Ahrar al-Sham media activist: "I won’t claim that al-Fou’ah and Kafarya are entirely besieged."

Below is something I thought might be pertinent amid the coverage of Madaya, the Damascus countryside town that has recently been subjected to a crushing siege by the regime and Hizbullah. I’ve translated a response from Ahrar al-Sham media activist Marwan Khalil (Abu Khaled al-I’lami) to criticism of Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusrah’s blockade of the Shi’ite regime loyalist towns of Kafarya and al-Fou’ah. The criticism, which Ahrar and Nusrah have received from multiple opposition quarters: Their siege of the towns actually isn’t intense enough.

Kafarya and al-Fou’ah are Idlib towns that have been stranded deep behind rebel lines since the Jeish al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) rebel coalition, of which Ahrar and Nusrah are the main components, swept the regime out of most of Idlib province in early 2015. The two towns were half of the September 2015 deal negotiated by, reportedly, Ahrar al-Sham and Iran; the other half were the Damascus countryside towns of al-Zabadani and Madaya.

Since then, Ahrar and Nusrah have been obliged, somewhat awkwardly, to respect a truce with pro-regime militias inside al-Fou’ah and Kafarya. They’ve also had to allow shipments of supplies to enter the two towns and, as part of a December swap, some residents of the towns to leave. Relief to any town under the truce has only been allowed on a reciprocal basis – thus, relief to Madaya this week had to be delivered simultaneously with relief to al-Fou’ah and Kafarya.

The deal has attracted critics, who argue that Ahrar and Nusrah have made some impermissible compromise with the regime and its allies or – to put it in crude sectarian terms – are “feeding the Rawafidh (Shi’a).” Abu Khaled was responding to a report from Murasel Souri (Syrian correspondent), a pro-opposition Syrian activist news outlet, claiming that shipments of food, water and diesel are being diverted by Ahrar and Nusrah to al-Fou’ah and Kafarya and that any talk of a “siege” is purely for media consumption. Others have echoed similar criticisms, ranging from premiere Salafi-jihadist theorist Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi to Syrian Revolutionaries Front chief Jamal Ma’rouf, a southern Idlib rebel warlord whom Nusrah ran out of the country in November 2014. (Ma’rouf’s tweets are translated below the jump.)

صورة اليوم :أحد اساد #جبهة_النصرة يحمي قافلة مجرمي #كفريا و#الفوعة بكل فخر واعتزاز pic.twitter.com/fE4T829DSg

— نضال محمد صبيح (@nedal_sbaih) December 29, 2015

Nidhal Sbeih, former spokesman for the Syrian Revolutionary Front: “Picture of the day: One of the lions of Jabhat al-Nusrah proudly protects a bus of al-Fou’ah and Kafarya’s criminals.”

To be clear: I don’t think this intra-opposition static provides the whole story of conditions in al-Fou’ah and Kafarya, on which no one seems to have reported satisfactorily.

My impression, and what I’ve heard from others, is that Ahrar and Nusrah have not exercised leverage on al-Fou’ah and Kafarya (and thus Iran, Hizbullah and the Assad regime) by imposing the sort of crushing deprivation we’ve seen in Madaya. As Abu Khaled argues, al-Fou’ah and Kafarya benefit not just from relief shipments that fall under the Zabadani truce, but also from opportunistic residents of neighboring towns willing to sell supplies and from regime airdrops. Instead, rebels have leaned on the towns by shelling them indiscriminately and threatening them through conventional military means. Indeed, we saw Saudi jihadist evangelist and chief Jeish al-Fateh judge Abdullah al-Muheisini argue earlier this month al-Fou’ah should be “exterminated” if the siege on Madaya weren’t lifted.

That said, by at least some accounts – in one case, local militiamen who had been evacuated to Lebanon – residents of the two Idlib towns are also desperate enough to eat grass. I don’t know.

But the political dimensions of the al-Fou’ah–Kafarya siege and the controversy it has stirred within some parts of the opposition are knowable.

In some ways, the criticisms of Ahrar and Nusrah are a mirror image of loyalist outrage over the Syrian regime’s recent truce with Homs’s rebel-held al-Wa’ar neighborhood. They seem to be more evidence of the popular resistance – on both sides – to any deal, on any terms.

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Ahrar al-Sham media activist Abu Khaled al-I’lami, January 7 2015

“In response to the accusations of treason leveled by Murasel Souri against the factions active on the Kafarya and al-Fou’ah fronts”

My revolution has taught me that there are opportunists who wait to take advantage of some moments.

When Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusrah lost nearly 56 men in their last battle with [regime forces in al-Zabadani and al-Fou’ah], we found that everyone was silent. But when we managed to get our wounded out of besieged al-Zabadani in exchange for al-Fou’ah’s wounded leaving, suddenly we were feeding the Rawafidh (derog., Shi’a) and taking money. Anyone who says, “Attack al-Fou’ah,” says that because he doesn’t have a relative under siege [in al-Zabadani]. All of our people have learned this language, these accusations of treason and empty theorizing. It reminds me of when we used to play strategy games.

Yes, I won’t claim that al-Fou’ah and Kafarya are entirely besieged. There are failures to which everyone admits, and anyone who denies them is as deluded as those who level accusations at us.

And some of the reasons for that:

1. The presence of a number of factions around al-Fou’ah and Kafarya and the differences between them has led to gaps on the front lines. This happens on any front line, and it’s something from which the Syrian revolution has suffered since the start, and for which all the factions are to blame – within the bounds of advice and constructive criticism, not accusations of betrayal or acting like some opportunistic hustler.

2. Al-Fou’ah and Kafarya are surrounded by a long perimeter, and so encircling them requires large numbers of men. Because of that, some weak-willed people in the surrounding towns sell them food, and they’ll be held accountable for that.

3. In addition, the regime provides them with food by plane, albeit not a lot.

I wrote this not to wipe out some of this totally unrealistic talk, but rather in the interest of advice and criticism, so that Murasel Souri might not be biased to a particular side. The best thing, as I see it, is for someone to be honest, even if someone runs against his ideology.

“The one who hears is not like the one who sees.”

Marwan Khalil, Abu Khaled al-I’lami.

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Syrian Revolutionaries Front commander Jamal Ma’rouf, October 5 2015

سؤال موجه للمحيسني هل الهدنه التي حصلت بينكم وبين بشار وإيران مثتثنى منها روسيا! لأننا نرى روسيا إذدادت شراسةً بعد الهدنه !؟ إنهاالخيانه ؟؟؟

— جمال معروف أبو خالد (@gmal_marouf) October 5, 2015

Jamal Ma’rouf, commander of the Syrian Revolutionary Front: “A question for al-Muheisini: Is Russia is exempt from the truce between you, Bashar and Iran? Because we see that Russia has only gotten more ferocious since the truce!? Is this not a betrayal???”

لوأن مقاتلين الفوعه وكفريا أسرى بيد النصره. ماتجرأت روسيا على قصف مواقع المجاهدين ! ولكن هدنة تهريب مرتزقة الشيعه هي التي جعلت روسيا تتغطرس؟

— جمال معروف أبو خالد (@gmal_marouf) October 5, 2015

Jamal Ma’rouf: “If al-Fou’ah and Kafarya’s fighters were al-Nusrah’s captives, Russia wouldn’t dare bomb the positions of the mujahideen. But a truce to smuggle out Shi’a mercenaries, is that what made Russia so cocky?”

Jabhat al-Nusrah's Abu Muhammad al-Jolani: "Of course we won’t be bound by [Riyadh]."

Below are some notes on Jabhat al-Nusrah chief Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s recent “press conference,” which aired on December 12. In the conference, al-Jolani entertained questions from Mousa al-Omar of al-Ghad al-Arabi, Adham Abul-Husam of Al Jazeera, Muhammad al-Feisal of Orient and independent celebrity activist Hadi al-Abdullah. These notes aren’t meant to be comprehensive – there’s more to the conference, which is worth watching in full – but they do highlight a few of the things I thought were most interesting.

Destroy the Riyadh Conference

So al-Jolani’s main theme here is “burn down the Riyadh conference,” more or less. (The press conference was apparently recorded before Riyadh but released afterwards.) Al-Jolani argues that the Riyadh conference is integrally related to the Vienna negotiations process, which he says will retain President Bashar al-Assad in power, integrate opposition brigades with the regime’s military, and then compel them to turn on Nusrah, the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and others viewed as jihadist irreconcilables.

Al-Jolani not only attacks the conference itself, but really goes in on rebel brigade participants, accusing them of “treason” for playing along with this international conspiracy. In what I thought was most shocking, he attempted to destroy the credibility of any agreement with rebel buy-in by arguing that, in fact, these brigade representatives exert no real command and control over their units on the ground and can’t compel them to abide by any agreement. This is the sort of argument that is a real dagger in the heart of any negotiations process because, after all, if rebel leadership can’t actually restrain their footsoldiers, then no agreement means anything. It’s also pretty insulting to the brigades that chose to endorse or participate in the conference, which is more or less everyone to the left of al-Qaeda.

Muhammad al-Feisal, Orient News: “Returning to the Riyadh conference, will you be bound by the Riyadh resolutions on the ground?”

Al-Jolani: “Of course we won’t be bound by any of it. We won’t abide by [these outcomes], and in fact we’ll work to make them fail.”

Al-Feisal: “And their impact on the ground, what do you expect?”

Al-Jolani: “I don’t think that anyone who went to negotiate at the Riyadh conference is capable of implementing [any agreement], even if he repeats whatever was dictated to him or impressed upon him. I don’t think he’s capable of implementing anything he promised on the ground.”

19:24-20:04

Battlefield Optimism

Al-Jolani also offers a pretty strikingly optimistic take on rebels and jihadists’ battlefield progress, arguing that negotiations have only resurfaced as an international priority because the regime continues to weaken and lose ground. Al-Jolani’s rejectionist stance on negotiations basically requires him to adopt this line so he can claim that acquiescence to talks and a negotiated resolution amounts, more or less, to seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. Still, in arguing for such a rosy outlook, al-Jolani occasionally contorts himself into weird positions. For example, he claims that the regime controls only 20 percent of Syrian territory, which is arguably true – but only if you exclude the country’s central Badiyyah wasteland, ISIS territory, and areas held by the Kurdish PYD/YPG. By that sort of reckoning, I’d guess that mixed rebels and non-ISIS jihadists probably don’t hold much more than 20 percent of the country themselves.

ISIS as a Second-Order Threat

While al-Jolani doesn’t seem to be inching towards a reconciliation with ISIS, he also makes it clear that fighting ISIS is not an urgent priority for Nusrah and that he’s personally uninterested in capturing Syrian public support by claiming to fight ISIS. When he discusses the northern Aleppo front, for example, he says that even before Nusrah withdrew south over concerns about the legitimacy of collaborating with Turkey and the international Coalition, Nusrah was not fighting ISIS or manning the front lines against the group. And in later discussing al-Qaeda’s historic victories and vanguard role, he claims both Afghanistan and Iraq as victories for al-Qaeda and defeats for America – somewhat odd considering that ISIS ate up al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Iraqi jihad has turned out to be, realistically, a total mess.

Combative Questioning

I think I’m still in shock from seeing the head of a Jabhat al-Nusrah affiliate subject himself to open and occasionally challenging questioning. Through the conference, these journalists and activists interrupt or push back on al-Jolani in a way that is very different from some of the staged “interviews” Nusrah has released previously.

Hadi al-Abdullah stands out for putting al-Jolani in a genuinely difficult spot in several instances. Take, for example, al-Abdullah’s question about Nusrah arresting FSA commanders, which prompted al-Jolani’s controversial denial that there’s such a thing as the “Free Syrian Army.” (I’m less exercised about this than some for reasons I’ve tweeted about previously.) Orient’s al-Feisal follows up with a question about Nusrah’s Dar al-Qada judiciary, which prompts al-Abdullah to offer a pretty real interjection:

Al-Feisal, Orient News: “A question from the street: If someone has a grievance about Jabhat al-Nusrah or about a detainee or something like that, where should he go?”

Al-Jolani: “He can go to the branches of Dar al-Qada, which are for the public. And there’s an office to receive complaints…”

Hadi al-Abdullah, interrupting: “Sheikh, Dar al-Qada, in one way or another, belong to Jabhat al-Nusrah. When someone goes [to Dar al-Qada], Nusrah becomes both the opposing party and the judge.”

Al-Jolani: “Jabhat al-Nusrah supports Dar al-Qada, but its judiciary is entirely independent. We provide it with support, we sponsor it, but its judiciary is totally independent. And those working in it, more than 80 percent of them, or about 80 percent, are independent. They don’t have any link to Jabhat al-Nusrah or anything like that…”

49:15-50:07

So, first of all, al-Abdullah is right. With the seeming exception of Hreitan (Aleppo), Dar al-Qada is basically a Jabhat al-Nusrah project that is not seen as effectively independent. But by challenging al-Jolani like this, al-Abdullah is calling into question the core of Nusrah’s governing program in northern Syria, of which Dar al-Qada is right at the heart. And he’s doing it to al-Jolani’s face, it’s bonkers.

The Al-Qaeda Affiliation

Short version, Jabhat al-Nusrah is not going to break its link with al-Qaeda. Al-Jolani doesn’t even promise to split with al-Qaeda if Syria’s jihadist or mujahideen factions join together to form a purely Islamic state – he says Jabhat al-Nusrah will be among the first soldiers of that state, but I don’t think that even implies Jabhat al-Nusrah will dissolve itself. He also continues to distance Nusrah from terrorist attacks abroad in only the most narrow terms. He says al-Qaeda has other people who handle those things, but Jabhat al-Nusrah just fights in Syria – for now.

Al-Jolani: “At this time, Jabhat al-Nusrah isn’t concerned with anything but fighting Bashar al-Assad and Hizbullah, who are hurting the people of Syria. Al-Qaeda has many roles that are divided; not everyone has the same role. Maybe al-Qaeda has people who fight America or work in Europe, but our mission is just…” (interrupted)

52:55-53:16

Top Jabhat al-Nusrah shar'i attacks Jeish al-Islam, highlights broader jihadist anxieties

Below we see Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusrah’s top shari’ah official Sami al-Oreidi issue an unusually direct attack on top leadership in Jeish al-Islam, the most powerful rebel faction in Damascus’s East Ghouta suburbs. Al-Oreidi’s tweets (translated below) make clear that members of Nusrah’s top leadership share and endorse hardline jihadists’ hostility to Jeish al-Islam and its leader, Zahran Alloush. They also speak to broader anxieties among Syria’s jihadists as they attempt to coexist, often uncomfortably, with other political and ideological trends within the Syrian opposition.

Al-Oreidi is apparently annoyed over comments from Jeish al-Islam leader and religious figure Sheikh Sami (Abu Abdurrahman) Ka’ka’ criticizing Jabhat al-Nusrah for shelling Damascus city after an aborted Russian-brokered ceasefire that would have allowed relief into the besieged East Ghouta suburbs. (I’ve been unable to find Ka’ka’s original comments.) Al-Oreidi reproaches Jeish al-Islam for its own overreach and, somewhat more dramatically, endorses premiere Salafi-jihadist theorist Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s comparison between the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the “Alalish” – Zahran Alloush’s supporters, or Jeish al-Islam.

Al-Oreidi’s comments are in one sense a product of personality clashes and local, Damascus-area politics. Jihadists have long been hostile to Jeish al-Islam and Alloush personally; in turn, Jeish al-Islam and Alloush have had a reputation for heavy-handedness in how they dealt with local political and military rivals. Recently tensions in East Ghouta have spiked amid jostling over control of smuggling tunnels into East Ghouta and allegations that Jeish al-Islam was behind the assassination of a local jihadist cleric and judge.

These disputes have prompted jihadists outside the Ghouta, many of whom view Alloush as an enemy-in-waiting, to weigh in. A series of leaked video and audio recordings of Jeish al-Islam leaders allegedly plotting assassinations is actually what prompted al-Maqdisi – who has controversially attacked Alloush before – to compare ISIS and the “Alalish.” Now we have apparent evidence that Jabhat al-Nusrah’s top religious official is sympathetic to al-Maqdisi’s position on Jeish al-Islam and Zahran Alloush, which seems to promise new waves of intra-rebel violence.

Al-Oreidi’s reference to “Bosnia,” though, shows that his mind is also on broader rebel-jihadist dynamics. Al-Oreidi’s allusion to his remarks to now-deceased Ahrar al-Sham leader Hassan Abboud (Abu Abdullah al-Hamawi) refers to their sharp back-and-forth over the “Revolutionary Covenant” that was announced in May 2014. “They say, ‘We don’t want the Iraqi tragedy to repeat itself,’” wrote al-Oreidi at the time, “but they are heading towards a new Bosnian tragedy, on Syrian soil. Save yourselves, save yourselves from the whirlpool of the past.” (For more on al-Oreidi and Abboud’s argument, see my June 2014 article on Syrian factions’ “shar’is.”)

The Revolutionary Covenant was framed in uncomfortably nationalist, non-religious terms for al-Oreidi, hence his evocation of Bosnia’s Dayton Accords. The 1995 Dayton agreement is a recurring bugbear for jihadists, who view its requirement that all foreign fighters withdraw from Bosnia (Annex 1A, Article III) as a nationalist betrayal of the jihadist foreign fighters who had sacrificed for their Muslim brothers. (Al-Oreidi is himself a foreign fighter of Palestinian-Jordanian origin.)

Jihadists fear a Dayton-style settlement in which Syria’s nationalist – or not-transnationalist, at least – rebels compromise on the jihadists’ goal of a purely Islamic state and turn on the jihadists themselves, many of whom would become stateless fugitives. In that sense, jihadists have adopted Zahran Alloush as a sort of hate object in part because he symbolizes many of jihadists’ fears and suspicions about the revolutionary context around them. He is, they think, exactly the sort of Syrian nationalist who would sell them out.

This is the sort of angst that will only intensify as regional and international actors push for a political settlement. When the next round of rebel-jihadist violence breaks out, it will likely have a local spark, but these arguments and apprehensions about the character of the Syrian state mean the stakes will be much bigger.

Translation follows. (Note: To the extent possible, I’ve maintained the odd, haiku-ish way al-Oreidi splits his individual tweets between multiple lines.)

#Truth_in_a_Tweet

When [ISIS spokesperson Abu Muhammad] al-Adnani spoke, we saw a thousand pens respond.

But when [Jeish al-Islam commander Zahran] Alloush and [top Jeish al-Islam religious official and judge Samir “Abu Abdurrahman”] Ka’ka’ slander the mujahideen,

Then we don’t hear a whisper.

It’s

#The_Brotherhood_of_No_Manhaj

#حقيقة_في_تغريدة لمّا تكلم العدناني رأينا ألف قلم يرد عليه ولما تكلم علوش وكعكة بالطعن بالمجاهدين لم نسمع لهم همسا إنها #أخوة_اللامنهج

— سامي بن محمود (@sami_mahmod2) November 28, 2015

The disastrousness of what Alloush and Ka’ka’ say

Is no less than that of al-Adnani.

What is the matter with you? How do you judge? [Quran 10:35]

Our Sheikh al-Maqdisi spoke the truth when he compared the Da’adish [derog., ISIS members] with the Alalish [derog., Alloush/Jeish al-Islam supporters].

إن الطامات الواردة في كلام علوش وكعكة لاتقل عن طامات العدناني ما لكم كيف تحكمون صدق شيخنا المقدسي لما كان يقرن بين #الدعاديش و #العلاليش

— سامي بن محمود (@sami_mahmod2) November 28, 2015

1

Ka’ka’ resembled al-Adnani

When he described Jabhat al-Nusrah’s shelling of Damascus after their supposed truce as “foolishness”

Because the regime targeted Jeish al-Islam positions afterwards.

1 كعكة شابه العدناني إذ وصف استهداف جبهة النصرة لدمشق بالقذائف بعد #هدنتهم المزعومة بالحماقة لأن النظام استهدف مواقع جيش الاسلام بعدها

— سامي بن محمود (@sami_mahmod2) November 28, 2015

2

What would he say about what [Jeish al-Islam] did – foolishness, according to Ka’ka’ and his sheikh Alloush – when they shelled Damascus.

And after that, the Duma massacre happened. Is that jihad?

What is the matter with you? How do you judge?

2 ماذا يقول عن فعلهم #حماقتهم على مذهب كعكة وشيخه علوش لما استهدفوا دمشق بالقذائف ووقعت بعدها مجزرة دوما هل هو جهاد مالكم كيف تحكمون

— سامي بن محمود (@sami_mahmod2) November 28, 2015

I said it before to [now-deceased Ahrar al-Sham head] Abu Abdullah al-Hamawi – may God have mercy on him: You say you don’t want [Syria] to be another Iraq. We say that we don’t want it to be another Bosnia.

God, may You guide us toward Your religion and put our Islamic nation on Your path.

قلتها قديما لأبي عبد الله الحموي -رحمه الله- تقولون لا تريدونها عراقا أخرى وكذلك نقول لا نريدها بوسنة أخرى اللهم أحينا لدينك وأمتنا في سبيلك

— سامي بن محمود (@sami_mahmod2) November 28, 2015

Catching Up: Two Jihadology Pieces and Middle East Week

Apologies, super-behind in updating this blog! (Also, following me on Twitter is a much better way to stay up-to-date on anything I'm writing.)Two recent Jihadology guest pieces:

• "Recriminations on Social Media Shed Light on Jabhat al-Nusrah's Inner Workings": Ex-Nusrah shari'ah official Sultan al-Atwi returned from social media dormancy with a broadside against Nusrah, and specifically its Eastern leadership. The resulting back-and-forth shows something both about how Nusrah functions and how it's engaged major, divisive programmatic issues. Features analysis plus translations of al-Atwi's open letter and the key Nusrah responses.
• "Muhammad al-Amin on Ahrar al-Sham's Evolving Relationship with Jabhat al-Nusrah and Global Jihadism": Relative insider Sheikh Muhammad al-Amin writes about both how close Ahrar al-Sham was to Jabhat al-Nusrah and how they subsequently diverged ideologically. Features analysis and translation of al-Amin's original Facebook post.

Also, tune into my recent appearance on the Middle East Week podcast, on which I discuss the above two pieces and how Nusrah has evolved more broadly over the course of 2014.

Jeish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar Shar'i: "I bring you good news..."

Below we see Jeish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar’s top shar’i “Mu’tasim Billah al-Madani” rebut the arguments of defected shar’i “Abu Azzam al-Najdi.” Mu’tasim Billah’s response is itself enlightening, insofar as it provides a window into how jihadists understand intra-rebel dynamics and their own legitimacy.

Since his defection to ISIS, former Jeish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar shar’i Abu Azzam has continued to appeal to other jihadists to join him in what he argues is ISIS’s successful, coherent experiment of Islamic governance. He has emphasized ISIS’s most visible achievements, e.g., the implementation of the hudoud, a set of Islamic criminal punishments. He has also denigrated the dysfunction of rebel-held areas and the fact that “sincere” – that is, jihadist – fighters are sent to the fronts to be chewed up while crooks and agents of the West plot to undermine them.

Mu’tasim Billah answers by pointing to jihadists’ preferred model of Islamic law being implemented across northern Syria. In sharp contrast with the alarm of many inside and outside Syria over ISIS’s videotaped stoning of an allegedly adulterous woman in eastern Hama earlier this week, Mu’tasim Billah’s first example of God’s will being done is a stoning in Saraqeb (Idlib). He also provides a sort of map of northern jihadist areas of control, including many areas now administered by the Jabhat al-Nusrah-linked Dar al-Qadaa (Judiciary).

All of these examples flag a shift within Syria’s jihadist camp, one that seems driven by an evolving Jabhat al-Nusrah (also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant). Nusrah had previously adhered to a sort of jihadist minimalism, at least temporarily declining to implement harsh social codes like the hudoud and backing consensual structures that met a minimum level of Islamic legitimacy, such as the Aleppo Shari’ah Commission. Now, in a seeming attempt to shore up its own credibility and to retain the loyalty of jihadists who might otherwise defect to ISIS, Nusrah has been behaving more and more like circa-2013 ISIS. Nusrah is now engaging some less-reputable nationalist brigades with the same sort of sharp-elbows approach ISIS used in summer and fall of last year. It’s also begun to adopt a similar fast-forward approach to law and governance that is, arguably, religiously unsound in wartime.

Despite warnings from jihadist reformers like Nusrah’s Abu Mariyah al-Qahtani about the need for jihadist groups to purge “ghulaat” (extremists) from their ranks, Nusrah and other groups seem to have responded to ISIS’s ideological threat by becoming more like ISIS – catering to their own most extreme members by competing to implement Islamic rule here and now. That’s why we see Mu’tasim Billah mustering these examples when arguing with Abu Azzam; in an intra-jihadist argument, stonings are a badge of pride.

(Also of note: That the areas Mu’tasim Billah says are either under jihadist control or that of jihadists’ nationalist rebel frenemies like Jamal Ma’rouf are so discombobulated geographically is just further evidence of what a patchwork things are in the rebel north.)

Translation follows:

I bring you good news…

The hudoud (Islamic criminal punishments) have begun to be implemented. The brothers in Saraqeb (Idlib) carried out a sentence of death by stoning…

@aboazaam122 أبشرك .. أن الحدود بدأت تقام ، فالإخوة في سراقب أقاموا حد الرجم ..

— المعتصم بالله (@Mo3tasimbeallah) October 24, 2014

You know that in the sincere brothers’ areas, they’re the ones in control. The Dar al-Qadaa (Judiciary) in Hreitan (Aleppo) and the surrounding area is what governs. And in Saraqeb, Sarmin, Sarmada, Harem, Salqin (all western Idlib), the coast (Lattakia) and Khan Sheikhoun (southern Idlib), the ones in control are our brothers.

@aboazaam122 تعرف أنه في مناطق الإخوة الصادقين هم المسيطرين فدار القضاء في حريتان وما حولها هي الحاكمة وفي سراقب وسرمين وسرمداوحارم وسليقين

— المعتصم بالله (@Mo3tasimbeallah) October 24, 2014

@aboazaam122 والساحل وخان شيخون المسيطر فيها الاخوة

— المعتصم بالله (@Mo3tasimbeallah) October 24, 2014

[Liwa Shuhada Badr’s Khalid] Hayani doesn’t reach beyond [Aleppo neighborhood] Beni Zeid, [the Syrian Revolutionary Front’s Jamal] Ma’rouf is in Jebel al-Zawiyah (Idlib), and [Harakat] Hazm are in their areas…

@aboazaam122 والحياني لا يتحاوز بني زيد ، ومعروف في جبل الزاوية وحزم في مناطقهم ،،

— المعتصم بالله (@Mo3tasimbeallah) October 24, 2014

Abu Azzam al-Najdi: "No one has a successful plan to implement God’s law except the Islamic State."

Below we see Jeish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA) shar’i “Abu Azzam al-Najdi’s” frank rationale for leaving JMA to join the Islamic State (IS / ISIS). Jeish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar is a mostly foreign fighter battalion that has been active in Aleppo. It is best known for its Caucasian (e.g., Chechen) contingent, but it also counts Arabs among its ranks — it recently absorbed the heavily Saudi al-Katibah al-Khadra (the Green Battalion), and Abu Azzam’s nom du guerre indicates that he hails from the Najd (east Saudi Arabia). Abu Azzam had been JMA’s shar’i and, at least in Arabic media, its main fundraising point of contact. Saudi fundraiser and ideologue Abdullah al-Muheisini had recommended as late as April that any would-be foreign fighters should reach out specifically to Abu Azzam.

Abu Azzam defected to ISIS alongside a substantial chunk of al-Katibah al-Khadra, including its commander Omar Seif and at least one of its shar’is. (Seif had apparently just been detained by the Syrian Revolutionaries Front on suspicions, now vindicated, that he was linked to ISIS. Other jihadists intervened to broker his release.)

As can be seen below, there are a number of strains to Abu Azzam’s thinking, or at least what he’s willing to disclose of it. Some of it reads like picking a winner: on the one hand, an endorsement of ISIS’s success in building a functional Islamic state; on the other, disillusionment with the dysfunction of rebel-controlled areas and a clear distrust of non-jihadist rebels. The current U.S./Coalition campaign on ISIS apparently figures into his logic, too, pushing him to advocate jihadist solidarity with ISIS to better resist “the nations of disbelief.”

ISIS and pro-ISIS accounts have been crowing about successive jihadist defections to ISIS, doing everything they can to advertise ISIS’s continuing momentum. When it comes to drawing away foreign fighters, I suspect they’re right – Abu Azzam is not the first to defect to ISIS, and I doubt he’ll be the last.

I’ve been asked a lot about my reason for leaving [Jeish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar] and pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.

I would say, frankly, that no one has a successful plan to implement God’s law except the Islamic State. It has established Islamic courts and implemented the hudoud (Islamic criminal punishments) in its territory. Meanwhile, if we go and look at the other side, we find not only sincere battalions but also – on the same land –  criminal battalions and apostate battalions supported by the military councils that call openly for the establishment of a democratic state. Then we fight on the fronts while they work behind us to carry out their projects and plots… Yes, there are those who work [at that], but they’ll never succeed – although only God knows – because of their division and fragmentation. Even the courts that have been established have seen what they’ve seen because of nepotism and what have you…

You might say that the [Islamic] State has made mistakes. I say that they themselves admit these mistakes, and they work to rectify them and hold accountable the responsible party. They’ve established Islamic courts and implemented the hudoud, so you see nothing here but the rule of Islamic law. Stores close at prayer time, women are modest in the markets, nobody sells cigarettes or anything else.

I say this is not the time for division with the Islamic state. The nations of disbelief have gathered against us, so we must come to [the Islamic State’s] aid. This is not the time for the division of “groups.” Rather, it is the time for solidarity and union.

Below are Abu Azzam’s original tweets:

١- الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على أفضل الخلق نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين.. سألت كثيرا سبب خروجي ومبايعتي للدولة الإسلامية..

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

2- أقول صراحة لا يوجد أحد لديه مشروع ناجح لتطبيق شرع الله إلا في الدولة الإسلامية فقد أقامت المحاكم الإسلامية وطبقت الحدود على أرضها أما لو

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

3- ذهبنا لننظر في الجهة المقابلة لوجدنا على نفس الأرض كتائب صادقة وكتائب مفسدة وكتائب مرتدة مدعومة من المجالس العسكرية التي تدعوا لإقامة

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

4- دولة ديمقراطية صراحة , ثم نحن نقاتل في الجبهات وهم يسعون من خلفنا لإقامة مشاريعهم ومخططاتهم.. نعم هناك من يسعى ولكن لن يستطيعوا والله

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

5- أعلم بسبب تفرقهم وتشرذمهم.. حتى المحاكم التي قامت حصل فيها ماحصل بسبب المحسوبيات وغيرها.. قد تقولون يوجد عند الدولة أخطاء..

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

6- أقول هم أنفسهم يقرون أن عندهم أخطاء وهم يسعون في إصلاحها ومحاسبة المخطأ وقد أقاموا المحاكم الإسلامية وأقيمت الحدود فلا ترى هنا إلا معالم

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

7- تحكيم الشريعة فالمحلات تغلق وقت الصلوات والنساء محتشمات في الأسواق ولا أحد يبيع الدخان في المحلات وغير ذلك.. أقول ليس هذا وقت الخلاف

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

8- مع الدولة الإسلامية فأمم الكفر قد اجتمعت عليها فالواجب مناصرتها.. وليس هذا وقت تفرق الجماعات بل هو وقت الإعتصام والإجتماع..

— ابو عزام النجدي (@aboazaam122) October 21, 2014

Suqour al-Sham commander: "Our land can’t bear a proxy war."

Below is Suqour al-Sham / Islamic Front commander Abu Ammar’s response to impending U.S. intervention in Syria. Unsurprisingly, after America’s stop-and-start support for rebels and recurring rumors that Ahrar al-Sham or the entire Islamic Front would be designated as terrorists, he is not in love with the idea.

One idea worth bearing in mind when evaluating American intervention in Syria is “path dependence,” the idea that your previous action (or inaction) bounds the options currently available to you. Goodwill towards America among Syria’s rebels – while not necessarily exhausted – is a wasting asset, one that has been depleted as the war has dragged on without meaningful American support for rebels. When America was considering action in August and September 2013, the rebels most unfriendly to a U.S. role were substantially less powerful and dug into areas outside regime control. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that America is going to have a much tougher time finding partners now than it would have last year.

For three years, the Syrian people have tasted the al-Assad regime’s artistry at torture, murder and displacement. Thousands of children, women and the elderly have been killed; prisons filled; millions made homeless; and women raped. All this in full view of the world and its [Security] Council, which met time and again to no avail, and which never moved a muscle.

Instead, it acted to designate some of the factions working to end the oppression of this bereaved people as “terrorists,” and it threatened the same for others.

God willing, we’re able to topple the al-Assad regime and repel Da’ish’s [ISIS] aggression without foreign intervention. To aid our people, it’s enough to stop aiding the al-Assad regime and its minions and to pull away its cover, as well as not tightening the screws on the factions working to topple al-Assad.

Our land can’t bear a proxy war. It can't bear more settling of scores and more experiments on our wounded people.

Ahrar al-Sham's Abu Yazan: "It’s our country and our revolution."

Below is a translation of Ahrar al-Sham shar’i-commander “Abu Yazan’s” apparent response to Jordanian Salafi-jihadist theorist Eyad Quneibi. Quneibi has attracted sharply critical responses – particularly from prominent Ahrar leadership – for his non-specific warnings against cooperation with Syrian factions that are Western agents and are otherwise tainted. In this 3 September response, we see Abu Yazan rebuke not only (an unnamed) Quneibi, but also ideas of Salafi-jihadist purism more broadly. This is quite striking coming from a leader in Ahrar, which has itself flirted with Salafi-jihadism but now may have reverted to a more nationalist brand of (still hardline) Salafism.

O enlightened one,

We have a saying in al-Sham (Syria): “If someone won’t come, you have to go with him.”¹ The One Most High said, “And when they meet those who believe, they say, ‘We believe.’ But when they are left to their devils, they say, ‘Truly, we are with you; we were only jesting.’” As for presenting this like it’s a matter of defending [Jabhat] al-Nusra, dear brother, we and al-Nusra are in the same boat, and it’s called “the Syrian jihad.” When people like you – may God bless you – and like al-Maqdisi in his last publications echo the culture of takhwin (accusations of treason), whisper campaigns and casting aspersions on any faction that isn’t Salafi-jihadist with obtuse, airy turns of phrase, then al-Nusra is pushed towards becoming a movement of societal isolation, and we fear it might evolve into a movement of societal rejection. So we say to you, Fear God for the sake of the battlefield. The battlefield can’t sustain this. Believe me, we care for al-Nusra more – God willing – than you and al-Maqdisi, and the days to come will show this. And even before that, we care more for the Syrian battlefield, because it’s our country and our revolution. (Of course, I assume our dear brother al-Muheisini would say this is ‘Sykes-Picot’  .) So know, my brothers from all factions – from Hazm to al-Nusra – yes, I was Salafi-jihadist, and I was imprisoned in the regime’s jails for it. Today, I ask for God’s forgiveness and repent to Him, and I apologize to our people for involving them in Quixotic battles of which they have no need. I apologize for being apart from you for even a day, as when I exited my intellectual prison and mingled with you and with your hearts, I said that the Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke true when he said, “If the people of al-Sham are corrupted, then there is no good in you.” I apologize to you, and God willing, the days to come will be better than those past – for our revolution and for our Islam.

And to those who reproach me for being harsh in my speech, I say:

“He was harsh, and so was reproached. Let he who would be wise sometimes be harsh and sometimes be merciful.”

And I ask God for forgiveness if I’ve erred, and may God reward you for your advice.

Also, for anyone who missed my June Foreign Policy article on Syrian rebel shar’is (jurists), here it is.

1. The saying, to my knowledge, basically means that if someone can’t be made to do/understand something, you have to walk him through it yourself.

King Bashar

Here’s something I wrote earlier today. Forgive me if it’s a little too inside. The Gause-Yom piece I discuss, by the way, comes highly recommended.

(Also, I forgot to post my Foreign Policy article earlier, so please read that if you haven’t.)

King Bashar: What the Survival of the Arab Monarchs Tells Us About the Assad Regime

The staying power of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has left many perplexed. Since 2011’s wave of Arab revolution, Assad has outlasted his contemporaries among the region’s republican autocrats. President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen are all (basically) finished.

The Arab monarchs, on the other hand, have persisted. From Morocco to Saudi Arabia to Oman, the Arab world’s monarchies weathered unrest and emerged whole. Even Bahrain, which faced the monarchies’ most regime-threatening uprising, is intact.

It’s a phenomenon of survival for which Sean L. Yom and F. Gregory Gause III offer a compelling logic in their Journal of Democracy article “Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchs Hang On.” They cast that survival in strategic terms – and, reading the article this week, I couldn’t help but think that those terms also describe the Assad regime.

It may make sense, then, to think of Syria not as one of the last Arab republics standing, but rather as one of a host of Arab monarchies that refuse to die. The framework put forward by Yom and Gause might help explain how Assad has lasted so long – and why he could last substantially longer.

The central conceit of Yom and Gause’s article is a metric for longevity: three strategic factors for regime survival, of which each Arab monarchy possesses at least two. They dismiss explanations for monarchic survival based on the monarchies’ unique cultural legitimacy or their ability to remain above the political fray. Rather, the Arab kings, sultans, and emirs have survived by means of: 1) cross-cutting coalitions; 2) hydrocarbon rents; and 3) foreign patronage.

None of these factors are specific to monarchies, which is sort of the point – the Arab monarchies, after all, are basically just variations on autocracy. The same formula which explains the survival of Al Khalifa in Bahrain can explain the fall of Mubarak in Egypt. The Bahraini royals lacked a broad-based coalition of domestic support but had moderate hydrocarbon wealth and extreme wealth by association, as Saudi Arabia made clear that it would support the Bahraini monarchy to the hilt. In Egypt, by contrast, the decay of Egypt’s economy had hollowed out Mubarak’s popular base. Without real resource wealth to use and distribute, U.S. and Gulf support wasn’t enough to save the Egyptian president.

The Assad regime actually satisfies Yom and Gause’s definition of a monarchy – “a regime led by a hereditary sovereign who may hold varying degrees of power” – in all but name. In practice, the regime functions as an absolute monarchy, with no meaningful checks on the Assad executive. The iconography of the Assad regime – including the omnipresent portraits of Assad in shops, offices, and homes – hardly differs from the personalization of other Arab monarchies. Like them, Assad situates himself above the political fray. The state media makes clear that he is not a party to Syria’s national dialogue; rather, he only offers “notes and guidance” to “enrich” the process.

What’s most relevant, though, is that the Syrian state arguably possesses two and a half of Yom and Gause’s keys to monarchic survival. The regime isn’t resource-rich, but it’s being backstopped financially by foreign allies including Russia and Iran. So, like Bahrain, it enjoys hydrocarbon wealth indirectly – this is in addition to those countries’ apparently unlimited diplomatic and military support. Moreover, the regime’s core “cross-cutting coalition” of religious minorities and members of Syria’s Sunni majority alarmed by the prospects of Islamist rule may have frayed somewhat but seems essentially sound.

Yom and Gause’s three independent variables produce only one real dependent variable: a fall / not-fall binary. The Syrian regime’s points of commonality with the Arab monarchies help explain why it has survived until now. Moreover, given that none of these inputs are seriously threatened – Russia and Iran, for example, seem uninterested in making a trade for Assad’s head – the prospects for regime collapse according to the Yom-Gause rubric are bleak.

Of course, there are key differences between these cases. For all its bleating about Iranian conspiracy, Bahrain didn’t face the array of motivated enemies now funding and arming Syria’s opposition revolutionaries. Still, Assad’s domestic and international support give him cover for the sort of ruthless counterinsurgent campaign that could very possibly restore his control over the country.

Moreover, another point should worry those anxious to see Assad fall. As Yom and Gause note, “most of the monarchies in the Arab world today confronted social conflict early in the postcolonial era and thus rallied the coalitional pillars for their royal autocracies to survive.” The survival of this test is what separated the wheat of today’s royals from the chaff murdered by Nasserists in the streets of Baghdad.

If Assad survives, this war could be another Hama: a deadly threat to the regime that ultimately leaves it stronger. It seems that the evolution of Syria’s armed opposition towards Islamist militancy has only pushed Syria’s minorities and pro-regime Sunnis closer to the state. If the Syrian regime lasts for the next few years, then, it could conceivably have solidified a coalition that would allow it to last for decades more.

At that point – all nomenclature aside – it would be difficult to deny Al Assad its place next to Al Saud and Al Thani among the Arab world’s enduring monarchies.

Update: Weirdly, I forgot Qaddafi in Libya. So yes, he is also a republican autocrat who fell.

Al Jazeera Arabic: Reporter Ahmed Zeidan Tours 'Ateiba with Jabhat al-Nusra

In the above report, originally aired March 27 on Al Jazeera Arabic, we can see an example of the mainstreaming of Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN) in regional media.

The report is titled (in Arabic) “Battles Between the Regime and Free Syrian Armies in al-Ghouta al-Sharqiya Outside Damascus.” As you can see from the video and the below translation, however, in this case Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces seem to have been subsumed by a JAN command.  The report, including Jazeera reporter Ahmed Zeidan apparently being walked through the town by JAN fighters and a brief interview with a JAN spokesman, arguably shows a normalizing of JAN’s role within the Syrian revolution in pan-Arab media – or, at the least, Al Jazeera.

On an unrelated note, you can see from the end of the report that Jazeera is putting a strong emphasis on the regime’s (as yet unconfirmed) use of chemical weapons.

Translation

Military reinforcements sent by Jabhat al-Nusra to the ’Ateiba area in al-Ghouta al-Sharqiya (East Ghouta), where the regime was able to cut off revolutionaries’ route to northern and southern areas several days ago. Al-Nusra’s fighters deployed across the front lines after they managed to expel the regime’s army from several buildings within the town, which drove Free Syrian Army forces to turn over control of the operations room to Jabhat al-Nusra.

Shells and bullets everywhere, including the destruction of a regime tank. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime’s army issues threats Jabhat al-Nusra, meanwhile, issues threats to the regime.

“Abu Hommam,” official spokesman of Jabhat al-Nusra in al-Ghouta: “Assad’s gangs approached from a number of directions in a desperate, failed attempt to occupy the town of ’Ateiba in order to impose a choking siege on the region. With the aid of God Most High, this invading force was repelled. A large quantity of equipment [lit. machines] and ‘Shelka’ vehicles Shilkas were destroyed; [the force] suffered grave losses of life among its soldiers, and, with the aid of God Most High, high-ranking officers were killed.”

Destruction is everywhere in the town of ’Ateiba, which is now entirely deserted. Here, a child’s swing near where a shell struck. Here, a kitchen abandoned by its owner amid the shelling around it. It seems from this house that its family fled in the night. Even chickens were not spared from the bombing.

This young man from ’Ateiba become a revolutionary and a fighter after his house, like others, was destroyed. “These houses, we invested in them with our blood all these years, all with the blessings of God, praise be to Him. What I’d like to say to the Arab nation, to this Arab Summit, is just that we want to stop this blood[shed] and killing that’s happening now in Syria.”

On the front lines, what worries some revolutionaries is the regime’s use of chemical weapons. In the rear, though, what worries civilians is the regime’s use of these heavy weapons – in addition to the use of chemical weapons.

Ahmed Zeidan, Al Jazeera, al-’Ateiba, al-Ghouta al-Sharqiya.

Translation Notes

First, I just don’t have time to put subtitles on this one. Sorry – hope everyone can follow along with the text.

I couldn’t find the vehicle make to which the JAN member refers. I guess it sounds like “Shellka” or “Chelka”? If someone chimes in with a correction, I’ll fix it.

Update: Woof, sorry, misheard one of the sentences above. The edit should be visible.

Update 2: So, this is the Shilka. Thanks to Mike and @ElSaltador for their help!