The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  And on tactics, who turned out to be right? The problem with prudential arguments is that who’s right depends on what actually happens next. You can never tell for sure who has the better end of the argument until you see how things turn out in practice. Zawahiri warned Zarqawi not to put too much stock in “the praise of some of the zealous young men and their description of you as the shaykh of the slaughterers.” He thought that “the Muslim populace who love[d] and support[ed]” Zarqawi wouldn’t ever find hostage-murder snuff videos “palatable.” But as we’ll see, Zarqawi and his successors in ISIS, aiming their PR campaign straight at the “zealous young men” demographic that Zawahiri discounted, were able to find a mass audience that would be inspired by those murders, so inspired that they would flock from all over the world in the tens of thousands to join ISIS’s jihad—when they weren’t undertaking jihad attacks at home in Europe and America. Ironically, bin Laden’s organization apparently underestimated the appeal of the strictest Sharia and the most violent jihad—and overestimated the resolve of the United States to oppose it. So today, history seems to have passed al-Qaeda by, and ISIS is in the ascendant.

  Zarqawi won the argument.

  Chapter Two

  ISIS COMES TO AMERICA

  “I’ll see you guys in New York,” the Islamic State’s future Caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, supposedly said when he was released from Iraq’s Camp Bucca.

  Whether or not he said it, ISIS had designs on Gotham.

  Did you know?

  •Before Zale Thompson attacked NYPD officers with a hatchet, he did computer searches for “lone wolf” and how to say “death to America” in Arabic

  •The month before the hatchet attack, the Islamic State issued a call to Muslims in the U.S. to attack the police

  •Before the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, an ISIS jihadi tweeted out “snail-eating people” with a weeping emoticon

  On October 23, 2014, in Queens, a man named Zale Thompson attacked four New York police officers with an eighteen-and-a-half-inch hatchet, wounding one in the head and another in the arm before he was shot dead. His father ascribed the attack to the racism that had apparently destroyed his son’s life: “He wanted white people to pay for all that slavery and all that racism. I think he committed suicide—and he was taking one of y’all with him. . . . He just said, ‘They have to pay for all their unfairness.’ Unfairness for the way they treat black people.”1

  But the police investigation of the attack uncovered a different motive. As one law enforcement official said, “This guy spent every waking moment on the Internet. . . . He Googled the words ‘jihad against police.’”2 He had also searched the internet for information for “lone wolf,” “jihad,” “jihad against the infidels,” “fatwa against americans,” and “death to America in Arabic.”3

  NOBODY’S PERFECT

  “If you’re looking for ‘perfect’ Muslims who never make any mistakes in their Jihad, then you will be looking in vain! If the Zionists and the Crusaders had never invaded and colonized the Islamic lands after WW1, then there would be no need for Jihad! Which is better, to sit around and do nothing, or to Jihad fisabeelallah [for the sake of Allah]!”

  —a September 2014 comment Thompson wrote on a YouTube video discussing the restoration of the caliphate5

  Thompson had also searched on the internet for information about two recent jihad attacks in Canada.4

  Incitement to Murder

  What exactly might Zale Thompson have seen in his relentless internet searches that could have inspired him to try to hack four members of the NYPD to death?

  How about this: “You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit [rebels against Allah]. Strike their police, security and intelligence members”?6

  And, if he needed any further encouragement, how does this sound? “Knocking off a police, military or any other law-enforcement officer sends a chilling message to the so-called ‘civilians’ and fills their hearts with consternation.”7

  Those incitements to murder had been issued by the Islamic State in September of 2014, the very month before Thompson’s hatchet attack. This encouragement to engage in violent jihad in America and the rest of the West were part of a continuing campaign on the part of ISIS to bring the war home to the “crusader” powers—by enlisting Muslims already present in the United States, Europe, and Australia to carry out the very kind of “lone wolf” attacks that Thompson had been searching for information about on his computer.

  As one of the September 2014 Islamic State appeals calling Western Muslims to jihad noted, there are 2.6 million Muslims living in the United States today.8 If ISIS can persuade even a small percentage of them to throw in their lot with the caliphate and commit acts of violence here, they could cause serious mayhem. ISIS would achieve the desired result: “you will pay the price as you walk on your streets, turning right and left, fearing the Muslims. You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms.”9

  Bringing the War Home to America

  Just before ISIS proclaimed itself the caliphate in late June 2014, it had issued a warning to Americans that jihad attacks against U.S. embassies and American civilians would follow any American attack upon the terror group’s holdings (grammar, spelling, and punctuation reproduced as in the original):

  1.If the United States bomb Iraq, every American citizen is a legitimate target for us.

  2.Every American doctor working in any country will be slaughtered if America attack Iraq.

  3.Any company in Arab countries which employs Americans is a legitimate target for every Muslim.

  4.If America attacks Iraq; every American embassy in the world will be exposed and attacked with car bombs.

  5.American civilian blood is not more precious than the blood of the children and women of Iraq.

  6.Is the blood of American civilians forbidden? The blood of the children of Fallujah permissible?

  7.For every drop of blood shed by the Iraqis, Americans will shed a river of blood.

  8.Every government that is willing to open its territory for U.S. aircrafts to launch attacks will bear the consequences.

  9.Bin Laden says; dont consult anyone when killing Americans.10

  By August 2014, Baghdadi’s Islamic State had succeeded and grown to such an extent that then–Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that it was “as sophisticated and well-funded as any group we have seen. They are beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of . . . military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything we’ve seen.” What’s more, he said that the Islamic State was “an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else.”11

  “Anywhere else” included the United States. As Hagel was sounding his warning, Islamic State supporters posted photos of Islamic State symbols being held in front of the White House and other American sites, with the message: “We are in your state, we are in your cities, we are in your streets.”12

  That same month, VICE Media’s Medyan Dairieh released a video report of his three weeks in the Islamic State–controlled city of Raqqa, Syria—the de facto capital of its new caliphate. Dairieh recorded ISIS spokesman Abu Mosa boasting and threatening: “I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established. Don’t be cowards and attack us with drones. Instead send your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq. We will humiliate them everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”13

  Calling the Muslims in the U.S. to Arms

  On September 16, an Islamic State document entitled “To 2.6M Muslims in USA: A Call to Arms to Defend Islam and Avenge the Slaughter of Muslims” called for Muslims in the West to wage “open source jihad” by mounting “lone wolf operations.”

  This is the appeal that pointed out, “Knocking off a police, military or any other law-enforcement officer sends a chilling message to the so-called ‘civilians’ and fills their hearts with consternation.”14 According
to the FBI, which made this threat public on October 11, 2014—less than two weeks before Zale Thompson’s hatchet attack on the NYPD—the “list of potential targets” also included “FBI personnel, government officials and media figures.”15

  “We Have Prepared for You What Will Pain You”

  On September 21, 2014, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad Adnani issued a lengthy and remarkable statement calling Muslims in the West to jihad. It is worth examining at length, as it reveals a great deal about the Islamic State’s current mindset, as well as its goals for the future of the United States and the world.

  The West, Adnani said, is not as strong as it seems to be: it is, rather, “a conceited and brash encampment of falsehood, which demonstrates itself to be powerful, and subduing, one that no conqueror can dominate nor any defender withstand. But the reality is they are fearful and terrified, humiliated and left with a weak plan, shaken and defeated, despite their uninhibited movement throughout the lands.”16

  By contrast, the believers are weak in earthly wealth and military might, but have the power of Allah on their side.

  Adnani told the “soldiers of the Islamic State”: “By Allah, He has healed the chests of the believers through the killing of the nusayriyyah (alawites) and rafidah (shiites) at your hands.”17 This was a reference to the Qur’an’s promise that Allah will soothe the hearts (or “heal the chests” as Adnani put it, or “satisfy the breasts” in the translation below) of those who wage jihad against the unbelievers: “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a believing people and remove the fury in the believers’ hearts” (9:14–15).

  Comparing the skepticism that greeted the Islamic State’s declaration of the caliphate to the skepticism that initially greeted Muhammad, Adnani declared, “If the people belie you, reject your state and your call, and mock your caliphate, then know that your Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him) was belied. His call was rejected. He was mocked.”18 But, he said, Allah will grant the Islamic State victory because of its fidelity to him.

  Then came the warning to the West: “O America, O allies of America, and O crusaders, know that the matter is more dangerous than you have imagined and greater than you have envisioned.” Like many other jihadists, Adnani boasted that the Muslims will defeat the infidels because they love death more than the infidels love life, and since Paradise awaits them, they win either way.19

  NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM

  According to Adnani, “the followers of the messengers [the prophets]” have “lower numbers, meager equipment, and a weaker voice.” Nonetheless, “their strength can never be subdued. Their authority can never be broken. They are firm in every battle. And they are forefront in every encounter, having neither fear nor dread. In the end, they will have the triumph and victory.” Why? Because of “their faith in Allah, the Mighty, the Compeller. From Him is their strength, and through Him is their authority. He is sufficient for them, and upon Him they rely. They are certain of His aid. And they returned having attained His favor and bounty. They do not fear anyone save Him.”

  —September 21, 2014, letter from the Islamic State’s Ab Muhammad al-‘Adnn ash-Shm20

  This makes for an invincible fighting force:

  O crusaders, you have realized the threat of the Islamic State, but you have not become aware of the cure, and you will not discover the cure because there is no cure. If you fight it, it becomes stronger and tougher. If you leave it alone, it grows and expands. If Obama has promised you with defeating the Islamic State, then Bush has also lied before him.21

  Not only will the Islamic State not be defeated, he said, but it will conquer the West, beginning with Rome:

  We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted. This is His promise to us; He is glorified and He does not fail in His promise. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.22

  HEADS THEY WIN, TAILS WE LOSE

  “You fight a people who can never be defeated. They either gain victory or are killed. And O crusaders, you are losers in both outcomes, because you are ignorant of the reality that none of us is killed but to resurrect the dead amongst us. . . . If [a jihadi] survives, he lives as a victor with freedom, might, honor, and authority. And if he is killed, he illuminates the path for those after him and goes on to his Lord as a joyful martyr.”

  —September 21, 2014, letter from the Islamic State’s Ab Muhammad al-‘Adnn ash-Shm23

  Adnani quoted the hadith that depicts Muhammad predicting that first Constantinople would be conquered by the Muslims (as it was in 1453), and then the Muslim conquest of Rome would follow. He also predicted a dark future for the U.S. and Europe:

  O Americans, and O Europeans, the Islamic State did not initiate a war against you, as your governments and media try to make you believe. It is you who started the transgression against us, and thus you deserve blame and you will pay a great price. You will pay the price when your economies collapse. You will pay the price when your sons are sent to wage war against us and they return to you as disabled amputees, or inside coffins, or mentally ill. You will pay the price as you are afraid of travelling to any land. Rather you will pay the price as you walk on your streets, turning right and left, fearing the Muslims. You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms. You will pay the price when this crusade of yours collapses, and thereafter we will strike you in your homeland, and you will never be able to harm anyone afterwards. You will pay the price, and we have prepared for you what will pain you.24

  America and Europe were not his only targets. Adnani also called for attacks on Iraqi Shi’ites: “O Sunnis of Iraq, the time has come for you to learn from the lessons of the past, and to learn that nothing will work with the rafidah [Shi’ites] other than slicing their throats and striking their necks.” He called for jihadis to target “the guards of the jews [sic], the soldiers of Sisi, the new Pharaoh of Egypt”: “Rig the roads with explosives for them. Attack their bases. Raid their homes. Cut off their heads. Do not let them feel secure. Hunt them wherever they may be. Turn their worldly life into fear and fire. Remove their families from their homes and thereafter blowup [sic] their homes.”25

  Going by Adnani’s statement, ISIS would not seem to have any concern about biting off more than it can chew. He also specifically mentioned Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, as well as Europe, America, Australia, and Canada, Morocco, Algeria, Khorasan (Afghanistan), the Caucasus, and Iran. And in all these places, he urged jihad:

  You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit [rebels against Allah]. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves.

  If you can kill a disbelieving American or European—especially the spiteful and filthy French—or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be.

  Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers. Both of them are considered to be waging war [the civilian by belonging to a state waging war against the Muslims]. Both of their blood and wealth is legal for you to destroy, for blood does not become illegal or legal to spill by the clothes being worn. The civilian outfit does not make blood illegal to spill, and the military uniform does not make blood legal to spill.

  The only things that make blood illegal and legal to spill are Islam and a covenant (peace treaty, dhimma, etc.). Blood becomes legal to spill through disbelief. So whoever is a Muslim, his blood and wealth are sanctified. And whoever is a d
isbeliever, his wealth is legal for a Muslim to take and his blood is legal to spill. His blood is like the blood of a dog; there is no sin for him in spilling it nor is there any blood money to be paid for doing such.26

  Adnani, clearly not a big fan of Obama, taunted the American president for thinking that the Islamic State could be defeated with airstrikes:

  And O Obama, O mule of the jews [sic]. You are vile. You are vile. You are vile. And you will be disappointed, Obama. Is this all you were capable of doing in this campaign of yours? Is this how far America has reached of incapacity and weakness? Are America and all its allies from amongst the crusaders and atheists unable to come down to the ground? Have you not realized—O crusaders—that proxy wars have not availed you nor will they ever avail you? Have you not realized, O mule of the jews [sic], that the battle cannot be decided from the air at all? Or do you think that you are smarter than Bush, your obeyed fool, when he brought the armies of the cross and placed them under the fire of the mujahidin on the ground? No, you are more foolish than him.27

  Finally, Adnani closed his letter with an explanation that the Islamic State was fighting against the Kurds in Iraq and Syria not because of ethnic or tribal divisions, but because of Islam.

  NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM