Countering Far-Right Anti-Government Extremism in the United States

The far-right anti-government extremist movement poses a significant threat in the United States. The January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol illustrates the capacity of this movement to plan and mount violent attacks against government targets and democratic institutions. In this article, we explore how the organisational and tactical characteristics of the far-right anti-government movement in the United States enable it to thrive despite the dangers it poses to the public. We argue that its deep-seated ideological roots, fluid organisational structure, and mix of violent and nonviolent tactics make the movement difficult for federal and state authorities to proscribe, prosecute, and ultimately eliminate. US policymakers need to develop an informed response that accounts for the fluid, decentralised, and public-facing nature of anti-government extremism, as well as the pervasive distrust of federal authority that it reflects. We suggest that this approach will likely differ from the modern counter-terrorism tools that were initially designed to combat terrorist threats emanating from abroad, such as those posed by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. We ground our arguments in evidence from cases of anti-government extremist groups and followers active in the United States over the past three decades.

Contents Introduction Chapter One: History What Was Impact of the Anti-Soviet Jihad on the Jihadist Movement? Did the United States Fund Bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Why Was Al Qaeda Founded? What Did Al Qaeda Do in the Sudan? What Were Al Qaeda's Initial Goals? Why Did Al Qaeda Focus on the United States? What Was the Role of Egyptian Militants during Al Qaeda's Formative Years? What Was Al Qaeda's Relationship with the Taliban before 9/11? Chapter Two: Key Attacks and Plots Why Were the 1998 Embassy Attacks So Important? What Were Al Qaeda's Most Important Attacks before 9/11? How Did Al Qaeda Carry Out the 9/11 Attacks? Could the 9/11 attacks have been prevented? How Did Al Qaeda Justify the 9/11 Attacks? What was the fallout from the 9/11 attacks for Al Qaeda? What Attacks Has Al Qaeda Done Since 9/11? Chapter Three: Strategy and Tactics What Are Al Qaeda's Goals Today? Does Al Qaeda Have a Strategy? How Did Al Qaeda Become a Suicide Bombing Factory? How Dangerous Are Lone Wolves? What Do You Learn in an Al Qaeda Training Camp? Could Al Qaeda Get a Nuclear Weapon? Should We Laugh at Al Qaeda? Chapter Four: Ideas and Influences Key Schools of Thought that Influence Salafi Jihadism Who Are the Key Thinkers Jihadists Admire and Read? How Does Al Qaeda Differ from the Muslim Brotherhood? Why Do Other Jihadists Criticize Al Qaeda? How Does Al Qaeda Justify Killing Civilians? What Themes Does Al Qaeda Push in Its Propaganda? Chapter Five: Organization and Recruitment Why Was Bin Laden Such an Effective Leader? How Does Ayman al-Zawahiri differ from Bin Laden? How Is Al Qaeda Organized? So Why Does Al Qaeda Make So Many Mistakes? Is There an Al Qaeda Profile? How Does Al Qaeda Recruit? What is the Role of War? What Is the Role of the Internet? Where Does Al Qaeda Get Its Money? How Does Al Qaeda Spend Its Money? Chapter Six: Friends and Enemies How Did the 2003 Iraq War Shape Al Qaeda? How Does Al Qaeda View Iran and the Shi'a? Is Saudi Arabia Secretly Supporting Al Qaeda? Why Does Pakistan Support Jihadists? What Is the Relationship between Pakistan and Al Qaeda? Why Doesn't Pakistan Cooperate More with the United States? How Important Is Israel? How Do Muslims Perceive Al Qaeda and Why Does It Matter? How Did the Arab Spring Affect Al Qaeda? Chapter Seven: Beyond the Al Qaeda Core What Are the Key Al Qaeda Affiliates? Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb Al Shebaab Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) What About Like-Minded but Unaffiliated Groups? What's In It for Al Qaeda? What's In It for the Affiliates? What are the limits of cooperation? Does the Al Qaeda Core control the Salafi-jihadist movement anymore? So What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Al Qaeda? The Islamic State Who is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? What Should We Call This Group? Where Did the Islamic State Come from? Why Did the Islamic State Fight with Al Qaeda? What Does the Islamic State Want? How Strong Is the Islamic State? How Does the Islamic State Publicize Its Cause? What is the Khorasan Group? Is the Islamic State a Terrorist Threat to the American Homeland? Why Did the United States Go to War with the Islamic State? Chapter Nine: Counterterrorism Isn't Diplomacy Worthless when It Comes to Fighting Terror? What Role Does the Legal System Play? What about military tribunals, Guantanamo, and other post-9/11 legal measures? What Is and Why Is It So Controversial? How Do We Go After Al Qaeda's Money? What is the Role of Military Force? What About Drones and Other Air Strikes? Do Drones and Other Controversial Tools Result in How Do We Collect Intelligence on Al Qaeda? How Do Tools Change When Fighting Affiliate Movements? The Broader Cause as a Whole? How do we win the war of ideas? What is the role of allied governments threatened by terrorists? How Does Al Qaeda Adapt? How do you counter radicalization? What threat does Al Qaeda pose today to Europe? To the United States? Can We Defeat Al Qaeda and the Broader Jihadist Movement? How Is Fighting the Islamic State Different from Fighting Al Qaeda? What Else Should I Read If I Want to Learn More?

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the entire world was introduced to Al Qaeda and its enigmatic leader, Osama bin Laden. But the organization that changed the face of terrorism forever and unleashed a whirlwind of counterterrorism activity and two major wars had been on the scene long before that eventful morning. In Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know, Daniel L. Byman, an eminent scholar of Middle East terrorism and international security who served on the 9/11 Commission, provides a sharp and concise overview of Al Qaeda, from its humble origins in the mountains of Afghanistan to the present, explaining its perseverance and adaptation since 9/11 and the limits of U.S. and allied counterterrorism efforts. The organization that would come to be known as Al Qaeda traces its roots to the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Founded as the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Al Qaeda achieved a degree of international notoriety with a series of spectacular attacks in the 1990s; however, it was the dramatic assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 that truly launched Al Qaeda onto the global stage. The attacks endowed the organization with world-historical importance and provoked an overwhelming counterattack by the United States and other western countries. Within a year of 9/11, the core of Al Qaeda had been chased out of Afghanistan and into a variety of refuges across the Muslim world. Splinter groups and franchised offshoots were active in the 2000s in countries like Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen, but by early 2011, after more than a decade of relentless counterterrorism efforts by the United States and other Western military and intelligence services, most felt that Al Qaeda's moment had passed. With the death of Osama bin Laden in May of that year, many predicted that Al Qaeda was in its death throes. Shockingly, Al Qaeda has staged a remarkable comeback in the last few years. In almost every conflict in the Muslim world, from portions of the Xanjing region in northwest China to the African subcontinent, Al Qaeda franchises or like-minded groups have played a role. Al Qaeda's extreme Salafist ideology continues to appeal to radicalized Sunni Muslims throughout the world, and it has successfully altered its organizational structure so that it can both weather America's enduring full-spectrum assault and tailor its message to specific audiences. Authoritative and highly readable, Byman's account offers readers insightful and penetrating answers to the fundamental questions about Al Qaeda: who they are, where they came from, where they're going-and, perhaps most critically-what we can do about it.

Conclusion

IntroductionThe study of foreign terrorist fighters has become crucial to understanding the evolving nature of in the twenty-first century. For many countries, terrorism and its perpetrators have become a top security threat. Despite the declaration and launch of the global war on terror, some terrorist entities have been able not only to survive but also to develop and increase their numbers, particularly their number of recruits, known today as foreign fighters. Since 2013, Al Qaeda's offshoot known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Le- vant/Syria (ISIL/ISIS) or Islamic State (IS) has been rapidly gaining a foothold in territories and countries in the Middle East where state control is weakened, predominantly in Iraq and Syria.The analysis of foreign terrorist fighters' recruitment/mobilization has become important given the rapid development of IS. A key feature of IS is the way in which it recruits foreign fighters globally and the way in which individuals join this organization on their own. It is difficult to give an exact number of the people joining IS, but there is an on-going flow of individuals from different countries who are willing to fight for IS.1 As they have taken part in terrorist operations and become exposed to radical interpretations of Sunni or Wahhabi Islam, these people pose a potential security risk to their home countries if and when they should return.In order to understand why IS has been successful in attracting and recruiting foreign fighters, one should study both the mechanisms of recruitment/ mobilization and the independent radicalization process. Specifically, this paper focuses on institutional and individual levels of mobilization of foreign fighters from 2012 to 2014. The former refers to an institution/agency, in this case IS, as the key actor in luring in individuals,2 whereas the latter is based on personal/group radicalization.3 This will be assessed through the examination of merely sixteen individual case studies, due to the limited availability of foreign fighters' profiles. Based on the large scale of mobilization of foreign fighters, their numbers and the countries they come from, the case studies have been randomly selected from the following countries that head up the list of foreign fighters statistics on a regional basis (in terms of absolute numbers): Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, France, and the United Kingdom (UK).4 Firstly, I will consider IS's background, its structure, strategy and tactics. This will be followed by an explanation of the concept and role of foreign fighters. Additionally, the relationship between the country profiles and foreign fighters will be examined. Finally, this will be followed by an analysis of the mobilization and recruitment processes and by sections offering a conclusion and policy recommendations.The Rise of Islamic StateAs a terrorist entity, IS was formed in 1999 and was known as Jama'at al Tawhid wal Jihad under the command of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. It was primarily active in Jordan and Afghanistan. Later, in 2004, it pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Al Qaeda funded its training camps, and the Taliban provided it with territory in the western province of Herat in Afghanistan.5 The same year, this entity renamed itself Al Qaeda fi Bilad al Rafidayn (Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI]) and participated in the Iraqi insurgency. AQI recruited Iraqis and was very active in cooperating with nationalist and Ba'athist insurgents in Iraq.6 Being [l]ess disciplined, more violent and often terroristicaMy more efficient, al Zarqawi attracted new groups to his unit under Al Qaeda's wing.7 His successful operations helped him to strengthen his position and reputation in the terrorist world.8 Following his death in 2006, the organization merged with other entities, renaming itself several times before separating from Al Qaeda and becoming Islamic State (IS) in 2014 under a new leader, Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. …

Since the seminal terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the emergence of the new terrorism has been epitomised by rise of radical Islamist terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Through the use of new terrorism techniques and strategies, such movements have been able to transform themselves into worldwide, global jihadist movements. While the Islamic State appeared to have gained the upper hand over Al Qaeda in the competition over the radical Islamist cause due to its successes in Iraq and Syria in 2014, analysts believe that in the long-run, Al Qaeda remains the greater danger. While both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have suffered greatly from vigorous and sustained global counter-terrorism operations led by the United States, their local affiliates in the Indo-Pacific, as well as other local radical Islamist and non-Islamist groups not affiliated to either, have continued to pose serious terrorist challenges in the region. While the threat has somewhat abated in recent times in Southeast Asia, the terrorist threat remains very serious in South Asia.

Afghanistan: Withdrawal Lessons

Al Qaeda following 9-11 experienced a period of stagnation which it sought to remedy through a project of re-branding. Critical of this approach, Islamic State claimed that al Qaeda was an elitist organization that had facilitated the stagnation of the Salafi Jihadist project. In an attempted to claim dominance over the jihad, Islamic State’s endeavored to discredit al Qaeda through a process it presented as ideological correction, linked to Islamic eschatology, sectarian agitation, permissive violence, and the caliphate. Following Islamic State’s acquisition of vast territory in Iraq and Syria, arguments proliferated that Islamic State had surpassed al Qaeda. As the caliphate has collapsed what effects will this have on al Qaeda’s fortunes and strategy? It is argued that Islamic State has provided al Qaeda’s strategic approach with renewed vigour to help ensure its survival and pursue resurgence. Al Qaeda acting in concert with the meta-strategy for survival concept, has altered an existential threat into an advantage through disavowing Islamic State’s methods, continuing to engage with localism, and pursuing rebranding by positioning itself as a moderate alternative. The cases of al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Syria, West Africa, and South Asia are instructive in assessing the effectiveness of al Qaeda’s resurgence.

In the ebb and flow of the war against extremist--jihadi--Islam, al Qaeda and its allies have endured a significant number of major losses. (1) They were defeated in Egypt, Algeria, and the Balkans in the 1980s and 1990s. Although jihadi groups remain a significant residual threat in Iraq, the consensus of the Iraqi populace is evidently that they have no place in that nation's future. Their attempted uprising in Saudi Arabia has been crushed. Al Qaeda and the Taliban were routed from Afghanistan in 2001, and if the Taliban have gained in strength in recent years it has been due far more to the weakness of the Karzai government than to anything al Qaeda has done. There are a variety of factors that contributed to these defeats. A central reason is the strategy and tactics used by al Qaeda in particular and the jihadis in general, and the view of the world on which that strategy and tactics are based. The extremists' entire worldview has been based on misguided or fanciful assumptions that have little or no basis in actual fact. Some of these assumptions are unique to al Qaeda, some to radical Islam (a movement that goes far beyond al Qaeda and the jihadis), and--ominously--many are common within the Arab and Muslim worlds. The bottom-line is that, while at the tactical level al Qaeda and the jihadis may sometimes be astute, even brilliant, at the strategic level they are so badly misinformed as to be almost delusional. The significance of this lack of comprehension is threefold: (1) It has led to major errors in strategy and tactics that have led al Qaeda and the jihadis to multiple defeats and disasters; (2) it points to strategic principles that can contribute to the defeat and ultimate eradication of al Qaeda; and (3) since there is no reason to believe that al Qaeda will be the last of its ilk, the next jihadi group may learn enough from the present mistakes to be even more dangerous and more successful. Five Critical Mistakes Five critical mistakes are apparent, each of which had a significant strategic impact. Some were mistakes by al Qaeda in particular, while the rest have been mistakes by al Qaeda and the jihadis in general. * Misreading the situation in the Middle East and the role of the United States. * Misreading the weakness of the United States. * Expanding the war and bringing in additional enemies. * Alienating the local populace. * Indifference to Muslim casualties. Misreading the Situation A central mistake of al Qaeda has been choosing the United States, the Far Enemy, as its primary enemy and target, and its related decision to wage offensive jihad against the United States on American soil. These decisions were the result of other and previous mistakes. In recent decades, a variety of jihadi groups, many of which, such as Ayman al Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, eventually merged with al Qaeda, have staged uprisings in various Sunni Muslim nations with the proclaimed intention of replacing existing governments with theocracies that will rule according to the extremists' interpretation of sharia (Muslim religious law). (2) All of these uprisings failed. Al Qaeda and the survivors of those jihads largely refused to recognize or admit that these failures were due to their mistakes, the result of some combination of miscalculating popular support for the uprisings, use of tactics that alienated local popular opinion, and because the local governments--most prominently the Egyptian and Algerian--were effective or brutal enough in their countermeasures to defeat them. Instead, the jihadis looked for somebody else to blame. They chose to blame the United States, asserting that governments in the Arab world were placed in power, are kept in power, and are subservient to the United States, and if America were forced to withdraw its support, those governments would collapse. This conclusion has little to do with reality and shows a profound and willful disregard of the reason for their failures and a lack of understanding of their own governments and the situation in the region in general. …

In response to the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom to disable al Qaeda capabilities in Afghanistan and to oust the Taliban regime that provided safe haven to al Qaeda. This military operation triggered a flurry of debate over the proper legal classification for this armed conflict. Although the United States initially asserted the conflict was not international in character because Afghanistan was a failed state, it ultimately reversed this position and acknowledged that at least with respect to Taliban forces it was engaged in an international armed conflict. However, the classification of the conflict against al Qaeda in Afghanistan remained unclear. While most experts did then and continue to assert that operations directed against al Qaeda are subsumed within the broader armed conflict against Afghanistan, the United States never expressly adopted this proposition. Instead, the decisions related to the status of captured al Qaeda personnel indicated that the United States considered the conflict between it an al Qaeda distinct from the conflict with the Taliban.This article will consider the viability of this bifurcated armed conflict approach to operations in Afghanistan, and will challenge the assumption that the geographic continuity of military operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan mandate that these armed conflicts be treated as unitary. This challenge will be based on two primary arguments. First, that it is conceptually possible for the United States to engage in a distinct non-international armed conflict with al Qaeda. Second, that the spirit and purpose of the associated militia provisions of the law of armed conflict do not automatically justify a unitary conflict conclusion for al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan simply because operations of these forces were geographically and at times tactically contiguous with operations of Taliban forces. The article will conclude by considering why characterizing military operations directed against transnational terrorist groups like al Qaeda as armed conflict is a more legitimate and pragmatic approach to the legal regulation of such operations than denying such operations are armed conflicts and instead characterizing them as extraterritorial law enforcement operations.

: The pronouncement in June 2014 by its self-proclaimed caliph that the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) would be henceforth a caliphate known just as the Islamic State seemed to catch the United States government by surprise. Just six months before, President Barack Obama implied that ISIS was the jayvee [junior varsity] team to Al Qaeda. Since the United States government does not understand the Islamic State and the undercurrent of the radical Islamic jihadist ideology that drives it, he failed to recognize that the Islamic State was actually playing at the varsity level. Therefore, the United States cannot possibly develop a comprehensive, long-term strategy to defeat it without first understanding it and the environment it is operating in. Hence, this paper attempts to assist strategists to better understand the Islamic State. It does so by introducing its origins, and then proceeds to show it has the makings of a proto-state. It then uses the Islamic State's own literature combined with expert analyses to construct the Islamic State's grand strategy, and assess whether it is a threat to the United States and its allies. Then, three brief recommendations to improve the current United States strategy will be presented: 1) the United States should facilitate a long-term generational counter-ideological strategy led by Salafi and secular Muslims; 2) continue a more aggressive air campaign but in combination with a larger special operations effort in support of moderate indigenous Sunni forces; and 3) attempt more aggressive diplomacy among all stakeholders in the region to prevent the spread of the conflict into adjacent countries while shaping the conditions for a cooperative Arab and Sunni Muslim follow-on peacekeeping force once the Islamic State is crushed. The paper concludes that the current strategy of containment conducted more cohesively with allies, and more diplomatically aggressive is still the best course.

ABSTRACTThis study explores differences in perpetrators of suicide attacks and non-suicide attacks in the United States. The study uses data on far-right and Al Qaeda and affiliated/inspired terrorists between 1990 and 2013 from the United States Extremist Crime Database. Our analysis estimates logistic regression models to test whether suicide attackers were more likely to have exhibited specific risk factors for suicidality, while examining other prominent claims regarding patterns of suicide terrorism. Suicide attackers were no more likely than non-suicide attackers to have previously attempted suicide or to have been diagnosed as mentally ill. Suicide attackers were more likely, though, to have a history of substance abuse, to be loners, have served in the military, participated in paramilitary training, and be more ideologically committed to the cause. We found that Al Qaeda affiliated/inspired attackers were more likely than far-right attackers to have engaged in a suicide mission. With the current focus on Americans traveling to Syria and Iraq to receive training and fight for jihadist movements (e.g., the Islamic State), our findings appear relevant. Observers have expressed concern that these fighters may return and then commit attacks in their homeland. Law enforcement could make use of this study’s findings.

The purpose of my paper is to examine the growing trend of al Qaeda and its affiliates, particularly al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) embrace of recruitment and radicalization of Muslims within the United States. Many experts have discounted the threat of homegrown radicalization and embrace of jihad taking place in the United States given greater assimilation, low poverty rates, and high educational attainment levels in many U.S. Muslim communities relative to those in Europe. However, al Qaeda and AQAP’s recruitment strategy has evolved. The Internet has now become the most important element and allows anyone anywhere access to intermediaries, like-minded individuals via blogs, chatrooms, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as audio and video sermons, messages, and publications. The recruitment strategy has become “bottom-up” comprising messages that compel would be jihadists to view the West as naturally at odds and at war with Islam. The ultimate goal is to force U.S. Muslims to choose sides, according to al Qaeda, you cannot be a good Muslim and embrace the West at the same time. Once you have chosen the path to Islam, the only logical and righteous path is the embrace of violent jihad against the enemies of Islam, the United States. Al Qaeda and AQAP’s recruitment also emphasizes the individual duty of every Muslim to join the global struggle or Ummah, and carry out jihad. By utilizing the Internet, al Qaeda and AQAP hope to allow Muslims in America to identify with and feel the same sense of subjugation and oppression felt by Muslims in Europe and other parts of the world where these factors had left Muslims more susceptible to recruitment. The paper also addresses other like-minded groups that have also embraced these al Qaeda Internet strategies, namely Al-Shabaab. In order to attract recruits from the U.S., the group also markets itself as part of the global universal Muslim struggle, and entices potential recruits via the Internet to embrace the “Ummah consciousness” and thus necessarily jihad against America. The paper will also address counterterrorist strategies aimed at preventing attacks perpetrated by those radicalized and recruited in the Unites States.

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to benefit those among the readership currently engaged in designing the strategies and tactics of the struggle against the Islamic State (IS) group, a movement led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi that has become the scourge of Iraq and Syria. ********** In the rational pursuit of vital interests in any human undertaking, the design of concrete actions to pursue them must subordinate to a conceptual strategic design based on a well-researched theory of the specific situation. (1) Any such theory will be based on a combination of hard data and educated guesses about what those data mean. The underlying research must encompass not only the historic sweep of similar cases (history does not repeat, it educates), but it must also examine the peculiarities and differences of the present situation compared to any that came before. Finally, because of the differences between the present case and those of the past, it must adapt, rather than adopt, past practices. What results from such inquiry and contemplation is a rough but useful strategic framework that can be adapted as learning occurs. At the core of such a framework is a theory of the situation at the very heart of the matter and a strategy for resolving it--a core strategy. Other secondary aspects of the situation are accounted for separately in supporting strategies. Having an explicit consensus among allies on a core strategy aligns costly allied operations. Such a core strategy should drive the design of tactics and supporting strategies. (2) My own enquiries along this line have led me to the following core strategy for accomplishing the vital and very difficult tasks at the heart of the IS crisis. The Heart of the Matter This situation is so complex that it is easy to lose focus. One must find, isolate, and take aim at the heart of the matter. The aspect of the situation making the present status quo intolerable enough to trigger a new American (and allied) intervention is the rule of the Islamic State militant group across great parts of Syria and Iraq, and the threat of this 7th century model of governance spreading if not checked at its origin. (There are already indications of this possibility in North Africa and elsewhere.) As such a regime swells in territory and membership, not only Middle Eastern populations will be at risk, but also those of secular industrialized nations across the globe. In other words, the IS problem is not a Syrian or Iraqi problem, it is an international problem. And it needs an international perspective to resolve it. Moreover, IS is, both structurally and in terms of its aims and methods, significantly different than Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda does not need to control territory to exist. It only needs to promote and work toward a foreordained future caliphate. To be what it is, IS needs to control territory and to rule a population by strict Sharia law, on the 7th century model prescribed by the Prophet Mohammed in Koranic scriptures. It draws immigrants to that territory by offering a place for those who wish to live under such rule, and a regime that rigorously enforces such laws. IS also provides a cause that pursues concrete near-term objectives within the current generation rather than the more distant ones Al Qaeda followers pursue across many generations. And that cause, succinctly expressed, is to defend, sustain, and expand a place and a regime that rules according to the prophet Mohammed's 7th century vision in every respect. Finally, because their ends are foreordained by the Prophet, IS leaders and fighters are emboldened to take great risks. This boldness, and the successes they have achieved, combines to attract action oriented adherents from abroad. The difficulty for the largely secular-minded international community is that IS does not advocate a perversion of Koranic scriptures. It adheres to a strict interpretation of un-ambiguous prophetic passages of the holy book. …

: The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) has a history of studying insurgent and terrorist organizations operating out of Iraq. This report, which examines the rise, activities, and weaknesses of the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS), is a continuation of that effort. Leveraging unique data sources, including the group s own material from captured documents as well as online postings, this report explores the IS as a multi-faceted organization that engages in a wide range of activities, has suffered setbacks, has undergone adaptations, and continues to exhibit weaknesses. IS s Evolution and Relationship with al-Qa ida In an effort to understand how the IS became what it is today, this report begins by examining the origins of the group in the late 1990s in Afghanistan. This report finds that the evolution of the IS is best understood as an outcome of both design and accidents. It is an outcome of design because the group s territorial gains and governance, according to what it believes to be Islamic teachings, were part of the vision of its founder, Abu Mus ab al-Zarqawi, since at least 1999. But, the IS is also an outcome of accidents that allowed the group to exploit the militant landscape in Syria as well as the politics of sectarianism that adversely affected Iraq s Arab Sunnis. The design and accidents that allowed the IS to achieve its current status also placed it in direct conflict with the most prominent global jihadi organization of recent memory: al-Qa ida (AQ). For while AQ considered itself as an anti-establishment global force of jihadis without borders, al-Zarqawi s vision for his organization (the predecessor of the IS) was one of building an establishment, a vision that his successors are seeking to translate into a reality.