Few figures loom larger amongst jihadis than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The founder of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) had paltry funds and a meager fighting force on the eve of the Iraq War. But his strategy would make his influence felt across the Middle East and beyond. In a 2004 letter to Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi laid out his vision: “If we succeed in dragging [Shia] into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger and annihilating death”. Zarqawi and his men bombed Shia holy sites and marketplaces. Shia militias formed and brutalized Sunnis. Shia stopped distinguishing between jihadists and Sunnis, they destroyed the “gray zone”, and ISI ranks swelled.
ISIL’s Strategy to Defeat the West
Over a decade later, ISI’s successor, ISIL controlled and governed more physical territories than any jihadi group since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. ISIL’s ambitions were greater still. The February 2015 issue of Dabiq, the group’s official magazine, features an essay titled “The Extinction of the Gray Zone”, calling for a redux of Zarqawi’s strategy. The gray zone, the author explains, is the space occupied by “Islamic parties that refuse to join the Khilāfah [Caliphate]”. Destroy the gray zone and Muslims must choose between the West or Islam. It is the binary of “us, Muslims, versus them”. The author calls for an attack to “destroy the grayzone everywhere.” The attack alone does not accomplish the task, rather it would “compel the crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves”. Success is achieved when “the crusaders increase persecution against Muslims living in Western lands.”
By May 2016, ISIL’s military ambition flagged. The group had lost a third of its land and half of its troops. Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, ISIL’s number two and a former acolyte of Zarqawi, took to the microphone to reassure and refocus his dwindling flock. He acknowledged the turning tide but would not humor defeat: “Will we be defeated and you victorious if you capture Mosul, Sirte, Al-Raqqah, or all the cities, and we have to go back to where we were at first? No!” He roared.
If the path to victory was not in Syria or Iraq, then Adnani would find it elsewhere. He turned the spotlight from his soldiers in Raqqa to his followers in the West: “Oh Muslims, we do not wage Jihad in order to defend territory, or in order to liberate or take control of land… The smallest attack you carry out on their own turf is better and more beloved to us than the largest attack we carry out here.” Adnani was laying for Westerners the same trap that ensnared Iraq’s Shi’a a decade before.
He would not live to see the trap sprung. On August 30, 2016, ISIL confirmed the death of their second-in-command in an American drone strike. Dabiq stopped publishing new issues. Military losses multiplied and by December the Caliphate was half its former size. With ISIL’s army a shadow of its old self, the group can no longer tie its success to conventional warfare. As Adnani made clear, compelling the West to turn on Muslims is an objective worth more than defending the Caliphate. A coherent plan to defeat them must deny them this objective.
At Omelas, we have devoted our lives to understanding and undermining violent extremism. The current US administration’s success in defeating terrorism is the same as our success. This is why we were so disheartened to see two decisions from the new administration that run counter to our shared goal.
Playing into the narrative of ISIL
On January 27, the administration released an executive order suspending refugee programs and immigration from certain countries. The order claims prevention of attacks as its objective. But attacking the West is not ISIL’s goal. It’s a tactic. ISIL views a path to victory by convincing Western Muslims they’re hated and unwelcomed. Regardless of intent or specifics, the ban furthers that goal.
Five days later, sources within the administration told Reuters it would no longer allocate funds for countering far right extremism while expanding efforts to counter Islamic extremism. The Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the United States Database, a project of the Department of Homeland Security, records 38 acts of terrorism in the US since September 11th committed by far right extremists and 19 by Islamic extremists. The decision to ignore a more dangerous enemy feeds ISIL’s narrative that the United States will turn on Muslims regardless of the actual threat posed. Two organizations dedicated to countering extremism, Ka Joog, which won honors from the FBI for its work, and Leaders Advancing & Helping Communities pulled out of partnerships with Homeland Security in response.
From 2001 onward, Osama bin Laden tried to convince Muslims that all of Islam was the target of the war on terror. “The world today is divided into two camps. Bush spoke the truth when he said, ‘Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.’ Meaning, either you are with the crusade or you are with Islam,” he explained. Zarqawi used the same model to devastating effect by coercing Shia into turning on Sunnis. ISIL is trying to replicate his success. We urge the administration to lay out a plan that clearly articulates how to deny ISIL their objectives. Failure to do so has furthered ISIL’s narrative, supported their recruitment efforts, and disrupted cooperation between the government and the CVE community. Until a coherent plan is in place, missteps that support ISIL’s objectives are inevitable.
