organizations that have successfully
embedded themselves in local conflicts, making them
incredibly difficult to target.
In After the Caliphate, terrorism scholar Colin P. Clarke
traces the evolution of the global jihadist movement from
its earliest days all the way up to and through the
collapse of the caliphate. In my career as an FBI Special
Agent, I experienced firsthand the depth of commitment
of some of al-Qaeda’s most committed ideologues.
Clarke’s book goes a long way toward capturing the
essence of what made al-Qaeda, and then the Islamic
State (IS), so unique – an unwavering commitment to
reinstating the rule of the caliphate through any means
necessary. Over time, the leadership of the global jihadist
movement has changed hands, from Osama bin Laden to
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. What
will the future of the movement look like? Will Hamza
bin Laden, Osama’s son, re-emerge to lead al-Qaeda in
its next chapter as the group seeks to reclaim the
leadership of aspiring jihadists from Europe to the
Middle East and beyond? Or will the movement splinter
and fracture, leading to a decentralized and dispersed
cluster of groups and lone actors tenuously linked by
ideology and common cause?
During his bloody reign, the Jordanian al-Zarqawi
planted the seeds for the rise of IS, exporting his
draconian vision throughout the broader region. Other
jihadist ideologues, including Abu Musab al-Suri,
contributed significantly to the call to establish a
caliphate, something al-Qaeda was never able to achieve
but that IS ultimately did. Bloodshed plays into the
jihadis’ overall game-plan, which has always been about
exploiting chaos and weaponizing sectarianism. There is
a common factor linking the franchise groups and
affiliates of both IS and al-Qaeda. That factor is the
narrative of bin Ladenism. We must dedicate ourselves
to destroying that narrative and only when we do so will
we finally defeat them. But the threat is far from static
and has in fact mutated from an organization that
attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 into
what it is today – a dystopian ideology. Bullets don’t kill
narratives, messages, thoughts, or beliefs. What we need
is a new strategy that moves away from the myopic
obsession with tactical gains and ad-hoc
counterterrorism responses. Indeed, it is the legacy of
our tactic-driven response to 9/11 that has facilitated the
growth of bin Ladenism far beyond what Osama bin
Laden could have ever imagined.
The United States in particular, and the West in general,
have failed to adequately understand the worldview and
belief system underpinning the global jihadist
movement. In the words of Olivier Roy, a world-
renowned scholar of Islam, the threat posed by IS is not
about the radicalization of Islam, but, rather, about the
Islamization of radicalism. Groups like al-Qaeda and IS
have successfully mobilized the grievances of Muslims,
especially young Muslim men, who are seeking to take
control of their own destinies to provide meaning to
what they see as an otherwise meaningless existence,
characterized by mediocrity, isolation, tedium, and a
perception of discrimination and an overall lack of
opportunities to succeed in mainstream society. The
global jihadist movement has filled this void by
propagating a narrative that highlights the action,
excitement, and camaraderie of joining the caliphate. IS
excelled at tailoring its messages to myriad
demographics and lowering the barriers to entry for
those not well steeped in Islamic theology, culture, or
practice.
Following the events of the Arab Spring, bin Laden
ordered al-Qaeda to begin focusing more on issues
directly related to the grassroots and local levels. The
Iraq war was a primary motivation for many jihadists
nearly a decade prior, when the US invasion of Iraq
helped breathe new life into the ideology and narrative
espoused by al-Qaeda. But the Arab Spring refocused the
movement, or at least al-Qaeda, on rebuilding its
network and planting the seed for future generations.
Bruce Hoffman has called this deliberate strategy
“quietly and patiently rebuilding.” The global jihadist
movement endures by taking advantage of chaos in failed
states and ungoverned territories. At a more granular
level, al-Qaeda has used the past few years to refocus its
effort, allowing IS to suffer the brunt of the West’s
counterterrorism efforts while its members ingratiate
themselves in parochial conflicts in Yemen, Mali, and the
Philippines.
What primarily brings together jihadists in the
contemporary era is no longer the shared experience of
training camps, although that is one factor, but rather
something far more tangible – a commitment to the
jihadist narrative and the ideas and beliefs that drive the
recruitment of new members and the regeneration of this
global network of terrorists. If we ever hope to bring an
end to the so-called Global War on Terror, it is essential
to find political solutions to the conflicts in weak states
where jihadist groups seek refuge and safe haven. Only
by diminishing the environment that fuels radicalism
and terrorism can the international community begin to
make sustainable and lasting progress. This means
looking beyond purely military solutions and working to
ensure that those regions most beset by bin Ladenism
have a vested interest in working together toward an
improved future.
The cancer of bin Ladenism has metastasized across the
Middle East and North Africa and beyond. The split
between IS and al-Qaeda was part ideological, but also a
difference between and among personalities. IS has
changed from a terrorist group to a proto-state and is
now reverting back to a clandestine guerrilla
organization focused on subversion and the selective
application of violence. Now that the caliphate has been
crushed, Clarke’s book is critical in helping us
understand what might happen next. From the deserts of
North Africa to the jungles of Southeast Asia, After the
Caliphate is a groundbreaking work of scholarship that
fills a critical void in the contemporary literature on
terrorism studies and should prove a useful guide to
scholars and practitioners alike.
Introduction
“Soon after buying her, the fighter brought the teenage
girl a round box containing four strips of pills, one of
them colored red.”1 This is a line from a story by
Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times from March
12, 2016. Re-read that line again, and let it sink in. The
sentence describes a jihadist terrorist from the Islamic
State (IS) who purchased a teenage girl, from the Yazidi
religious minority in Iraq, at the equivalent of a slave
auction and was forcing her to consume birth-control
pills to ensure that, no matter how many times he
savagely raped her, his captive would not become
pregnant. This situation played itself out throughout
parts of territory in Iraq and Syria under the control of
IS, which declared itself a caliphate and set out to build
what terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw calls a “counter-
state” using any and all means necessary, including rape,
murder, and torture.2
The brutality was not merely limited to sexual slavery.
There were also beheadings and crucifixions. Some IS
captives were burned alive, while others were locked in a
cage and submerged in water until they drowned. Many
of these actions were recorded and posted online by the
group itself, to promote a level of anomic violence that
would come to shape and in many ways define its brand.
Just a few years ago, horrified onlookers must have
wondered how we arrived at a place where a terrorist
organization could conquer and control territory,
systematically eliminate its rivals, and intimidate the
international community from action to halt this blatant
display of barbarism.
By mid-2018, the physical caliphate had all but been
destroyed, its fighters killed, captured, and chased from
their erstwhile strongholds in Raqqa and Mosul. But, as
Graeme Wood points out, the caliphate was more than
just a territory or a proto-state – it was, and indeed still
is, “a phenomenon in both physical and mental space.”3
IS as an idea, as an ideology, and as a worldview is far
from over. The group will eventually seek to relocate to
another country and establish new franchise and affiliate
groups. The purpose of this book is to analyze what
happens next with the Islamic State and to determine
whether or not, and to what extent, it will manage to
adapt and regroup after the physical fall of the caliphate.
What form will its relationship with al-Qaeda take? How
might its tactics and strategy change in the future? This
book will attempt to answer these questions and more,
while taking stock of IS – its roots, its evolution, and its
monumental setbacks – to provide some insights into
what the road ahead could look like.
In many respects, the establishment of the caliphate was
an anomaly. Historically, the global jihadist movement
has been largely decentralized, consistently inconsistent
in its ability to marshal the resources and groundswell of
support necessary to achieve anything close to what IS
did when it established the caliphate with a headquarters
in Raqqa. From bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the global jihadist movement has had its share of
charismatic personalities. But for the past four decades,
it rarely constituted anything close to a monolithic
movement operating with a common purpose and core
agenda.
The future of the movement is therefore likely to
resemble its past – with peripatetic and divided groups
of militants dispersing to new battlefields, from North
Africa to Southeast Asia, where they will join existing
civil wars, establish safe havens and sanctuaries, and
seek ways of conducting spectacular attacks in the West
that inspire new followers and motivate existing
supporters. In this fragmented and atomized form, IS
could become even more dangerous and challenging for
counterterrorism forces, as its splinter groups threaten
renewed and heightened violence throughout the globe.
Even if foreign fighters return home in much smaller
numbers than initially expected, the next five-year
period could very well be characterized by a spike in
attacks.
At its peak from 2014 to 2016, the caliphate briefly
represented the apex of the global jihadist movement –
the closest thing it has ever had to a lasting presence. But
with the caliphate in ruins, it will revert to decentralized
and dispersed clusters of groups and lone individuals or
self-starter groups, tenuously linked by ideology and
common cause, although, as history has shown, over
time parochial interests tend to trump the movement’s
globally focused veneer.4 In order to understand how we
got to where we are today and what lies ahead, it is
critical to look back to the roots of IS – both how and
what it learned from its predecessors, and how it differs
from other milieus within the global jihadist universe.
The opening chapter takes us from the beginnings of the
global Salafi-jihadist movement following the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and traces its evolution
through the next three decades, leading up to the events
of September 11, 2001. Initially dubbed the “Arab
Afghans,” fighters from the Middle East, North Africa,
and elsewhere flocked to Afghanistan to help repel the
Soviet Red Army following Moscow’s hasty invasion.
These militants moved on following the Afghan conflict
to form the core of al-Qaeda, growing the organization in
Sudan before branching out to fight in places like
Somalia, Bosnia, Algeria, and Chechnya during the
1990s. Differences over objectives and ideology led to
numerous splits within the movement, as fighters
dispersed from al-Qaeda to join existing militant groups
throughout the globe, although due to the trappings of
globalization, many were able to remain linked to the
core organization from perches in Southeast Asia,
Europe, and elsewhere.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and an
unrelenting drone campaign, al-Qaeda scattered and
established franchise operations in Yemen (al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP), North Africa (al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM), and Iraq (al-Qaeda in Iraq,
AQI), while also maintaining ties with groups in parts of
Africa (al-Shabaab) and Asia (Abu Sayyaf Group and
Jemmah Islamiyah). Core al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and
Pakistan was largely decimated, but several of the
franchise groups flourished during this period, including
AQAP and AQI, the latter of which was led by the
spiritual godfather of IS, the Jordanian Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi. Over time, AQI would morph into the Islamic
State in Iraq (ISI) in the mid-2000s, a name which the
group would keep until early 2013 when it changed
officially to IS, following its falling-out with al-Qaeda.
The detailed history of the movement described in this
first chapter is critical because one potential future
alternative in the post-caliphate environment is a return
to the franchising model that al-Qaeda pioneered
following the onslaught against its core organization
based in South Asia.
The book then moves to explore the genesis of the
Islamic State and the structural factors and variables that
contributed to its rise, including rampant sectarianism in
Iraq and the political vacuum caused by the Syrian civil
war. A close look at IS infrastructure, decision-making
apparatus, and its approach to building the caliphate
shows how each informed the group’s approach to
conquering new territory and implementing the pillars of
a sovereign state, while also developing a unique ability
to recruit foreign fighters. This analysis is accompanied
by a strategic snapshot of IS’s ideology, its long-term
objectives, and a discussion of the group’s capacity to
plan and conduct attacks (operational capabilities) and
to maintain itself as a cohesive entity (organizational
capabilities). In particular, it is these organizational
capabilities which will play a substantial role in
determining the future of the organization, helping it
transition smoothly from a territorially based insurgent
organization to an underground, clandestine terrorist
group. Its network-like qualities, affiliate franchise
groups, and social media expertise contribute to its
protean structure and ability to survive.
The Islamic State is a pioneering terrorist group in
several ways, from its ability to raise and spend money to
its multi-tiered approach to conducting terrorist attacks
(inspired vs. directed). IS’s use of social media and
encryption to direct terrorist attacks overseas sets it
apart from any terrorist groups of the past. As evidenced
by the Paris November 2015 attacks and the Brussels
March 2016 attacks, at its peak, IS sustained the ability
to strike into the heart of Europe. The second chapter
examines various aspects of the group’s financing and its
tactics, including how IS operates on the battlefield, from
vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) to
ambushes and hit-and-run attacks. This extends to IS’s
exhortation for its followers to conduct attacks in the
West, including a synopsis of so-called vehicular
terrorism, a tactic pioneered by IS that has emerged as a
new trend in terrorism directed against the West.
Chapter 3 offers a rigorous evaluation of the Islamic
State’s future, based – in part – on the current trends we
are witnessing. This includes a deeper discussion of the
so-called free-agent jihadists or roving militants who will
seek to travel to active conflict zones to link up with
existing terrorist and insurgent groups, acting as a force
multiplier. For most of its surviving fighters, the war is
not over – many of these militants will almost certainly
move on to new battlefields to continue waging jihad. As
New Yorker columnist and Middle East expert Robin
Wright recently commented, “hundreds of jihadis are
believed to be searching for new battlefields or refuge in
Muslim countries.”5 The mobilization of jihadists in Iraq
and Syria dwarfs similar phenomena that helped define
civil wars and insurgencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia,
Algeria, and Chechnya. This is an especially ominous
observation since the foreign fighter networks formed
during those conflicts went on to form the core of al-
Qaeda.
Wherever IS fighters fleeing Iraq and Syria congregate
next, it will most probably be in a weak state plagued by
persistent civil conflict, sectarian tensions, and an
inability of the government to maintain a monopoly on
the use of force within its borders. There are several
potential candidates for the next IS headquarters,
including North Africa (Libya, the Sinai Peninsula in
Egypt), Central Asia (Afghanistan, the Caucasus),
Southeast Asia (the Philippines, Indonesia), or
destinations within the Middle East, possibly including
Yemen. What these destinations have in common are
weak security services, existing or recent sectarian
conflict, and a population considered fertile for and
receptive to the Islamic State’s propaganda. Moreover,
recent IS propaganda has demonstrated an interest in
expanding beyond already-existing affiliates, to include
insinuating its fighters and garnering new recruits in
countries like Myanmar, India, and the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC).
The penultimate chapter focuses on “core IS” in Iraq and
Syria and how it will seek to transition from an insurgent
organization to a terrorist group. Three years after IS
captured major cities and towns throughout Iraq and
Syria, the anti-IS coalition has made significant progress
in countering the group and retaking territory.
Nevertheless, predictions of the group’s ultimate demise
are premature. Rather than an end to the group, what we
are witnessing is more accurately a transition from an
insurgent organization with a fixed headquarters to a
clandestine terrorist network dispersed throughout the
region and globe. The differences matter, as
counterterrorism and counterinsurgency are two
completely different strategies. Insurgent organizations
hold and seize territory, can exercise sovereignty over a
population, operate in the open as armed units, and can
engage in mass mobilization, while terrorists conduct
attacks with members operating in small cells – they
rarely hold territory, and if they do it tends to be for a
short period of time. At the time of this writing, IS
leadership is more fractured, flimsy, and sporadic than at
any point to date, but its intelligence service, the Emni,
remains intact and is working to exploit missteps by the
Islamic State’s adversaries, including the Kurds, the
Assad regime, and the Iraqi government, especially to
the extent that these actors reinforce already-existing
sectarian issues in the region.
One major inflection point is IS’s ongoing competition
with al-Qaeda and whether this will result in IS seeking
rapprochement with the latter group or, on the contrary,
intensifying its current rivalry as a way to differentiate
itself and “outbid” its erstwhile collaborator. IS and al-
Qaeda are competing for influence throughout the globe:
in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia,
Mali, Sinai, South and Southeast Asia, Syria/Iraq, Iran,
the Caucasus, and Africa. As IS fighters disperse
following the collapse of the caliphate, some have
speculated that these fighters will reinforce existing
wilayats, or provinces, but the collapse could have a
deleterious effect upon the IS brand and thus lead to an
ascendant al-Qaeda in places we might expect to see IS
reinforced. Current and aspiring jihadists may view the
al-Qaeda–IS relationship and competition through a
zero-sum lens; the two groups “play off each other’s
successes and failures.”6 In some theatres, the two
groups may engage in a process of outbidding, ramping
up violence in the near term to prove dedication and
capability. The question of “preference divergence,”
wherein franchises face the dilemma of investing in local
interests versus diverting resources toward global
objectives, now seems more relevant than at any
previous point in the conflict.
What is being done to counter IS and its returnees,
including the hardcore fighters and mercenaries who will
remain in the region, is the focus of the final chapter.
This includes finances, logistics, and support for existing
militant structures throughout the region and beyond.
What are the policy implications of dealing with
returning foreign fighters? What can and should states
do to help deal with this immense challenge? Finally,
how will the counterterrorism strategy pursued by the
West affect the various trajectories of the splintered IS
elements?
Answering these and other questions, this chapter
engages with the myriad public policy issues
concomitant with returnees and the decision of how best
to reintegrate these people into society, or whether to
deal with them in a more punitive manner. Entire
families that at one time willingly departed Europe to
join the Islamic State are now trickling back home,
posing significant challenges to European authorities.
Not all returnees should be viewed the same, as some
will be willing to reintegrate, others will be reluctant to,
and still others may be incapable of doing so,
traumatized by the horrors of what they witnessed (and
in some cases participated in) during the conflicts in Iraq
and Syria.
While causing a terrorist organization to break apart
might seem like a positive outcome – indeed, this is one
of the primary objectives of most counterterrorism
campaigns – it often causes the emergence of new, and
in some cases more violent, splinter organizations
(indeed, we could already be witnessing this in parts of
the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt). Dismantling and
destroying IS and similar organizations are worthy
strategic goals, but policymakers must also be prepared
to limit the effectiveness of splinter groups as they
emerge in the aftermath of a successful campaign against
the parent group. The coalition fighting IS must continue
to pursue a multipronged strategy. On the one hand,
splinter cells must be aggressively targeted through
capture-and-kill operations to prevent further
metastasizing. On the other, this approach cannot be
pursued in isolation; rather, it must be coupled with
efforts to promote good governance and reduce
corruption in fragile states while building the partner
capacity of security forces in the most affected countries.
Countering IS has become a global priority. Yet there still
exists nothing close to an international consensus on
what must be done to prevent a future mobilization of
jihadists motivated by a desire to establish a caliphate by
any and all means necessary, with death and destruction
paramount to this quest. The Global Coalition to Defeat
ISIS consisted of five specific lines of effort, including:
providing military support to partners fighting IS;
impeding the worldwide flow of foreign fighters;
stopping the financing and funding of its organization;
addressing humanitarian crises in the region; and
exposing the true and odious nature of this barbaric
group determined to enslave its enemies and conquer its
neighbors. The international community has vowed
“never again,” but can it keep that pledge? What makes
this time different? This book offers some possible
responses to the threat posed by a resurgent, post-
caliphate IS. But first, let’s go back to the beginning – to
1979 – and the events that triggered the modern era of
the global jihadist movement and everything it
epitomizes.

Notes
1. Rukmini Callimachi, “To Maintain Supply of Sex
Slaves, ISIS Pushes Birth Control,” New York Times,
March 12, 2016.
2. Email exchange with Martha Crenshaw, June 2018.
3. Email exchange with journalist and author of The Way
of the Strangers: Encounters with The Islamic State,
Graeme Wood, June 2018.
4. Although most analysis focuses on the macro-, or
group level, it is important not to discard the micro-
level view of focusing on lone actors. For more, see
Boaz Ganor, Bruce Hoffman, Marlene Mazel, and
Matthew Levitt, “Lone Wolf: Passing Fad or Terror
Threat of the Future?” in Matthew Levitt, ed., Neither
Remaining Nor Expanding: The Decline of the
Islamic State, Counterterrorism Lectures 2016–2017
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2018), pp.
69–73.
5. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/isis-
jihadis-have-returned-home-by-the-thousands.
6. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/The-Jihadi-
Threat-ISIS-Al-Qaeda-and-Beyond.pdf, p. 7.
1
The Long Road to the Caliphate
Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011, following a
United States Special Operations Forces raid on his
compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His death marked a
major turning point in the US-led Global War on Terror,
closing a chapter that had begun nearly a decade earlier
on September 11, 2001. But the significance of bin Laden
to the global jihadist movement goes back much further,
and can be traced back to Afghanistan in late 1979,
following the Soviet invasion of that country and the
subsequent defense of the territory by Afghans and
foreign fighters from throughout the Islamic world.1 The
earliest known attempt to organize foreign fighters,
many of them from Arab countries, was through the
establishment of al-Qaeda,2 or “the Base,” at a meeting
in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1988. Al-Qaeda itself was the
outgrowth of an organization called Maktab al-Khidamat
(MAK), established by a Palestinian named Abdullah
Azzam.
The organization’s early efforts focused on recruiting
Arab fighters to join the resistance in Afghanistan, where
the so-called mujahedin, or holy warriors, were fighting
to expel Soviet troops from the country.3 At this point in
al-Qaeda’s nascent history, the goal of establishing a
caliphate was more of an abstraction than anything. The
immediate necessity was merely embryonic survival.
Early members of MAK, which was initially founded in
1984, included Azzam, bin Laden, and the Algerian
Abdullah Anas. In the mid-1980s, bin Laden met and
joined forces with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader
of core al-Qaeda. Zawahiri eventually merged key
members of his group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ),
with al-Qaeda, once it emerged as its own entity in the
late 1980s, at which point MAK had become more
focused on humanitarian efforts rather than actual
fighting.4
Al-Qaeda has continued to evolve over the years. Now
entering its third decade, al-Qaeda is many things –
terrorist organization, global jihadist network, brand and
franchise group for Salafi-jihadists throughout the world.
But beyond al-Qaeda, the global jihadist movement is a
collection of groups and personalities – it is far from the
unitary actor so often portrayed in the media. This trope
actually plays into the hands of the jihadists, distorting
the magnitude of the threat and making the movement
seem omnipotent, when in reality it suffers from many of
the same shortcomings, vulnerabilities, principal–agent
and collective action challenges as other transnational
non-state actors. The establishment of the caliphate has
been a unifying, if not quixotic, rallying point for
jihadists. But it’s been more of a battle cry, or an ideal,
than an actual realization. That is, until IS was able to
establish one that spanned the deserts of Syria and major
cities in Iraq.
To many, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda represented
the threat posed by jihadists to the West. But as
witnessed by the emergence of the IS, the threat is, and
in fact always has been, much broader than al-Qaeda. So
while the killing of bin Laden was both a symbolic and
tactical achievement against al-Qaeda and its allies, from
a strategic standpoint, the battle continues. Even in the
immediate aftermath of bin Laden’s death, few serious
commentators believed that his demise in any way
signaled the end of the global jihadist movement.
Accordingly, remarking on the event, reputed terrorism
expert Brian Michael Jenkins soberly noted, “the death
of bin Laden does not end al-Qaeda’s global terrorist
campaign.”5 Nor did it foreshadow an end to the global
jihadist movement that al-Qaeda helped to spawn.
Al-Qaeda has always been a central node – indeed, the
central node – in the constellation of jihadist entities
throughout the globe. But the movement is much bigger
than one man, more complex than one organization. This
book takes as its starting point the global jihadist
movement as it coalesced during the Soviet–Afghan War,
and the 1980s as its logical beginning. The movement as
a whole remains the unit of analysis throughout this
research. To even begin to understand what the global
jihadist movement is, there are several critical questions
this chapter will seek to answer:

What are the origins of the global jihadist

movement and how has it evolved over time?
What is the ideology underpinning and motivating
this movement?
What are the goals and objectives of the movement?
What strategy is the movement pursuing to achieve
its goals?
How is the movement structured to execute this
strategy?

Evolution over Time

“The global jihadist movement” is a rather broad term
encompassing groups, organizations, and individuals, as
well as hinting at a specific worldview motivated by the
ideology of Salafi-jihad, which advocates a raised
awareness among Muslims to reclaim their faith and use
violence, when necessary, to restore Islam to its proper
status as a beacon of religious, political, military,
economic, and cultural guidance.6 There is no
universally accepted definition of what constitutes the
global jihadist movement or how to measure its
evolution over time, which provides scholars with a real
challenge in terms of analysis.
This all leads to the difficulty of attempting to study the
movement as a singular and consistent unit of analysis.
Even al-Qaeda, certainly a more discrete entity, poses “a
common analytic problem” in terms of “defining just
what the group is.”7 It is part of the reason why, even
years after the 9/11 attacks, prominent terrorism
scholars still openly posited the question, “what is the
current Al Qaeda? An organization? A movement? An
ideology?”8 To ascertain a more fundamental
understanding of al-Qaeda and the global jihadist
movement it helped create, it might make sense to start
with the death of its leader, an event that left millions
worldwide hopeful that the scourge of Salafijihadist
terrorism would die along with the man who was, for
more than a decade, the world’s most sought-after man.
Al-Qaeda, perhaps correctly, is frequently analyzed as
the nucleus of the global jihadist movement,
conceptualized as four distinct – though not mutually
exclusive – dimensions: al-Qaeda Central; al-Qaeda
Affiliates and Associates; al-Qaeda Locals; and the al-
Qaeda Network. Al-Qaeda Central is essentially the core
of the original al-Qaeda and is comprised of the group’s
initial leadership, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, and is
based in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda Affiliates and Associates are
made up of “formally established” terrorist groups that
have worked closely with al-Qaeda over the years,
including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and Jemmah
Islamiyah in Indonesia. Al-Qaeda Locals are “amorphous
groups of Al Qaeda adherents” with “a previous
connection of some kind” to al-Qaeda, no matter how
tenuous. Finally, the al-Qaeda Network consists of
homegrown Islamic radicals scattered throughout the
globe with no connection whatsoever with al-Qaeda or
any other terrorist group, but who are prepared to
conduct an attack in solidarity with the ideology of
Salafi-jihad.9
Daniel Byman’s analysis largely overlaps with Hoffman’s,
but instead collapses the second and third categories
together, which he labels as “formal Al Qaeda affiliates or
other groups that have varied relationships with the core
but cooperate at least to some extent.”10 But the most
satisfying analysis of the global jihadist movement is by
Seth Jones, who also largely agrees with both Hoffman
and Byman, but who more clearly draws a distinction
between “affiliated Al Qaeda groups” and “other Salafi-
jihadist groups.” The former are groups that became
formal branches of al-Qaeda by having their emirs swear
bay’at – loyalty – to core al-Qaeda’s leaders, which is
then either officially accepted or rejected.11 At one time,
al-Qaeda affiliates included al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM), al-Shabaab in Somalia, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI),
and Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) in Syria. More recent
developments regarding the latter two groups will be
discussed in more detail in forthcoming chapters.
Groups that are more appropriately labeled as “other
Salafijihadist groups” include Ansar al-Sharia Libya, the
East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and Imarat Kavkaz in
the Caucasus.12 Byman refers to similar groups, namely
those that might receive training from a franchise group,
as Ansar Dine in Mali did from AQIM, as “affiliates,
once-removed,” something akin to a jihadi distant
cousin.13

Ideological Underpinnings
It would be wholly inaccurate to attempt to portray a
monolithic ideology shared by the global jihadist
movement. But, writ large, the ideology of Salafi-
jihadism is the overarching banner under which most of
the world’s violent Sunni jihadists unite. This ideology is
a specific strand of militant Sunni Islamism and can be
defined as groups that stress the need to return to the
“pure” Islam practiced by the Salaf, or pious ancestors,
and those believing that violent jihad is a personal
religious duty.14 Many trace the origins of this line of
thought back to Ibn Taymiyyah, an Islamic philosopher
who advocated and participated in jihad against the
Crusaders and the Mongols in the late thirteenth
century.15 Still others list the most prominent influences
for modern-day jihadists as the Muslim Brotherhood, or
Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Islamist whose views had a
tremendous impact upon leading al-Qaeda ideologues,
including Ayman al-Zawahiri, who credited Qutb with
being “the spark that ignited the Islamic revolution
against the enemies of Islam at home and abroad.”16
But Azzam found the Brothers’ worldview to be slightly
parochial and instead agitated for a different ideology,
one based on a “territorial view of Islam” focused on the
necessity of driving infidels from Muslim lands.17 In
1984, Azzam authored a fatwa titled In Defence of
Muslim Lands, which provided the ideological
underpinnings of modern-day jihad, laying out the
justifications for and the differences between offensive
and defensive jihad.18 Interestingly, IS focused far more
on seizing, holding, and governing territory than al-
Qaeda ever did.
In many ways, the dominant ideology espoused by
groups like al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and others
reflects the notion that violent jihad is the only path to
defending the Islamic world. As part of its brand, al-
Qaeda considered itself to be the vanguard of Muslims
everywhere – the worldwide Islamic community, or
ummah. In declaring jihad on America, bin Laden
argued that the West, and in particular the United States,
was overtly hostile to Islam and the only way to respond
to this aggression was with extreme force and violence –
the only language that America understands. The Salafi-
jihadi ideology believes in an inextricable link between
the United States and Israel, commonly referred to as the
Crusader–Zionist alliance, a theme also referenced in
speeches by hardline Islamist groups from Lebanon to
Palestine. In his speeches, bin Laden exhorted his
followers to fight back and defend Islam from the United
States, which has unleashed against Muslims “an ocean
of oppression, injustice, slaughter and plunder.”19
Therefore, the next logical step is jihad. In essence, the
core of the Salafijihadist ideology is individual jihad
fused with collective revenge.20
From an intellectual standpoint, jihadi totalitarian
ideology is a closed system, but it also allows for
disagreements over strategy, tactics, and other critical
issues.21 In short, interpretation is not as draconian as
some scholars make it out to be and debate is tolerated.
Analysis of al-Qaeda’s internal documents reveals a
group at ease with allowing for internal disagreement
and debate amongst its members and the leadership.22
One well-known ideological divide in the broader jihadist
universe dates back to the early 1980s and is between
those who desire to strike “the far enemy” and those
whose interests are more locally focused, preferring to
target what they perceive as apostate regimes throughout
the Muslim world. In any case, al-Qaeda followed a dual
strategy which allowed it to pursue both objectives
simultaneously.23 But this strategic incongruence is
reflected in the global jihadist movement’s multifaceted
nature. It is a network of networks rather than a single,
coherent entity.
Primarily, and almost exclusively, the bulk of guidance
on contemporary insurgency is manufactured by Salafist
ideologues. Individuals like Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu
Musab al-Suri, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Abu Yahya al-Libi
served among al-Qaeda’s most prominent voices,
proffering advice on strategy, operations, and tactics (in
addition to a host of other issues including diet,
grooming, and marriage).24 These modern-day
insurgency theorists were highly adept at propagating
the narrative that the Muslim ummah is being oppressed
and only through force would this oppression cease,
allowing Muslims to regain their dignity and honor. And
even though it has since been crushed, the establishment
of the caliphate was intended to be positive affirmation
that an Islamic State could be a viable entity in the
contemporary era of international relations.

Goals and Objectives

What are the goals and objectives of the global jihadist
movement – or, in other words, what is the movement’s
raison d’être, or reason for being? At some point,
attacking the West, and the United States more
specifically, ultimately superseded other goals as the
primary motivation of the global jihadist movement, led
by al-Qaeda. Indeed, this motivation to kill Americans on
US soil became “so obsessive that it impelled the group
to seek out ways to achieve this task,” driving innovation
in tactics, techniques, and procedures.25 Other correlated
objectives included taking over territory and developing
physical sanctuaries and safe havens from which to
operate, with the longer-term objective of declaring
“emirates” in these territories.26
Some would argue that, when looking at the data on
where jihadists have successfully attacked, the United
States falls further down the list of al-Qaeda’s primary
targets. The same factors that make Europe so
vulnerable to the threat posed by terrorists, and
especially by foreign fighters (geography; the number of
citizens who traveled to Iraq or Syria; lack of
counterterrorism capabilities, including screening,
watch-listing, and whole-of-government programs; poor
continentwide information-sharing and intelligence and
law-enforcement coordination; and the relationship
between Muslim communities and host-nation
governments) present favorably for the United States. As
former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC), Nicholas Rasmussen acknowledged in
Congressional testimony, compared to European
counterparts, US ports of entry are under far less strain
from migration, and US law enforcement agencies are
not nearly as overtaxed by the sheer numbers of terrorist
plots and potential suspects.27 The greater threat to the
US homeland specifically comes from individual and
small autonomous cells, which are hard to detect,
radicalized online, and capable of executing low-level
attacks. Put simply, the data indicate that the far greater
threat emanates from individuals who are already in the
United States. As Brian Michael Jenkins has observed in
his empirical study on the origins of America’s jihadists,
“American jihadists are made in the United States, not
imported. Of the 178 jihadist planners and perpetrators,
86 were U.S-born citizens. The other were naturalized
U.S. citizens (46) or legal permanent residents (23) – in
other words, people who had long residencies in the
United States before arrest.”28
As captured in the title of this book, establishing an
Islamic caliphate has long been a goal central to the
movement. Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions
surrounding the differences between al-Qaeda and the
Islamic State is that the latter favored establishing a
caliphate while the former did not, which is inaccurate.
Both organizations believe in establishing a caliphate,
but they each see this happening along different
timelines. For al-Qaeda, the establishment of a global
caliphate, part of the “Definitive Victory” phase of its
sevenstage plan, would occur no earlier than the 2020–2
timeframe, the final stage in al-Qaeda’s “Twenty-year
plan.”29 Al-Qaeda’s goals changed over time, as the
group’s leadership recognized that its initial focus on a
caliphate stretching from historic “Al-Andalus” to
Southeast Asia first required laying the groundwork by
gaining legitimacy at the local level. The manner in
which al-Qaeda has pursued this goal has led it to
intervene in numerous civil wars. In fact, terrorist groups
do not cause civil wars, but emerge from them, since
“wars are perhaps the richest soil for seeding and
growing violent groups of all stripes.”30
And while many have remarked that the Islamic State
has eclipsed al-Qaeda as the pre-eminent and most
successful terrorist group in the contemporary era, it is
important to take note of one of al-Qaeda’s overarching
goals – to advance the global jihadist movement “as a
whole,” even if it is not al-Qaeda leading the movement,
a goal which “it has made considerable strides toward”
even as it has been hampered. Indeed, the byproducts of
al-Qaeda’s success include the proliferation of foreign
fighters, the destabilization of regimes where jihadists
maintain a presence, and the cultivation of anti-Western
sentiment amongst pockets of the Muslim world,
especially in Europe.31 Al-Qaeda’s actions have helped
contribute to a self-sustaining network of jihadists and,
even as “Al Qaeda declines, the broader movement it
fostered remains robust, with other causes and
organizations capitalizing on the ideology and networks
that the group promulgated.”32
It also remains paramount to remember the
fundamentals upon which the global jihadist movement
resides – namely, the pursuit of jihad. Even as al-Qaeda’s
goals have shifted and evolved over time, its original goal
remains the most important to the movement as a whole
– to “promote jihad awareness” and “prepare and equip”
jihadist cadres in order to develop “a unified
international Jihad movement.”33 Accordingly, as
spelled out in al-Qaeda’s Constitutional Charter, all other
goals are subsidiary to jihad: “An Islamic Group, its only
mission is to Jihad, because Jihad is one of the basic
purposes for which al-Qaeda personnel come together.
In addition, they perform other Islamic duties if possible.
Jihad will take precedence over other duties in case of
interference.”34
On the recruitment front, the core demographic of the
movement remains disenfranchised, disillusioned,
marginalized youth that are vulnerable to radicalization
and the message of violent religious extremism. The
Islamic State has dipped into this same pool to populate
its ranks, with perhaps more of an emphasis on enlisting
Westerners with criminal backgrounds, especially in
Europe, where terrorists and criminals now recruit from
the same milieu.35 Even well before the Islamic State was
credited with inspiring lone wolf attacks in its name, al-
Qaeda had always urged potential followers to conduct
“DIY terrorism,” or do-it-yourself attacks against soft
targets in the West.36 As the name suggests, lone wolves
can be non-affiliated jihadists who simply share the same
worldview and accept core tenets of a similar ideology
while acting independently of any specific organization.
Recruiting in diaspora communities is another favored
method of encouraging supporters to launch attacks.37
Jihadist groups have been particularly successful in
rallying European-born Muslims and converts to their
cause and, in the past decade, there have been plots and
attacks throughout Western Europe, including several
spectacular attacks in European capitals such as London,
Paris, Madrid, and Berlin.

Strategic Decision-making
Al-Qaeda’s leadership is tasked with making decisions
that will both help to grow the organization and get it
closer to achieving its primary objectives. In part, al-
Qaeda relied on spectacular attacks as part of its global
strategy. Throughout the 2000s, al-Qaeda’s leadership
believed that external operations against the West would
help it achieve its goals of “integration, unity, growth,
and gaining strategic leadership in the militant milieu”
and therefore required its franchises to attack Western
interests.38 These attacks were designed to achieve
several interrelated objectives simultaneously, including
garnering widespread attention for the global jihadist
cause, bringing Muslims under the banner of al-Qaeda as
a vanguard movement, and driving the United States
from Muslim lands, as occurred in Lebanon in 1983 and
again in Somalia in the early 1990s.39 Spectacular attacks
like 9/11 were designed to invite overreaction. As Assaf
Moghadam astutely notes, “wounded and humiliated
governments subjected to such surprise attacks are more
likely to opt for harsh and risky responses against the
perpetrators, thereby running the risk of drawing the two
sides into an escalating, often protracted confrontation
that is costly in both human and economic terms.”40
Another strategic objective and deliberate part of al-
Qaeda’s plan is to forge unity among “foreign militants”
in the broader jihadist universe, as smaller groups begin
to perceive al-Qaeda as the “strong horse” and unite
behind it.41 Al-Qaeda has also demonstrated a knack for
pragmatism when operating in the midst of other
countries’ civil wars. In Yemen, Iraq, Mali, and Somalia,
jihadists have functioned in an almost parasitic manner.
After infiltrating the ranks of local rebel groups,
militants parrot their grievances and champion parochial
objectives. Al-Qaeda ingratiates its fighters within extant
networks of insurgents fighting against what they deem
to be oppressive regimes. This ramps up proselytization
efforts and introduces a narrative that mixes local issues
with that of the global jihad.42 There exists a constant
tension over striking the proper balance between local
and global objectives: “Civil war, domestic and
transnational terrorism, and the involvement of foreign
fighters have been essential components of jihadist
strategy since the 1980s.”43
Through its participation in conflicts throughout the
globe, al-Qaeda has fostered relationships and sustained
alliances with other militant organizations and has been
far more effective on this front than most terrorist
groups historically.44 Moreover, as al-Qaeda scholar
Barak Mendelsohn declares in his book on the expansion
of al-Qaeda’s franchises, “Following a carefully planned
strategy is particularly important for an actor with
ambitious territorial aspirations that require navigating
an intricate environment encompassing multiple
fronts.”45 The group has expanded beyond its base in
South Asia to encompass wide swaths of Africa and the
Middle East. It has ensured longevity by devolving power
to its local franchises.46 The continued expansion of al-
Qaeda is part of a multi-pronged strategy that also
includes “bleeding wars” of attrition in Afghanistan and
Iraq, as well as building an infrastructure of supporters
in the West, especially in Europe.47
Throughout the group’s evolution, its leadership has
continued to play a major role in its longevity. The Amir
is the overall leader of al-Qaeda and is tasked with a
broad array of responsibilities, including planning on
multiple levels (operational, strategic, tactical, logistical,
and organizational), approving annual plans and
budgets, and, just like any corporate chief executive
officer, serving as the face of the organization.48 As the
founder of al-Qaeda and leader of the organization until
his death at the hands of US Special Forces in May 2011,
there is still debate over exactly how important bin
Laden was to the movement.49 Though bin Laden
fancied himself part “lecturer-businessman” / part
“activist theologian,” his leadership style has been
described as “soft-mannered, long-winded, project-
oriented, media conscious.”50 On the other hand, his
former deputy and now overall Amir of core al-Qaeda,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been described as “a formidable
figure,” a “committed revolutionary,” who is
simultaneously “pious, bitter, and determined,” and
since its early days had been “the real power behind Al
Qaeda.”51
Organizational Structure
Since it would be a mistake to analyze the global jihadist
movement as a monolithic entity, there is no single
unified organizational structure, per se. However,
scholars and analysts have discerned how groups like al-
Qaeda and the Islamic State have chosen to structure
their organizations, so analyzing those groups is useful in
gaining a greater understanding of the infrastructure. In
many ways, al-Qaeda has always been “more an idea or a
concept than an organization” and “an amorphous
movement tenuously held together by a loosely
networked transnational constituency rather than a
monolithic, international terrorist organization with
either a defined or identifiable command and control
apparatus.”52 In terms of its organizational structure, al-
Qaeda has always been something of a paradox, “tightly
supervised at the top but very loosely spread at the
bottom.”53 At its peak, the group maintained an indelible
or semi-permanent presence in 76 countries, “including
those without discernable Muslim communities, but
which were suitable for procurement, e.g. Japan,
Bulgaria, Slovakia.”54
Al-Qaeda is best described as a networked transnational
constituency which, especially since the attacks of
September 11, 2001, has shown itself to be a nimble,
flexible, and adaptive entity, even as it has been reduced
considerably by the constant barrage of American
counterterrorism efforts worldwide. After all, “[f]or more
than a decade, it has withstood arguably the greatest
international onslaught directed against a terrorist
organization in history.”55 As an organization, al-Qaeda
was not averse to taking risks. Accordingly, its
organizational style encouraged the adoption of
innovative terrorist techniques, such as those devised by
individuals outside of the group’s organizational
boundaries, including “independent terrorist
entrepreneurs” like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-
called “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks.56
As Rohan Gunaratna remarked in his landmark work on
al-Qaeda, part of what makes the organization so unique
is its “mobility and capacity for regeneration.”57 Within
the broader jihadi universe, al-Qaeda existed as a central
node and maintained connections, linkages, and
alliances with a diverse array of groups, including the
Afghan Taliban, Chechen rebel groups, Abu Sayyaf
Group (ASG) in the Philippines, and the IMU.58 In many
ways, Afghanistan, despite its geographic location
outside of the Middle East and North Africa, has served
as one of the, if not the, most critical hubs in the global
jihad over the past four decades. It is a place that
militants have continually returned to, even after other
conflicts have drawn them away.
Still, there is no such thing as a permanent headquarters
for the global jihadist movement. Whether in Khartoum
or in Kandahar, jihadists are opportunistic by nature
and, like a trickling stream, will always find their way to
the lowest point, or the area most beyond the reach of
formal governments and standing armies. After the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan drew down, Pakistan
began pressuring foreign fighters to leave the region.
Many jihadists fled abroad to Yemen, Sudan, and
Jordan. Bin Laden was still providing support to
members of EIJ, a significant contingent of whose
fighters remained behind in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Another large group of EIJ fighters relocated along with
Zawahiri to Sudan, where they hatched a plot to
assassinate Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak during an
official state visit. The assassination attempt failed, but
the plot highlighted further tension between bin Laden’s
focus on the “far enemy” and Zawahiri’s continued
obsession with Egypt and apostate regimes within the
Middle East and North Africa.
The core of what had become al-Qaeda also traveled with
bin Laden from Afghanistan to Sudan, which the Saudi
militant viewed as having serious potential as his group’s
next logistical headquarters.59 Initially, bin Laden’s
concerns shifted to supporting jihadists in Yemen in
their battle against the Communists, although he also
allegedly provided support to militants in the
Philippines, Algeria, Jordan, Eritrea, Pakistan, Bosnia,
Tajikistan, Lebanon, Libya, Chechnya, Somalia, and
Egypt during this time.60 After the 1995 Dayton Accords
ended the Bosnian conflict, some foreign fighters made
their way to Sudan, while many other battle-hardened
jihadis returned to Afghanistan, bringing back newfound
expertise and tradecraft which they would teach to their
militant brethren in al-Qaeda training camps, where
Egyptians, Chechens, Uzbeks, and Palestinians honed
their skills. In terms of geopolitics, failed states usually
make for poor neighbors, but can serve as welcome hosts
to non-state actors, including transnational terrorist
groups and violent insurgencies. Al-Qaeda’s Afghan
sanctuary ebbed and flowed for two decades in the lead-
up to 9/11, providing somewhat hospitable terrain for the
militants, while affording them with access to other
jihadists.
While it started as a single, monolithic entity, al-Qaeda
today is a decentralized, networked, transnational
terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda also needs a healthy
budget to maintain its rather substantial structural costs,
in addition to the costs of conducting operations. This
includes money for subsistence living for its members (as
well as for those who have families), communications,
travel expenses, media and propaganda, and the
provision of social services to selected constituents in an
effort to buoy its popular support.61 As groups grow
more networked, it can be more challenging to retain
their cohesiveness. Maintaining lines of communication,
agreeing on shared goals and objectives, and remaining
relevant in the increasingly crowded universe of global
jihad are time-consuming and expensive undertakings,
especially when law enforcement and intelligence
services around the world are seeking to combat this
network wherever it pulses.
One of the core missions of a terrorist organization’s
bureaucracy is to fulfill a human resources function, to
include recruiting new members. Despite the image
conjured when envisioning a dark network dispersed
throughout dozens of countries worldwide and forced to
communicate covertly, al-Qaeda remained a highly
bureaucratic organization throughout most of the 1990s
and 2000s. In the lead-up to the attacks of September 11,
2001, al-Qaeda could accurately be characterized as a
“unitary organization” with many of the characteristics of
a “lumbering bureaucracy.”62 In al-Qaeda’s training
camps in Afghanistan, recruits were required to take a
written exam and sign a contract before acceptance into
the group. The contract detailed the moral
responsibilities of would-be al-Qaeda members, as well
as the stipulations of remuneration, including marital
and family allowances, vacation time, and
reimbursements for expenses incurred.63 The group’s
organizational structure included the following
components, in addition to the top leadership: the
Secretary, the Command Council, the Military
Committee, the Documentations Unit, the Political
Committee, the Media Committee, the Administrative
and Financial Committee, the Security Committee, and
the Religious Committee.64

Campaigns and Operations

So what has the global jihadist movement looked like in
action? That is, where has the movement launched
attacks, conducted operations, and waged campaigns of
violence to achieve its goals? Following the end of the
war against the Soviets, many jihadists fled Afghanistan
to join new conflicts, linking up with militants in other
countries where civil wars raged. According to Fawaz
Gerges, “Bin Laden tapped into a rising generation of
mujahideen … radicalized by the Afghan war and the
persecution of Muslim communities in Bosnia,
Chechnya, and elsewhere.”65 Indeed, veterans of the
conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya formed
the core of al-Qaeda, which was cementing its reputation
as the most capable entity within the broader global
jihadist movement.

Bosnia
In the early 1990s, during the brutal wars that
characterized the disintegration of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia, some areas of the Balkans featured battles
that had Bosnian Muslims fighting for survival against
Bosnian Serbs, who were Orthodox Christian. The plight
of Bosnian Muslims led to an organized call for foreign
fighters to travel to Bosnia to help, as many jihadists did,
initially under the guise of a variety of charities and
humanitarian services. The projected numbers vary
widely, but most reliable estimates suggest that between
3,000 and 4,000 foreign fighters actually fought in
Bosnia, many of whom were veterans of the war in
Afghanistan, hailing from the United States, Turkey,
Jordan, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere.66
In April 1992, Sheikh Abu Abdel Aziz Barbaros
established the El Mudžahid Battalion and worked to
recruit fellow jihadists to join al-Qaeda-linked militants
in Bosnia.67 Unsurprisingly, a significant effort was made
to recruit volunteers from Western Europe, given the
proximity to the conflict.68 The call to jihad was
endorsed by influential clerics throughout the Middle
East, especially as the Serbian military ramped up its
campaign of ethnic cleansing. Islamic charities,
including Al-Kifah and the Benevolence International
Foundation (BIF), led by bin Laden associate Enaam
Arnaout, siphoned off funds to support the jihadists.
When the conflict in Bosnia ended in 1995 with the
signing of the Dayton Accords, hundreds of foreign
fighters left Bosnia and headed elsewhere to fight,
including many who went to Chechnya.69

Chechnya
Throughout the 1990s, Russia fought two wars against
rebels in Chechnya seeking to secede and declare
independence. Initially, the rebels’ guiding ideology was
secular-nationalist in nature, but soon morphed to
Islamist-inspired after the arrival of jihadist foreign
fighters in the mid-1990s. Jihadists slowly built a
presence toward the end of the first Chechen war (1994–
6) and factored significantly into several prominent
battles against Russian soldiers.70 Many of these foreign
fighters were veterans of previous conflicts, including the
Soviet–Afghan War, Tajikistan, and Bosnia.71 Among
these fighters were Sheikh Ali Fathi al-Shisani, a
Jordanian-Chechen, and Ibn al-Khattab.72 Khattab was a
Saudi militant responsible for establishing training
camps and indoctrinating Chechen fighters with Saudi-
imported Wahhabism, not the traditional Sufism more
common to Chechens, which is more moderate.73
Khattab provided money and ideological inspiration, but
also brought tangible fighting skills, leading an ambush
on a Russian convoy in the mountains at Yaryshmardy in
April 1996 that killed nearly 100 soldiers.74 In addition
to their ability to raise funds, jihadist foreign fighters in
the Chechen theatre were especially valued for their
fighting and organizational skills.75
There was a point in time when Chechnya was extremely
important to al-Qaeda and the global jihadist movement.
In 1996, al-Zawahiri was arrested trying to travel there,
and spent six months in a prison in Dagestan.76 In his
book Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, he argued
that Chechnya could become a “strategic lynchpin” for
the jihadist movement with the territory forming part of
a “mujahid Islamic belt” across the region, connecting to
Pakistan in the east and Turkey and Iran in the south.77
The continuity between conflicts was also important, as
fighters exchanged new skills which helped enhance the
global jihadist movement’s ability to influence conflicts it
inserted itself into anywhere, unconstrained by
geography: “These conflicts were further linked by a
common group of fighters who gained credibility and
combat experience ultimately culminating in improved
military effectiveness.”78

Franchise Groups and Affiliates

The other important development affecting the global
jihadist movement was the ebb and flow of al-Qaeda and
its dispersion following the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001. The same thing is currently
happening with the Islamic State, as it seeks to expand in
Afghanistan, the Sinai Peninsula, and Southeast Asia, to
name just a few places. Accordingly, the key to
understanding what comes next with the Islamic State’s
collapse is looking back at how al-Qaeda devolved. The
group’s expansion has been described as a goal in and of
itself as well as part of the organization’s strategy to
survive and penetrate new territories.
Throughout the early to mid-2000s, al-Qaeda expanded
to Saudi Arabia (2003), Iraq (2004), Algeria (2006), and
Yemen (2007). It formed franchises in Somalia (2010),
Syria (2012), and an affiliation in South Asia through al-
Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (2014). Al-Qaeda’s
expansion occurred in two specific ways – either
implementing “in-house” expansion through establishing
an affiliate group on its own, as it did in Saudi Arabia
and Yemen, or merging with existing jihadist groups in
exchange for an official pledge of allegiance from the
group to al-Qaeda. This model was on display in Iraq,
with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s group, Tawhid wal Jihad;
in Algeria, with the Salafist Group for Preaching and
Combat (GSPC); and in Somalia, with al-Shabaab.79
There are pros and cons to establishing affiliates. On the
positive side, franchise groups made al-Qaeda seem
ubiquitous, as AQI, AQAP, AQIM, and al-Shabaab
conducted attacks in al-Qaeda’s name. The method of
franchising also offers “strategic reach” and allows the
group to ingratiate itself into new theatres. But there are
many negative aspects, too, including that an affiliate can
damage the brand through its actions, as AQI did with its
relentless sectarian attacks against Iraqi Shiites.
Affiliates can also exploit the brand name and enjoy its
benefits without doing much in return to advance the
core group’s mission, something Daniel Byman calls
“shirking.”80 Moreover, enlisting affiliates led to a
change in the strategic direction of core al-Qaeda, which
had to spend more time attempting to manage the
franchise groups, and in some cases “make concessions
to address the narrow concerns of local groups joining its
global banner.”81 Will IS face the same predicament? Or
will its offshoots secure even more autonomy as the core
of the group is crushed and its command-and-control
capabilities systematically dismantled?

Saudi Arabia
In the spring of 2003, bin Laden stood up al-Qaeda’s
first franchise group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(the group initially referred to itself as “the mujahideen
in the Arabian Peninsula”) using al-Qaeda’s own fighters
as an example of “an in-house creation.”82 Although al-
Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia were able to launch
some successful attacks, including the Riyadh compound
bombings in 2003, the militants were systematically
wiped out by Saudi internal security services. For a
counterterrorism force that many outside observers were
probably skeptical of, “the results were impressive: many
on the most wanted lists were either captured or killed in
shootouts across the kingdom.”83
The other major reason why the al-Qaeda venture in
Saudi Arabia failed was due to the much greater
attraction of traveling to Iraq, where aspiring jihadists
could engage with and kill American soldiers. The war in
Iraq, therefore, was a much higher priority for Saudi
jihadists. “To potential recruits and donors, there was no
doubt paramilitary warfare in Iraq represented a
politically more legitimate and theologically less
controversial enterprise than bombings in the streets of
Riyadh,” according to Thomas Hegghammer.84 In sum,
“the decision to introduce a Saudi branch proved
disastrous” for al-Qaeda, although its franchise in Iraq
would enjoy far more success – at least initially, before
succumbing to problems resulting from its rampant
sectarian agenda later on.85

Iraq
Al-Qaeda’s Iraq franchise was its first affiliate resulting
from a merger, in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s
Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (TWJ) and al-Qaeda joined
forces. Both groups had their own motives for the
merger. For al-Qaeda, the group’s leadership felt
compelled to expand into Iraq after the US invasion, lest
it risk being marginalized at a time when jihadists were
flocking to the country to fight American soldiers. Al-
Qaeda lacked a domestic infrastructure in Iraq, and so
had to partner with another jihadist outfit already
established in the area. For Zarqawi and TWJ, the move
to merge with al-Qaeda to form AQI was a pragmatic
decision to gain access to core al-Qaeda’s deep-pocketed
donors throughout the Gulf, as well as to adopt a brand
that would help attract foreign fighters.
Saudi militants in AQI provided the most money of any
foreign contingent to the group, and also accounted for
nearly three-quarters of all AQI’s suicide bombers at the
height of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007.86 The most
common nationalities of foreign fighters who traveled to
fight in Iraq were, in order, Saudi, Libyan, and Syrian.87
Moreover, since TWJ was composed primarily of
militants from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the
Palestinian territories, AQI had a significant non-Iraqi
core from its inception.88
From the start, there were tensions between AQI’s Iraqi
members and foreigners.89 These tensions extended to
the leadership, including the Jordanian-born Zarqawi,
who himself was constantly at odds with core al-Qaeda’s
leadership on a number of issues – above all, his
penchant for targeting Shiites.90 The insubordination of
AQI would be a harbinger of the future, foreshadowing
the rise of IS.91 As Fishman notes, “Zarqawi and Al
Qaeda were allies of convenience rather than genuine
partners.”92 Zarqawi never fell in line with core al-
Qaeda’s agenda and consistently clashed with bin Laden
and Zawahiri, successfully maintaining his autonomy
and ignoring the leadership’s repeated pleas to focus on
the Americans rather than the Shia.
The egregious sectarianism of AQI was more than just a
theological dispute – core al-Qaeda recalled what
happened in Algeria, after the population turned against
the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a Salafijihadist group
that resorted to killing fellow Muslims and even
targeting neutrals who did not provide overt support to
its agenda. Indeed, there was another connection
between AQI and Algeria, since, amongst its foreign
members, Zarqawi’s group boasted many militants from
the Maghreb who would help core al-Qaeda establish
links with the GSPC to form al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, or AQIM.93

Algeria
Al-Qaeda’s Algerian franchise, like AQI in Iraq, resulted
from a merger and was not an organic al-Qaeda
“startup.” Al-Qaeda allied with the GSPC in an effort to
expand its brand and its operations throughout North
Africa. As with its other affiliates, there was consistent
pressure from core al-Qaeda for AQIM to expand its
purview to focus more on the global jihad, as opposed to
purely localized objectives. Its most high-profile attack
against a Western target occurred within Algeria, against
the Tigantourine gas facility in In Amenas.94 And while
AQIM did conduct attacks outside of Algeria, including
in Niger, Mali, and Mauritania, it never developed into
the global threat core al-Qaeda had hoped it would.95 By
2013, nearly 90 percent of AQIM activity took place
within Algeria, and 80 percent of its attacks were
directed against state security forces.96 It was never able
to escalate beyond this, more likely due to a lack of
capability than a lack of will or desire.
Al-Qaeda was similarly disappointed by its inability to
capitalize upon GSPC’s European connections, especially
in France, where Zawahiri and others believed they could
tap into Muslim anger over that country’s controversial
headscarf ban.97 GSPC also had connections in Germany,
Spain, and the United Kingdom.98 Camille Tawil, a
journalist and long-time al-Qaeda watcher, speculates
that the group was hoping to use GSPC’s European
linkages to pull off an attack similar to the 2004 Madrid
train bombings.99 This is yet another area where IS has
proven to have bested al-Qaeda, evidenced by its deadly
reach into Europe and its ability to direct, inspire, or
launch attacks in Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, the
UK, and elsewhere.
The decision to join with al-Qaeda was a far more
pragmatic one for Algerian jihadists. GSPC was a failing
group, so by adopting the al-Qaeda brand it hoped to
bring in a fresh influx of recruits from throughout the
region.100 Moreover, leaders like Abdelmalek Droukdal
had a somewhat personal reason for seeking the
affiliation, as he believed it would enhance his own
standing within the organization, as well as making
AQIM appear to be more dangerous than it might have
been otherwise.101 Joining al-Qaeda was not popular
with everyone in GSPC – rather than join AQIM, many
jihadists accepted the government’s amnesty, which
could be one of the reasons why Algeria has been less
affected by the wave of jihadist violence that swept
across the region with a renewed ferocity after the
emergence of IS.
Even though it never launched major attacks in the West,
AQIM did pioneer innovative methods, including an
intense focus on propaganda and “media jihad.”102 There
was also a clear indication of tactics shared through
training, as after 2007 AQIM began utilizing improvised
explosive devices and coordinated suicide bombings.103
Above all else, AQIM is perhaps best known for its ability
to finance its organization through crime, especially
kidnapping.104 Al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate grew so
successful at funding its organization through criminal
activities that it was able to begin sending money back to
core al-Qaeda in something akin to a mafia soldier
kicking a “tax” up to the capo, in a sign of respect.
Ideologically, core al-Qaeda and AQIM held largely the
same views, which helped attenuate unnecessary friction
between the groups. Still, even with an ideological
affinity, core al-Qaeda desperately needed one of its
franchises to develop the capability to launch a
spectacular attack in the West. Its next franchise group
in Yemen would evolve to fill this role.

Yemen
Al-Qaeda’s Yemen franchise occurred as an in-house
expansion, with the establishment of “The al-Qaeda
Organization of Jihad in the South of the Arabian
Peninsula,” which became “The al-Qaeda Organization in
the Land of Yemen” and eventually gave way to al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) when al-Qaeda’s Saudi
and Yemeni networks merged in early 2009.105 In 2013,
AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi was elevated to the
position of al-Qaeda’s general manager by its leader,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, a nod to the importance of AQAP
amongst the orbit of al-Qaeda affiliates. Accordingly,
AQAP used its leaders’ ties to core al-Qaeda leadership
as a recruiting pitch to persuade aspiring jihadists to join
its ranks.
Of all the affiliates, AQAP emerged to become the most
operationally capable. When core al-Qaeda went years
without being able to pull off a spectacular attack against
the West, AQAP managed several “near misses” against
US airliners, including the notorious underwear bomber
plot and another plot against cargo planes with
explosive-laden printer cartridges onboard. AQAP was
considered such a high-level threat that former CIA
Director David Petraeus once referred to the group’s
master bombmaker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, as “the
world’s most dangerous man.”106 Al-Asiri was killed in a
drone strike in Yemen in August 2018.
Another important success by AQAP has been the
continued evolution of jihadist propaganda and media
outreach.107 A major part of this success was due to the
emergence of American-born radical cleric Anwar al-
Awlaki, who before his death had developed a global
following among jihadists, especially those from the
West who were drawn to his cult of personality,
including Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who
communicated with Awlaki through email for over a year
before going on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas,
in November 2009, where he killed 13 people.108
Awlaki’s influence continues to live on today on the
Internet, years after his death.109
AQAP was also the most adept of all the franchises at
effectively balancing local versus global objectives.110
“AQAP has been far more sensitive to local grievances
and tribal identities, in part because al-Qaeda has
learned and transmitted lessons about respecting
nationalism to its affiliate,” notes Byman.111 In Yemen,
jihadists have maintained good relations with the local
tribes and been flexible with the imposition of sharia,
jettisoning the more draconian rules more common to
the Islamic State. Yet, even while focusing on issues most
pressing to Yemeni tribesmen, AQAP still managed to
play a role in the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, France,
in January 2015.112 The group also maintains an
increasingly close relationship with Al-Shabaab in
Somalia and has served before as an interlocutor
between other franchises, including Shabaab, AQIM, and
JN.113

Somalia
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidiin (a.k.a. Shabaab, or
“The Youth”) is a radical fundamentalist faction that split
off from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia,
which itself was the outgrowth of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya
(AIAI).114 Many of al-Shabaab’s founders fought in
Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s.115
When the United States deployed to Somalia in the early
1990s to provide humanitarian assistance, bin Laden
used this event as an opportunity to position al-Qaeda
militants in East Africa, a move that would facilitate al-
Qaeda’s bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya,
and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, several years later, in
1998.116 Al-Shabaab formally coalesced around 2005,
when a network of Afghan veterans of Somali origin, ex-
AIAI militants, and al-Qaeda remnants throughout the
Horn of Africa joined forces.117
Approximately a year after its founding, al-Shabaab was
able to network and recruit among Somali clans to grow
its organization following Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia
in late 2006.118 The Ethiopian incursion breathed new
life into what was at the time a rather fledgling
organization, although one imbued with an experienced
jihadist pedigree. The fighting between Shabaab and
Ethiopian forces became known as the “dirty war,” with
both sides eschewing previously recognized norms
regarding the use of violence. Shabaab introduced
suicide bombing to Somalia for the first time, while the
Ethiopians responded by using white phosphorous
bombs to clear out entire neighborhoods.119 Atrocities
committed by Ethiopian forces led to the mobilization of
foreign fighters, including members of the Somali
diaspora living in the United States, as more than 40
Americans traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab.120
Even though many foreign fighters were motivated by
Somali nationalism, defending Somalis from Christian
Ethiopia also dovetailed with al-Qaeda’s narrative. In
2010, al-Qaeda and Shabaab formally merged, as the
Somali terror group’s leader Ahmed Godane declared his
group’s intention to operate with a more “global
mindset.”121 Al-Qaeda had considered Somalia as a place
to seek safe haven back in the early 1990s, but decided
against it due to terrain considered inhospitable for a
terrorist group as well as issues related to the country’s
complex clan dynamics.122 Furthermore, al-Qaeda was
cognizant of the population’s hostility toward non-
Somalis, and the austere Salafist interpretation of Islam
is far from universally accepted throughout the country.
And even while al-Qaeda initially decided against
seeking sanctuary in Somalia, it has proved to be a
hotbed for terrorism and insurgency, largely as a result
of its status as a collapsed state and near-constant
anarchy, which has led to a power vacuum that violent
non-state actors have filled.
Al-Shabaab has not demonstrated a proclivity to attack
the West, but the group has conducted several high-
profile attacks outside of Somalia, including the Kampala
bombings in July 2010 in Uganda, the Westgate Mall
Attack in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2013, and an
attack at a university in Garissa, Kenya, in April 2015.
These attacks could foreshadow Shabaab’s development
into a force throughout the region and not one strictly
resigned to Somalia.123 Fighting against a range of
adversaries, including the African Union Mission in
Somalia (AMISOM), forces from the Transitional Federal
Government (TFG), and the Kenyan military, the group’s
control of territory has ebbed and flowed since 2011, with
the loss of territory (especially coastal territory)
significantly impacting Shabaab’s ability to raise money.
Nevertheless, the group has consistently demonstrated
resilience in the face of adversity, successfully
transitioning “from an insurgent group that controlled
territory to a terrorist group that commits indiscriminate
attacks on civilians and combatants alike.”124 Attacks on
civilians have been accompanied by criticism from core
al-Qaeda leadership, which is perhaps one reason
Shabaab did not claim the deadly car-bomb attack in
Mogadishu in October 2017 that led to over 300
casualties.125
The evolution of the global jihadist movement
transformed al-Qaeda, long the movement’s primary
bulwark, into a decentralized network of terrorist groups
operating in Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, Somalia, and
elsewhere. It is crucial to understand how this evolution
– perhaps what some might consider a devolution –
occurred, in order to judge whether or not IS could
follow a similar path. As of late July 2018, the counter-IS
fight was winding down in northeastern Syria as the
Islamic State’s territory was reduced to less than 1
percent of what is was at its peak, mostly centered
around the Hajin pocket and other towns and villages in
the Central Euphrates River valley. Nevertheless, the
group was estimated to still have between 20,000 and
30,000 fighters just in Iraq and Syria. And the Islamic
State’s ideology is still viable as a means of conveying
specific grievances to young Muslims while also offering
an attractive worldview that frames things in terms of
“us” versus “them.”

Notes
1. See Mustaf Hamid and Leah Farrall, The Arabs at War
in Afghanistan, London: Hurst & Company, 2015; see
also Rodric Braithwaite, Afgansty: The Russians in
Afghanistan 1979–89, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011.
2. Al Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qa’ida, and several other
variants are often used interchangeably in the
literature. “Al-Qaeda” has been translated variously as
the “base of operation,” “foundation,” “precept,” or
“method”: Bruce Hoffman, “The Changing Face of Al
Qaeda and the Global War on Terrorism,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 27:6, 2004, p. 551.
3. R. Kim Cragin, “Early History of Al-Qa’ida,” Historic
Journal, 51:4, December 2008, pp. 1051–2.
4. Ibid., p. 1056.
5. Brian Michael Jenkins, “Al Qaeda after Bin Laden:
Implications for American Strategy,” testimony before
the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on
Emerging Threats and Capabilities, United States
House of Representatives, June 22, 2011.
6. Assaf Moghadam, “The Salafi-Jihad as Religious
Ideology,” CTC Sentinel, February 15, 2008.
7. Daniel Byman, “Explaining Al Qaeda’s Decline,”
Journal of Politics, 79:3, 2017, p. 1107.
8. Brian A. Jackson, “Groups, Networks, or Movements:
A Command-and-Control-Driven Approach to
Classifying Terrorist Organizations and Its
Application to Al Qaeda,” Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, 29:3, 2006, p. 241.
9. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, New York:
Columbia University Press, 2006, pp. 285–8.
10. Byman, “Al Qaeda’s Decline,” p. 1107.
11. Seth G. Jones, A Persistent Threat: The Evolution of
al Qa’ida and Other Salafi Jihadists, Santa Monica,
CA: RAND Corp., 2014, p. 10.
12. Ibid., p. 11.
13. Daniel Byman, “Buddies of Burdens? Understanding
the Al Qaeda Relationship with Its Affiliate
Organizations,” Security Studies, 23:3, 2014, p. 436.
14. Jones, A Persistent Threat, p. 2; see also Katherine
Zimmerman, “America’s Real Enemy: The Salafi-
Jihadi Movement,” American Enterprise Institute
(AEI), July 2017, p. 4.
15. Douglas E. Streusand, “What Does Jihad Mean?”
Middle East Quarterly, 4:3, June 1997.
16. Peter Bergen, The Longest War: The Enduring
Conflict Between America and Al Qaeda, New York:
Free Press, 2011, p. 23.
17. David Malet, “Why Foreign Fighters? Historical
Perspectives and Solutions,” Orbis, Winter 2010, p.
105.
18. Cragin, “Early History of Al-Qa’ida,” p. 1051.
19. Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is
Losing the War on Terror, Washington, DC:
Brassey’s, Inc., 2004, p. 129.
20. Bruce Hoffman, “Al Qaeda Trends in Terrorism and
Future Potentialities: An Assessment,” paper
presented at a meeting of the Council on Foreign
Relations, Washington, DC Office, May 8, 2003, p. 5.
21. David Aaron, In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad,
Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2008, p. 73.
22. Cragin, “Early History of Al-Qa’ida,” p. 1066.
23. Anne Stenersen, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan,
Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 165–75.
24. Jarret Brachman, “The Worst of the Worst,” Foreign
Policy, January 22, 2010.
25. Assaf Moghadam, “How Al Qaeda Innovates,”
Security Studies, 22:3, 2013, p. 477.
26. Bruce Hoffman, “Al Qaeda’s Uncertain Future,”
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 36:8, 2013, pp. 640–
1.
27. Nicholas J. Rasmussen, “Fifteen Years after 9/11:
Threats to the Homeland,” Statement for the Record:
Hearing Before the Senate Homeland Security
Governmental Affairs Committee, September 27,
2016.
28. Brian Michael Jenkins, The Origins of America’s
Jihadists, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2017, p.
22. A complement to Jenkins’s study is Alexander
Meleagrou-Hitchens, Seamus Hughes, and Bennett
Clifford, The Travelers: American Jihadists in Syria
and Iraq, Program on Extremism, George
Washington University, February 2018. This report
focuses on American citizens who either traveled
abroad or attempted to travel abroad to join jihadist
groups in the Middle East. One of the primary
findings is that travelers tend to be male, with an
average age of 27, and are “generally affiliated with IS
upon arrival in Syria or Iraq.” Minnesota, Virginia,
and Ohio are the states with the highest proportional
rates of recruitment.
29. Martin Rudner, “Al Qaeda’s Twenty-Year Strategic
Plan: The Current Phase of Global Terror,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 36:12, 2013, p. 959. See also
Bruce Hoffman, “A First Draft of the History of
America’s Ongoing Wars on Terrorism,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 38:1, 2015, p. 81.
30. Daniel Byman, “War Drives Terrorism,” Washington
Post, June 21, 2016.
31. Byman, “Al Qaeda’s Decline,” pp. 1107, 1113.
32. Daniel Byman, “Judging Al Qaeda’s Record, Part I: Is
the Organization in Decline?” Lawfare, June 27, 2017.
33. Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, The Islamic State, and the
Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to
 Know, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, p.
13.
34. “Al Qaeda: Constitutional Charter, Rules and
Regulations,” Defense Intelligence Agency, AFGT-
2002-600175.
35. Rajan Basra, Peter R. Neumann, and Claudia
Brunner, “Criminal Pasts, Terrorist Futures:
European Jihadists and the New Crime–Terror
Nexus,” International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation and Political Violence, November 10,
2016; see also Rajan Basra and Peter R. Neumann,
“Crime as Jihad: Developments in the Crime–Terror
Nexus in Europe,” CTC Sentinel, 10:9, October 2017;
and, Colin P. Clarke, “Crime and Terror in Europe:
Where the Nexus is Alive and Well,” International
Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) – The Hague,
December 13, 2016.
36. Brian Michael Jenkins, “The al Qaeda-Inspired
Terrorist Threat: An Appreciation of the Current
Situation,” testimony before the Canadian Senate
Special Committee on Anti-terrorism, December 6,
2010, p. 6.
37. Brian Michael Jenkins, “Stray Dogs and Virtual
Armies: Radicalization and Recruitment to Jihadist
Terrorism in the United States Since 9/11,” Santa
Monica, CA: Rand Corp., p. 14; see also Steven Simon
and Jonathan Stevenson, “Al Qaeda’s New Strategy:
Less Apocalypse, More Street Fighting,” Washington
Post, October 10, 2010.
38. Leah Farrall, “How Al Qaeda Works,” Foreign
Affairs, March/April 2011.
39. Byman, Al Qaeda, The Islamic State, and the Global
Jihadist Movement, pp. 47–54.
40. Moghadam, “How Al Qaeda Innovates,” p. 467.
41. Farrall, “How Al Qaeda Works.”
42. Colin P. Clarke, “The Moderate Face of Al Qaeda,”
Foreign Affairs, October 24, 2017.
43. Martha Crenshaw, “Transnational Jihadism & Civil
Wars,” Daedalus, 146:4, Fall 2017, p. 68.
44. Tricia Bacon, “Hurdles to International Terrorist
Alliances: Lessons from Al Qaeda’s Experience,”
Terrorism and Political Violence, 29:1, 2017, pp. 79–
101.
45. Barak Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise: The
Expansion of al Qaeda and Its Consequences, New
York: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 92.
46. Brian Michael Jenkins, “Al Qaeda in Its Third
Decade: Irreversible Decline or Imminent Victory?”
Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2012; see also Rick
Nelson and Thomas M. Sanderson, “A Threat
Transformed: Al Qaeda and Associated Movements in
2011,” Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), February 2011: https://csis-
prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-
public/legacy_files/files/publication/110203_Nelson
_AThreatTransformed_web.pdf.
47. Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda, Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008, pp. 121–2.
48. Rohan Gunaratna and Aviv Oreg, “Al Qaeda’s
Organizational Structure and its Evolution,” Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism, 33:12, 2010, p. 1054.
49. Bruce Hoffman, “The Myth of Grass-Roots
Terrorism: Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters,”
Foreign Affairs, 87:3, May–June 2008, pp. 133–8.
See also Jenkins, “Al Qaeda after Bin Laden.”
50. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the
CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet
Invasion to September 10, 2001, New York: Penguin,
2004, pp. 269, 380.
51. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda
and the Road to 9/11, New York: Vintage, 2006, pp.
 60, 264.
52. Hoffman, “The Changing Face,” p. 551.
53. Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 474.
54. Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network
of Terror, New York: Berkley Books, 2002, p. 105.
55. Hoffman, “Al Qaeda’s Uncertain Future,” p. 636.
56. Moghadam, “How Al Qaeda Innovates,” p. 469.
57. Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, p. 73.
58. Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 474.
59. Ali Soufan, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of
9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda, New York: W. W.
Norton, 2011, pp. 33–7.
60. Bacon, “Hurdles to Alliances,” p. 86.
61. Juan Miguel del Cid Gomez, “A Financial Profile of Al
Qaeda and Its Affiliates,” Perspectives on Terrorism,
4:4, 2010, pp. 4–5.
62. Hoffman, “Changing Face,” pp. 551–2.
63. Cragin, “Early History of Al-Qa’ida,” pp. 1063–4.
64. Gunaratna and Oreg, “Al Qaeda’s Organizational
Structure,” pp. 1054–64.
65. Fawaz Gerges, ISIS: A History, Princeton University
Press, 2016, p. 71.
66. Chris Hedges, “Foreign Islamic Fighters in Bosnia
Pose a Potential Threat for G.I.’s,” New York Times,
December 3, 1995.
67. David Malet, Foreign Fighters: Transnational
Identity in Civil Conflicts, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2013, pp. 185–6.
68. Evan F. Kohlmann, “The Afghan–Bosnian
Mujahideen Network in Europe,” Swedish National
 Defence College, November 28, 1995:
www.aina.org/reports/tabmnie.pdf.
69. Mark Urban, “Bosnia: The Cradle of Modern
Jihadism?” BBC News, July 2, 2015.
70. Cerwyn Moore and Paul Tumelty, “Foreign Fighters
and the Case of Chechnya,” Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, 31:5, 2008, pp. 412–33.
71. Murad Batal Al-Shishani, “The Rise and Fall of Arab
Fighters in Chechnya,” Jamestown Foundation,
January 31, 2006:
https://jamestown.org/program/the-rise-and-fall-of-
foreign-fighters-in-chechnya.
72. Farrall, “How Al Qaeda Works”; see also Derek
Henry Flood, “The Islamic State Raises its Black Flag
over the Caucasus,” CTC Sentinel, June 29, 2015.
73. Lorenzo Vidino, Al Qaeda in Europe: The New
Battleground of International Jihad, Amherst:
Prometheus Books, 2006, p. 203. See also Lorenzo
Vidino, “The Arab Foreign Fighters and the
Sacralization of the Chechen Conflict,” Al Naklah,
Spring 2006, pp. 1–11.
74. Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Chechnya:
Calamity in the Caucasus, New York University Press,
1998, p. 208.
75. Ben Rich and Dara Conduit, “The Impact of Jihadist
Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist
Causes: Contrasting Chechnya and Syria,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 38:2, 2015, pp. 113–31.
76. Ali Soufan, Anatomy of Terror, New York: W. W.
Norton, 2017, pp. 175–6.
77. Lorenzo Vidino, “How Chechnya Became a Breeding
Ground for Terror,” Middle East Quarterly, Summer
2005, pp. 1–10:
http://foreignfighters.csis.org/history_foreign_fighte
r_project.pdf.
78. Maria Galperin Donnelly, Thomas M. Sanderson, and
Zack Fellman, Foreign Fighters in History, Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), April 1,
2017.
79. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise.
80. Byman, “Buddies of Burdens?” pp. 431–70.
81. Steven Brooke, “Strategic Fissures: The Near and Far
Enemy Debate,” in Assaf Moghadam and Brian
Fishman, eds., Self-Inflicted Wounds: Debates and
Divisions within al-Qa’ida and its Periphery,
December 16, 2010, p. 45: https://ctc.usma.edu/self-
inflicted-wounds.
82. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise, p. 110.
83. Bruce Riedel and Bilal Y. Saab, “Al Qaeda’s Third
Front: Saudi Arabia,” Washington Quarterly, 31:2,
Spring 2008, p. 37.
84. Thomas Hegghammer, “Islamist Violence and
Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia,” International
Affairs, 84:4, 2008, p. 713.
85. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise, p. 115.
86. Brian Fishman, ed., Bombers, Bank Accounts, &
Bleedout: Al-Qai’da’s Road In and Out of Iraq,
Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point,
2008: https://ctc.usma.edu/bombers-bank-accounts-
and-bleedout-al-qaidas-road-in-and-out-of-iraq.
87. Brian Fishman and Joseph Felter, Al-Qa’ida’s
Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar
Records, Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West
Point, January 2, 2007: https://ctc.usma.edu/al-
qaidas-foreign-fighters-in-iraq-a-first-look-at-the-
sinjar-records.
88. Patrick B. Johnston, Jacob N. Shapiro, Howard J.
Shatz, et al., Foundations of the Islamic State:
Management, Money, and Terror in Iraq, 2005–
2010, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2016.
89. Brian Fishman, “Dysfunction and Decline: Lessons
Learned from Inside Al-Qa’ida in Iraq,” Washington
Quarterly, March 2009. In 2006, AQI joined the
Mujahedin Shura Council (MSC), which was a
political–military front for several jihadist
organizations, but, as Craig Whiteside notes, the
council was “so dominated by AQI to the point that it
is possible MSC was a sham organization used to
convince Iraqis of its indigenous nature”: Craig
Whiteside, “The Islamic State and the Return of
Revolutionary Warfare,” Small Wars & Insurgencies,
27:5, 2016, pp. 768–9.
90. James J. F. Forest, Jarret Brachman, and Joseph
Felter, Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-
Qa’ida’s Organizational Vulnerabilities, Combating
Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, February 14,
2006: https://ctc.usma.edu/harmony-and-
disharmony-exploiting-al-qaidas-organizational-
vulnerabilities; see also Byman, “Buddies of
Burdens?” pp. 461–5.
91. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise, p. 123. After
Zarqawi’s death, AQI rebranded itself as the Islamic
State of Iraq (ISI), without ever discussing the move
with Al Qaeda core leadership.
92. Brian Fishman, “After Zarqawi: The Dilemmas and
Future of Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Washington Quarterly,
29:4, 2006, p. 21.
93. J. Peter Pham, “Foreign Influences and Shifting
Horizons: The Ongoing Evolution of Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb,” Orbis, Spring 2011, pp. 240–54.
94. Geoff D. Porter, “Terrorist Outbidding: The In
Amenas Attack,” CTC Sentinel, 8:5, May 2015.
95. Christopher S. Chivvis and Andrew Liepman, North
Africa’s Menace: AQIM’s Evolution and the U.S.
Policy Response, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp.,
2013.
96. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise, p. 133.
97. Jean-Luc Marret, “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb:
A ‘Glocal’ Organization,” Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, 31:6, 2008, p. 549.
98. Christopher S. Chivvis, The French War on Al Qa’ida
in Africa, Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 25.
99. Camille Tawil, Brothers in Arms: The Story of Al-
Qa’ida and the Arab Jihadists, London: SAQI, p. 195.
100. Nicholas Schmidle, “The Saharan Conundrum,”
New York Times Magazine, February 13, 2009.
101. Chivvis and Liepman, North Africa’s Menace, p. 4.
102. Manuel R. Torres Soriano, “The Road to Media
Jihad: The Propaganda Actions of Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb,” Terrorism and Political Violence,
23:1, 2010, pp. 72–88.
103. Pham, “Foreign Influences,” p. 245.
104. Rukmini Callimachi, “Paying Ransoms, Europe
Bankrolls Qaeda Terror,” New York Times, July 29,
2014.
105. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise, p. 134.
106. Eric Schmitt and Saeed al-Batati, “The U.S. Has
Pummeled Al Qaeda in Yemen. But the Threat is
Barely Dented,” New York Times, December 30, 2017.
107. Michael Page, Lara Challita, and Alistair Harris, “Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives
and Prescriptions,” Terrorism and Political Violence,
23:2, 2011, pp. 150–72.
108. Gregory D. Johnsen, The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-
Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia, New York: W.
W. Norton, 2013, p. 261.
109. Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, “As American as
Apple Pie: How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of
Western Jihad,” The International Centre for the
Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR),
2011; see also Scott Shane, “The Lessons of Anwar al-
 Awlaki,” New York Times Magazine, August 27, 2015;
and Haroro J. Ingram and Craig Whiteside, “The
Yemen Raid and the Ghost of Anwar al-Awlaki,” The
Atlantic, February 9, 2017.
110. Bryce Loidolt, “Managing the Global and the Local:
The Dual Agendas of Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 34:2,
2011, pp. 102–23.
111. Byman, “Buddies of Burdens?” p. 452.
112. “Al Qaeda is Losing Ground in Yemen. Yet It is Far
from Defeated,” The Economist, June 10, 2017.
113. Mendelsohn, The Al Qaeda Franchise, p. 140. See
also Ty McCormick, “U.S. Attacks Reveal Al-Shabaab’s
Strength, Not Weakness,” Foreign Policy, March 9,
2016.
114. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, “The Strategic Challenge
of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab,” Middle East Quarterly,
16:4, Fall 2009, pp. 25–36. For a more robust
discussion of AIAI, see Kenneth J. Menkhaus,
“Somalia and Somaliland: Terrorism, Political Islam,
and State Collapse,” in Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Battling
Terrorism in the Horn of Africa, Cambridge, MA:
World Peace Foundation, 2005, pp. 35–6.
115. Seth G. Jones, Andrew Liepman, and Nathan
Chandler, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency
in Somalia, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2016, p.
9.
116. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of
Sacred Terror: Radical Islam’s War Against
America, New York: Random House, 2003, pp. 118–
23.
117. Stig Jarle Hansen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The
History of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005–2012,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 28–32.
118. Ken Menkhaus and Christopher Boucek, “Terrorism
Out of Somalia,” Carnegie Endowment for
 International Peace, September 23, 2010:
https://carnegieendowment.org/2010/09/23/terroris
m-out-of-somalia-pub-41612.
119. Ken Menkhaus, “Non-State Actors and the Role of
Violence in Stateless Somalia,” in Klejda Mulaj, ed.,
Violent Non-State Actors in World Politics, New
York: Columbia University Press, 2010, p. 373.
120. David Shinn, “Al Shabaab’s Foreign Threat to
Somalia,” Orbis, 55:2, 2011, pp. 203–15. See also
Committee on Homeland Security, Al Shabaab:
Recruitment and Radicalization Within the Muslim
American Community and the Threat to the
Homeland, Washington DC: Government Printing
Office, July 27, 2011, p. 2.
121. Lorenzo Vidino, Raffaello Pantucci, and Evan
Kohlmann, “Bringing Global Jihad to the Horn of
Africa: al Shabaab, Western Fighters, the
Sacralization of the Somali Conflict,” African
Security, 3:4, 2010, p. 224.
122. For more on this, see Richard Shultz and Andrea
Dew, Terrorists, Insurgents, and Militias: The
Warriors of Contemporary Combat, New York:
Columbia University Press, 2007; and Clint Watts,
Jacob Shapiro, and Vahid Brown, Al-Qa’ida’s
(Mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa, Combating
Terrorism Center, July 2, 2007.
123. Ken Menkhaus, “Al-Shabaab’s Post-Westgate
Capabilities,” CTC Sentinel, 7:2, February 2014.
124. Christopher Anzalone, “The Resilience of al-
Shabaab,” CTC Sentinel, 9:4, April 2016.
125. Jason Burke, “Mogadishu Truck Bomb: 500
Casualties in Somalia’s Worst Terrorist Attack,”
Guardian, October 16, 2017.
2
The Inner Workings of the Islamic
State
Al-Qaeda may have birthed several highly capable
offshoots, but the transition of one of those off shoots –
al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) – into the Islamic State was not a
linear one. It involved bloody confrontations between
erstwhile allies within the jihadist movement, and a
lasting cleavage that has led to continued fighting and
division between IS and al-Qaeda to the current day.
Understanding this split is key to understanding IS, its
inner workings, and its motivations.
Following the tumult brought forth by the Arab Spring,
Syria descended into civil war. To al-Qaeda leadership,
Syria was the opportunity the group was looking for to
reassert itself on the world stage and once again become
a relevant player in the heart of the Middle East. Al-
Qaeda expanded into Syria in January 2012 with the
establishment of Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), led by a Syrian
AQI (now Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)) fighter, Abu
Muhammad al-Joulani. Core al-Qaeda sought to uphold
the chimera of deniability in its relationship with its
nascent Syrian branch. In April 2013, the ISI declared JN
its subsidiary, although Joulani scoffed at this
arrangement and instead declared his loyalty to Zawahiri
and core al-Qaeda. Core al-Qaeda’s inability to control its
affiliates had not only damaged its brand, but had now
led to the emergence of what would become its most
significant rival.1 The fall-out resulted in ISI’s expansion
into Syria and its subsequent rebranding as the Islamic
State (IS). Moreover, when the fissure occurred, the
majority of foreign fighters in Nusra’s ranks left the
group to join IS.2 Zawahiri publicly denounced the split
between the groups in February 2014. No matter, the
stage was set for the rise of IS.
In order to properly understand the rise and fall of IS, it
is crucial to have a firm grasp of the group’s capabilities
– both how it is able to plan and conduct attacks
(operational capabilities) and also how the group
maintains itself as a cohesive entity (organizational
capabilities). IS is a pioneering terrorist group in several
ways, from its ability to raise and spend money to its
multi-tiered approach to conducting terrorist attacks.
IS’s use of social media and encrypted apps to direct
terrorist attacks overseas sets it apart from any terrorist
groups of the past. As evidenced by the Paris November
2015 attacks and the Brussels March 2016 attacks, at its
peak IS sustained the ability to strike into the heart of
Europe while simultaneously managing a proto-state
spanning Iraq and Syria.

Operational Capabilities
The Islamic State’s ability to plan and execute attacks,
against both conventional and unconventional forces on
the battlefield, as well as abroad in Western cities, makes
it a relatively unique organization in terms of its
operational capabilities. Its fighters have mastered a
diverse array of tactics, from VBIEDs to ambushes and
hit-and-run attacks. Moreover, the leadership’s
exhortation for its followers to conduct attacks abroad,
including so-called vehicular terrorism or ramming
attacks, is a tactic pioneered by IS that has emerged as a
new trend in terrorist attacks directed at the West. To
remain relevant, as IS loses its last remaining territory in
Iraq and Syria, it may seek to rely on launching
spectacular terrorist attacks in the West to maintain
morale and burnish the group’s brand. This section will
discuss the group’s operational capabilities, which
include financing, weapons, intelligence, the ability to
maintain a safe haven, and training.

Financing
At the height of its territorial control in 2015, the Islamic
State generated more than $6 billion – the equivalent of
the gross domestic product of Liechtenstein.3 While IS’s
territorial control has declined, it still retains financial
power; IS’s surviving leadership is alleged to have
smuggled as much as $400 million out of Iraq and Syria
and used it to invest in legitimate businesses – hotels,
hospitals, farms, and car dealerships – throughout the
region, including in Turkey, where some militants have
also reportedly made large purchases of gold.4 IS’s
financial holdings and funding model have made it the
wealthiest insurgent group in history, and its diversified
funding portfolio and ability to raise money through
criminal activities provide it with an opportunity to
survive and even make a comeback in Iraq and Syria over
the next several years.5
Following its obstreperous rise to global infamy in 2014,
IS was enshrined in media-fueled hyperbole. While,
much of the time, the superlatives were misplaced, one
area in which they were unquestionably warranted was
in regard to its finances. Indeed, the war chest it
amassed in 2014 and 2015 easily made it the richest
terrorist organization in the contemporary era.6 IS is
different from previous terrorist groups because the
territory it controlled provided extremely lucrative
resources, such as oil, and a renewable funding source in
the form of a taxable population. As former Assistant
Secretary for Terrorist Financing at the Department of
the Treasury Daniel Glaser has noted, IS generated its
wealth from three primary sources: oil and gas, which
generated about $500 million in 2015, primarily through
internal sales; taxation and extortion, which garnered
approximately $360 million in 2015; and the 2014
looting of Mosul, during which IS stole about $500
million from bank vaults.7
To put IS financing in perspective, it is useful to consider
not only IS’s similarities to other groups but its
differences as well. Indeed, there are far more
differences than similarities, as IS is unique in the scale
and scope of its financing activities. Like many other
terrorist groups in the contemporary era, IS relies on a
range of criminal activities, including – but not limited
to – extortion, kidnapping for ransom, robbery and theft,
and antiquities smuggling. IS may also have been
involved with narcotics trafficking.8 There is little
evidence to suggest that foreign donations from nation-
states have also been a significant funding source for IS,
although wealthy individuals from the Gulf have been
accused of financing terrorists in Syria.9
In addition to funding its organization from the bottom
up, through petty criminality, IS also relied on a top-
down funding structure from a range of sources
associated with its control of territory. As mentioned in
the introduction, IS is unique in recent history as one of
the few terrorist groups to generate most of its funding
from the territory it held – revenue amassed from
taxation and extortion, the sale of oil and various oil-
related products, looting, confiscation of property and
cash, and fines levied against the population by the
religious police for a litany of offenses.10 IS’s reputation
as incorruptible – a defining characteristic inherited
from its predecessors AQI and ISI – helped boost
popular support.11
Most concerning, however, is that IS continues to make
money from oil to this day, despite the drastic reduction
in its territorial holdings. In late June 2018, four
members of IS’s Oil and Gas Network were killed during
Coalition operations in the central Euphrates River
Valley in Syria.12 According to a United Nations Security
Council report from the summer of 2018, IS has regained
control of oil fields in northeastern Syria and continues
to extract oil, both for its own use, and also for sale to
locals.13 So while significant progress has been made in
combating IS’s ability to raise money through oil, this
revenue source has yet to be completely eradicated and
probably never will be. Even when IS’s predecessors did
not control large swaths of territory in Iraq from 2006 to
2009, they were similarly able to raise substantial sums
of money from oil, including by extorting local and
regional distribution networks.
One of the core difficulties in degrading IS’s considerable
material wealth was that much of what it amassed was
collected in and through the territory over which it
presided. Indeed, as much as 80 percent of its fortune
was acquired by mimicking one of the central functions
of modern nation-states – that is, collecting taxes and
tariffs from the local population.14 In this sense, IS was
unique in the recent history of insurgency. It was
entrepreneurial and, to a large extent, self-sufficient.15
As an upshot of this (and notwithstanding much
spurious media coverage), there is scant evidence to
suggest that foreign donations were ever a significant
source of funding for it.16 As the organization evolves in
years to come, these revenue streams will probably
change; indeed, external funding from sympathetic state
and non-state donors could one day comprise a much
larger proportion of its coffers.17
The war against IS has vividly shown the intractability of
counter-terrorism financing. Sanctions, one of the
principal traditional tools for this area of policy, were
demonstrably insufficient, and even the impact of the
Counter-IS Coalition’s targeted, intelligence-led strikes
on oil operations and cash storage sites in Iraq and Syria
in 2015 proved to be impermanent. To cripple its
material wealth, a combination of civilian and military
measures was required, with global backing. Every
potential facet of IS revenue had to be considered for
targeting or sanctioning, and the most difficult areas to
obstruct – taxation and extortion – became long-term
targets for post-conflict stabilization.
As the organization continues to be degraded, its primary
sources of revenue will change and its leadership may
seek to secure external funding from sympathetic donors
throughout the Arab and Islamic world, or nation-states
in the Middle East that view IS as a potentially useful
proxy in the region’s ongoing internecine conflict. Still,
this remains a remote possibility for two reasons. First,
IS has demonstrated such an extreme sectarian agenda
that its egregious behavior is beyond the pale even for
states that normally sponsor terrorist groups. Second,
the counter-threat finance measures devised and
implemented by the international community, in
partnership with private-sector entities including major
banks, has made it extremely difficult for terrorist groups
to take advantage of the licit financial sector to store,
transfer, or launder illicit revenues.

Weapons
During its peak, IS could be considered one of the most
well-funded terrorist groups in history, and, also, one of
the most well-equipped.18 The Islamic State managed to
acquire an impressive arsenal of weapons to equip the
army of its proto-state. IS fighters trained with small
arms, but also learned how to use heavy-caliber weapons
that could be used in more conventional-style
skirmishes. Its fighters proved innovative,
demonstrating the skill and alacrity to modify a range of
weapons systems. The group displayed a remarkable
ingenuity in training new recruits, adept at onboarding
both battle-hardened jihadists with experience in
previous fronts, and newly arrived Europeans with little
or no knowledge of military tactics. Its fighters’
willingness to die in suicide attacks was unprecedented
in terms of overall numbers, lending credence to the
saying that quantity can have a quality all of its own.
Some scholars have argued that IS’s ability to wage
conventional warfare was so advanced that the
organization of its military capabilities bore resemblance
to the warfighting functions of the United States military
in terms of combined arms concepts and command and
control.19
Unlike many terrorist and insurgent groups that
operated during the Cold War, IS was not forced to rely
upon external states to provide it with weaponry.
Instead, its fighters forcibly looted hundreds of millions
of dollars’ worth of weapons and equipment from Iraqi
and Syrian military installations.20 IS maintained a
diversified source of weapons, including those acquired
from other insurgents in Syria who defected to the
Islamic State; weapons purchased from other insurgents
who received them from foreign donors; weapons
captured from defeated adversaries; and weapons
bought from or traded for with corrupt members of the
security forces in Syria and Iraq.21 The group even
managed to wrangle sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry
such as the Chinese-made FN-6, which was provided to
Syrian rebels who were ultimately overrun by IS
fighters.22 Nearly 90 percent of the weapons and
ammunition acquired by IS originated in China, Russia,
and Eastern Europe.23 Unlike in some conflicts where
much of the weaponry on the battlefield is old or
antiquated, the lion’s share of IS’s weaponry, and
especially the ammunition it was using, was
predominantly found to have been delivered to the
region since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.24
IS was not the prototypical insurgent group – it was
equipped more like a conventional military. Armored
vehicles were purchased on the black market or
scavenged from the Iraqi security forces which had
retreated from the battlefield.25 The use of “technicals,”
which are pick-up trucks modified with machine guns or
anti-aircraft weaponry, provides the militants freedom of
movement and much-needed mobility. IS fighters have
used artillery and RPGs in Syria while also making use of
Humvees and T-55 tanks captured from the Iraqi
security forces.26 Other types of weapons include M79
anti-tank rockets made in the former Yugoslavia,
American-made M16 and M14 rifles, as well as assorted
small arms and ammunition.27 Many of the weapons and
equipment that IS militants fought with were initially
distributed to the Iraqi Army to provide it with both a
qualitative and quantitative edge over its adversaries.28
In October 2014, US planes dropped weapons intended
for Kurdish fighters in Kobani, but instead ended up in
IS-controlled territory and were ultimately
commandeered by the militants.29
In terms of tactics, IS demonstrated interest and skill in
experimenting with new technologies and elevated the
use of suicide attacks to a new level. Between December
2015 and November 2016, IS conducted an astounding
923 suicide operations in Iraq and Syria alone.30 Many
of these attacks involved the use of VBIEDs. IS was able
to record its attacks and then distribute the footage as
propaganda.31 This also set IS apart from other groups,
including al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, both of which
engaged in similar kinds of propaganda distribution, but
never achieved the same scope or scale as IS did with its
battlefield footage. Throughout the conflict there were
reports of IS fighters using drones in a number of
different ways, from surveillance and reconnaissance to
actual attacks involving grenades and explosives.32 And
in keeping with the findings of Truls Hallberg
Tønnessen, the primary strength of IS is not necessarily
the acquisition and use of advanced technology, but the
improvised use of less advanced and easily accessible
technology to great (and lethal) effect.33

Intelligence
For the Islamic State, its intelligence capabilities served a
dual purpose, having both internal and external
objectives. Internally, IS sought to purge all potential
spies and suspected collaborators. Externally, its
intelligence service was used to attack its opponents,
both within the region and farther abroad. Ominously,
the intelligence skills IS fighters learned in Iraq and
Syria could serve them well if they seek to return to their
countries of origin or third-party countries to mount
attacks. If IS is able to reconstitute its organization in the
future, even in a far more limited form, its residual
intelligence capabilities will probably be a major reason
why.
IS relies on subversion and clandestine operations to
execute attacks in both Syria and Iraq, including suicide
bombings, assassinations, and other guerilla-style
tactics, extending to offensive raids on critical military
targets, such as Syrian Army bases. During the earliest
stages of the conflict, in response to US airstrikes, IS
fighters worked to stress the importance of operational
security to fellow fighters, imploring them to assume a
“covert posture submerged within the population,” don
masks that covered their faces, and even eschew any
identifying information while operating in public.34 In
many ways, IS’s intelligence service was one of its
fundamental drivers of battlefield success and
organizational cohesion. Soon after assuming leadership
of the group, Baghdadi relied on IS’s internal security
apparatus to purge the organization of suspected
informants.35 When new recruits arrived from abroad,
especially from Western countries, they were screened
and vetted by IS fighters through a series of interviews,
during which personal information was obtained and
cross checked, passports were examined and donations
were accepted.36 IS maintained impeccable records of
who was joining the organization in an effort to weed out
spies and exact revenge on those who defected.
For IS, counterintelligence was a top priority. A captured
IS computer even revealed a downloaded copy of the US
Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field
Manual (FM) 3-24, which the group presumably studied
to better understand US operating procedures.37
Intelligence agencies and security services in Western
countries, particularly in Europe, remain highly
concerned that sleeper cells of fighters will arrive back in
their home countries with newly acquired skills in how to
conduct surveillance, how to avoid detection, and how to
build a clandestine network.38 Those returning in order
to plan an attack will do so surreptitiously, and many
could seek to return to the illicit networks they belonged
to before departing for Syria.39
The IS intelligence apparatus, also sometimes referred to
as “Emni” (Arabic for “trust,” “security,” and “safety”),
fulfills a wide range of internal security and external
intelligence services, to include everything from rooting
out informers to planning external attacks across the
globe, including the Paris November 2015 and Brussels
March 2016 attacks.40 Former Baathists from Saddam
Hussein’s secret police played an instrumental role in
helping to organize the Emni.41 Some have compared the
Emni to East Germany’s Stasi, a brutal domestic
intelligence agency that spied on citizens and foreigners
alike.42 Emni members successfully penetrated
government institutions in Iraq, as well as various
agencies within adversary forces, such as Kurdish
intelligence, and within the ranks of Al-Nusra.43 The
Emni holds a special place within IS and, according to
Rukmini Callimachi, is afforded “carte blanche to recruit
and reroute operatives from all parts of the organization
– from new arrivals to seasoned battlefield fighters, and
from the group’s special forces and its elite commando
units.”44
Before IS sought to expand into new territory, its
intelligence operatives were sent to collect information
on the existing political and ideological make-up of the
area. Once IS actually moved into the territory, those
individuals already identified as potentially resistant to
the group would be rounded up and executed.45 Such a
sophisticated strategy should give pause to anyone who
believes IS would be unable to once again infiltrate areas
that have recently been reclaimed by Iraqi or Syrian
forces, respectively. IS has also allegedly sent militants
abroad to Turkey, Europe, and elsewhere as forward
deployed assets, to be used as sleeper cells at some
undetermined point in the future. As Bruce Hoffman
notes, the Islamic State’s “investment of operational
personnel ensures that IS will retain an effective
international terrorist strike capability in Europe
irrespective of its battlefield reverses in Syria and
Iraq.”46

Sanctuary, Safe Haven, and Operational Space

As the world learned on September 11, 2001, when
violent terrorist groups are allowed to persist unfettered
in safe havens and sanctuary, they can develop the
capability to plot and execute spectacular attacks.
Without Raqqa as a headquarters, it remains debatable
whether or not IS would have been able to plan an attack
as sophisticated and coordinated as that launched in
Paris, France, in November 2015. Sanctuary and control
of territory – operational space – enable financing,
which in turn helps facilitate the process of state
building. As IS built its state, this in turn increased its
legitimacy as an entity able to provide law and order and
other basic trappings of a state, further attracting foreign
fighters and their families to travel to the territory. The
caliphate was becoming a reality.
Since the late 1990s, Sunni violent extremism has
become a major threat to global stability and it now has
more groups, members, and safe havens than at any
other point in history.47 And more so than any other
insurgent group in recent memory, the Islamic State was
able to hold and actually control vast swaths of territory
across two sovereign countries. At its peak, the Islamic
State controlled more than 100,000 km2 of territory
containing more than 11 million people, mostly in Iraq
and Syria.48 It maintained its de-facto headquarters in
Raqqa, Syria, and its primary base of operations in Iraq
was in Mosul. Throughout the course of the conflict, IS
occupied parts of Idlib and Aleppo provinces, where
training camps were established. At various points, in
Aleppo, the group controlled the Jarabulus crossing to
the west and the Tal Abayd crossing to the east, critical
chokepoints that regulated the flow of men, money, and
matériel coming into Syria from Turkey.49 Losing the
physical caliphate may tarnish its brand in the eyes of
some, but the fact that it was able to successfully
establish a caliphate in the first place will remain a viable
propaganda tool for the group in recruiting new
members and lifting the morale of the global jihadist
movement as a whole. As Aaron Zelin remarked:
The most important take away is that it happened.
No longer do individuals or jihadis have to point to a
historical idealized past of the original Rashidun
Caliphate. Rather, they can point to two to five years
ago and that it was here and it was doing well from
their perspective. As a result, it is about a lived
nostalgia rather than just a pure utopian fantasy
whether you agree or disagree with how well things
actually were under IS rule. It’s all about how
jihadis, supporters, and fence-sitters think of the
experience. Many believe that if their enemies didn’t
attack them it would have been successful.50
IS enjoyed safe haven in Syria largely unmolested for
long enough to allow it to really hold territory that it
could use to train, produce media, and begin
implementing the foundational elements of its caliphate.
There is a direct connection between controlling territory
and earning money. Consider that, for long stretches of
time during this conflict, IS was earning well over $1
million per day from the sale of oil and oil-related
products.51 Furthermore, IS checkpoints throughout the
territory it controlled provided the militants with
multiple opportunities to “tax” those attempting to pass
through. IS was so brazen in some parts of the territory it
controlled that it allowed municipal workers and civil
servants to remain in their jobs, including some city
mayors and other top local officeholders who were
allowed to keep their posts, provided they acknowledged
the legitimacy of IS’s rule.52 Accordingly, the control of
territory meant the control of resources, including oil,
wheat, water, and ancient artifacts, all of which were sold
to further expand IS’s financial portfolio.
Sunni disenfranchisement in both Iraq and Syria
contributed to the Islamic State’s ability to establish
sanctuary in those countries.53 Even after IS has been
largely vanquished in Iraq and remains severely
attenuated in Syria, poor or non-existent governance
remains a major concern in both of those countries.
These areas remain a concern because IS has been able
to orchestrate attacks when under immense siege from
the Coalition, taking advantage of ever-smaller swaths of
territory that the group can still utilize as a safe haven to
plan, plot, and incite from.54 The US intelligence
community remains extremely concerned about IS
developing an “alternate safe haven,” that is, another
area outside of Iraq and Syria where its remaining
fighters are able to congregate en masse to establish a
robust presence and begin reconstituting.55 Safe havens
are spaces that are not simply ungoverned, but
alternatively governed – they are governed by insurgents
or terrorist groups who may seek to ally with or tolerate
an IS presence in places like Libya, Afghanistan, Egypt’s
Sinai Peninsula, or throughout isolated archipelagos in
Southeast Asia. Herein lie some of the dangers inherent
in splintering, especially when certain regions already
possess the militant infrastructure to allow splinter
movements to flourish by providing a ready-made
environment for terrorism and insurgency.

Training
By the summer of 2014, IS had already established
logistical hubs for resupply, a functioning operational
headquarters, training camps, and other vital
infrastructure throughout Syria. Training for IS recruits,
especially foreign fighters, was multi-purpose, at once
designed to build a militant’s practical skills, but also to
“imbue him with a sense of solidarity with a larger
cause.”56 After being properly vetted, new recruits would
spend several weeks undergoing both religious and
military training, tailored to align with their assigned
role within the organization. Highly skilled recruits were
selected to receive further training on more sophisticated
weapons.57 IS selected certain operatives for its “special
forces program,” which involved ten levels of training.58
IS is far from the Navy SEALs, but a dedicated special
forces program is a lot more than most insurgent groups
are capable of achieving, with the exception of groups
like Hezbollah, which is in a class of its own in many
ways (and benefits from the largesse of Iran).
From 2012 to 2015, well over 100 jihadist training camps
were identified in Syria and Iraq, used not only by IS but
also by Nusra and a range of other violent militant
groups.59 A major part of what happens in IS training
camps is religious instruction and ideological
indoctrination.60 As Graeme Wood has noted, “the
religion preached by its most ardent followers derives
from coherent and even learned interpretations of
Islam.”61 Perhaps interestingly, it seems that many IS
recruits were in need of strict lessons in how to interpret
the Islamic State’s austere view of Salafism – after all,
only a mere 5 percent of incoming recruits were judged
to have an “advanced” knowledge of Islam, while 70
percent were described as having only a “basic” grasp of
the religion.62 Even with a simplistic interpretation of
religion, it was clearly still a significant motivating factor
for recruits to join IS.63
IS also trains young children in their “Cubs of the
Caliphate” camps, where children as young as 5 years old
are indoctrinated in the group’s ideology and taught how
to kill.64 Horgan et al. have described the six stages of
child socialization to IS, including seduction, selection,
and subjugation, among other disturbing aspects of the
process.65 In Syria, this has included an aggressive
campaign targeting “youth, especially boys, to override
parents’ authority, create new power structures in
society, and propagate [IS’s] ideology.”66 The head of
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has warned that
the return of children “brainwashed” by the Islamic State
poses a “massive danger” to his country in the near term
and well into the future.67 A captured French jihadist
claimed that IS “made concrete plans” to send children
(mostly Syrians) to Europe to conduct attacks against
Western targets, but would only do so once the kids
reach adolescence so that facial recognition software
would not be as effective.68

Organizational Capabilities
IS’s organizational structure may help it transition
smoothly from a territorially based insurgent
organization to an underground, clandestine terrorist
group. Its network-like qualities and affiliate franchise
groups contribute to its protean structure and ability to
survive. Another important element to analyze is how IS
went about building its state and the manner in which it
constructed a bureaucracy to help it operate more
effectively.69 It even required recruits to fill out highly
detailed “onboarding” documents which asked for name,
address, phone number, and detailed information about
the network that recruited them, a measure ostensibly
implemented to enhance operational security.
This section also examines the “virtual caliphate” – that
is, IS’s ability to survive online through its use of
information operations and social-media savvy. Even
before Raqqa fell, the IS media machine kicked into high
gear, working assiduously to dispel any notion of defeat
as merely temporary and crafting a narrative of
redemption, vengeance, and a future return to the glory
days of the caliphate. The truth is that the establishment
of the caliphate is a once-in-a-lifetime event and a feat
unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. But IS will still
attempt to use it as “proof of concept” in the future,
demonstrating that it could be accomplished as a way of
attempting to unify jihadists around its brand and core
ethos.

Recruitment
In addition to recruiting within the region, IS was able to
successfully recruit thousands of European Muslims to
join its ranks. There were a significant number of
Westerners counted among IS’s ranks, including fighters
from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
Scandinavia, and many European countries. There was
also an outsized contingent of jihadist fighters from
Trinidad and Tobago.70 Why were so many young men
and women from the outskirts of London, Paris, and
Brussels so enamored with an ultra-violent, atavistic
terrorist organization that sought to take the world back
to the seventh century? This is the subject of ongoing
debate between two French scholars of Islam, Gilles
Kepel and Olivier Roy, concerning the topic of
radicalization. What can explain so many French citizens
going on to join IS? Why has France been among the
most targeted countries in the West by jihadists? Kepel
lays the blame squarely with religious extremism, while
Roy argues that European jihadists who traveled to the
caliphate and participated in gruesome actions are
merely nihilists using Islam as a pretext to carry out
sociopathic fantasies.71
According to Rik Coolsaet, “joining IS is merely a shift to
another form of deviant behavior, next to membership of
street gangs, rioting, drug trafficking and juvenile
delinquency.”72 A 2012 report by the European
Parliament titled “Europe’s Crime–Terror Nexus: Links
Between Terrorist and Organised Crime Groups in the
European Union” noted the prevalence with which
jihadist attacks involved links to criminality, including
drug trafficking.73 In some sense, a background in the
criminal underworld left behind for militant Islam can
play into the appeal of what has been called “jihadi cool,”
which blends “traditional notions of honor and virility,
but also a strong undercurrent of oppositional,
postmodern cool.”74 Thomas Hegghammer has referred
to elements of this trend as “the soft power of militant
jihad,” while observing that “In Europe, radicals
sometimes wear a combination of sneakers, a Middle
Eastern or Pakistani gown and a combat jacket on top.
It’s a style that perhaps reflects their urban roots,
Muslim identity and militant sympathies.”75
IS’s predecessor, AQI, was led by a criminal-cum-jihadist
named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose background
included street gangs and prison time for sexual
assault.76 Indeed, IS seems to attract many jihadists with
a similar profile, including the main link between the
Paris November 2015 attacks and the Brussels March
2016 bombings, Salah Abdeslam, known for his
penchant for drinking, smoking, and gambling, rather
than his piety. Abdeslam was a regular patron (and
brother of the manager) of a Molenbeek bar named Café
del Beguines, a place known for drug dealing and other
illicit activity and closed down after “compromising
public security and tranquility.”77 Abdeslam was the only
surviving member of the group of terrorists that formed
the core of the French–Belgian nexus.78 He has been
back and forth to court, and his refusal to cooperate with
authorities has made him something of a cult hero to
aspiring jihadists, even cited as the inspiration for a
March 2018 attack at a French supermarket.79
Molenbeek came under intense scrutiny following the
Paris and Brussels attacks. It is a gritty neighborhood of
Brussels where a “hybrid subculture of crime, violence,
and jihadi activism has taken root.”80 It symbolizes the
epicenter of the crime–terror nexus. It has a history with
Islamic radicals and their networks, and is plagued by
high levels of unemployment, and when compared with
the rest of Belgian society its residents suffer from severe
educational disparities, a disproportionately high
involvement in the prison system, and isolation from
wider Belgian society. Matthew Levitt described
Molenbeek as “like another world, another culture,
festering in the heart of the West.”81 In fact, Molenbeek
was so insular that it was not particularly strange that a
charismatic imam named Khalid Zerkani (a.k.a. “Papa
Noel”) with deep hatred for the West encouraged young
Belgian men with ancestral roots in Morocco and other
majority-Muslim countries to commit acts of criminality
in order to finance jihad.82 Besides Abdeslam, several
other notorious IS terrorists had criminal backgrounds,
including the leader of the Paris attacks, fellow Belgian
Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Others include Ahmed Coulibaly,
a key figure in the Charlie Hebdo attacks; Mohamed
Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the terrorist who killed 84 people by
driving a truck through a crowd on Bastille Day in Nice,
France; and Anis Amri, the Tunisian jihadist responsible
for ramming a truck into a Berlin Christmas market.

Leadership
As has been well documented by now, the leadership
core of the Islamic State congealed in Camp Bucca. Many
of its top leaders have been eliminated – although, at the
time of this writing, the so-called Caliph is still alive, on
the run, and in hiding. With most of the original
leadership gone, the chances increase that remaining
fighters will splinter off and be absorbed by new groups
elsewhere, even as “core IS” inevitably attempts to
reconstitute itself back in parts of Iraq and Syria. The
splintering of the group will lead to further
decentralization and a situation in which there is a
decreased threat from any one major jihadist group, but
an increased threat from dozens of smaller outfits, some
of which may eventually grow to become more lethal
than the group from which they were originally derived.
IS is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi also known as
Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry, born in Samarra in
1971.83 Captured by US forces near Fallujah in 2004, al-
Baghdadi spent years at Camp Bucca, a detention facility
where he is thought to have grown even further
radicalized and anti-American, while also broadening his
network among aggrieved Iraqi Sunni Arabs, including
many from Anbar and Nineveh provinces.84Along with
other Islamic State leaders – including Abu Muslim al-
Turkmani, Abu Louay, and Abu Kassem – Baghdadi used
his time as a networking opportunity to meet and
organize with jihadists, ex-Baathists, and violent
criminals.85 Upon their release, they formed the core of
what evolved into the Islamic State, after Baghdadi
helped engineer the defection of al-Qaeda in Iraq from
the broader al-Qaeda orbit.86 Baghdadi obtained a
doctorate in Quranic studies, for which he studied the
theology of Islam’s central text, from Saddam University
in Baghdad. This education allowed him to burnish
religious credentials that other jihadist leaders have
never been able to claim, including al-Qaeda leaders
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The
legitimacy afforded by his religious education was one of
several factors – along with familial lineage traced back
to the Prophet – that cleared Baghdadi’s way to declare
himself Caliph, or ruler of all Muslims, in a historic
speech at the Grand Mosque in Mosul in June 2014.87
While the group’s leadership cadre did include some
prominent foreign fighters, such as a Chechen named
Omar al-Shishani,88 there were also former Baath party
military and intelligence officers that held high-ranking
positions during Saddam Hussein’s regime, including
Abu Ali al-Anbari and Abu Muslim al-Turkmani.89 Two
other former regime-loyalists-turned-IS-members were
Fadel al-Hayali and Adnan al-Sweidawi, both of whom
served as military officers and Baath party insiders.90
Indeed, IS maintained a leadership council, a cabinet,
and had ties to local leaders. The leadership council
helped deal with religious issues and doctrine, but also
apparently made decisions about executions. The cabinet
maintained oversight on finance, security, media,
prisoners, and recruitment, while local leaders were
comprised of roughly a dozen deputies spread between
Iraq and Syria.91 IS operates in a more decentralized
fashion than al-Qaeda ever did, with operations carried
out by a network of regional commanders who each
maintained responsibility for subordinates, who had
their own autonomy, but were also able to collaborate
and coordinate with the regional commanders on a
variety of tactical issues.92
Before being killed in a US airstrike in August 2016,
Baghdadi’s deputy was Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a
Syrian jihadist who fought against US forces in Iraq and
was captured in 2005. Like Baghdadi, Adnani was
detained in Camp Bucca for a period of time. He would
go on to become the terrorist group’s chief spokesman,
tasked with directing its media campaign and
information operations.93 In June 2014, al-Adnani was
the first member of IS to officially declare a caliphate in
Iraq and Syria. He was designated as a terrorist by the
US Department of State in August 2014, and a $5 million
bounty was subsequently placed on his head. Al-Adnani’s
legacy continues to live on through audio recordings. In
the most notorious of these, a nineminute audio
recording titled “Die in Your Rage” from September
2014, he implores Muslims in Western nations to carry
out lone-wolf attacks. In addition to serving as
spokesman, al-Adnani headed IS’s previously
aforementioned Emni, or external operations unit, which
was responsible for planning attacks outside of IS
territory. Al-Adnani is thought to have had a hand in
planning some of the most spectacular attacks ever
conducted by the group, including the Paris November
2015 and the Brussels March 2016 attacks.94

Ideology
Just as salient as the military skills taught in IS’s training
camps was the religious instruction and indoctrination of
IS recruits and members, including young children. The
next generation of youngsters has already been
brainwashed, force-fed a highly sectarian and takfirist
worldview. The Islamic State has proven to be the most
austere of all Salafi-jihadist groups, even eclipsing al-
Qaeda in its austere interpretation of sharia law. As IS
seeks to expand abroad following the collapse of its
caliphate, it will probably need to do what al-Qaeda has
successfully done to co-exist in certain locales – that is,
tailoring its ideology (and tempering it where necessary)
to fall more closely in line with local attitudes, as AQAP
has done in Yemen and as its various iterations have
attempted to do in Syria.
The brand of Islam practiced by the Islamic State has
been described, perhaps most accurately, as “untamed
Wahhabism” that views the killing of those deemed
unbelievers as a necessity to furthering its mission of
purifying the community of the faithful.95 The group’s
ideology, defined by an extremely narrow interpretation
of sharia on social and criminal issues, explains its use of
beheading as a way of murdering its victims, who have
included several Westerners, Christian and Yazidi
religious minorities, Shiite Muslims (considered
apostates), Kurds, Alawites, and even other Sunni
Muslims whom IS deems worthy of elimination. It has
been labeled “the most elaborate and militant jihad
polity in modern history.”96
After it seized Mosul in June 2014, IS publicized a “city
charter” that called for the amputation of thieves’ hands,
mandatory prayers, the banning of all drugs and alcohol,
and the desecration of shrines and graves considered to
be polytheistic.97 The group’s adherence to such an
austere, unforgiving brand of Islam is reminiscent of
AQI’s split with core al-Qaeda, and once again al-Qaeda
senior leadership, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, viewed
the group’s extreme violence as ultimately
counterproductive.98 The public split with al-Qaeda has
seemingly forced jihadists to choose sides,99 although, in
an interesting twist, some IS fighters probably get some
of their ideological guidance on building an Islamic State
from “The Management of Savagery,” a manifesto
penned by one of core al-Qaeda’s main ideologues, Abu
Bakr Naji.100 Its ideology has been described as
“aggressive” and “expansionist” with no recognition of
modern-day political borders.101 To be sure, IS regards
state boundaries as “artificial creations of colonial
powers designed to divide the Muslim world.”102 The fact
that IS has announced the establishment of an Islamic
state is proof in the eyes of many Muslims worldwide
that Baghdadi will be able to resurrect the caliphate.103
For IS, the future is one in which a caliphate stretches
across the globe. Indeed, the state-building project
undertaken by IS was one in which Baghdadi saw his
organization “taking a first step toward erasing the
artificial boundaries imposed by colonial powers to
divide Muslims.”104 The Islamic State’s ideology is “an
extremist reading of Islamic scripture” and one which
espouses “sharply anti-Shiite sectarian views and harsh
application of Islamic law.”105 IS’s ideology promotes a
worldview that essentially “classifies and
excommunicates fellow Muslims.”106 That most IS
recruits have a poor understanding of Islam is a benefit
to recruiters, who in some ways prefer recruits with an
unsophisticated command of their religion, as it makes
them more malleable and less likely to question those
who seek to indoctrinate them.107 Furthermore, IS and
its ideology will persist for generations. While the
physical caliphate has been destroyed, the fact that it was
established will help fuel the duration of the ideology
well into the future.108

Human Resources and Bureaucracy

In the post-9/11 era, it became fashionable to talk about
how terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda were
“networked,” assuming a transnational posture that
showed scant resemblance to the vertically structured,
top-down ethno-nationalist terrorist groups of the 1980s.
But in fact, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State after it, were
both highly bureaucratic in nature, even though both
groups maintained a global presence. And even though
IS was extremely brutal in doling out punishment to
those who “broke the rules,” its leadership was also
aware of the importance of providing services to the
constituency it claimed to represent. During the midst of
civil war, internecine violence, and widespread sectarian
strife, IS provided predictability, however draconian. Its
vast governance network, spearheaded by the hisbah, or
religious police, dispensed swift justice for a wide range
of offenses, but Syrians, Iraqis, and those foreigners who
emigrated to the caliphate understood what they needed
to do and how they needed to live in order to stay alive.
This imbued IS with a sense of political legitimacy that
few terrorist groups ever manage to acquire.
All told, IS attracted approximately 43,000 fighters from
more than 120 countries.109 The conflict in Syria has
attracted more Westerners than any other conflict in the
modern era, including the 1979–89 anti-Soviet jihad.110
The number of foreign fighters arriving to join the
Islamic State finally tailed off in September 2016,
dropping from approximately 2,000 recruits crossing the
Turkish–Syrian border each month, to only 50.111 A vast
majority of those fighters hailed from the Middle East,
North Africa, and other regions typically associated with
global jihad, such as the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Besides foreign fighters and militants from Saudi Arabia,
Tunisia, Lebanon, and Jordan, IS was comprised of
thousands of Iraqis and Syrians.112 After the initial US
invasion of Iraq in 2003, a radical Salafi cleric from
Aleppo named Abu al-Qaqaa became the primary point
of contact for Syrian recruits who were eager to join AQI
under the leadership of Zarqawi.113 The group has also
won recruits following large-scale prison breaks
throughout Iraq, replenishing its ranks with hardened
jihadists, violent sociopaths, and career criminals.114
Moreover, the group deliberately recruited extremely
young fighters, including many teenagers, while others
were even younger.115 Included in the panoply of
individuals recruited by IS were children as young as 6
years old, some of whom were trained to become suicide
bombers.116
In line with IS’s declared goal of establishing an Islamic
caliphate, the group has devoted a robust portion of its
funding to the nascent stages of state building. In August
2014, IS began paying municipal salaries, provided
public works, maintained electricity, trash, and sewage
services, offered health care and education to its
supporters, and even attempted to enforce parking laws
and regulations in areas it controlled or claimed to
control.117 In these areas, it also ensured the availability
of basic necessities such as gas and food.118 In Mosul, IS
held a “fun day” for kids, distributed gifts and food
during Eid al-Fitr, held Quran recitation competitions,
started bus services, and opened schools. More so in Iraq
than in Syria, IS has been aware of dealing with the local
population in Sunni-predominant towns, villages, and
cities.119 An analysis of al-Qaeda in Iraq reveals that that
group, too, was a bureaucratic and hierarchical
organization that tried to keep an ironclad grip on the
money it earned from a series of rackets.120 So, it should
come as little surprise that its progeny is as well.
IS may be wealthy, especially when compared to other
terrorist groups, but it also maintains a vast human
resources-type network to deal with medical expenses for
fighters (and their families), legal support, safe houses,
and administrative expenses (e.g., utilities) in the areas
under its control and other logistical requirements of
clandestine organizations.121 It has consistently
compelled mid-level bureaucrats and technocrats to
remain in their positions in order to ensure continuity.122
IS’s use of former Assad-regime loyalists displayed a
pragmatism that was vital to the success it had in holding
on to territory it captured.123
In areas it controlled, IS went to work building its state,
which included all the facets of a normal local
government, from police cars and ambulances to traffic
cops at intersections; it even opened a complaints desk,
for civilians to voice their concerns, and nursing homes,
for elderly relatives of jihadists and their extended
families.124 The provision of public services became an
important component of constructing the state. IS sent
out its members to repair potholes, administer post
offices, distribute food to those in need, and even began a
campaign to vaccinate its subjects against polio.125 IS
also had a Consumer Protection Authority office.126 As
Graeme Wood notes, “The Islamic State, like any other
government, had to administer its territory and
population, and was busy building bureaucracies for
taxation, health, education, and other official
functions.”127 In the areas in Syria under its control, IS
set up an electricity office that monitored electricity-use
levels, installed new power lines, and instructed
workshops on how to repair damaged ones.128 In Libya,
the IS state-building apparatus established an “Office of
General Services” to ensure that businesses were
officially registered so taxes could be collected.129
A census was conducted in Mosul, where citizens were
counted and catalogued according to occupation.
Business owners’ names were recorded in ledgers, along
with their religion and sect.130 Its administration,
bureaucracy, and governance structures have been
described as “very sophisticated” and “capable of
enduring for years.”131 The Islamic State’s bureaucratic
apparatus required recruits to complete paperwork that
listed their prior education, employment experience,
interests, and skills. This information was used to scout
talented members and identify jobs that would best suit
the capabilities of these individuals.132 IS members
created rules and regulations that governed “everything
from fishing and dress codes to the sale of counterfeit
brands and university admission systems.”133

Media, Public Relations, and Propaganda

IS has displayed an adroit understanding of its media,
and used it in a way no other terrorist group had done in
recent memory. IS has relied on a sophisticated
approach to media, especially social media, in spreading
its message, sowing terror and fear, recruiting new
members, and countering Western efforts to shape the
narrative.134 Perhaps most impressive has been the
speed with which IS is able to produce its media
campaigns, responding in real-time (by “live tweeting”)
to events as they unfold on the ground. This mode of
communication has been described as a “swarmcast” for
its interconnected, dispersed, and resilient form.135
IS dedicated attention and resources to spreading its
message and diffusing its propaganda, exemplified by its
pervasive use of social media, including active Twitter
campaigns in each of the provinces where it operates and
promotes its activities and the battles it fights.136 As one
commentator noted, “Gulf state fundamentalists, battle-
hardened Chechens, and middle-class Londoners were
all drawn into IS by its powerful messaging and the
promise to, in a twist on an old phrase, be the evil you
want to see in the world.”137 IS propaganda was directed
at terrorizing foreign populations while also
admonishing the group’s followers to act, as evidenced
by the rash of attacks in the West over the past several
years, to include increasingly low-cost, opportunistic
attacks using vehicles to ram pedestrians. Through a
deliberate process of recruiting members with a
background in production, editing, and graphic design,
IS constructed the most elaborate media apparatus of
any terrorist organization to date – a legacy that will
assuredly be carried forth by the global jihadi movement
as it plans its next move.138
The group has been successful at conducting information
warfare for several reasons. First, information power-
related personnel are accorded high levels of prestige or
are otherwise well rewarded. Second, the caliphate
narrative is incredibly effective, both for unifying their
operations and messages, and for providing a compelling
frame for those operations for their supporters and
potential supporters. Third, the group’s major themes
are cleanly grouped and tightly focused, which makes
message discipline easy. The themes are also germane to
several important and diversified sub-narratives that are
specifically targeted to different audiences.
To date, IS has taken advantage of social media to
disseminate its message and ideology far beyond what al-
Qaeda was ever able to achieve.139 Despite the attention
afforded to the Islamic State’s execution videos, the
group actually produces much more material, and on a
broader range of topics, than what gets reported in the
mainstream media.140 Of all the messages propagated by
IS, the establishment and implementation of the
“caliphate” is a unique selling point, as it retains
historical and religious resonance for the broader
Muslim ummah and harkens back to a point in history
when Islam experienced its Golden Age.141 IS attempts to
communicate the core narrative that its caliphate is a
triumphant, model society to all of its potential
recruits.142 IS is more capable than al-Qaeda ever was
and continues to grow as an organization and an
ideology.143 Many fear that the legacy of IS will live on
through its media/propaganda, calling for the nostalgia
of the caliphate.144
IS did use social media to broadcast the beheading of
several Westerners it had kidnapped, but it also used
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook to show its
humanitarian efforts, including fighters handing out ice-
cream cones to children, in an attempt to appeal to its
constituents. It has even developed its own video game
modeled after Grand Theft Auto.145 IS has produced
several popular series such as Knights of Martyrdom
and Risen Alive, which emphasize the camaraderie of
jihad by showing militants fighting together on the
battlefield.146 Dabiq is IS’s magazine, which is an
English-language production used to help lure more
recruits.147 The magazine is multifaceted, reporting
battlefield statistics but also laying out a thoroughly
detailed religious explanation for its actions, especially
its attempt to establish an Islamic caliphate in Syria and
Iraq.148
Just like other millennials, the concept of “oversharing”
extends to terrorists as well. The use of multiple media
platforms has served as a cache of open source
intelligence (OSINT) for intelligence and law
enforcement authorities attempting to track, monitor,
and combat IS.149 Simply from monitoring jihadists’ use
of social media, Western authorities have been able to
gain insight into foreign fighters traveling to Syria and
Iraq to fight with the group, as well as to map the rift that
developed and eventually led to a split between IS and
Jabhat al-Nusra.150
Even though IS militants communicate openly on some
social media forums, its media wing remains incredibly
agile. When its accounts on Twitter and other sites are
shuttered, new accounts appear almost immediately. It
relies on services like JustPaste.it to distribute battle
summaries, SoundCloud for the release of audio reports,
Instagram to share photos, and WhatsApp to swap
graphics and videos.151 Other commonly used apps
include Ask.fm, PalTalk, kik, and Tumblr.152 The Islamic
State dedicates a significant portion of its resources to
media and propaganda.153 Fawaz Gerges estimates that
IS allocated one-third of its annual budget to a
combination of propaganda and governance.154
The Islamic State’s slogan is “Baqiya wa Tatamaddad” –
“Remaining and Expanding.” Rather than living under
apostate regimes in the Middle East or morally bankrupt
societies in Western nations, Muslims who join IS can
enjoy an ideal Islamic community, and those who resist
this call will be vanquished. This vision is furthered by
videos that focus on the caliphate as a benevolent state
committed to public works and Islamic welfare.155 IS
propaganda is meticulously tailored to different target
groups it seeks to recruit, from criminals and gangsters
to technically minded professionals.156 Its members
understand their audience better than the West does and
it has been able to position itself as a group with
countercultural appeal – so-called “jihadi cool.”157
IS has a legion of “fanboys” who disseminate the group’s
propaganda.158 “IS’s social media success can be
attributed to a relatively small group of hyperactive
users, numbering between 500 and 2,000 accounts,
which tweet in concentrated bursts of high volume.”159
Between June and October 2015, Twitter suspended or
removed the accounts of over 125,000 IS sympathizers
or members.160 A RAND Corporation report from August
2016 noted that, if Twitter continued its campaign of
account suspensions, this harassment could force IS
supporters to lose valuable time reacquiring followers
and could ultimately push some to use social media
channels that are far less public and accessible than
Twitter.161 Once technology companies like Twitter and
Facebook began policing their sites more aggressively,
jihadists migrated to other platforms to communicate,
including Telegram, which IS fighters used both to
recruit and to plan terrorist attacks.162

Notes
1. Byman, “Al Qaeda’s Decline,” p. 1112.
2. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the
Army of Terror, New York: Regan Arts, 2015, p. 186.
3. “Islamic State Has Been Stashing Millions of Dollars
in Iraq and Abroad,” The Economist, February 22,
2018.
4. Renad Mansour and Hisham al-Hashimi, “ISIS Inc.,”
Foreign Policy, January 16, 2018.
5. Phil Williams and Colin P. Clarke, “Iraqi and Syrian
Networks,” in Kim Thachuk and Rollie Lal, eds.,
Terrorist Criminal Enterprises, Santa Barbara, CA:
ABC-CLIO, 2018.
6. Ibid., pp. 27–46.
7. Daniel L. Glaser, “The Evolution of Terrorism
Financing: Disrupting the Islamic State,” in Levitt,
ed., Neither Remaining Nor Expanding, pp. 43–7;
Daniel L. Glaser, testimony before the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, and House
Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on
Emerging Threats and Capabilities, June 9, 2016; and
 Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, ISIS Financing
2015, Paris, May 2016.
8. Colin P. Clarke, “Drugs & Thugs: Funding Terrorism
Through Narcotics Trafficking,” Journal of Strategic
Security, 9:3, Fall 2016; for more on how involvement
in narcotics trafficking impacts terrorist groups, see
Svante Cornell, “Narcotics and Armed Conflict:
Interaction and Implications,” Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, 30:3, 2007, pp. 207–27.
9. Scott Bronstein and Drew Griffin, “Self-Funded and
Deep-Rooted: How ISIS Makes its Millions,” CNN,
October 7, 2014.
10. Stefan Heibner, Peter R. Neumann, John Holland-
McCowan, and Rajan Basra, Caliphate in Decline: An
Estimate of Islamic State’s Financial Fortunes,
London: The International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation and Political Violence, 2017. See also
Rukmini Callimachi, “The Case of the Purloined
Poultry: How ISIS Prosecuted Petty Crime,” New
York Times, July 1, 2018.
11. Johnston et al., Foundations of the Islamic State.
12. US Central Command, “Coalition Kills Daesh
Criminal Leader, Followers,” Combined Joint Task
Force – Operation Inherent Resolve Public Affairs
Office, June 19, 2018.
13. United Nations Security Council, “Twenty-Second
Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions
Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution
2368 (2017) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and
Associated Individuals and Entities,” New York, July
27, 2018, p. 8.
14. Mansour and al-Hashimi, “ISIS Inc.”
15. Clarke, “Drugs & Thugs.”
16. Heibner et al., “Caliphate in Decline.”
17. Colin P. Clarke, Kimberly Jackson, Patrick B.
Johnston, et al., Financial Futures of the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant, Santa Monica, CA:
RAND Corp., 2017.
18. “Islamic State Ammunition in Iraq and Syria:
Analysis of Small-Calibre Ammunition Recovered
from Islamic State Forces in Iraq and Syria,” London:
Conflict Armament Research, October 2014, p. 5.
19. Thomas Maurer, “ISIS’s Warfare Functions: A
Systemized Review of a Proto-State’s Conventional
Conduct of Operations,” Small Wars & Insurgencies,
29:2, 2018, pp. 229–44.
20. “How ISIS Works,” New York Times, September 16,
2014.
21. C. J. Chivers, “ISIS’ Ammunition is Shown to Have
Origins in U.S. and China,” New York Times, October
5, 2014. See also Julia Harte and R. Jeffrey Smith,
“Where Does the Islamic State Get Its Weapons?”
Foreign Policy, October 6, 2014.
22. Kirk Semple and Eric Schmitt, “Missiles of ISIS May
Pose Peril for Aircrews,” New York Times, October
26, 2014.
23. Jamie Crawford, “Report Details Where ISIS Gets Its
Weapons,” CNN.com, December 14, 2017.
24. “Weapons of the Islamic State: A Three-Year
Investigation into Iraq and Syria,” Conflict Armament
Research, December 2017, p. 146
25. Many of the Iraqi soldiers who refused to fight
blamed their failure to stand their ground on officers,
saying they were deliberately denied the resupply of
basic necessities such as food and water: C. J. Chivers,
“After Retreat, Iraqi Soldiers Fault Officers,” New
York Times, July 1, 2014.
26. Daniel Trombly and Yasir Abbas, “Who the U.S.
Should Really Hit in ISIS,” Daily Beast, September
23, 2014.
27. Gina Harkins, “5 Things to Know About Islamic
State’s Military Capabilities,” Army Times, September
16, 2014.
28. “Arms Windfall for Insurgents as Iraq City Falls,”
New York Times, June 10, 2014.
29. Josh Rogin, “ISIS Video: America’s Air Dropped
Weapons Now in Our Hands,” Daily Beast, October
21, 2014.
30. Charlie Winter, “War by Suicide: A Statistical
Analysis of the Islamic State’s Martyrdom Industry,”
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) –
The Hague, ICCT Research Paper, February 2017.
31. Peter Bergen and Emily Schneider, “Now ISIS Has
Drones?” CNN. com, August 25, 2014.
32. Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon
Confronts a New Threat from ISIS: Exploding
Drones,” New York Times, October 11, 2016.
33. Truls Hallberg Tønnessen, “Islamic State and
Technology – A Literature Review,” Perspectives on
Terrorism, 11:6, 2017.
34. Trombly and Abbas, “Who the U.S. Should Really Hit
in ISIS.”
35. Nigel Inkster, “The Resurgence of ISIS,”
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS),
June 13, 2014.
36. Charles Lister, “Profiling the Islamic State,”
Brookings Institution Doha Center Analysis Paper,
No. 13, November 2014, p. 17:
www.brookings.edu/research/profiling-the-islamic-
state.
37. Carter Malkasian, “If ISIS Has a 3-24 (II): Trying to
Write the Field Manual of the Islamic State,” Foreign
Policy, October 7, 2014.
38. Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro, “Homeward
Bound? Don’t Hype the Threat of Returning
Jihadists,” Foreign Affairs, September 30, 2014.
39. Colin P. Clarke, “Round-Trip Tickets: How Will
Authorities Know When Foreign Fighters Have
Returned?” Lawfare, September 24, 2017,
https://www.lawfareblog.com/round-trip-tickets-
how-will-authorities-know-when-foreign-fighters-
have-returned.
40. Anne Speckhard and Ahmet S. Yayla, “The ISIS
Emni: The Origins and Inner Workings of IS’s
Intelligence Apparatus,” Perspectives on Terrorism,
11:1, 2017.
41. Lorenzo Vidino, Francesco Marone, and Eva
Entenmann, Fear Thy Neighbor: Radicalization and
Jihadist Attacks in the West, Ledizioni: Italian
Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI),
2017, p. 66.
42. Christoph Reuter, “Secret Files Reveal the Structure
of the Islamic State,” Der Spiegel, April 18, 2015.
43. Vera Mironova, Ekaterina Sergatskova, and Karam
Alhamad, “ISIS’ Intelligence Service Refuses to Die,”
Foreign Affairs, November 22, 2017.
44. Rukmini Callimachi, “How a Secretive Branch of ISIS
Built a Global Network of Killers,” New York Times,
August 3, 2016.
45. Michael Rubin, “How Does ISIS Do Intelligence?”
American Enterprise Institute, AEIdeas, December 5,
2016.
46. Bruce Hoffman, “The Evolving Terrorist Threat and
CT Options for the Trump Administration,” in Aaron
Zelin, ed., How Al Qaeda Survived the Islamic State,
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2017, p. 11.
47. James R. Clapper, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of
the US Intelligence Community,” Senate Armed
 Services Committee, Statement for the Record,
February 9, 2016, p. 4.
48. Seth G. Jones, James Dobbins, Daniel Byman, et al.,
Rolling Back the Islamic State, Santa Monica, CA:
RAND Corp., 2017.
49. Caleb Weiss and Bill Roggio, “Islamic State Assaults
City in Syrian Kurdistan,” FDS’s Long War Journal,
September 18, 2014.
50. Email exchange with Aaron Zelin, June 2018.
51. Clarke et al., Financial Futures.
52. Yochi Dreazen, “From Electricity to Sewage, U.S.
Intelligence Says the Islamic State is Fast Learning
How to Run a Country,” Foreign Policy, August 18,
2014.
53. Jones et al., Rolling Back the Islamic State, p. 50.
54. Nicholas J. Rasmussen, “World Wide Threats:
Keeping America Secure in the New Age of Terror,”
Hearing Before the House Committee on Homeland
Security, November 30, 2017.
55. Paul Cruickshank, “A View from the CT Foxhole:
Nicholas Rasmussen, Former Director, National
Counterterrorism Center,” CTC Sentinel, 11:1, January
2018.
56. Byman and Shapiro, “Homeward Bound?”
57. Lister, “Profiling the Islamic State,” p. 17.
58. Callimachi, “How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a
Global Network of Killers.”
59. Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss, “Over 100 Jihadist
Training Camps Identified in Iraq and Syria,” FDD’s
Long War Journal, June 21, 2015.
60. Hassan Hassan, “The Secret World of ISIS Training
Camps – Ruled by Sacred Texts and the Sword,”
Guardian, January 24, 2015.
61. Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants,” The
Atlantic, March 2015.
62. Ishaan Tharoor, “It Turns Out Many ISIS Recruits
Don’t Know Much About Islam,” Washington Post,
August 17, 2016; see also Simon Cottee, “‘What ISIS
Really Wants’ Revisited: Religion Matters in Jihadist
Violence, but How?” Studies in Terrorism & Conflict,
40:6, 2017, pp. 439–54; and Aya Batrawy, Paisley
Dodds, and Lori Hinnant, “Leaked ISIS Documents
Reveal Recruits Have Poor Grasp of Islamic Faith,”
The Independent, August 16, 2016.
63. Lorne L. Dawson and Amarnath Amarasingam,
“Talking to Foreign Fighters: Insights into the
Motivations for Hijrah to Syria and Iraq,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 40:3, 2017, pp. 190–210.
64. Lizzie Dearden, “ISIS Releases Video of Child
Soldiers Training for Jihad in Syria Camp for ‘Cubs of
the Caliphate,’” Independent, February 23, 2015.
65. John G. Horgan, Max Taylor, Mia Bloom, and Charlie
Winter, “From Cubs to Lions: A Six Stage Model of
Child Socialization into the Islamic State,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 40:7, 2017, pp. 645–64.
66. Kinana Qaddour, “ISIS’s War on Families Never
Ended,” Foreign Policy, February 1, 2018.
67. Jamie Dettmer, “Germany Alarmed by ‘Kindergarten
Jihadists,’” Voice of America, February 2, 2018.
68. Romina McGuinness, “ISIS Trained Child Soldiers to
Launch Attacks on EU, Claims French Jihadist,”
Express, June 29, 2018.
69. Callimachi, “The Case of the Purloined Poultry.”
70. Simon Cottee, “ISIS in the Caribbean,” The Atlantic,
December 8, 2016.
71. Robert F. Worth, “The Professor and the Jihadi,”
New York Times Magazine, April 5, 2017.
72. Joby Warrick and Greg Miller, “New ISIS Recruits
Have Deep Criminal Roots,” Washington Post, March
23, 2016.
73. Tamara Makarenko, “Increasingly Vulnerable,” The
Cipher Brief, April 27, 2016.
74. Simon Cottee, “The Challenge of Jihadi Cool,” The
Atlantic, December 24, 2015. See also Thomas
Hegghammer, “The Soft Power of Militant Jihad,”
New York Times, December 18, 2015.
75. Hegghammer, “The Soft Power of Militant Jihad.”
76. Mary Anne Weaver, “The Short, Violent Life of Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi,” The Atlantic Monthly,
July/August 2006.
77. Andrew Higgins, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, and
Katrin Bennhold, “In Suspects’ Brussels
Neighborhood, a History of Petty Crimes and Missed
Chances,” New York Times, November 16, 2015.
78. Jean-Charles Brisard and Kevin Jackson, “The
Islamic State’s External Operations and the French–
Belgian Nexus,” CTC Sentinel, 9:11, 2016.
79. Alissa J. Rubin and Milan Schreuer, “Sole Surviving
Suspect in Paris Attacks Stands Trial in Belgium,”
New York Times, February 5, 2018. See also Rory
Mulholland and Danny Boyle, “Heroic French Officer
Arnaud Beltrame Dies after Switching Himself for
Hostage in France Supermarket,” Telegraph, March
24, 2018.
80. Simon Cottee, “Europe’s Joint Smoking, Gay-Club
Hopping Terrorists,” Foreign Policy, April 13, 2016.
81. Matthew Levitt, “My Journey to Brussels’ Terrorist
Safe Haven,” Politico, March 27, 2016.
82. Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet, “The Islamic
State Creates a New Type of Jihadists: Part Terrorist,
Part Gangster,” Washington Post, December 20,
2015.
83. Terence McCoy, “How ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi Became the World’s Most Powerful Jihadist
Leader,” Washington Post, June 11, 2014.
84. Tim Arango and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Actions in Iraq
Fueled the Rise of a Rebel,” New York Times, August
10, 2014.
85. Andrew Thompson and Jeremy Suri, “How America
Helped ISIS,” New York Times, October 1, 2014. See
also Terrence McCoy, “How the Islamic State Evolved
in an American Prison,” Washington Post, November
4, 2014.
86. William McCants, “The Believer,” Brookings
Institution, September 1, 2015:
http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays
/2015/thebeliever.html.
87. Hannah Strange, “Islamic State Leader Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi Addresses Muslims in Mosul,” Telegraph,
July 5, 2014.
88. Will Cathcart, “The Secret Life of an ISIS Warlord,”
Daily Beast, October 27, 2014.
89. “The Anatomy of ISIS: How the ‘Islamic State’ is
Run, from Oil to Beheadings,” CNN, September 18,
2014.
90. Ben Hubbard and Eric Schmitt, “Military Skill and
Terrorist Technique Fuel Success of ISIS,” New York
Times, August 27, 2014.
91. “How ISIS Works,” New York Times.
92. Hubbard and Schmitt, “Military Skill and Terrorist
Technique Fuel Success of ISIS.” See also Ruth
Sherlock, “Inside the Leadership of Islamic State:
How the New ‘Caliphate’ is Run,” Daily Telegraph,
July 9, 2014.
93. Eric Schmitt, Rukmini Callimachi, and Anne
Barnard, “Spokesman’s Death Will Have Islamic State
 Turning to Its ‘Deep Bench,’” New York Times,
August 31, 2016.
94. Joby Warrick, “ISIS’s Second-in-Command Hid in
Syria for Months. The Day He Stepped Out, the U.S.
Was Waiting,” Washington Post, November 28, 2016.
95. David D. Kirkpatrick, “ISIS’ Harsh Brand of Islam is
Rooted in Austere Saudi Creed,” New York Times,
September 24, 2014.
96. David Motadel, “The Ancestors of ISIS,” New York
Times, September 23, 2014.
97. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Amichal Magen, “The
Jihadist Governance Dilemma,” Washington Post
Monkey Cage Blog, July 18, 2014:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2014/07/18/the-jihadist-governance-
dilemma/?utm_term=.8a6eb2d717ee.
98. For more on the falling-out between IS and al-Qaeda,
see J. M. Berger, “The Islamic State vs. al Qaeda,”
Foreign Policy, September 2, 2014.
99. William McCants, “State of Confusion,” Foreign
Affairs, September 10, 2014.
100. David Ignatius, “The Manual that Chillingly
Foreshadows the Islamic State,” Washington Post,
September 25, 2014.
101. Robin Simcox, “ISIS’ Western Ambitions,” Foreign
Affairs, June 30, 2014.
102. Daniel Byman, “The State of Terror,” Slate, June 13,
2014.
103. Aaron Y. Zelin, “ISIS is Dead, Long Live the Islamic
State,” Foreign Policy, June 30, 2014.
104. Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, New
York: Anchor, 2016, p. 260.
105. Cole Bunzel, “From Paper State to Caliphate: The
Ideology of the Islamic State,” Brookings Institution,
 March 9, 2015:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/from-paper-
state-to-caliphate-the-ideology-of-the-islamic-state.
106. Hassan Hassan, “The Sectarianism of the Islamic
State: Ideological Roots and Political Context,”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June
13, 2016:
http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/13/sectarian
ism-of-islamic-state-ideological-roots-and-political-
context-pub-63746.
107. Lizzie Dearden, “ISIS: Islam is ‘Not Strongest
Factor’ Behind Foreign Fighters Joining Extremist
Groups in Syria and Iraq – Report,” Independent,
November 16, 2016.
108. Email exchange with J. M. Berger, June 2018.
109. Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Secures Vast New Trove of
Intelligence on ISIS,” New York Times, July 27, 2016.
110. Seth G. Jones, “Jihadist Sanctuaries in Syria and
Iraq: Implications for the United States,” testimony
before the Committee on Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence,
US House of Representatives, July 24, 2014, p. 1.
111. Griff Witte, Sudarsan Raghavan, and James
McAuley, “Flow of Foreign Fighters Plummets as
Islamic State Loses Its Edge,” Washington Post,
September 9, 2016.
112. “Foreign Fighters Flow into Syria,” Washington
Post, October 11, 201. See also David D. Kirkpatrick,
“New Freedoms in Tunisia Drive Support for ISIS,”
New York Times, October 21, 2014.
113. Peter Neumann, “Suspects into Collaborators,”
London Review of Books, 36:7, April 3, 2014.
114. Tim Arango and Eric Schmitt, “Escaped Inmates
from Iraq Fuel Syrian Insurgency,” New York Times,
February 12, 2014.
115. Jytte Klausen, “They’re Coming: Measuring the
Threat from Returning Jihadists,” Foreign Affairs,
October 1, 2014.
116. Kate Brannen, “Children of the Caliphate,” Foreign
Policy, October 27, 2014.
117. Megan A. Stewart, “What’s So New About the
Islamic State’s Governance?” Washington Post
Monkey Cage Blog, October 7, 2014.
118. “The Anatomy of ISIS,” CNN.
119. Aaron Y. Zelin, “When Jihadists Learn How to
Help,” Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog, May 7,
2014.
120. Benjamin Bahney, Howard J. Shatz, Carroll Ganier,
et al., An Economic Analysis of the Financial Records
of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp.,
2010; for more micro-level data on the group’s
financial bureaucracy, see Benjamin W. Bahney,
Radha K. Iyengar, Patrick B. Johnston, Danielle F.
Jung, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Howard J. Shatz,
“Insurgent Compensation: Evidence from Iraq,”
American Economic Review, 103:3, 2013, pp. 518–22.
121. Howard J. Shatz, “To Defeat the Islamic State,
Follow the Money,” Politico, September 10, 2014.
122. Janine Davidson and Emerson Brooking, “ISIS
Hasn’t Gone Anywhere – And It’s Getting Stronger,”
Council on Foreign Relations, Defense in Depth, July
24, 2014.
123. Mariam Karouny, “In Northeast Syria, Islamic State
Builds a Government,” Reuters, September 4, 2014.
124. Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: The State of
Terror, New York: HarperCollins, 2016, p. 114.
125. William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse, New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 2015, p. 152.
126. Aaron Zelin, “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
Has a Consumer Protection Office,” The Atlantic,
June 13, 2014.
127. Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers, New
York: Random House, 2017, p. xxii.
128. Andrew Shaver, “Turning the Lights Off on the
Islamic State,” Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog,
October 16, 2014.
129. Sudarsan Raghavan, “Inside the Brutal but Bizarrely
Bureaucratic World of the Islamic State in Libya,”
Washington Post, August 23, 2016.
130. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, “The Bureaucracy of Evil: How
Islamic State Ran a City,” Guardian, January 29,
2018.
131. Aymenn al-Tamimi, “The Evolution in Islamic State
Administration: The Documentary Evidence,”
Perspectives on Terrorism, 9:4, 2015; see also
Rukmini Callimachi, “The ISIS Files,” New York
Times, April 4, 2018.
132. Brian Dodwell, Daniel Milton, and Don Rassler, The
Caliphate’s Global Workforce: An Inside Look at the
Islamic State’s Foreign Fighter Paper Trail,
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, April
2016, p. 18: https://ctc.usma.edu/the-caliphates-
global-workforce-an-inside-look-at-the-islamic-
states-foreign-fighter-paper-trail.
133. Shiv Malik, “The ISIS Papers: Behind ‘Death Cult’
Image Lies a Methodical Bureaucracy,” Guardian,
December 7, 2015.
134. Laura Ryan, “IS is Better Than Al Qaeda at Using
the Internet,” Defense One, October 10, 2014.
135. Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha, “ISIS is Winning the
Online Jihad Against the West,” Daily Beast, October
1, 2014.
136. Rod Nordland, “Iraq’s Sunni Militants Take to
Social Media to Advance Their Cause and Intimidate,”
New York Times, June 28, 2014. For more on the
group’s use of social media, see Rita Katz, “Follow
ISIS on Twitter: A Special Report on the Use of Social
Media by Jihadists,” Insite Blog on Terrorism &
Extremism, June 26, 2014.
137. Jacob Siegel, “Has ISIS Peaked as a Military
Power?” Daily Beast, October 22, 2014.
138. Colin Clarke and Charlie Winter, “The Islamic State
May Be Failing, But Its Strategic Communications
Legacy is Here to Stay,” War on the Rocks, August 17,
2017. See also Nafees Hamid, “The British Hacker
Who Became the Islamic State’s Chief Terror
Cybercoach: A Profile of Junaid Hussain,” CTC
Sentinel, 11:4, April 2018.
139. Bennett Seftel, “What Drives ISIS,” The Cipher
Brief, May 5, 2016.
140. Aaron Y. Zelin, “Picture or It Didn’t Happen: A
Snapshot of the Islamic State’s Official Media
Output,” Perspectives on Terrorism, 9:4, 2015.
141. Charlie Winter, “The Virtual ‘Caliphate’:
Understanding Islamic State’s Propaganda Strategy,”
Quilliam Foundation, July 2015, p. 28.
142. Charlie Winter and Jordan Bach-Lombardo, “Why
ISIS Propaganda Works,” The Atlantic, February 13,
2016.
143. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Nathaniel Barr, and
Bridget Moreng, “How the Islamic State’s Propaganda
Feeds into Its Global Expansion Efforts,” War on the
Rocks, April 28, 2016.
144. Colin P. Clarke and Haroro J. Ingram, “Defeating
the ISIS Nostalgia Narrative,” Foreign Policy Research
Institute (FPRI), After the Caliphate Project, E-Notes,
April 18, 2018.
145. Lorraine Ali, “Islamic State’s Soft Weapon of Choice:
Social Media,” Los Angeles Times, September 22,
2014.
146. Ezzeldeen Khalil, “Gone Viral: Islamic State’s
Evolving Media Strategy,” Jane’s Intelligence Review,
October 2014, p. 15.
147. Josh Kovensky, “IS’s New Mag Looks Like a New
York Glossy – With Pictures of Mutilated Bodies,”
New Republic, August 25, 2014. The name “Dabiq”
was chosen for the magazine because Dabiq is a small
village in Syria that is believed by some IS fighters to
be the place where one of the final battles of the
Islamic apocalypse will take place. See William
McCants, “ISIS Fantasies of an Apocalyptic
Showdown in Northern Syria,” Brookings Institution,
October 3, 2014:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2014/10/0
3/isis-fantasies-of-an-apocalyptic-showdown-in-
northern-syria.
148. Harleen K. Gambhir, “Dabiq: The Strategic
Messaging of the Islamic State,” Institute for the
Study of War, August 15, 2014, p. 2.
149. James P. Farwell, “The Media Strategy of IS,”
Survival, 56:6, December 2014 / January 2015, pp.
49–55.
150. Marc Lynch, Deen Freelon, and Sean Aday, “Syria’s
Socially Mediated Civil War,” United States Institute
of Peace (USIP), Peaceworks No. 91, 2014, p. 15.
151. Scott Shane and Ben Hubbard, “ISIS Displaying a
Deft Command of Varied Media,” New York Times,
August 30, 2014.
152. Jytte Klausen, “Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media
Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and
Iraq,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 38:1, 2015, pp.
1–22.
153. Clarke and Winter, “The Islamic State May Be
Failing, But Its Strategic Communications Legacy is
Here to Stay.”
154. Gerges, ISIS: A History, p. 270.
155. Greg Miller and Souad Mekhennet, “Inside the
Surreal World of the Islamic State’s Propaganda
Machine,” Washington Post, November 20, 2015.
156. Mia Bloom, “Constructing Expertise: Terrorist
Recruitment and ‘Talent Spotting’ in the PIRA, Al
Qaeda, and ISIS,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism,
40:7, 2017, pp. 603–23.
157. Cottee, “The Challenge of Jihadi Cool.”
158. J. M. Berger, “How IS Games Twitter,” The Atlantic,
June 16, 2014; see also Simon Cottee, “Why It’s So
Hard to Stop IS Propaganda,” The Atlantic, March 2,
2015.
159. Jonathon Morgan and J. M. Berger, “The IS Twitter
Census: Defining and Describing the Population of IS
Supporters on Twitter,” Brookings Institution, March
5, 2015.
160. Jack Moore, “ISIS’s Twitter Campaign Faltering
Amid Crackdown,” Newsweek, February 18, 2016. See
also Dustin Volz, “Islamic State Finds Diminishing
Returns on Twitter: Report,” Reuters, February 18,
2016.
161. Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Todd C. Helmus, Madeline
Magnuson, and Zev Winkelman, Examining ISIS
Support and Opposition Networks on Twitter, Santa
Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2016. Still, others are
skeptical at how effective this tactic is over the long
term. For a more pessimistic view on the effectiveness
of shutting down IS Twitter accounts, see Amarnath
Amarasingam, “What Twitter Really Means for
Islamic State Supporters,” War on the Rocks,
December 30, 2015.
162. Mia Bloom, Hicham Tiflati, and John Horgan,
“Navigating ISIS’s Preferred Platform: Telegram,”
Terrorism and Political Violence, 2017, pp. 1–13.
3
The Coming Terrorist Diaspora
For many of the Islamic State’s surviving fighters, the
loss of Iraq and Syria may merely signal a temporary
pause in the fight.1 A significant percentage of militants
will almost certainly seek out new battlefields to
continue waging jihad.2 The caliphate has indeed
collapsed and the organization has splintered.
Accordingly, to speak of IS as a monolith going forward
might not make much sense. While IS may be a singular
brand, it encompasses a wide swath of jihadists with
similar but not necessarily identical objectives. There
will continue to be, well into the foreseeable future, a
medium-intensity yet highly capable insurgency, based
along the Euphrates River Valley with tentacles
stretching throughout parts of eastern Syria and
northern and western Iraq. There will also be IS’s
international footprint, its provinces abroad, which will
ebb and flow in operational tempo while also
maintaining varying degrees of linkages to areas of the
former caliphate.
In early February 2018, the United States began
downsizing its military footprint in Iraq, shifting
personnel and resources to other hotspots around the
globe, including Afghanistan. As of April 2018, President
Trump publicly called for the withdrawal of US troops
from Syria, with the White House Press Secretary Sarah
Huckabee-Sanders announcing: “[T]he military mission
to eradicate IS in Syria is coming to a rapid end, with IS
almost being completely destroyed.”3 But, as recent
history has proven time and again over the past decade
and a half, a violent Sunni jihadist group, whether it calls
itself IS or rebrands under another banner, will
reconstitute in parts of Iraq and Syria to challenge
existing governance structures while planning new
attacks and organizing into a formidable fighting force.
IS Affiliates Abroad
Just as al-Qaeda did before it, the Islamic State has spun
off a constellation of franchise groups and affiliates
around the globe, each of which has the potential to grow
into a formidable terrorist organization in its own right.
As of late 2018, the United States Department of State
had designated IS franchise groups in Indonesia, the
North Caucasus, Afghanistan, Algeria, Libya, the Sinai
(as well as mainland Egypt), Somalia, Tunisia, the
Philippines, Bangladesh, the Greater Sahara, and West
Africa. This section will focus on the three most
pernicious IS satellites, located in the Sinai, Afghanistan,
and Libya, respectively, while also analyzing some of the
other areas where IS affiliates have demonstrated serious
potential to evolve into more dangereuos long-term
threats. But to understand the scale of this threat, it is
essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the
nature of these groups, which, while IS-affiliated, may
differ significantly across several important measures.
Table 3.1 assesses these franchise groups in order to
determine what type of group the IS affiliate should be
characterized as. There is a growing body of scholarship
that differentiates between terrorism, insurgency, and
guerrilla warfare, and an in-depth analysis of these
differences is beyond the scope of this book.4 This table
looks at the size of the group, its primary targets,
organizational structure, strategy,5 extent of territorial
control, and reach (defined as area of operations). The
final column of the table classifies each affiliate
according to typology. In other words, whether the group
most closely resembles a terrorist organization,
insurgent group, or guerrilla army. Indeed, just as
insurgency and terrorism are not the same, the
objectives of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism
are different, too. Nuanced approaches to fighting
adaptive adversaries require a different mix of tools –
military, police, diplomatic, economic – to effectively
counter the protean campaign of violence waged by IS
affiliate groups.
Table 3.1 Analysis of IS affiliates

Sinai Peninsula
The vast, ungoverned territory of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula
has long been home to smugglers, terrorists, and an
array of other non-state actors and it has once again
become attractive territory to radicals and extremists.6
With its fluctuating number of fighters, decentralized
structure, and hybrid strategy of attacking both security
forces and Egyptian civilians, the IS branch in the Sinai
could most aptly be described as a guerrilla movement
that relies on terrorist tactics, including raids, ambushes,
and bombings, to keep the government from extending
reach into the Sinai in any meaningful way. The Sinai has
long been considered one of the world’s most lawless
areas, due in part to geography and a Bedouin culture
that is nomadic and fiercely anti-authoritarian.
Egypt experienced a spike in violence following the
ouster of Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood
leader voted into office following Arab Spring protests.7
The Sinai already has a dedicated IS franchise group that
continues to gather momentum, particularly in the face
of the ineptitude of Egyptian security forces. Signs of a
merger between Egyptian groups and IS became
apparent as early as 2014, when elements of Ansar Bait
al-Maqdis (ABM) pledged allegiance to IS and made
efforts to establish connections with IS fighters in Libya.8
This connection could very well grow in the future, with
money and weapons being exchanged between IS
militants in Libya and Egypt.9 The Sinai was critical
terrain for the militants and became, in effect, “both a
haven and a crossing point for smuggling fighters,
weapons and illicit goods” between Egypt and the
Maghreb.10
Throughout the Sinai, IS-affiliated militants pursue a
hybrid strategy of attacking both Egyptian security forces
and civilian non-combatants, the latter part of the
strategy introducing a highly sectarian dimension to the
conflict. IS fighters in the Sinai regularly clash with
Egyptian security forces and have launched attacks over
the past several years in which hundreds of Egyptian
troops have been killed.11 IS’s Sinai affiliate has also
demonstrated its penchant for conducting spectacular
attacks, evidenced by the downing of Metrojet Flight
9268, when an IS bomb killed all 224 people onboard an
airliner destined for St Petersburg, Russia. The group is
also responsible for attacking Coptic Christian churches
and firing rockets into Israel.

Weak Security Forces

Despite having a formidable conventional military, at
least by regional standards, Egypt has struggled mightily
to contain the growing insurgency in the Sinai. There are
serious concerns that the Egyptian military’s failure to
adequately combat IS’s Sinai affiliate could lead the
group to eventually develop into a highly capable
franchise group, similar to the evolution of al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda’s Yemeni
affiliate. Many argue that the Sisi government’s approach
to counterinsurgency is myopic, leading the population
of the Sinai to support the militants.12 This provides an
opening for jihadists, as the government has little-to-no
presence, economic conditions are dire, and local
Bedouins have long operated with autonomy. In
response to the growing anarchy in the Sinai, Israel has
waged a covert air campaign over the past two years,
relying on a mix of unmarked drones, jets, and
helicopters to target militants; in what clearly marks a
new development in the relationship between Cairo and
Tel Aviv, these operations have all been launched with
the tacit approval of Egypt’s top military leadership,
signaling how desperate Sisi is for help in containing the
threat.13 IS’s Sinai-based affiliate has demonstrated the
capability to wage a prolonged insurgency replete with
terrorist tactics and guerrilla-style attacks against the
security forces, thus increasing the possibility of a
lingering low-intensity conflict that could plague
ineffectually governed parts of Egypt for years.

Ungoverned Territory
The operational tempo of terrorist attacks seems to have
increased in intensity from 2015 to 2018, while the
insurgency itself is morphing and spreading into
different territories within Egypt. By the spring of 2016,
IS in the Sinai had moved into parts of the Western
Desert, Upper Egypt, and Greater Cairo.14 Repeated
offensives by the Egyptian military to dislodge IS
militants in the northern part of the Sinai have so far
been unsuccessful.15 The jihadists’ reach and influence
remains localized to the Sinai and other areas within the
country, but has the potential to spread beyond Egypt’s
borders and grow into a regional threat. As evidence, IS’s
Sinai affiliate has broadened its targets, recently
declaring war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas,
sparking fears that IS could attempt to move into Gaza,
bringing its fighters even closer to the Israeli border.16
Now that ties between IS in the Sinai Hamas have been
severed, the threat to Israel has been reduced, although
not totally eliminated.17 Israel’s concerns are warranted,
as the Sinai has traditionally been an anarchic region and
one which is geographically ideal for violent Salafists,
given its proximity to Israel.18

Sectarianism
Well before the Arab Spring, Egypt suffered from
periodic spasms of religious and political violence, and
has long been fertile soil for religious extremism,
evidenced by the domestic terrorist campaigns waged by
groups like Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Gama’a al-
Islamiyyah. But the recent wave of attacks has assumed
an even more virulent sectarian character and the tactics
used by jihadist groups in the Sinai include roadside
IEDs, suicide bombings, and assassinations.19 Put
simply, because of its geography, history, and cultural
significance, Egypt is too valuable for jihadists to
ignore.20
Egypt’s Coptic Christian population has borne the brunt
of these attacks, essentially under assault by Salafi-
jihadists for much of the past two years. In April 2017,
terrorists waged a week-long campaign of attacks against
Christians, including bombings on Palm Sunday in
Alexandria and Tanta,21 and another shooting at a
monastery one week later.22 Toward the end of
December 2017, 11 were killed in an attack on a Coptic
Church near Cairo.23 And it is not just Christians who are
under attack. In November 2017, in what has been
recorded as Egypt’s deadliest terror incident to date, over
300 Sufi Muslims were killed in an attack on their
mosque in the Sinai.24

Afghanistan and Pakistan (AFPAK)

IS has been operating in Afghanistan since
approximately 2014 under the auspices of the Islamic
State in Khorasan Province (ISKP). Through a series of
coordinated and highly lethal attacks targeting
Afghanistan’s minority Shiite community, IS has
established itself as one of the most poignant drivers of
instability in that country, further intensifying the
sectarian element of the conflict in Afghanistan.25 ISKP
has also frequently battled with the Taliban, especially in
Nangarhar and Zabul provinces between 2015 and 2017,
and the organization split in the summer of 2017, with
one faction declaring loyalty to a former Lashkar-e-Taiba
commander and the other, comprised mostly of Central
Asians, coalescing behind an ex-Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU) leader.26 The Central Asian faction
dominates territory in northern Afghanistan while the
Pakistani-led faction is more active in southern and
eastern Afghanistan, closer to the Pakistani border.27
Although ISKP has clashed with Taliban fighters and
launched attacks against the Afghan government and
military – in January 2018, the group killed 11 soldiers at
the Kabul military academy – it is most widely known for
its brutal and unrelenting attacks against Afghan
civilians and non-combatants, including the non-
governmental organization Save the Children.28 Attacks
against civilians form part of ISKP’s approach to
insurgency, which follows a strategy of punishment. The
essence of this approach is deliberately targeting non-
combatants, either to provoke a government
overreaction or to demonstrate to the civilian population
that the security forces are weak and the state
illegitimate. A July 2016 attack on Hazaras organizing a
protest march in Kabul killed over 80 civilians and
wounded another 250 people. Then, in late October
2017, the group orchestrated a wave of suicide bombings
directed at Shiite targets, including several mosques,
which killed more than 100 and wounded another 200.29
IS has also attacked hospitals, hotels, and military
installations, and has launched attacks in both
Afghanistan and Pakistan and appears to be gaining
ground in the latter, especially in Balochistan.30 An
October 2016 attack on a police training college in
Quetta resulted in more than 60 dead and another 120
wounded, most of them cadets. Although IS claimed this
attack, there was some speculation that the attack was
actually committed by another militant group, Lashkar-
e-Jhangvi (LEJ), and that IS “outsourced” the attack to
LEJ.31

Violent Competition
Although its presence in Afghanistan initially surfaced in
2014, ISKP became an official IS affiliate in January
2015, starting with a group of defectors from the
Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The Pakistani militants helped IS to establish a foothold
across the border in Afghanistan, in the southeastern
districts of Nangarhar province.32 The organization was
then reinforced by approximately 200 IS militants from
the core group in Iraq and Syria, who traveled to
Afghanistan to bolster the nascent affiliate.33 Soon after
it was established, it sought to actively recruit and absorb
disaffected Taliban fighters into its ranks.34 By 2018,
ISKP had grown into a formidable threat, continuing to
absorb new fighters, including further defections from
the Afghan Taliban and returning foreign fighters fleeing
Iraq and Syria.35 The spike in violence, worrying even by
Afghan standards, could signal violent competition
between ISKP and the Afghan Taliban, evidence of a
process of outbidding wherein terrorist organizations
engage in escalating violent competition to prove which
group is the most dedicated and likely to prevail.36

Infrastructure for Jihad

Afghanistan is a country wracked by violence dating back
decades, and, accordingly, already has an established
infrastructure for jihad, making it an attractive place for
terrorists and terrorist groups to relocate. By late 2015,
ISKP fighters had already taken over territory in
Nangarhar, Farah, and Helmand provinces.37 Moreover,
ISKP is just 1 of over 20 militant groups operating in the
region.38 It is difficult to estimate how many fighters
ISKP has under arms, although US military officials have
claimed that over 1,600 IS-linked militants have already
been killed, though nobody quite knows how many
fighters remain.39 At the end of December 2017, Russian
officials pegged the number at about 10,000 and
growing.40 More conservative estimates place the
number somewhere around 700 active fighters, while
other experts assert that the number is unknowable, yet
probably falls somewhere between 500 and 1,000.41
Precisely accounting for the number of fighters in
specific groups is always fraught with risk, although what
most analysts can agree upon is that new recruits are
flocking to Afghanistan regularly. ISKP frequently
receives an influx of new recruits from those who leave
the IMU.42 The British government has voiced concerns
that citizens from the UK have made their way from Iraq
and Syria to join up with IS in Afghanistan.43 The
Iranian government has made it known that they are
preparing for ISKP to receive an influx of fighters now
that the caliphate has crumbled in Iraq and Syria.44

Persistent American Presence

Because Afghanistan has had a persistent American
military presence for the past 17 years, it stands to reason
that jihadists will continue to be attracted to this theatre
for the opportunity to engage in combat with US troops.
The situation is mutually reinforcing. As ISKP continues
to gain strength, the United States feels pressured to
become more involved, so as not to repeat the mistakes
of Iraq in 2011, when a precipitous withdrawal from that
country helped fuel the rise of IS there.45 Indeed, the
presence of IS is one of the reasons President Trump, at
the urging of Secretary of Defense James Mattis,
ultimately decided to keep US troops in the country. In
April 2017, in a display of brute force, the United States
dropped the “Mother of All Bombs,” killing scores of
insurgent fighters, yet the threat remains constant from
an array of Afghan and foreign jihadists.46

Libya
Of all the IS satellites, Libya just may have the potential
to be the most dangerous safe haven for the group in the
near future. The territory is awash in weapons, there is
no recognized government to speak of, and it serves as a
focal point and crossroads for jihadists of all stripes,
located across the Mediterranean Sea from Europe. Two
deadly terrorist attacks in Europe have been tied back to
Libya already. The danger emanating from this country
is more than about just IS; it’s the combination of
potential threats coalescing to make Libya into the kind
of safe haven that Afghanistan was in the decade prior to
September 11, 2001.

Failed State
The 2011 intervention left Libya with dueling
governments – one recognized by the United States and
the international community, the other aligned with
General Haftar. In the chaos, Libya also became a safe
haven for the Islamic State.47 The situation in Libya has
been described, quite accurately, as one “marred by a
prolonged period of political fragmentation, violent
conflict, and economic dislocation.”48 “Libya has the
most potential to replicate the Islamic State’s model in
Mesopotamia if things go right for it,” according to North
Africa expert Aaron Zelin.49 The anarchy in Libya is now
the fourth-largest foreign fighter mobilization in recent
history, behind the ongoing civil war in Syria, the Afghan
jihad of the 1980s, and the 2003 Iraq war.50
One troubling scenario that could boost IS’s Libyan
branch is the absorption of former al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) fighters as that group
continues to decline.51 Libyan jihadists are believed to be
planning attacks on the country’s “Oil Crescent” and
there is evidence to suggest regional cooperation
between IS-affiliated militants in Libya and networks of
associates in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.52

All In for IS?

IS was well positioned to take advantage of the chaos
that engulfed Libya in the immediate aftermath of the
post-Qaddafi era, capitalizing upon decades of hatred for
the long-time Libyan dictator. Early on, some of its
members formed the Islamic Youth Shura Council.53
Soon thereafter, its Libyan affiliate began building its
network by poaching jihadists from existing groups,
including Ansar al-Sharia.54 Around 2012, the Katibat al-
Battar al-Libiyah brigade (KBL), a notorious group of
Libyan foreign fighters, had been active in both Syria and
Iraq and brought important capabilities and expertise to
the fledgling IS presence in the country.55 By November
2014, IS accepted the Libyan start-up as an official
wilayat, or franchise, with Libyan jihadists returning
home from fighting abroad.56 Several hundred jihadists
returned to Libya, declared allegiance to IS, and set up
shop in Derna.57
The Libyan branch has ebbed and flowed over time,
expanding its physical and media presence by early
2015.58 By the end of 2015, its fighters had assumed
control over large sections of Sirte and, by the following
summer, IS militants were attempting to consolidate
control of territory near Misrata.59 By early 2016, there
were around 1,500 IS fighters in Sirte, but, following a
bloody seven-month battle, IS was cleared from its
stronghold by the end of the year, forced to withdraw
from territory it once completely dominated.60 The
group has managed to maintain an on-again, off-again
presence in Bengazhi, which has been plagued by
violence for years.61 IS is now once again attempting to
re-establish itself as a legitimate governing entity in
pockets of Libya, and Salafists have slowly been
assuming control of critical internal security functions.
Over time, the goal of IS is to gradually marginalize
opposition to its rule and impose a semblance of order
that has been elusive since NATO forces deposed
Qaddafi nearly a decade ago.62

Hub for External Operations

In Libya, where as recently as late 2017 IS boasted
approximately 6,500 fighters, the group has carved out
space roughly 100 miles southeast of its former base of
operations in Sirte.63 Its members have successfully
connected with existing jihadist networks as they began
building an infrastructure in Sirte.64 In addition, IS
maintains training and operational bases throughout the
central and southern parts of the country.65 In a sign of
Libya’s growing importance as a hub for external
operations, US bombers conducted airstrikes against IS
training camps in Libya in late September 2017, killing
dozens of jihadists linked to the Islamic State.66
To date, IS’s Libyan affiliate has been tied to two major
external operations, successfully tallying attacks on
European soil, including the deadly Manchester concert
bombing in May 2017 and the Berlin Christmas market
attack in December 2016. The group has also launched
devastating regional attacks, in Bardo and Sousse,
Tunisia, respectively, with links back to Libya.67 The
country remains in a state of constant conflict and
anarchy, awash in weapons, with various jihadists
fighting, switching sides, and occasionally cooperating.
Most alarming, the Islamic State maintains specialized
entities in Libya, including the “Desert Brigade” and the
“Office of Borders and Immigration,” which is
responsible for external operations, logistics, and
recruitment.68

Other Locations
The collapse of the caliphate has major significance for
Iraq and Syria, the two states where IS once maintained
its sanctuary, but also for countries where fleeing foreign
fighters might go next. The preceding section discusses
IS hubs in the Sinai, Afghanistan, and Libya, but there
are other potential hotspots of interest throughout the
globe, several of which will be detailed below.

Turkey
At the top of this list should be Turkey, a logical landing
spot for many IS militants based purely on geography,
located directly north of and contiguous to both Iraq and
Syria. IS activity in Turkey is clustered around major
cities along the border with Syria (probably due to
proximity, travel routes, and population density) and the
majority of IS-linked attacks have a connection back to
the core group in Iraq and Syria.69 In early February
2018, “thousands” of IS fighters apparently fled Iraq and
Syria while a substantial number “have gone into hiding
in countries like Turkey.”70 These revelations are nothing
new. Journalist and renowned IS expert Rukmini
Callimachi’s interview with a former IS fighter from
Germany revealed that IS deliberately dispatched
hundreds of its fighters to Turkey.71 In the aftermath of
IS’s deadly attack on Istanbul’s Reina nightclub in the
early hours of January 1, 2017 – an attack which killed
39 and wounded 71 – it was revealed that IS had
established robust cells operating throughout the
country.72
Turkey could serve as a logistics hub to plot future
attacks and, unlike many other terrorist sanctuaries such
as Afghanistan, Libya, or Somalia, Turkey is not a failed
state. This is important because militants have easier and
more reliable access to communications, transportation,
and financial networks. There is also the possibility that
a spectacular attack could be engineered from Turkish
soil, as one nearly was with the improvised explosive
device airmailed from Turkey to Australia in August
2017.73 Over the past decade, Turkey has slowly
developed into a country with dense pockets of support
for Salafi-jihadist groups, including IS and al-Qaeda,
which have used it as a base to mobilize support for their
operations.74 Still, the Turkish military and internal
security forces are well trained and highly capable,
making it less likely that IS will be able to escalate its
campaign beyond the level of low-intensity conflict. In
any case, Turkey is more attractive as a logistical hub for
planning and acquiring the resources necessary to plot
and conduct terrorist attacks in either Europe or the
Middle East.

Yemen
The IS presence in Yemen has ebbed and flowed over the
past several years, although AQAP remains the dominant
militant group in the country, even as both entities come
under intense assault by an array of counterterrorism
forces. By late 2016, IS in Yemen was mainly confined to
the Qayfa front in al-Bayda’ and was estimated to have
approximately 100 fighters, although the US Department
of Defense acknowledged that IS increased its presence
from 2017 to 2018, with militants taking advantage of a
power vacuum due to that country’s ongoing civil war.75
American airstrikes targeted IS training camps in al-
Bayda’ in mid-October 2017, killing scores of fighters in
this collapsed state flanking Saudi Arabia’s southern
border.76 The Trump administration has moved Yemen
higher on the United States’ list of counterterrorism
priorities, as American policymakers and military
officials are increasingly concerned that IS fighters
fleeing Iraq and Syria will head to the southern parts of
the country. In fact, in May 2018, IS for the first time
issued instructions for its fighters to travel to the group’s
stronghold in al-Bayda’.77
Still, it is no certainty that IS will find sanctuary in
Yemen, a country dominated by al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula in the Sunni heartland of its remote tribal
areas.78 Indeed, the growth of the Islamic State and its
announcement of expansion into Yemen in November
2014 helped AQAP by allowing the latter to contrast its
style to the comparatively excessive and brutal methods
of IS. AQAP specifically announced that, unlike IS, its
fighters would never target “mosques, markets and
crowded places,” ensuring it would earn some degree of
legitimacy among Yemen’s civilian population.79 And,
despite a relentless onslaught from US airpower and
American-backed forces, AQAP remains a major threat
in Yemen and, compared to IS, is the far more powerful
of the two groups, especially in the hinterlands of
Shabwa and Abyan provinces.80
Even as IS has successfully staged coordinated, guerilla-
style attacks throughout Yemen, the main driver of
instability continues to be the ongoing proxy war
between Iran, supporting the Houthi rebels, and Saudi
Arabia, which, along with the United Arab Emirates, has
been waging an unrelenting air war in Yemen, leading to
further instability and various humanitarian crises.81 But
if Yemen receives an influx of foreign fighters from Iraq
and Syria, IS could certainly grow into a more odious
threat. There is already a fairly robust network of
militant Salafist groups active throughout the country.82
Yemen could prove to be a country where al-Qaeda
retains its position as the dominant jihadist group and
successfully consolidates the disparate cells and small
groups of militants under its aegis – or, at least,
influence – and that, over time, the majority of IS
fighters may eventually gravitate to AQAP both to seek
its protection and also to join forces merely to survive.83
As of mid-2018, IS was struggling to recruit locally
among tribes where they are fighting, since the focus of
locals is mainly on battling the Houthis and not
necessarily declaring loyalty to the Islamic State.
Nevertheless, the battle fronts are prime recruiting
grounds, so it seems inevitable that IS will continue to
maintain at least a steady, low-level presence in Yemen
for the foreseeable future.84

South Asia
When attempting to answer the question of where the
Islamic State might reconstitute next, part of the answer
may lie in an area where IS’s remaining leadership feels
the group must expand to remain relevant. An analogous
situation unfolded with al-Qaeda in 2003 following the
US invasion of Iraq. Al-Qaeda strategists felt that the
group would be marginalized within global jihadist
circles if it failed to establish a franchise group in a
Muslim country “under siege” from non-Muslims. In a
similar way, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar – where a
Muslim minority is being oppressed by a Buddhist
majority – could serve as a motivating factor for the
Islamic State to expand throughout South and Southeast
Asia.85 In January 2018, Malaysian authorities arrested
two IS-linked Indonesian citizens who were allegedly
planning to kill Buddhist monks in retaliation for the
treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.86
Similarly, Akayed Ullah, the Bangladeshi immigrant who
detonated a pipe bomb in the New York City subway in
December 2017, was said to have visited a Rohingya
refugee camp just before returning to the United States
and detonating his explosives.87
As the Islamic State and al-Qaeda continue to compete
for new recruits and territory, the international
community should be on high alert for a new IS franchise
breaking ground in virgin territory.88 Yet even if this
occurs, it will probably do so not as a result of a centrally
directed, command-and-control-driven approach to
expanding, but rather from local conditions favorable to
a revolutionary movement that offers the promise of
upending the status quo in a province, country, or region
experiencing high levels of political and/or religious
strife and where it is the norm, not the exception, to
solve problems through the use of political violence,
rather than negotiation or power sharing. In other
words, we should look at this global network not as the
direct result of a corporate strategy, but rather as an
opportunistic, even parasitic, entity. According to this
theory, the ideal territory for expansion is a fragile state
plagued by persistent civil conflict and sectarian
tensions, and with a population considered fertile for
and receptive to the Islamic State’s propaganda.89
Myanmar is one such country, even though there are
already indications that al-Qaeda in the Indian
subcontinent has begun working with local jihadist
groups on the ground there.
A new franchise group in Myanmar would allow IS to
gain many of the benefits of affiliation by furthering its
strategic reach, leveraging local expertise, spreading
innovation, and increasing the group’s legitimacy in a
part of the world where until now it has lacked a
significant presence. There are currently several
important impediments to Myanmar developing into the
next jihadist hub, especially a lack of logistical
infrastructure that includes weapons, safe houses, and a
robust network of travel facilitators.90 That dynamic
could change over the next few years with a sustained
effort and assistance from returning foreign fighters and
existing IS operatives in the broader region, including
Bangladesh – making the country a ripe target for IS
expansion.91
Another South Asian hotspot with a growing IS presence
is Bangladesh, a nation with a history of Islamic
militancy but long overshadowed by Pakistan. The
Islamic State has launched dozens of attacks in
Bangladesh against an array of targets, from aid workers
to Catholic priests. The most notorious attack came
against the Holey Artisan Bakery in Bangladesh’s
diplomatic quarter in July 2016, when attackers pledging
allegiance to IS killed 29 people using bombs, machetes,
and small arms.92 Bangladesh may ultimately prove to be
a future battleground between IS and al-Qaeda, with the
latter acting through its franchise group al-Qaeda in the
Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS.93 Since 2013, hundreds of
Bangladeshis have perished in terrorist violence
throughout the country, mostly at the hands of AQIS
militants.94
Another potential post-caliphate growth area for the
Islamic State is the disputed Kashmir territory fought
over between India and Pakistan, which could prove to
be fertile ground for an IS affiliate. Even though several
prominent jihadist groups are already active in the
region, including Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-
Taiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), IS could
seek to entrench its operatives in a conflict with great
symbolic and religious significance for Muslims
worldwide.95 Moreover, because Kashmir is considered
such a sacred cause to Pakistan, a growing IS presence in
any future conflict in this territory might also earn the
group external support from Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) agency, which has a long history of
providing various forms of both active and passive
support to a bevy of jihadist groups.96

Southeast Asia
Throughout Southeast Asia, entrenched rivalries,
repeated splintering of terrorist organizations, and
infighting between factions of jihadi groups have limited
their reach in the recent past. But there is a rich history
of Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia, from the al-
Qaeda-linked Jemmah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf Group,
to older groups like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF). Geography is also a critical factor. In some ways,
it facilitates terrorism and insurgency, since the islands,
peninsulas, and archipelagos that dot the region are
particularly difficult to govern. But in other ways,
geography is a blessing for authorities in the sense that
the Philippines and Indonesia are difficult to reach from
the battlefields in Syria and Iraq and are dispersed
across a vast distance, making it challenging for jihadists
to concentrate or mass forces in any one area.
This is an important variable to consider, especially
because Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim
nation and one which has struggled to keep a lid on
extremism and radicalization. Jihadist violence in
Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia has ebbed and
flowed over the past several years.97 It has included
suicide attacks against police and even a suicide attack
conducted against churches by a family that had
returned from Syria.98 Indonesia’s counterterrorism
chief has warned of sleeper cells in every province of the
country.99 The main effect of the collapse of the caliphate
in the Middle East has been to reenergize, “expand and
transform local extremist movements” throughout the
region.100
Yet, even despite the distance, fighters from Southeast
Asia are making successful return trips to their countries
of origin. As of December 2017, 30 fighters from the
Philippines had returned there from Syria and Iraq.101 In
an attempt to expand in Indonesia, IS has pursued an
aggressive campaign of recruitment and propaganda
dissemination.102 The lines of communications stretch
across battlefields, with Southeast Asian fighters in Syria
communicating with militants back home in Indonesia
and the Philippines to help recruit fighters and
coordinate movement into Marawi.103 Katibah
Nusantara, the Southeast Asian wing of IS, was formed
by Malay- and Indonesian-speaking fighters in Syria.104
In Southeast Asia, the lure of establishing links with the
Islamic State is driven by local dynamics, but has had a
galvanizing “effect of a general revival of jihadi fervor,”
especially in Indonesia.105 There have been numerous
reported cases of radicalization amongst guest workers
and so-called “migrant maids” from the region being
radicalized by IS propaganda.106
In many ways, the Philippines could prove to be an
appealing destination for IS fighters to relocate and
establish a home base.107 The geography of the country –
the Philippines is an archipelago consisting of more than
7,600 islands – makes counterinsurgency and maritime
security difficult for the Filipino government. Moreover,
the presence of longstanding insurgent groups that
already embrace a radical Islamist agenda could allow IS
to gain a foothold as it works to champion local
grievances. It helps that Muslim insurgents in the area
often clash with Christian militias, providing IS the
sectarian angle it has been able to successfully exploit
elsewhere, including in Afghanistan, Egypt, and
Yemen.108
It was recently discovered that core IS in Iraq and Syria
sent nearly $2 million to militants in the Philippines to
help the group wage the battle for the city of Marawi.109
Southeast Asia has long been a hotbed of Islamic
extremism and violence. It is also worth noting that
jihadist militants linked to Abu Sayyaf and other groups
operating in the region have demonstrated a remarkable
ability to self-fund their organizations without the need
for donations from external sources, relying instead on
various criminal activities, including robbery, illicit
smuggling, and kidnapping for ransom.
Neighboring Indonesia, for example – home to the
world’s most populous Muslim country – was one of
several bases of key al-Qaeda leaders before the 9/11
attacks, and more recently has seen an uptick of arrests
related to terrorist plots by Islamic extremists.110 Still,
the nucleus of jihadists actively fighting in – and possibly
returning to – the Philippines and other Southeast Asian
countries is relatively small compared to other countries
in other regions, such as North Africa, in both absolute
and relative terms. Nonetheless, as core IS unravels, the
region is likely to continue to become increasingly useful
to the group as a safety valve outside of the Middle East.
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point’s report
on Islamic State activity in Southeast Asia reached
several interesting conclusions, noting that IS relies on
local militant groups to adopt its brand; in the
Philippines specifically, the most common target of
terrorists was the military, and small arms were used in
most attacks; and an estimated 45 percent of IS attacks
and plots in the region had both “financial and
communication ties to Southeast Asian Islamic State
operatives in Syria where group members sought to
enable and guide attacks remotely.”111 A lack of
cooperation between intelligence and militaries,
including maritime forces, further complicates the issue
of counterterrorism.112
The situation in Southeast Asia exemplifies some of the
challenges in defining what exactly constitutes an IS
fighter, and thus an IS affiliate. Some militants have
declared allegiance to IS and others have been semi-
recognized by IS central, meaning that IS media will
claim credit for their attacks. In other cases, IS fighters
in the region receive some material support, but does
that constitute an ongoing relationship, or are these
isolated incidents of support? Core IS recognized Isnilon
Hapilon as its chief representative in Southeast Asia, but
most of the fighters he commanded seem to have been
killed in Marawi, as were a significant portion of the
Maute group, although these groups are slowly
reforming. Lastly, what are we to make of the Abu Sayyaf
Group fighters in Sulu and Jolo, who never declared
their loyalty to IS and were outside of the command-and-
control network of Hapilon? Many experts consider ASG
more akin to a network of gangs rather than an actual
organization with an identifiable chain of command.
Fighters might fly the black flag of IS for intimidation
purposes or invoke the IS name when seeking to
negotiate higher ransom payments for kidnapping
victims.113

Russia and Central Asia

Of all the potential future jihadist hotspots, Central Asia
could be the most unassuming and least-hyped region as
a future home of returning foreign fighters seeking to
make another run at the caliphate. According to the
Soufan Group, the former Soviet Republic is host to the
highest overall number of foreign fighters. There is a
long history of jihadist mobilization throughout Russia,
and, throughout Central Asia more broadly. The latter
has spawned groups like the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan, initially formed in opposition to Uzbek
strongman Islam Karimov in the 1990s, although its
fighters would soon go on to forge strong links with al-
Qaeda and other elements of the global jihadist
movement. Militants from the Ferghana Valley fought
together in Tajikistan’s civil war from 1992 to 1997,
gaining experience and growing their networks.114
Central Asia is a region where the rule of law is weak,
levels of corruption are high, and poverty, extremism,
and radicalization are endemic.115 Indeed, a study by the
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) geared toward
understanding the variables that contribute to
radicalization among Central Asian labor migrants
working in Russia found that there is some evidence of
structural factors leading to marginalization, exclusion,
and alienation of Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek laborers in
Russia, although the authors of the report stopped short
of establishing causal links leading to radicalization.116
Even without a causal link, however, some scholars have
concluded that the working and living conditions for
Central Asian labor migrants working in Russia were so
miserable that many who radicalized and traveled to
Syria and the Levant “expect that they are on a ‘one way
journey,’ some to martyrdom but most for a completely
new life, and do not plan to return.”117
There are direct connections between countries from the
Former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Middle East. Turkey
has been a popular destination for Muslims from Central
Asia, but Ankara has grown wary after attacks by
members of the Central Asian global diaspora,
particularly ethnic Uzbeks, in Istanbul, St. Petersburg,
Stockholm, and New York City.118 The result could lead
Turkey, or other countries in the region, to deport former
foreign fighters to third-party countries, as Turkey did
with 16 IS fighters it deported to Malaysia in August
2017, in what terrorism expert Kim Cragin has dubbed
“foreign fighter ‘hot potato.’”119
Even Kazakhstan, a country of approximately 18 million
where 70 percent of the population identifies as Muslim,
and one which has traditionally been immune from the
type of jihadist violence experienced by its smaller,
poorer neighbors, has suffered from several terrorist
attacks over the past few years.120 Authoritarian leaders
across the region have used the threat of IS-influenced
terrorist attacks as a tool to crack down further on
dissent, as leaders in Kyrgyzstan have done.121 During
the Soviet era, religion was suppressed, pushing radicals
to the margins and forcing them to remain well
organized in order to survive. In addition to the IMU,
several other jihadist groups operate throughout Central
Asia, including Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islam (Party of Islamic
Liberation, HuT), the Jamaat of Central Asian
Mujahidin, and the Uyghur Islamic Party of Eastern
Turkestan (now known as the Turkestan Islamic Party,
or TIP) separatist group, which has been extremely
active in the Syria jihad.122
Toward the end of 2017, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia
and Tunisia for the dubious distinction of being the
largest exporter of IS fighters.123 One factor that could
play a key role facing Russia in the future is the struggle
for supremacy between jihadist groups in the Caucasus.
A competition for recruits and resources is intensifying
between the two dominant jihadist entities, fostering
decentralization of the insurgency.124 And, despite the
falling-out and subsequent competition for recruits and
resources between the al-Qaeda-linked Caucasus
Emirate and the IS-linked Wilayat Qawqaz, one issue
with the potential to unite these feuding Sunni factions is
a shared antipathy for the Russian government,
especially as Putin continues to support the Shiite axis of
Iran, the Assad government, and Lebanese Hezbollah
against Sunnis in the Syrian civil war.125
In recent years, many high-ranking jihadists have
switched allegiance from the Caucasus Emirate to
Wilayat Qawqaz. The Islamic State, in their eyes, is the
most legitimate force espousing the austere brand of
Salafism popular among jihadists, particularly the
younger generation.126 The split between the two groups
centers around which faction can demonstrate a stronger
resolve to fight the adversary – in this case, the Russian
state and security services.
In the past, Islamic militants have launched many high-
profile attacks on Russian soil, including ones
specifically targeting transportation infrastructure –
suicide bombings in the Moscow Metro in 2004 and
2010, an explosion that derailed the Moscow – St.
Petersburg express railroad in 2007, and suicide attacks
at the Domodedovo Airport in 2011, a bus in the city of
Volgograd in 2013, and in the St. Petersburg metro in
2017. For the most part, Putin responded to these attacks
by sending Russian security services into jihadist
enclaves such as Dagestan and Chechnya. Rhetorically,
Putin and the Russian propaganda machine capitalize
upon these attacks by portraying all Kremlin enemies,
both foreign and domestic, as part of a vast terrorist
conspiracy.
If returnees were to go back to Russia in large numbers,
they would face a draconian security force unconstrained
by human rights or laws regulating the use of force.
Nevertheless, these returnees would come back to
territories like Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia –
areas with an existing jihadist infrastructure and the
ability to occasionally launch attacks into Moscow and
other urban areas of the Russian homeland.

Sub-Saharan Africa
As evidenced by al-Qaeda’s attacks on American
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, there have
long been connections between Salafi-jihadists and
certain parts of East Africa, but, in the main, Africa more
broadly never registered especially high on the list of
attractive destinations for radical jihadists. That is no
longer the case. The growing threat of the global jihadist
movement now extends deep into Africa, beyond North
Africa and into vast pockets of territory pockmarking the
Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, the Greater Sahara, and
throughout East Africa, stretching from the Horn of
Africa south all the way to Tanzania and Mozambique.127
And while al-Qaeda was once the premier jihadist group
on the continent, myriad splits and fissures have led to a
dizzying array and patchwork of militant groups with
fluctuating alliances and loyalties.128 With the
establishment of the United States African Command, or
AFRICOM, in 2007, the US military has significantly
ramped up operations in Somalia, Kenya, Niger, and
elsewhere.129
The two primary jihadist groups, al-Qaeda and IS, are
locked in a battle for recruits, financing, and territory. As
of late April 2018, the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab in
Somalia claimed to command between 4,000 and 6,000
jihadists. Al-Qaeda’s Mali affiliate, the Group for Support
of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), boasts approximately 800
fighters, while Boko Haram, an AQIM affiliate,130 fields
an estimated 1,500 fighters. On the other side of the
ledger, IS in West Africa (a splinter group of Boko
Haram) numbers around 3,500, while IS in the Greater
Sahara, operating between Mali and Niger, is one of the
smallest offshoots, with 450 active fighters.131 IS
maintains a footprint in Somalia as well, although its
capabilities pale in comparison to those of al-Shabaab.132
IS in Somalia is a breakaway faction of al-Shabaab, as is
a smaller splinter group, Islamic State in Somalia, Kenya,
Tanzania, and Uganda.133 A range of other jihadist
groups are also active on the continent, including Ansar
Dine, al-Mourabitoun, and Ansaru.134
Accompanying the proliferation in jihadist groups and
splinters and offshoots has been a sharp spike in
attacks.135 AQIM remains a potent force in parts of
North and West Africa, launching over 100 attacks in the
region in 2016 alone, including several high-profile
attacks in places like Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso,
previously unscathed by the type of attacks that
frequently inflicted other nations in West Africa,
including Nigeria.136 According to a report by the
Foundation of Defense for Democracies, “Between
January 2007 and December 2011, jihadists conducted
132 successful, thwarted, or failed attacks against
Western interests in Africa. This figure nearly tripled to
358 attacks between January 2012 and October 2017.”137

East Africa
The Horn of Africa has long served as a cradle for
militant jihad. Since the early 1990s, there has been a
reputed al-Qaeda presence throughout the region. The
1998 embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania proved
how widespread and entrenched al-Qaeda’s
infrastructure throughout East Africa had grown. The
current manifestation of the threat, al-Shabaab, has
withstood an onslaught from the US-backed African
Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) peacekeeping
forces and an array of other external military forces,
from Kenya to Ethiopia. Al-Shabaab has repeatedly
suffered defections from its organization, although it
hasn’t appeared to slow the group down in the least.138
The organization has repeatedly demonstrated a
remarkable ability to regenerate itself.139 More recently,
in an attempt to present an enlightened image and
demonstrate to the local civilian population that it has its
best interests in mind, al-Shabaab banned the use of
plastic bags, a coup for environmental advocates but not
likely to curb the group’s appetite for suicide bombings
and assassinations.140
And although the Islamic State is desperately seeking to
establish a foothold in Somalia, al-Shabaab has staved
off the challenge due to its unmatched capacity for
violence, its ability to govern, and its propaganda and
media efforts.141 The numbers of people killed in al-
Shabaab attacks is astronomical. Between September
2006 and October 2017, al-Shabaab deployed at least
216 suicide attackers who carried out a total of 155
suicide bombing attacks, killing at least 595 and possibly
as many as 2,218 people.142 Despite the egregious
violence, the group has managed to present itself as a
viable governing alternative to the current Somali
government, exploiting the grievances of the population
and working to minimize corruption.143 Finally, its
cooperation with both transnational jihadist groups like
AQAP and local expertise have fostered innovation and
improvement in the capacity to construct highly lethal
IEDs.144
Because of such a robust al-Qaeda presence in the Horn
of Africa, IS is unlikely to rely on the region as a hub for
its operations. Unlike Boko Haram, al-Shabaab has at
present been relatively successful at denying IS space to
operate and minimizing the number of recruits who have
defected to the IS-affiliate. West Africa, on the other
hand, has been far more inviting to the Islamic State,
even as it continues to compete with other regional
terrorist groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.145

West Africa
On the other side of the continent from the Horn of
Africa, West Africa has also traditionally been a bastion
of al-Qaeda support, although IS has been gaining
ground since the end of 2017. Since 2013, a spate of
highly lethal attacks has targeted foreigners throughout
the region, including in Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and
Ivory Coast.146 The increase in the sophistication of
attacks in West Africa appears to be the result of the
transfer of tacit knowledge between skilled jihadists from
IS and al-Qaeda and local African militants. Indeed, the
explosives, types of mines, shells, and weapons being
used all indicate an advanced level of expertise compared
to previous years.147
Al-Qaeda has successfully tapped into new markets,
breaking ground in parts of the region previously
unaffected by terrorism, such as northern sections of
Burkina Faso, where local militants mix with
transnational jihadists.148 Burkina Faso has been greatly
impacted by spillover violence originating across the
border in neighboring Mali, where JNIM has battled the
French military in its quest to control territory and
establish sharia governance.149 Al-Qaeda has had a
major impact on the deadliest terrorist organization in
the region, Boko Haram, from the beginning, helping the
group launch its terror campaign in 2009, while urging
its leadership to adopt and introduce suicide bombing as
a tactic in 2011.150
Still, even though al-Qaeda has a longer history of
operating throughout West Africa, the Islamic State is
mounting an aggressive campaign to supplant its rival
and establish its own strategic reach. IS is indeed
preparing for a long-term presence throughout West
Africa, and the behavior of the Islamic State in West
Africa (ISWA) in Nigeria and Niger looks eerily similar to
how the Islamic State built its state in Iraq and Syria,
providing governance for locals in exchange for the
ability to levy taxes on the local economy.151 According to
AFRICOM officials, ISWA is considered to be a longer-
term strategic threat compared to Boko Haram, which is
viewed as more parochial and Nigeria-focused.152
Now that a fissure has cleaved Boko Haram in two, the
future of militant jihad in West Africa may hinge on
which group – IS or al-Qaeda – is able to network with
groups already present on the continent, and which is
able to provide a more attractive alternative to fighters
returning home from the Middle East. Even before overt
signs of a split, there were hints that IS and Boko Haram
were cooperating. In April 2016, a convoy of Islamic
State fighters in Libya delivered a shipment of weapons,
mostly small arms, machine guns, and rifles, to Boko
Haram militants near the Chadian border.153 To date,
there is evidence that jihadists fleeing the caliphate have
sought out Africa specifically, traveling to northeast
Nigeria and parts of Libya.154

Europe
There is no real concern that IS would ever attempt to
establish a caliphate in Europe, but given that over 4,000
European citizens traveled abroad to join jihadist groups
in Iraq and Syria, it is critical to examine both the impact
upon the continent, and also the role that Europe will
probably play in the immediate aftermath of the collapse
of the caliphate. According to some estimates,
approximately 30 percent of European foreign fighters
have returned home to their respective countries, while
another 14 percent have been confirmed dead.155 This
means that Europe faces overlapping challenges of
dealing with those who have already returned, preparing
for those who still might return, and figuring out how to
prevent this entire phenomenon from repeating itself in
a few years, if another caliphate is declared in Libya,
Afghanistan, or elsewhere.
The foreign fighter phenomenon in Europe reinforces
the global nature of conflict in 2019 – what happens in
Mosul has consequences in Molenbeek. In the three-year
period between June 2014 and June 2017, there were 32
jihadist attacks in Europe alone: 17 in France, 6 in
Germany, 4 in the United Kingdom, 3 in Belgium, 1 in
Denmark, and 1 in Sweden.156 Between June 2017 and
June 2018, there were another dozen attacks, including 6
more in France, 2 in the UK, and 1 each in Belgium,
Germany, Finland, and Spain.

France
Without question, France has been disproportionately
affected by the cascading consequences of the civil war in
Syria and the rise and fall of the Islamic State. Nearly
900 French citizens relocated to Iraq and Syria, although
close to 200 have died in combat.157 France has suffered
devastating terrorist attacks on its own soil, more than
20 in the past 4 years alone, including the November
2015 Paris attacks which resulted in the death of 130
civilians and the Nice truck attack that killed 86 more.
Some scholars have traced France’s problem with
jihadism back to French political culture, noting the
aggressively secular nature of Francophone countries.
This militant secularism, when combined with high rates
of unemployment and urbanization, could be a uniquely
influential factor in why so many French citizens join the
jihad.158
While Muslims make up 4.9 percent of the overall
population in Europe, in France the percentage is 8.8
percent.159 Its prisons have become veritable breeding
grounds for Islamic radicalization, a troubling trend
throughout the continent more broadly, but one
particularly acute for a country where crime and terror
frequently overlap, and one to which an untold number
of foreign fighters (and their families) may continue to
return home.160 More than half of the 20,000 suspects
on France’s so-called “S-List” (S standing for “state
security”) are thought to have links to jihadist groups, a
staggering figure.161 Young children who were part of the
caliphate and lost their parents in the fighting are now
returning to France, including to their home
neighborhoods like Saint-Denis, where they are being
placed with foster families or community centers for
orphans.162 But these neighborhoods remain incubators
of jihadism, with extremely high levels of crime and
unemployment, presenting serious concerns that these
children – some of whom witnessed horrific atrocities in
the Middle East – could be recruited by radical Islamists
intent on conducting attacks within France in the name
of the Islamic State.163

Germany
Germany has also been a major source of foreign fighters
and has suffered several high-profile attacks on its soil,
the most devastating of which was carried out by Anis
Amri, a Tunisian jihadist with links to IS in Libya. In this
attack, 11 people were killed and another 55 wounded,
when Amri drove a truck through a crowded Christmas
market in Berlin in December 2016.164 Nearly half of the
900 Germans who traveled abroad to fight with jihadist
groups in Iraq and Syria had contact with extremist
mosques in the country.165 In response, Germany has
moved to ban Islamist groups believed to be responsible
for radicalizing citizens and encouraging them to travel
abroad to fight with IS and other militant groups.166
Germany has experienced a major surge in the overall
number of terrorism-related prosecutions in recent
years, with over 900 cases filed in 2017 alone.167 In a
media interview, the head of Germany’s Office for the
Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Masasen,
warned of the dangers posed by “kindergarten jihadists”
and women and children who were “brainwashed” by IS
and intent on returning home to Germany.168 Without
question, the arrival of over 1 million migrants in the
past few years, many of them Muslims, has placed a
strain on the German government to dial down tensions
between ethnic Germans and newly arrived asylum
seekers from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
There are legitimate concerns that an influx of Muslims
will lead to a rise in right-wing groups throughout
Germany, including groups like PEGIDA, or Patriotic
Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.

United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has a lengthy history with
terrorism, and more recently with Islamic terrorism,
following the London bombings of July 7, 2005, when
several militants linked to al-Qaeda conducted suicide
attacks against tube trains and a bus, killing 52 and
injuring another 784 people. And while the UK remained
mostly immune from terrorism directed and inspired by
IS initially, there were several deadly attacks conducted
over the span of a few short months in 2017, including a
combined knife and vehicle attack on Westminster
Bridge and Parliament in March; a suicide bombing in
Manchester that killed 22 people outside of a concert in
May; and another combined knife and vehicle attack at
London Bridge and Borough Market in June.169 Three
months later, in September, a terrorist bombing at the
Parsons Green Underground station wounded 30 people,
though none were killed.
Britons were among the most prominent members of the
Islamic State, including Mohammed Emwazi (a.k.a.
“Jihadi John”), an IS executioner, and Junaid Hussain,
perhaps IS’s most well-known “virtual entrepreneur.”170
Organizations like al-Muhajiroun, a banned Islamist
network once led by convicted terrorist Anjem Choudry,
also recruited and encouraged British Muslims to travel
to and fight in Iraq and Syria.171 Moreover, networks like
al-Muhajiroun and Sharia4Belgium had spent years – or
in the case of the former, decades – laying the
groundwork for and building the infrastructure that was
in place by the time of IS’s caliphate declaration in
2014.172 Speaking in late 2017, Gilles de Kerchove, the
European Union’s counterterrorism coordinator,
commented that approximately 25,000 British citizens
are possibly Islamic radicals, with around 3,000
considered to be “a direct threat” by British intelligence
agencies.173 In one particularly chilling case, a British IS
supporter named Umar Haque attempted to recruit
young children at a private Islamic school in London,
some as young as 11 years old, and to teach them to
launch terrorist attacks across the capital.174

Belgium
For a small and somewhat ordinary European country,
Belgium has figured prominently in jihadist terrorism,
with the greatest number of foreign fighters per capita of
any country in the West.175 There have been several
terrorist attacks in Belgium linked to IS, including the
March 2016 attacks in Brussels at the airport and
Maalbeek metro station, which killed 32 people.176
Several high-profile IS fighters were Belgians, including
the charismatic jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the
ringleader of the Paris November 2015 attacks.177
Belgium was also home to militants such as Fouad
Belkacem, the one-time leader of Sharia4Belgium, and
Khalid Zerkani, a veteran of al-Qaeda training camps
who recruited young Belgians and sent them to fight in
Iraq and Syria.178 Of the nearly 70 Belgians identified as
fighting in Syria, almost all were members of
Sharia4Belgium, which was particularly active in
Antwerp, but elsewhere as well.179
Immediately after the Paris and Brussels attacks, a
section of Brussels named Molenbeek came under
intense scrutiny as a locus of jihad inexorably linked to
terrorism. This municipality, right in the heart of
Belgium’s capital, was a place where 80 percent of the
population was of Moroccan origin.180 Compared to the
rest of Belgium, its residents were poor, young, and
suffered from high unemployment and crime rates.181
According to a story in Politico, of more than 1,600
organizations registered in Molenbeek, more than 100
had links with crime, and an additional 51 were linked to
terrorism.182 In many ways, however, the Brussels
attacks marked a turning point for Belgium’s long-
criticized security services. Once considered inept and
aloof, the Belgian security services have made significant
progress improving their counterterrorism capabilities.
As Renard and Coolsaet point out, the most important
change has been a “broader policy shift from a narrow
counterterrorism approach solely based on law
enforcement and intelligence gathering towards a more
comprehensive approach that combines repression and
enhanced prevention.”183
This chapter focuses on Europe not because it has the
prospect of turning into the next IS state-building
project, but rather because the continent’s citizens
helped build the caliphate. Talk of “no-go” zones has
been overhyped, but there have been neighborhoods that
became notorious as radicalization hubs, including parts
of major European cities like Paris, Brussels, London,
and Barcelona. So there is no chance that IS, or whatever
terrorist entity follows it, will seriously attempt to make
Europe into a jihadist sanctuary. However, the same
countries discussed above that supplied recruits to IS
could end up doing so again, this time with its younger
generation, if the Islamic State is able to successfully
regenerate itself. The most likely place for this to happen
could be back where it all began, in Iraq and Syria.

Notes
1. Margaret Coker, Eric Schmitt, and Rukmini
Callimachi, “With Loss of Its Caliphate, ISIS May
Return to Guerilla Roots,” New York Times, October
18, 2017. See also Yaroslav Trofimov, “Faraway ISIS
Branches Grow as Group Fades in Syria, Iraq,” Wall
Street Journal, May 18, 2018.
2. Julian E. Barnes, Valentina Pop, and Jenny Gross,
“Europe Doesn’t Expect Fresh Influx of Returning
 ISIS Fighters,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2017.
3. Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Trump Drops Push for
Immediate Withdrawal of Troops from Syria,” New
York Times, April 4, 2018.
4. For some of the best works to discuss these
differences, see Assaf Moghadam, Ronit Berger, and
Polina Beliakova, “Say Terrorist, Think Insurgent:
Labeling and Analyzing Contemporary Terrorist
Actors,” Perspectives on Terrorism, 8:5, October
2014; Seth G. Jones, Waging Insurgent Warfare:
Lessons from the Vietcong to the Islamic State, New
York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 8–9; David
Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency,” Journal of
Strategic Studies, 28:4, 2005, pp. 597–617; and
Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, p. 35.
5. The category strategy is consonant with that presented
by Jones in Waging Insurgent Warfare, ch. 3.
6. Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, “Egypt’s Wild West,” Foreign
Policy, August 24, 2011:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/24/egypts-wild-
west-2.
7. Sahar F. Aziz, “Rethinking Counterterrorism in the
Age of IS: Lessons from Sinai,” Nebraska Law
Review, 95:2, pp. 307–65.
8. For more on ABM, see Mokhtar Awad and Samuel
Tadros, “Bay’a Remorse? Wilayat Sinai and the Nile
Valley,” CTC Sentinel, 8:8, August 2015.
9. Mokhtar Awad, “IS in the Sinai,” in Katherine Bauer,
ed., Beyond Syria and Iraq: Examining Islamic State
Provinces, Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
2016, p. 21.
10. Sudarsan Raghavan, “Militant Threat Emerges in
Egyptian Desert, Opening New Front in Terrorism
Fight,” Washington Post, March 14, 2018.
11. Erin Cunningham, “Bomb Blast in Egypt’s Sinai
Peninsula is Deadliest Attack on Army in Decades,”
 Washington Post, October 24, 2014; Kareem Fahim
and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Jihadist Attacks on Egypt
Grow Even Fiercer,” New York Times, July 1, 2015.
12. Zack Gold, “Sisi Doesn’t Know How to Beat ISIS,”
Foreign Policy, November 30, 2017:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/30/sisi-doesnt-
know-how-to-beat-isis.
13. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Secret Alliance: Israel Carries
Out Airstrikes in Egypt, With Cairo’s O.K.,” New York
Times, February 3, 2018.
14. Mokhtar Awad, “The Islamic State’s Pyramid
Scheme: Egyptian Expansion and the Giza
Governorate Cell,” CTC Sentinel, 9:4, April 2016.
15. Sudarsan Raghavan and Heba Farouk Mahfouz,
“Egypt Launches Major Offensive Against Islamic
State Militants,” Washington Post, February 9, 2018.
16. Loveday Morris, “Islamic State Declares War on Rival
Hamas With Video Execution,” Washington Post,
January 4, 2018.
17. Phone interview with Zack Gold, July 2017.
18. Colin P. Clarke, “How Salafism’s Rise Threatens
Gaza,” Foreign Affairs, October 11, 2017:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2017-
10-11/how-salafisms-rise-threatens-gaza.
19. Zack Gold, “Security in the Sinai: Present and
Future,” ICCT Research Paper, March 2014:
https://www.icct.nl/download/file/ICCT-Gold-
Security-In-The-Sinai-March-2014.pdf.
20. Mokhtar Awad, “Why ISIS Declared War on Egypt’s
Christians,” The Atlantic, April 9, 2017.
21. Declan Walsh, “Attacks Show ISIS’ New Plan: Divide
Egypt By Killing Christians,” New York Times, April
10, 2017.
22. Declan Walsh, “Gunmen Kill Police Officer Near St.
Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt,” New York Times,
April 18, 2017.
23. “Gunman Kills 11 in Attacks on Coptic Church,
Christian-Owned Shop in Egypt,” Reuters, December
29, 2017.
24. Declan Walsh and Nour Youssef, “Militants Kill 305
at Sufi Mosque in Egypt’s Deadliest Terror Attack,”
New York Times, November 24, 2017.
25. Hassan Hassan, “Its Dreams of a Caliphate Are Gone.
Now ISIS Has a Deadly New Strategy,” Guardian,
December 30, 2017.
26. Sudha Ratan, “The Trump Administration’s New
Afghan Problem: The Islamic State,” The Diplomat,
April 3, 2018.
27. Antonio Giustozzi, “Taliban and Islamic State:
Enemies or Brothers in Jihad?” Center for Research &
Policy Analysis, December 14, 2017:
https://www.crpaweb.org/single-
post/2017/12/15/Enemies-or-Jihad-Brothers-
Relations-Between-Taliban-and-Islamic-State.
28. Zabihullah Ghazi and Mujib Mashal, “Deadly ISIS
Attack Hits an Aid Group, Save the Children, in
Afghanistan,” New York Times, January 24, 2018. See
also Bart Jansen, “11 Afghan Troops Die in Islamic
State Attack on Kabul Military Academy, Latest in
Violent Surge,” USA Today, January 29, 2018.
29. Jawad Sukhanyar and Mujib Mashal, “Twin Mosque
Attacks Kill Scores in One of Afghanistan’s Deadliest
Weeks,” New York Times, October 20, 2017.
30. “ISIS On Rise in Pakistan,” The Hindu, January 8,
2018:
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/isis-
on-rise-in-pakistan-report/article22397277.ece.
31. Salman Masood, “Pakistan Reels After Attack on
Police Training College Leaves 61 Dead,” New York
 Times, October 25, 2016.
32. Borhan Osman, “The Islamic State in ‘Khorasan’:
How it Began and Where it Stands Now in
Nangarhar,” Afghanistan Analysts’ Network, July 27,
2016: https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/the-
islamic-state-in-khorasan-how-it-began-and-where-
it-stands-now-in-nangarhar.
33. United Nations Security Council, “Twenty-First
Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions
Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution
2368 (2017) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al Qaeda and
Associated Individuals and Entities,” January 26,
2018.
34. Mirwais Harooni and Kay Johnson “Taliban Urge
Islamic State to Stop ‘Interference’ in Afghanistan,”
Reuters, June 16, 2015.
35. Animesh Roul, “Islamic State Gains Ground in
Afghanistan as Its Caliphate Crumbles Elsewhere,”
Jamestown Terrorism Monitor, 16:2, January 26,
2018: https://jamestown.org/program/islamic-state-
gains-ground-afghanistan-caliphate-crumbles-
elsewhere.
36. Matthew Dupee, “Red on Red: Analyzing
Afghanistan’s Intra-Insurgency Violence,” CTC
Sentinel, 11:1, January 2018. See also Najim Rahim
and Rod Nordland, “Are ISIS Fighters Prisoners or
Honored Guests of the Afghan Government?” New
York Times, August 4, 2018.
37. “Afghan Official: Islamic State Present in at Least 3
Provinces,” Associated Press, June 29, 2015.
38. Bennett Seftel, “‘Persistent, Expanding and
Worrisome’: ISIS Rebounds in Afghanistan,” The
Cipher Brief, January 5, 2018.
39. Mujib Mashal, “In Tangled Afghan War, a Thin Line
of Defense Against ISIS,” New York Times, December
25, 2017.
40. Ayaz Gul, “Russia Says About 10,000 IS Militants
Now in Afghanistan,” VOA News, December 23, 2017.
41. Amanda Erickson, “How the Islamic State Got a
Foothold in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, March
21, 2018.
42. Merhat Sharipzhan, “IMU Declares it is Now Part of
the Islamic State,” RFERL, August 6, 2015.
43. Larisa Brown, “UK Jihadis ‘Have Joined Slaughter in
Afghanistan’: Minister Fears ‘Porous Borders’ Have
Allowed Extremists to Leave Syria for the Country,”
Daily Mail, January 29, 2018.
44. Tom O’Connor, “Where Will IS Be in 2018? Iran Says
Afghanistan and Pakistan Are Next as Islamic State
Loses Iraq and Syria,” Newsweek, December 12, 2017.
45. Idrees Ali, “Air Strikes Hit Islamic State in
Afghanistan Under New Rules: U.S.,” Reuters, April
14, 2016.
46. W. J. Hennigan, “Air Force Drops Non-Nuclear
‘Mother of All Bombs’ in Afghanistan,” Los Angeles
Times, April 13, 2017.
47. Jo Becker and Eric Schmitt, “As Trump Wavers on
Libya, an ISIS Haven, Russia Presses On,” New York
Times, February 7, 2017.
48. Noha Aboueldahab, Tarek M. Yousef, Luiz Pinto, et
al., “The Middle East and North Africa in 2018:
Challenges, Threats, and Opportunities,” Brookings
Institution, December 21, 2017.
49. Aaron Y. Zelin, “The Islamic State’s Model,”
Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog, January 28,
2015.
50. Aaron Y. Zelin, “The Others: Foreign Fighters in
Libya,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
Policy Note No.45, 2018.
51. Malek Bachir and Akram Kharief, “The Slow Death of
al Qaeda in Algeria,” Middle East Eye, February 1,
2018.
52. Khalid Mahmoud, “AFRICOM Expects ISIS Attack on
Libya’s Oil Crescent,” Asharq Al-Aswat, January 3,
2018; see also Jeff Seldin, “Defense, Intelligence
Officials Warn Against Underestimating Islamic
State,” VOA News, December 31, 2017.
53. Aaron Y. Zelin, “The Islamic State’s First Colony in
Libya,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
PolicyWatch 2325, October 10, 2014.
54. Benoit Faucon and Matt Bradley, “Islamic State
Gained Strength in Libya by Co-Opting Local
Jihadists,” Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2015.
55. Johannes Saal, “The Islamic State’s Libyan External
Operations Hub: The Picture So Far,” CTC Sentinel,
10:11, December 2017.
56. Frederic Wehrey and Ala’ Alrababa’h, “Rising Out of
Chaos: The Islamic State in Libya,” Diwan, March 5,
2015.
57. Paul Cruickshank, Nic Robertson, Tim Lister, and
Jomana Karadsheh, “ISIS Comes to Libya,” CNN,
November 18, 2014.
58. Andrew Engel, “The Islamic State’s Expansion in
Libya,” PolicyWatch 2371, February 11, 2015.
59. David D. Kirkpatrick, Ben Hubbard, and Eric
Schmitt, “ISIS’s Grip on Libyan City Gives It a
Fallback Option,” New York Times, November 28,
2015. See also Jon Lee Anderson, “ISIS Rises in
Libya,” New Yorker, August 4, 2015.
60. Sudarsan Raghavan, “A Year After ISIS Left, A
Battered Libyan City Struggles to Resurrect Itself,”
Washington Post, January 8, 2018.
61. Issandr El Amrani, “How Much of Libya Does the
Islamic State Control?” Foreign Policy, February 18,
 2016.
62. For more, see Christopher S. Chivvis, Toppling
Qaddafi: Libya and the Limits of Liberal
Intervention, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
63. “How Real is the Threat of Returning IS Fighters?”
BBC News, October 23, 2017.
64. Aaron Y. Zelin, “The Islamic State’s Burgeoning
Capital in Sirte, Libya,” Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, Policywatch 2462, August 6, 2015. See
also Aaron Y. Zelin, “The Islamic State’s Territorial
Methodology,” Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, Research Note No. 29, January 2016.
65. Bennett Seftel, “ISIS Grows and Festers in Lawless
Libya,” The Cipher Brief, January 26, 2018.
66. Ryan Browne, “US Strikes ISIS Targets in Libya for a
Second Time in Less Than a Week,” CNN.com,
September 28, 2017.
67. Johannes Saal, “The Islamic State’s Libyan External
Operations Hub: The Picture So Far,” CTC Sentinel,
10:11, December 2017.
68. Frederic Wehrey, “When the Islamic State Came to
Libya,” The Atlantic, February 10, 2018.
69. Marielle Ness, “The Islamic State’s Two-Pronged
Assault on Turkey,” CTC Beyond the Caliphate:
Islamic State Activity Outside the Group’s Defined
Wilayat, January 2018.
70. Eric Schmitt, “Thousands of ISIS Fighters Flee in
Syria, Many to Fight Another Day,” New York Times,
February 4, 2018. See also Mike Giglio and Munzer
Awad, “The Escape: How ISIS Members Fled the
Caliphate, Perhaps to Fight Another Day,” Buzzfeed,
December 19, 2017.
71. Callimachi, “How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a
Global Network of Killers”; Jack Moore, “Hundreds of
 ISIS Fighters are Hiding in Turkey, Increasing Fears
of Europe Attacks,” Newsweek, December 27, 2017.
72. Erin Cunningham and Karim Fahim, “Islamic State
Claims Responsibility for Istanbul Nightclub Attack,”
Washington Post, January 2, 2017. See also Ahmet S.
Yayla, “The Reina Nightclub Attack and the Threat to
Turkey,” CTC Sentinel, 10:3, March 2017.
73. Ahmet S. Yayla, “ISIS Airmail: The Bomb Shipped
from Turkey to Australia,” Wall Street Journal,
August 9, 2017.
74. Colin P. Clarke and Ahmet S. Yayla, “Erdogan’s Fatal
Blind Spot,” Foreign Policy, February 15, 2018.
75. Hans Nicholas and Mosheh Gains, “Pentagon
Confirms U.S. Ground Operations in Yemen,”
NBCnews.com, December 20, 2017.
76. Alex Horton, “In a First, U.S. Launches Deadly
Strikes on ISIS Training Camps in Yemen,”
Washington Post, October 17, 2017.
77. Hassan Hassan, “ISIS Has Stepped Up Campaigns in
Yemen, Egypt, and Afghanistan. The Coalition
Fighting It Should Be Worried,” The National, May
23, 2018.
78. Nadwa al-Dawsari, “Foe Not Friend: Yemeni Tribes
and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” Project on
Middle East Democracy (POMED), February 2018.
79. Elisabeth Kendall, “Impact of the Yemen War on
Militant Jihad,” POMEPS Studies 29: Politics,
Governance, and Reconstruction in Yemen, January
12, 2018: https://pomeps.org/2018/01/12/impact-of-
the-yemen-war-on-militant-jihad.
80. Sudarsan Raghavan, “Still Fighting Al Qaeda,”
Washington Post, July 6, 2018.
81. Ben Watson, “The War in Yemen and the Making of a
Chaos State,” Defense One, January 28, 2018.
82. Peter Salisbury, “Yemen: National Chaos, Local
Order,” Chatham House Research Paper, Middle East
and North Africa Programme, December 2017, p. 23.
83. Email exchange with Bruce Hoffman, July 2018.
84. Email exchange with Elisabeth Kendall, July 2018.
85. Colin P. Clarke, “Expanding the ISIS Brand,”
National Interest, February 17, 2018.
86. “Malaysia Arrests Two ISIS Militants Over Planned
Attacks on Police Stations and Buddhist Monks,” The
Straits Times, January 22, 2018.
87. Jeffrey Gettleman, “A Mysterious Act of Mercy by the
Subway Bombing Suspect,” New York Times,
December 18, 2017. See also Sadanand Dhume,
“Bangladesh Exports a New Generation of Terrorists,”
Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2017.
88. Jason Burke, “Al Qaeda Moves In to Recruit from
Islamic State and Its Affiliates,” Guardian, January
19, 2018.
89. Daniel L. Byman, “What Happens When ISIS Goes
Underground?” Brookings Institution, January 18,
2018:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2018/01/1
8/what-happens-when-isis-goes-underground.
90. Vera Mironova and Ekaterina Sergatskova, “Will
Former ISIS Fighters Help the Rohingya?” Foreign
Affairs, September 22, 2017.
91. C. Christine Fair, “Political Islam and Islamist
Terrorism in Bangladesh: What You Need to Know,”
Lawfare, January 28, 2018.
92. Rukmini Callimachi, “ISIS Seems to Tailor Attacks
for Different Audiences,” New York Times, July 2,
2016.
93. For more on AQIS, see Alastair Reed, “Al Qaeda in
the Indian Subcontinent: A New Frontline in the
 Global Jihadist Movement?” International Centre for
Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) – The Hague, ICCT Policy
Brief, May 2015: https://icct.nl/publication/al-qaeda-
in-the-indian-subcontintent-a-new-frontline-in-the-
global-jihadist-movement.
94. Fair, “Political Islam and Islamist Terrorism in
Bangladesh.”
95. Amira Jadoon, “An Idea or a Threat? Islamic State
Jammu & Kashmir,” Combating Terrorism Center,
February 9, 2018: https://ctc.usma.edu/idea-threat-
islamic-state-jammu-kashmir.
96. For more on this subject, see Steve Coll, Directorate
S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, New York: Penguin Press,
2018.
97. Richard C. Paddock, “In Indonesia and Philippines,
Militants Find a Common Bond: ISIS,” New York
Times, May 26, 2017.
98. Jeffrey Hutton, “Suicide Bombers Strike Jakarta,
Killing 3 Police Officers,” New York Times, May 25,
2017; Alex Horton, “Family of Suicide Bombers Kills
At Least 7 in Indonesia Church Attacks,” New York
Times, May 13, 2017.
99. Michael Peel, “Militant Islamists Shift Focus to
Southeast Asia,” Financial Times, June 18, 2017.
100. Sidney Jones, “How ISIS Transformed Terrorism in
Indonesia,” New York Times, May 22, 2018.
101. Ryan Browne and Barbara Starr, “U.S. Military
Official: 50 ISIS Foreign Fighters Captured Since
November,” CNN.com, December 12, 2017.
102. Edward Delman, “ISIS in the World’s Largest
Muslim Country,” The Atlantic, January 3, 2016.
103. Richard C. Paddock, “He Aimed to Fight in Syria.
ISIS Had a Broader Plan: Southeast Asia,” New York
Times, September 3, 2017.
104. Joseph Chinyong Liow, “IS in the Pacific: Assessing
Terrorism in Southeast Asia and the Threat to the
Homeland,” testimony before the Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence Committee on
Homeland Security, House of Representatives, April
27, 2016.
105. Kirsten E. Schultze and Joseph Chinyong Liow,
“Making Jihadis, Waging Jihad: Transnational and
Local Dimensions of the ISIS Phenomenon in
Indonesia and Malaysia,” Asian Security, 2018:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1479
9855.2018.1424710?journalCode=fasi20.
106. Nava Nuraniyah, “Migrant Maids and Nannies for
Jihad,” New York Times, July 18, 2017.
107. Patrick B. Johnston and Colin P. Clarke, “Is the
Philippines the Next Caliphate?” Foreign Policy,
November 28, 2017.
108. Felipe Villamor, “ISIS Threat in Philippines Spreads
in Remote Battles,” New York Times, October 23,
2017. See also James Griffiths, “ISIS in Southeast
Asia: Philippines Battles Growing Threat,” CNN.com,
May 29, 2017.
109. Lindsay Murdoch, “Marawi Uprising Funded by
$1.9 Million from Islamic State,” Sydney Morning
Herald, October 25, 2017.
110. Chandni Vatvani, “9 Suspected Terrorists Arrested
in Indonesia,” Channel News Asia, October 24, 2017.
111. Marielle Ness, “Beyond the Caliphate: Islamic State
Activity Outside the Group’s Defined Caliphate:
Southeast Asia,” CTC Sentinel, January 2018.
112. Will Edwards, “ISIS’ Reach Extends to Southeast
Asia,” The Cipher Brief, August 20, 2017.
113. Email exchange with Zachary Abuza, July 2017.
114. Thomas M. Sanderson, “From the Ferghana Valley
to Syria and Beyond: A Brief History of Central Asia
 Foreign Fighters,” Center for Strategic and
International Studies, January 5, 2018:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/ferghana-valley-syria-
and-beyond-brief-history-central-asian-foreign-
fighters.
115. Svante Cornell, “Central Asia: Where Did Islamic
Radicalization Go?” in Katya Migacheva and Bryan
Frederick, eds., Religion, Conflict, and Stability in the
Former Soviet Union, Santa Monica, CA: RAND
Corp., 2018.
116. Mohammed S. Elshimi, “Understanding the Factors
Contributing to Radicalisation among Central Asian
Labour Migrants in Russia,” RUSI Occasional Paper,
April 2018: https://www.sfcg.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/04/RUSI-report_Central-
Asia-Radicalisation_ENG_24042018.pdf.
117. Thomas F. Lynch III, Michael Bouffard, Kelsey King,
and Graham Vickowski, “The Return of Foreign
Fighters to Central Asia: Implications for U.S.
Counterterrorism Policy,” Center for Strategic
Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies,
National Defense University, Strategic Perspectives
No. 21, October 2016:
http://inss.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratpers
pective/inss/Strategic-Perspectives-21.pdf. See also
Anna Dyner, Arkadiusz Legiec, and Kacper Rekawak,
“Ready to Go? ISIS and Its Presumed Expansion into
Central Asia,” Polish Institute of International Affairs
(PISM), Policy Paper No.19 (121), June 2015.
118. Goktung Sonmez, “Violent Extremism among
Central Asians: The Istanbul, St. Petersburg,
Stockholm, and New York City Attacks,” CTC Sentinel,
10:11, December 2017. See also Andrew E. Kramer,
“New York Turns Focus to Central Asian Militancy,”
New York Times, November 1, 2017; Sajjan Gohel,
“How Uzbekistan Became Ripe Recruiting Territory
for ISIS,” CNN.com, November 1, 2017.
119. Kim Cragin, “Foreign Fighter ‘Hot Potato,’”
Lawfare, November 26, 2017.
120. Reid Standish, “‘Our Future Will Be Violent
Extremism,’” Foreign Policy, August 1, 2017.
121. Reid Standish, “Scenes from Central Asia’s Forever
War,” Foreign Policy, August 7, 2017. See also
“Kyrgyzstan: State Fragility and Radicalisation,”
International Crisis Group, October 3, 2016; and
Bruce Pannier, “Are Central Asia’s Militants Already
Coming Home from the Middle East?” Radio Free
Europe / Radio Liberty, May 25, 2018.
122. Eleanor Ross, “Why Extremist Groups are Gaining
Strength in Central Asia,” Newsweek, April 12, 2017.
See also Thomas Joscelyn, “The Turkistan Islamic
Party’s Jihad in Syria,” FDD’s Long War Journal, July
10, 2018; and also Colin P. Clarke and Paul R. Kan,
“Uighur Foreign Fighters: An Underexamined
Jihadist Challenge,” International Centre for Counter-
Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT), Policy Brief 8, no. 5,
2017.
123. Jack Moore, “Russia Overtakes Saudi Arabia and
Tunisia as Largest Exporter of ISIS Fighters,”
Newsweek, October 24, 2017.
124. Andrew S. Bowen, “ISIS Comes to Russia,” Daily
Beast, July 10, 2015.
125. Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, “Russia’s North Caucasus
Insurgency Widens as ISIS’ Foothold Grows,” World
Politics Review, April 12, 2016.
126. Colin P. Clarke, “How Russia Became the Jihadists’
No. 1 Target,” Politico Magazine, April 3, 2017.
127. John Campbell, “The Islamic State ‘Presence’ in the
Sahel is More Complicated Than Affiliates Suggest,”
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), June 1, 2018.
128. Jacob Wirtschafter and Karim John Gadiaga,
“Africa Becomes the New Battleground for ISIS and al
 Qaeda as They Lose Ground in the Mideast,” USA
Today, October 25, 2017.
129. Wesley Morgan, “Behind the Secret U.S. War in
Africa,” Politico, July 2, 2018.
130. Jacob Zenn, “Boko Haram’s Al Qaeda Affiliation: A
Response to Five Myths about Boko Haram,”
Lawfare, February 1, 2018.
131. Ryan Browne, “US Wars of Growing African Terror
Threat,” CNN.com, April 19, 2018. The author is also
thankful to Jason Warner for help with estimates of IS
fighters in various African affiliates. Email exchanges
with Jason Warner, July 2018.
132. Jason Warner and Caleb Weiss, “A Legitimate
Challenger? Assessing the Rivalry between al-Shabaab
and the Islamic State in Somalia,” CTC Sentinel,
10:10, November 2017.
133. Jason Warner, “Sub-Saharan Africa’s Three ‘New’
Islamic State Affiliates,” CTC Sentinel, 10:1, January
2017.
134. Bennett Seftel, “Al Qaeda Thrives Across Weak West
African States,” Cipher Brief, September 14, 2017.
135. Cristina Maza, “ISIS and Al Qaeda Terrorists
Increase Attacks on Western Targets in Africa, Report
Reveals,” Newsweek, February 26, 2018.
136. Caleb Weiss, “Al Qaeda Has Launched More Than
100 Attacks in West Africa in 2016,” FDD’s Long War
Journal, June 8, 2016. See also Drew Hinshaw and
Zoumana Wonogo, “Al Qaeda Attacks in Burkina Faso
Kill At Least 30,” Wall Street Journal, January 17,
2016.
137. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Jacob Zenn, Sarah
Sheafer, and Sandro Bejdic, “Evolving Terror: The
Development of Jihadist Operations Targeting
Western Interests in Africa,” Foundation of Defense
for Democracies, February 2018:
https://www.thefdd.org/analysis/2018/02/25/evolvi
 ng-terror-the-development-of-jihadist-operations-
targeting-western-interests-in-africa.
138. Yaroslav Trofimov, “In Somalia – or Afghanistan –
Can Insurgent Defections Change a War’s Course?”
Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2018.
139. Sunguta West, “The Resurgence of al-Shabaab,”
Jamestown Foundation, Terrorism Monitor, February
8, 2018: https://jamestown.org/program/resurgence-
al-shabaab.
140. Rukmini Callimachi, “Al-Qaeda Backed Group Has
a New Target: Plastic Bags,” New York Times, July 4,
2018.
141. Warner and Weiss, “A Legitimate Challenger?”
142. Jason Warner and Ellen Chapin, “Targeted Terror:
The Suicide Bombers of al-Shabaab,” Combating
Terrorism Center, February 13, 2018:
https://ctc.usma.edu/targeted-terror-suicide-
bombers-al-shabaab. Despite this massive death toll,
Warner and Chapin’s detailed analysis concluded that
the attacks actually attempt to avoid targeting non-
combatant civilians.
143. Tricia Bacon, “This is Why al-Shabaab Won’t Be
Going Away Any Time Soon,” Washington Post
Monkey Cage Blog, July 6, 2017.
144. Daisy Muibu and Benjamin P. Nickels, “Foreign
Technology or Local Expertise? Al-Shabaab’s IED
Capability,” CTC Sentinel, 10:10, November 2017.
145. “The Fight Against the Islamic State is Moving to
Africa,” The Economist, July 14, 2018.
146. Clayton Thomas, “Al Qaeda and U.S. Policy: Middle
East and Africa,” Congressional Research Service
(CRS) Report R43756, February 5, 2018.
147. Olivier Monnier, “Islamic State, al Qaeda Support
Fuels Attacks in West Africa,” Bloomberg, February 5,
2018.
148. “The Social Roots of Jihadist Violence in Burkina
Faso’s North,” International Crisis Group, Report No.
254, October 12, 2017:
https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-
africa/burkina-faso/254-social-roots-jihadist-
violence-burkina-fasos-north.
149. Caleb Weiss, “Al Qaeda Branch in Mali Claims
Burkina Faso Attacks,” FDD’s Long War Journal,
March 3, 2018.
150. Jacob Zenn, “Demystifying al Qaeda in Nigeria:
Cases from Boko Haram’s Founding, Launch of Jihad
and Suicide Bombings,” Perspectives on Terrorism,
11:6, 2017.
151. “IS Affiliate Establishes Stronghold in West Africa,”
Reuters, April 29, 2018.
152. John Vandiver, “ISIS, Routed in Iraq and Syria, is
Quietly Gaining Strength in Africa,” Stars and Stripes,
February 17, 2018.
153. Helene Cooper, “Boko Haram and ISIS Are
Collaborating More, U.S. Military Says,” New York
Times, April 20, 2016.
154. Carla Babb, “Congressman Says Africa Next ‘Hot
Spot’ for Islamic State,” VOA News, December 7,
2017.
155. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)
– The Hague, “Foreign Fighters Phenomenon in the
EU: Profiles, Threats and Policies,” 2016:
https://icct.nl/publication/report-the-foreign-
fighters-phenomenon-in-the-eu-profiles-threats-
policies.
156. Vidino et al., Fear Thy Neighbor, pp. 15–16.
157. Marc Hecker and Elie Tenenbaum, “France vs.
Jihadism: The Republic in a New Age of Terror,” IFRI,
January 2017:
https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/notes-de-
 lifri/notes-de-lifri/france-vs-jihadism-republic-new-
age-terror.
158. William McCants and Christopher Meserole, “The
French Connection,” Foreign Affairs, March 24, 2016:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-03-
24/french-connection.
159. Conrad Hackett, “5 Facts About the Muslim
Population in Europe,” Pew Research Center,
November 29, 2017.
160. Gilles Kepel, Tamara Cofman Wittes, and Matthew
Levitt, “The Rise of Jihad in Europe: Views from
France,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
PolicyWatch 2806, May 19, 2017:
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-
analysis/view/the-rise-of-jihad-in-europe-views-
from-france.
161. Laurence Peter, “How France is Wrestling with
Jihadist Terror,” BBC News, July 28, 2016.
162. Mitch Prothero, “Their Parents Fought with ISIS.
Now France is Trying to Figure Out What to Do with
Them,” Buzzfeed, February 19, 2018.
163. Fidelma Cook and Jake Wallis Simons, “Jihadi
Capital of France,” Daily Mail, November 18, 2015.
164. George Heil, “The Berlin Attack and the ‘Abu Walaa’
Islamic State Recruitment Network,” CTC Sentinel,
10:2, February 2017.
165. Daniel H. Heinke, “German Foreign Fighters in
Syria and Iraq: The Updated Data and Its
Implications,” CTC Sentinel, 10:3, March 2017.
166. Caroline Copley and Madeline Chambers, “Germany
Bans Islamist ‘True Religion’ Group, Raiding Mosques
and Flats,” Reuters, November 15, 2016.
167. “Germany Terrorism Prosecution Cases Soar,”
Deutsche Welle, October 22, 2017.
168. Jamie Dettmer, “Germany Alarmed by
‘Kindergarten Jihadists,’” VOA News, February 2,
2018.
169. Liam Stack, “Terrorist Attacks in Britain: A Short
History,” New York Times, June 4, 2017.
170. Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Seamus
Hughes, “The Threat to the United States from the
Islamic State’s Virtual Entrepreneurs,” CTC Sentinel,
10:3, March 2017; see also “Who Are Britain’s
Jihadists?” BBC News, October 12, 2017.
171. Michael Kenney, Stephen Coulthart, and Dominick
Wright, “Structure and Performance in a Violent
Extremist Network,” Journal of Conflict Resolution,
61:10, 2017, pp. 2208–34.
172. Email exchange with Michael Kenney, June 2018.
173. Lizzie Dearden, “UK Home to Up to 25,000 Islamist
Extremists Who Could Pose a Threat, EU Official
Warns,” Independent, September 1, 2017.
174. Michael Holden, “Teacher Tried to Create ‘Army of
Children’ to Launch Terror Attacks in London,”
Reuters UK, March 2, 2018.
175. Aaron Williams, Kaeit Hinck, Laris Karklis, Kevin
Schaul, and Stephanie Stamm, “How Two Brussels
Neighborhoods Became a ‘Breeding Ground’ for
Terror,” Washington Post, April 1, 2016.
176. Paul Cruickshank, “The Inside Story of the Paris and
Brussels Attacks,” CNN.com, October 30, 2017.
177. Pieter Van Ostaeyen, “Belgian Radical Networks and
the Road to the Brussels Attacks,” CTC Sentinel, 9:6,
June 2016.
178. By some accounts, Zerkani was responsible for
convincing more than 60 young men to go to fight in
Iraq and Syria; see Guy Van Vlierden, “Molenbeek
and Beyond. The Brussels–Antwerp Axis as Hotbed of
Belgian Jihad,” in Arturo Varvelli, ed., Jihadist
 Hotbeds: Understanding Local Radicalization
Processes, Milan: Italian Institute for International
Political Studies (ISPI), 2016.
179. Rik Coolsaet, “Facing the Fourth Foreign Fighters
Wave: What Drives Europeans to Syria, and to Islamic
State? Insights from the Belgian Case,” Egmont
Institute, Egmont Paper 81, March 2016, p. 8:
www.egmontinstitute.be/facing-the-fourth-foreign-
fighters-wave.
180. Teun Voeten, “Molenbeek Broke My Heart,”
Politico, March 23, 2016.
181. Matthew Levitt, “My Journey to Brussels’ Terrorist
Safe Haven,” Politico, March 27, 2016.
182. Cynthia Kroet, “Belgium’s Molenbeek Home to 51
Groups with Terror Link: Report,” Politico, March 20,
2017.
183. Thomas Renard and Rik Coolsaet, “Reassessing
Belgium’s ‘Failed’ Counterterrorism Policy,” Lawfare,
March 22, 2018. See also Rik Coolsaet and Thomas
Renard, “Returnees: Who Are They, Why Are They
(Not) Coming Back and How Should We Deal with
Them? Assessing Policies on Returning Foreign
Terrorist Fighters in Belgium, Germany, and The
Netherlands,” Egmont Institute, February 6, 2018.
4
From “Remain and Expand” to
Survive and Persist
While it has become fashionable to defy conventional
wisdom and to proffer the final demise of IS, few serious
analysts argue that the Islamic State has been defeated
once and for all. Many believe that the group will rise
again, most probably right back in Iraq, or perhaps more
likely Syria, where it is currently reverting to its previous
form as a “mobile, brutal Sunni Arab insurgent
organization.”1 The future of IS in the Middle East is of a
group that will hunker down, husbanding its resources
and going to ground, laying the foundation for a
longsimmering insurgency while it bides time. IS and its
followers view the establishment of the caliphate as a
watershed moment in history – this is the defining
moment for contemporary Islam, the Salafi-jihadists’
“Khomeini moment,” which indicates a historical
achievement that will reverberate well beyond the
present day. And, moving forward, the remaining sinew
of the organization will stop at nothing to return to this
glory.
The defining characteristics of IS in the future are those
of an organization that is well prepared, able to adapt
and evolve, and poised to take advantage of any missteps
by the governments in Syria and Iraq, as well as
continued ineptitude and weak capacity of the security
forces operating throughout the region.2

Preparation
There is no doubt that IS has prepared for the long haul
in the valleys and gullies along the Euphrates River. Its
fighters have stockpiled arms, fuel, water, and food in
trenches.3 Because IS controlled such large swaths of
territory across Iraq and Syria – at its peak, the group
occupied an area the size of Britain with 12 million under
its sway – it was able to enjoy unmolested freedom of
movement to prepare for the next phase of the conflict.4
Militants pre-positioned large quantities of cash, which
they buried under sand berms and hoarded weapons,
ammunition, and bomb-making materials in pre-
fabricated tunnels throughout parts of northern Iraq.5
After declaring the caliphate in 2014, IS leadership
recognized that it would inevitably return to these areas
to re-instigate guerilla warfare.6 The Iraqi security forces
have reclaimed Mosul and ejected IS from the majority
of its Iraqi strongholds, but they have done so with the
backing of the US military and its Coalition allies. But for
the Islamic State, this is a generational struggle, and its
remaining leadership probably believes that the United
States will ultimately withdraw, and the sectarian strife
that has defined post-Saddam Iraq will return with a
vengeance, pushing Sunni Arabs back into the Islamic
State’s embrace.
It comes as little surprise that IS would prepare for the
next phase of its lifecycle, because it has been following a
similar pattern of behavior since its inception, dating
back to the mid-2000s when IS was known as al-Qaeda
in Iraq, led by the Jordanian terror chieftain Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.7 Many of the Islamic State’s surviving
fighters are thought to be holed up, hiding in isolated
terrain, such as desert or mountainous regions, and
among civilian populations in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.8
As Hassan Hassan has pointed out in his research, as
part of a “calculated strategy,” the Islamic State’s
remaining fighters deliberately “melted away” in the
border region between Iraq and Syria divided by the
Euphrates River.9 They live to fight another day, while
mimicking the strategies of subversion and sabotage
perfected by other Maoist-style insurgencies throughout
recent history.

Adaptation
Above all else, it is critical to understand that the Islamic
State is a learning organization. This is one of the key
precepts of its success. In preparation for previous times
of uncertainty, it has been revealed that the group has
widely read Abu Bakr Naji’s The Management of
Savagery, a jihadi gospel of sorts for waging an
unrelenting campaign of insurgency and violence against
the enemies of Islam.10 It is thus important to note that,
while IS has indeed lost most of its territory, it still
boasts a committed cadre of operatives, including
members of its elite intelligence unit, the Emni, and
militants with administrative and bureaucratic
experience – what IS experts Benjamin Bahney and
Patrick Johnston have dubbed “the glue of the IS
organization from top to bottom.”11 These organizational
skills are indispensable to the group’s ability to survive,
serving as “muscle memory” for how to galvanize fighters
and marshal the resources necessary if the caliphate is
ever to be restored.
Even in early 2018, there were already clear signs that IS
had regrouped. In the Hamreen Mountains, in northern
Iraq, a group of between 500 and 1,100 IS fighters calling
themselves “the White Flags” reconstituted, coordinating
attacks on local security services.12 Throughout Kirkuk,
IS fighters constructed fake checkpoints to ambush Iraqi
security forces operating in the area. They also set out to
destroy oil tankers and target Shiite civilians making
religious pilgrimages.13 In Kirkuk and elsewhere,
including Diayala and Salahaddin, IS sleeper cells helped
organize what Hassan Hassan has called “rasd,” roughly
equivalent to scoping, or reconnaissance, of these areas
to determine how best to operate before reorganizing
small formations of fighters.14 And despite the onslaught
of US bombing raids, pockets of militants remain holed
up in Hajin, north of Abu Kamal, and Dashisha, on the
outskirts of Deir ez-Zor.15
Besides recapturing physical territory in the areas where
it formerly governed, the Islamic State will continue to
perpetuate the “virtual caliphate,” tailoring messages to
Western audiences that elicit sympathy while urging
revenge (this subject will be covered in depth in chapter
5).16 By inciting Muslims to commit acts of terror in its
name, IS remains relevant by keeping its brand in the
news cycle, ensuring its ability to recruit new members,
including younger generations of Muslims who may
revere the generation that came before them and was
able to successfully establish a true Islamic caliphate.
Again, al -Suri’s ideas, promulgated during the late
1990s, have proved to be much more salient for how
things have evolved into the modern era of terrorist
attacks by al-Qaeda and IS, as well as by their affiliates.
The trend of “do it yourself” terrorism carried out by
inspired jihadists with no direct links to any established
group is a major concern for the future evolution of
terrorism. Joining a group is now considered less
important than committing an act in the name of bin
Laden, or, more recently, Baghdadi. Zawahiri is far less
charismatic than bin Laden was, which partly accounts
for his limited ability to inspire the kind of widespread
growth of the movement al-Suri had envisioned. Still, as
evidenced by their releasing media within a week of each
other in late August 2018, both Zawahiri and Baghdadi
remain focused on exhorting their followers to launch
attacks against the West, with the IS leader urging “the
supporters of the Caliphate” to conduct attacks using
guns, knives, or bombs in the West.17 But the path
forward is anything but linear. The current situation in
Syria is one of a highly fractious and atomized jihadist
landscape.18 Now, perhaps more than at any other point
in the conflict, IS is vulnerable to having its fighters
absorbed by al-Qaeda, which is a reverse of the process
that began in 2014, when IS was consistently convincing
large segments of al-Qaeda-related groups to join the
Islamic State.19 Al-Qaeda has even begun using “re-
radicalisation” programs, complete with courses based
on a “sharia-bureau approved curriculum of jihad” to
indoctrinate fighters joining its organization after having
recently been IS members.20

Opportunism
Even though the Islamic State has changed, the
structural factors throughout the Middle East which
facilitated its rise have not. In some instances, they have
worsened. Civil wars, jihadist ideology fueled by
sectarianism, a dearth of regime legitimacy, economic
weakness, and external intervention by states still largely
define regional politics.21 In his book Waging Insurgent
Warfare, Seth Jones details the three most important
factors in increasing the probability of an insurgency:
local grievances, weak governance, and greed – all three
of which are apparent in Iraq and Syria.22 Not only are
these factors important in starting an insurgency, but
also they factor into the duration of an insurgency. IS has
been particularly adroit at capitalizing upon the
grievances – both real and perceived – of Sunni Arabs in
Iraq and Syria, and will be actively looking for the next
opportunity to further exacerbate latent and existing
ethnic and religious strife in local communities. There is
also the potential that IS could seek to co-opt Sunni
tribes in the region, as it has done before, especially in
2014–15, through a combination of money and
coercion.23
Throughout parts of Hawija district in Iraq, Islamic State
fighters return to their former strongholds in the dark of
night, sometimes to threaten villagers, other times to
exact revenge by assassinating their enemies.24 In Syria,
IS fighters continue to inhabit ever smaller chunks of
territory due west of the Syrian–Iraqi border, while also
demonstrating the ability to launch sporadic attacks in
some of the suburbs around Syria’s capital, Damascus. IS
is constantly searching for new pipelines of recruitment
and its ideology remains popular among residents of
Palestinian refugee camps, in concert with the Khalid bin
al-Walid Army.25 There is a real sense that if the Islamic
State’s former urban strongholds, including areas like
Tal Afar and Qaim, are not quickly addressed with a
robust and comprehensive stabilization and
reconstruction plan, they will soon fall back under the
sway of those advocating violent extremism.26 In
addition to these areas, others considered “high-risk”
include western Mosul, Hawija and its surrounding
environs, and a swath of territory along the Tigris River
from Baiji to Sharga.27 Given the Iraq government’s poor
track record of assuaging Sunni grievances, few are
sanguine that Baghdad will muster the political will to
pacify the populations of Ramadi, Tikrit, Samarra, and
Fallujah, cities that comprised a considerable portion of
violence in the so-called Sunni Triangle.
As other rivalries flare up in Syria, the fight against IS is
taking a back seat. Indeed, the Syrian Democratic Forces,
backed by the United States, are focused on fighting
elements of the Assad regime, while Turkey is focused on
countering the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and SDF
in northern Syria. This all takes away from the fight
against the Islamic State, which has used the respite to
begin connecting cells and supply lines across Syria.28
The Assad regime has done remarkably little to combat
IS, instead preferring to focus on other anti-regime
elements around Homs, Hama, and Aleppo. Indeed,
many fleeing IS fighters appeared to be able to move
with impunity through territory nominally controlled by
the Assad regime, which was either unwilling or unable
to prevent their freedom of movement.29
The post-conflict reconstruction challenges in Iraq,
particularly in places like Mosul, are immense. As RAND
researchers Shelly Culbertson and Linda Robinson
highlight in their work, another wave of violence could
easily devastate Iraq “in a matter of months” if
stabilization activities are insufficient and
underfunded.30 In neighboring Syria, although post-
conflict reconstruction seems years away at this point, if
and when eastern portions of the country begin to be
rebuilt, IS will probably rely on its Syrian members to
infiltrate security and governance structures.31 IS knows
these cities, towns, and villages and the local populations
that still live there. Even though the territory it once
controlled has now been largely usurped, when it was
attempting to govern, IS did so quite effectively,
providing its subjects with security, justice, and a clear, if
draconian, set of rules by which to live.32
Strategy
At its apex, the Islamic State’s strategy could perhaps
best be summarized through its oft-repeated slogan,
“Baqiya wa Tatamaddad,” or “Remaining and
Expanding.”33 But with the loss of the caliphate, IS, and
the global jihadist movement writ large, is in flux once
again. And since the movement is far from a monolith, it
is difficult to conceptualize an overarching strategy, per
se, although it has become clear that both IS and al-
Qaeda are actively seeking to remain in areas where they
are currently strong, while also opportunistically
dispersing fighters and resources to new areas where
they can refortify, and expand once again, with the
ultimate goal of controlling large swaths of territory and
people. IS is known for many things – its penchant for
violence, its ability to raise funds, and its sophisticated
propaganda apparatus – but perhaps its greatest
strength, and the one characteristic that will help it
survive, is its oft-overlooked willingness to evolve and
change in response to conditions on the ground. Its
surviving leadership remains extremely aware of the
need to balance strategic considerations and encourage
strategic learning via doctrine.34
The global jihadist movement’s most prolific strategists
believe in the objective of establishing a caliphate, even
while they disagree over the strategy to achieve this goal,
as well as the timeline.35 There is already compelling
evidence that the movement is invoking the nostalgia of
the caliphate to begin framing its future strategy.36
Raqqa has been recaptured, but the Islamic State proved
to its followers – and to the world – that, despite the
enormous odds against such a proposition, it is possible
to construct a jihadi proto-state capable of both
governing and defending its borders. Granted, that state
has now been conquered, but the fact that it could be
established in the first place is the narrative that IS will
cling to in its future propaganda. Moreover, it will
highlight that this state could only be realized by the will
of God, and that the reason it no longer exists is due to
the actions of the infidels and Crusaders, evoking images
of an eternal battle between good and evil, believers and
non-believers, faithful Muslims and everyone else. As
Craig Whiteside argues:
To fuel the information campaigns of the next three
decades, much like yesterday’s jihadists look back to
Qutb and Azzam, IS and its rivals (including al-
Qaeda) will use the caliphate idea and the
understanding of the importance of local control
and governance as proof positive of how to advance
this political goal in the future. No one can ever tell
them it is impossible anymore.37
The ongoing split between IS and al-Qaeda has not
prevented the former from relying on the strategic
guidance provided by notable figures from the latter,
including jihadist strategists such as Abu Musab al-Suri,
Abu Bakr Naji, and Anwar al-Awlaki.38 Overall, despite
current fissures in the movement, its leaders and
followers have far more in common than they may
recognize. As Daniel Byman has argued, “If jihadists
disagree on fundamental outcomes, then any unity of
purpose or organization will be much harder to achieve.
If the question is simply one of priorities, then changes
in circumstances can bring different factions together in
the name of expediency.”39 In the past, opposition to
apostate regimes and Western imperialists has proven to
be an attractive elixir in this regard. By slightly reframing
its narrative and modifying its tactics, the global jihadist
movement could seek to unite its own warring factions.
Sardonically, it may be the Coalition’s destruction of the
caliphate that helps the movement refine its overall
strategy. IS proved that building a state could be done
successfully, albeit temporarily, while al-Qaeda would
suggest that the caliphate collapsed because its
declaration was premature, and the focus should instead
be on gradualism and educating the global ummah.40 In
recent years, al-Qaeda’s strategy has morphed from one
focused obsessively on attacking the West to one defined
by a desire to win the support of local populations in the
areas it operates in.41 A troubling scenario is one in
which the erstwhile strategies of IS and al-Qaeda
successfully merge into a singular, coherent approach for
the global jihadist movement more broadly – one
defined by cultivating local support on a truly global
level, while aggressively attacking nation-states and
groups it deems as enemies, infidels, and adversaries.

Tactics
At the heart of the movement’s future strategic direction
will be the tactics adopted to achieve its objectives along
the way. Along the same lines as the jihadists’ approach
to strategy, both IS and al-Qaeda offer unique
refinements and approaches to tactical innovation that, if
combined and harnessed in concert, could prove to have
a devastating and destabilizing effect in various theatres
throughout the globe.42 Moreover, as commercial off-
the-shelf technologies become ubiquitous and easier to
acquire, it would come as little surprise if jihadist groups
were to exploit advances in unmanned aerial systems,
artificial intelligence (AI), and 3-D printing to close the
gap between their capabilities and those of advanced
militaries. Indeed, as Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has
noted, “for jihadist organizations, the ability to innovate
is a necessity, not a luxury.”43
The Islamic State’s unique contribution to tactical
evolution has been impressive. IS has pioneered the use
of the virtual planner model for external operations.44
This innovation allows terrorists in one location to direct
attacks in another part of the world with only an Internet
connection and reliable encryption.45 In many cases,
jihadists are able to leverage local criminal networks that
act as facilitators to help acquire the logistics and
resources necessary for an attack.46 Even as Western
nations have devoted substantial resources to countering
this threat, savvy tacticians within the global jihadist
movement will continue to rely on encrypted online
messaging applications to identify local recruits and
provide them with directions and technical expertise to
attack targets, a development that poses a formidable
threat to countries with less than adequate military,
intelligence, and law enforcement capabilities.47 The
devastating Paris November 2015 attacks could serve as
the model operation from the terrorists’ point of view.48
The other more recent tactic to take note of is al-Qaeda’s
focus on “winning hearts and minds” as a method of
securing and cementing its legitimacy among local
constituencies.49 Al-Qaeda has repeatedly demonstrated
a pragmatic approach to operating in amidst civil wars,
as evidenced by its actions in Syria, Yemen, and Mali.50
If the global jihadist movement recognizes the
importance of popular support and subsequently tones
down its sectarian rhetoric, it remains entirely possible
that Salafi groups could emerge as more preferable
alternatives than the weak and corrupt regimes holding
office throughout large swaths of the Muslim world.

Ongoing Debates in Jihadi Ideology

Sunni jihadism is a “social movement family with its
general foundation in Sunni theology, more specifically
in the concept and practice of Jihad, and to some extent
in the specific doctrine of Salafism.”51 As Cole Bunzel
points out, while IS and al-Qaeda are the “principal
organizational expressions” of the jihadi movement,
jihadism is both an ideology and a “highly developed
system of thought deeply-rooted in certain aspects of the
Islamic tradition,” and, as such, the sum of the
movement itself is far greater than its individual parts.52
The split between IS and al-Qaeda is occurring amidst a
wider disagreement permeating the ranks of some of the
leading jihadist ideologues. The infighting is nothing
new. There have been many well-publicized spats in the
past between jihadist leaders. What used to be hashed
out through long and highly esoteric handwritten letters
exchanged between ideologues has now devolved into
social media feuds playing out in the public domain in
chat rooms on the Internet. Rik Coolsaet commented on
the continued rift between the two groups, noting that “a
small but strident camp of hardliners consider Daesh’s
official ideology insufficiently radical and are pushing for
an even more extremist stance that would exclude all
possible cooperation with other jihadist groups,
including al Qaeda.”53
The debate centers on several themes in particular –
takfirism, tatarrus, sharia law, and when to declare a
caliphate – but is also reflected in both organizational
and operational differences between the global jihadist
movement’s two heavyweights. The subject which has led
to the most caustic debate has been over who can claim
to be a proper, devout, and righteous Muslim. IS has
taken takfirism, or the practice of declaring other
Muslims to be non-believers due to their supposed
apostasy or heresy, to new extremes.54 Yet, ultimately, its
leadership eventually recognized that this practice might
be counterproductive, especially as the group is losing
territory and needs to rejuvenate its ranks with an influx
of new recruits. In September 2017, IS religious
leadership appeared to soften its stance on this matter,
issuing a revocation of an earlier religious edict that
broadened the scope of takfirism.55 Still, the debate
continued to rage, with the ideological rift mostly
centered on whether those who remain reticent to
excommunicate apostates and unbelievers should
themselves be excommunicated.56 Some of the Islamic
State’s hard-core ideologues view the group’s
commitment to takfir as even more important than
prayer and other fundamental components of Salafism.57
Apparently, there is even a hardcore group of IS
militants, which Tore Hamming refers to as “the
extremist wing of the Islamic State,” that sees Baghdadi
as “soft,” leading to further fragmentation of the group.58
Another thread within this debate is over the concept of
tatarrus, or whom and what constitute legitimate targets
for jihadists’ violence. “Al Qaeda has tried to learn its
lesson from this and compared to 15 years ago, the group
is far more discerning in its targeting, while the same
cannot be said about IS. The differing approaches have
been described as ‘winning hearts and minds’ (al-Qaeda)
versus ‘crushing necks and spines’ (IS).”59 This shift is
reflected in the styles and organizational structures of
the two groups. To succeed, al-Qaeda believes that the
support of the population is crucial, part of its Maoist-
style insurgent approach, while IS’s focoist-style
approach views violence as instrumental and
redeeming.60
Even before the Arab Spring, as early as 2010, bin Laden
was advocating for a change in al-Qaeda’s approach,
calling for “an advisory reading and development of our
entire policy.”61 In September 2013 Zawahiri authored
“General Guidelines for Jihad,” which called for a more
restrained approach, one consistent with a population-
centric strategy.62 This extends to how harshly to
implement sharia law, especially taking into
consideration local and tribal mores and customs. And
for those jihadists arguing that al-Qaeda has lost its way,
the move to be more accommodating toward civilian
populations is perfectly in line, and in fact synchronized,
with its strategy of garnering lasting and widespread
popular support before it declares a caliphate of its own,
which has always been part of al-Qaeda’s long-term
strategy.

The IS–Al-Qaeda Dispute

The fall-out from the split between IS and al-Qaeda has
led to a competition viewed by both sides as zero sum in
nature, where progress by one of these groups signaled a
loss for the other. One of the primary drivers of such a
heated competition is that, in many ways, the ideology
and objectives of the group are so similar. The Islamic
State reverted to extreme levels of violence as one
method of differentiating itself from its rivals, including
al-Qaeda. Both groups are attempting to recruit from the
same milieus and influence similar constituencies. The
main differences are that IS sought to create a caliphate
on a timeline considered premature by al-Qaeda, and IS
pursued a far more sectarian agenda in attempting to
achieve this objective. Whether and how these
differences are ever resolved will have a major impact on
the future of the movement writ large.
The split itself occurred at the leadership levels of these
groups, so one of the most interesting questions is: to
what extent do foot soldiers and mid-level commanders
really care, in actuality, about the previous infighting and
strategic disputes? For some of the fighters at these
levels, there is an obvious parallel to conflicts between
street gangs, where members like the Bloods and Crips
“fly their colors” – or represent their gangs by wearing
their distinctive colors – and continuously disparage
their adversaries by posting “dis videos” online, mocking
and threatening rivals.63 The bitterness and divisiveness
of the feud has played out on social media, with leaders
on each side hurling vituperation and casting
opprobrium on the other as “bad Muslims.” The initial
castigation came from al-Qaeda’s leader Zawahiri
himself, who fulminated against IS for being deviant
from the al-Qaeda methodology.
The truth is, as outlined in chapter 1’s discussion of al-
Qaeda in Iraq, that the relationship was doomed from
the start. The group that would eventually become IS has
always been something of a rogue element, formed and
led by Zarqawi, who fought hard to preserve the
independence of his affiliate. Even after pledging his
loyalty to bin Laden and assuming the al-Qaeda moniker,
Zarqawi still ignored directions from al-Qaeda’s core
leadership and narrowly pursued his own sectarian
agenda in hopes of igniting a Sunni–Shia civil war, first
within Iraq, and then throughout the wider Islamic
world. One of al-Qaeda’s first steps to present itself as
more evenhanded was denouncing blatant sectarianism
and working to convince AQI to jettison sectarianism as
a guiding principle. When, in July 2005, Zawahiri
penned a letter to the leader of AQI chastising him for
his group’s wanton slaughter of Shiites, the former
stressed the overall negative impact these actions were
having on the al-Qaeda brand and urged him to eschew
targeting other Muslims. When Zarqawi disregarded
Zawahiri’s advice, he cemented AQI’s reputation as a
ruthless organization where violence was almost an end
in and of itself.
So while the initial rift began deepening in Iraq in the
mid-2000s, it developed into an internecine struggle
during the early years of the Syrian civil war. Following
the fall-out, al-Qaeda has worked assiduously to
reestablish itself as a major factor in the Levant; to
accomplish this, it has been forced to overcome several
significant setbacks related to its organizational unity
and coherence.64 Al-Qaeda’s initial presence in Syria was
through an affiliation with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic
State in Iraq’s erstwhile Syria branch. In mid-2016,
Nusra rebranded itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and later
merged with other terrorist splinter groups to form
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist umbrella
organization, which put even more distance between
itself and al-Qaeda. As of mid-2018, al-Qaeda had no
formal affiliate in Syria but still commanded the loyalty
of several high-profile militants. Some al-Qaeda loyalists
announced the formation of yet another new group,
Tanzim Hurras al-Din, or the Religious Guardians’
Organization, in 2018. While HTS remains focused on
events in Syria, Tanzim Hurras al-Din is headed by al-
Qaeda veterans who may seek to use Syria as a base to
launch high-profile terrorist attacks against the West.65
This posture is a departure from al-Qaeda’s recent focus
on grassroots appeal in Syria and, if it comes to fruition,
it will probably have significant ramifications for the
group’s return to its former glory. Another important
angle is that there are several Jordanian jihadi veterans
among Tanzim Hurras al-Din’s leadership cadre who
were close to Zarqawi and, as such, there is both
historical and ideological affinity with IS, which
increases the probability that Hurras might successfully
poach IS members and bring them into the al-Qaeda
fold.66
The rebranding process for al-Qaeda in Syria was
undertaken partly out of necessity, but it was also
strategic in nature. From a pragmatic standpoint, the
rebrandings have served to put some distance between
al-Qaeda and a host of imitators and rivals. This could be
an effort by the group to learn from past mistakes, when
the leadership’s reluctance to publicly disavow Zarqawi
traded short-term gains for long-term losses and
eventually contributed to the split, an event that seemed
like an existential threat to al-Qaeda throughout 2014.
The strategic part of the rebranding is no different from a
company’s use of public relations and marketing to
refashion its image – al-Qaeda now seeks to present
itself as the “moderate alternative” to the Islamic State.67
The IS brand was represented by the caliphate and the
group’s reliance on anomic violence, while al-Qaeda
sought to position itself as an organization more adept at
strategic planning and with more attractive prospects for
enduring success in the future.68
Although the rebranding is considered a feint by many
counterterrorism scholars, it just might have worked to
recast al-Qaeda’s image within Syria.69 And so, even
while the emergence of IS at one point threatened the
existence of al-Qaeda, it also presented the latter with an
opportunity. Al-Qaeda’s calculated decision to distance
itself from its former satellite organization was an effort
to portray itself as a legitimate, capable, and
independent force in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Another objective was to prove that the militants were
dedicated to helping Syrians prevail in their struggle.70
Finally, it would give core al-Qaeda a modicum of
plausible deniability as it paves the way for its erstwhile
allies to gain eligibility for military aid from a collection
of external nations.71
Now that the Islamic State has lost its caliphate, al-
Qaeda may be the only group viewed as militarily
capable of challenging the Assad regime’s grip on power,
although, as of early 2019, that seems like a long shot.
Al-Qaeda could certainly prove to be the longer-term
threat to stability in Syria, primarily due to its grassroots
support and local appeal. Unlike the Islamic State, al-
Qaeda is perceived as an entity willing to work with the
population and possessing the resources necessary to
provide at least some of the trappings of governance. In
the long term, al-Qaeda could resemble Lebanese
Hezbollah – a violent non-state actor that has solidified
political legitimacy while still retaining its ability to wage
large-scale acts of terrorism and political violence.72
Depending on where it operates, al-Qaeda has shifted
between protector, predator, and parasite, labels which
are not mutually exclusive. In both Yemen and Mali, its
members demonstrate a remarkable knack for
pragmatism when operating in the midst of brutal civil
wars. After infiltrating local rebel groups, al-Qaeda
fighters parrot their grievances and champion parochial
objectives. After ingratiating its fighters, al-Qaeda then
ramps up proselytization efforts and introduces a
narrative defined by a mixture of local and global
themes. Unlike the Islamic State, al-Qaeda is willing to
work with other groups, as it has been doing in Syria,
where it typically puts locals in charge of units,
battalions, and other military formations, lending a
sense of local legitimacy to its face in the country.
Moreover, al-Qaeda has displayed a penchant for
cooperation beyond immediate conflict zones, as
evidenced by on-again, off-again tactical cooperation
with Iran.
One of the most debated issues within the global jihadist
movement is the so-called “near versus far debate” about
which enemies the militants should concentrate the bulk
of their efforts fighting – local apostate regimes or
Western countries, especially the United States, but
increasingly also the United Kingdom, France, and
Australia. Al-Qaeda in Syria has managed to boost its
brand through the provision of local services, including
water and electricity, while also working to support local
bakeries and control market prices of basic foodstuffs. Its
leadership publicly announced that it will refrain from
attacking the West, at least temporarily, in order to avoid
Western counterterrorism reprisals, while
simultaneously conserving its resources to concentrate
on overthrowing the Assad regime, by far the top priority
of Syrian Sunnis.
Al-Qaeda’s Syrian leadership also recognizes that it is
infinitely more successful when it focuses on local issues
instead of a more amorphous and contested struggle
with the West. These tensions seem to be at least partly
to blame for the continued fracturing and splintering of
al-Qaeda in Syria and its multiple iterations and
offshoots. The debate over whether to focus locally or to
revert back to a relentless quest to conduct spectacular
attacks in the West could lead to a long-term and
enduring fissure within the global jihadist movement.
With the movement already divided by the al-Qaeda – IS
split, this issue, similar to the decision on when to
attempt to establish the caliphate, is a core ideological
debate that is unlikely to be settled anytime soon.
For all of al-Qaeda’s attempts at moderation, IS has
behaved in an entirely opposite manner, as it pursued an
uncompromising strategy of sectarianism, barbarity, and
conquest. IS fully embraced sectarianism, seemingly
making the killing of Shiites its raison d’être. And while
al-Qaeda’s propaganda might still be peppered with
derogatory references to Shiites, in general it favors a
much more measured approach than IS. The groups are
different in many ways, some subtle and others not. For
example, rather than working with local groups, IS
consistently acted as a conquering army, routing local
militant leaders rather than working alongside them. In
addition, locals were taxed, extorted, and closely policed
by IS religious patrols to ensure strict adherence to
sharia law.
IS’s approach to warfare was reflected in its fighting
style, whereby the group relied on conventional means of
warfare, including artillery and tanks, in combination
with some asymmetric tactics. When IS assumed control
of a certain swath of territory, it often installed
foreigners (Chechens, Tunisians, and Uzbeks) in
command of the area. But its success came with a price.
The more territory IS took over and the more brazen its
displays of military might, the more likely the Coalition
could no longer ignore its actions. The result was that,
compared to other Salafi-jihadist groups operating in
Syria, IS bore the brunt of Western counterterrorism
operations, a development that suited al-Qaeda just
fine.73 The relentless stream of IS propaganda directed at
the West – particularly the gruesome videos of
beheadings, burnings, and crucifixions – left the
Coalition with little choice but to set its sights on the
caliphate.74 The success IS experienced in building its
proto-state elevated it to the top priority for the
Coalition. Accordingly, al-Qaeda in Syria was given
breathing room to patiently rebuild its credibility and
political legitimacy among locals.75 Gartenstein-Ross has
described this as a “strategy of deliberate yet low-key
growth.”76
The future of al-Qaeda and IS will be largely defined by
the competition between the two. There is little debate
that, beginning around 2014, IS could successfully lay
claim to be the undisputed leader of the global jihadist
movement. Once its caliphate collapsed, that began to
change, and its current decline may be accompanied by
al-Qaeda’s rise back to preeminence. There are clear
signs that al-Qaeda has modified its tactics to take
advantage of what it sees as a unique opportunity. In
Syria’s Idlib province, al-Qaeda successfully cultivated
grassroots support and by mid-2017 was beginning to
accept former IS fighters into its ranks, a development
most would have thought unthinkable just a year or two
earlier. Al-Qaeda’s leadership realizes that its response
to the Arab Spring was sclerotic and is now making
amends, focusing its resources and energy on the
concerns most salient to Sunnis, a strategy that has
helped the group spread its roots throughout
northwestern Syria. It has also used this strategy
successfully throughout parts of Yemen, where it
operates under various front organizations, branches of
Ansar Sharia, and other Salafi groups.77
Al-Qaeda’s more balanced and predictable approach to
governing is geared toward winning the popular support
of civilian populations. Life under the Islamic State, even
for its own loyal subjects, was enforced by draconian
religious interpretations and subsequent enforcement of
punishments for those who were not fastidious and
completely obedient. Al-Qaeda was far less stringent and
could be indifferent to perceived offenses that would
draw harsh rebuke from the Islamic State. The year 2018
marked the 30-year anniversary of al-Qaeda’s founding
and it is clear that the group has evolved, adapted, and
learned over time. Its ability to establish widespread
political legitimacy through a refurbished image could
propel the group through well into its fourth decade.
This shift over time by al-Qaeda to a more tolerant
organization was in part a result of Zawahiri’s leadership.
For all of the criticism he endures for lacking charisma, a
critique most jihadist scholars find unassailable,
Zawahiri does give al-Qaeda the benefit of continuity and
a historical appreciation for what has traditionally
worked and what has failed in the jihadists’ ongoing
struggle against their adversaries. With his direction, the
group has made course corrections based on trial and
error and actively sought to amend previous errors in
doctrine and strategy.
Al-Qaeda in Syria has gone to great lengths to protect its
image by rebranding its affiliate several times already.
Bilaad al-Shaam, or the Land of the Levantine People, is
highly coveted by multiple groups within the global
jihadist movement for religious and geographical
reasons. Zawahiri sees Syria as an opportunity to
demonstrate relevance, juxtapose al-Qaeda to the Islamic
State, and position his group as the more capable and
pragmatic entity and, thus, the group worth siding with
as the competition continues.
Perhaps the most interesting change in al-Qaeda’s
behavior since the death of bin Laden is that the group
no longer seems obsessed with striking the West and,
indeed, according to Bruce Hoffman, in 2015 Zawahiri
issued strict orders to Mohammed al-Jolani not to use
Syria as a launching pad to attack the West.78 There are
several possible reasons for this decision, including that
al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Europe was not nearly as
robust as that of the Islamic State, and thus any attack
was pobably going to pale in comparison to what IS had
already achieved.
Another, more nefarious possibility is that Zawahiri is
merely playing the “long game” while strategically
concealing al-Qaeda’s Khorasan Group assets as IS is
further attenuated. Again, this might be changing with
the continued splintering of groups in Syria and the
emergence of Tanzim Hurras al-Din. At least in terms of
capability, if not intent, discerning a group’s
organizational structure could provide clues to its reach
and ability to conduct external attacks. Do groups adopt
a more decentralized structure to conduct external
attacks, or are attacks outside of the group’s main
territory a byproduct of a flatter structure? Relatedly, it
is possible that too much structure is assigned to jihadist
groups by those attempting to analyze them. Al-Qaeda
and IS, in addition to their respective affiliates, may in
reality be far less monolithic than scholars and analysts
believe.

The Future Is the Past

There are three distinct possibilities for the future of the
al-Qaeda–IS relationship: status quo, outbidding, and
rapprochement, each of which will be described in detail
below. Suffice to say that whatever form this relationship
assumes moving forward, it will be shaped just as much
by decisions undertaken by the groups and their
leadership cadre as it will by exogenous factors, which
include actions pursued by nation-states, and probably
by broader geopolitical phenomena, as evidenced by
previous changes ushered in by events like the Arab
Spring.

Status Quo
A continuation of the status quo would see the two
groups remain at odds in something of an uneasy co-
existence, operating in similar locales and attempting to
recruit new members from the same pool of people,
while also competing for access to weapons, financing,
and territory. This scenario features continued clashes
and frequent spats of violence where the dispute gets
kinetic, but still remains confined to low-intensity
conflict marked by assassinations, defections, and online
verbal disputes and harassment. In the Middle East and
other areas where the global jihadist movement
predominates, one particular cliché still has currency –
the enemy of my enemy is my friend. After all, as
described in other parts of this analysis, these groups
have more commonalities than they have differences.

Outbidding
Another possibility for al-Qaeda–IS relations in the
future is the prospect that the two groups ramp up the
competition by engaging in escalatory attacks against
each other (as well as against security forces) in a process
known as outbidding, wherein violent non-state groups
rely on extreme violence to persuade potential acolytes
that their terrorist or insurgent organization has a
stronger resolve to fight the adversary.79 This situation
has played out historically before, in Sri Lanka, Northern
Ireland, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. It could
once again become a defining feature of the conflicts in
Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and West Africa, where the
competition between al-Qaeda and IS leads to a spike in
suicide bombings, IEDs, and armed attacks. As part of
this scenario, in areas where both groups maintain a
presence, the result is a violent struggle to exert
dominance and command the loyalty of the population
by demonstrating superior military prowess vis-à-vis
their rivals.

Rapprochement
The possibility of rapprochement between al-Qaeda and
IS seems unlikely given the current state of affairs
between the groups, but it should not be wholly
jettisoned as a possibility. It may take a few years, but a
marriage of convenience in which tactical cooperation
becomes a necessity is an entirely realistic scenario.80
The result of enervated enmity would lead to decreased
violence between the groups and act as a force multiplier
for Salafi-jihadism, vastly increasing the threat of more
spectacular-style attacks around the globe.81 By working
together and pooling the resources of the two groups, the
newly formed (or reformed) organization would be
enhanced by tacit knowledge transfer of sophisticated
bomb-making methods, and shared tactics, techniques,
and procedures for improved operations security.
For this to happen, there would probably need to be
progress on mitigating some of the previously discussed
disputes between the two groups and a recognition that
ideological differences should not limit operational
capabilities. Where this becomes most concerning is if
the groups reunite and dedicate a significant portion of
their efforts to attacking the West; it is not difficult to
imagine a blitzkrieg-style propaganda offensive
highlighting the merger while simultaneously imploring
jihadists to launch attacks worldwide. To be sure, there
are serious obstacles to these groups reuniting, but
stranger things have happened. Al-Qaeda seemingly
overcame the Sunni–Shia divide by cooperating with
Iran, especially once the group’s leadership realized it
could benefit from tactical cooperation with the mullahs
in Tehran.82 So, in the end, if each group recognized the
net benefits of a partnership, a working relationship in
the future is not entirely out of the question.
Several top terrorism scholars have voiced skepticism
regarding future rapprochement, especially since al-
Qaeda and IS are engaged competitively on two different
levels – ideologically and militarily. Hassan Hassan, IS
expert and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,
is a fervent believer that no long-term merger will be
possible, remarking, “Even if the two organizations find
it operationally expedient to work together, their overall
strategies and visions cannot be bridged. Each views the
other’s strategy as ineffective.”83
Nevertheless, a major event like the death of Baghdadi
could prompt change and, relatedly, the split is most
pronounced at the leadership level. Among the lower
ranks, there is more fluidity between groups, so there
could be room for future collaboration and cooperation
between al-Qaeda and IS “pools.”84 Bruce Hoffman
agrees that the death of Baghdadi could lead to a
voluntary amalgamation of the remaining IS fighters
with al-Qaeda, or a bid from al-Qaeda (or its acolytes) to
undertake a hostile takeover of the surviving IS
remnants. Further, since the leaders in charge of IS’s
external operations and intelligence operations are
former Ba’athists – and both pragmatists and survivors
– there is a chance that they might ally themselves to
whomever and whichever group offered the best
prospects for survival and continuing the fight.85

What Happens Next?

The three possible futures for al-Qaeda and IS laid out
above could each contribute in a different way toward a
broader overview of the groups’ relative strengths and
weaknesses. The section below outlines four distinct
potential contexts, beyond whether or not the two groups
ever overcome their differences. These contextual
scenarios assess the relative strength and weakness of
each group and suggest a myriad of factors that might
result from the outcome. It should be noted that in each
of the scenarios described below, the groups remain as
separate entities, but that does not entirely rule out on-
again, off-again cooperation in specific regions at various
times, although the cooperation does not signal anything
close to reunification.

Intensification
In this scenario, both al-Qaeda and IS are at increased
strength. This could result from any number of real-
world developments, including a retrenched Western
posture in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
This scenario would see an expansion of the current
wave of religious terrorism and could breathe new life
into the global jihadist movement as a whole. Over the
past two decades, there have been several times when
analysts have predicted the demise of the movement –
namely, almost immediately after the United States
declared its Global War on Terror; once again following
the death of Osama bin Laden; and more recently,
following the recapture of the Islamic State’s strongholds
in Mosul and Raqqa and the destruction of its state-
building project. But, rather than view the end of the
caliphate as the beginning of the end of the movement,
some see its establishment in the first place as proof of
life, given the destructive energy it produced, luring
legions of Muslims from around the world to make
hijrah (emigration) to its state. Both al-Qaeda and IS
could take advantage of exogenous shocks to the system,
including another global financial crisis, which, in a
world of finite resources, would directly impact nation-
states’ ability to counter these groups. Predatory
insurgent organizations feast on the carcasses of states
where civil wars have ravaged institutions and
bureaucracies, the official organs of state power
projection and legitimacy. Jihadist groups flourish in
regions of the world characterized by state failure, lack of
good governance, inability to establish widespread rule
of law, weak security services, and high levels of
corruption.

Irrelevance
Another possible future of the global jihadist movement
is retrenchment, dissipation, and a move toward
increasing irrelevance. In response to the establishment
of the caliphate, there was a pendulum swing back in the
other direction, as states moved to harden borders,
information sharing and cooperation between
intelligence services increased, and advances in
technology favored counterterrorism forces. The use of
biometrics and the integration of artificial intelligence
into the targeting process could help Western militaries
be both more effective and discerning in their hunt for
terrorist leaders hiding in austere terrain. Another facet
of this future potentiality is that the narrative crafted by
the Islamic State and similar groups could fail to
resonate with future generations and be exposed as
bankrupt and contradictory. This scenario is embodied
by a shift in the threat landscape where dangers posed by
terrorist groups persist, but the gravest concerns to
international security are manifested in nation-states
and great power rivalries, not non-state actors.
Furthermore, the threat of major combat between well-
equipped nation-states could make proxy conflict less
likely, as states seek to avoid escalatory actions that
could lead to war.

Al-Qaeda Ascendant
A scenario in which al-Qaeda is ascendant and the
Islamic State falters could result from an increase in
external support to the former and increasing isolation of
the latter. The percolating conflict between Sunni and
Shia powers, represented by the bitter feud between
Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively, could lead some
Sunni powers to become more tolerant of al-Qaeda and
even sponsor it as a proxy force. Al-Qaeda would be well
positioned to receive this type of support since it has
worked diligently to refashion its image as a more
moderate entity since the Arab Spring. IS is still
considered too extreme and has never received external
support, even from some of the more hardline boosters
of Salafism throughout the Gulf. If al-Qaeda gets
involved in certain conflicts that are both seminal and
highly symbolic, such as Kashmir, it could further
burnish its image as the real vanguard of Islamist rebels
committed to defending Muslims. Further, if al-Qaeda
focuses its resources on striking the West, and is able to
do so successfully, this may provide the momentum
necessary to supplant IS as the leader of the global
jihadist movement, and even poach IS fighters, as it has
done already in parts of the Middle East and Africa.86
IS Rebounds
This scenario predicts the demise of al-Qaeda while the
Islamic State rebounds and flourishes, in a replay of the
situation during the period from 2014 to 2016. During
this time, IS was ascendant and al-Qaeda was caught
flat-footed, failing to anticipate the events surrounding
the Arab Spring and then responding in a sclerotic
manner, as other groups took advantage of the power
vacuum to promote their own agendas and ideologies.
Ultimately, al-Qaeda benefitted from the chaos that
resulted from the Arab Spring, but continued success is
far from a fait accompli.87 There is no doubt that IS will
indeed reconstitute itself and will almost certainly do so
in Iraq and Syria, in addition to other potential locations.
But the question is: to what extent does IS rebound and
can it rise like a phoenix from the ashes to reclaim its
past glory? It remains doubtful that the international
community, having once been so negligent, could look
away yet again as the group attempted to rebuild a state.
The memories of past atrocities are still too fresh. But,
most of all, for the countries most affected by the rise of
IS – those in the region and others in the West where
foreign terrorist fighters and their families are now
attempting to return home – the terror and instability
conjured by the Islamic State is still quite palpable. In
fact, the pivotal time period that could engender this
scenario was the 2017–18 timeframe, a time when the
caliphate was decimated and al-Qaeda’s strategy to
quietly and patiently rebuild took shape. The result could
be that al-Qaeda temporarily rises above IS as the target
most concerning to Western counterterrorism forces,
which once again attack al-Qaeda wherever it coalesces,
elevating IS simply by default, as its fighters seek to
“quietly and patiently rebuild” in their own right.

Notes
1. Jonathan Spyer, “Welcome to Syria 2.0,” Foreign
Policy, January 25, 2018.
2. Colin P. Clarke, “How ISIS is Transforming,” Foreign
Affairs, September 25, 2017.
3. “Experts: ISIS Still Capable of Recapturing Iraqi
Areas,” Ahsarq Al-Awsat, January 19, 2018.
4. Jones et al., Rolling Back the Islamic State.
5. Sune Engel Rasmussen, Nour Alakraa, and Nancy A.
Youssef, “ISIS Remnants Fight On, Despite U.S.
Campaign,” Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2018.
6. Rhys Dubin, “ISIS 2.0 is Really Just the Original ISIS,”
Foreign Policy, April 3, 2018.
7. Johnston et al., Foundations of the Islamic State.
8. Raja Abdulrahim, “Islamic State Returns to Guerrilla
Warfare in Iraq and Syria,” Wall Street Journal,
January 2, 2018. See also Eric Schmitt, “The Hunt for
ISIS Pivots to Remaining Pockets of Syria,” New York
Times, December 24, 2017.
9. Hassan Hassan, “Insurgents Again: The Islamic State’s
Calculated Reversion to Attrition in the Syria–Iraq
Border Region and Beyond,” CTC Sentinel, 10:11,
December 2017.
10. Hassan Hassan, “Down but Not Out: ISIL Will
Regroup and Rise Again,” The National, December
25, 2017.
11. Benjamin Bahney and Patrick B. Johnston, “ISIS
Could Rise Again,” Foreign Affairs, December 15,
2017.
12. Borzou Daraghi, “After the Black Flags of ISIS, Iraq
Now Faces the White Flags,” Buzzfeed, April 1, 2018.
13. Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Susannah George, “Islamic
State Haunts Northern Iraq Months After Its Defeat,”
Associated Press, March 28, 2018. See also “Islamic
State Regrouping in Iraqi, Disputed Kurdish
Territories,” VOA News, March 26, 2018.
14. Hassan Hassan, “ISIL Sleeper Cells in Iraq Are a
Warning Sign the Extremist Group is Already
Reforming,” The National, March 28, 2018.
15. Vera Bergengruen, “Trump Keeps Saying ISIS Has
Been Defeated. But the U.S. Military Says It’s Gaining
Ground,” Buzzfeed, April 17, 2018. See also Hassan
Hassan, “ISIS is Ready for a Resurgence,” The
Atlantic, August 26, 2018.
16. Shiraz Maher, “Islamic State is Not Beaten and Will
Return,” New Statesmen, October 17, 2017. See also
Sune Engel Rasmussen, “Online Propaganda Builds
Islamic State Brand in the Face of Military Losses,”
Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2018.
17. Sune Engel Rasmussen, “Islamic State Leader
Emerges in Audio Message,” Wall Street Journal,
August 22, 2018. See also Hassan, “ISIS is Ready for a
Resurgence.”
18. Hassan Hassan, “Zawahiri’s Statements Reveal
Plenty About Syria’s Fractured Jihadi Scene,” The
National, November 29, 2017.
19. Charles Lister, “New Opportunities for ISIS and Al
Qaeda,” in Paul Salem, Bilal Y. Saab, Alex Vatanka, et
al., “2018 Middle East Preview: What to Expect,”
Middle East Institute, January 8, 2018.
20. Gareth Browne, “Al Qaeda’s ‘Re-Radicalisation’
Schools Lure ISIL Fighters in Syria,” The National,
January 20, 2018.
21. Daniel L. Byman, “The Middle East After the Defeat
of the Islamic State,” Brookings Institution, March 28,
2018: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-
chaos/2018/03/28/the-middle-east-after-the-defeat-
of-the-islamic-state.
22. Jones, Waging Insurgent Warfare, pp. 18–19.
23. Assaf Moghadam, Nexus of Global Jihad:
Understanding Cooperation Among Terrorist Actors,
New York: Columbia University Press, 2017, p. 168.
24. Christoph Reuter, “‘Liberated Areas’ of Iraq Still
Terrorized By Violence,” Der Spiegel, March 21, 2018.
25. Sirwan Kajjo, “ISIS: Surging in Syria Again,”
Gatestone Institute International Policy Council,
March 27, 2018:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12097/isis-
surging-syria.
26. Rhys Dubin, “Coalition Analysis Warns of Potential
Islamic State Resurgence,” Foreign Policy, January
10, 2018.
27. Michael R. Gordon, “Areas Newly Seized from ISIS
Seen at Risk of Backsliding,” Wall Street Journal,
December 12, 2017.
28. Erika Solomon and Asser Khattab, “ISIS ‘Far from
Finished’ as Jihadi Fighters Regroup in Syria,”
Financial Times, February 3, 2018.
29. Jeff Seldin, “IS Fighters Fleeing to Assad-controlled
Parts of Syria,” VOA News, December 27, 2017.
30. Shelly Culbertson and Linda Robinson, Making
Victory Count After Defeating ISIS: Stabilization
Challenges in Mosul and Beyond, Santa Monica, CA:
RAND Corp., 2017.
31. Tamer El-Ghobashy, Mustafa Salim, and Louisa
Loveluck, “Islamic State’s ‘Caliphate’ Has Been
Toppled in Iraq and Syria. Why Isn’t Anyone
Celebrating?” Washington Post, December 5, 2017.
32. Hassan Hassan and William McCants, “Is ISIS Good
at Governing?” Brookings Institution, April 18, 2016:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/04/1
8/experts-weigh-in-part-7-is-isis-good-at-governing.
33. Joby Warrick, Will McCants, and Aaron Y. Zelin,
“The Rise of ISIS: ‘Remaining and Expanding,’” The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
PolicyWatch 2522, November 12, 2015.
34. Email exchange with Haroro Ingram, August 2018.
35. Daniel L. Byman, “Comparing Al Qaeda and ISIS:
Different Goals, Different Targets,” prepared
testimony before the Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the House
Committee on Homeland Security, House of
Representatives, April 29, 2015.
36. Clarke and Ingram, “Defeating the ISIS Nostalgia
Narrative.”
37. Email exchange with Craig Whiteside, August 2018.
38. Colin Clarke and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, “How
Will Jihadist Strategy Evolve as the Islamic State
Declines?” War on the Rocks, November 10, 2016.
39. Daniel Byman, “Divisions Within the Global Jihad,”
Lawfare, September 29, 2017.
40. Robin Wright, “After the Islamic State,” New Yorker,
December 12, 2016.
41. Tore Refslund Hamming, “Jihadi Competition and
Political Preferences,” Perspectives on Terrorism,
11:6, 2017.
42. Moghadam, “How Al Qaeda Innovates,” pp. 466–97.
43. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, “The Manchester Attack
Shows How Terrorists Learn,” The Atlantic, May 23,
2017.
44. Bridget Moreng, “ISIS’ Virtual Puppeteers,” Foreign
Affairs, September 21, 2016; see also Clint Watts,
“Inspired, Networked & Directed – The Muddled
Jihad of IS & Al Qaeda Post Hebdo,” War on the
Rocks, January 12, 2015.
45. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Madeline Blackman,
“ISIL’s Virtual Planners: A Critical Terrorist
Innovation,” War on the Rocks, January 4, 2017.
46. Rukmini Callimachi, “Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All:
How ISIS Guides World’s Terror Plots from Afar,”
New York Times, February 4, 2017.
47. R. Kim Cragin and Ari Weil, “‘Virtual Planners’ in the
Arsenal of Islamic State External Operations,” Orbis,
62:2, 2018, pp. 294–312.
48. R. Kim Cragin, “The November 2015 Paris Attacks:
The Impact of Foreign Fighter Returnees,” Orbis,
61:2, 2017, pp. 212–26. See also R. Kim Cragin, “The
Challenge of Foreign Fighter Returnees,” Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice, 33:3, 2017, pp. 292–
312.
49. Seth G. Jones, “Will Al Qaeda Make a Comeback?”
Foreign Affairs, August 7, 2017.
50. Clarke, “The Moderate Face of Al Qaeda.”
51. Tore Refslund Hamming, “The Al Qaeda – Islamic
State Rivalry: Competition Yes, but No Competitive
Escalation,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 2017,
p. 3. Salafi characterizes an adherent of an ideological
strain in Sunni Islam that seeks to emulate, as purer,
the thinking and practices of Muhammad and the
earliest generations of Muslims. Jihadists believe that
violent struggle against non-Muslims and Muslims
they judge as apostate is an important religious duty
(Bahney et al., An Economic Analysis of the Financial
Records of al-Qa’ida in Iraq).
52. Cole Bunzel, “Jihadism on Its Own Terms,” Hoover
Institution, May 17, 2017:
https://www.hoover.org/research/jihadism-its-own-
terms.
53. Rik Coolsaet, “Anticipating the Post-Daesh
Landscape,” Egmont Paper 97, October 2017, p. 9:
http://www.egmontinstitute.be/anticipating-post-
daesh-landscape.
54. Hassan, “The Sectarianism of the Islamic State.”
55. Thomas Joscelyn, “Islamic State Rescinds One of Its
Most Problematic Religious Rulings,” FDD’s Long
War Journal, September 20, 2017.
56. Cole Bunzel, “A House Divided: Origins and
Persistence of the Islamic State’s Ideological Divide,”
Jihadica, June 5, 2018.
57. R. Green, “Dispute Over Takfir Rocks Islamic State,”
MEMRI, August 4, 2017.
58. Tore Hamming, “The Extremist Wing of the Islamic
State,” Jihadica, June 9, 2016.
59. Byman, “Divisions Within the Global Jihad.”
60. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Jason Fritz, Bridget
Moreng, and Nathaniel Barr, “Islamic State vs. Al
Qaeda,” New America Foundation, December 4, 2015:
https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/12103-
islamic-state-vs-al-
qaeda/ISISvAQ_Final.e68fdd22a90e49c4af1d4cd0dc
9e3651.pdf.
61. Hamming, “The Al Qaeda – Islamic State Rivalry:
Competition Yes, but No Competitive Escalation,” fn.
65.
62. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Nathaniel Barr, “How
Al Qaeda Survived the Islamic State Challenge,”
Hudson Institute, March 1, 2017:
https://www.hudson.org/research/12788-how-al-
qaeda-survived-the-islamic-state-challenge.
63. Matthew Phillips and Matthew Valasik, “The Islamic
State is More Like a Street Gang Than Like Other
Terrorist Groups,” Washington Post Monkey Cage
Blog, November 15, 2017.
64. Colin P. Clarke, “Al Qaeda in Syria Can Change Its
Name, But Not Its Stripes,” The Cipher Brief, March
23, 2017.
65. Charles Lister, “US Officials Just Mislabeled a Syrian
Terror Group as al Qaeda. Worse, They’re Missing a
Far Bigger Threat,” Defense One, June 1, 2018.
66. Email exchange with Hassan Hassan, August 2018.
67. Clarke, “The Moderate Face of Al Qaeda.”
68. Colin P. Clarke, “Expanding the ISIS Brand,” The
National Interest, February 17, 2018.
69. Rukmini Callimachi, “Protest of U.S. Terror Listing
Offers a Glimpse of Qaeda Strategy,” New York Times,
November 17, 2016; see also Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
and Thomas Joscelyn, “Rebranding Terror,” Foreign
Affairs, August 28, 2016; and Daveed Gartenstein-
Ross and Nathaniel Barr, “Extreme Makeover,
Jihadist Edition: Al Qaeda’s Rebranding Campaign,”
War on the Rocks, September 3, 2015.
70. Colin P. Clarke and Barak Mendelsohn, “Al Qaeda’s
Ruthless Pragmatism Makes It More Dangerous Than
the Islamic State,” Reuters, October 27, 2016.
71. The author is thankful to Bruce Hoffman for this
observation.
72. Colin P. Clarke and Chad C. Serena, “Why Syria’s
War May Be About to Get Even Worse,” Reuters,
August 25, 2016.
73. Bruce Hoffman, “Al Qaeda’s Master Plan,” The
Cipher Brief, November 18, 2015.
74. Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, “As U.S. Focuses
on ISIS and the Taliban, Al Qaeda Re-emerges,” New
York Times, December 29, 2015.
75. Bruce Hoffman, “Al Qaeda: Quietly and Patiently
Rebuilding,” The Cipher Brief, December 30, 2016.
76. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr, “How Al Qaeda Survived
the Islamic State Challenge.”
77. The Soufan Center, “The Forgotten War: The
Ongoing Disaster in Yemen,” June 2018:
http://thesoufancenter.org/research/the-forgotten-
war-the-ongoing-disaster-in-yemen.
78. Bruce Hoffman, “The Global Terror Threat and
Counterterrorism Challenges Facing the Next
 Administration,” CTC Sentinel, 9:11, December 2016.
79. Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, “The
Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security, 31:1,
Summer 2006, pp. 49–80.
80. Bruce Hoffman, “The Coming ISIS–Al Qaeda
Merger: It’s Time to Take the Threat Seriously,”
Foreign Affairs, March 29, 2016.
81. Bruce Hoffman, “A Growing Terrorist Threat on
Another 9/11,” Wall Street Journal, September 8,
2017.
82. Assaf Moghadam, “Marriage of Convenience: The
Evolution of Iran and al Qaeda’s Tactical
Cooperation,” CTC Sentinel, 10:4, April 2017. See also
Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, “Al Qaeda Has
Rebuilt Itself – With Iran’s Help,” The Atlantic,
November 11, 2017.
83. Email exchange with Hassan Hassan, August 2018.
84. Email exchange with Seth G. Jones, July 2018.
85. Email exchange with Bruce Hoffman, July 2018.
86. Tore Refslund Hamming, “With Islamic State in
Decline, What’s Al Qaeda’s Next Move?” War on the
Rocks, April 27, 2018.
87. Bruce Hoffman, “Al Qaeda’s Resurrection,” Council
on Foreign Relations, March 6, 2018:
https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/al-qaedas-
resurrection.
5
After the Caliphate: Preventing the
Islamic State’s Return
Whether it is al-Qaeda or IS, or a rejuvenated hybrid
entity with offshoots pockmarking the globe, how can the
global jihadist movement be defeated once and for all?
The track record for preventing another mass
mobilization of jihadists in the future is not promising.
Despite the fact that the West has been concerned with
foreign fighters and their return for nearly three decades,
there has been little tangible progress on crafting policy
responses to dealing with the threat. Whether in the
immediate aftermath of the end of the Soviet–Afghan
war in the late 1980s, Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s,
Iraq in the 2000s, or Syria in 2014, when it comes to
preventing a worldwide flow of foreign fighters, the West
always seems to be starting from scratch. As of 2018,
there were an estimated 230,000 Salafi-jihadists
worldwide, accounting for a 247 percent increase from
2001 to 2018. This means that the so-called Global War
on Terror has failed to reduce the number of terrorists
worldwide and, despite the massive resources dedicated
by the West toward this mission, there are now more
jihadist groups active than at any point since 1980.1 A
defining moment for this movement was the
establishment of the caliphate.
But even as the jihadists’ state-building project in Syria
and Iraq begins to fade from recent memory, there is no
time to lose in preparing to prevent the next attempt at
building a caliphate, whether the destination is Sirte,
Libya, or Nangarhar province in Afghanistan. Despite an
intensified scrutiny on establishing robust counter-
measures, there is still no unified policy in terms of
preventing citizens from traveling abroad to join terrorist
groups, or widescale agreement among states with
respect to important issues such as citizenship
deprivation, prosecution and length of sentences,
punitive versus rehabilitative measures, or best practices
and lessons learned regarding prison radicalization,
recidivism, and deradicalization and disengagement
initiatives. The patchwork of policies and widescale
disparities in resources to enact these policies increase
the likelihood of a future foreign terrorist fighter
mobilization, even if it is not quite on the scale of IS’s
recent attempt to establish a caliphate.
The question now becomes, in the immediate aftermath
of the caliphate’s destruction: how will the international
community ensure that it never returns? This will
require a comprehensive response that is both carrot and
stick. Returning foreign terrorist fighters, and in some
cases their families, will need to be dealt with, while the
campaign to counter IS on multiple levels – national,
regional, and global – must simultaneously remain on
the offensive to prevent splinter groups from
reconstituting and to deny the group any opportunity to
revive the joie de vivre it once inspired in tens of
thousands of supporters, many of whom traveled to the
Middle East to help build and defend the caliphate.
The physical manifestation of IS’s state-building project
has been crushed, but by no means has the ideology
motivating tens of thousands of people to risk their lives
defending the caliphate been weakened. If anything, the
two-year period during which IS governed its own proto-
state offered its followers proof of the concept that the
establishment of a caliphate is more than just a jihadi
talking point. Rather, it is an attainable goal worthy of
dedicating one’s life to. The sole reason for its
destruction, the propaganda reminds IS adherents, is the
Crusader–Zionist axis led by Western nations, especially
the United States. Baghdadi proclaimed in an audiotape
that was released in August 2018 that the United States
“boasted of its so-called victory in expelling the state
from cities and countryside in Iraq and Syria, but the
land of Allah is wide and the tides of war change.”2 So,
while the West breathes a collective sigh of relief that IS
has been ousted from Raqqa and Mosul and nearly
70,000 IS fighters have been killed, the group’s leader is
confidently appealing to its supporters to remain loyal,
patient, and steadfast until the moment is ripe for a
revival.
Well before the collapse of the Islamic State’s caliphate,
countries around the world were concerned about a flood
of returning foreign fighters. And while the numbers
have been far lower than expected, for myriad reasons,
the challenge of dealing with returnees is no less
complex.3 Preventing the return of the Islamic State is
going to require a mixture of preventive and punitive
measures, including discerning the proper way to deal
with returnees, but also defending against future threats
related to IS’s core capabilities – social media and
propaganda, financing, and the ability to harness new
technologies to recruit and radicalize a fresh generation
of followers.
There is little consensus in the West as to the best way to
counter the threat. Moreover, with finite resources and a
fleeting attention span, national governments must
balance the threat posed by terrorism with a litany of
other challenges, from climate change to energy
insecurity. The global jihadist movement, while a major
threat to international security, is merely one of many
threats. Finally, some policymakers and military officials
may conclude that the mission is complete. After all, the
Islamic State’s caliphate has been unquestionably
destroyed. But in many ways, the challenges associated
with the aftermath of the caliphate will be even more
difficult to solve than the physical caliphate itself, which
at least provided a clear target for the international
community to focus on and work against. The exodus of
fighters from Iraq and Syria seems poised to reset the
cycle once more, the same cycle that has been repeating
itself since the fateful days of the Soviet–Afghan War,
when Osama bin Laden and his group of “Afghan Arabs”
spread throughout the globe and planted the seeds for
what would grow into the global jihadist movement and
all of its manifestations.

Dealing with Returnees

The prospect of returning foreign fighters and their
families has understandably occupied much time and
energy in policy and law-enforcement circles.4 These
fighters may attempt to return to their countries of
origin, whether close to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq,
or farther afield to Europe, Asia, and North America.
Those states equipped with more robust national
screening mechanisms, law enforcement, and
intelligence structures stand a better chance of stopping
the fighters at their border, blunting the impact of these
returnees. But not all Western security services are
created equal. Further complicating the issue is the
inability to even agree on the definition of who
constitutes a foreign fighter in the first place.5 Moreover,
the category of returnees is not nearly as homogeneous
as it may seem. Just as foreign fighters who traveled to
the Middle East left for different reasons and fought with
different groups, those who return will do so for varying
reasons as well.
The first subgroup of returnees might be labeled the
“disillusioned.” These individuals went to Syria looking
for utopia, adventure, and a pure expression of religious
identity, but instead found something much different.6
Local Syrians did not respect them and, in many cases,
viewed them as “adventure seekers,” naïve about the
harsh realities of what constituted on-the-ground truth
in the ruins of Syria’s civil war. Some foreign fighters
were lured to the caliphate through guilt – IS
propaganda targeted to Western Muslims repeatedly
admonished them for remaining in their safe and
comfortable environs in Europe, North America, and
Australia, while their fellow Muslims were wantonly
slaughtered by the Assad regime. After arriving in the
caliphate, these individuals struggled with food,
financing, and the tribulations of war. Upon returning to
the West, they could mentor other radicalized youth.
These fighters may require psychological treatment in
addition to prison time.
The second subgroup could be labeled the “disengaged,
but not disillusioned.” Just as there are many reasons
why militants go to fight, there are many reasons why
they leave a conflict – marriage, battle fatigue, desire to
be with family.7 So they may have left, voluntarily, but
remain committed to jihadism and the core tenets of
Salafi-jihadism. Accordingly, individuals might grow
disillusioned with IS as an organization, but not with
jihad as a whole. These are among the most dangerous
returnees who may be living back in their countries of
origin. They might be on the authorities’ watch-list, but
as we have seen time and again, terrorist attacks are
committed with regularity by so-called “known wolves,”
or individuals already on the radar of law enforcement
and security services for their connections to extremist
circles and ideology.
The third subgroup could be called the “operational”
returnees. These are returning fighters who attempt to
resuscitate dormant networks or create new ones, recruit
members, or conduct home-grown-style attacks. They
are likely to be pre-positioned and likely to attempt an
attack under the command and control of IS remnants in
the Middle East.8 These individuals are the most
dangerous and deadly.9 The November 2015 Paris
attacks are perhaps the clearest example; they were
conducted by foreign fighters, who were trained in Syria
and dispatched to France.10 Operational returnees are of
even more concern if one believes that hundreds of
operatives have already been deployed to Europe, with
hundreds more hiding out on Europe’s doorstep in
Turkey.11 Turkey in particular remains an attractive
staging ground for returning foreign fighters, given its
proximity to the battlefield and the presence of pre-
existing support networks.12
The fourth and final subgroup are those individuals
captured on the battlefield and returned to their
countries of origin against their will. This is a group that
will require close assessment to determine which, if any,
crimes have been committed, and whether or not there is
ample evidence to move forward with a prosecution.
Accordingly, many states have been unable to secure
criminal convictions for returning foreign terrorist
fighters, and even those who have been jailed ultimately
received shorter prison sentences than many prosecutors
would have hoped for.13 As outlined in a report by the
Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), there are
three primary scenarios in these cases: prosecution; non-
prosecution/resocialization (what I refer to as
rehabilitation and reintegration); and dealing with
children.14 Each of these scenarios will be explored in
more detail below.

Prosecution
Prosecuting foreign fighters who have returned is
difficult on a number of levels. There are challenges
regarding gathering admissible evidence that can be used
in court, and even when prosecutions are secured, the
length of prison sentences can be short. Further, there
are warranted concerns about foreign fighters potentially
radicalizing other prisoners, although special
accommodations are now made to separate hardcore
jihadists from the general inmate population in most
prisons. But an unknowable question is: when these
individuals serve their sentences and are released back
into society, what kind of threat might they present?
In late May 2018, on the very same day he was released
from jail, a Belgian jihadist went on a killing spree in the
city of Liège.15 It is almost certain that we are likely to
see similar incidents playing out in the future. The
resources required to track, monitor, and surveil
individuals suspected of radicalization are immense and
the mission itself seems somewhat unrealistic. European
authorities lament that their already finite resources
have been stretched thin by the sheer volume of potential
suspects who need to be identified and tracked. The US-
led coalition has scrutinized captured computers,
documents, and cellphones to put together a global
profile of IS members and sympathizers, a list with
approximately 19,000 names on it that has been shared
with Interpol.16 The challenge is immense and the
security forces will need more manpower simply to
monitor and surveil these suspects, to say nothing of
conducting investigations and pursuing prosecutions.
There are also widely different scenarios for a returning
foreign fighter, their spouses or partners, and any
children involved, some of whom may have no
paperwork after being born in the caliphate. In turn,
there are also myriad categories of prosecution,
including prosecuting terrorist crimes within the
territory of the so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and
raising the issue of how foreign national courts can
prosecute terrorist crimes that have been committed in
Syria and Iraq. There are also attempts to prosecute
fighters taking place in Syria, through a combination of
the Assad regime’s judicial system and ad-hoc courts
administered by non-state actors like the Kurds and
other militia groups.
There are approximately 3,000 suspected members of IS
awaiting trial in Iraq.17 It is estimated that more than
100 of them are Europeans.18 Prosecuting terrorist
crimes within the territory of the so-called caliphate in
Syria and Iraq is a contentious issue. Under customary
international law, Iraq has the legal obligation to
prosecute war crimes that have been conducted on its
territory, or to extradite those who have committed
them. The situation in Syria is far more complex. As
international law expert Tanya Mehra has described in
detail, in Syria, “the judicial system has become a
patchwork of ‘ordinary’ and ‘special’ courts that have
jurisdiction.”19 Depending on their location within the
territory of Syria, courts are run either by the Assad
regime – which, after years of slaughtering its own
people and using chemical weapons against civilians,
lacks political legitimacy amongst most Syrians – or by
armed groups scattered throughout the country,
including the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.20 The
SDF currently holds hundreds of IS prisoners. Moreover,
as the SDF and other Kurdish groups are still actively
engaged in fighting, including against Turkish forces on
Syria’s northern border, there are fears that the fighting
will distract from their responsibility to guard IS fighters
being held prisoner, increasing the chances for prisoner
escapes.21
There is also the issue of how courts in states in the West
can prosecute terrorist crimes that have been committed
by its citizens while they were living under the caliphate.
There have already been convictions of this kind in
Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Norway, and the
Netherlands, with fighters prosecuted for crimes
including attempted travel to Syria, recruitment,
planning of an attack, and “terroristic murder.”22
Further, it is entirely conceivable that, in some instances,
crimes committed in Syria and Iraq by European
nationals could qualify as war crimes or crimes against
humanity.
Dealing with the issue of prosecuting cases of terrorism
is fraught with challenges. Many states lack well-
developed jurisdictional infrastructures, and the capacity
of their judiciaries, national courts, and other
institutions could be severely under-resourced. These
courts struggle to prosecute the cases they have and can
be overwhelmed easily by having to handle just a small
cluster of additional cases. Complex cases can be lengthy
and time-consuming, while also depleting finite
resources necessary for other criminal justice issues.
There are also a number of unique circumstances facing
courts in Western countries in prosecuting those citizens
who have made it back home, as well as from the massive
influx of Iraqi and Syrian migrants into Europe, some of
whom might be victims, witnesses, or perpetrators of
various crimes, to include terrorism.
So far, at least, it appears that many Western countries
do not want to deal with their citizens who have been
apprehended on the battlefield and are now being held in
the Middle East.23 But if these individuals are left to be
prosecuted in Syria or Iraq, there are legitimate concerns
that their prosecutions will certainly not meet fair-trial
standards and could be politicized. A dearth of adequate
funding for specialized war units or chambers needed to
deal with these types of crimes means that these trials
could be hasty, resulting in false convictions or what
some perceive to be overly draconian sentences in
proportion to the specific crime committed.24
The issue of whether or not to accept citizens who want
to return home after leaving their countries of origin to
help establish the caliphate crisscrosses legal, moral, and
ethical seams. The governments of European countries
are opposed to the death penalty, so leaving citizens of
their country in Iraq and Syria is a dilemma, given
concerns about the likelihood of receiving a fair trial. The
case of a French woman named Emilie Konig is an
archetypical example. After leaving France to live under
the caliphate, Konig was captured during the war against
IS and is now being held in the Kurdish region of Syria.
The Kurds administer justice in this region, but, under
international law, the territory is still part of Syria.25
Understandably, many French citizens are wary of
having individuals like Konig return to the country. The
issue of how to deal with potential returnees has become
a political lightning rod in many Western countries. In
the meantime, many wives and children of IS fighters
remain in limbo, as thousands languish in detainee
camps throughout northern Syria while decisions on
their fates are postponed.26
The United Kingdom is one of many European nations
facing a tremendous strain on its resources, as more than
80 prisoners convicted of terror offenses between 2007
and 2016 were due to be released in 2018.27 Its
nationwide program to prevent radicalization and violent
extremism, known as PREVENT, has been widely
criticized for being ineffective and lacking a proper
assessment and evaluation methodology. One case
plaguing the UK is that of two members of the so-called
“Beatles,” British-born IS members known for their
barbarism, which included the torture and murder of
several Western captives.28 There are serious
jurisdictional issues in this case and much hand-
wringing over who should prosecute these militants. The
UK insists it does not want them back on British soil,
while the United States is pressing London to bring the
men to trial. If Britain doesn’t prosecute them, they
could ultimately end up at the notorious US prison at
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.29 American policy is
ambiguous, partly by design, but partly due to
incoherence. The resulting inertia might afford
policymakers and military officials with more time to
figure out what to do with the captured terrorists.30 Still,
the dearth of strategy and seeming lack of urgency has
attracted pointed criticism from a number of human
rights groups.
Above all else, the most serious challenge to prosecuting
foreign terrorist fighters remains the issue of evidence.
To be useful, the evidence gathered to prosecute cases of
terrorism must be able to pass muster in a legitimate
court of law and it remains extremely dangerous to travel
to a war-ravaged country to investigate and collect
evidence. Some non-governmental organizations are on
the ground in Iraq and Syria and have slightly changed
the landscape by their presence alone.31 Internet-based
evidence is also a new element to consider, although with
the phenomenon of spoofing, “deep fakes,” and other
forms of digital manipulation, many courts will
understandably be wary of evidence generated via social
or other online media.
Cross-border legal cooperation is a major hurdle as well,
and not all courts are in agreement about the utility of, or
ethical considerations surrounding, secret, restricted, or
classified information and its use in court.32 The other
methods of documenting terrorism-related crimes are
International Commissions of Inquiry and various
resolutions passed by the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC), including UNSCR 2379, which
established an Investigative Team to support domestic
efforts to collect, preserve, and store evidence, in Iraq, of
acts committed by IS that may amount to war crimes,
crimes against humanity, and genocide. There has also
been a case in the United States – and there remains the
possibility for similar cases in other Western countries –
in which evidence taken from the battlefield was used
successfully in court to prosecute individuals for crimes
related to the support of terrorism.33
Rehabilitation/Reintegration
There are other options besides incarcerating returnees
and, indeed, in many cases, this is the desirable
approach, especially where the individual has not
committed violent acts and demonstrates no propensity
to do so in the future, although assessing this possibility
is a precarious undertaking. Now that Western
governments have made it clear that terrorism
prevention, deradicalization, and countering violent
extremism, especially among the youth, are among their
top priorities, something of a cottage industry has
emerged, with a long line of NGOs and other entities
proclaiming to have the “silver bullet” to solve
radicalization. The hard truth is that most programs do
not work and even those that have shown promise often
have difficulty demonstrating a correlation between the
design of the program and its range of outcomes, to say
nothing of establishing something like a causal link.
The United States Institute for Peace (USIP) has
identified several promising themes across first-
generation deradicalization programs implemented in
the Middle East and South Asia. First, the intervention
would address the affective – that is, a focus on social
factors including emotional support, a sense of
community, and social obligation. Second, it would
target the pragmatic, or logistical factors, such as
financial stability, education, vocational training, and
other skill acquisition. And third, it would focus on the
ideological bonds underpinning the thought processes
and value system of the individual. 34
There are widely different approaches both across and
within regions. In Saudi Arabia, there has been an
interesting evolution over time. At first, Saudi
rehabilitation and reintegration programs focused
almost exclusively on the ideological and psychological
component, sending individuals to deradicalization
sessions with imams and counselors, while also
providing financial incentives to disengage from
militancy. The recidivism rates from these programs
were quite high and, to their credit, the Saudis shifted
their approach. Reintegration programs now focus more
on the returnees’ families and do more to assist with
rebuilding relationships between the individual and their
family, society, and country.35 By and large, however,
one of the biggest differences between deradicalization
programs in Europe and those in Muslim-majority
countries is that the latter are almost always
government-run and mandatory, which in turn calls into
question their legitimacy and effectiveness, especially if
the intent is to measure individuals’ willingness to
voluntarily turn away from jihad.36
France is a country with nearly 20,000 people
considered to be at risk of radicalization by government
authorities. In prison, the risk of radicalization is acute,
because imprisoned jihadists may proselytize and
recruit, an issue France has dedicated much time and
attention to, but still struggles with. In prisons, case
managers will meet with Islamists to discuss the
contradictions in their ideologies, offering individual
psychological treatment and meetings with case workers
and chaplains.37 But a parliamentary commission in
France published a report noting that deradicalization
programs in that country, especially those that existed
outside of the penal system, “were hastily conceived and
in some cases marred by severe deficiencies.”38 In
Vilvoorde, Belgium, authorities responded to large
numbers of youth leaving for Syria by implementing an
intensive early-intervention program which built upon
government engagement with communities and families
to identify youth who may be at risk of radicalization.39
The program in Denmark has come under fire for being
too liberal and forgiving in its treatment of returnees.
The program in Aarhaus is often lambasted by its critics
as an example of appeasement and a fear of confronting
the problem of militant Islam in a secular, European
society. At the national level, Denmark seeks to arrest
and prosecute returning foreign fighters with a proven
involvement in terrorism, but others are assisted in
gaining access to employment, housing, education, and
psychological counseling.40
Programs designed to counter violent extremism and
reintegrate “at-risk individuals” have been roundly
lambasted as ineffective, and in some cases worse –
counterproductive. There are numerous examples of
failed programs, with shortcomings ranging from an
inability to measure outcomes to actual spikes in
violence following some interventions, as witnessed in
Kandahar, Afghanistan, following a program featuring
cash transfers as a development assistance tool.41 Some
practitioners lament that efforts to counter extremism
should be organic and powered by grassroots
initiatives.42 Others insist that current efforts are futile
because it will probably be years before we know which
programs work best and why. Measurement, evaluation,
and assessment in this area are notoriously difficult for
social scientists, and the scores of self-proclaimed
“deradicalization experts” who have cropped up with
countering violent extremism (CVE) programs for sale
amount to little more than modern-day snake-oil
salesmen. This is not to dismiss some of the extremely
important and necessary work being done, but rather to
issue a rebuke to junk science and a suggestion to
governments that progress in this area will be slow and
probably characterized by setbacks and false positives.
Even after years of commissioned studies, carefully
planned interventions, and generously sponsored
government initiatives, there is still no “tried and true”
method for deradicalization, reintegration, or countering
violent extremism. It remains difficult to know what
works and whether or not these programs are effective.
There is a lack of reliable data on outcomes from
rehabilitation programs and no uniform approach, which
makes it impossible to conduct rigorous comparative
analyses. Still, despite the problems plaguing these
efforts, it is imperative that the international community
keep trying to make progress. Moreover, there is a
growing corpus of lessons learned that could inform the
debate. One of the major findings from a global multi-
year series of workshops on foreign terrorist fighters
(FTFs) found that the international community would be
well served by focusing on capacity-building efforts
geared toward comprehensive community engagement
and preventative measures.43 This requires a whole-of-
government approach and robust engagement with civil
society, as well as public–private partnerships that might
be focused on employment, education, or job training.

Generation Jihad: Born into the Caliphate

Among the many traumas of the Syrian civil war and
spreading sectarian violence that characterizes large
segments of the Middle East, the issue of children in the
caliphate is perhaps the most egregious. What these
children saw, and indeed what some of them were
coerced to do, is impossible for most human beings to
conceptualize. Some children witnessed killings,
beheadings, and brutal atrocities, while others actually
participated in these heinous acts. Many were
brainwashed, indoctrinated with the virulent screed of
sectarian hatred. As a result, most of these youngsters
will never be the same – what will they grow up to be like
as teenagers and adults? What impact could they have on
neighbors and classmates at school? Court documents
from proceedings in the UK have showed that children as
young as 2 years old who have been exposed to IS
indoctrination have demonstrated a fascination with
guns and beheadings.44
IS pursued a deliberate and calculated strategy of
targeting children and young teens, especially males, in
order to “create new power structures in society,” spread
its ideology to young recruits, and sow the seeds for the
next generation of future jihadists. The physical territory
of the caliphate is gone, but its core messages, ideas, and
narrative have already been implanted in countless
numbers of young Muslims.45 The Islamic State ran
schools for children, where textbooks indoctrinated the
pupils by focusing on a select few themes considered
most important by IS leadership: encouraging violence,
driving an apocalyptic narrative, establishing a purist
“Islamic” state, and labeling it a caliphate.46 The last part
is especially crucial for the future of the Islamic State, as
young children were brainwashed with the notion that
what IS had achieved – and indeed what these children,
their families, and neighbors helped to build and were an
integral part of – was an achievement of historic
proportions, a caliphate “based on prophetic
methodology” that was the first and only true Salafi-
jihadi state, an embodiment of political and religious
authority for Muslims everywhere.
Future IS propaganda will seek to harness the legacy of
its European fighters killed in battle, thus directly
impacting the younger generation of children in
marginalized neighborhoods, towns, and cities
throughout Europe, from Malmo to Marseille. There are
thousands of youngsters scattered across the continent
who lost older siblings whom they probably looked up to.
These deceased young men are now eligible to be
lionized as IS martyrs in the heavily immigrant enclaves
where they grew up, much in the same way that fallen
Hamas militants are worshipped in Gaza, Tamil fighters
were celebrated in Jaffna, or Irish Republican Army
“volunteers” were revered in West Belfast. IS will deploy
nostalgia in similar ways to how they have used it in the
past and present – as a multidimensional propaganda
tool. The “nostalgia narrative” will not only be deployed
at a transnational level, through its central media units,
and at the provincial level, through its provincial media
units, but also at highly localized and even individual
levels through on-the-ground networks.47
Yet the issue of dealing with the children of the caliphate
is not as simple as some would like to pretend. These
young people are both victims and perpetrators, a fact
which cannot and should not be ignored. There is a
growing body of evidence of atrocities committed by
children associated with IS. In one instance, a 13-year-
old British citizen executed a Kurdish prisoner. In
another, a 7-year-old boy appears in a video holding a
severed head. And the horrors are not merely relegated
to the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. Europe has witnessed
numerous cases where teens and pre-teens have been
implicated in terrorist plots – a 13-year-old in the
suburbs of Paris; a 12-year-old German Iraqi in
Ludwigshafen, western Germany; and the United
Kingdom has identified over 2,000 adolescents under 15
years old as “possible extremists.”48
It is important not to look at the problem of “non-adults”
as one singular cohort. Some children were more directly
associated with violence than others, while certain
groups of children were specifically groomed and
recruited to form the future backbone of this group. A
study by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism
– The Hague (ICCT) recommends dividing children into
two distinct groups. Young children (aged 0 to 9) who
were born in the caliphate or brought to IS-controlled
territory at an extremely young age should be viewed and
treated primarily as victims. All told, approximately 730
children were born in the caliphate to parents from
elsewhere.49 But older children should be scrutinized
more closely. For the latter group, it will be critical to
assess what level of indoctrination was involved, whether
or not these children received training (and, if so, what
kind and at what level), and, perhaps most importantly,
their potential involvement in violent activities.50

Endgame for IS or New Beginnings?

Even though the main objective of the Coalition to Defeat
IS was targeting and effectively defeating it, the
degradation of a terrorist organization can lead to
organizational fractures or splintering.51 While causing
IS to break apart might seem like a positive outcome, it is
a double-edged sword in the truest sense, clichés aside.
The fracturing of the Islamic State could lead to the
emergence of new, and in some cases more violent and
operationally capable, splinter organizations.52 In Sub-
Saharan Africa, Salafi-jihadism is spreading and
countries with no prior experience of this threat have
now been suffering from a spate of attacks. In the DRC
and Mozambique, new groups have emerged, some using
the Shabaab brand name even though there are no
formal links with the Somali terrorist group.53 So the
threat is not just from offshoots of the two primary
Salafi-jihadist groups – IS and al-Qaeda – but also from
their offshoots, compounding the challenge and
presenting a nightmare scenario in which franchises
eventually have enough clout to spawn derivative
terrorist organizations in diverse locales, including in
countries with little to no prior history of jihadism.
Dismantling IS is a necessary strategic objective, but
policymakers, government officials, and military leaders
must also be prepared to deal with splinter groups as
they emerge in the aftermath of what seems to be a
relatively successful campaign against the parent group.
With IS, these splinters could form their own, new
organization, or be absorbed into existing franchise
groups or affiliates from North Africa to Southeast Asia.
As discussed earlier in this book, the Islamic State – a
splinter of al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI, which itself was
previously a splinter of al-Qaeda – is one of many
terrorist groups that resulted from the successful
fracturing of a pre-existing group.54 It seems rather
ominous that some of the most lethal and durable
terrorist groups can trace their origins back to a splinter
movement. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
coalesced between the late 1970s and early 1980s from a
cacophony of Tamil rebel groups. Hezbollah, too, grew
into the formidable politicomilitary force it remains
today after its modest beginnings as a cast-off of the
Afwaj al-Muqawama al-Lubnaniya (AMAL), formed in
the early 1980s with help from Iran, supposedly in
response to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon. Other
prominent splinter groups have flourished at various
points in Algeria, Thailand, and Northern Ireland.
Splinter groups are often only slight variations of the
original groups, with minor differences in ideology, but
more significant discrepancies over strategy, tactics, and
the utility of violence, some of the main points of
contention discussed in the section on the IS–al-Qaeda
dispute. That some of these groups were more savage
than their predecessors is an unfortunate outcome of
effective counterterrorism campaigns, which inevitably
produce second- and third-order effects. Again, the
Islamic State is instructive in this regard, as its
emergence, consolidation of power, and declaration of a
caliphate in the heart of the Middle East posed a far
greater threat than al-Qaeda in Iraq ever did. IS
generated significant income flows from a variety of
sources, controlled swaths of territory on at least two
continents, and could deploy operatives into Europe to
conduct spectacular attacks in the West. It is certainly
possible that if Islamic State is degraded to the point it is
no longer such a threat, which is a process currently
unfolding, whatever supplants IS could go through a
similar transformation and ultimately metastasize into a
more potent challenge than its predecessors.
The blueprint for start-up success as a terrorist
organization – evidenced in Iraq and North Africa – is
now widely known. After gaining a foothold in a failed
state or ungoverned region, the group seeks to latch on
to a marginalized ethnic or religious group, exploit local
grievances, and lend guidance, resources, expertise, and
manpower to the fight.55 It is not difficult to imagine the
Islamic State replicating this formula in any number of
places, from Libya to Afghanistan and West Africa. These
countries and regions are awash in weapons, and
plagued by poor security forces and a weak rule of law,
making them the ideal candidates for splinter groups
seeking to regenerate and exploit new bases of
operations, if they choose to relocate abroad.
The challenge for the international community will be
preventing these regenerated slivers from emerging
stronger than before. An apt analogy is that the remnants
of a largely extinguished fire must be stamped out before
the embers can accelerate into a massive conflagration
that is difficult to contain. Destroying a terrorist
organization – and potentially creating splinter groups in
the process – is less important than denying the group
the ability to control territory, raise money, and recruit
legions of new followers. But this requires a sustained
campaign, the consistent allocation of resources, and the
political will to continue focusing on the issue long after
it has dropped from the news cycle and daily media buzz,
replaced by other pressing matters. It has been this last
part that has proved capricious in the past. Moreover,
despite a laudable effort by the international community
to come together in the face of the unprecedented wave
of foreign fighters who traveled to conflict zones over the
past five years, there is still no universally accepted and
agreed-upon strategy either for preventing a similar
outflow of aspiring jihadists in the future or for how
societies should handle the inevitable return of those
who fight, survive, and then seek to come back to their
countries of origin – some war-weary, disillusioned, and
traumatized; others disengaged, but not deradicalized.
When considering the Islamic State, there are several
potential outcomes if the ongoing Coalition
counterterrorism campaign proves successful in
smashing its core and causing it to splinter. One
veritable certainty, however, is that the inclusion of the
Islamic State into any future political framework in
either Iraq or Syria is a non-sequitur.56 The Islamic State
has not shared any political platform anywhere close to
being mildly acceptable to even the most dysfunctional
or rogue nation-state. Were a political settlement in
either Syria or Iraq to gain traction more broadly, it is
possible that elements of the Islamic State could
continue to prosper as a violent criminal organization,
relying on extortion, smuggling, and robbery to survive.
But a Hezbollahlike political entity is not even a remote
possibility, nor does IS seem inclined to favor such a
route.
As discussed in chapter 4, al-Qaeda in Syria could prove
to be the final death knell of IS in that country, either by
defeating its forces militarily or by absorbing the bulk of
its remaining fighters into al-Qaeda’s ranks. Between
HTS and Tanzim Hurras al-Din, there is no shortage of
militant Islamist groups which could be possible suitors
for militants fleeing IS. Still, if the Islamic State feared it
was facing extinction in Syria, its leadership might well
decide to relocate the caliphate to Libya, or elsewhere
where an existing offshoot might be bolstered.57 It is
possible that, following the atomization of the Islamic
State, its remnants could be stamped out by security
forces in areas where it currently operates. However, the
two primary factors that led to the resuscitation of al-
Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) into Islamic State – the Syrian civil
war and Baghdad’s marginalization of Iraqi Sunnis –
show no signs of abating anytime soon, though prospects
for the latter are more promising in the near term.
If none of the above futures play out, the United States
will need to work with partner nations across the region
to disrupt the blueprint that deftly enables splinter
groups to reconstitute into more effective fighting forces.
This can be accomplished in part by reducing the space
for militants to operate and gain traction, including
helping governments to address local grievances,
promote good governance, and strengthen the rule of
law. This will require a true “whole of government
approach,” including security cooperation in areas such
as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and
diplomacy; increased intelligence sharing; and continued
punitive measures when necessary. The United States
can help provide surveillance of poorly governed areas to
help reduce threats within these territories, while also
building the partner capacity of host-nation security
forces to help stem migration (and other martial
resource) flows to active areas of hostilities.
To the extent possible, the United States should continue
working to mitigate the primary factors that led an al-
Qaeda splinter to grow into the Islamic State in the first
place – namely, pushing hard to end the Syrian civil war
and exerting whatever leverage possible to cajole
Baghdad into abandoning its overly sectarian stance
against Iraqi Sunnis. To some degree, there has been
progress on this front under the Abadi government.
Without ameliorating what are essentially political
issues, even successful counterterrorism tactics will allow
room for splinter groups to emerge and grow stronger.
There are several other important issues related to
splinter groups that counterterrorism forces also need to
take into account, including these groups’ ability to
finance their nascent organizations through a diverse
range of activities, disseminate effective propaganda, and
exploit new technologies.
Technology, especially technology that enables terrorist
groups’ ability to talk with one another and communicate
their message to a broader audience, is a greater force
multiplier in 2019 than it has been at any previous point
in history. IS’s leveraging of social media provided a
tremendous boost to its ability to recruit and organize. It
has also vastly improved terrorists’ ability to plan and
execute virtual plots. As Gartenstein-Ross observed,
“Over the past few years, Syriabased IS operatives have
found recruits online, spurred them to action, and played
an intimate role in the conceptualization, target
selection, timing, and execution of attacks. They have
also used encrypted communication platforms to assist
in bomb-making techniques and provide other forms of
technical assistance.”58
The West must develop a range of strategies to handle
the threat posed by these different groups. The “hardcore
fighters” who remain in Iraq and Syria will need to be
killed or captured by Iraqi security forces and the anti-IS
Coalition. The first priority should be detection, which
goes hand in hand with increased information sharing
and training partner nations to screen and investigate
potential terrorists. This suggests an even greater role for
multilateral cooperation. Another major hurdle will be
marshaling the resources required to monitor, track, and
surveil battle-hardened jihadists attempting to blend
back into Western society. Efforts by the West to build
the partner capacity of host-nation forces in weak and
fragile states will not obviate the threat, but will be part
of a more comprehensive solution geared toward
combating the challenge posed by the “free agents,” or
roving bands of militants.
The trillion-dollar question is: how do you prevent a
similar phenomenon of tens of thousands of people
leaving their homes to travel to a war zone to support a
violent, non-state armed group? Part of the answer is
persuasion, and another part is prevention. Regarding
the former, the challenge for Western countries is how to
escape what Rik Coolsaet has called the “no-future
subculture” that exists in many countries in Europe and
elsewhere.59 This viewpoint holds that French, Belgian,
Dutch, and British citizens whose parents or
grandparents emigrated from Algeria, Morocco, Somalia,
or Pakistan feel no connection to the European societies
in which they were raised, even while they have no clear
links to their ancestral homelands. This creates an
identity crisis which leaves them vulnerable to the allure
of extremist interpretations of Islam, while others might
see joining IS as a way to define their identities, seek
adventure, or openly defy a society and culture they feel
separated from to the point of actively wanting to oppose
it.
To be fair, in many circles the conversation has grown to
include not merely responses to terrorism, but efforts at
prevention in the first place. One way states have
approached this is to prevent individuals from traveling
abroad to conflict zones in the first place through the use
of administrative measures, including travel bans and
control orders. These have proven to be quite effective in
preventing the departure of individuals, although it is
critical to establish safeguards and limits around their
use.60 This measure can also lead to unintended
consequences, as witnessed with so-called “frustrated
foreign fighters.” After being denied the ability to travel
abroad to wage jihad, they instead seek to conduct
attacks in their countries of origin. There are numerous
examples of attackers who fit into this category, with
cases in the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark,
Spain, and France, to name a few.61
The physical entity that was the Islamic State’s caliphate
is over. Mosul and Raqqa have been retaken and, even
though its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has not yet been
killed or captured – at least, at the time of this writing in
late 2018 – the core of the Islamic State is decimated.
But its message still finds resonance among sub-
populations of extremists throughout the world and will
continue to do so well into the foreseeable future.
But to defeat IS in the long term, it will take more than
measures in the physical world. To counter the threat IS
will continue to pose in the future, it is crucial to
understand what IS is and what IS is not, where it is truly
dangerous and where its power and reach have limits.
And, above all else, the Islamic State is an ideology. It
represents the embodiment of Salafi-jihadism and all of
its undercurrents – anti-American, anti-Jewish, and, of
course, anti-Shia. This ideology motivates individuals
and groups around the world to conduct attacks in its
name, inspiring an amorphous and disconnected cadre
of lone wolves and small groups of jihadists driven to act
by its propaganda and overarching messages.
But for all of our acknowledgment of the threat posed by
the Islamic State, there are many things it is not. For
example, IS is not a monolithic actor, even though many
in the West have lumped disparate and diverse threats
under the Islamic State banner. This tendency is a legacy
of the Cold War, when Washington became comfortable
with defining grand strategy in terms of us versus them.
“Them” now includes a range of state and non-state
threats and not all terrorists are the same. Moreover, all
Salafi-jihadi terrorist groups are not the same. Defining
the Islamic State threat as unitary helps provide a much-
needed structure and logic to Western counterterrorism
strategy, but it also causes conceptual confusion. In some
ways, attempting to make sense of IS is a fool’s errand.
This is not a centrally managed organization, but rather
an opportunistic, disaggregated movement.
The Islamic State is also not an existential threat on the
order of the challenge the United States faced
throughout the course of the Cold War. IS is not a
nuclear-armed nation-state, nor is it a near-peer
adversary trained and equipped for conventional military
operations. Countering IS demands a sober assessment
of the group’s organizational and operational
capabilities, but, more poignantly, it requires an honest
recognition of the international community’s ability to
affect the future trajectory of this movement. No
counterterrorism strategy, no matter how
comprehensive or robust, can address the grievances
that led to the resuscitation of IS or pacify the virulent
ideology that sustains the group.
Eliminating the physical embodiment of IS – the
caliphate – is a necessary, but not sufficient, component
of winning the long war against the group and in
addressing the region’s more fundamental challenges.
And whatever iteration of violent extremism replaces IS,
the West should be careful to realize that IS is more a
symptom of the disease than the underlying cause. The
most pragmatic approach to keeping this ideology
confined to the margins is working to address the
conditions that fueled IS’s rise – sectarianism in Iraq and
the Syrian civil war – while remaining honest about the
threat posed by this ideology and the West’s ability to
counter this threat wherever it manifests itself over the
course of the next generation.62
The establishment of the caliphate will be trumpeted by
IS as an achievement of meteoric proportions. Indeed,
even those opposed to the group and its ideology have to
admit that for a violent non-state terrorist organization
to establish a proto-state in this day and age is a rare
event and a rather brazen, if not ambitious, feat. But it
was also an aberration.
The fight against radicalization, extremism, and global
jihad is not existential. Now that the caliphate has been
crushed, the global jihadist movement will return to its
peripatetic past, one characterized largely by infighting
amongst militant groups and travel to new battlefields.
The pendulum is now swinging away from a globally
coordinated effort by centralized terrorist organizations
and back to a focus on local and regional conflicts. But
even in fragmented and atomized form, these groups
present a threat, especially if the Islamic State’s ideology
persists and successfully convinces a new generation of
Muslims that a caliphate is an attainable and desirable
objective, and that the means to this end will include the
relentless pursuit of never-ending global jihad.

Notes
1. Seth G. Jones, Charles Vallee, Nicholas Harrington,
and Hannah Byrne, “The Evolving Terrorist Threat:
 The Changing Nature of the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda,
and Other Salafi-Jihadist Groups,” Center for
Strategic and International Studies:
https://www.isis.org/analysis/evolution-salafi-
jihadist-threat.
2. Rukmini Callimachi, “ISIS Leader Baghdadi
Resurfaces in Recording,” New York Times, August
22, 2018.
3. Lorne L. Dawson, “The Demise of the Islamic State
and the Fate of Its Western Foreign Fighters: Six
Things to Consider,” International Centre for
Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT), ICCT Policy
Brief, June 2018, p. 4.
4. R. Kim Cragin has argued that, contrary to popular
belief, most foreign fighters do not die on battlefields
or travel from conflict to conflict, but return home.
See Cragin, “The Challenge of Foreign Fighter
Returnees.”
5. Alastair Reed and Johanna Pohl, “Disentangling the
EU Foreign Fighter Threat: The Case for a
Comprehensive Approach,” RUSI, February 10, 2017.
6. Simon Cottee, “Pilgrims to the Islamic State,” The
Atlantic, July 24, 2015.
7. Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, “ISIS and the Foreign
Fighter Phenomenon,” The Atlantic, March 8, 2015.
8. See Callimachi, “Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All”; see also
Gartenstein-Ross and Blackman, “ISIL’s Virtual
Planners”; and Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and
Seamus Hughes, “The Threat to the United States
from the Islamic State’s Virtual Entrepreneurs,” CTC
Sentinel, 10: 3, March 2017, pp. 1–8.
9. Thomas Hegghammer, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice
between Domestic and Foreign Fighting,” American
Political Science Review, 107:1, February 2013, pp. 1–
15.
10. Cragin, “The November 2015 Paris Attacks,” pp. 212–
26.
11. Callimachi, “How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a
Global Network of Killers”; see also Hoffman, “The
Global Terror Threat and Counterterrorism
Challenges Facing the Next Administration.”
12. Daniel Byman, “Where Will the Islamic State Go
Next?” Lawfare, June 22, 2018.
13. United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism
Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), “The
Challenge of Returning and Relocating Foreign
Terrorist Fighters: Research Perspectives,” April
2018.
14. Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Manual,
“Responses to Returnees: Foreign Terrorist Fighters
and Their Families,” July 2017.
15. “Belgian Investigators Shed Light on Liège Gunman
as IS Group Claims Attack,” France 24, May 30, 2018.
16. Robin Wright, “ISIS Jihadis Have Returned Home by
the Thousands,” New Yorker, October 23, 2017.
17. Yolande Knell, “Inside the Iraqi Courts Sentencing IS
Suspects to Death,” BBC News, September 2, 2017.
18. Will Worley, “At Least 100 European ISIS Fighters
‘To Be Prosecuted in Iraq, With Most Facing Death
Penalty,’” Independent, October 7, 2017.
19. Tanya Mehra, “Bringing (Foreign) Terrorist Fighters
to Justice in a Post-ISIS Landscape Part I:
Prosecution by Iraqi and Syrian Courts,” International
Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT),
December 22, 2017.
20. Hollie McKay, “Syrian Opposition, Out of Jail Space,
Fears Threat of Released ISIS Prisoners,” Fox News,
May 29, 2018.
21. Eric Schmitt, “Battle to Stamp Out ISIS in Syria Gains
New Momentum, but Threats Remain,” New York
Times, May 30, 2018.
22. Tanya Mehra, “Bringing (Foreign) Terrorist Fighters
to Justice in a Post-ISIS Landscape Part II:
Prosecution by National Courts,” International Centre
for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, January 12,
2018.
23. Jenna Consigli, “Prosecuting the Islamic State
Fighters Left Behind,” Lawfare, August 1, 2018.
24. Margaret Coker and Falih Hassan, “A 10-Minute
Trial, a Death Sentence: Iraqi Justice for Iraqi
Suspects,” New York Times, April 17, 2018.
25. Alissa J. Rubin, “She Left France to Fight in Syria.
Now She Wants to Return. But Can She?” New York
Times, January 11, 2018.
26. Ben Hubbard, “Wives and Children of ISIS:
Warehoused in Syria, Unwanted Back Home,” New
York Times, July 4, 2018.
27. Jamie Grierson and Caelainn Barr, “Police Facing
Surge in Extremists Released from Jail, Analysis
Finds,” Guardian, June 3, 2018.
28. Anthony Loyd, “A Close Encounter with British ISIS
Jihadis,” New Statesman, June 20, 2018.
29. Paul Sonne, Devlin Barrett, and Ellen Nakashima,
“U.S. and Britain Are Divided Over What to Do with
Captured IS Fighters,” Washington Post, February 14,
2018.
30. Kevin Baron, “US-Backed Syrian Force Holding
‘Hundreds’ of Foreign Fighters,” Defense One,
February 1, 2018.
31. Tanya Mehra, “Bringing (Foreign) Terrorist Fighters
to Justice in a Post-ISIS Landscape Part III: Collecting
Evidence from Conflict Situations,” International
 Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, June 12,
2018.
32. Christophe Paulussen and Kate Pitcher, “Prosecuting
(Potential) Foreign Fighters: Legislative and Practical
Challenges,” International Centre for Counter-
Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT), ICCT Research Paper,
January 2018.
33. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs,
“Former Iraqi Terrorists Living in Kentucky
Sentenced for Terrorist Activities,” Press Release,
January 29, 2013.
34. Georgia Holmer and Adrian Shtuni, “Returning
Foreign Fighters and the Reintegration Imperative,”
United States Institute for Peace (USIP), Special
Report 402, March 2017.
35. Georgia Holmer, “What to Do When Foreign Fighters
Come Home,” Foreign Policy, June 1, 2015.
36. Arsla Jawaid, “From Foreign Fighters to Returnees:
The Challenges of Rehabilitation and Reintegration
Policies,” Journal of Peacebuilding and Development,
12:2, 2017, pp. 102–7; see also Andrew Higgins, “For
Jihadists, Denmark Tries Rehabilitation,” New York
Times, December 13, 2014.
37. Lucy Williamson, “How France Hopes to Help
Radicals Escape Jihadist Net,” BBC News, February
28, 2018.
38. Fabian Merz, “Dealing with Jihadist Returnees: A
Tough Challenge,” Center for Security Studies (CSS),
Report no. 210, June 2018.
39. “How Belgium Copes with Returning Islamic State
Fighters,” The Economist, December 19, 2017.
40. Charles Lister, “Returning Foreign Fighters:
Criminalization or Reintegration?” Brookings
Institution Policy Briefing, August 2015.
41. Jessica Trisko Darden, “Compounding Violent
Extremism? When Efforts to Prevent Violence Fail,”
War on the Rocks, June 6, 2018.
42. Humera Khan, “Why Countering Extremism Fails,”
Foreign Affairs, February 18, 2015.
43. Walle Bos et al., “Capacity-Building Challenges:
Identifying Progress and Remaining Gaps in Dealing
with Foreign (Terrorist) Fighters,” International
Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT),
ICCT Policy Brief, May 2018.
44. Dipesh Gadher, “Generation Jihad: The British
Children Brutalised by Terror,” The Times, March 25,
2018.
45. Kinana Qaddour, “ISIS’s War on Families Never
Ended,” Foreign Policy, February 1, 2018.
46. Jacob Olidort, “Inside the Caliphate’s Classroom:
Textbooks, Guidance Literature, and Indoctrination
Methods of the Islamic State,” The Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus 147,
August 2016.
47. Clarke and Ingram, “Defeating the ISIS Nostalgia
Narrative.”
48. Robin Simcox, “Children of the Caliphate: Victims or
Threat?” Lawfare, December 10, 2017.
49. Joana Cook and Gina Vale, “From Daesh to
‘Diaspora’: Tracing the Women and Minors of Islamic
State,” International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation (ISCR), 2018.
50. Liesbeth van der Heide and Jip Geenen, “Children of
the Caliphate: Young IS Returnees and the
Reintegration Challenge,” International Centre for
Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT), ICCT
Research Paper, August 2017.
51. Patrick B. Johnston, “Does Decapitation Work?
Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in
 Counterinsurgency Campaigns,” International
Security, 36:4, Spring 2012, pp. 47–79.
52. Ben Connable and Martin C. Libicki, How
Insurgencies End, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp.,
2010.
53. Eric Schmitt, “ISIS May Be Waning, But Global
Threats of Terrorism Continue to Spread,” New York
Times, July 6, 2018.
54. Anne Gearan and Dan Lamothe, “From Iraq to Syria,
Splinter Groups Now Larger Worry Than Al Qaeda,”
Washington Post, June 10, 2014.
55. Audrey Kurth Cronin, “How al Qaeda Ends: The
Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups,”
International Security, 31:1, Summer 2006, pp. 7–48.
56. Jonathan Powell, “Negotiate with ISIS,” The Atlantic,
December 7, 2015.
57. Brian Michael Jenkins and Colin P. Clarke, “In the
Event of the Islamic State’s Untimely Demise …,”
Foreign Policy, May 11, 2016.
58. Email exchange with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross,
August 2018.
59. Coolsaet, “Anticipating the Post-Daesh Landscape,”
p. 22.
60. Berenice Boutin, “Administrative Measures against
Foreign Fighters: In Search of Limits and Safeguards,”
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The
Hague (ICCT), December 16, 2016.
61. Daniel Byman, “Frustrated Foreign Fighters,”
Brookings Institution, July 13, 2017.
62. Andrew Liepman and Colin P. Clarke, “Demystifying
the Islamic State,” U.S. News & World Report, August
19, 2016.
Index

A
Abaaoud, Abdelhamid 57, 103
al-Abadi, Haider 155
Abdeslam, Salah 56
ABM (Ansar Bait al-Maqdis) 73
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) 4, 24, 88 90, 91
al-Adnani, Abu Muhammad 59
affiliate groups 125, 126
Algeria 33
al-Shabaab 95, 97
AQAP 35, 73
AQI 14
Boko Haram 95
counterterrorism 72
existing jihadi groups 29–30
Iraq 31–2
ISKP 77
Kashmir 87
Libya 80, 81–2
networks 13–14, 54
North Africa 34
relocation 2, 5, 6, 151
Sinai Peninsula 73, 74
al-Suri 108
Syria 39–40, 119
Yemen 36, 73
al-Zarqawi 118
see also franchise operations; splinter groups
Afghan Arabs 3, 137
Afghanistan
al-Qaeda 3–4, 25, 27
bin Laden 10, 137
deradicalization 147
foreign fighters 10
global jihadism 24
Islamic State 29, 52, 70, 71
jihadism 6, 78
Shiite Muslims 76–7
Taliban 24, 76
USA 4, 29, 78–9
wars of attrition 22
see also Soviet-Afghan War
AFPAK (Afghanistan and Pakistan) 76–9
Africa 94–6
see also East Africa; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa;
West Africa; specific countries
African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) 38, 96
AFRICOM (US African Command) 95, 98
Afwaj al-Muqawama al-Lubnaniya (AMAL) 151–2
AIAI (al-Itihaad al-Islamiya) 36
airline attacks 35
Alawites 60
Aleppo 50, 111
Algeria 25
affiliate groups 33
al-Qaeda 29, 30, 33–4
AQIM 33, 34
foreigners targeted 97
GIA 32
GSPC 30
Islamic State 70, 80
jihadism 6
splinter groups 152
al-Qaeda 11–12, 13–14, 160–1n2
Afghanistan 3–4, 25, 27
Algeria 29, 30, 33–4
alliances 21–2
and al-Shabaab 4, 14, 30
Arab Spring 124, 131–2
bin Laden ix, x, xi, 22
Constitutional Charter 19
core 39–40
expansion 29–30, 129–30
financial infrastructure 25–6
franchise operations 4–5, 21–2
future developments 129–33
ideology 128, 132
insurgency 21–2
Iraq 29, 31–2, 63
and Islamic State x, xii, 7–8, 109, 115–16, 117–29, 132
networks 19, 38, 61–2
organizational structure 23–6, 61–4
propaganda 46
rebranding 120–1
rebuilding 132–3
Salafi-jihadism 3, 11, 13, 127–9
Shiite Muslims 122–3
Somalia 3–4, 29
strategic decision-making 20–2
Syria xi, 119–21, 123, 125, 154
tactics 114–15, 117, 124
Yemen xi, 4–5, 29, 34–6, 84, 85, 121, 124
 see also affiliate groups; franchise operations; splinter
groups; al-Zawahiri
al-Qaeda in Iraq: see AQI
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: see AQAP
al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) 87, 190n93
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: see AQIM
al-Shabaab
affiliate groups 95, 97
and al-Qaeda 4, 14, 30
Somalia 14, 30, 36–8, 95
splinter groups 95, 151
suicide bombings 96–7
violence 96–7, 195n142
AMAL (Afwaj al-Muqawama al-Lubnaniya) 151–2
ambushes 5, 28, 40, 72, 107
AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) 38, 96
Amri, Anis 57, 101
Anas, Abdullah 10
al-Anbari, Adnan 58
Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (ABM) 73
Ansar Dine 14, 95
Ansar Sharia 124
Ansar al-Sharia Libya 14, 80
Ansaru 95
antiquities smuggling 42, 43
apostasy 60, 116
apostate regimes 16, 24, 67, 113, 122
apps 5, 67
AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula)
affiliated 35, 73
as franchise 4, 14, 30
and Islamic State 97
Yemen 35–6, 60, 73–4, 83–4
al-Zawahiri 35–6
AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq)
as affiliate 14
as franchise 4, 30
and Islamic State 39, 154
and MSC 167n89
sectarianism 32, 119
Shiite Muslims 30
split 60
and TWJ 32
al-Zarqawi 56, 62–3, 106
al-Zawahiri 119
AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) 32
as affiliate 14
Algeria 33, 34
Boko Haram 95
criminal activities 34
as franchise 4, 30, 36
Libya 80
AQIS (al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent) 87, 190n93
Arab Spring xi, 39, 72, 117, 124, 131–2
Armed Islamic Group (GIA) 32
Arnaout, Enaam 27–8
ASG: see Abu Sayyaf Group
Asia 4
see also Central Asia; South Asia; Southeast Asia;
specific countries
al-Asiri, Ibrahim Hassan 35
al-Assad, Bashar 110–11, 121, 138
assassinations 47, 75, 96–7, 110
Australia 55, 83, 122, 138, 157
al-Awlaki, Anwar 16, 35, 113
Azzam, Abdullah 10, 15

B
Baathists 48, 58
al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr
bin Laden 58
as Caliph 58, 61, 157
and extremists 116
influence of ix, 57, 108, 128–9, 136
purges 47–8
and al-Zawahiri 58, 108
Bahney, Benjamin 107
Bangladesh 70, 87
“Baqiya wa Tatamaddad” slogan 67–8, 111
Barbaros, Abu Abdel Aziz 27
Bedouins 72, 74
beheadings 1, 60, 66, 123
Belgium 99, 103–4, 140, 146
see also Brussels attacks
Belkacem, Fouad 103
Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) 27–8
Bengazhi 81
Berlin Christmas market attack 57, 82, 101
BIF (Benevolence International Foundation) 27–8
Bilaad al-Shaam 125
bin Laden, Osama
Afghan Arabs 137
Afghanistan 10, 137
al-Qaeda ix, x, xi, 22
Arab Spring 117
and al-Baghdadi 58
death of 10, 11–12, 130
EIJ 24
Somalia 36
Sudan 24–5
on USA 10, 15–16
Yemen 25
and al-Zarqawi 32
and al-Zawahiri 11, 108
Boko Haram 95, 98–9
Borough Market attack 102
Bosnia 3–4, 6, 25, 27–8, 134
Bouhlel, Mohamed Lahouaiej 57
brainwashing 53, 59–60, 101, 148–50
Brussels attacks 5, 48, 56, 59, 103
Bunzel, Cole 115
Burkina Faso 95–6, 97, 98
burning alive 1, 123
Byman, Daniel 14, 30, 36, 113
C
caliphate ix, x, 2, 17, 66
al-Qaeda 18–19
children 148–50
collapse of 2, 3, 61, 63, 69, 82, 88–9, 130, 135, 136–7,
157
establishing 1, 11, 50, 116–17, 118, 134–5
foreign fighters returning 99
global jihadism 50–1, 136–7
Islamic State ix, 18, 61, 159
Libya 154
nostalgia of 112–13
virtual 54, 108
Callimachi, Rukmini 1, 48–9, 83
Caucasus 6, 14, 70, 93–4
Central Asia 6, 91–4
Charlie Hebdo attacks 36, 57
Chechnya 3–4, 6, 24–5, 27, 28–9, 134
children
brainwashing 53, 59–60, 101, 148–50
Cubs of the Caliphate camps 53
recruitment of 102–3
suicide bombers 63
Choudry, Anjem 102
Christians 73, 75, 89
civilians attacked 38, 73, 195n142
Cold War 45, 158
Combating Terrorism Center 90
Consumer Protection Authority 64
Coolsaet, Rik 55, 104, 116, 156
Coulibaly, Ahmed 57
countering violent extremism (CVE) programs 147
counterinsurgency 7, 72, 74
Counter-IS Coalition 44
see also Western Coalition
counterterrorism x
affiliate groups 72
al-Qaeda rebranding 120–1
Belgium 103–4
and counterinsurgency 7, 72
effects of 152, 155
Europe 17, 102
foreign fighter returnees 8
Indonesia 88–9
sanctions 43–4
Saudi Arabia 31
Southeast Asia 90
splinter groups 3, 8–9, 135, 151, 155
technological innovations 131
USA 23
Western Coalition x, xi, 123, 133, 153–4
see also intelligence services
Cragin, Kim 92
Crenshaw, Martha 1
crimes against humanity 141, 144
criminal activities
AQIM 34
foreign fighters 62
funding from 41, 42, 55, 56
jihadist networks 55, 114–15
recruits 20
crucifixion 1, 123
Crusader–Zionist alliance 16, 136
Cubs of the Caliphate camps 53
Culbertson, Shelly 111
CVE (countering violent extremism) programs 147

D
Dabiq 67, 181–2n147
Damascus 110
Dayton Accords 25, 28
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 6, 151
Denmark 99, 146, 157
deradicalization 135, 145, 146–7
dis videos 118
disengagement 135, 138, 145, 153
disillusionment 20, 137–8, 153
do-it-yourself terrorism 20–1, 108
Domodedovo Airport suicide attacks 94
DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) 6, 151
drones 4, 46–7
Droukdal, Abdelmalek 34
drownings 1
E
East Africa 94, 96–7
East Turkestan Islamic Movement 14
Egypt
geopolitics 75
insurgency 73–4
Islamic State 6, 70
and Libya 73
Morsi 72
sectarianism 75
support for 25
al-Zawahiri 24
see also Sinai Peninsula
EIJ (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) 11, 24, 75
Emni 7, 48–9, 59, 107
Emwazi, Mohammed 102
“the enemy of my enemy is my friend” 126
environmental measures 96
Eritrea 25
Ethiopia 36–7, 96
ethnic cleansing 27
Euphrates River 42, 69, 106–7
Europe 17–18, 33, 99–104, 143, 145–6
see also specific countries
European Parliament report 55
executions 49, 58, 66, 102, 155
extortion 42, 44, 123, 154
F
Facebook 66, 68
failed states xi, 25, 79–80, 130, 152
far enemy concept 16, 24, 122
Finland 99
Fishman, Brian 32
foreign fighter returnees
caliphate 99
counterterrorism 8
Denmark 146
families 135, 143
ideology 137–8, 146
operational 138–9
prosecution of 139–44
rehabilitation 144–8
Syrian trials 141
Turkey 139
USA 143
Western Coalition 67, 134, 136, 137–9, 156
foreign fighters
Afghanistan 10
capacity-building efforts 147–8
criminal activities 62
from Europe 17–18, 99, 143
and families 135
global jihad 21, 62
in Iraq 32, 134, 137
killed 136
in Libya 81–2
Pakistan 24
post-caliphate 106–7
prevention 135, 156–7
recruitment of 4–5
Russia 93–4
in Syria 62, 134, 137–8, 141
from the US 143, 162n28
West Africa 95
Former Soviet Union (FSU) 92
Fort Hood shootings 35
Foundation of Defense for Democracies 96
France 33, 55, 56–7, 99, 100–1, 146
see also Paris attacks
franchise operations 2, 4–5, 14, 29–38
against West 20–1
bin Ladenism x
expanding 22, 70–2
Libya 80
networks 54
preference divergence 8
Salafi-jihadism 11, 14, 151
Sinai Peninsula 73
South Asia 85–7
see also affiliate groups; splinter groups
FSU (Former Soviet Union) 92

G
Garissa attack, Kenya 38
Gartenstein-Ross, Daveed 114, 123, 155
Gaza 74–5
“General Guidelines for Jihad” (al-Zawahiri) 117
genocide 144
geographical factors 17–18, 24, 72, 75, 82, 88, 89, 125
geopolitics xi, 25, 75, 79–80, 126–9, 152
Gerges, Fawaz 27, 67
Germany 33, 53, 57, 99, 101
see also Berlin Christmas market attack
GIA (Armed Islamic Group) 32
Glaser, Daniel 41–2
Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS 9
global jihadism ix, x–xi, 2, 11–17, 26–9
Afghanistan 24
Africa 94–5
al-Qaeda 19, 38
caliphate 50–1, 136–7
fight against 159
in flux 111–12
foreign fighters 21, 62
franchise groups and affiliates 29–38
goals and objectives 17–20
ideology x–xi, 14–17, 122
intensification 129–31
organizational structure 23–6
potential defeat of 134
strategy 113–14
technological innovations 114–15
Global War on Terror xi–xii, 10, 130, 134
Godane, Ahmed 37
gradualism 113
Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) 95, 98
GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) 30, 32,
33
guerrilla-style tactics 47, 70, 72, 84–5, 106
Gunaratna, Rohan 24

H
Hamas 74–5
Hamming, Tore 116
Hapilon, Isnilon 91
Haque, Umar 102–3
Hasan, Nidal 35
Hassan, Hassan 106–7, 108
ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror 128
al-Hayali, Fadel 58
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) 119, 154
Hegghammer, Thomas 31, 55
Hezbollah 46, 52, 121, 151
hisbah 62
hit-and-run attacks 5, 40
Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islam (HuT) 93
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) 87
Hoffman, Bruce xi, 14, 49, 125, 129
Horgan, John G. 53
Horn of Africa 36, 95, 96–7
hospitals targeted 77
Houthi rebels 85
HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) 119, 154
Huckabee-Sanders, Sarah 69–70
human resources 61–4
human rights groups 143
humanitarian efforts 66–7
Hussain, Junaid 102
Hussein, Saddam 48, 58
HuT (Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islam) 93

I
Ibn Taymiyyah 15
ICU (Islamic Courts Union) 36
identity crisis 156–7
ideology
al-Qaeda 128, 132
foreign fighter returnees 138, 146
global jihadism x–xi, 14–17, 122
Islamic State 5, 38, 59–61, 66, 110, 128, 132, 135, 148,
157–9
jihadism 109, 115–17
operational capabilities 128
Salafism 12, 14–17
Saudi Arabia 145
social media 66
splinter groups 152
USIP 145
Idlib 50, 124
IEDs (improvised explosive devices) 75
Imarat Kavkaz 14
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) 75
IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) 13, 24, 76, 78,
91–2, 93
In Defence of Muslim Lands (Azzam) 15
India 6, 29, 86, 87
indoctrination 28, 53, 59, 61, 109, 148, 150
see also brainwashing
Indonesia 6, 13, 70, 88–9, 90
Instagram 66, 67
insurgency 7, 21–2, 70, 72, 73–4, 89, 109–10, 130
insurgency theorists 16–17
intelligence services
Counter-IS Coalition 44
Emni 7, 48–9, 59, 107, 129
foreign fighter returnees 137
Germany 53
information sharing 17, 130–1, 154
and law inforcement 25–6, 67, 104, 115
and military 90
Pakistan 88
United Kingdom 102
USA 51–2
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism 150
International Commissions of Inquiry 144
Interpol 140
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) 88
Investigative Team, UNSC 144
Iran 93, 121–2, 128, 131–2
Iraq
al-Qaeda 29, 31–2, 63
civil war 21
foreign fighters in 32, 134, 137
guerilla-style tactics 106
insurgency potential 109–10
Islamic State 6–7, 11, 69, 108, 132–3, 140–1, 144
sectarianism 4, 104
Shiite Muslims 107–8
soldiers 172n25
Sunni Muslims 57–8, 63, 106, 154, 155
Tawhid wal Jihad 30
training camps 53
US troops 62–3, 69–70, 85, 106, 108
war crimes 141
weapons hoarded 106
White Flags 107
Yazidis 1
al-Zarqawi 30, 31–2
see also AQI; ISI
IS: see Islamic State
ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) 88
ISI (Islamic State in Iraq) 4, 39–40
ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (Hassan) 128
ISKP (Islamic State in Khorasan Province) 76, 77, 78
Islamic charities 27
Islamic Courts Union (ICU) 36
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan: see IMU
Islamic State (IS) 4–5, 7–8
Afghanistan 29, 52, 70, 71
Algeria 70, 80
and al-Qaeda x, xii, 7–8, 109, 115–16, 117–19, 126–9,
132
and AQI 39, 154
Bangladesh 87
caliphate ix, 18, 61, 159
Egypt 6, 70
financing 41–4, 55, 56, 152
future developments 105, 129–33
hisbah 62
human resources 63–4
humanitarian efforts 66–7
ideology 5, 38, 59–61, 66, 110, 128, 132, 135, 148, 157–
9
intelligence service 48–9
Iraq 6–7, 11, 69, 108, 132–3, 140–1, 144
leadership 57–9
municipal services 63
networks of command 58–9
operational capabilities 5, 40–53
opportunism 109–11
organizational capabilities 5, 54–68, 107
outsourcing attacks 77
propaganda 46, 65–8, 89, 123, 135–6
purges 47–8
recruitment xi, 20, 89
Salafi-jihadist movement 59–60, 93–4, 127–9, 157–8
sectarianism 44, 118, 122–3, 159
 Shiite Muslims 60, 61, 122–3
social media 1–2, 5, 40, 54, 65, 66–8, 136, 155, 180–
1n136
Somalia 70, 95
splintering 57, 69, 150–1
state building 49, 61, 63–4, 104, 130, 134–6
strategy 111–15
Syria 1, 6–7, 11, 69, 132–3
takfirism 59, 116–17
Twitter 65, 183n161
US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field
Manual 48
violence 60, 118, 120, 131–2
weapons 44–7
Yazidi girl 1
Yemen 6, 71, 83
al-Zarqawi 118–19
al-Zawahiri 118
see also affiliate groups; bin Laden; franchise
operations; splinter groups
Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) 4, 39–40
Islamic State in Khorasan Province: see ISKP
Islamic State in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda
95
Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) 98
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria 39–40
Islamic Youth Shura Council 80
Israel 16, 73, 74
ISWA (Islamic State in West Africa) 98
al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI) 36
Ivory Coast 95–6, 97

J
Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) 14, 36, 39–40, 48, 53, 67, 119
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham 119
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) 87
Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (TWJ) 31–2
Jamaat of Central Asian Mujahidin 93
Jarabulus crossing 50
JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed) 87
Jemmah Islamiyah 4, 13, 75, 88
Jenkins, Brian Michael 11–12, 18
jihadi cool 55, 68
jihadism xi–xii
Afghanistan 6, 78
attacks in Europe 99
criminal networks 55, 114–15
free-agents 5–6
ideology 109, 115–17
infrastructure for 78
networks 19
opportunism 24
Russia 91–2
sectarianism 109
Sunni Muslims 15, 50, 115–17, 202n51
in USA 18
see also global jihadism
JN: see Jabhat al-Nusra
JNIM (Group for Support of Islam and Muslims) 95, 98
Johnston, Patrick 107
al-Jolani, Mohammed 125
Jones, Seth: Waging Insurgent Warfare 109
Jordan 24, 25, 27, 32, 62
al-Joulani, Abu Muhammad 39–40
JustPaste.it 67

K
Kampala bombings 37–8
Karimov, Islam 91
Kashmir 87–8, 131–2
Kassem, Abu 57–8
Katibah Nusantara 89
Katibat al-Battar al-Libiyah (KBL) 80
al-Kattab, Ibn 28
Kazakhstan 92–3
KBL (Katibat al-Battar al-Libiyah) 80
Kenya 36, 38, 95
Kepel, Gilles 55
Kerchove, Gilles de 102
Khalid bin al-Walid Army 110
Khorasan Group 125
kidnapping 34, 42, 43
Al-Kifah 27
killing of unbelievers 60
Knights of Martyrdom 66–7
Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner (Zawahiri) 28–9
Konig, Emilie 142–3
Kurds 7, 46, 48, 60, 142–3
Kyrgyzstan 93

L
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) 77
Lashkar-e-Taliba (LeT) 76, 87
Lebanon 21, 25, 121, 151–2
LEJ (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) 77
LeT (Lashkar-e-Taliba) 76, 87
Levitt, Matthew 56
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 151
al-Libi, Abu Yahya 16
Libya
AQIM 80
caliphate 154
and Egypt 73
Islamic State 6, 52, 70, 71, 79–82
jihadists 99
Salafism 81
state-building 64
support for 25
taxation 64
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) 13
Liège killings 140
LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) 13
London attacks 102
lone wolf terrorists 20, 59, 157–8
looting 42, 45
Louay, Abu 57–8
LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) 151
M
Maalbeek metro station 103
Madrid train bombings 33
Maghreb 32, 73, 80, 97
see also AQIM
MAK (Maktab al-Khidamat) 10, 11
Mali 14, 21, 95, 97–8, 115, 121
The Management of Savagery (Naji) 60, 107
Manchester concert bombing 82, 102
Marawi 89, 90, 91
martyrdom 66, 92, 149
Masasen, Hans-Georg 101
Mattis, James 79
media 35, 41, 65–8
see also social media
medical expenses 63–4
Mehra, Tanya 141
Mendelsohn, Barak 22
Metrojet Flight 9268 73
MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) 88
Mogadishu car-bombing 38
Moghadam, Assaf 21
Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh 24
Molenbeek 56, 103
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) 88
Morocco 56, 80, 156
Morsi, Mohammed 72
Moscow Metro suicide bombing 94
Mosul
census 64
city charter 60
foreign fighters 99
Iraqi security forces 106
kids’ fun day 63
looting 42
as operational base 50
post-caliphate 2, 130, 136, 157
al-Mourabitoun 95
Mozambique 95, 151
MSC (Mujahedin Shura Council) 167n89
Mubarak, Hosni 24
El Mudžahid Battalion 27
al-Muhajiroun 102
mujahedin 10, 27
Mujahedin Shura Council (MSC) 167n89
Muslim Brotherhood 15
Muslims persecuted 27, 85–7
Myanmar 6, 85–7

N
Naji, Abu Bakr 113
The Management of Savagery 60, 107
narcotics 42, 43
National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) 18
New York City pipe bomb 86
New York Times 1
New Yorker 6
Nice truck attack 57, 100
Niger 95, 98
Nigeria 96, 98
non-governmental organizations 144, 145
North Africa 4, 6, 34
Northern Ireland 152
nostalgia narrative 149
Nusra: see Jabhat al-Nusra (JN)

O
Office of Borders and Immigration 82
oil fields 43, 44, 51
oil sales 42–3

P
Pakistan 4, 24, 25, 76–9, 88
Papa Noel: see Zerkani, Khalid
Paris attacks
Belgian ringleader 103
casualties 100, 115, 138–9
Charlie Hebdo 36, 57
Islamic State 5, 48, 49–50, 56, 59
Parsons Green Underground bombing 102
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West
(PEGIDA) 101
People’s Protection Units (YPG) 110
Petraeus, David 35
Philippines xi, 6, 24–5, 70, 71, 88–9
police training college attack 77
Politico 103
PREVENT 143
prison 62, 100, 135, 139–40, 146
propaganda 46, 65–8, 89, 123, 135–6, 139–40, 149
prosecutions 139–44
public relations 65–8
public services 63, 64
Putin, Vladimir 93, 94

Q
Qaddafi, Muammar 80, 81
al-Qaqaa, Abu 62–3
Qutb, Sayyid 15

R
Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) 139–44
radicalization
Belgium 104
Central Asian workers 92
France 55, 100, 146
Indonesia 89
mujahedin 27
prison 100, 135, 139–40
recruitment 20, 136
United Kingdom 53, 102–3
railroad explosion 94
ramming attacks 40, 57, 65
RAN (Radicalisation Awareness Network) 139–44
RAND Corporation 68, 111
rapprochement 127–9
Raqqa 2, 49–50, 54, 112, 130, 136, 157
Rasmussen, Nicholas 18
recidivism 135, 145
recruitment 4–5
children 102–3
criminal activities 20
Europeans 54–7
Islamic State xi, 20, 89
online 155
radicalization 20, 136
records 48, 54
training 52–3
weapons 45
rehabilitation 144–8
Reina nightclub shootings 83
religious extremism 55
Renard, Thomas 104
Risen Alive 66–7
Riyadh compound bombings 30
robbery 42
Robinson, Linda 111
Rohingya Muslims 85–7
Roy, Olivier x, 55
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) 92, 130, 152, 154
rule of law 92, 130, 152, 154
RUSI: see Royal United Services Institute
Russia 28–9, 91–2, 93–4
S
safe havens xi, 3, 17, 37, 41, 49–52, 79, 80
Salafi-jihadist movement
al-Qaeda 3, 11, 13, 127–9
East Africa 94
franchise operations 11, 14, 151
ideology 12, 14–17
Islamic State 59–60, 93–4, 127–9, 157–8
Somalia 37
statistics 134
Sub-Saharan Africa 151
Sunni Muslims 202n51
Turkey 83
weak regimes 115
Yemen 85
Salafism 12, 14–17, 53, 81, 115
Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat: see GSPC
sanctions 43–4
Saudi Arabia 24–5, 28, 29–31, 85, 131–2, 145
Save the Children 76
Scandinavia 55
SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) 110, 141
sectarianism x, 6
AQI 32, 119
Egypt 75
Iraq 4, 104
Islamic State 44, 118, 122–3, 159
jihadism 109
Philippines 89
September 11 terrorist attacks ix, 3, 10, 23
sexual slavery 1
sharia law 36, 60, 98, 116–17, 123
Sharia4Belgium 102, 103
Shiite Muslims
Afghanistan 76–7
al-Qaeda 122–3
AQI 30
in Iran 93
in Iraq 107–8
Islamic State 60, 61, 122–3
al-Zarqawi 32
see also Sunni–Shiite conflict
al-Shisani, Ali Fathi 28
al-Shishani, Omar 58
Sinai Peninsula 6, 7, 8–9, 29, 52, 70, 71, 72–5
Sirte 81–2, 134
el-Sisi, Abdel Fattah 73–4
slavery 1
sleeper cells 88–9, 108
social media
feuding 116, 118
ideology 66
Islamic State 1–2, 5, 40, 54, 65, 66–8, 136, 155
Somalia
al-Qaeda 3–4, 29
al-Shabaab 14, 30, 36–8, 95
civil wars 21
Ethiopia 36–7
Islamic State 70, 95
Salafi-jihadist movement 37
suicide bombing 37
support for 25
USA 21, 36
Soufan Group 91
SoundCloud 67
South Asia 85–8
Southeast Asia 6, 29, 52, 88–91
Soviet-Afghan War 3, 10, 12, 26–7, 28, 134, 137
Spain 33, 99
Special Forces program 22, 49, 52–3
splinter groups
Algeria 152
al-Shabaab 95, 151
Boko Haram 95
counterterrorism 3, 8–9, 135, 151, 155
failed states 152
HTS 119
ideology 152
reconstituting 135, 152–3, 154–5
state-building 49, 61, 63–4, 104, 130, 134–6
Sub-Saharan Africa 94–6, 151
Sudan 3–4, 24–5
Sufism 28, 75
suicide attacks 45, 46
al-Shabaab 96–7
Boko Haram 98
children 63
Domodedovo Airport 94
Indonesia 88–9
ISKP 76–7
Manchester concert 102
Moscow Metro 94
reliance on 47, 75, 76–7, 127
Sinai Peninsula 75
Somalia 37
Sunni Muslims
co-opted 109–10
disenfranchisement 51
eliminated 60
factions 93
in Iraq 57–8, 63, 106, 154, 155
jihadists 15, 50, 115–17, 202n51
Yemen 84
see also Sunni–Shiite conflict
Sunni Triangle 110
Sunni–Shiite conflict 119, 128, 131–2
al-Suri, Abu Musab x, 16, 108, 113
surveillance 46, 48, 154–5
Sweden 99
al-Sweidawi, Adnan 58
Syria
affiliated groups 39–40, 119
al-Qaeda xi, 29, 119–21, 123, 154
Arab Spring 39
children sent to Europe 53
civil war 4, 93, 115, 119, 138, 155, 159
detainee camps 143
foreign fighters in 62, 134, 137–8, 141
insurgency potential 109–10
Islamic State 1, 6–7, 11, 69, 132–3
Jabhat al-Nusra 14
Kurds 142–3
oil fields 43
as safe haven 51–2
Turkey 50, 110
US troops 69–70
see also al-Assad, Bashar
Syrian Army 47
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) 110, 141

T
Tajikistan 25, 28, 92
takfirism 59, 116–17
Tal Abayd crossing 50
Taliban 24, 76
Tanzania 94
Tanzim Hurras al-Din 119–20, 125, 154
tatarrus 116–17
Tawhid wal Jihad 30
Tawil, Camille 33
taxation 42, 43, 51, 64, 123
technicals 46
technological innovations 114, 131
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TIP) 77
Telegram 68
terrorism 20–1, 23–4, 40–1, 49–50, 73, 108
see also specific locations
TFG (Transitional Federal Government) 38
Thailand 152
Tigantourine gas facility 33
Tigris River 110
TIP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) 77
TIP (Turkestan Islamic Party) 93
Tønnessen, Truls Hallberg 46
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) 38
travel bans 157
Trinidad and Tobago 55
Trump, Donald 69–70, 79, 84
Tunisia 70, 80, 82
Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) 93
Turkey 41, 50, 82–3, 110, 139
al-Turkmani, Abu Muslim 57–8
Twitter 65, 68, 183n161
TWJ (Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad) 31–2

U
Uganda 37–8, 95
Ullah, Akayed 86
ummah 15, 17, 66, 113
United Arab Emirates 85
United Kingdom 102–5
GSPC 33
jihadist attacks 82, 99, 102
possible extremists 150
PREVENT 143
prosecutions 141
recruitment 55, 102–3
United Nations Security Council 43, 144
United States of America ix
in Afghanistan 4, 29, 78–9
attacks on ix, 3, 10, 18, 23, 86
bin Laden 10, 15–16
counterterrorism 23
Crusader–Zionist alliance 136
Defense Department 84
embassies bombed 36, 94
foreign fighters from 143, 162n28
Global War on Terror xi–xii, 10, 130, 134
intelligence service 51–2
in Iraq 62–3, 69–70, 85, 106, 108
IS recruits 55
and Israel 16
jihadism 18
Kurds 46
Lebanon 21
Somalia 21, 36
State Department 70
surveillance 154–5
Syria 69–70
Syrian Democratic Forces 110
US African Command (AFRICOM) 95, 98
US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field
Manual 48
USIP (United States Institute for Peace) 145
Uyghur Islamic Party of Eastern Turkestan 93
Uzbeks 91, 92, 123
see also IMU
V
vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) 5,
40, 46
vehicular terrorism 5, 40, 65
virtual caliphate 54, 108
virtual planner model 114

W
Waging Insurgent Warfare (Jones) 109
Wahhabism 28, 60
war crimes 141–2, 144
weapons 44–7, 98–9, 106
West Africa 70, 71, 95, 97–9
Western Coalition 113
counterterrorism x, xi, 123, 133, 153–4
deradicalization 145
foreign fighter returnees 67, 134, 136, 137–9, 156
information sharing 156
technological innovations 114, 131
Westgate Mall attack 38
Westminster Bridge attack 102
WhatsApp 67
White Flags 107
Whiteside, Craig 112–13
Wilayat Qawqaz 93
wilayats 7, 80
winning hearts and minds 115, 117, 124
women’s role 1, 55, 101
Wood, Graeme 2, 53, 64
Wright, Robin 6
al-Wuhayshi, Nasir 35

Y
Yaryshmardy ambush 28
Yazidi girl 1
Yemen
affiliate groups 36, 73
al-Qaeda xi, 4–5, 29, 34–6, 84, 85, 121, 124
AQAP 35–6, 60, 73–4, 83–4
bin Laden 25
civil war 21, 115
Houthi rebels 85
Islamic State 6, 71, 83
local tribes 36
Salafi-jihadism 85
Sunni Muslims 84
YPG (People’s Protection Units) 110
Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of 27–8

Z
al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab
affiliate groups 118
AQI 56, 62–3, 106
bin Laden 32
Iraq 30, 31–2
Islamic State x, 118–19
leadership ix, x, 4, 106
and Shiites 32
short-/long-term gains 120
and al-Zawahiri 32
al-Zawahiri, Ayman
AQAP 35–6
to AQI 119
and al-Baghdadi 58, 108
and bin Laden 11, 108
Egypt 24
“General Guidelines for Jihad” 117
GSPC 33
as ideologue 16–17
on Islamic State 118
al-Joulani 39–40
Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner 28–9
leadership 13–14, 22, 124–6
Qutb 15
violence 60
and al-Zarqawi 32
Zelin, Aaron 50–1, 80
Zerkani, Khalid 56, 103, 198n178
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