Assignment
Module
Terrorist Ideologies, Aims, Beliefs and Motivations
Topic
Profile of ISIL
Name
Simon Smith
Student ID Number
SS4294
Email Address
smudgesimonsmith@hotmail.co.uk
Total Number of Words
2737
Referencing Style Used
Harvard
Date
10/12/2016
INTRODUCTION
In 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) shocked the world by conducting
lightning fast raids across Iraq and Syria. What stood out most was their barbarity towards
captured soldiers, hostages, other religious groups and people accused of diluting Islam. Their
punishments were almost medieval, yet their appeal spread across the world attracting foreign
fighters and terrorist organisations to pledge allegiance.
This essay will study the ideologies of ISIL and how it has used these to be so successful. It
will explore its links to al-Qaeda and the influence this had on its early leaders. It will look at
the influence the US led invasions policy of disbanding the Iraqi Army had on Sunni Muslims
and the ensuring sectarian violence. Finally, it will discuss whether ISIL is perceived to be a
genuine caliphate or is merely good at exploiting sectarian divides and weak governments.
FACTS
Origins
After the successful US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the coalition disbanded the Iraqi military.
This left thousands of Sunni Muslims without jobs, which led to resentment. Radical Islamists
were very quick to exploit this discontent and filled the vacuum with rebel groups (Thompson
2015). One such group was Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). An insurgency was fought against the
coalition, whilst sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites broke out (Shuster 2007). During
the fighting a large number of Jihadists were detained and held in Camp Bucca. Here they
mixed freely with ex-Iraqi military men. This dangerous meeting would see military minded
men and radical Islamists working together in the future (Chulov 2014).
AQI were under the command of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a very dangerous man who had
violent ideologies (Lawrence 2006). His group had links in Syria and were able to recruit men,
weapons and money from the country (Weaver 2006). In 2006, he was killed and Abu Omar
al-Baghdadi took control. AQI formed a coalition with five other rebel groups forming the
Mujahedeen Shura Council (MSC), which quickly evolved into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).
However, heavy defeats from the US surge in 2007 put the organisation on the back foot. In
2010, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was killed by a US raid and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi assumed
control of the group (Stanford University 2016).
During the 2011 Arab Spring, opposition groups began an armed struggle against Bashar alAssad’s Syrian government in response to his violent actions towards his people (BBC 2013).
Al-Baghdadi sent a presence there called the Jabhat al-Nusrah (JAN) front. ISI saw this as an
opportunity to move across to Syria to make up for the ground it had lost in Iraq. It quickly
took parts of Northern and Eastern Syria and the cities of Aleppo and Raqqa (Cockburn 2015).
In 2013 ISI claimed that JAN was a part of the group and they would re-untie under the name
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) however Ayman Al-Zawahiri, leader of AlQaeda, disputed this claim. This led to fighting between the two groups and al-Zawahiri
condemning them. In 2014, ISIL captured key cities in Anbar province and also the Iraqi city
of Mosul. In the summer of 2014 it branded itself a caliphate known as the Islamic State under
its caliph al-Baghdadi (Glenn 2016).
Aims and Objectives
The main aim of ISIL is to restore the Muslim caliphate, which died with the fall of the Ottoman
Empire during World War One. It has formed an Islamic State at the heart of the Muslim world,
which is governed by Sharia law. Despite covering territory in both Iraq and Syria, ISIL sees
this as one land and governs it as such (Bari Atwan 2015). Its leader, al-Baghdadi, has called
for Muslims from around the world to pledge allegiance (baya’a) to him. Some major terrorist
groups, such as Boko Haram, have done this. This success in attracting other fundamentalist
groups adds substance to ISIL’s plan of expanding its territory to Europe, North Africa and the
Middle East by 2020. It intends to take back all of the lands that the Muslim world has lost
over history (Cockburn 2016).
Whilst ISIL attempts to re-establish its caliphate it also wants to purify its land from what it
calls the takfiri and kafir. These words relate to Muslim apostates who have abandoned the
true form of Islam and the non-Muslim unbeliever (Hosken 2015). Its method of dealing with
people accused under these words is medieval and almost barbaric. Stoning’s and beheadings
are commonplace. ISIL believe that Shiite Muslims are an innovation and therefore takfiri’s;
this has led to their massacre. The same fate is also bestowed on the Yazidi’s and Christians
unless they pay their new government a tax, known as a jizya. Sunni Muslim apostates are
dealt with harshly and anything from selling alcohol to being gay will result in a horrific death
sentence (Saul 2015).
2
Ideology and Motivations
ISIL’s ideologies are a mixture of religious fundamentalism, sectarian splits and the influence
descended from Al-Qaeda. One of the group’s ancestral leaders, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is
pivotal in the ideologies that ISIL follow today. Pre 9/11 he attended training camps in
Afghanistan where he was introduced to Osama Bin Laden and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a
Pakistani scholar, who introduced him to Sunni Salafist Islam (Cockburn 2016). Salafism is the
belief of pure Islam and that the colonisation of the Middle East has caused contamination and
corruption of the religion. They believe that Muslims should revert back to the time of the
Prophet Muhammad when Islam was pure, cleansing modern practices. ISIL has taken this
belief to another level and cleanses anyone or anything it does not see as being a pure Muslim.
Democracy is alien to Salafi’s (The Week 2015). They believe in an Islamic State, which must
be governed by Sharia Law.
Zarqawi was also influenced by Al-Qaeda’s seven-step plan (Roggio 2005). It is important to
note that this plan was not given much exposure when revealed in the 1990’s, but in 2016 it
could be argued that it is now on stage five. Zarqawi talked about the plan whilst in a
Jordanian prison in 1996. It is likely that he has passed this ideology through ISI and it has
continued on to modern day ISIL. In fact ISIL arguably has made more progress with the plan
than Al-Qaeda itself.
Because of their extreme views, ISIL became naturally sectarian. It believes that all other
religions are non-believers. They exploited the persecution of Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Syria
to spread this message and to capitalise on their struggle, becoming the ‘saviour of the Sunni’.
This ideology has seen mass slaughter of many Shiite, Kurdish, Yazidi and Christian people
(Hosken 2015).
The final important ideology that ISIL espouses is that of a caliph. This can be linked to
influential Egyptian Scholar Sayyid Qutb’s 1964 book, Milestones. In this book he calls for
Jihad in the defence of Islam and the establishment of Sharia law. However, the key link to
ISIL’s ideology is that he calls for the re-instatement of a caliph, as Allah’s regent on earth
(Murr 2004). With Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claiming to be a direct descendant of the Prophet
Muhammad, he is able to fulfil this ideology and use the scholar’s words to ratify this claim.
Leadership
ISIL’s leadership is constantly evolving due to strikes being carried out against it. Its leader of
Syria, Abu Ali al-Anbairi, and leader of Iraq, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, have both been killed in
recent times. Due to this constant change of senior leadership this essay will focus solely on
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who has managed to remain at the head of the organisation whilst many
of his subordinates have been killed.
Al-Baghdadi is the leader of ISIL. He was born in Samarra, Iraq on 1 July 1971. He studied
Islamic studies at the Saddam University, although he did not pass the course, instead
changing the subject to Qur’an studies. During his time at university he briefly joined the
Muslim Brotherhood before leaving, seeing them as “people of words, not action (Orton 2016 p
16)”. After graduating in 1999 he was committed to Jihadi-Salifism. He was a cleric at a
mosque in Tobchi during the time of the US led invasion of 2003 (McCants 2015).
Shortly after the invasion he formed an insurgent group called Jaysh Ahl-Sunnah wal-Jamah
(The Army of the People of the Sunni Community). By February 1994 he was detained by the
American Army and held at the notorious Camp Bucca. He was held on the grounds of being a
‘civilian detainee’ that posed a threat to the US. He was released on 8 December 2004, and
was not assessed as being a member of an insurgent group. Al-Baghdadi was in prison when
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden on 17 October 2004, renaming his
organisation AQI. Baghdadi is reported to have joined the group in May 2005 (Cockburn 2015).
In 2006 shortly before Zarqawi was killed by an airstrike, AQI joined five other insurgent
groups to form The Mujahedeen Shura Council. This was the first time radical Islamists
3
attempted to create an Islamic state, with the group shortly declaring itself the Islamic State
of Iraq. By early 2010, al-Baghdadi was the third highest official, as the head of the Sharia
committees. Later on in the same year the head and deputy of ISI were killed making alBaghdadi the new emir (Bari Atwan 2015).
After making rapid gains in Syria and Iraq, ISI re-branded itself as ISIL on the 29 June 2014.
Five days later al-Baghdadi made a public appearance as caliph issuing a sermon at the Great
Mosque in Mosul. This along with another appearance in Fallujah is his only public appearance.
There are unconfirmed reports that al-Baghdadi was injured in an airstrike in March 2015
(Withnall 2016).
Structure
ISIL has a structure similar to that of a government. The self-proclaimed Caliph, al-Baghdadi,
is the leader of the Caliphate, with two deputies under him. These are the deputy of Iraq and
the deputy of Syria. He also has his own cabinet of advisors. In the cabinet are the Minister of
Finance, Minister of Prison Affairs and the Provincial Governors. The organisation then
branches off into a number of councils. These are the Media Council, the Military Council, the
Shura Council, the Sharia Council and the Security Council (Orton 2016).
The soldiers of the organisation are a mixture of Sunni Iraqis, Sunni Syrians and foreign
fighters. There is a mixture of radicalised Islamists and ex Iraqi military personnel. The early
structure saw ISIL set up like a military unit utilising captured Iraqi and Syrian military
equipment. Due to the wests air power they have now changed to a more historical method of
insurgency, blending in with the population and choosing their targets carefully (Cockburn
2015).
Strategies
ISIL’s strategy is a unique mix of traditional insurgent methods, conventional military strategy
and propaganda. It is able to adapt its tactics dependant on the target or threat it faces.
During its early days it carried out elaborate lighting raid attacks using columns of vehicles
filled with fighters to overwhelm the enemy (Cockburn 2016). However, once the West began
to conduct air strikes this type of warfare became too risky and ISIL reverted to insurgent
tactics. Lethal attacks such as suicide bombs, improvised explosive devices and ambushes
became more prominent, whilst the fighters mixed in with the civilian population to protect
themselves (Ali-Habib 2016). ISIL has also been accused of using chemical weapons (Salih
2016).
ISIL has a global reach for recruiting fighters. Its ranks are heavily filled with foreign fighters,
although there has been a crack down on radicalised westerners travelling to Iraq and Syria
(Miller & Mekhennet 2016). This global reach is achieved through ISIL’s Propaganda. It is very
media savvy and uses social media to post videos of beheadings, executions and victories. It
also regularly calls on Muslims to join the cause by traveling to the caliph or by carrying out
home attacks. It has been successful in inspiring both lone wolf attacks and large terrorist
attacks in mainland Europe (Gambhir 2016).
Analysis
Assessment
The ideologies of ISIL have given it great success. It has defeated the Iraqi Army, the Syrian
Army, Syrian rebel forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga in battle. There is a marked difference in
ISIL’s success to that of its similar terrorist organisation, al-Qaeda (Weiss & Hassan 2016).
ISIL is able to conduct both conventional military tactics as well as unconventional asymmetric
warfare (Cockburn 2015). It is a flexible organisation and is able to adapt its tactics. It has a
unique mix of military minded men and fundamentalist ideology. The claim of being an Islamic
State, led by a caliph who can trace his lineage back to the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad,
4
gives ISIL a genuine claim of being a Caliphate (Calabresi 2015). This, along with a well-oiled
propaganda machine, has seen thousands of foreign fighters flock to join the organisation
(Cockburn 2015).
It could be argued that despite ISIL making significant gains in 2014, the appeal of a Caliphate
is not as appealing as their own media suggests. Although the organisation has had success in
mainly Sunni Muslim areas, this support could be linked more to Sunni’s dissatisfaction with
the Shiite dominated Iraqi and Syrian Governments, rather than their belief in the Caliphate
(Bari Atwan 2015). It is interesting to note that more Sunni Muslims have fled to the refugee
camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey than have joined ISIL (Cockburn 2015). The influx of
foreign Muslim fighters could just as likely be attributed to social exclusion from their own
country to the appeal of an Islamic State.
Whether ISIL is an organisation that can tempt the Muslim world to unite in becoming a
Caliphate or is just very good at exploiting sectarian divides and weak governments remain to
be seen. One thing is for sure, they have the interest of the world and have been far more
successful than al-Qaeda in getting the west to return to Iraq. More than 60 nations are now
involved in Iraq and Syria, however ISIL is far from being defeated (Payne 2014). If ISIL is
using the ideology of al-Qaeda’s seven-step plan then it could be argued they have achieved
stage five, establishing an Islamic State whilst the wests influence in the region is weakening
(Hosken 2015).
Future
The declaration of the Caliphate in June 2014 came at the height of ISIL’s success. It had
gained a lot of territory and other worldwide terror groups pledged allegiance to the cause.
They had achieved more of what Al-Qaeda proposed in its seven-step theory (Roggio 2005)
than they had themselves. ISIL became the terror group that the world feared the most.
However two years later ISIL is a group under pressure. It has lost over 45% of its territory in
Iraq and 16-20% in Syria (Orton 2016). The major city of Mosul is under pressure and could
well fall to a combined assault from the Iraqi Army, Iranian led Shia militia and Kurdish
Peshmerga. Western air power and ground advisors are supporting this assault.
Western air strikes and raids have killed many of ISIL’s key original leaders. Although ISIL is
very fluid in replacing these deaths, new leaders will be more wary of the threat from the air
and may blend into the shadows. It has been rumored that al-Baghdadi himself has been
injured in an airstrike, although this is unconfirmed (Withnall 2016). The West’s strategy of
targeting leaders is complimenting the indigenous forces push on the ground.
With the loss of territory and key leaders, ISIL is almost an organisation on the retreat. The
Iraqi Army is on the advance, supported by Shia militias and Kurdish forces in Iraq, whilst
Syrian forces backed by Iranian forces, the Russians and Hezbollah are making progress in
Syria. Both Western and Russian Air Forces are proving a vital role in supporting ground
forces. It is highly likely that ISIL will lose more territory in 2017 and quite possibly Mosul and
Raqqa. The early successes it gained against poorly prepared forces seem a lifetime away and
now all of its adversaries are in a better place to fight back.
If ISIL keeps losing large parts of its territory, then this would prove disastrous to its claim of
being an Islamic State. To maintain its status of being a caliphate it must own land, and 2016
has seen this significantly reduced. The pressure ISIL is under will most likely see it splinter
into smaller groups and become a traditional insurgent group using suicide bombs and
improvised explosive devices. It is likely to continue targeting the west with attacks in the US
and Europe similar to those we have already seen. ISIL may even spring up in a new country
altogether. Just like when the ISI was virtually defeated in Iraq it re-appeared in Syria under
the JAN franchise, we may see ISIL re-appear in another country such as Libya.
Bibliography
5
Abi-Habib, M. (2016) Islamic State Shifts Tactics, From War-Fighting to Suicide Bombing
[online] Available at http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-shifts-tactics-from-warfighting-to-suicide-bombing-1463181100 {Accessed 28 November 2016}
Bari Atwan, A. (2015) ISLAMIC STATE The Digital Caliphate. London: Saqi Books.
BBC (2013) Arab uprising: Country by country- Syria [online] Available at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12482309 {Accessed 27 November 2016}.
Burke, J. (2015) The New Threat From Islamic Militancy. London: The Bodley Head.
Calabresi, M. (2015) Time Person of the Year Shortlist No 2 [online] Available at
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi/ {Accessed
11 December 2016}.
Chulov, M. (2014) Isis: the inside story [online] Available at
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story {Accessed 26
November 2016}.
Cockburn, P. (2015) The Rise of Islamic State. London: Verso.
Gambhir, H. (2016) Why is ISIS so successful [online] Available at
http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/why-isis-so-successful {Accessed 28
November 2016}.
Glenn, C. (2016) Timeline: Rise and Spread of the Islamic State [online] Available at
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-rise-and-spread-the-islamic-state {Accessed 27
November 2016}.
Hosken, A. (2015) Empire of Fear. London: Oneworld Publications.
Lawrence, J. (2006) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi obituary [online] Available at
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jun/09/guardianobituaries.alqaida {Accessed 25
November 2016}.
Miller, G. & Mekhennet, S. (2016) Undercover teams, increased surveillance and hardened
borders: Turkey cracks down on foreign fighters [online] Available at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/undercover-teams-increasedsurveillance-and-hardened-borders-turkey-cracks-down-on-foreignfighters/2016/03/06/baa4ba3a-e219-11e5-8d98-4b3d9215ade1_story.html {Accessed 28
November 2016}.
McCants, W. (2015) The Believer [online] Available at
http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2015/thebeliever.html {Accessed 11
December 2016}.
Murr, V. (2004) The Power of Ideas: Sayyid Qutb and Islamism [online] Available at
http://civilizationsend.tdyn.org/jihad-sharia-library/documents/foundations-islamicfundamentalism/sayyid-qutb-and-islamism-virginia-murr.pdf {Accessed 10 December 2016}.
Orton, K. (2016) Profile of Islamic State Leaders. London: The Henry Jackson Society.
Payne, S. (2014) What the 60-plus members of the anti-Islamic State coalition are doing
[online] Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/09/25/whatthe-60-members-of-the-anti-islamic-state-coalition-are-doing/?utm_term=.17877893acce
{Accessed 9 December 2016}.
6
Roggio, B. (2005) The Seven Phases of The Base [online] Available at
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2005/08/the_seven_phase.php {Accessed 2
December 2016}
Salih, M. (2016) ISIL chemical attacks ‘expected’ as Mosul battle nears [online] Available at
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/isil-chemical-attacks-expected-mosul-battle-nears160830083658352.html {Accessed 28 November 2016}.
Saul, H. (2015) Isis publishes penal code listing amputation, crucifixion and stoning as
punishments - and vows to vigilantly enforce it [online] Available at
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-publishes-penal-code-listingamputation-crucifixion-and-stoning-as-punishments-and-vows-to-9994878.html {Accessed 10
December 2016}.
Shuster, M. (2007) Iraq War Deepens Sunni-Shia Divide [online] Available at
http://www.npr.org/2007/02/15/7411762/iraq-war-deepens-sunni-shia-divide {Accessed 25
November 2016}.
Stanford University. (2016) MAPPING MILITANT ORGANISATIONS The Islamic State [online]
Available at http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/1 {Accessed
26 November 2016}.
The Week. (2015) What is Salafism and should we be worried by it? [online] Available at
http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/6073/what-is-salafism-and-should-we-be-worried-by-it
{Accessed 10 December 2016}.
Thompson, M. (2015) How Disbanding the Iraqi Army Fuelled ISIS [online] Available at
http://time.com/3900753/isis-iraq-syria-army-united-states-military/ {Accessed 26 November
2016}.
Weaver, M. (2006) The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [online] Available at
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-short-violent-life-of-abu-musabal-zarqawi/304983/ {Accessed 26 November 2016}.
Weiss, M., Hassan, H. (2016) ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. 2nd Ed. New York: Regan Arts.
Withnall, A. (2016) Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 'photographed in second public
appearance' at Fallujah mosque [online] Available at
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadiphotographed-in-second-public-appearance-at-fallujah-mosque-a6867576.html {Accessed 11
December 2016}.
7