A 16-year-old German schoolgirlwho ran away from home to join the Islamic State has been captured alongside members of the terror group’s all-female police force – some of whom were wearing suicide vests, like reported by telegraph.co.uk.

It is a shocking scenario, particularly given the fact that Linda Wenzel, who grew up near Dresden, was just a normal European schoolgirl. Her decision to run away and join the terror group seems to have come from the fact that she fell in love with a Muslim man she met online, who persuaded her to join him in Syria.

Her story is, unfortunately, a common one. In 2015, a report found more than 50 young British women had been lured to join the Islamic State – becoming ‘jihadi brides’ – along with 500 women from other Western countries.

With its ascendancy in Syria, the Islamic Republic is seeking to consolidate its position against Israel and the US

Eleven years have gone by since the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, which began with the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. It ended 34 days later with a trumpet blast from Hezbollah, which had lost approximately 700 of its troops, like reported by toi.com.

But those losses were a small thing in light of the deaths of 164 Israelis, which constituted part of “the God-given victory” — at least according to the enormous billboards that were placed throughout Lebanon to establish the narrative that many people there, and throughout the Middle East, believed.

Those were the glory days of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who portrayed himself as having faced down the strongest army in the region, striking the State of Israel. Nasrallah was the most admired Arab leader at the time, both within Lebanon and outside, and among Sunnis and Shi’ites alike.

He remains one of the most prominent leaders in the Middle East, but his status among the various Arab countries has declined drastically. Many people, including in Lebanon (except for his Shi’ite supporters), see Nasrallah as a puppet of Iran, rushing to obey the orders of his masters in Tehran. The Arab television networks that were so quick to embrace him following his “victory” over the Israelis, now excoriate him and accuse him and his associates of nothing less than crimes against humanity.

Nasrallah is the main reason for Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war. While there are quite a few benefits to this, there are disadvantages as well.

After the Islamic State terror group’s defeat in Iraq and the American military’s admission that it is operating in Raqqa, IS’s capital in Syria, Nasrallah has become a critically important part of the victors’ camp, and as such, he gets a share of the spoils.

Although Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army have retaken large parts of Syria (with help from the Russians), the former is in no hurry to bring its troops back to Lebanon. This has broad significance. Hezbollah’s transitory military positions throughout Syria have become temporary, and the temporary outposts are in the process of becoming permanent, with soldiers’ barracks, prefabricated structures, and everything that indicates an established position or a transition to a permanent presence on the ground.

Nasrallah and his organization are turning Syria into Hezbollah’s backyard as part of Iran’s campaign to create a Shi’ite crescent between Tehran and the Mediterranean Sea. For Israel, this means that Hezbollah, together with Iran, will be able to set up a local Shi’ite army in Syria or on the Syrian Golan Heights — an army that will operate against Israeli targets without making Lebanon pay the price.

Even as decision-makers in Israel proclaim a policy that “Lebanon will pay” for any escalation by Hezbollah, the organization itself could try to draw the fire away from Lebanon and use Syria as the preparation ground for its terror attacks, allowing Hezbollah to have it both ways. The advantages do not end there, though: Hezbollah will have access to, and acquire ownership of, advanced weapons and intelligence formerly in the possession of the Syrian army. It will gain technological equipment, weapons that “violate the balance of power,” and pretty much everything else.

Still, belonging to the winning camp carries with it a heavy, and even a very heavy, price. This has to do not only with the loss of public popularity, but also with the fact that its public, the Shi’ites, must pay so dearly in blood for the saving of Assad. The number of fallen Hezbollah troops is estimated at 1,800 to 2,000. A Syrian journalist published photographs this week of two Lebanese teenagers, about 15 years old, who were killed in battle in Syria as they fought in Hezbollah’s ranks. Approximately 6,000 Hezbollah troops have been wounded.

In other words, Hezbollah’s fighting force has been severely compromised. An army that has lost approximately one-third of its combat troops and must provide financial assistance to its wounded and the families of its fallen naturally loses enormous sums of money in addition to support. It will take Hezbollah years to recover from the injuries it suffered in the battles in Syria, and at the moment it is likely not all that eager for an escalation with Israel.

An escalation with Israel is not a matter of the highest priority for Hezbollah. For now, its leaders view the struggle of the Shi’ite-Russian axis against the Sunnis in the Middle East and mainly against the United States and its allies as the critical fight.

Hezbollah realizes that it is just one more militia working in the Iranians’ service in the real war over the division of areas of influence belonging to what is left of Syria. The battle, or race, is against the Americans, not against Israel; this may be the reason why Hezbollah has established itself in Syria.

Two completely separate fronts have been operating in the Syrian sector for approximately two years now. One belongs to the Syrian army in the western part of the country, together with its allies from Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah. The focus there was on the “ordinary” Syrian opposition — in other words, from the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) to more moderate groups.

The second front is in the eastern part of the country under the leadership of the US and its allies against IS. The Assad regime’s deployment in the western part of Syria and along the route connecting Damascus and Homs with the coastline freed up resources and energy to deal with the takeover by the US’ allies of territories in the eastern portion. The Americans, for their part, are helping various Arab tribes in the southeast who are organized in the Free Syrian Army near the Deir ez-Zor region, and the Kurds and other Arab troops organized under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The latter groups, who are the ones leading the battle in Raqqa together with the US special forces there, have succeeded in encircling IS’s capital. But the Americans already know what the catch is: By fighting against Islamic State, they are enabling the axis of Russia, Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah to gain strength, establish their control, and even have the leisure to fight the US and the moderate Syrian opposition for territory that IS will be giving up in the future.

The American military effort, for all practical purposes, is paving the way for the Iranians to take control over the area with close Russian assistance. This is why the Iranians are trying to move Shi’ite militias into this area of Syria — the southeastern portion — to prepare for a possible confrontation with the Free Syrian Army.

Iran is already treating Syria like its 15th province (the 14th being Bahrain). It keeps about 15,000 Shi’ite troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan there. Approximately 8,000 combat soldiers of Hezbollah and several hundred military advisors from the Revolutionary Guards are also deployed in Syria.

Iran recently received Assad’s consent, in principle, to its request to build a seaport of its own on the coast, like the seaport that the Russians maintain there. The port is to be Iranian in every way, with no possibility for the Syrians to operate.

The Iranians are currently invested in real-estate projects in Syria as well as in the phosphates industry and communications networks, and are expected to make a great deal of money from Syria’s reconstruction.

They have also been running Shi’ite militias close to the border with Jordan and Israel, on the Syrian Golan Heights, and in the Daraa district, though not on a massive scale. This is not because they wanted it this way, but mainly because the current focus, as stated, is on competing with the Americans rather than with Israel. Paradoxically, the cease-fire that went into effect last week on the Syrian Golan Heights and in Daraa and As-Suwayda will help the Shi’ite axis far more than its opponents.

The Turkish authorities’ fight against real and imagined enemies in the Gülen movement has now reached Azerbaijan and Georgia

The European Parliament has passed a resolution expressing “serious concern” on the case of the Azerbaijani investigative journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, who was abducted from Tbilisi late May, only to appear before a court in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku some days later, like reported by opendemocracy.net. But the spotlight has yet to fall on another case in Georgia: Mustafa Emre Çabuk, a Turkish schoolteacher, still sits in Gldani prison in the Georgian capital, where an uncertain fate awaits him.

Ankara has repeatedly accused Çabuk of “supporting terrorism” in reference to his alleged links with the Hizmet movement associated with Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish Muslim preacher and philanthropist based in the US. Çabuk, who has lived in Georgia for 15 years, is now at imminent risk of extradition to Turkey where, judging by similar cases, he is at risk of being tortured.

Çabuk first came to Georgia in 2002 to work as a physics teacher at the Refaiddin Şahin Friendship School in Batumi, which was shut down earlier this year by Georgia’s National Center for Education Quality Enhancement (NCEQE). The Georgian authorities’ decision came shortly after Turkish officials criticised the Gülen-run school, which teaches five to 12-year olds, calling it an institution “serving a terrorist group.”

The abduction of Mukhtarli shattered Georgia’s image as a safe haven for dissidents from neighbouring countries, and prompted many Georgians to consider the extent of oil-rich Azerbaijan’s political clout. With Turkey sliding ever further into authoritarianism, is there another headache on the horizon for the Georgian authorities?

The price of a good education

At the order of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkish officials and diplomats have made appeals worldwide calling on governments to close down Gülen schools abroad. The Turkish government insists that this network of schools poses a national security threat, and has classified the Gülen network as a terrorist group.

FETÖ, as the Turkish government calls the Gülen movement’s “terrorist network”, is accused of plotting last year’s failed coup on 15 July. Calling the events a “a gift from God,” Erdoğan promised that those responsible would “pay a heavy price.” Those who feared the coup would provide a pretext to crack down on all dissident have been proved right. Not only Gülen followers, but Turkish liberals, secular democrats and journalists have been arrested, with many more tortured in detention and fired from their jobs. Over the months following the coup, Turkey has arrested more than 40,000 people and sacked or suspended more than 100,000 in the military, civil service and private sector. Turkish nationals working in Gülen-affiliated schools worldwide now fear repatriation and prefer either to apply for a political asylum in their host country or to try their luck in the EU or USA.

Çabuk has found himself in a similar situation. In 2007, he started work as director of the Niko Nikoladze High School in Kutaisi, western Georgia. From 2012 until 2016, Çabuk served as deputy general director of all Gülen schools in Georgia.

“Under his watch, many students from our school were successful after having participated at different national and international scientific Olympiads,” a teacher from the closed Şahin Friendship School recalls. The teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous over fears of retribution, underlines that the schools’ quality of education improved directly after Çabuk’s appointment. The teacher simply couldn’t believe how “an accomplished educator” such as Çabuk “might be labeled as a terrorist.”

On 24 May, the Georgian authorities launched an extradition procedure against Çabuk at the official request of Turkey. According to information provided by the Turkish prosecutor, Çabuk is wanted for committing a crime as defined by Article 314/2 of Turkey’s Criminal Code: membership of the FETÖ terrorist organisation (recognised as such only by Turkey). Information obtained by openDemocracy shows that he, with the permission of the directors, wanted to sell 60% of shares of the Tbilisi-based Demirel private school to Metropolitan Education and Consultation Services, a company registered in the USA.

The documentation that supposedly incriminates Çabuk mostly describes the activities of the Gülen movement in Turkey. It does not specify why either Çabuk’s role at the school or his deal with the American company on its behalf constitute a link to terrorist activities and organisations. “Precisely for these reasons, we believe that the charges are entirely unsubstantiated and politically motivated,” concludes Tamta Mikeladze, civil and political rights program director at Tbilisi’s Human Rights Education and Monitoring Centre.

Settling scores

Çabuk was detained shortly after Turkish prime minister Binali Yıldırım paid a visit to Tbilisi to meet his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili in May.

Georgia’s Minister of Education Aleksandre Jejelava has publicly denied any official request from the Turkish side to detain Çabuk but instead says they are “doing their best to defend students from ideological pressure.” During the press conference with Yıldırım, Prime Minister Kvirikashvili, recalling last year’s failed coup in Turkey, was quoted by the pro-government daily Sabah as saying that, “we have to remove the main sources of terror here [in Georgia]. We have to fight with these sources in the wider region, then we must develop our economic and business partnerships.”

On 25 May, Tbilisi City Court sentenced Çabuk to three months’ imprisonment, pending extradition. “He’s been in prison for more than a month, and the charge is both scary and ridiculous,” says Çabuk’s wife, Tuğba, who adds she still has faith in Georgia’s commitment to democracy. “Georgia is a country that is at the door of the democratic European Union rather than one where democracy has already seen its end.” She has publicly called for the Georgian government not to bow to pressure from Ankara, and has herself requested protection from the Georgian authorities, fearing reprisals.

The case of Mustafa Çabuk, as well as those of journalists and activists from Azerbaijan, is yet another test for Georgia’s commitment to democratic values. Mikeladze adds that due to political loyalty to neighbouring states, the Georgian government “risks denying the protection of fundamental human rights to foreign citizens desperately in need of them, which in turn harms building a democratic state based on the same principles here at home.”

This kind of political bargaining is common between Turkey and South Caucasus states. After all, Gülen schools were welcomed throughout the region from the early 1990s. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, Georgia became the first country that welcomed representatives of Gülen’s movement, though the Azerbaijani city of Nakhchivan was the first place outside Turkey to host a Gülen-affiliated school. Until the purge, some 13 Gülen-funded schools and the now nationalised Qafqaz University functioned in Azerbaijan. The movement’s schools now operate in 160 countries worldwide.

After Turkey’s AKP government restored its power following last year’s coup, Ankara initiated a purge against all Gülen followers in the Caucasus and Central Asia. As a strongly authoritarian state and long-time ally of Turkey, Azerbaijan was only too eager to oblige — Baku’s solution was to nationalise the schools. The attitude of the Central Asian republics, with whom Turkey has maintained strong economic and political ties since their independence, was far from united. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan pushed back against the Turkish demand to pursue Gülenists. Turkmenistan played ball, launching a massive crackdown against all followers of Gülen in the country, while Uzbekistan never welcomed the Turkish schools in the first place. Tajikistan closed the last of its Gülen schools in 2015, though that could be explained as part of a wider campaign against all Islamic groups in the country.

Pressure points

What power, exactly, does Ankara have over Georgia? As Giorgi Badridze, senior fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS) puts it, Turkey is one of Georgia’s most important strategic partners. “In a world where our largest neighbour, Russia, puts us under constant military and economic pressure, Turkey plays a vital role both politically and economically. This doesn’t mean that Georgia should disregard the rule of law for the sake of good relations, but if Turkey’s official request is found to be lawful and within the framework of bilateral agreements, then it can’t be ignored.”

It seems clear that Ankara has already put enormous pressure on Tbilisi to close Gülenist schools and deport Turks working at them. Azerbaijani journalist Mahir Zeynalov, chief editor of the Globe Post who was deported from Turkey for a tweet critical of Erdoğan in 2014, echoes Badridze’s view. Zeynalov stresses that it’s difficult for Georgia to ignore demands from Turkey, its largest friendly neighbour and the country’s second largest trading partner after the EU. Turkish money has flowed into a series of infrastructure projects in Georgia, and is particularly influential in the western province of Ajara.

The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association has monitored Çabuk’s case and believes that the court ruling for a provisional arrest falls short of the standards established under the Georgian legislation and the European Convention. The prosecutor declared that Çabuk could otherwise flee the country and continue his “criminal activities”, but did not give any grounds for these fears.

“The court’s decision is not well-founded,” says Vakhtang Kvizhinadze, Çabuk’s lawyer, adding that his appeal against it was in vain. The decision was kept in force despite the fact that Çabuk has lived in Georgia for years and has a residency permit. “Mustafa did not evade any of his obligations before the court,” Kvizhinadze says.

According to his wife, when the police came to arrest Çabuk on the morning of 24 May, they informed him that the Georgian authorities had no problem with him, but that his arrest was requested by Turkey. “We didn’t even go to Turkey for 17 months, but now my husband is blamed for terrorist activities and a coup attempt,” sighs Tuğba Çabuk.

Georgian legislation allows the courts to imprison somebody wanted by foreign law enforcement agencies, but only as a last resort and never as a punitive method. Çabuk could have been released on bail after handing over his passport and a cash payment of bail of GEL 10,000 (£3,248). When he tried, the court refused.

“Unless Mustafa can get refugee status or citizenship, then yes, he might be extradited,” underlines Kvizhinadze. “Failing that, Tbilisi could always press Ankara to guarantee that Çabuk’s human rights will be respected in Turkey.”

Sozar Subari, Georgia’s Minister for IDPs, accommodation and refugees, stated on 7 June that Çabuk cannot immediately be deported to Turkey simply upon Ankara’s say so, and that a number of documents would be required before extradition was possible. Meanwhile, Amnesty International has started a campaign in Çabuk’s defence.

Under Article 28 of the Law of Georgia on International Cooperation in Criminal Matters, Georgia has the right to refuse an extradition if the crime concerned has been fully or partially committed on the country’s territory, as was Çabuk’s alleged crime concerning the Demirel school. Article 35 of the Treaty between Georgia and Turkey on mutual legal assistance in civil, trade and criminal matters states much the same.

“I’m not sure how eager the Georgian government is to hand Çabuk over to the Turkish authorities, particularly given how the Mukhtarli scandal damaged Georgia’s international reputation,” says Badridze, who hopes that the court’s final decision will be guided by legal considerations and not by politics.

Déjà vu in Baku

Çabuk’s colleague Taci Şentürk, a manager at the Turkish Istek school in Baku, was detained on 7 June. Once he was able to call his family, Şentürk told his spouse Fatma that he was to be sent to Turkey. He proposed that his family come to the airport to meet for the last time. “The policemen did not let my husband give one last kiss to our kids, nor could our lawyer meet him,” Fatma Şentürk told me, adding that the only reason they were given was the sudden invalidation of Taci’s passport. The Şentürks’ residency permit in Azerbaijan was due to expire on 7 September this year.

There is no official information as to why Taci’s passport was invalidated, despite his having the right of residency in Azerbaijan. The question must now be raised how Taci Şentürk was supposed to have entered Turkey without a valid travel document.

Just 20 minutes before takeoff, Fatma says, a representative of the UN office in Baku arrived and demanded that Taci Şentürk be removed from the plane on the grounds that he and his family were now under the protection of UNHCR’s Baku Office. But after Şentürk was taken off the plane, the representative did not accompany him home. “Police were waiting for him at the airport terminal, and returned him to their organised crime department,” adds Fatma. “Despite my insistence that Taci might be sent to Turkey, the UN delegation couldn’t do anything,” says Fatma Şentürk. Her husband was eventually sent to Turkey on 8 June. Şentürk is now being interrogated in Turkey’s directorate for combatting smuggling and organised crime in Konya.

Fatma Şentürk now wants to leave Azerbaijan as she no longer feels safe there. “Even with the UN protection letter, our safety is not guaranteed,” she adds. “Taci always believed that the Azerbaijanis were our brothers and so would not betray us, but it happened. Even our Azerbaijani lawyer refused to take on the case, saying it was politically-motivated and so might endanger his security too.”

Independent lawyer Samed Rahimli, who will bring Taci Şentürk’s case to the European Court of Human Rights, says that Şentürk’s case is remarkable — he was extradited to Turkey without any legal procedure. “UN protection was completely ignored by the Azerbaijani authorities,” says Rahimli.

Şentürk is not the first Turkish national who was deported from Azerbaijan in this manner. On 6 June, Muharrem Menekşe, a member of the Gülen movement, was sent to Istanbul without any legal grounds. Menekşe had lived in Baku since the early 1990s, where he ran a small business.

Rahimli adds that there was no official charge or formal process from the Turkish authorities in either case: “Ankara just gave the order, and Azerbaijan executed it.” A similar fate befell the Azerbaijani opposition journalist Rauf Mirgadirov, who was deported to Azerbaijan from Turkey, where he lived and worked, in 2014.

“Erdogan and Aliyev have long rode roughshod over the laws because of their own interests,” says Ulvi Hasanli, a board member of the N!DA youth movement. “There may be other cases of which we are unaware.” That Ankara and Baku are so prepared to trade favours shows a convergence of regime interests rather than strictly national ones. But it was not always so. Erdoğan’s deteriorating international image as well as his vow to getting rid of his archenemy Gülen has made Azerbaijan and Turkey even closer allies in fighting dissent.

In Azerbaijan, few people appear to care about Taci Şentürk’s fate. When I approached Baku residents, almost none of them knew of Taci Şentürk. Most were surprised to hear about the deportation of a Turkish national; as Azerbaijanis and Turks share many cultural ties, mistreating a Turkish citizen could be considered shameful by Azerbaijanis.

The ruling on whether Çabuk will receive political asylum in Georgia will be made on Friday — the extradition process has been put on hold while his asylum application is being considered. The ultimate decision on whether he will be deported to Turkey to face (in)justice will be made in a final trial to be held after 24 August, after his three months’ detention comes to an end.

Between 2007 and 2016, Ankara made almost 399 extradition requests to western European countries, though only 11 have been granted (including nine by EU Member States). These include requests for the extradition of 59 participants in the coup attempt of 15 July. Germany has refused to expel 22 individuals linked with Gülen. In Greece, civil society protest over Turkey’s extradition bid request led to a Supreme Court ruling against it.

Wealthy and influential western European countries can afford to reject extradition requests made by the Turkish government. But Azerbaijan and Georgia probably cannot. Neither wants to harm their relationship with Turkey, which is an important corridor to the west and regional counterbalance against Russia. Ankara’s hunt for Gülen may prove a test of how the two states can defend their sovereignty. That is, if they’re interested.

With Iraqi forces now controlling most of Mosul and the siege of Raqqa underway, many are predicting the imminent demise of the Islamic State. ISIS propagandists argue that the caliphate can withstand the loss of territory, but without a “state” to fight for, many jihadis will look elsewhere for support and inspiration. A patient Ayman al-Zawahiri hopes they will return to Al-Qaeda, his organization since Osama bin Laden’s death, like reported by meforum.org.

When ISIS first burst on the scene, it was widely described as the most brutal elements of Al-Qaeda that had been kicked out, only to form an even more dangerous terrorist organization. Their rivalry led some to hope that a power struggle might weaken both groups, making it easier to defeat both. But many Iraqi analysts have always believed that the fissure was only temporary. Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi researcher of terrorist groups and an advisor to the Iraqi government, predicted in October 2014 that “the Islamic State, regardless of how big or small it becomes, will come back to its mother: al-Qaeda.”

In March 2016, American terrorism expertBruce Hoffman wrote that “by 2021 al Qaeda and ISIS might reunite—or at least have entered into some form of alliance or tactical cooperation.” By October he seemed to have reevaluated the timeline, warning in an interview that “as ISIS’ fortunes continue to decline” pressure will mount for it to “mak[e] common cause with al Qaeda.” A merger is not “a certitude,” he said, “but the possibility is quite strong.”

In April of this year, Ayad Allawi, the Vice President of Iraq, fed the merger debate by indicating that Iraqi intelligence had discovered “discussions and dialogue between messengers representing Baghdadi and representing Zawahiri.” Allawi warned ominously, “The discussion has started now.”

A Logical Choice

A merger of Al-Qaeda and ISIS would be eminently logical. From the anarchists of the late Nineteenth century to the founding fathers of the global jihad in the late Twentieth century, terrorists have long asserted that their goals will be achieved only when individual vanguards coalesce into a unified movement.

In The Terrorist’s Struggle (1880), Nikolai Morozov wrote of a future where “a whole new row of independent terroristic societies arises in Russia together with the already existing terroristic groups and when these groups come to know each other during their struggle, they will all unite into one common organization.”

Once these “unsystematic attempts . . . merge into one wide stream,” Morozov asserted, “then no despotism or brutal force will be able to stand up against them.” This is exactly what Osama bin Laden had in mind in February 1998 when he announced the creation of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.

A true merger of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, that is, a union of the people, tactics, specialties, and myths of each group into a terrorist “super-group,” would portend a very dangerous evolution in the global jihad movement.

People

Al-Qaeda represents the first generation of global jihadis. Of its original leadership (Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, and Omar Abdel Rahman, a/k/a/ “the blind sheikh”), Ayman al-Zawahiri is the only remaining survivor. Like Rahman, his terror credentials predate Al-Qaeda; his group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Rahman’s Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, collaborated to murder Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

ISIS represents the second generation of global jihadis, too young to have fought the Russians but still eager to wage violent offensive jihad. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who joined Al-Qaeda after his release from a Jordanian prison in 1999, is the link between the two generations.

After the collapse of the Taliban, Zarqawi escaped from Afghanistan and opened his own Al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq. He named it Tanzim Qai’dat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, or Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, and it became known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

In October 2006, four months after Zarqawi was killed, AQI renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). 2013 brought another name change as it became the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It was still an Al-Qaeda franchise until February 2014, when Al-Qaeda “disowned” it.

The new leader, a man named Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri, was a former inmate of both Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib. In honor of the first caliph of Islam (Abu Bakr), he changed his name to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and announced that his group was the new caliphate.

A merger of Al-Qaeda and ISIS would represent a reunification of the first and second generations of the global jihad movement. But it would also require Zawahiri to share power with Baghdadi, which many people believe is impossible. The death of either Zawahiri or Baghdadi could bring new leadership willing to let go of old grudges. Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza, whom some Arab news outlets and former FBI Agent Ali Soufan are already calling the new leader of Al-Qaeda, might be able to bridge the divide and unite an Islamic State of Al-Qaeda.

Tactics

Al-Qaeda is a clandestine terrorist organization known for the quality of its attacks, whereas ISIS, part militia and part terrorist organization, is known for the quantity of its attacks.

Al-Qaeda has concentrated on spectacular, “theatrical” attacks, what The 9/11 Commission Report labels “catastrophic,” “grand” and “super” terrorism (p. 343). It pioneered the multiple-event attack and timed secondary explosions designed to kill onlookers and first responders at the scenes of their primary explosions.

ISIS, on the other hand, holds territory and runs schools and hospitals. It operates primarily as a conventional militia and secondarily as a covert terrorist organization. Its attacks on foreign soil tend to be relatively unsophisticated, with its operators (frequently mislabeled “lone wolves”) making use of knives, small arms and vehicles in attacks requiring minimal preparation and that often seem spontaneous.

Milo Comerford, writing in Newsweek, finds “seemingly insurmountable tactical rifts” between Al-Qaeda and ISIS that “would likely inhibit the ability of the groups to substantively work together.” I wouldn’t be so sure.

Specialties

Al-Qaeda specializes in meticulous planning, studying and capitalizing on the weakness of its targets. Its technicians are creative thinkers, devising new ways to disguise bombs in underwear, ink cartridges, lap top computers, and even inside the human body.

Attacks often require years of preparation and surveillance carried out by multiple cells. When it was protected by the Turabi government in the Sudan (1991-1996) and then the Taliban in Afghanistan (1996-2001), Al-Qaeda’s training camps taught the craft of terrorism to thousands of recruits.

ISIS, on the other hand, specializes in inspiration. Straying from its roots in Zarqawi’s days, ISIS has embraced technology and devoted great effort to recruiting Muslims all over the world, especially in the West. By mastering social media, it has become the global jihad’s online brand. Indeed most jihad attacks carried out by “radicalized” Muslims in the West over the last three years have been conducted by people who claimed to be ISIS members or whom ISIS claimed as members.

Myths

The myth of Al-Qaeda begins with Abdullah Azzam’s 1979 fatwa calling for defensive jihad in Afghanistan and his boast that he and his coterie of vanguard jihadists (the “Afghan Arabs” as they came to be called) defeated the Soviet Union on the battlefield. After Azzam’s death, the boast became bin Laden’s. He built on the myth, claiming that his group would take on and defeat the remaining super-power, and he followed through with a series of attacks against the US in the 1990s, peaking on 9/11.

The ISIS myth is centered on the assertion that it is the righteous Islamic caliphate, a claim bolstered by success on the battlefield, especially in Mosul where Iraqi soldiers fled the battlefield in 2014 and abandoned US materiel. On video for all the world to see, Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate from the al-Nuri mosque in Mosul on June 29, 2014 (destroyed along with its famous minaret on June 22, 2017 by ISIS as it fled the city). For over three years it has “governed” territory, printed its own currency and witnessed its flag—sometimes home-made versions—raised throughout the world. Another important aspect of the myth is summed up by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, one of the foremost experts on ISIS, in the word baqiya—Arabic for “remaining.” After Zarqawi’s death, the US surge and the “Arab Awakening,” ISI retreated into the desert only to reconstitute itself after US forces left Iraq. Its reputation for survivability is similar to Al-Qaeda’s.

Skepticism

Those who downplay the possibility of an ISIS-Al-Qaeda merger highlight the differences between them, including alleged ideological disputes that they claim nullify other concerns, but these differences are exaggerated. Both are Sunni jihad organizations with global aspirations. They disagree only over minor details, such as which enemy (“near” or “far”) to fight first, when to establish the caliphate and how to kill the Shia and other infidels. Even when tensions between the two were extremely high just after the split, they still occasionally cooperated when it was expedient. Differences dissolve when survival is at stake. Zawahiri, who began 2017 calling ISIS “liars,” has been sounding conciliatory recently, as in his June 9 call for unity among jihadists.

Naysayers also overlook the fact that many of the characteristics associated with ISIS actually originated with Al-Qaeda. For instance, the ISIS campaign to recruit over the internet mirrors the strategy of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American strategist for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Awlaki, who was killed when ISIS was still known as AQI, has been credited with “radicalizing” Muslims the world over with his fiery sermons and anti-Western diatribes. He continues to do so posthumously on Youtube. ISIS has simply followed his lead. Likewise, Zarqawi made beheading videos a trademark of his group, and his followers have expanded on it, sometimes beheading dozens at a time. But this too began with Al-Qaeda. When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed videotaped himself beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, he created a new genre of jihad terrorism.

Predictions

Prognoses about the capabilities of a united Islamic State of Al-Qaeda tend toward the apocalyptic, our-worst-dreams, rhetoric. Their attacks “would likely be more devastating,” cautions Newsweek. Abdul Basit warns in The National Interest of “a new jihadi Frankenstein, born from Al Qaeda and ISIS’s marriage of convenience.” A headline in The Fiscal Times reads that a merger “could cripple the civilized world.” Even the careful Bruce Hoffman foresees “profound and far-reaching consequences for international security.”

In reality, an official merger of ISIS and Al-Qaeda may not be necessary for our worst fears to come true. They have already been imitating each other for some time, each adopting the successful strategies of the other, with terrifying results.

Hoffman notes that Al-Qaeda has lately shown a “new-found embrace of governance of populations and territorial control,” with Zawahiri working on Al-Qaeda’s image “to portray itself as a more moderate, acceptable alternative to ISIS.” ISIS, on the other hand, has been increasing and expanding its covert terrorist activity (commensurate with its loss of territory) and behaving in a very Al-Qaeda fashion for well over a year.

ISIS Imitates Al-Qaeda

The most dangerous implications of a merger are already evident—ISIS tactics are becoming more Al-Qaeda-like in quality while not diminishing in frequency. Beginning with the Paris attacks in November 2015, it became apparent that ISIS was copying Al-Qaeda’s multiple-event, mass-casualty attacks while focusing more on “spectacle.” It used gunmen and suicide bombers in a series of coordinated attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds of others, much of it captured on surveillance video and the victims’ smartphones.

The March, 2016, attack in Brussels revealed ISIS engaging in Al-Qaeda-quality planning. After analyzing Belgian counterterrorism measures, ISIS planners decided to attack travelers lined up at the perimeter of the security cordon where they were waiting to be screened. The three ISIS suicide bombers who killed 32 people and wounded 340 were never required to pass any kind of security checkpoint.

ISIS has clearly embraced Al-Qaeda’s suicide terror program, coloring it with its own unique cruelty. When British-born ISIS operative Salman Abedi attacked the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on May 22, he targeted young girls with a particularly powerful bomb he reportedly learned how to make in Libya. In Iran, ISIS suicide bombers simultaneously attacked the Parliament building and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – the inventor of suicide bombing.

The June 3 attacks in London show that ISIS is still interested in low-tech, vehicle and knife tactics, but even these have evolved into hybrids combining Al-Qaeda’s complexity with the ISIS simplicity of waging jihad in rented trucks. The pink ceramic knife throat-slitting spectacle carried out on the streets was all ISIS. But the attackers also wore fake suicide bomb vests and had Molotov cocktailswith them, suggesting that something even more unique, if opportunistic, was planned.

Conclusion

Former Iraqi intelligence officer Ibrahim al-Somaidaei is another ISIS specialist who foresees ISIS and Al-Qaeda coming together, mostly out of necessity. Somaidaei believes that “The Islamic State doesn’t have the elements of survival like the al-Qaeda mother organization. It is most likely that it will be dissolved within al-Qaeda.”

Aymenn Jawad Tamimi disagrees. Even if ISIS loses all its current territory, Tamimi writes, “its core leadership can operate” from remote desert areas in Syria and Iraq in “fallback” mode where it could “persist as an international franchise.”

Only time will tell if the two most dangerous fronts of the global jihad will reunite into a common front. Unfortunately, it will not require an Islamic State of Al-Qaeda for thousands to continue dying in the Long War.

In fact, if the current trajectory continues with ISIS mimicking Al-Qaeda, a merger may become irrelevant. Al-Qaeda and ISIS may become even more dangerous as near mirror-images of each other competing for new fighters and for the world’s attention.

The interview with Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Al Jazeera television was chilling.

“If Al Jamaa [the Muslim Brotherhood] saw that there is a need for someone to blow himself up to kill others and it is something required,” Qaradawi said, “Al Jamaa will show him how to do it”, like reported by jpost.com

Qaradawi is among 59 individuals listed as terrorists by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. He joins a rogue’s gallery of terrorists who have appeared uncritically on Al Jazeera, including Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al Jazeera, launched and funded by the Qatari government in 1996, has proved itself a useful platform for disseminating radical Islamist views.

Al Jazeera is a tool for the larger Qatari effort to support terrorism and harbor terrorists and their financiers. That’s why Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE recently cut ties with Qatar and imposed sanctions on it. They have had enough.

The nations that are penalizing Qatar have tried to persuade the regime to stop its destructive policies. Unfortunately, these attempts have failed. They include the 2013 Riyadh Declaration between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which demanded Qatar stop funding radical groups, including giving them an open pass to appear on Al Jazeera.

But Qatar flouted the agreement. Qatar continued to destabilize neighboring countries by providing cash and logistical support to radical Shi’ite militias in Bahrain. The Bahraini newspaper Al Watan recently uncovered Qatari support for a radical television station that targets Bahrain managed by Saeed al-Shehabi, who is involved in various terrorist cases including attacks on policemen in Bahrain.

The Qatari regime also supports Hamas, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and al-Qaida’s offshoot the Al Nusra Front along with other radical militant groups in Syria. It even hosts the Taliban’s first overseas office.

Speaking recently at an event sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) said: “The Qataris’ behavior has got to change. We cannot have Qataris funding Salafist organizations that are committing crimes that take American lives.”

August Hanning, the former head of the German intelligence service, wrote an article in Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper about Qatar’s role in supporting radical Islamist mosques and centers in Europe, especially those known for their radical imams. These mosques have influenced several European Muslims to fight with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Some returned to Europe to carry out terrorist attacks.

The bomber in the Manchester attack, Salman Abedi, regularly attended the Didsbury Mosque, which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The imam of that mosque, Mustafa Abdullah Graf, is associated with a group headed by Qaradawi, from the Al Jazeera interview mentioned above, according to a report in The Conservative Review.

Despite increased rhetoric, funding and military action by its Gulf neighbors and most of the world’s powers, Qatar continues to misread the seriousness of the war on terrorism. The world has reached critical levels of chaos and terrorism that are spreading beyond the Middle East. The US has made fighting terrorism a top priority. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE have joined the US’s call to eliminate terrorism by taking all necessary measures.

In reaction, the Qatari regime is playing the victim and refusing to accept the seriousness of the evidence against it. Instead, it is trying to manipulate the story and calling the boycott against it a blockade. This is untrue. The country’s airport and ports are open for business, but Qatari-owned airplanes and ships cannot cross the sovereign borders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE.

Qatar has become an incubator for radicals and terrorist groups. Any delay in confronting the regime will only give it more time and space to engage in terrorist activities.

The presence of members of former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party in the Islamic State has become a staple in “almost every serious analysis of the group”. Craig Whiteside, a fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, dispels this myth in a recent paper

Not Ba’athists, they’re Salafis
The US decision to disband the Iraqi Army after the 2003 invasion has often been blamed for the rise of the IS. Those who claim the IS is not religiously inspired use the Saddam angle to claim the group is more interested in power than Islamic ideology

While the IS’s forebears “recruited capable (and religiously acceptable) individuals with military experience from 2003-2006, these people were Salafis first,” Whiteside points out. One reason it expanded so quickly was the presence of an underground Salafi community in Iraq, he adds

Saudi Arabia promoted Salafi thought by flooding Iraq with Salafi literature during the rapprochement between Baghdad and Riyadh because of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. At a time when many religious books, Sunni and Shia alike, were banned in Iraq, government censors turned a blind eye to the distribution of Salafi books Nasr Salem in the Crescent International

Many cases of mistaken identities
Top jihadists were misidentified as ex-Ba’athists. “The entire spy sector of IS is headed by Abu Ali al-Anbari, an ex-Saddam operative,” claims the book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. This mistake was repeated in hundreds of articles, though he was a “career Salafist”

Sheen Ibrahim’s track record fighting ultra-hardline militants explains U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy of arming Syrian Kurds like her as he seeks to eradicate Islamic State. It also highlights the risks, like reported by reuters.com.

Taught by her brother to fire an AK-47 at 15 and encouraged by her mother to fight for Syrian Kurdish autonomy, she says she has killed 50 people since she took up arms in Syria’s six-year-old civil war, fighting first al Qaeda, then crossing into Iraq to help Kurds there against Islamic State.

Now 26, she leads a 15-woman unit hunting down the hardline group in its global headquarters Raqqa, speeding through streets once controlled by the militants in a pick-up truck as fellow fighters comb through ruined buildings for booby traps.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, have taken several parts of the northern Syrian town since their assault began this month.

This week U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said Washington may arm the SDF for future battles against Islamic State while taking back weapons it no longer needs.

The plan is the “headline” of a still-unfinished stabilization plan for Syria by the Trump administration, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The risk is that it causes new instability in a war in which outside powers are playing ever larger roles.

The U.S.-YPG relationship has infuriated Syria’s northern neighbor Turkey, a NATO ally which says the YPG is an extension of the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, designated terrorist by both Ankara and Washington for its insurgency against the Turkish state.

Turkey has sent troops into Syria, partly to attack Islamic State, but also to keep the YPG, which controls Kurdish-populated areas of northern Syria, from moving into an Arab and Turkmen area that would give it control of the whole frontier.

On Wednesday Ankara said its artillery had destroyed YPG targets after local Turkish-backed forces came under attack.

Turkey has recently sent reinforcements into Syria, according to the rebel groups it backs, prompting SDF concern it plans to attack Kurdish YPG forces. The SDF warned on Thursday of a “big possibility of open, fierce confrontation”.

“WE’LL DO WHAT WE CAN”

Syrian Kurdish leaders say they want autonomy in Syria, like that enjoyed by Kurds in Iraq, rather than independence or to interfere in neighboring states. They say Turkish warnings that YPG weapons could end up in PKK hands are unjustified.

“We were the victims of the nation state model and we have no desire to reproduce this model,” said Khaled Eissa, European representative of the PYD, the YPG’s political affiliate.

Ibrahim and other fighters interviewed by Reuters said they were not terrorists but would “stand up” to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. “Turkey is fighting us,” Ibrahim said. “Anyone who fights us, we will fight.”

Washington is working to calm tensions over its relationship with the YPG, which is also backed by Russia. “There is absolute transparency between Turkey and the United States on that subject,” said Major General Rupert Jones, the British deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

But disarmament will not be easy, judging by the comments of YPG fighters on the ground. “We will not give up our weapons,” said a sniper aiming at Islamic State positions, who only gave her first name, Barkaneurin. “We need them to defend ourselves.”

Fellow fighter Maryam Mohamed agreed. “Erdogan is our biggest enemy, we cannot hand over our weapons,” she said.

One of the U.S. officials said Washington did not know exactly how many weapons the YPG has because some Arabs had joined its ranks, taking U.S.-supplied weapons with them, when their groups suffered setbacks on the battlefield.

“Loyalties are as variable as the battle lines and sometimes follow them,” the official said.

Asked about weapons recovery, Mattis, in his first public remarks on the issue, said: “We’ll do what we can,” while YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud emphasized the target was Islamic State. “We are fighting a global terrorist group,” he said.

Battlefield victory is tantalizingly close. U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Iraq announced on Thursday they had retaken Mosul, Islamic State’s largest stronghold and the twin capital, with Raqqa, of the “caliphate” it declared in 2014.

But the U.S. official and two others who also declined to be named, noted other huge obstacles to stabilizing Syria they said the administration was papering over.

Rebuilding Raqqa will need billions of dollars and an unprecedented level of compromise among groups long hostile to each other, all three officials said. One said Iranian forces backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were poised to exploit any setbacks.

Kurds are spearheading the attack on Raqqa, but a mainly Arab force is planned to maintain security in the overwhelmingly Arab town thereafter.

While Kurds and Arabs fight side by side against Islamic State, with the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate shrinking, competition for territory will intensify.

“We are getting ourselves into the middle of another potential mess we don’t understand,” one of the U.S. officials said.

The fight over Mosul has reached its peak, as Iraqi forces battle to cut off the escape of ISIS fighters still holed up in the city. These remnants now control four corners of the city, which is all that remains of the much-vaunted Iraqi Caliphate, like reported by china.org.cn .

The most significant event was the militants’ destruction of the historic Al Nuri mosque before most of the fighters fled Iraq to seek sanctuary in the Syrian town of Raqqa, capital of the dwindling ISIS empire. Only a few fanatics remain to make a last stand in Mosul, which is turning into a prolonged siege.

It’s somewhat baffling as to why Mosul is taking so long to liberate. The Iraqi forces operating there are spearheaded by the elite Western-trained special forces. It is also backed up by incessant Western bombing. Usually Western bombing strategy is precision-guided and selective; nonetheless, on this occasion, some elements of the old shock-and-awe campaign is being seen, as over 500 civilians, most of them used as human shields by ISIS, have lost their lives in the offensive.

Although the Iraqi army has given civilians free passage, the strategy has been to control the town center, which has meant that the ISIS forces would have to be clustered in different pockets in the city. Naturally, cleaning-up operations will take time.

That said, no professional military should take over eight months to clean up and control one single city, especially given its monopoly of air support.

And, there’s something else, namely, lack of coordination, and divided interests. Everyone knows that ISIS as an entity is finished. Islamic State, having risen rapidly in the last four years is falling even faster.

Its future as a viable territorial entity is over and it’s only a matter of time before it is wiped off the map. The question is what happens after that? Charles Krauthammer, the veteran Washington Post columnist has described the situation as similar to Europe in 1945, when the Nazi ideology was collapsing and the various advancing allies were seeking to carve out their spheres of influences.

Krauthammer states that this is infact the end of the beginning (to quote from a famous speech by Winston Churchill), for a great civil war will continue. While in some aspects it is true, in other aspects it is even more complicated than that.

The rise of ISIS was a phenomenon directly related to, but not a direct result of the allied invasion of Iraq. The Baath Party, was for all its faults, a secular and authoritarian party, which imposed order over a broad swathe of the Middle East.

From Libya to Egypt, to Iraq and Syria, Baathists combined socialism and Arab nationalism and secularism. However, in Iraq, the process of eliminating Baathist influence was vicious and the disbanding of the Iraqi army and bureaucracy provided ready-made recruits later swelling the ranks of ISIS.

As political science research shows, this is what happens when stakeholders are forcibly kicked out – they go underground and fuel an insurgency.

Now, the character of ISIS itself is a matter of debate yet to be settled; however, overall, if one ascribes the character of a theocratic revolutionary state, then in some ways, the fall of ISIS automatically implies a power vacuum, where stakeholders are varied and undefined.

Added to this is the role of geopolitics. The Gulf situation is heating up and there is a strong chance of a regional war over Qatar and Syria. The fact that we are now seeing so many direct confrontations between different proxies and militias backed by different great powers is because the ISIS region is collapsing and the rush to Raqqa has started.

Iran for example wants a land bridge from Teheran to the Mediterranean. After all, carving out a Shiite crescent has always been a grand Iranian strategy. Similarly, Russia wants a rump Syria to survive, so it can have a naval and air bases and a future influential stake in what remains of the country, while the Americans want to carve out a zone for the Kurds, to which the Turks are bitterly opposed.

All this rush to make territorial gains mean the powers and their proxies operating in close proximity, and with a chance of more and more clashes and conflicts.

Perhaps that’s the tragedy and irony of the entire situation. ISIS was a brutal regime, and it was inevitable that the forced punitive order it created would collapse. Yet, that’s not creating a better, more peaceful place; in some ways, there will be even more bloodshed for the long-suffering civilian population to endure.

The final and most brutal part of the regional war is yet to come. And that could affect the energy supply chain across the world, with ramifications for everyone.

Mosul’s impending fall and Raqqa’s ongoing siege highlight ISIS’s slow loss of control of the much-vaunted caliphate it declared exactly three years ago, on 29 July 2014. The costs to the movement have been huge: over 50,000 of its supporters have been killed during the coalition’s three years of intensive airstrikes, and many thousands of civilians across Iraq and Syria have died as a direct result of the war, like reported by opendemocracy.net.

But ISIS can claim to have seriously damaged the Iraqi army’s special forces, making it much more difficult for Haider al-Abadi’s government in Baghdad to stabilise Iraq. This will in turn help ISIS to transform itself into a guerrilla force and, it would hope, a long-term insurgency.

ISIS’s capacity to deploy at least 1,000 suicide-bombers in the battle for Mosul means it can present itself as a powerful symbol of continuing struggle. It is significant here that the movement’s timescale for success is measured in many decades, with a short-lived caliphate only one portion. Furthermore, its self-image is enhanced by the level of force used against it by the “crusader states” of the “far enemy”.  ISIS believes it will outlast the present generation of western leaders and keep alive its historic mission of creating the true caliphate to come.

ISIS’s current strategy has two more elements. The first is to export the war to aggressor states – the European and north American components of the far enemy. Recent examples include the attacks in Manchester and London, the potentially devastating failed attack on 27 June at Brussels’ central station. These operations aim to stir up as much anti-Muslim bigotry as possible, thereby weakening social cohesion in western states and perhaps even their determination to continue fighting ISIS.

The second element is to disseminate the idea around the world. In a sense this is already well underway: ISIS has largely taken over from al-Qaida as the figurehead that Islamist movements in a host of countries seek to emulate: northern Nigeria, Mali and across the Sahel, Yemen, Somalia, Bangladesh, southern Thailand. Afghanistan and Egypt – where the regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seeks to suppress Islamist dissent but inevitably provokes it – are proving fertile territories. The southern Philippines is a surprising addition to the list: there, a coalition of Islamist paramilitary movements is trying to maintain its weeks-long control of Marawi, on the island of Mindanao, against the firepowerof the Filipino army and United States special forces.

A view across decades

These factors raise the much broader question of whether ISIS, its offshoots and like-minded extreme movements – whether these are rooted in religious, political, nationalist or ethnic identities – may develop further, and even coalesce into broad “revolts from the margins”. This is still an open question, but it can be approached in the context of global trends that really could have such a result (see “After Mosul: Islamic State’s Asian and African Future“, Oxford Research Group, 28 June 2017).

A recent report finds that twenty-two Arab countries are home to 300 million people aged 15-24, while those in Asia and the Pacific have 400 million. This total of 700 million makes up 60% of the world’s youth population. The Arab states in particular suffer from very high rates of youth unemployment, averaging 30% for the region but peaking in war-torn states such as Yemen at 55%.

At the same time, one of the successes of the last four decades or so has been real improvements in education, literacy and communications. This means that any perception of marginalisation and meagre life-prospects is more likely to be rooted in direct knowledge of how elites live. The combination of high rates of graduate unemployment and insecurity offers clear dangers. A prominent example is Tunisia: it is making a slow transition to more representative governance, yet proportionally more of its young people embrace extreme Islamist views than in most Arab countries (see “Tunisia and the world: roots of turmoil“, 24 January 2011).

In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, tens of millions of young people also have poor life-chances, notwithstanding a quite rapid pace of development and the provision of much wider educational opportunities. This situation gains even further seriousness if the growing impact of climate change on the agriculture sector is added. A powerful statement from the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger says that “drought, food insecurity, water scarcity, unemployment, hopelessness about the future and poverty are fertile grounds for extremism, and a sign of insecurity, instability and unsustainability”.

The United Nations convention to combat desertification (UNCCD) is also focusingon this nexus. Its executive secretary Monique Barbut points to the 375 million young people who will enter African job markets by 2032, over half (200 million) of whom will be living in rural areas. She says: “Millions of rural young people face an uncertain future due to the lack of decent rural jobs and continuous loss of livelihoods due to land degradation and falling yields…Frustrations will boil over with more migration and more conflict over a shrivelling resource base”.

In short, there are many tens of millions of young, educated and knowledgeable people across the Middle East, Africa and Asia who have grounds to see the world from an entirely different perspective to leaderships and elites in the global north. For them, the current world economic system is not delivering reasonable ambitions – and that is even before inexorable climate disruptionhas a fuller impact (see “Al-Qaida, and a global revolt“, 22 May 2014).

ISIS today seems to be near collapse, at least in a territorial sense. But in light of these larger circumstances, the longer-term prospects for it and like-minded movements are far more promising than many in the west are ready to acknowledge.

Hamas and Hezbollah have held meetings in Beirut over the past few months to discuss the region’s latest developments, like reported by al-monitor.com.

Their most recent meeting June 14 — attended by Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, and Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah — has important implications, as it ends the lukewarm relations between the two sides since 2012. The meeting comes after Gulf countries imposed a blockade on Qatar, followed by talks about Hamas officials leaving Qatar, all of which impacts the Palestinian cause as a whole.

Al-Monitor contacted a number of officials from Hamas and Hezbollah to gain insight on the nature of their recent discussions, but they refused to publicly speak about their meetings, as they wish to achieve this bilateral rapprochement away from the media spotlight. However, they did confirm that serious steps are being taken to bring Hamas and Hezbollah closer together, without giving further details.

An Arab diplomat who had a hand in this rapprochement told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “Since the beginning of 2017, Hamas and Hezbollah held three meetings in Beirut — in January, March and June — under the chairmanship of Abu Marzouk and some members of the movement’s political bureau with Nasrallah and the Hezbollah leadership. The most important incentive for their meetings was Donald Trump becoming president of the United States and classifying both Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.”

The diplomat said in a phone call from Beirut that “Hamas and Hezbollah discussed supporting a political solution in Syria and talked about how the Gulf crisis contributed to bringing the two parties together since anti-Qatar parties consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorists. The two parties are also concerned about Israel waging war against them, in the event of which they expressed their intention to unite their military fronts and not give Israel the chance to target either of them.”

It is no secret that Hamas, despite having different positions regarding the Syrian crisis, needs Hezbollah when it comes to funding, training, securing supply lines for weapons and providing residence for Hamas cadres in Lebanon. For its part, Hezbollah needs a Palestinian movement, such as Hamas, to restore its popularity among the Arab public opinion, which it lost after being involved in the wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen against Sunni Muslims. Hamas, as a Sunni Islamic movement getting closer to the Shiite Hezbollah, may help dispel Hezbollah’s sectarian image. The new rapprochement between Hamas and Hezbollah may contribute to the return of armament and training cooperation programs, with the support of Iran.

Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Hazem Qassem, told Al-Monitor, “Hamas’ rapprochement with Hezbollah comes in light of the movement’s action at all levels to mobilize support for the Palestinian cause. Hamas is approaching certain parties that have had close ties with Palestine and support the resistance, without paying much attention to the alignments occurring in the region.”

At the height of the recent Gulf crisis, axes that existed before the outbreak of the Arab revolutions in 2011 started forming again, namely the axis of moderation composed of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the axis of resistance formed by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Hamas was singled out following a dispute with its allies over Syria after it called on the Syrian regime to respond to the Syrian people’s demands for justice and freedom, and rejected the use of armed force to suppress popular demonstrations. Meanwhile, Iran and Hezbollah backed the Syrian regime and ignored the popular demands, considering these demonstrations a global plot to topple the regime.

However, the current Gulf crisis seems to have revived the two axes, and Hamas, regardless of the costly political price it may have to pay, might return to the axis of resistance, which sympathizes with Qatar in its battle against the Saudi blockade.

Hussam al-Dajani, a political science professor at Al-Ummah University in the Gaza Strip, told Al-Monitor, “It is clear that the Gulf crisis helped bring Hamas and Hezbollah closer together, although the rapprochement was initiated before the crisis even began. However, now, the Hamas cadres who left Qatar — such as Saleh al-Arouri, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, and Moussa Doudine, the head of the prisoners’ dossier, among others — might be able to relocate to Lebanon. In addition, Hamas prefers to have its cadres stationed in Lebanon, under Hezbollah’s sponsorship, since it is closer to Palestine [geographically] and is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.”

Dajani said, “After leaving Syria in 2012 and reducing its presence in Qatar in 2017, Hamas has come to the conclusion that it needs to be significantly present in several Arab capitals.”

On June 15, Lebanon Debate reported that roughly a hundred Hamas leaders and activists arrived from Doha to Beirut without specifying their date of arrival. Hamas neither confirmed nor denied this, but the news coincided with talks in Qatar about Hamas reducing its presence there following Gulf pressure.

Hamas may be well aware that the closer it gets to Hezbollah, the farther away it moves from the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It might not have much space to maneuver and it would have no choice but to mend its relationship with Hezbollah to survive — both financially and militarily — as Egypt, the PA and Israel continue to tighten the noose around it.

Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to the head of Hamas’ political bureau Ismail Haniyeh, told Al-Monitor, “Hamas needs Hezbollah at all levels, despite the official Arab hostility toward [Hezbollah]. We share with it an extended alliance, despite the differences over the Syrian crisis. However, the movement has made sure to never close the door. Hezbollah has recently showed signs of its willingness to answer Hamas’ needs, in terms of the military and security experience among other things. Hamas and Hezbollah are in the same boat.”

Hamas realizes that the margin of political maneuvering has been narrowed by the polarization of the two rival axes: Qatar and its allies against Saudi Arabia and its partners. However, in the absence of other options, the movement seems compelled to resort to Iran and its allies in the region, namely Hezbollah, to survive. Even if it is faced with a new wave of criticism, Hamas would still be turning toward Hezbollah.