Tag Archive for: al-Qaeda

Terrorism landscape set to shift in the wake of al-Baghdadi’s death

On 27 October, President Donald Trump announced that on the previous night US special forces had raided a compound in Barisha, Idlib Province, Syria. In the house was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who detonated a suicide vest to avoid capture, killing himself and three of his children.

It seems that Idlib has become a centre for many Salafi-jihadists. The province has seen a massive population growth as people look for some semblance of security and stability, which depends in part on a ceasefire overseen by the Russians.

The president thanked the Russian, Iraqi, Syrian and Turkish governments as well as the Syrian Kurdish forces for their assistance in the demise of al-Baghdadi.

On Sunday, Islamic State suffered further losses when US Hellfire missiles successfully targeted Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, the group’s spokesman since 2016. Muhajir was killed in the village of Ayn al-Bayda, near Jarablus, Aleppo Province.

It’s useful to take stock of what al-Baghdadi’s death means to IS but also to the global Salafi-jihadi campaign. It seems that IS had been preparing for this day since the fall of the caliphate, if not before (on 7 August, for example, Amaq, an IS-affiliated news agency, reported that al-Baghdadi had appointed Abdullah Qardash as his successor, though it’s been suggested that the report was based on false information). In his video message of 29 April, al-Baghdadi is seen with what appears to be a suicide vest next to his weapon, which indicates that he wasn’t intending to be taken alive.

Beyond the symbolism of losing its leader, IS is unlikely to be affected. It’s unclear how much command and control al-Baghdadi had over the group after the collapse of the caliphate, as he’s been on the run.

Over the past two years, IS shifted its organisational structure by becoming a franchisor, which meant that the franchisees carried out operations, often independently of the IS leadership. US officials shared that opinion, noting that in the post-caliphate period the top leadership was issuing broad guidance, as opposed to day-to-day directions. Hassan Abu Hanieh, a Jordanian expert on extremist groups, supports this view.

In the next few days, if IS confirms the death of al-Baghdadi, the IS Shura will likely name a new leader.

The more interesting implications of al-Baghdadi’s death begin with what was he doing in Idlib. The area is associated with IS’s opponents—the larger al-Qaeda-linked organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly the Nusra Front. One important group that has emerged in the area since 2018 is Hurras al-Din (the ‘Guardians of Religion’), an al-Qaeda-affiliated organisation formed by Abu al-Qassam (aka Khalid al-Aruri), a close friend of Ahmed Abdullah (aka Abu Muhammad Al-Masri) and Saif al-Adel. In 2015, the three were released from prison by the Iranians, after which they travelled to Syria, forming all sorts of jihadi groups.

Abdullah and al-Adel are close to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda; both were allegedly involved in the 1998 East Africa bombings. Al-Aruri was close to IS’s spiritual founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Reports indicate that al-Baghdadi was staying with Abu Mohammed al-Halabi, one of the leaders of Hurras al-Din. The fact that al-Aruri and al-Halabi are involved raises some interesting issues.

Zawahiri has shown himself to be a careful strategist who is in for the long game, and he may be looking first to a possible consolidation with IS. This doesn’t mean amalgamation, as there’s too much bad blood between the two groups. However, there is a possibility of a sort of a hudna (‘calmness’, though it is often understood to mean a ceasefire), as the two networks spend too much time, treasure and resources fighting each other, and in doing so inflict a lot of damage on local populations.

In August, al-Adel released a statement noting that the enemies of the jihadis were trying ‘to exterminate any organization working to return Islam to its fundamentals and Turkey and others will not accept anything other than that’, adding that the mujahidin ‘must once again change the military theory to one that fits the situation and will succeed against the conspiracies of the enemies and against the Turkish program that the factions have agreed with’.

Zawahiri is 68 years old and is rumoured to have a serious ‘heart complaint’. It’s therefore likely that he’s thinking about the next generation and how to continue the Salafi-jihadi franchise, which requires money and new disciples. Those are things that IS has been very effective in developing, and the group reportedly still has access to US$50–300 million and many foreign fighters. Zawahiri undoubtedly noticed IS’s latest propaganda campaign, ‘And the Best Outcome Is for the Pious’, which saw Salafi-jihadis from around the world renew their oaths of loyalty to al-Baghdadi.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a top UN counterterrorism official, recently said that Zawahiri might be looking to northeast Syria as a potential centre from which to launch international terrorism. This is also why the presence of Hurras al-Din might be significant, as the group supposedly relies on between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters from many places. The key to Zawahiri’s strategy has been to unite local and international issues, while ensuring that the domestic takes precedence, which may become easier now that IS will be led by someone new.

Al-Baghdadi’s death may be a blow to IS, but it will also be an opportunity for the group to explore a new strategy, which could include moving away from the need to establish a caliphate. That would obviate the need to designate Baghdadi’s successor as caliph—a cumbersome process that also narrows the pool of candidates. Undoubtedly the US-led decapitation program is causing havoc, but it also means that we could soon be seeing a new campaign by IS.

The post-caliphate Salafi-jihadi environment

My latest Strategic Insights paper provides an overview of the post-caliphate Salafi-jihadi environment, focusing on the franchising strategy of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. It finds that the threat is now less ‘top-down’ than ‘bottom-up’ and provides three sets of recommendations on how Australia should adjust its counterterrorism strategy in the face of a changing environment.

To understand the current Salafi-jihadi environment we need to acknowledge that despite years of combat and engagement with violent extremists there are over 60 Salafi-jihadi groups around the world, the same number as in 2016 and three times as many as there were in 2001. In 2018, estimates of the number of Salafi-jihadis and allied fighters around the world ranged as high as 230,000.

I suspect that these numbers are likely to increase because al-Qaeda will continue with its franchising policy and IS is likely to develop its own franchising strategy as its fighters find new safe havens.

In June, the Islamic State’s Khorasan province, just like the Islamic State’s West Africa province, Islamic State’s Sinai province, Islamic State Caucasus and Islamic State East Asia (Philippines), released a 12-minute video reaffirming its fealty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. These messages are a constant reminder that IS remains engaged with the ‘provinces’, flipping its strategy from establishing a ‘state’ to one in which it tries to control areas from East Asia to West Africa.

The franchising strategy has two key pillars. First, it emphasises that local issues will dominate the transnational Salafi-jihadi agenda for the immediate future. The intention is to promote an overarching ideology, managed by a top-down command-and-control structure while at the same time allowing the franchisees to have more operational freedom.

What al-Qaeda and IS want is an oath of allegiance and a commitment by these local actors to generate widespread insecurity and consequent overreaction by governments in order to attract more followers. This was something that IS attempted to do when it fed on Sunni opposition to the Shia-led Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki. The tactic was also used by the Pakistani Taliban and by al-Shabaab in Somalia.

The second pillar of the strategy is to focus on the non-Western world, ideally on Muslim-majority fragile and weak states where there is plenty of opposition to government, which is also why analysts such as former CIA deputy director Michael Morell have come to argue that the ‘Arab Spring was really a spring for al-Qaeda’. Moreover, al-Qaeda and IS recognise that through money and marriage they can cement appropriate ties with local communities in parts of the Muslim world.

The strategy that al-Qaeda and IS are pursuing isn’t new and builds on the ideas of early jihadi theorists such as Abdullah Azzam, Abu Musab al-Suri and Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj. Azzam argued for the need to focus resources to ‘free’ Muslim lands first, whereas al-Suri advocated for individual jihad, or lone-actor attacks. Faraj argued that jihad forms the sixth pillar of Islam (there are only five pillars: the profession of faith; prayer; the giving of alms; fasting during Ramadan; and making pilgrimage to Mecca).

Al-Qaeda and IS recognise that taking their jihad to the West has been counterproductive as they can’t compete with the firepower or resources that the West can devote. However, they can establish safe havens in fragile and weak states from which they can undermine local, regional and international peace and security while continuing to disseminate their global ideology.

The implications of this new strategic focus are threefold. First, we must recognise that the counterterrorism regime that we have crafted so carefully over the last decade is out of step with the new Salafi-jihadi architecture. We are likely to see more activity in places like the southern Philippines, Tajikistan, the Sahel and southern and western Africa, as opposed to attacks in Europe, the US or Australia. Consequently, our counterterrorism approach must be outward looking and aimed at addressing local conditions that Salafi-jihadis exploit, and include a more robust discussion about foreign aid.

Second, al-Qaeda and IS are likely to double their investment in the online space. Whereas in the past they utilised mainstream platforms including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, actions by states and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to disrupt and remove violent extremist content have driven them away. They are now moving towards more niche platforms such as GoLike, Baaz, Viber, Kik, Ask.fm and Discord.

They are also experimenting with developing their own messaging systems. The Amaq News Agency, which is one of IS’s media platforms, has provided guidance on how the ‘faithful’ can protect against distributed denial-of-service attacks, engage in end-to-end encryption, and use services like Cloudflare. They have also shown themselves to be attuned to new developments in software and hardware, as seen in 2018 with their use of Rocket.Chat, an open-source messaging application designed for businesses. IS even published a technical manual on how to use it.

We now need to assess whether our approach of blocking or demanding the removal of content is cost-effective and useful. There is some evidence to suggest that such actions may actually help violent extremists. Put simply, our digital counterterrorism strategy must change.

It is increasingly likely that there will be more lone-actor attacks by homegrown radicals with no background in fighting or formal ties to either organisation. This is because al-Qaeda and IS will focus more on inspiring and inciting attacks, and target more vulnerable recruits, including people with mental health issues, through tailored, as opposed to off-the-shelf, recruitment strategies.

The ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu noted that military tactics are like water in that they are shaped by topography. As the environment changes so should the tactics. Al-Qaeda and IS are doing this; the question is, can we?

Global Terrorism Index 2016 brings context to our challenging time

Image courtesy of the Institute for Economics & Peace.

The Islamic State has been the focus of international counterterrorism operations for the past two years. Despite military operations successfully reducing the IS caliphate over the past 12 months, the 2016 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) paradoxically shows that the group has expanded its global reach. According to the Index, which had its Australian release last night at ASPI, IS’s transnational appeal has resulted in a 650% increase in terrorist-related deaths in OECD countries—577 in 2015, up from 77 the year before.

The immediate terrorist threat can be broken down into three groups: foreign nationals fighting abroad for IS, returning foreign fighters, and home-grown inspired or directed terrorists. Governments have urgently ramped up counterterrorism efforts to mitigate the security threats posed by IS, their international appeal and their growing reach.

The Index calculates the global impact of terrorism in 2015 to be US$89.6 billion. Although a substantial figure indeed, put into context, this figure represents just 1% of the total global economic impact of violence, which reached $13.6 trillion in 2015. Terrorism is just one form of global violence, with many other forms coming in as vastly more costly, both personally and economically. For example, the data shows that major armed conflicts resulted in more deaths in 2015 and the global homicide rate in 2015 was 15 times more than the total deaths from terrorism.

The main threat to the OECD is that posed by so-called lone actor attacks. Although those attacks aren’t new, their frequency is increasing. That’s because the bar has been lowered for terrorist attacks; operational success can be achieved with low-level planning sophistication and modus operandi. The 2015 Index reports that of the 64 IS-related attacks in OECD countries, 19 were directed by IS; half of all IS-related plots were perpetrated by lone actors with no direct contact with the group. IS-attributed attacks in OECD countries continue to increase year-on-year: 13 in 2014, 33 in 2015, and 22 in the first half of 2016.

Inspired attacks are different to directed attacks: they don’t require any form of contact with the organisation they purport to represent. Although inspired attacks have been more frequent, directed attacks have been more lethal. According to the data, four of the 10 deadliest IS-related attacks in the OECD since 2015 were carried out by IS: the Paris attacks, Ankara bombings, Ataturk Airport attack, Brussels attacks. The total number of fatalities reached 327, with over 1,300 people injured.

The lethal nature of directed attacks in the OECD mirrors the nature of terrorist attacks in developing countries: a direct connection or link to a terrorist organisation proves more catastrophic than attacks conducted by individuals.

In 2015, over 80% of all terrorist-related deaths occurred in just eight countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Egypt and Somalia) at the hands of IS, the Taliban, Boko Haram and al-Qa’ida either as a result of battlefield clashes or a terrorist attack. Those figures demonstrate two interesting trends that influence the levels of terrorist activity. First, as seen in OECD nations, a connection to the terrorist organisation—whether geographically or operationally—results in more frequent and lethal attacks. Second, almost all incidents occurred in politically unstable countries and conflict zones.

The report highlights that political violence committed by a state is another driver of terrorist activity. Between 1989 and 2014, 93% of all terrorist attacks occurred in countries with high levels of state sponsored terror and over 90% of all terrorist deaths occurred in countries already engaged in some form of conflict. Only 0.5% of terrorist attacks occurred in countries that didn’t suffer from conflict or political terror.

Over 2015, Boko Haram and IS’ capabilities have been weakened in their designated territories as a result of military operations. However, sustained conflict and poor levels of political stability in developing nations allows for terrorist planned attacks to maintain successful operations in a handful of countries. For instance, 2015 was recorded as the deadliest year for Taliban-related attacks in Afghanistan, and deaths as a result of terrorism increased by 29% (4,502 deaths) and as a result of battlefield clashes, increased 24% (15,000+ deaths). That underlines the importance of presenting terrorist attacks against an international backdrop so proportionate analysis can be drawn. Cherry-picking information can result in a skewed observation of the facts. Due to the international attention on IS, the actions of groups such as the Taliban continue to operate under the radar. Without putting the entire terrorist operational picture into context, understanding the true extent of international terrorist threat won’t be possible.

Even though the numbers of terrorist-related deaths may have decreased by 10% over the last year—the first decline since 2010—the pattern of frequent, transnational, low-capability, inspired attacks poses new threats to international security. The nature of international terrorism is complex, multi-faceted and fluid. Counterterrorism analysts should be wary before drawing predictions based on that decline for the coming months and indeed, years.