It soon became clear that this was just making it easier for Twitter to suspend them, so they reversed course and told users to come up with entirely different names. The subtleties of this process were lost on some suspended users, who opened each new account by proudly announcing how many times they had been suspended before. Some ran into the dozens.
At the time of this writing, the ultimate outcome of the battle for Twitter supremacy was still a work in progress, but one thing was clear—ISIS was far from ready to concede the online battleground, and it had chosen Twitter as the field on which it would make its stand.
It seems strange that Twitter could lose control of a system it owned and operated in its entirety, even as that tool was being used to threaten the company’s own employees and executives. Yet while the suspensions had hurt the organization’s efforts and taken away some of the tools that had made ISIS notorious, the electronic brigades were adapting.
New generations of bots emerged weekly, some of them carefully calibrated to avoid Twitter’s countermeasures. Out of 85 “ghost” bots detected on September 15, 2014, only 25 had been suspended by early November, despite tweeting links to some of ISIS’s most graphic material.98
The ghosts were a calculated affair, with very specific profiles, small follower counts, and an intentionally limited reach; they could easily be missed by anyone scouring the Internet for ISIS, and they were lesser targets for suspension. But their tweets would still help trend hashtags and distribute content. Other similar clusters of bots were set up in the same manner, using different technical specifications. ISIS had learned from its experience with the Dawn app. The new generation of bots were smaller, less visible targets with no single point of failure.
While the effects of these visible ISIS countermeasures set off new rounds of whack-a-mole complaints, ISIS had been forced to spend more energy on smaller returns as a result of pressures and setbacks its own members described as “devastating.”99, 100
If the pressure continued, the network would continue to suffer. If the pressure eased, the network would recover, at least in part, its members shuffling back online to rebuild and regroup, and start the whole process again.
They are weeds.
No gardener expects weeds will simply give up after being uprooted once. Gardening is a process; it requires care and maintenance. A constant gardener does not let weeds overrun the plot.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE AQ-ISIS WAR
ISIS was born from the crucible of America’s “war on terrorism,” and al Qaeda looms over these pages like a shadow. The road from al Qaeda in Iraq to ISIS has, at every step, revealed a clear pattern of deliberate differentiation.
Jihadist groups have a long history of splintering and separation. In some cases, this process involves competition among factions that sprang from the same source. In Algeria during the 1990s, this dynamic reached disastrous proportions, from the terrorists’ point of view. The ensuing fitna (infighting) resulted in the emasculation of every group involved, and became a widely cited case study in failure for jihadists everywhere.1
The separation of ISIS from al Qaeda, while born out of strife and irreconcilable differences, did not have to result in war. Certainly, al Qaeda did not want such an outcome, and it has repeatedly pleaded with ISIS to submit to an arbitrated reconciliation. ISIS not only rebuffed these overtures, it upped the ante, and with the declaration of the caliphate, it demanded that al Qaeda submit to its authority.
As a result, the global jihadist movement has split into two major factions. Al Qaeda and its declared affiliates continued to operate under the nominal leadership of Ayman al Zawahiri. ISIS and a growing number of global affiliates have staked their loyalties to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
The two groups are now locked in a battle for supremacy and for the loyalties of unaffiliated groups and the members of existing organizations.2
It is easy to misunderstand the stakes in this battle. ISIS has adopted the rhetoric of the absolute—al Qaeda must submit and become part of its caliphate—and the two compete, to some extent, for loyalty, funds, and recruits.
But most important, this conflict is about vision. The “winner” of the war between al Qaeda and ISIS will wield tremendous influence over the tactics and goals of the next generation of jihadists. Understanding the contours of the battle will help reveal the shape of things to come. In that respect, the question of who “wins” is incredibly important, not just to the region but to the world. The West has too often found itself fighting the last war, when the next war is taking shape before its eyes. Faced with the expansionist, populist rise of ISIS, we cannot afford to keep making that mistake.
But before we can forecast what lies ahead, we must first understand what is happening now. Who is winning the battle for leadership of the global jihadist movement?
THE BATTLE FOR BAYAH
Terrorist groups are often amorphously linked to one another, with cooperation and coordination taking place across a spectrum of activities.
For instance, in 1998, Osama bin Laden and the leaders of other jihadist terrorist groups announced the formation of the World Islamic Front, an alliance to fight the United States, but each signatory to the statement had a different relationship to al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda folded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, led by Ayman al Zawahiri, into itself. Islamic Jihad did not become al Qaeda in Egypt, however; it was simply subsumed into al Qaeda.3 On the other hand, the Islamic Group (the Egyptian jihadist group responsible for the World Trade Center bombing with support from AQ) remained somewhat independent and eventually drifted away from al Qaeda in most meaningful respects, even taking part in the political process that emerged after the Arab Spring.4
After September 11, the power dynamics began to shift. Although the amorphous links continued, the leaders of some groups now pledged their loyalty to the emir of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and subsequently to his successor, Ayman al Zawahiri.
The oath of loyalty, known as bayah, is the principal mechanism of control in the al Qaeda network, adding a religious obligation to relationships that historically would rise and fall when the prevailing winds changed. Bayah is extended from leader to leader, not group to group, so when the players change, it must be renewed. A pledge offered must be accepted by the leader of al Qaeda before it is valid.
On paper, at least, al Qaeda itself is subordinate to Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, reportedly through a loyalty oath from bin Laden to Omar during the late 1990s, which was affirmed last year by al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and again in the summer of 2014, in a print publication attributed to al Qaeda.5
But the pledge to Mullah Omar was largely theater. It is difficult to point to any examples of al Qaeda following Omar’s commands or directions, and relatively easy to find examples of its disobedience. Jihadi accounts of the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban describe a fractious mess entered into under protest.6
Under the emir of al Qaeda are the organization’s official affiliates. As noted previously, the list includes al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP, mostly in Yemen), al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM, mostly in North Africa), al-Shabab (mainly in Somalia), the al Nusra Front (in Syria), and al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, announced in 2014.
In the spring of 2014, Zawahiri disavowed ISIS, which was at the time considered an al Qaeda affiliate, although there is some dispute about whether its current emir, Baghdadi, ever swore the loyalty oath.7
The media latched on to the idea that ISIS was disavowed because it was “too extreme for al Qaeda.” While it’s true that al Qaeda saw ISIS as too extreme, it’s more accurate to say Zawahiri fired ISIS for its public defiance of his wishes and commands.8
ISIS shed no tears over the separation. It was already functionally independent from al Qaeda in most respects, and the dismissal played into its long-term plan—the presumptive declaration of a new Islamic caliphate. Cut loose from its parent, ISIS moved fo
rward with the declaration within short months. When the time came, it proclaimed that all previous loyalties were voided by the new development and demanded that jihadi groups around the world swear loyalty to Baghdadi.9
When the world’s Muslim militants failed to drop to their knees, the online supporters of ISIS were baffled and disappointed.10 The realist leadership of the group probably knew that the announcement would not produce immediate breakthroughs, but it may have been disappointed at the volume of the first wave of rejection.11
Given how tightly ISIS has synchronized its media strategy, it was telling that the group could not arrange even a single high-profile pledge within the first week after the announcement. The controversial declaration was no fait accompli. And even as of this writing, none of the official al Qaeda affiliates had yet broken with the core.
But over time, the so-called caliphate began to draw concrete support.
Its first new constituents were small-timers, and most had thrown their support behind ISIS earlier in 2014, after the rift with al Qaeda became overt. Many of these new pledges were from malcontents within the AQ affiliates. Some individual fighters and small groups simply deserted the affiliates and joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria.12
Others declared the formation of breakaway groups. It was difficult to gauge the size of these splinters; most involved a handful of people who signed their names and purported to represent larger groups of followers.
A prominent cleric with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Mamoun Hatem, openly declared his support for ISIS. A number of other AQAP figures on social media have also endorsed it, and it is believed that a significant number of AQAP fighters lean in that direction. In November 2014, AQAP issued a blistering statement condemning ISIS and its declaration of the caliphate, which included a tacit admission that the Yemeni affiliate was fracturing over divided loyalties.13
An important early splinter emerged within the North Africa affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, from a group identifying itself as the “central division.”14 Over time, the appeal of ISIS has broadened in the areas where AQIM operates.
Very few old-school establishment al Qaeda supporters and clerics have come down in favor of ISIS, with the notable exception of Abu Bakar Bashir, an Indonesian cleric and the spiritual leader of the former Jemaah Islamiyah, a now-defunct organization with long-standing ties to the original al Qaeda.15
Bashir pledged allegiance to Baghdadi from a prison cell. But his decision split the successor group to Jemaah Islamiyah, with Bashir’s sons denouncing the defection and breaking away with some number of supporters.16
AQAP’s Hatem might have been more pragmatically important, but Bashir brought prestige, and he reflected a very large base of enthusiastic Indonesian and Malaysian ISIS supporters, many of whom were very active on social media.
In the Philippines, the leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group, founded with money from al Qaeda decades earlier, pledged to the leader of ISIS in September. The group had devolved into a criminal gang over the decades, and many observers suggested the pledge was simply an opportunistic bid to increase the ransoms they demanded for kidnapped Europeans. But even before the caliphate declaration, ISIS had enjoyed significant support from young people in the island nation.17
A small group of known al Qaeda figures in Afghanistan issued a statement supporting ISIS, and the venerable Afghan militant group Hezb-e-Islami signaled that it was considering the Islamic State’s claim to the caliphate.18 In neighboring Pakistan, unruly Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) factions had begun splintering over a number of different fracture lines. One of several points of contention was the rise of ISIS. TTP had to fire its spokesman after he publicly pledged allegiance to Baghdadi. Other commanders soon joined him, and there were signs of interest from other Pakistani radicals.19
Boko Haram, a hard-line jihadi group in Nigeria, declared an “Islamic caliphate” in its own territory after ISIS’s announcement, but the rambling statement20 by its notoriously incoherent leader, Abubakar Shekau, was decidedly unclear as to whether he was placing the territory under the umbrella of ISIS, and subsequent announcements only confused the issue.21
In Africa, members of Ansar al-Shariah in Tunisia (AST) displayed significant sympathies for ISIS, and analysis of its social media networks pointed to operational links. But the leadership remained steadfastly silent. ISIS counts large numbers of Tunisians among its foreign fighters, more than any other single nationality, and authorities claim to have arrested thousands more22 who were trying to join the fight.23
English-speaking radical communities have been particularly critical to ISIS’s support base. Two of the most important English-language Muslim radical organizations have aligned with ISIS, including Authentic Tauheed, led by Jamaican national Abdullah Faisal, and the network formerly known as al Muhajiroun, led by British cleric Anjem Choudary.
Faisal is best known in the West as the spiritual leader of the defunct Revolution Muslim, an online collective of al Qaeda supporters, most of whom are now in prison.24 Although he rarely makes headlines, Faisal has been a loud, active voice in radicalization for decades, with a consistent presence online via audio lectures and the Paltalk forum. Years ago, he once condemned American al Qaeda cleric Anwar Awlaki for not being radical enough (albeit this was before Awlaki came out of the terrorist closet).
After the announcement of the caliphate in June, Faisal weighed in strongly in favor of the ISIS’s caliphate, buttressing it with his “scholarship” and a series of rousing lectures. He later formally pledged his loyalty.25
Choudary led the radical group al Muhajiroun, which was banned in Britain, and a series of successor organizations that were, to a greater or lesser extent, the same group under a different name. Despite this, he remains at large as of this writing and functions as ISIS’s primary cheerleader in the Western media.26
The al Muhajiroun network, by any other name, has been one of the most important funnels for hundreds or more British foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, with many of them now fighting under the ISIS banner and maintaining a robust presence on social media.
Other important English-speaking clerics are widely followed by ISIS supporters, including Musa Cerantonio, an Australian, and Ahmad Musa Jibril, an American. Cerantonio is openly affiliated with ISIS,27 whereas the Michigan-based Jibril is broadly popular with English-speaking fighters, despite the fact he does not openly call for violence and has not endorsed ISIS.28
COALITION OF THE WILAYAT
Support built slowly but steadily in the weeks and months after the declaration of ISIS’s so-called caliphate, but these public expressions were not the endgame. On November 13, 2014, an important new plank in ISIS’s plan for expansion became clear, another innovation in the jihadist milieu.
The media had been captivated for days by unfounded rumors that Abu Bakr al Baghdadi had been killed in an air strike. When ISIS released a new audio recording of its would-be caliph, observers flocked to analyze it for clues about when it was recorded, trying to discern if Baghdadi still lived. Most passed by the real news in the speech.
“Glad tidings, O Muslims, for we give you good news by announcing the expansion of the Islamic State to new lands, to the lands of [Saudi Arabia] and Yemen, to Egypt, Libya and Algeria,” Baghdadi said. “We announce the acceptance of bayah of those who gave us bayah in those lands, the nullification of the groups therein, the announcement of new wilayat (provinces) for the Islamic State, and the appointment of [leaders] for them.”
ISIS’s organizational structure in Iraq and Syria was based on the wilayat, essentially provincial subdivisions each with its own governor. With the acceptance of bayah and the naming of governors outside of Iraq and Syria, Baghdadi was signaling that these new pledges were more than just business as usual.
The pledges had been announced on November 10, but their importance wasn’t clear until the speech placed them in context. Although many had offered their bayah to Baghdadi, this marked the first time he had defi
nitively accepted any in public.29
Highlighting the substantiality of these new wilayat, a number of additional groups that had pledged to ISIS were omitted from the announcement, including prominent organizations in Southeast Asia. Their bayah had been accepted, but they had not consolidated their leadership and infrastructure enough to be granted formal standing.30
The Egyptian terrorist group Ansar Bayt al Maqdis announced its alignment with ISIS, concurrent with the designation of the group as a wilayat in Egypt. The merger had been rumored for weeks.31 ABM was an active jihadist group that had emerged after the Arab Spring. Most of its attacks were carried out in the Sinai Peninsula, but the group also had ties to Gaza.
Within days, the rechristened Sinai Wilayat of the Islamic State had issued a new video under the ISIS flag, a significant upgrade to the group’s previous offerings, and displaying ISIS’s distinctive mix of high production values and graphic violence.32
More important, the video was distributed by known members of the ISIS media team, the same channels that had released Baghdadi’s announcement.33 This was marked contrast to al Qaeda, which had never visibly coordinated with its affiliates so closely.
This was not business as usual.
Each new wilayat penned a statement, distributed by ISIS, outlining its reasons for pledging. In Libya, three wilayat were specified—in the regions of Barqah, Fazzan, and Tripoli. Barqah included the town of Derna, which had supplied many foreign fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq during the U.S. occupation. More recently, large numbers of Derna residents had made very public pledges to ISIS.34
In Algeria, the pledge emanated from Jund-al-Khalifa, an AQIM brigade based in the Tizi Ouzou region that had splintered from the group in March 2014 and formally offered its allegiance to ISIS in September, when it had offered a concrete token of its loyalty, beheading a French hostage on video, just days after ISIS spokesman al Adnani had issued a blanket call for such actions in response to U.S. air strikes in Iraq.35
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