Reason Two: The inevitable reemergence of terrorism, cont'd.
A smart counter-ideological warfare strategy goes way beyond the standard “winning hearts and minds” campaign. In a weird twist, Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda leader, scholar, and strategist, once laid out the outlines of a successful campaign in an interview. His advice:
Start a social epidemic of rejection. Create a social epidemic of personal revulsion against the “cult;” Identify the criminality to al-Qaeda’s target audience. Appeal to the universal value placed on stability, law and order, and justice; Make al-Qaeda answer publicly for killing innocents, particularly children; Make the terrorists’ community and families fear for the spiritual safety of recruits; Make people remember they can’t depend on terrorists; Reframe al-Qaeda as political opportunists; Encourage positive ideological fitna (civil war). Support former militants who recant terror and speak out against it; and Demand al-Qaeda pay blood debts (wrongful deaths they have caused) to Muslims and Non-Muslims, as proscribed in the Qur’an.
Okay, we realize this may be a much heavier lift for America after what just happened in Afghanistan but, otherwise, the timing for this approach is pretty great.
Even as far back as 2013, the Pew Research Center found that “concern about Islamic extremism remains widespread among Muslims from South Asia to the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa. Across 11 Muslim publics surveyed, a median of 67 percent say they are somewhat or very concerned about Islamic extremism. In five countries — Pakistan, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey and Indonesia — Muslim worries about extremism have increased in the past year.”
The report continues, “In many of the countries surveyed, clear majorities of Muslims oppose violence in the name of Islam. Indeed, about three-quarters or more in Pakistan (89 percent), Indonesia (81 percent), Nigeria (78 percent) and Tunisia (77 percent), say suicide bombings or other acts of violence that target civilians are never justified.”
In 2019, The Economist revealed that:
Across Arab countries, “The share of people expressing much trust in political parties, most of which have a religious tint, has fallen by well over a third since 2011, to 15 percent. (The share of Iraqis who say they do not trust parties at all rose from 51 percent to 78 percent). The decline in trust for Islamist parties is similarly dramatic, falling from 35 percent in 2013, when the question was first widely asked, to 20 percent in 2018.
The doubts extend to religious leaders. In 2013 around 51 percent of respondents said they trusted their religious leaders to a ‘great’ or ‘medium’ extent. When a comparable question was asked last year, the number was down to 40 percent. The share of Arabs who think religious leaders should have influence over government decision-making is also steadily declining.”
Employing strategies like these is really important because, although the threat level of terrorism is down, it’s certainly not gone. Without question, the demise of their caliphate was a major blow to ISIS, as was the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019. But these should be viewed as events that provided a temporary disruption to the terrorist group’s activities, not as absolute victory for those of us who have been fighting them.
After al-Baghdadi’s death, for example, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) concluded that “ISIS is ‘postured to withstand’ al-Baghdadi’s death, and will likely maintain ‘continuity of operations, global cohesion, and at least its current trajectory.’”
Very soon after their caliphate collapsed, ISIS militant fighters were reorganizing in Syrian bunkers, the Badia desert, areas around the disputed border between the Kurdistan region and the rest of Iraq, and other areas controlled by Kurdish and Iraqi forces — devising guerrilla warfare tactics to make a comeback.
In some areas — like Raqqa and the Deir al-Zour province in Syria, the province of Diyala in northeastern Iraq, and Afghanistan — the group was soon back to carrying out bombings, assassinations, ambushes, and firing mortar rounds.
One thing we learned or should have learned from this episode is that there are plenty of menacing groups chomping at the bit to fill the vacuum created by the exit of U.S. forces from the region. Iran, for one, is just waiting for the moment when it can call down the Hezbollah militias under its control in western and southern Syria to gain control over the major oil fields in Deir al-Zour.
The United States Institute of Peace — a federal institution founded by Congress that is tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide — reminds us that:
“To a certain extent we have been here before, back in 2007 following the ‘Anbar Awakening’ in Iraq. And we have seen how the Islamic State in Iraq, as it was then called, was able to rebuild itself and reach even greater heights. The Islamic State’s strategy is based on a staged approach — not dissimilar from the Maoist strategy of protracted warfare — and after their defeat in the Anbar Awakening they simply returned to a lower stage, went underground and re-grouped in the countryside. They expect to oscillate between stages before eventual victory. It is important to remember that it is this strategy that is arguably its primary export to global affiliates. If we are not careful and vigilant, the Islamic State is more than capable of re-emerging and rising in strength once again.”
Already, “the decline of ISIS’s core has been coupled with the rise and expansion of ISIL provinces and affiliates around the world — now stretching across Europe, Russia, Eurasia, Asia, and Africa…the central trend has been the displacement of activity away from the Middle East and North Africa, with a global presence becoming an increasing part of the Islamic State’s operations. In 2019, Islamic State provinces and affiliates accounted for 74 percent of all the deaths from the group’s acts of terrorism. In particular, the African continent has become a focus of affiliates’ growth and increasing activity, with sub-Saharan Africa by itself now accounting for 41 percent of deaths.”