After the Fall of the Caliphate: International Terrorism’s On-Going Concerns & Challenges

Defeated in Iraq, the ISIS inspired terrorist movement is by no means dead. Terrorism expert Dr Sajjan Gohel, speaking after London Bridge and Borough Market terrorist attacks in 2017, has warned, “The more they lose, the more they will attack. They are confined operationally so their only option is to react aggressively to attack, like a cornered rat. They’re not going to go quietly into the night.” Dr Sajjan Gohel is one of the leading authorities in investigating the ideologies, world-views, agendas, and strategies of trans-national terrorist and insurgent groups throughout the world. His primary focus is on the regional and wider situations in South-East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, the Middle East, Horn of Africa, North Africa and Western Europe. Dr Gohel is currently International Security Director for the Asia-Pacific Foundation (APF) which is an independent security and geo-political think-tank based in London. On a visit to Sydney, Sajjan Gohel addressed The Sydney Institute on Thursday 7 December 2018

AFTER THE FALL OF THE CALIPHATE: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM’S ON-GOING CONCERNS & CHALLENGES

SAJJAN M. GOHEL

Thank you, Gerard and Anne, for your hospitality this evening, and for the kind invitation for me to address The Sydney Institute. It is both a pleasure and great honour especially as this is my first ever visit to Sydney. I’m going to talk this evening about the current global terrorism landscape and the existing and emerging challenges.

Daesh

Indeed, as 2017 reaches a close, there have been important developments in global counter-terrorism. Last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Hadir Al-Abadi declared military victory over the so-called Islamic State in Iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, along with support from the West, gave their lives for over more than three years since the so-called Islamic State declared its caliphate and ruled with an edict of brutality, misogyny and fear.

This has not been an easy battle. Effectively there have been some 68 nations from around the world that formed a coalition to train, equip, and provide air support for the regional forces mostly in Iraq. It would be premature to write the so-called Islamic State’s obituary just yet. They still have some presence in Syria and through their affiliates, they still occupy territory in Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the southern Philippines, and have supporters across Europe, North America and Australasia. It’s also important to remember that they have killed many Muslims.

At its height, the so-called Islamic State launched coordinated large scale attacks in Paris, London and Brussels, to name but a few. Equally, they also inspired lone actors to initiate smaller scale attacks but which still caused enormous problems. Here in Sydney, this great city had to endure the Lindt Cafe siege in 2014, almost exactly three years ago. The attack may have not been sophisticated and the plotter, Man Haron Monis, may have had tenuous direct links with international terrorism but his actions caught the attention of the so-called Islamic State who heralded him as one of their soldiers. For them, all news is good news. This oxygen of publicity is what feeds and nourishes their warped agenda. They not only need media attention but they survive on it.

This is where terminology becomes so important. You will have heard these various names:

* The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)

* Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/al-Sham (ISIS)

* Islamic State (IS)

* Al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham (Daesh)

The term Daesh still accurately spells out the acronym of the group’s full Arabic name. The spelling is close to “Dahes” or “one who sows discord.” Daesh can also be understood as a play on words and an insult. Depending on context, Daesh can mean in Arabic slang: “To trample down and crush”; “A bigot who imposes his view on others” (plural use) The group doesn’t like or endorse the name as it does not spell out the crucial Islamic component.

How we define the group is an important step in turning off its oxygen supply. This is after all about branding. If a product is labelled with an unappealing name, it attracts less interest. The same applies to terrorism. Unintentionally, when we say Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL, we are endorsing the group’s religious credentials. But the name Daesh, stops that notion in its tracks. I have made this pitch since 2015 to anyone who will listen and its pleasing that it has gained traction over the years. I’ll be referring to them as Daesh for the rest of my presentation.

Even though it’s physical landmass is contracting, Daesh is still operating in the virtual world, unaffected. The group even has its own intelligence unit, known as the Emni, which is based on Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Party Mukhabarat, a combination of an internal police force and an external operations branch, dedicated to plotting terrorism. Senior members of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, that joined Daesh, not for ideological reasons, but to make money, brought their intelligence training with them and helped establish a terrorist group with the efficiency of an intelligence agency.

The Emni, was established before the caliphate was even declared, highlighting its priority. It has a proliferating online infrastructure which enables Daesh to conduct high-impact, low-sophisticated attacks. The Emni lurk within the Dark Web and also by using encrypted messaging in order to play a guiding hand in many of the plots that have unfolded in the West over the last few years.

The Emni have been using the internet to plot, plan and guide terrorism globally. Daesh has its own magazine which specifically promotes a tactic of violence called “Just Terror” which is a double play on words. Just Terror as in religiously justified terrorism and also “just do it” terrorism. This is a simple cost-effective form of terrorism that involves either one or several of the following tools and methods:

• Knives
• Vehicles
• Hostage taking

We have seen a plethora of attacks involving these methods. Vehicles have become lethal weapons to mow people down; knives are used to kill, maim and incapacitate; and hostage taking is designed to lure the police to the scene of the crisis in order to try and kill them. We have seen vehicle attacks in London, Stockholm, Belin, Nice and New York amongst others. Knife attacks have been on an even greater scale. So often, they don’t always make the news. Daesh’s direct endorsement for hostage taking was first initiated in Australia.

On 5 June 2017, Yacqub Khayre, a Somali-born Australian, killed a receptionist and held another person hostage at the Buckingham International Serviced Apartments, in Brighton a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. In a subsequent shoot-out with the police, who were lured to the scene, Khayre was killed and three officers wounded. Daesh claimed responsibility through its own news agency called Amaq.

Daesh wants to kill people in law enforcement and the military. Because in their warped logic, if the people that are tasked to protect society are made to feel insecure and weak then in turn society become insecure and weak. There have been multiple attacks against the police globally. Some attacks have resulted in the police and armed forces losing their lives. The principal purpose of this goal is to kill as many people as possible whilst dying in a hail of bullets. This tactic is called Inghimas meaning to ‘plunge into’. The medieval scholar, Ibn Taymiyya, wrote a treatise, ‘A Principle Regarding Plunging into the Enemy, and is it Permitted?’. It spoke of the tactics of warfare especially the perception of inghimas. The text was written during the Mongol onslaught that culminated in the fall of Baghdad and the destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. Daesh has re-interpreted it for the modern age.

Inghimas is different from a suicide bomber who detonates his device and dies immediately. An inghimasi endures till they are shot dead or apprehended.

Beyond Iraq and Syria

Even though there has been much focus on Daesh activity stemming from Syria and Iraq, there also needs to be attention to the ungoverned spaces in North Africa especially Libya where Daesh has a presence and through transportation links with the European Mediterranean countries, is able to send personnel into the European Union.  This will be an on-going concern as we move ahead. Like with the 2015 Paris marauding attacks, terrorists have demonstrated their ability to cross international borders, establish compartmentalised cells, carry out reconnaissance of targets and execute mass-casualty attacks. Additionally, modern technology increases the potential impact of terrorist attacks employing conventional and unconventional means.

Daesh are also grooming online, boys and girls in the West and directing them to carry out terrorism. Disturbingly, these boys and girls are effectively children. Some are under the age of 16. Daesh has used young boys to shoot Iraqi and Syrian prisoners in their propaganda videos and now they are trying to recruit child soldiers. Daesh have also been developing mobile phone apps that on the surface look very innocent but on closer inspection have a subtle strategy to lure these children into eventually plotting an act of terrorism. This challenge cannot be ignored.

The return of Al-Qa’ida

We should equally not forget about that other terrorist group, al-Qa’ida which is showing signs of quietly rebuilding and allowing Daesh to take the heat, whilst they try to evade the radar of the international community and replenish their ranks. In an echo of the past, the Egyptian leader of al-Qa’ida Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been grooming bin Laden’s son, Hamza as well as entrusting al-Qa’ida’s renewal to his trusted Egyptian deputy Saif al-Adel. Both Hamza bin Laden and Saif al-Adel spent time being detained in Iran. It still remains unclear as to what the relationship between al-Qa’ida and the Iranian regime is but it appears to not be as antagonistic as the al-Qa’ida propaganda suggests.

The bin Laden papers found in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, also show that bin Laden didn’t want any of his followers to attack Iran because they needed the country for logistical reasons. The current heir to the terrorist throne, Hamza bin Laden is also married to al-Zawahiri’s daughter and has two children. Al-Zawahiri is therefore able to keep the bin Laden legacy firmly attached to his own doctrine through a strategic marriage alliance whilst cultivating the bin Laden name.

In a 2015 speech, Ayman al-Zawahiri presented Hamza bin Laden as “son of the lion of jihad.” Hamza bin Laden’s speeches have revived the image and words of his father when he said “We [al-Qaeda] will continue striking you [United States] and targeting you in your country and abroad.” Al-Zawahiri, publicly calls for attacks in the West, yet privately, his instructions appear different.

In a May 2015 interview with al-Jazeera, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, head of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, an al-Qa’ida affiliate in Syria, revealed that al-Zawahiri had ordered him:  “not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the US or Europe in order to not sabotage the true mission against the [Bashar al-Assad] regime.” Since the Arab Spring there has been limited evidence of al-Qa’ida directing or planning attacks on Western soil with some exceptions such as the nebulous plot by the ‘Khorasan Group’ in Idlib, Syria, in 2014, to attack western aviation.

The Kouachi brothers, Cherif and Said, behind the Charlie Hebdo shootings, on January 7, 2015, claimed the attack on behalf of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), yet they last had contact with them in 2011 when Said trained there. Al-Qa’ida is again reconstructing itself as a radical social movement focused on:

• Material – Money and physical capital;
• Moral – Solidarity, support for the its goals;
• Human – Volunteers, leaders;
• Organization – Organizational strategies, social networks, cluster recruitment;
• Cultural – Understanding the politico-religious doctrinal , framing it within the current context

Its long-term goal will be to attack the West but for the time being, al-Zawahiri wants to focus on the group establishing safe bases where it can operate and function. The priority will be to carry out terrorist activities within its current geographical proximity in Afghanistan and against Western interests in Pakistan. They will also support attacks against the regimes of Syria and Egypt.

Afghanistan

With al-Qa’ida’s rise inside sanctuaries in Pakistan, we must not forget that the problems still exist in neighbouring Afghanistan. The Taliban insurgency has gained in strength since the withdrawal of international troops from combat at the end of 2014 and the Taliban are stronger now than at any point since 2001. Heavy fighting has continued across Afghanistan, from Kunduz, in the north, to Helmand province bordering Pakistan in the south. The Taliban has launched large-scale attacks against the Afghan government with suicide bombers, guerrilla fighter attacks as well as assassinations.

Additionally, with continued support from the Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani Network, al-Qa’ida will use its position within Pakistan to plot and plan future attacks against NATO member nations as well as targeting the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) in Afghanistan. Files recovered in Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound in Pakistan highlight the degree to which al-Qa’ida’s men cooperate with the Haqqani Network inside Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Fifty per cent of the footage shot in al-Qa’ida’s propaganda operations from its as-Sahab media outlet, are located within the Haqqani network territory inside Pakistan. The Haqqani network is also the most sophisticated and financially diversified terrorist group with interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Arab Gulf.  In addition to raising funds from ideologically like-minded donors, the Haqqanis’s front companies are engaged in:

* Import-export

* Transport

* Real Estate

* Car dealerships

* Construction

* Hostage taking

* Narcotics

* Taxation

Positively, NATO has decided to increase troop levels for Afghanistan in 2018. It currently is around 13,000 for the NATO troops in the Train, Assist and Advise mission. It is expected to rise to around 16,000.  It is essential to strengthen the capabilities and the capacities of the Afghan National Security Forces to fight the Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani Network and to fight the different terrorist groups in Afghanistan such as the Daesh affiliate Wilayat Khorasan. NATO also needs to keep working with the Afghan special operation forces and help the country to develop their own air-forces in order to preserve the security of Afghanistan.

If Afghanistan is abandoned or ignored, the same nefarious forces that turned the country into a cesspool for terrorism in the 1990s will return. History has a disturbing way of repeating itself, and terrorist groups will once again feel they can use Afghanistan as a staging ground to plot and plan terrorist attacks globally. Afghanistan is not Iraq or Libya. The people there need international support. They depend on it.  We must not abandon them again. That means some countries having to share the heavy lift once more. I would argue better to bear that brunt now rather than in the aftermath of a terrorist attacks where dozens may have been killed.

Concluding thoughts

* As Daesh capitulates, there will be blow-back from the FTFs. Some will be tasked to carry out attacks in their home countries.

* The physical contraction of Daesh’s territory will continue but the “Virtual Caliphate” will grow and expand.

* There will be a continuation of ‘Just Terror’ Attacks.

* The Emni will continue to recruit and direct plots. There is usually a network. An entirely “Lone Actor” terrorist is very rare.

* There will be more youth terrorists, under 16, groomed by Daesh.

* Not every attack can be thwarted and nor can every potential individual be dissuaded from partaking in terrorism.

* Al-Qa’ida is slowly growing in strength. Important not to ignore them.

*Afghanistan must not be abandoned or forgotten as the consequences impact on the West directly.