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Analysis

“ISIS members have become like mad dogs, and every member has the power of immediate execution,” Abu Noor said by telephone from his home on the west side of Mosul, which government forces had not reached, referring to the terror group by one of its acronyms. “We live in constant fear and worry.”

As the fight drags on, it is looking more and more likely that Mosul will become one of the first national security issues facing President-elect Donald J. Trump when he takes office next month. While American forces have largely steered clear of the fighting in Syria, they are deeply involved in operations just over the border in Iraq, mainly in training, advising and support roles.

Senior American officials and top commanders in the Middle East say the brutal urban fight for Mosul is succeeding — however slowly — but is proving to be tougher than expected. These officials predict that the battle to oust the Islamic State from Iraq’s second-largest city could last two to four more months.

Brett H. McGurk, President Obama’s envoy to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State, noted at a recent White House briefing that previous battles against the terror group, as in Falluja, in Iraq, or Ramadi or Kobani, in Syria, took months, and said that eventually the Islamic State would exhaust its supply of munitions and fighters.

“Eventually they reach a culmination point, they simply cannot resupply, they run out of suicide bombers,” Mr. McGurk said. “In Mosul, we don’t know when that will come. It could come very soon, it could come a couple months from now, but our momentum will be sustained and we’ll provide relentless pressure on the enemy throughout Mosul.”

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend gave Pentagon reporters a year-end update that made no prediction on how soon Mosul would be liberated. “It’s progressing. It’s probably not progressing as fast as I, as a U.S. Army officer, would like, but it is progressing, and the Iraqis are advancing every day,” he said.

General Townsend said the Iraqis were engaged in discussions “about how to inject new energy” into their assault. “We’re just going to let it go at the pace” of the Iraqi military, he said. “They’re the ones doing the fighting and the dying.”

The battle for Mosul has shaped up unlike any other in Iraq. As Iraqi forces have advanced, they have uncovered Islamic State bomb-making facilities that have stunned soldiers and researchers in their sophistication, indicating that it could be a long time before the group runs out of arms.

A recent report from Conflict Armament Research, a London-based organization that sent a team of researchers to eastern Mosul, said the Islamic State had been producing rockets and mortars on an “industrial” scale inside Mosul.

Tens of thousands of armaments have been produced, the organization said, with supplies from Turkey, which in the last year has tightened its border security and clamped down on Islamic State smuggling networks in the face of criticism from allies, including the United States, that it was turning a blind eye to the terror group.

The findings, the group said, indicate “a robust supply chain extending from Turkey, through Syria, to Mosul,” suggesting that Turkey’s efforts at the border have not been enough to cut off the Islamic State from suppliers.

Shakir Mahmood, a soldier in Iraq’s elite counterterror forces, fought in battles in Ramadi, Falluja and Tikrit, but they were nothing like the fight he has faced in Mosul, he said.

“I have never seen or witnessed a battle like the battle for Mosul,” he said. “They have so many snipers hiding in the houses among civilians, and also many car bombs. Our losses in this battle cannot be compared with the other battles.”

Another veteran soldier, Ibrahim Ali, said: “I have seen things in Mosul that I will never forget my whole life. I have seen entire families get killed because of ISIS car bombs. And I have lost dear friends in Mosul.”

The Iraqi government does not release figures of military casualties, but it is clear in talking to officers that they are worrisomely high. The United Nations reported on Dec. 1 that 1,959 members of the Iraqi security forces had died in November. But after the Iraqi military protested, the United Nations issued a new statement saying its figures were “largely unverified” and said it would discontinue releasing casualty statistics for the military.

© Mohammed Salem/Reuters Azad Hassan, right, and his brother Mohammad each lost a hand, chopped off by Islamic State militants. They were with an aunt last week in a village south of Mosul.

When the battle started, in mid-October, it moved fairly quickly as forces took outlying areas that had mostly been empty of civilians.

Journalists were given wide access to the front lines. But recently, getting the news out of Mosul has become more difficult; commanders are prohibiting most front-line embeds.

The tightening of access, apparently, was not an effort to control the narrative, but a reaction to the recent appearance in Mosul of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the French philosopher and writer, who is producing a documentary film about the battle. Why was that controversial? Because Mr. Levy is Jewish.

His appearance stirred outrage in Iraq, and the authorities in Baghdad moved to shut down access for all journalists.

“The rumor spread that we were having relations with Israel,” said Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab al-Saadi, a special forces commander in Mosul, who said he had no idea who Mr. Levy was when he arrived. “In fact, we had no idea who this was that came to see us.”

He said access for journalists would be restored soon. “We will solve this problem,” he said.

Civilian casualties are soaring, even though the government, at the outset of the battle, dropped millions of leaflets over the city with instructions to stay inside their homes. Most civilians have, but those who have fled — there are some 90,000 people displaced from their homes around the city — have faced harrowing journeys, and many have been killed or maimed by crossfire.

That so many civilians have remained has hampered the fight, as Iraqi soldiers move slowly in an effort to protect them. It has also led to limited use of air power and artillery.

“Essentially, they are trying a different operational approach,” said Carl Castellano, a senior analyst at Talos, a consulting firm that focuses on security in Iraq. “They don’t have the capability to evacuate all these civilians, and so that’s limiting the amount of firepower they can use in the city. That is limiting their options in terms of what they can do — close air support and everything else.”

American air commanders have quickly sought to modify some of their bombing runs to counter shifting tactics by the Islamic State, cratering streets in Mosul with bombs to stymie car-bombers or at least slow them down, and stepping up attacks on car bomb factories in and around Mosul. Allied warplanes have destroyed nearly 140 car bombs or car-bomb factories since the Mosul offensive began, American officials said.

In the second week of December, nearly 700 civilians were wounded, from gunshots, mines and rocket fire, according to the United Nations, a 30 percent increase from the previous week.

Many of the injured wind up in the emergency rooms of hospitals in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region.

On a recent day, Saleh Hassoun sat in a hospital in Erbil, less than an hour’s drive from Mosul, at the bedside of his 1-year-old granddaughter, who had been wounded by a mine.

“The mines are everywhere,” he said. “The one that we set off was on the ground, and attached to a tiny cable. We didn’t see it, and the explosion killed both of my daughters and injured my granddaughter.”

A woman in the hospital, Umm Ussam, 54, had been shot through the neck. At first, she obeyed the instructions of the Iraqi Army to stay indoors, but once the military arrived she ran behind one of the Humvees, only to be picked off by a sniper, she said.

For those who did stay home and whose areas are now liberated, there are new challenges, and fears, not to mention a lack of services and a dwindling supply of safe drinking water.

“The government forces said stay in your houses, but our houses are without electricity or water,” said Sabah Kareem, whose neighborhood of eastern Mosul is now under government control. “We are amid hell. We don’t know when we will be bombed, or if ISIS will return to kill us.”

Retaking Raqqa From the Islamic State

Analysis

May 24, 2016 | 18:50 GMT

 

 

Fighters belonging to the Syrian Democratic Forces sit on an armored personnel carrier in al-Hasaka province on Feb. 19. (DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Summary

The battle for Raqqa, the Islamic State's self-declared capital in Syria, has begun. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are advancing toward the city, engaging the jihadist group in the villages of al-Hisha, Tal Samen and Mutamshirij along the way. Because of Raqqa's strategic importance, the Islamic State will do everything in its power to keep the city within its grasp. Driving the militants from their stronghold will not be easy or cheap, but if the SDF is successful, it will greatly accelerate the Islamic State's defeat in Syria.

Analysis

For months, the SDF, backed by the United States, has been positioned on the front lines roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Raqqa. Videos have emerged showing large convoys, including tank transporters carrying armored vehicles, moving throughout the area as the group prepared to retake the city from the Islamic State fighters who captured it in 2013. Over the past week, the United States began dropping leaflets on Raqqa urging its citizens to leave, proclaiming, "The time you have awaited has arrived. It's time to leave Raqqa." Then on May 21-22, U.S. Gen. Joseph Votel — the top U.S. Central Command general and the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to Syria during the conflict — visited SDF fighters in the country's north. As the signs of impending battle mounted, the Islamic State began making preparations of its own, ramping up its defenses throughout Raqqa. And on May 24, the SDF made its move, announcing the start of its long-awaited advance.

But just how close the group is able to get to the heart of the city will be determined by one thing: its ethnic composition. Raqqa is a city with an Arab majority. Because the SDF and its backers want to not only retake the city but also to hold and govern it, they will need a sizable Arab force if they hope to achieve their objectives with local support. However, the SDF is currently dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which have been effective against the Islamic State in territory they are familiar with in the north and northeast but are less inclined to spearhead operations farther south toward Raqqa. Moreover, the deeper the Kurds push into overwhelmingly Arab territory, the more they risk cementing local populations' suspicions of the rebels and support for the Islamic State.

Still, Arab fighters have been joining the SDF's ranks in droves. In fact, training these Syrian Arab Coalition fighters is one of the core purposes of the 250 U.S. special operations forces deployed to Syria in April, and Votel was likely checking up on their progress during his visit to the country. (The general subsequently traveled to Turkey to reassure Turkish officials of U.S. support for the SDF.)

Once the Syrian Arab Coalition grows to the ideal size and strength, and final preparations are complete, the SDF will shift its offensive to a direct attack on Raqqa. Because the Islamic State will not give up the city without a fight, the ensuing battle will likely be expensive and lengthy, easily lasting weeks if not months.

Stretching Islamic State Resources

The first and simplest phase of the operation will be the SDF's advance from its current position on the front line south of Ayn Issa toward the outskirts of Raqqa. This part of the offensive has already begun, and on May 24, the group captured the town of Fatisa, around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Raqqa. 

 

Once the SDF closes the distance between itself and the Islamic State's dug-in posts in and around Raqqa, the pace of the battle will slow considerably. In what will become a grinding and methodical advance, the SDF will have to contend with improvised explosive devices, mines, booby traps, suicide bombers, local counterattacks and indirect fire from mortars and artillery in the city. It will also have to rely on U.S. air support to take out the Islamic State's strongest positions, and despite efforts to minimize civilian casualties, the Islamic State's tendency to use human shields will probably lead to a high death toll. The effort to seize Raqqa, much like Iraq's endeavor to retake Ramadi, will come at a terrible cost, all but guaranteeing the city's destruction.

For the Islamic State, the loss of Raqqa would be a devastating blow. The city not only has symbolic value as the capital of the group's so-called caliphate, but it is also an important hub for transporting people and supplies. Raqqa sits on the Euphrates River and is the key to controlling several critical highways in Syria. Without it, the Islamic State would have a much harder time moving fighters and goods from Aleppo province to eastern Syria and beyond. Instead it would be forced to rely on the Resafa-Ash Shola road, which is increasingly threatened by the Syrian government's advances toward Deir el-Zour.

Given the city's significance to Islamic State operations in Syria, the group can be expected to funnel substantial resources and reinforcements toward its defense. In addition to sending more fighters to Raqqa, the Islamic State will likely launch counterattacks along the SDF's other front lines, including al-Hasaka, in an effort to distract its foe. However, the Islamic State will be at a disadvantage: While the SDF is focusing most of its attention on attacking the jihadist group, the Islamic State has to contend with the Syrian rebels, Syrian government troops, Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi forces. Devoting additional attention and resources to Raqqa when it is already overstretched will inevitably hurt the extremist group elsewhere on the battlefield.

The US Air Force has started using its hulking B-52 bombers against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but the enormous aircraft are only conducting precision strikes, a military spokesman said Wednesday.The B-52 Stratofortress -- originally designed in the 1950s -- became a symbol of US might during the Cold War and the plane was used to conduct carpet bombing in Vietnam.Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman, said a B-52 was sent Monday to destroy an IS weapons storage facility in the Iraqi town of Qayyarah, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Mosul.He said use of B-52s would not lead to a greater risk of civilian casualties because the aircraft are only being armed with guided bombs.Suggested from Windows Store NPR OneNPR stories, curated for you (707 Reviews)NPR One is the audio app that connects you to a stream of public radio news and stories curated for you. Great…Get the app "There are memories in the collective unconscious of B-52s, decades ago, doing... arguably indiscriminate bombing," Warren said. "Those days are long gone. The B-52 is a precision strike weapons platform and it will conduct the same type of precision strikes that we have seen for the last 20 months."The B-52s are replacing B-1 bombers that had been operating in the region for the past year. In October, the Air Force announced that Northrop Grumman will build its next-generation bomber, called the Long Range Strike Bomber.The decades-long program will likely end up costing in excess of $100 billion and the new planes probably won't be deployed before the mid-2020s, ensuring the aging B-52 will stay in service for years to come.The US military has since August 2014 led an international coalition in an air campaign against the IS group in Iraq and Syria after the jihadists captured vast areas of territory across the two countries.

WASHINGTON — American airstrikes have killed 25,000 Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria and incinerated millions of dollars plundered by the militants, according to Pentagon officials.Iraqi and Kurdish forces have taken back 40 percent of the militant group’s land in Iraq, the officials say, and forces backed by the West have seized a sizable amount of territory in Syria that had been controlled by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.Sign Up For NYT Now's Morning Briefing NewsletterBut the battlefield successes enjoyed by Western-backed forces in the Islamic State’s heartland have done little to stop the expansion of the militants to Europe, North Africa and Afghanistan. The attacks this year in Brussels, Istanbul and other cities only reinforced the sense of a terrorist group on the march, and among American officials and military experts, there is renewed caution in predicting progress in a fight that they say is likely to go on for years.Suggested from Windows Store News360Web's top news articles & blogs (532 Reviews)News360 gathers news articles and blog posts around the web and, by learning what you enjoy, brings you content that…Get the app “Even as we advance our efforts to defeat Daesh on the front lines,” Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told a congressional committee on Tuesday, using another name for the Islamic State, “we know that to be fully effective, we must work to prevent the spread of violent extremism in the first place — to stop the recruitment, radicalization and mobilization of people, especially young people, to engage in terrorist activities.”Instead of engaging a pseudo-state in the Middle East whose fighters have proved susceptible to American airpower, the United States and its European allies must now also engage in a far more complex struggle against homegrown militants who need relatively few resources to sow bloodshed in the West.“Defeating the formal military presence of a terrorist group will not significantly mitigate the threat of lone wolf or small independent cells that are based in the West,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department who is now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.Attacks in the West are cheap to finance — Mr. Schanzer estimated that the cost of the materials used in the Brussels attack and the lab needed to make the explosives, for instance, was $10,000 to $15,000. And, he added: “You can defeat ISIS in ISIS-controlled territories, but you’re not going to defeat ISIS itself. The ideology of jihadism continues to evolve and continues to exist.”While some officials have sought to portray the recent attacks in Europe and Turkey as evidence that the Islamic State is growing desperate as a result of its battlefield losses, far more officials and experts see the violence as another indication that the Islamic State is not a problem that will be quickly or easily overcome.Officials on both sides of the Atlantic acknowledge that the Islamic State, which has looted an estimated $1 billion from bank vaults across Syria and Iraq and is widely seen as one of the richest militant groups of all time, remains a resilient and adaptable battlefield adversary, still able to mount spectacular acts, like the abduction of at least 170 workers from a cement factory near Damascus last week.In Mosul, Iraq, and in Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the Islamic State’s de facto capital, salaries for fighters have been cut in half since last year, according to residents and documents. But even with reduced salaries, American officials say, the Islamic State, which collects hundreds of millions of dollars by extortion, fees and taxes on the people it rules, is still paying its fighters.“There is no simple tool to separate ISIL from its vast wealth,” Daniel L. Glaser, the assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, said recently in a speech in London.But administration officials say that the twin efforts to militarily shrink the group’s dominion in Iraq and Syria and to cut into its finances have fed off each other. The strategic aim is to deprive the militants of the resources they need to wage war by retaking their towns, cities and oil fields, and by American accounts, they have been succeeding.Since late October, an American air campaign called Operation Tidal Wave II has targeted oil fields, refineries and tanker trucks, and American officials believe they have cut the Islamic State’s oil revenue by about a third. On the ground, the Islamic State has lost a series of cities and towns since it seized Ramadi, Iraq, almost a year ago, its last major battlefield victory. Iraqi security forces, backed by American airstrikes, have retaken Ramadi.Iraqi forces have also retaken the northern city of Baiji, with its oil refinery. And Kurdish and Yazidi forces have driven Islamic State fighters out of the northern city of Sinjar.In recent weeks, American airstrikes have killed what administration officials said were top Islamic State leaders: the group’s minister of war, Omar al-Shishani (Omar the Chechen), and a top commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. An Islamic State chemical weapons specialist, Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, was captured by American Special Operations forces in February.At the same time, officials acknowledge that the Islamic State has been able to replace many of its leaders and that taking key figures off the battlefield will not necessarily finish off the group.Alongside the military efforts to disrupt the Islamic State’s finances, the Treasury and its European counterparts are pursuing a number of paths to cut the flow of cash to the group and to keep it from using the international banking system. They persuaded Iraq to prohibit bank branches in cities and towns held by the Islamic State from making international transfers, instead ordering all requests to be routed through the central bank in Baghdad, where they can, in theory, be intercepted and stopped.The United States, European countries and the United Nations have also all sought to add people or companies associated with the Islamic State to financial blacklists.In addition, American officials prevailed upon the Iraqi government to finally stop paying salaries to its officials and workers who live in areas controlled by the Islamic State. The payments totaled about $170 million a year, American officials said, and the Islamic State skimmed off about 10 percent or more of each paycheck in taxes.The falling price of oil, which the militants typically sell on the black market for about half the going rate, has also hurt the Islamic State, American and European officials believe. This time last year, oil was selling for nearly $60 a barrel; it is now around $45.Coalition airstrikes have in the meantime hit at least 10 depots where the Islamic State stored hard currency. In January, American aircraft struck what officials said was a particularly rich stockpile, and video taken in the moments after the building was hit by a bomb showed plumes of currency fluttering through the air.The military said tens of millions of dollars were incinerated, though other American officials and experts were less bullish.“There’s a lot less certainty about how much money actually evaporated,” said Howard Shatz, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation who has studied the Islamic State’s finances.Whatever the amount, a siege mentality appears to have developed in territory still held by the Islamic State.“These days, the situation has changed, and there is a shortage of money in Mosul,” Ayham Ali, who sells sandwiches from a wooden cart in Mosul, said in a recent interview.Obaida Nama, a retired engineer there, said he did not think the Islamic State would last. “The corruption that ISIS is committing is the beginning of its end,” he said.Still, said Derek Chollet, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration, “I don’t think anyone is going to declare victory now, nor should they.”The Islamic State “is going to be a chronic problem that we’re going to have to confront,” he added.

 

ISIS under Pressure on Multiple FrontsApril 4, 2016

Geopolitical Monitor The eastern borders of the Islamic State (ISIS) statelet are shrinking as the Iraqi army makes its push toward the city whose fall started the current crisis: Mosul.The village of al-Nasr, located along the Tigris River south of Mosul, fell to Iraqi troops after days of fierce fighting earlier this week. The success shows that Iraqi security forces are making progress in their push towards the large northern city.The operation was an early test for the Iraqi push towards Mosul. In an echo of the Anbar Awakening, the military is cooperating with local Sunni tribal fighters. The new approach ran into a notable setback, however, when Sunni tribal leader Sheikh Faris al-Sabawi was killed by an ISIS sniper entering the newly liberated village with his men.Islamic State has responded by unleashing a wave of attacks on Iraqi security forces and allied Shiite militias. Attacks throughout Iraq claimed over 25 lives over the weekend. In all they involved at least 10 suicide bombers.Officials in Baghdad have been eager to downplay expectations of a speedy capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and home to over a million people. This caution stems from the daunting tactical challenges involved. Chief among them is the question of sectarian relations – how the locals will respond to a predominantly Shiite Iraqi army and whether the army will maintain its professionalism or result to revenge attacks against the predominantly Sunni locals. Local tribal fighters were brought into the fold in an attempt to alleviate these very concerns.Second is the matter of the battlefield: populated, urban, and teeming with booby traps. Mosul will present a tactical nightmare for an Iraqi army infamous for its lack of discipline.The road to Mosul is still long and perilous, and this early success should not be taken as a sign of the city’s impending fall.It’s more likely that the al-Nasr operation is more reflective of ISIS weakness than strength on the part of the Iraqi army. With its supply lines cut, manpower dwindling, and facing pressure on two fronts, it appears the ‘Caliphate’ is operating on borrowed time.In Syria, government forces drove ISIS out of Palmyra in March. The next step would be a push towards Raqqa, but neither the YPG (now re-branded as the Syrian Democratic Forces) nor the Assad regime has the firepower to forge ahead for the time being. Yet should the Iraqi army seriously threaten ISIS holdings in and around Mosul, it’s possible that an ISIS transfer of men and material eastward could open the door for an attack on Islamic State’s capital from the Syrian side.Though it may seem counter-intuitive, the switch towards terrorist attacks on soft targets – on the streets of Baghdad, Paris, Brussels – reflects growing weakness and desperation on the part of ISIS. It suggests that the group is switching to the relatively low-cost, high-visibility tactic of suicide bombings to raise its ‘brand’ profile and attract more funds and men to the cause. The more expensive route of taking and holding territory – the group’s stated raison d’etre – seems to be increasingly out of reach.U.S.-led strikes putting a financial squeeze on the Islamic State

 

The Islamic State is facing an unprecedented cash crunch in its home territory, U.S. counterterrorism officials say, as months of strikes on oil facilities and financial institutions take a deepening toll on the group’s ability to pay its fighters or carry out operations.For the first time, U.S. officials are seeing clear evidence of the financial strain on the group’s leadership, as reports surface of clashes among senior commanders over allegations of corruption, mismanagement and theft.Cash shortages already have forced the group to put many of its Iraqi and Syrian recruits on half-pay, and accounts from recent defectors suggest that some units haven’t received salaries in months. Civilians and businesses in the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed homeland complain of being subjected to ever-higher taxes and fees to make up the shortfall.U.S. officials attribute the economic upheaval to a months-long campaign to destroy the group’s financial underpinnings, including weeks of punishing strikes on oil facilities as well as on banks and other repositories of hard currency.

The strikes against oil fields, refineries and tankers have cut oil production by about a third, according to several counterterrorism officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence from the region. Meanwhile, overall revenue from the Islamic State’s oil business has plummeted by as much as 50 percent because of falling oil prices and a diminished capability to make and sell refined products such as gasoline, the officials said.

“For the first time, there’s an optimistic tone,” Daniel Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department, said of the financial war against the Islamic State. “I really do think we’re having a significant impact.”

But, he added, “they still make a lot of money, and we still have a long way to go.”

U.S. military operations, meanwhile, have killed a number of high-ranking financial officials, including the group’s finance minister, Haji Imam, whose death in an airstrike was announced a week ago.

Moreover, because of the group’s territorial losses in recent months — military defeats have shrunk the size of the self-declared caliphate by about 40 percent over the past year — the terrorists now have a significantly smaller population to exploit for cash, U.S. officials and analysts say. Unlike al-Qaeda, which relied on outside donors for revenue, the Islamic State has traditionally generated much of its income locally, through extortion and other criminal enterprises as well as taxes and fees imposed on businesses and civilians.

“The successful pushback of ISIL from the territory they control is huge,” Matthew Levitt, an expert on terrorist financial networks who worked at the Treasury Department and FBI, using one of the common acronyms for the Islamic State. “If they don’t control the territory they can’t exploit the population. They can’t take advantage of natural resources, whether it’s oil or wheat or water.”

Some terrorism experts think the recent terrorist attacks in Europe are partly a response to the group’s worsening prospects on its home turf. In the short term, pressure on the Islamic State’s finances could make the group more dangerous and unpredictable, some say.

“You corner a wild beast and it’s going to lash out,” said Levitt, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

 

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has become somewhat of a revelation to the international community over the last several months. Commencing with the desertion from Al-Qaeda, to the self-proclamation of Caliph by its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and finally the surge in Iraq and Syria, each move has occurred without a countervailing effort. In order to conceptualize the mentality of ISIS and its motivation, look no further than inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to examine how its puritanical Wahhabi doctrine has enabled the ideology of ISIS and terrorist groups alike, and will continue to do so for potential Islamic extremist groups in the future.

It’s all too obvious that the theology of ISIS is reciprocal to the Wahhabi religious doctrine that has governed Saudi Arabia from its inception to this very day.

 

A Brief History of the Deal at the Heart of Saudi Society

Wahhabism refers to the Islamic doctrine founded by Muhammad Ibn’ Abdul-Wahhab. Born in 1703, Abdul-Wahab grew up in Nejd (present-day Saudi Arabia) and was a religious zealot who believed the two most important aspects of religion were, “the Quran and the sword.” As a young teen, he was introduced to the works of Ibn Taymiyyah, an atavistic theologian whose works still resonate in present-day Sunni militant theology. Ibn Taymiyyah’s belief that, “misguided Muslims who do not abide by his interpretation of Shari’ah law should be fought as if they were infidels,” is a foundational principle of Al-Qaeda and ISIS alike. Abdul-Wahhab continued his devotion to the teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah throughout his early adult life and began to travel across Nejd projecting his views on Shi’ite communities. Due to his excessive, puritanical beliefs he was forcibly expelled from the city of Basrah by Shi’ite clerics after they revolted against his teachings and attacked him. His rejection eventually led him back to the place of his birth, Al-‘Uyaynah, where his radicalism started to gain excessive adulation. On one prominent occasion, he arranged for the public execution of a woman who confessed to her adultery, had her tied down, then stoned her to death. As this story disseminated throughout the region a local tribal ruler issued a decree that Abdul-Wahhab had to either be stopped or killed. With his life in jeopardy, Abdul-Wahhab traveled to a small market town called Dir’iyyah, which at the time was under the control of one Muhammad Bin Sa’ud. Little did they realize that the events that followed would set a precedent for the future of the region.

Bin Sa’ud, under the religious conviction that this man was “driven to him by Allah,” struck a deal with Abdul-Wahab in 1744 that remains solidified to this day between the House of Saud and the House of Ash-Shaykh (the descendants of Abdul-Wahab).  Abdul-Wahhab and Bin Sa’ud’s army went about waging wars against Muslim and non-Muslim tribes alike across Arabia, spreading Wahhabism as the predominant religion. This bond between Abdul-Wahab and Bin Sa’ud legitimized the use of religion as the instrument for consolidating power and establishing Bin Sa’ud as the ruling family. The alliance forced obedience from the conquered tribes to the House of Saud and their policies, of which Abdul-Wahab strongly encouraged. At that point, Wahhabism became compliantly submissive to the new royal family and continues to be so to this day, evidenced by the 2003 statement from the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz Bin Abdullah Al Ash Shaykh that, “ the rulers should always be obeyed, even if unjust.”

Every Saudi ruler since Bin Sa’ud has followed his predecessor’s domestic policy by ensuring that the religious establishment remains in significant control of public affairs. Present-day Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia is very much like that of the first Saudi state. The religious police, Mutawwa’ah, still roam the streets with sticks enforcing Wahhabism’s strict standards regarding the separating of sexes, women’s dress code, use of alcohol or drugs, and religious observances. Shi’ites are highly discriminated against, any type of political dissent is immediately suppressed on the basis of religious violations, and public beheadings are still routinely used as a type of capital punishment for “sorcery, drug trafficking, and rape.”

The relationship between the ulama (political elite) and muftis (religious authorities) has been honored and respected as the royal family has allowed the appointment of a member of the House of Shaykh to be the Grand Mufti since 1744. The only exception to this was ‘Abdul-‘Aziz Bin ‘Abdullah Bin Baz, better known as Bin Baz.

In 1993, Bin Baz became the first non-member of the House of Shaykh to hold the position, and has since played an instrumental role in the political legitimization for the House of Saud with his obscurantist views of Islam that resembled the early teachings of Abdul-Wahab. It is argued that he is responsible for the religious propagation and extremely radical interpretation of Islam through this viewpoint of Wahhabism. His rulings and fatwas range from: disputing the landing on the moon — the banning of pictures, statues and relics — the banning of prayer behind a man wearing a suit and tie — rejection of the rotation of the earth — the banning of singing and music — banning women from driving — and declaring Muslims who do not believe the stories of the Prophet as infidels. Bin Baz enforced strict dress codes for women, as well as men, forbade people who practiced martial arts from bowing to each other, and continued anti-Shi’ite, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic propaganda through public statements.

His hostility towards other religions was apparent through his sermons and fatwas: “It is incumbent upon Muslims to take as enemies the infidel Jews and Christians and other polytheists, and to avoid their amiability,” and “(Shi’ites) are the most polytheist, and none of the people of passion are more lying than them, and more remote from monotheism, and their danger on Islam is very great indeed.” This was the same rhetoric and propaganda used during the inception of Al-Qaeda by Bin Laden, and Bin Baz was no different regarding militant legitimization for religious superiority.

Shortly after 9/11 this history became quite relevant to US intelligence analysts. Saudi Arabian credibility was immensely damaged internationally, and officials found themselves backtracking on the theology of their state religion. With eleven of the hijackers having been Saudi citizens, the Saudi regime was put on the defensive. This resulted in a political effort to marginalize the extremism of Al-Qaeda by relieving what they viewed as, “extremist,” Imams from their duties, reforming some of the educational indoctrination, and advocating for the condemnation of terrorist activity worldwide. This was done by the House of Saud to appease their Western allies and keep the lucrative oil relationship intact, but by no means did any radical transformation of the House of Shaykh take place in this process.

 

Saudi Arabia Back in the Spotlight

The Saudi religion was slowly forgotten by the international community as a correlative issue with Al-Qaeda due to the political focus toward ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it has since subtly entered back into the international spotlight since the Syrian civil war outbreak in 2011. With the uprising against Bashar Al-Assad, many Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia in particular, have used the conflict as a proxy war for Sunni vs Shia supremacy by funneling millions of dollars to Wahhabi militant factions to assist in the overthrow. In 2012, Saudi Arabia’s own intelligence chief Bandar Bin Sultan was formally sent to Syria to round up and organize Sunni militants for the opposition movement. Initially, financial support and arms were transferred to Al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, and Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), before it formally partitioned itself as ISIS.

The plan for the Saudi-backed AQI to enter Syria became botched when Hezbollah and Iran began funneling cash, arms, and personnel into Syria to combat the overthrow, creating a rift between AQI, Al-Qaeda leadership, and Saudi leadership on a plan of action. The leader of AQI, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, after months of ideological conflict with Al-Qaeda leadership decided to defect, thus creating the present-day Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. What is important in this transformation is the amount of Wahhabi influence on the ideology of Al-Baghdadi and subsequently ISIS. The biographies of Al-Baghdadi and others in ISIS leadership positions show how they’ve absorbed the Wahhabi doctrine and mastered its details. Documents reveal the groups explicitly stated goals of, “establishing the religion and dissemination monotheism, which is the purpose and calling of Islam,” — this is the same rhetoric in Abdul-Wahab’s interpretations of Islam. Their main goal is nothing more than to create a Wahhabi state that is inherently identical to the theology of Abdul-Wahhab, and Al-Baghdadi has resorted to the teachings of Abdul-Wahhab for his arguments to support the means of creating that state.

His stated principles are practically replicas of Wahhabi sources such as “the need to demolish and remove all manifestation of polytheism and prohibits its ways,” and “the need to resort to the law of God through seeking adjudication in the Islamic courts of the Islamic State.” Al-Baghdadi’s process of establishing an Islamic State is conducted in the same manner that Abdul-Wahhab and Ibn Saud used in the 18th century by conquering territory and ruthlessly forcing the conquered to conform or die. ISIS’s brutal tactics of beheading and flogging, the banning of smoking and music, and dress codes enforced on women, along with the continual circulation of Wahhabi books and documents among the schools it controls is extremely reflective of the Wahhabi ideology — these same books and documents being circulated can currently be found in Saudi Arabia.

This all has created a deleterious consequence for the House of Saud. As ISIS has garnered further international publicity and continues to become a security concern for the West and Middle East, it has also created a situation where Saudi Arabia’s image is becoming severely damaged. As more and more investigations delve into the ideology of ISIS and the stark similarities and principles of ISIS and Saudi Arabia are discovered, one may ask why the royal family in Saudi Arabia does not distance itself from the religious establishment as a whole? Herein lies the paradox behind the Saudi state: without the House of Shaykh using the Wahhabi ideology to legitimatize the religious duty of the House of Saud to rule, the royal family will no longer have a substantial claim for political power over the kingdom. Therefore, the House of Saud is constantly oscillating between condemning ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and any other Sunni militant groups that live by the creed of Wahhabism (that is essentially one-in-the-same with the religious authority in Saudi Arabia), appealing to the global community that Saudi Arabia is not a state that supports ISIS’s ideology, and not upsetting the religious Ash-Shaykh establishment in Saudi Arabia. The damage-control mode taken by Saudi Arabia in recent months is evident by their foreign policy actions, with Saudi Arabia now part of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

Yet public opinion of ISIS in the kingdom remains very empathetic. In June 2014, a poll taken in Saudi Arabia showed that 92% believed, “ISIS conforms to the values of Islam and Islamic Law,” and families of sons who have died fighting with ISIS have expressed “joy,” regarding the martyrdom of their child. Saudi intelligence has taken notice of this level of public sympathy (due in part to pressure from the U.S.) especially of the blatant Twitter campaigns showing support for the Islamic State and pleadingly allegiance to Al-Baghdadi. However, as the House of Saud wages its condemnation against ISIS, it is clear that the Wahhabi ideology is firmly cemented in the religious culture of Saudi Arabia casting significant doubt on a change in public opinion.

The danger that ISIS poses for the international community is that it preaches and institutes the same religious teachings of Abdul-Wahhab, carrying aspirations of creating an Islamic state that has been tried for nearly two centuries since the creation of the first Saudi state. Only this time, the group has resources that were never accessible to its predecessors. Firstly, ISIS is effectively using social media campaigns to recruit new members from all over the globe. Secondly, the size of the group (estimates are around 30,000) is large enough to conclude that a small-scale counterinsurgency campaign would not be enough to suppress its progress across the region due to their massive territorial control over northern Syria and parts of Iraq. Thirdly, ISIS controls oil fields that are estimated to be making them $3 million per day on the black market, and the toppling of the Iraqi bank in Mosul gave them an inheritance of nearly $400 million in cash. The continued kidnapping of foreigners and reporters will serve as possible additional funding from European and Asian governments due to their willingness to negotiate with terrorist organizations. ISIS’s financial resources, recruiting tactics, and military strength are all imperative issues facing the international community moving forward.

It is blatant that the state religion in Saudi Arabia has both directly and indirectly led to the formation of ISIS. The Wahhabi ideology taught, enforced, and supported in Saudi Arabia is essentially a mirror image of the religious establishment ISIS is implementing in its attempt to form an Islamic state, with both the House of Shaykh and Al-Baghdadi adhering to the same teachings and theology of Wahhabism. While the conduct of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia is not at the same level of brutality that ISIS displays by leaving beheaded bodies mounted in the streets, enslaving women and girls of different religions, or massacring towns and villages at point-blank range, the fundamental ideas behind the importance of living by the Koran and ruling by the sword still pertain to both sides — this is evidenced by public opinion polls and support for the groups across internet platforms.

As long as the Wahhabi ideology prevails as the religious authority in Saudi Arabia, the potential will always remain for additional Sunni groups to emerge with the same pious philosophies and inclinations as ISIS. The House of Shaykh and House of Saud have deep, intertwined family ties with each other, as members of both houses have married one another over the last two centuries. The House of Saud will most likely never allow the House of Shaykh to lose its religious authority in the Kingdom because of the need for the House of Shaykh to legitimize the power the royal family possesses. If the Saudi Arabian establishment is continually supported and backed by the West, their existence will be incompatible with countering Islamic radicalism.  Moving forward, expect to see any rise of religious fanaticism inside the Kingdom suppressed while extremist groups outside of the Kingdom’s grasp, particularly in neighboring countries, continue to emulate the Wahhabi doctrine that Saudi Arabia has lived under since its founding.