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

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.