Chapter 5 - From one global war to another

The “global war on terror” started by the George W. Bush administration following 9/11 diverged from its initial target, Al-Qaeda, and became embroiled in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. A self-fulfilling prophecy was unleashed when, as part of this descent into disaster, a jihadist presence emerged as a form of resistance against the US presence in the very heart of the Middle East, where none had existed previously: Monotheism and Jihad (Tawhid wal Jihad) led by the Jordanian Abu Mus’ib al‑Zarqawi, which became Al‑Qaeda in Iraq in 2004. After Zarqawi’s death in 2006, it became known as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) under the dual leadership of the self‑proclaimed Caliph Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (a former police officer under Saddam Hussein’s regime), and Abu Hamza al‑Muhajir (an Egyptian political emissary sent by Al‑Qaeda’s central leadership to regain control of a group that was becoming dangerously independent).

The United States became very successful in its efforts against ISI after it abandoned the rhetoric of the “global war” and its variations and concentrated its efforts in Iraq strictly on Al‑Qaeda. Consequently, General David Petraeus encouraged the creation of anti-jihadist Sunni militias, together known as the Sahwa (Awakening) movement, which included insurgents who, until recently, had been fighting against the United States. This re-alignment of battle lines against Al-Qaeda and ISI quickly bore fruit, first in Baghdad, and then in the western province of Anbar, traditionally a jihadist stronghold.

Kurdish militias, however, resisted the deployment of Sahwa militias in Mosul in the hope of preserving their chances of controlling that city, as they had Kirkuk. This power vacuum in Mosul opened the way for ISI to establish a foothold in the area under the auspices of the Sufi order Naqshabandiyya, which comprised many former Baathist leaders. The merger of Iraqi Baathist terror techniques and those of Al-Qaeda explains, in part, some of the resilience of ISI, whose leaders and militants studied the teachings of Abu Bakr Naji, in the “Management of Savagery” (idârat al-tawahhush).

The simultaneous elimination of Abu Omar al‑Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al‑Muhajir in April 2010 dealt a serious blow to ISI. Senior Iraqi leaders, most of whom were veterans of Saddam Hussein’s regime, exploited the opportunity in order to loosen the already fragile ties with Al-Qaeda’s central leadership by appointing as their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a Salafist imam from Samarra. In 2004, Baghdadi had been detained for a few months by the US at Camp Bucca. It is very unlikely that the new ISI emir was then given full operational responsibility. However, because of his religious baggage (he had a degree in sharia acquired in Baghdad), he was able to prevail quite easily over the self-taught Osama bin Laden, who had never completed his management studies, and Ayman Zawahiri, a medical doctor.

When bin Laden was killed in May 2011, Baghdadi refused to swear allegiance to Zawahiri, thereby formalising ISI’s complete break with Al-Qaeda. At the same time, ISI was spreading murderous propaganda in the wake of democratic uprisings in the Arab world, while Zawahiri was trying to make gains from the wave of dissent. Baghdadi also benefited from the extreme‑sectarian politics of Irak’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia fundamentalist who disbanded the Sahwa militias and went after their members. In addition, ISI leveraged its previous collaboration with Assad’s intelligence services: the group was able to gain a foothold in Syria as a result of the 2011 revolution and the government’s willingness to “jihadise” the conflict in order to stoke internal dissent and discredit its opposition.

In March 2013, a tenuous coalition of anti-Assad militias gained control of the city of Raqqa, a Syrian provincial capital on the banks of the Euphrates River—an unprecedented breakthrough. One month later, Baghdadi expelled and eliminated his former allies and proclaimed the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known under its Arabic acronym, Daesh. Paradoxically, this proclamation was rejected by Jabhat al‑Nusra, the Syrian branch of ISI, which severed ties with Daesh and, to consolidate the move, pledged its allegiance to Al-Qaeda. As a result of this schism in the jihadist camp, the majority of foreign volunteers rallied around Daesh the “internationalist” and abandoned Jabhat al‑Nusra, which has a very strong Syrian identity.

Daesh’s foreign fighters had been recruited mostly from the Arab world, until the West backpedalled in August 2013 when US President Barak Obama ultimately refused to authorise strikes against Assad in Syria; this despite the red line that the White House had drawn and the fact that the Syrian despot was dropping chemical weapons on Damascus. Jihadist propaganda accused the West and Russia of being complicit in abandoning the Syrian people to their executioner. A “humanitarian” jihad, in which volunteers claimed to rescue the Syrians who had been abandoned by everyone, was added to the revenge‑focused jihad that resonated with Al-Qaeda’s foreign recruits who migrated to ISIL. This rhetoric also hit home with young girls—and this was a first.

There came a second wave of jihad in the summer of 2014, primarily driven by Daesh’s lightning-quick capture of Mosul in Iraq despite a report of a daunting preponderance of government forces. This triumphant discourse boosted recruitment, much as Baghdadi’s proclamation of a caliphate allowed him to launch an aggressive global jihad. Barack Obama failed to react to the fall of Mosul or to the massacre of Christians, let alone that of Yazidis; he did, however, launch retaliatory air strikes after a US hostage was executed. Such half-hearted policies played into the hands of jihadists and their recruiting sentinels.

Daesh drafted a global apocalyptic narrative, translated into all the world’s languages, that positions them at the forefront of the End of Time, a battle in which Baghdadi’s stalwart supporters—the only absolute true Muslims—will surely prevail. It is not clear whether the leaders of Daesh buy into such prognostications, but they seem compelled by apocalyptic opportunism to create a narrative designed to stimulate recruitment. Russia’s direct intervention in Syria in September 2015, after years spent providing massive support to the Assad regime, feeds the apocalyptic narrative whereby the Rûm—the orthodoxy (not the Romans)—will confront the “Muslims” in northern Syria.

Daesh drafted a global apocalyptic narrative, translated into all the world’s languages, that positions them at the forefront of the End of Time…

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own “global war on terror” could be the linchpin that catapults the jihadist threat—a threat that has already reached unprecedented levels—into the stratosphere. George W. Bush’s self-fulfilling prophecy allowed a jihadist presence to develop where none had existed before, and the subsequent emergence of jihadism ultimately fulfilled the very prophecy that brought it to life. That same perverse logic sees Putin, whose offensive has had only a marginal effect on Daesh, realise his own prophecy of a Syria whose revolution will have been expunged, leaving only Assad’s and Baghdadi’s zealots to carry on.