TerrorismAn ISIS caliphate is bad news for Iraq, Syria and everywhere else
After the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, the global jihadist movement seemed to have become fragmented and considerably weakened. The impressive victories of ISIS in Iraq and the practical reactivation of the concept of the “caliphate” by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are particularly worrying as they creates a new unifying idea for disparate jihadist groups around a common strategic project. Since Bin Laden’s death, these groups were fragmented, but they might now be able to connect and share an ideology — and, probably, funding given the wealth of the “new caliph.” The “Caliphate Utopia” may reveal to be also a much more efficient tool for jihadist recruitment, especially among young Westerners. This change might point to the marginalization of the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, who has not been able to impose himself after Bin Laden’s death. But at the same time it indicates the end of the fragmentation and the beginning of the reunification of jihadi groups around the world within an even more dangerous organization. The global war against terror may finally start.
Guest author Prof. Mathieu Guidère // Source: obshtestvo.net
After the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, the global jihadist movement seemed to have become fragmented and considerably weakened. This happened for various reasons. First, the coincidence of the al-Qaeda leader’s death with the start of the Arab Spring suggested to many in the region that they could change their regimes without the help of al-Qaeda.
At the same time, the absence of a charismatic and innovative leader to replace Bin Laden weakened the organization and highlighted its association to the “old jihad”. The internal personal rivalry among the “emirs” of the different branches of al-Qaeda, each trying to appear as the true flag-bearer of jihad after Bin Laden, made cohesion hard to manage.
In 2011, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was the first branch that tried to establish an “Islamic state” in Africa’s Sahel region. Documents found in Timbuktu, Mali, clearly show the details of this project and its progress both on a doctrinal level and on the military field.
Through its various lieutenants in northern Mali, for several months between March 2012 and January 2013, AQIM established a kind of Islamic state with “governors” and “judges” applying Sharia law. If it weren’t for the French military intervention in northern Mali, this “Islamic State” would still exist today and would probably extend across the Mali border and into part of the territories of neighboring countries, starting from the south of Libya and Algeria and including western Niger at least.
Then it was the turn of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) who tried the same experiment in Yemen, controlling — almost at the same time — large areas of the south. In particular, the coastal city of Zinjibar was directly administered by leaders of the organization for several months in 2012.
This jihadist project was defeated by a coalition of tribal forces backed by the Saudi intelligence services and supported by massive U.S. drone strikes. Many leaders and key figures of AQAP were killed, hundreds of fighters of the organization died in the fighting against the Yemeni army, but the risk of a “jihadist sanctuary” in Yemen still exists.
