The Century Foundation: “Lebanon Is in Free Fall. Opposition Groups Have Radically Different Ideas about How to Save It.”

My new report for Century International, on how members of Lebanon's opposition envision political change in a country that's collapsing around them:

https://tcf.org/content/report/lebanon-free-fall-opposition-groups-radically-different-ideas-save/

For nearly two years, Lebanon has been experiencing an economic implosion almost unparalleled in modern history. Foreign donors have conditioned a bailout on reform measures that contravene the interests of the country's sectarian political elites, who have been unwilling to play along. Yet those same elites remain solidly in control of the country, having withstood the challenge of Lebanon's 2019 nationwide protest movement. Today they preside over a country that is becoming steadily poorer and more desperate.

Saving Lebanon seemingly comes down to either convincing the country's political establishment to do what's responsible and necessary, even at the expense of its members' interests; or, failing that, producing some new national political leadership capable of managing Lebanon's existential crisis.

I talked to the opposition parties and activist groups that identify with that 2019 protest movement – the "17 October Revolution" – to hear how, in practice, they're aiming to achieve political change. These "17 October" groups' various theories of change are a main distinction between them, maybe more than their substantive political differences. Some are pursuing an immediate pacted transition with Lebanon's regime; others are focusing on next year's parliamentary and municipal elections; and still others are prioritizing more long-term grassroots change. All of them are attempting to theorize political change in Lebanon, from Lebanon.

DAWN’s Democracy in Exile: “The Dire Costs of Ending the U.N.'s Cross-Border Aid Into Syria”

My new piece for DAWN’s Democracy in Exile on the upcoming Security Council vote to renew the UN cross-border aid mandate in Syria:

https://dawnmena.org/the-dire-costs-of-ending-the-u-n-s-cross-border-aid-into-syria

The Security Council vote is important, first of all, for its life-and-death human stakes. If Syria's northwest loses the UN's contribution to the cross-border aid response from Turkey, the humanitarian implications will be disastrous. To take just one key example: other aid organizations insist they can replace only a fraction of the food assistance the UN provides to these vulnerable Syrians, densely packed into the country's most food-insecure region. (And for more on Syria's hunger crisis nationwide: https://tcf.org/content/report/syrians-going-hungry-will-west-act/)

Yet the renewal vote is also important as a test of the Biden administration's early Syria policy, which has prioritized alleviating humanitarian suffering inside Syria. To that end, the administration has seemingly adopted a more-carrot-than-stick approach to winning Russia's assent to cross-border renewal – because, given how the Security Council works, there is no good alternative to achieving some minimum consensus among the council's members.

The Century Foundation: “Syrians Are Going Hungry. Will the West Act?”

My new report for The Century Foundation: Syrians are going hungry, and in unprecedented, alarming numbers – WFP reports that nearly 60 percent of the country's population is food insecure. So what's behind Syria's hunger crisis? And what can U.S. and other Western policymakers do about it?

https://tcf.org/content/report/syrians-going-hungry-will-west-act/

The Daily Beast: “Biden’s Syria Airstrikes May Feel Like Trump Déjà Vu. Here’s What’s Different.”

I wrote a quick piece for The Daily Beast on how to read the Biden Administration's airstrikes on Iran-linked paramilitaries in Syria this week:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bidens-syria-airstrikes-may-feel-like-trump-deja-vu-heres-why-its-different

Thursday evening's U.S. airstrikes on Iraqi paramilitaries on the Syrian-Iraqi border were a response to persistent attacks on U.S. and partner forces in Iraq. Yet the strikes – in both their execution and messaging – also seem to have been a conscious attempt by the new Biden Administration to distinguish itself from Trump's wild, dangerous approach to Iraq and Iran, which nearly led to regional war. Even as the Biden team tries to adopt a more deliberate, calibrated approach, though, it's not clear that will be enough to deal with the mess Trump left for the U.S. in Iraq.

War on the Rocks: “Redefining Victory in America’s War Against the Islamic State in Syria”

At War on the Rocks today, I have a new article urging the incoming Biden team to revisit U.S. counter-ISIS aims in Syria, after the Trump Administration twisted the definition of counter-ISIS victory to justify pursuing all sorts of other, unrelated policy ends.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/redefining-victory-in-americas-war-against-the-islamic-state-in-syria/

Under President Obama, America originally set out to "degrade and ultimately destroy" (or "ultimately defeat") the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and neighboring Iraq. In 2017, though, the Trump Administration changed the United States' stated aim to ISIS's "enduring defeat." "Enduring defeat," as Trump officials defined it, entailed not only the effective incapacitation of ISIS but also preventing its notional future return. "Enduring defeat" thus also meant addressing supposed "root causes" behind ISIS's rise, which, these officials argued, required dramatic change to Syria's political system and the removal of Iran-commanded forces from the country – things that will not happen, by all indications. The Trump administration had adopted an expansive, rubberized definition of "enduring defeat," stretched to cover all the United States' other, non-ISIS policy aims in Syria and to justify open-ended U.S. military involvement in the country.

The incoming Biden Administration's initial review of U.S. policy in Syria is a chance to revisit this elasticized definition of U.S. counter-ISIS objectives. "Enduring defeat," in the all-encompassing terms with which the Trump Administration defined it, is not achievable in Syria. The Biden team ought to ask, then: What does it really mean, for U.S. national security purposes, to "defeat" ISIS in Syria? And what level of U.S. involvement does that require?

ناس نيوز: “أزمة النزوح … وأصعب تحدياتها”

مقالي لموقع “ناس نيوز” حول أزمة النزوح في العراق، وأصعب أوجهها: العوائل النازحة التي يُنظر إليها على أنها مرتبطة بتنظيم "الدولة"، والتي تتطلب معضلتها جهود خاصة من قبل الحكومة العراقية وشركائها، ليس فقط من أجل ضمان حقوق تلك العوائل كمواطنين عراقيين، بل من أجل تجاوز العراق لتجربة التنظيم وتحقيق الاستقرار الدائم:

https://www.nasnews.com/view.php?cat=44214

War on the Rocks: “What Are America’s Sanctions on Syria Good for?”

I have a new article at War on the Rocks today, this time on U.S. sanctions on Syria:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/what-are-americas-sanctions-on-syria-good-for/

Proponents of Syria sanctions tend to advocate for them in moralistic, hortatory terms: "To stop the Assad regime's atrocities, we have to try."

But U.S. sanctions on Syria won't "stop atrocities." No one seriously expects them to, or to accomplish any of their other stated aims. The supposed objective of these sanctions, then, is illusory and unreal. What is real is the sanctions' civilian collateral damage, as sanctions both exacerbate Syria's current economic desperation and frustrate the country's postwar recovery.

The result is that while U.S. policymakers and sanctions boosters posture and performatively "try," Syrian civilians pay the price. It's emblematic of Washington's tendency towards misconceived, "do something" policy. And it's nuts, and wrong.

The Islamic State Conceptualizes Guerrilla Warfare

Below is a translation of the editorial from issue 236 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba, in which the group theorizes guerrilla warfare.

In the editorial, the Islamic State offers its membership a religious-jurisprudential justification for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare when they are outmatched conventionally. Though the group’s ultimate goal remains a territorial “state” – akin to what it realized in Syria and Iraq 2014 – it also recognizes the need for extended irregular warfare below that semi-conventional threshold, in order to create conditions appropriate for territorial control. The editorial thus instructs the group’s membership not to attempt to hold and defend territory prematurely, and not to squander manpower and resources. Rather, the editorial makes clear that in the long lead-up to open, semi-conventional warfare, hit-and-run attacks are advisable and entirely legitimate.

The editorial comes as the Islamic State is midway through the third iteration of a global campaign titled “the Raid of Attrition,” and thus synergistically offers religious support for that campaign. (As with the Islamic State’s other announced campaigns, I tend to be skeptical that they amount to anything other than a branding exercise, and a label applied to affiliates’ activities that were already underway.)

As with other instances in which the organization has issued strategic or tactical guidance to its affiliates worldwide, the thinking in this editorial is not hugely novel or inventive – the Islamic State has not necessarily innovated irregular warfare. What the group does seem to have done is compile and synthesize sound foundational ideas, then rationalize them in religious terms. I don’t see any reason to think the group’s tactics derive originally from the religious textual basis in this editorial, as opposed to, say, the accumulated know-how of veterans of the pre-2003 Iraqi military and security forces, or the other diverse militants who have cycled through the Islamic State and the broader transnational jihadist movement over the last several decades. If I had to guess, I would assume the group is mainly finding religious validation for guerrilla warfare fundamentals that it assimilated from other sources.

The editorial’s guidance to avoid the pointless, self-destructive defense of territory seems logical, and consistent with the behavior of Islamic State affiliates globally, including in West Africa and, most recently, Mozambique. On the other hand, that guidance seems inconsistent with the group’s seizure of large sections of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014, followed by its invitation of an international military intervention against itself and costly, losing defense of that territory, part of a series of decisions that are difficult to explain in retrospect.

Still, the editorial is a further reminder that we shouldn’t assume the Islamic State will imminently attempt a return to territorial control, and that we shouldn’t use that as our measure of the group’s capability. For more on how to gauge the Islamic State’s strength, see my recent Crisis Group commentary, “When Measuring ISIS’s ‘Resurgence’, Use the Right Standard.”

Translation follows:

“Except for one maneuvering for battle, or retreating to [another fighting] company”

Al-Naba, no. 236, 28 May 2020

The mujahid may use every permissible weapon or means of combat to realize the aim of his jihad: the defeat of his enemy, and the establishment of the law of God almighty in the land in which He grants him tamkin [literally “empowerment,” here meaning territorial control and administration.] [The mujahid] works to choose from [those means of combat] that which suits him at every stage, among the stages of his long jihad.

And even if the Islamic State has lost tamkin in most regions, the establishment of religion has not come to a halt, praise be to God, Lord of worlds. For the mujahideen still institute, everywhere, that which their Lord prescribed them, in terms of jihad against the polytheists. And that is – without a doubt – among the highest degrees of enjoining virtue and discouraging vice.

And if the combat of static fronts and marching armies to conquer the country was the appropriate mode of combat for the stage of tamkin, in terms of what it offered of the possibility to control territory and establish God’s law in it, and protect it from the polytheists seizing it and establishing on it their polytheism and unbelief in awesome God; then the style of hit-and-run guerrilla warfare is the most appropriate, without a doubt, for the mujahideen in areas which the polytheists have seized totally and that have come under their dominion.

For the basic aim of guerrilla warfare is realizing the nikayah [injury, vexation] of one’s enemies. This aim is legitimate, if it is understood to be for the sake of God almighty. And glorious God enjoined this, for He said: “Fight them; God will torment them by your hands, humiliate them, and grant you victory over them, and heal the breasts of believers” (Quran 9:14). Nikayah is accomplished by killing, injuring and capturing them, as well as capturing their wealth or destroying it.

Thus, the [guerrilla] bands of mujahideen focus their efforts on dealing the greatest possible losses to the enemy, in terms of lives and wealth; while they are diligent not to offer more than the minimum possible losses [in their own ranks], in terms of lives and wealth. To the contrary, they work to increase their stock of both. To the extent those two conditions are realized, their nikayah of the enemy continues, such that the enemy grows weaker, and [these bands] grow stronger, until the conditions become appropriate to transition from the stage of guerrilla warfare to other stages necessary to realize tamkin in the land.

These blessed [guerrilla] bands, at their inception, are not tasked with holding territory, because that is beyond their capacity. Nor are [they tasked with] holding their ground against the enemy in battles in which they think they do not have superiority. That is because the mujahideen in those areas are typically few in number and weak in means, and they do not possess territory in which to organize their affairs, and to which their supporters can mass. They face an enemy holding territory, large in number and materiel, and prepared to crush any indication of activity by the mujahideen – to eradicate them and prevent their plant from growing and standing upright on its stalk, such that it might fasten its roots in the ground and its branches might tower in the sky, leaving [the enemy] weak and defeated before it.

Given the [mujahideen’s] condition, they do not need to burden themselves beyond their capacity, and to hold territory for the sake of tamkin when they are a weak few, and their enemy is greater than them by hundreds or, sometimes, thousands of times. For their almighty Lord has permitted them to turn their backs and flee to safety, then return to attack anew at the time and place that permits them to realize the nikayah of [their enemy], and superiority over him, and then to return to hiding once more before [the enemy] can converge on them and harm them. This is the type of maneuver in battle in which the Lord of worlds permitted the believers to turn their backs in war. For the Almighty said: “O you believers, when you meet those who disbelieve marching [into battle], do not turn your backs to them For whoever turns his back to them on that day – except for one maneuvering for battle, or retreating to [another fighting] company – has incurred God’s wrath, and his abode is Hell, a miserable fate” (Quran 8:15-16). The Imam Tabari, may God have mercy on him, said: “‘Except for one maneuvering for battle,’ says, ‘Except for one going on to fight his enemy, and who requires a weakness from [his enemy] that he might strike, and then descend upon him” (Jami’ al-Bayyan). And the Imam Baghawi, may God have mercy on him, said: “Any juncture at which he sees [it incumbent on] himself to retreat, when his aim is to seek a moment of inattentiveness, so that he might attack” (Ma’alim al-Tanzil). Thus, he, the mujahid, believes he will be defeated in battle opposite his enemy, so he retreats from opposite [that enemy] to avoid losses, with the intent of descending upon [the enemy] when he sees in himself strength and in his enemy weakness.

And so, the soldiers of the Islamic State must focus their efforts on attriting their enemy as much as possible at this stage, and not preoccupy themselves with rushing to realize tamkin in the land. For it is the inevitable result of their jihad – with the permission of God almighty – which will be realized for them soon, and the reason for its realization is that which now occupies them, this fighting and nikayah of the enemies of religion.

By “attrition,” we do not mean merely weakening the enemy until we compel him to withdraw from some territory, so that we might seize it and enjoy tamkin in it. Rather, we aim to deliver [the enemy] to a state in which his bleeding brings him to the point of destruction, or to exhaust him to such a great degree that he can only muster the strength to rise up and fight us again after a long time, during which we have prepared to repel him and break his power. [We aim for] his costly war with us to sow desperation and despair of victory in his heart and mind, such that he views our victory over him in any possible confrontation as a fait accompli, something inescapable.

So raid your enemies constantly, o soldiers of the State of Islam. Do not come to them except in their moment of inattentiveness, so they do not gain from you what they covet: pushing you into a [head-on] confrontation in a circumstance that is better for them than for you. And safeguard your capital – your men, and your arms – and do not hazard it, so that your profits continue and increase over time, with the permission of God almighty. For we are at an act of worship, in which God almighty has not charged us with what is beyond our capacity, and for which He did not constrain us in terms of time. God does not charge any soul except with what is within its ability, praise be to God, Lord of worlds.

International Crisis Group: “When Measuring ISIS’s ‘Resurgence,’ Use the Right Standard”

Out today, I have a new commentary for International Crisis Group:

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/when-measuring-isiss-resurgence-use-right-standard

Too often our discussion of ISIS's capabilities in Iraq and the group's "resurgence" is couched in terms of its 2014-15 apex – not only with hyperbolic claims that its operations have returned to the 2013-14 levels that immediately preceded that peak, but also with attempts to tamp down that sort of alarmism by pointing how diminished the group is now compared to its bygone "caliphate."

Thinking and arguing in these terms is a mistake, I argue. The confluence of factors that led to 2014 is unlikely to reappear. And in the meantime, talking in terms of renewed territorial control, 2014 and the "caliphate" can distract us from the sort of incremental but nonetheless important shifts in ISIS's insurgency that might herald an actual "resurgence" – shifts like the one we saw in April, which seemingly anticipated ISIS's deadly attack in Salahuddin province on 1 May.

War on the Rocks: “Leak Reveals Jihadists’ Weakening Grip in Syria’s Idlib”

I have a new article today, for War on the Rocks:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/leak-reveals-jihadists-weakening-grip-in-syrias-idlib/

I wrote about a leaked recording of an address by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) official Abu al-Fateh al-Farghali to a gathering of the Syrian jihadist group's fighters earlier this year. Farghali lectured them as rebels were reeling from months of losses in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, and as Turkey was escalating its direct involvement to prevent the opposition-held enclave's collapse – apparently, Farghali had to convince these HTS fighters they weren't dying for a Turkish secularist occupation.

The recording seems to reveal how the group has internally justified Turkey's intervention in Idlib since 2017, but also – as HTS and other rebels have been depleted, and as Turkey has unilaterally injected troops and stepped up its direct role – how HTS may have lost its grip inside Idlib.

War on the Rocks: “In Iraq, Restraint Is America’s Best Option” (with Maria Fantappie)

Maria Fantappie and I have a new article today at War on the Rocks, this time on the latest tit-for-tat violence between the United States and Iran-linked Iraqi paramilitaries – violence that is destructive for Iraq and, if it continues, is headed towards a strategic defeat for America:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/in-iraq-restraint-is-americas-best-option/

Reflexive U.S. retaliation to paramilitaries' provocations has not deterred their attacks. Far from it – the attacks have continued, and meanwhile efforts by anti-American political factions to drive the U.S. out of the country have gained new momentum.

If the United States hopes to preserve the U.S.-Iraqi bilateral relationship and remain in Iraq to help combat the country's Islamic State insurgency, it has to break this retaliatory cycle. But it can't do that by counter-escalating against paramilitary factions – instead, its best option is exercising restraint. That could create conditions for the formation of an Iraqi government with which Washington can partner and re-solidify the legitimate basis for its involvement in the country.

The seeming alternative is more deadly violence to no good end – more Iraqi lives lost and, ultimately, the U.S. out of Iraq entirely, in a major win for Iran and its Iraqi allies.

Islamic State: Substantial, continuous "returns"

Below is another translation from issue 192 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba, this time the latest in a series of columns on operational guidance titled “Take Care.”

This seems notable in terms of how it presents a sort of Unified Theory of operations, conceptualizing Islamic State units’ modal shift from high-volume rudimentary violence to more sophisticated attacks, to in-between hybrid approaches, depending on that unit’s capability and circumstance. The column adopts the figurative language of “returns,” in discussing how best to balance and diversify an Islamic State detachment’s portfolio of violence. The thinking here seems to apply to ground-level insurgency as much as to external operations globally.

It’s unknown to what extent this sort of thinking is communicated through the Islamic State’s ranks globally, or guides the organization’s day-to-day operations. What we can say, though, is that elements in Islamic State’s central apparatus have evidently put some thought into when and how the group steps up and down its operational ladder, and they want to communicate that thought to al-Naba‘s Islamic State readership.

Translation follows:

Take Care 8: Planning for Action and the Constraints of Reality

Al-Naba, no. 192, 25 July 2019

For the mujahideen, the subject of target selection depends on a number of issues. They include those related to [the mujahideen], such as the importance of the target to them and the possibility of executing against it; and those related to the enemy, such as the importance of the target to him, and the extend of the damage to him through targeting it.

On this basis, the mujahideen are often faced with numerous options when devising the battle plan on which they will depend to exhaust their enemy before eventually destroying him, with the permission of God Almighty.

The most important of these options:

First: Concentrating on operations that are small-scale, numerous and widespread, abandoning large-scale operations given their difficulty in execution and their costs.

Second: Concentrating on operations that are large-scale, few and focused in terms of their target, and neglecting small operations given their limited return and weak impact.

Between these two opposing options, we find middle options, the most important of which are:

Third: Concentrating on continuous small operations, while constantly searching for important targets to strike when possible.

Fourth: Concentrating on large targets, even if they are few, without leaving any opportunity to strike the enemy with small operations.

Fifth: Working without focus, in order to strike the enemy wherever possible, with small or large operations.

Work at the Outset

Generally, we can say that the mujahideen’s choice of any of these options is subject to internal conditions related to the situation of the mujahideen, in terms of organization, means and targets; and external conditions, related to the situation of their enemy, in terms of his strength and empowerment.

So when the mujahid detachment is small in size, weak in means and primitive in terms of its members’ ability to plan and execute, with the goal of continuing and developing its work until destroying the enemy entirely and realizing tamkin (empowerment) on the ground; and when its enemy is strong and empowered on the ground, then it will be in [the detachment’s] interest to begin its work by pursuing the first option.

If the goal of the detachment is limited to producing the maximum damage to the enemy, and the enemy is strong and empowered, such that the mujahideen assume they will not be able to continue executing attacks for long, then it is best for them to pursue the second option.

This is what we see typically in the operations of mujahideen detachments or their members working in Crusader countries. They take into account the difficulty of withdrawing from the site of the attack after executing, or the difficulty of continuing to execute consecutive attacks given their exposure to the enemy, and so they operating according to this option in line with the means available, most importantly the weapons required and [their] ability to deliver them to the site of the attack. Thus, we see them vary between using knives, in attacks that leave few dead and wounded in the Crusaders’ ranks, with a limited psychological and propaganda impact; and large, coordinated attacks using explosives and firearms, which leave major losses – material and human – in the Crusaders’ ranks, and have a major media echo.

If the detachment is strong – in that its members possess the expertise necessary to carry out large operations, even if it is weak in numbers and means – then it can also follow the second option, in order to achieve swift growth for itself, as large operations draw the eyes and hearts of local supporters faster. This is what the Islamic State did when it first entered Syria, as it was limited at the start to a few expert brothers with a small number of local supporters with limited expertise. Thus, work started with large attacks concentrated on the key junctures of the Nuseiri [derog., Alawite] regime, which help earn notoriety for the detachment, ‘Jabhat al-Nusrah,’ and encourage tens, then hundreds of muhajireen and ansar [foreign fighters and locals] to join it, especially after they learned it answered to the Islamic State.

Similarly, Sheikh Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and his brothers followed this option at the start of their fight against the invading Crusader forces in Iraq. These larger operations that the mujahideen executed against the United Nations and the Crusaders’ embassies and barracks helped earn them widespread notoriety, which overshadowed that of all the factions present in that arena. That encouraged the muhajireen and ansar to join Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, especially after it became clear to them that its creed was based on monotheism and its program was based on jihad on the path of God until the establishment of religion and the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate.

Work in Advanced Stages 

After the detachment grows, in quantity and quality – such that it becomes reasonably numerous, making it difficult to eliminate it totally, and likewise its material means and its members’ technical capabilities grow, in terms of expertise at planning and executing attacks – then it is harmful for the group to limit itself to one of these two options (the first and second). Limiting itself to the first means letting slip these larger attacks with a major impact on the enemy, despite its ability to execute them; and limiting itself to the second leads to freezing a major part of its members and means, as it is not possible to mobilize all of that to execute major operations, which are typically few in number, thus afflicting the detachment with inactivity.

Thus, it is better for [the detachment] to transition to one of the middle options (the third or fourth), by dividing the detachment into two sections:

The first [section] relies on quantity, including mujahideen with limited expertise, spread widely, who can carry out [attacks] in quantitatively large numbers and over a wide geographic range. That leads, in aggregate, to achieving a major return through the sum total of their attacks, not with some of them individually. They are akin to vendors at intersections, who sell small quantities of goods that realize a relatively small return for them, but – if we combine all their returns – add up to a substantial aggregate return.

The second [section] relies on quality, including mujahideen with expertise, capable of planning, managing and executing major attacks that bring a substantial, raised return to the mujahideen, and large losses for their enemies. They are akin to wholesalers, who realize a large return from each deal, one that might equal or exceed the gain of hundreds of sales conducted by their clients over the long term.

By combining the two options, it is possible to employ a major part of the detachment in a plan of action that prevents inactivity, and achieves returns that are continuous over time and large in terms of aggregate operations, distributed over the work’s spread and expanse, and that help capacitate and train the mujahideen to fight and acquire substantial working expertise. At the same time, [these operations] permit major quantitative and qualitative leaps in the course of the jihad, by achieving substantial damage and losses for the enemy in material, human, psychological and media terms; and major returns for the mujahideen, in terms of material spoils and attracting new mujahideen for recruitment and work within the detachment.

As for the fifth option, the mujahid detachment typically follows it in instances of a weak apparatus of command, control and communications, such that the detachment’s command orders its members to work according to what is possible; or in emergency cases, in which the mujahideen find themselves forced to strike the enemy with everything available in order to preoccupy him so as not to resist some important action by the mujahideen, or to scramble his offensive or defense movements against them; or just to strike his stability at a particular time. Thus, the detachment’s command orders its members to work to the utmost extent, without consideration for any constraints to divide the work, or plan over the long term.

We notice that the Islamic State’s policy towards operations in Crusader countries oscillates between the third and fifth options. Indeed, it called on Muslims there to attack what targets they could strike, with what weapons were available, to achieve the greatest possible losses in the Crusaders’ ranks. That was in light of the difficulty of controlling and directing the mujahideen’s operations there, and the danger of communicating with them about this. Thus, they were expected to execute small, continuous operations, with the possibility that some of them might be able to carry out large operations.

At the same time, though, when [the Islamic State] has sent trained detachments prepared to execute attacks, it has pushed these detachments to execute major attacks in terms of their targets, the way of executing the attacks against them, and the losses expected from striking them.

[The Islamic State] has thus achieved continuous returns from the attacks of lone mujahideen and detachments that are small in size, limited in expertise, and weak in preparation. Even though the returns of each of their attacks have been relatively limited, they have nonetheless, in aggregate, been large, approaching the substantial returns of the qualitative operations that the Islamic State’s soldiers have carried out in the past few years.

Despite all that, we know that it is beneficial for the mujahideen to liberate themselves from the constraints with which they can restrict their work sometimes, and to build their plans on the basis of their [local] reality, their means and their targets, and on the reality of their enemy and his means and targets, as well as for them to rely on God Almighty in executing what they have set their minds on, for what a blessed Patron and Helper He is.

Islamic State: "In the eyes of his enemies an army of heroes..."

Below is a translation of the editorial from issue 192 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba. The editorial – which is presumably aimed at the Islamic State’s core supporters, including militants active in the field – takes a derisive tone on Iraqi security forces’ pursuit of Islamic State fighters, and emphasizes the futility and emptiness of their efforts. Per the editorial, Iraqi forces’ energetic operations are driven by their fear of once more ceding the country’s countryside to the insurgent group, allowing it to reorganize and penetrate Iraq’s cities. Islamic State militants must therefore cultivate that fear and recall the divine reward awaiting them, even as they now live as fugitives.

Set aside the editorial’s posturing: It’s worth noting the editorial seemingly indicates an understanding of the complementary logics of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Its authors describe, correctly, why Iraqi forces and their international partners are working to keep up pressure on Islamic State insurgents with operations like “Will of Victory,” thus preventing the group’s small units from coalescing and organizing more dangerous attacks.

The editorial is also an apparent acknowledgement that, for the Islamic State’s insurgents in Iraq, times are hard, albeit spiritually rewarding. It seems to admit that Islamic State militants are ragged and hungry, even if their enemies think they’re “an army of heroes on the verge of storming cities anew.” For the Islamic State, stoking fears of its resurgence (for example) is evidently a deliberate strategic choice, even as the group’s ambitions, for now, may not rise far beyond continued insurgent survival.

Translation follows:

Indeed, God does not waste the reward of the good

Al-Naba, no. 192, 25 July 2019

Before the conquest of Mosul, Iraq’s Rafidhah [derog., Shi’a] would persistently muster thousands from their army and police to march in the Anbar desert and Badiyat al-Jazirah searching for the Islamic State’s camps and its soldiers’ hiding places. These columns were huge, sometimes reaching hundreds of armored vehicles. They move like parades, while, really, all their soldiers hoped for was not to happen on any mujahid whom they might be forced to engage. These campaigns would usually end with a photo of their commanders at the bottom of a ravine or near the wreckage of a village, which let them claim that the remains indicated the Islamic State’s soldiers had passed by that day.

Typically the rapture of those empty parades would come to an end with a calamity befalling the apostates, far from the locales of their supposed victories, as the mujahideen’s security detachments surprised them with powerful blows in the most fortified areas inside Baghdad, Mosul, Samarra, Kirkuk and Baqouba. They would awake once more from their beautiful dreams to horrible nightmares that would bring down their security and military commanders, force them to reorder their forces and reorganize their formations, then take off once more into the desert towards some new dream of a conclusive victory over the Islamic State.

Someone considering these campaigns, which the Rawafidh [derog., Shi’a] have repeated today at an even greater pace and scale, will find they are a ruse by the incapable and the choice of someone with no other option. The alternative is for them to sit in their bases and barracks waiting for shells and missiles to fall on them, or for [explosive] charges and ambushes to cut their roads. At the same time, these campaigns represent for them one form of the control on the ground they are working to preserve, as, by halting [these campaigns], these areas in which the Islamic State’s soldiers move today would become effectively fallen militarily. The apostates would become encircled in the urban areas they are attempting to secure, which would turn little by little into fortresses, for fear that the Islamic State might storm them once more. Likewise, what the Rawafidh and their Crusader allies fear most today is that the mujahideen now spread out shift from the mode of small bands carrying out military attacks with limited force to the mode of semi-conventional formations that can – with the permission of God Almighty – carry out coordinated, medium-size or even large operations, in terms of their range and the nature of their targets. Through these ongoing campaigns, therefore, they are attempting to keep the mujahideen in a state of constant movement and dispersal, by continuously pursuing them and preventing them from establishing long-term settlements by searching for and destroying [those positions]; in that way, they pressure [the mujahideen] to prevent them from receiving large numbers of nafirin [incoming, newly mobilised fighters], especially in areas of operation surrounding cities and main roads. And so we find that no sooner do the Rawafidh today hear of a tent pitched in the desert than they move columns to it to confirm that those sheltering in it are not among the Caliphate’s soldiers. No sooner does a spy tell them that he saw some people in a remote, mountainous area than they launch a sweeping campaign on it, for fear that [those people] might be among the Islamic State’s mujahideen. This terror is not the exclusive to the Rawafidh in Iraq, rather – praise to God Almighty – it pervades the souls of infidels and apostates everywhere. Since the announcement of the Caliphate, they have been in a state of constant alert, one that their supposed announcements of final victory over the Islamic State have not ended, for they know, before others, that [these announcements] are nothing but vain lies.

And so, the Islamic State’s mujahideen ought to rejoice at this great blessing from their Lord Almighty, that He has made the continued existence of their raised banner a source of wrath and fear and panic, and a reason for the infidels’ attrition, exhaustion and constant movement. What they instill in the hearts of God’s enemies is all jihad on the path of God Almighty, for which they will be rewarded with good deeds through which their belief will grow and which will disavow their ill deeds and elevate their [divine] status. Perhaps they pay this no mind, given the height of their morale and their aspiration to what is higher and greater than these deeds, and more damaging and deadlier to the enemies of God, Lord of Worlds. How could they, when added to that is hunger, fear, concern and sorrow they encounter, even as they hold fast to their religion, gripping their monotheism. As God Almighty said: “It was not becoming for the people of Medinah and those Bedouins around it not to follow God’s Messenger, nor to prefer their own souls over his. For they are not afflicted by thirst, fatigue or hunger on the path on God, nor do they tread a path that enrages the infidels, nor do they gain at the enemy’s expense, but that a righteous deed is recorded for them. Indeed, God does not waste the reward of the good. They do not spend anything, small or large, nor cross a valley, but that it is recorded for them that God might reward them with the best of what they have done (9:120, 9:121).”

[The mujahideen] must be confident that they are, with God’s permission, made victorious by their Lord with terror and with what He wishes from His soldiers. For many a mujahid grown weak, with little aid, unable to afford ammunition, with the Crusaders’ planes hovering overhead and surrounded by masses of apostates, may be in his own eyes put-upon, a fugitive; but in the eyes of his enemies an army of heroes on the verge of storming cities anew, their spirits broken before him, unable to hold fast in the face of his fierce, terrifying advance. So let [the mujahideen] work to further frighten their enemies, and to terrify them more, and let them endure what they encounter on the path of God Almighty. For what is all their work but worship, and what is its fruit but the best [reward] and more. For their Lord Almighty said: “And say, ‘Act! For God will see your work, as will his Prophet and the believers. And you will be returned to the Knower of the Unseen and the Seen, and He will inform you of what you used to do (9:105).”

War on the Rocks: “A Glimpse into the Islamic State’s External Operations, Post-Caliphate”

Today at War on the Rocks, I have a new article on the self-proclaimed Islamic State's ability to carry out international terror attacks, even after the loss of its territorial "caliphate":

https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/a-glimpse-into-the-islamic-states-external-operations-post-caliphate/

One of the main objectives of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria was to deny the group a base to plot “external operations.” Weeks after the group lost its last territorial foothold in Syria, however, it claimed its deadliest-ever international terrorist attack, in Sri Lanka. So what global threat does a post-"caliphate" Islamic State still pose?

I've written about a presentation late last year by Lebanon's then Interior Minister, in which he laid out, in exceptional detail, a series of attempts by the Islamic State to plot terror attacks in Lebanon. Crucially, the Islamic State handlers managing the attacks were based in Syria's Idlib province – so, outside the group's defined, bounded territory, in areas it didn't control outright.

The Interior Minister's presentation provides a unique insight into how the Islamic State can plot external operations, even without territorial control. Yet it can also help demystify these attacks. Post-"caliphate," the group is likely even more motivated to use global terror to pose as an international bogeyman – but using this presentation, we can describe something intended to be terrifying and inexplicable in real, concrete terms…

Valdai Club: “Idlib: Maintaining the Sochi Deal Is By No Means an Ideal Solution, but for Now It Is the Best One on Offer”

Now up at Valdai Club, I have a companion piece to Crisis Group's latest Idlib report:

http://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/idlib-maintaining-the-sochi-deal-is-by-no-means/

For anyone who might have been intimidated by the report's length, this is a more bite-sized version of its key points and its policy argument. It's also a little more Russia-centered, given both the outlet and Moscow's centrality to any solution. Idlib presents no attractive, easy policy choices. Still, there are good reasons for Russia to avoid a wide-open battle for Idlib, and instead double down on the Sochi agreement and its partnership with Turkey.

“سيناريوهات”: “ما مصير "داعش" بعد احتدام المعارك بآخر معاقله؟”

مشاركتي في برنامج “سيناريوهات” على قناة الجزيرة، حول وضع تنظيم “داعش” بعد سقوط آخر معاقله في سوريا:

Interview: Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations: “The Complex Phenomenon of Religious Extremism”

My interview with Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations about Salafi-jihadist militancy, sectarianism, and discriminating counterterrorism policy:

https://www.scfr.ir/en/scienceculture/101797/the-complex-phenomenon-of-religious-extremism/

International Crisis Group: “Rightsizing the Transnational Jihadist Threat”

Out today, I have a new Crisis Group commentary pushing back on some eye-popping numerical estimates of Salafi-jihadists worldwide that are alarmist and unhelpful:

https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/rightsizing-transnational-jihadist-threat

"Salafi-jihadism" is a specific thing that poses a specific threat. Playing fast and loose with definitions and lumping in large numbers of non-jihadist militants can only muddle policy thinking. What's more, the Salafi-jihadist movement has evolved dramatically in recent years. So yes, the number of actual jihadists in 2018 is much greater than in 2001 – but these fighters are also qualitatively different, and much more locally oriented. One-to-one comparisons over time don't make sense.

Smart counterterrorism policy will require focus and analytical precision. Big, dubious numbers, on the other hand, are attention-grabbing but not constructive.

War on the Rocks, “‘Frogs’ and ‘Geckos’: Syria’s Jihadists Speak the Language of Rebellion”

At War on the Rocks today, I have a new article about the dual local/transnational character of Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham:

https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/frogs-and-geckos-syrias-jihadists-speak-the-language-of-rebellion/

The jumping-off point for the article is a sort of exceptional video from Tahrir al-Sham, a seemingly unscripted roundtable discussion among three of its top leaders about “reconciliation” (Damascus-style). Their conversation is an insight not only into their substantive positions, but also how they categorize and make sense of the Syrian war around them, as they repeatedly translate between their own religious-jurisprudential lexicon and Syria’s buzzwords, hashtags and slang. In turn, their fluency in both of these registers – jihadist and Syrian opposition – highlights the challenge of isolating them from their Syrian opposition context, something they themselves clearly recognize is a mortal threat to them and to their project.

Tahrir al-Sham's Abu al-Yaqadhan al-Masri: "The coming days are pregnant with surprises."

Below is a 17 September Telegram post from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shar’i Abu al-Yaqadhan al-Masri, one of a number of Tahrir al-Sham officials/media personalities who have reacted unfavorably to the announcement of a new Turkish-Russian deal for Syria’s Idlib. province.

Addressing the press after bilateral talks Monday, Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin announced a memorandum of understanding meant to stabilize the Idlib “de-escalation zone.” Critically, the memorandum stipulates the creation of a de-militarized buffer zone along northwest Syria’s rebel-government line of contact, to be jointly policed by Russia and Turkey. Rebels’ heavy weaponry will be removed from the zone, which is also to be cleared of (per Putin) “Jabhat al-Nusrah” (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham).

Like other Tahrir al-Sham figures, Abu al-Yaqadhan is not amicable to disarmament; he and his comrades portray their weapons as integrally to their dignity and continued jihad. Abu al-Yaqadhan may be particularly hardcore, among Tahrir al-Sham’s public-facing figures. He previously stirred controversy by apparently licensing Tahrir al-Sham fighters to shoot uncooperative rebel rivals in the head and take a relaxed approach to civilian collateral damage. But he is by no means alone among Tahrir al-Sham personalities who have voiced hostility to the Sochi agreement. Whether their snap reactions represent Tahrir al-Sham’s collective position remains to be seen. The initial response to the Sochi deal from the group’s official media outlet has been negative.

Abu al-Yaqadhan’s Telegram post:

Sham the Revealer

For the continuation of the jihad and the rule of shari’ah, the way forward is striking necks.

Whoever asks you to surrender your weapon, he deserves most to be fought, ahead of others.

Whoever retreats from his slogans of ‘continuing the fight until the regime is toppled’ and surrenders his weapon, he is a hypocrite #frog*.

Whoever manufactures problems to eliminate the mujahid factions to advance the Sochi agreement, he is a traitor [intelligence] agent.

The coming days are pregnant with surprises, so prepare for epic battles.

* Note: “Frog” (difda’) is a Syrian opposition neologism for someone who flips to join the government loyalist camp, after Kafrbatna (East Ghouta) sheikh Bassam al-Difda’, a particularly well-publicized recent example.

Source: Abu al-Yaqadhan al-Masri, Telegram