Why did the Islamic movement in Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco succeed and yet fail in other places? The answer is simple- they valued their ongoing success on the ground without ignoring the reality of their countries.

The recent closure of the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Amman by the Jordanian authorities has revived the grievances of the Islamic movement and reminded them of the major setback of Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood failed to hold onto power. They gained power after a long struggle and patience for decades, and the worst thing is that they were removed from power and sent to jails.

The good thing this time, unlike what happened after the setback in Egypt, is that the incident in Jordan has opened the door for self-criticism and a call for the accountability of leaders who had pushed the movement into a clash with the regime in Jordan. The movement’s relations with the government moved from alliance, to cold friendship, and then to the current open disagreement. This made many leaders and activists from inside the movement criticize their historical leaders with bitterness, for example the Secretary of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) Abdullah Farajallah.

Farajallah published an article on the website of Arabi21, accusing the movement’s leaders of ignoring “a real crisis the movement was facing” by considering the crisis to be sedition, aiming scrutiny at the movement which is now above seventy years of age.  He warned them away from turning the closure of the headquarters into a decision to make arrests and jails.

Many Islamists like Farajallah, who are fierce opponents of the government, this time expressed their anger against their leaders who are still under the influence of the culture of confrontations, conspiracies, sacrifices and detentions, which is not good formula either for the movement or the nation.

Regardless of whether “Political Islam” is right or wrong, or whether Arab societies need it or not, there are wide audiences who believe in the mission of the Brotherhood movement, see it as a saviour and are ready to vote for it in any election. But the problem for these supporters is that the leaders of the movement in some Arab countries, whose performances are so poor, has led the movement from one crisis to another, harming the movement itself and the whole nation.  Whatever the situation is, we have to acknowledge that they represent a wide segment of society and in no way should they be excluded or ignored, whether they are kept in detention or their offices closed.

Of course there are some exceptions such as Erdogan in Turkey, Ghannouchi in Tunisia and Benkirane in Morocco. Comparing these successful experiences with those who have stumbled shows a positive relationship between better political performances and keeping some distance from the traditional Muslim Brotherhood political style. And the question is, “Why do Islamists become creative out of the Brotherhood movement box and become stiff inside it?”

I will give my opinion here, based on personal observations of the movement for quarter of a century, as well as discussions with its supporters and its former leaders and independent individuals. The first reason could be that they gave priority to the older generation of leaders due to the patience, sacrifices and resistance they showed in prisons. However, is it enough to give them priority in leadership, while ignoring qualified and experienced members simply because they were not detained? Such traditional leaders took wrong decisions, such as the ones who became disasters in Egypt in 2013, and in Jordan in 2016.

The second reason is that the Brotherhood literature is full of speeches, memories and poems that glorify rejection of temptations, patience, and resistance in prisons. But this should not be taken as absolute fate, as imprisonment is not an advantage and could also be escaping from taking responsibility at critical moments when the whole country is at a crossroads. This is not a good way to evade politics and its requirements to bargain and make concessions. The idea of “everything or imprisonment” is valuing the culture of imprisonment, and encourage tens of thousands of youth to show solidarity and resistance in prisons. This is negatively affecting the performance of the movement.

The third reason is an obedient culture and loyalty before qualification, which is keeping innovators and skilled individuals away from leadership positions and paves the way for unqualified individuals as long as they share same values and principles with the traditional leaders. Gradually such individuals become representatives of the movement in parliaments and different institutions and take part in making critical decisions.

Why did the Islamic movement in Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco succeed and yet fail in other places? The answer is simple- they valued their ongoing success on the ground without ignoring the reality of their countries.

For instance in Turkey the political elites, including Islamists, agree on civil state and democracy, and jointly work to free the country from military domination. This gave the movement a political chance to manoeuvre, even at the time of its founder Necmettin Erbakan who was closer to the traditional Brotherhood approach. In order to suit the situation and rectify their status, the party evolved many times and was reborn with new names.

In addition to this, the practice of democracy extended to the grassroots level, to the municipalities and the selection of neighbourhood leaders, creating further chances for members to become actively involved in leadership activities and gain experience. Erdogan himself was one of those. Erdogan became famous when he became governor of the Istanbul Municipality and the same applies to his current colleagues. This has made the leaders in Turkey professional politicians, not religious figures or preachers. Leaders who deal with development projects, with the daily demands of the people and make decisions- something the Brotherhood movement failed to do in other places.

This free space gave Erdogan a chance to present himself as national leader, not only as a leader of a certain group, and he managed to compete with even the founder Erbakan, and later established a new party, replacing the old one.

The Tunisian movement adopted an advanced ideology compared to peers in the Eastern part of the Arab World. It is not correct that it happened because its leader Ghannouchi lived in the UK for two decades. Not far from his home in London there were many extremist Salafis who were calling for an Islamic Caliphate, Jihad and who fiercely stood against democracy, and many people may not be aware that the ISIS ideology was made there in the 1990s. Ghannouchi refused this and adopted an advanced ideology which was inherited from Tunisian civil society founded by its Mufti Al Tahir bin Ashour early last century.

I remember the first time I became familiar with the term “Islamic leftist” was when I received some editions of a magazine, published in Tunisia in the 1980s, and I met the publishers who preferred to call the magazine 15/21 as a gesture combining the past and future: the 15th and 21st centuries.

In Morocco we can’t ignore the charisma of the leadership of Abdelilah Benkirane who never targeted openly non-Islamist political opponents, but rather he criticised the traditional Sheikhs of the movement. He became independent from Al Adl Wa Al Ihsane group, which was representing the traditional form of Brotherhood movement, and presented himself as politician first and Islamist second, acknowledging his loyalty to the Monarchy and the State. Thus he managed to gain support of a wide range of Moroccan society including the youth, who wanted someone who could tell them about employment and living standards, and the King Mohammed VI.

It is time to tell the Muslim Brotherhood in the East that reform does not start with changing the regime, but with the replacement of your traditional leaders who are still far away from the political reality.

 

thepeninsulaqatar.com

The mounting global terror threat posed by the Islamic State has naturally directed the focus of international efforts in Iraq and Syria towards defeating the group

Past U.S. experiences in post-war Iraq and Afghanistan portend what could become of post-Islamic State Syria and Iraq

Even more important than devising strategies to militarily defeat the Islamic State is beginning the planning process for stabilizing and rebuilding the devastated cities, towns, and infrastructure of Islamic State-controlled territory

While the defeat of the Islamic State is the near-term priority for global policymakers, preventing the emergence of the next iteration of the Islamic State requires a comprehensive long-term strategy.

If there is one lesson from previous interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq that is applicable to the current fight against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, it is that tactical military victory—however daunting a task—is the easy part. Far more challenging is achieving long-term strategic victory—an objective that has yet to be accomplished in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The achievement of long-term victory against the Islamic State requires not only a plan to militarily defeat the group, but a comprehensive strategy to diminish the underlying factors that would allow its next iteration to rise. Such a strategy must be farsighted and wide-ranging, focusing on the stabilization and reconstruction of the decimated territory the group currently controls. It must look well beyond military considerations, and concentrate on governance, economics, infrastructure, and social concerns.

In a statement following an April 13 meeting with top U.S. intelligence and national security officials at CIA Headquarters, President Obama reiterated that the U.S.-led coalition has made substantial gains in its efforts to combat the Islamic State. The statement comes alongside a string of recent Assad regime victories against the group in Palmyra and surrounding areas. Yet as the Islamic State continues to endure tactical military defeats in its core territory of Iraq and Syria, there is little evidence that the international community has placed proportionate focus on what happens after the group is rooted out. According to an April 12 Reuters report, the U.S. has spent approximately $6.5 billion on the military effort against the Islamic State since 2014. That compares to just $15 million spent towards stabilizing territory retaken from the Islamic State in Iraq. According to a recent estimate in Al-Monitor, rebuilding all the territory currently under Islamic State control in Iraq will likely require a total of nearly $60 billion.

Stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Syria will be an even more formidable task. Whatever form post-war Syria takes, maintaining peace and reducing the drivers of violent extremism will be a massive undertaking. The World Bank estimates the total cost of Syrian reconstruction will be in the range of $170 billion; the longer the war drags on, the higher that number will be. The scale of the devastation facing the country is unprecedented—even in comparison to post-World War II Germany. Under the Marshall Plan, the U.S. spent a modern-day equivalent of over $100 billion for the reconstruction of post-war Europe—a concerted, all-encompassing effort to rebuild all facets of the devastated European infrastructure, economy, and society that played out over decades. The reconstruction of Syria will undoubtedly require an even greater effort, and will suffer from significantly greater challenges in terms of balancing the demands of highly disparate rival rebel and loyalist groups.

Recent history in the Middle East demonstrates the myriad difficulties in translating military victories into lasting peace and stability. Thirteen years after the start of the Iraq War, with an asymmetric threat emanating out of Iraq and Syria and bleeding into the surrounding region and Europe, the cost of festering instability is enormous. While eliminating the near-term threat posed by the Islamic State is the preeminent global concern in Iraq and Syria, tactical victory against the group will not automatically translate into long-term strategic victory. A focus on the immediate threat without addressing the long-term challenges will do nothing to erode the factors that could drive the next generation of the Islamic State. 

soufangroup.com/

 

mei.edu

The Paris and Brussels attacks are blowback from what Islamic State terrorists see as betrayal by Western benefactors who thought using jihadists could bring “regime change” in Syria, says Pakistani analyst Nauman Sadiq.

France under President Nicolas Sarkozy played a lead role in fomenting the insurgency against the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, and Sarkozy’s successor, Francois Hollande, has been on the forefront of supporting the Sunni militants in Syria against the Alawite-Shi’a regime of Bashar al-Assad.

This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a-Iranian axis worked well – at least for the Western powers and the Sunni jihadists – up to August 2014, when Obama Administration made an about-face on its previous “regime change” policy in Syria and started conducting air strikes against one group of Sunni jihadists battling against the Assad regime, the Islamic State.

The Islamic State had transgressed the prescribed mission of “regime change” in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq. The Islamic State also threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally: Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan — and began decapitating Western hostages.

(However, other Sunni jihadist forces, such as Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and its close ally, Ahrar al-Sham, continued to focus on ousting Assad and thus continued receiving Western weapons, including U.S.-made TOW missiles that were crucial for last year’s successful offensive by the Saudi-backed Army of Conquest in Syria’s Idlib Province.)

After the West’s 2014 shift in the Syrian strategy (bombing Islamic State forces both in Iraq and Syria) and the Russian military intervention in 2015 on the side of Syria’s Alawite-Shi’a regime, the momentum of Sunni jihadists’ expansion in Syria stalled. Many now feel that their Western “allies” betrayed the Sunni jihadist cause, engendering bitterness and a desire for revenge.

If we look at the chain of events, the timing of Paris and Brussels attacks is critical: Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014; the Obama administration started bombing Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014; and the first Islamic State incident of terrorism on Western soil took place at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, followed by the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings.

Moreover, the declassified Defense Intelligence Agency’s report of 2012 that presaged the imminent rise of a Salafist principality in northeastern Syria was not just overlooked, it was deliberately suppressed, not only the report but the view in general that a civil war in Syria would give birth to radical Islamists. That warning was forcefully stifled in the Western policy-making circles under pressure from the Zionist lobbies, which wanted “regime change” in Syria.

So, the Western powers were fully aware of the consequences of their actions in Syria but kept pursuing the policy of financing, training, arming and internationally legitimizing the so-called “Syrian opposition” to weaken the Syrian regime and to neutralize the threat that its Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah, posed to Israel’s regional security, a fact that has alarmed the Israeli defense community since the 2006 Lebanon war during which Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel.

Those rockets were unguided but it was a wakeup call for the Israeli military strategists about what could happen if Iran passed guided-missile technology to Hezbollah whose area of operations lies very close to the northern borders of Israel. The Western interest in the Syrian civil war is primarily about ensuring Israel’s regional security (by creating a break in the so-called “Shiite crescent” running from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut).

Turkish Dilemma

In the wake of the Ghouta chemical weapons attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, the stage was all set for yet another “humanitarian intervention” like the one against Gaddafi’s Libya in 2011; the war hounds were waiting for the finishing strike against Assad. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan shuttled between the Western capitals to lobby for military intervention. Francois Hollande had already announced his approval and David Cameron was also onboard.

Here it should be remembered that even during the Libyan intervention President Obama’s policy was a bit ambivalent and France under the leadership of Sarkozy had taken the lead role. In the Syrian case, however, the British parliament forced Cameron to seek a vote for military intervention in the House of Commons before committing British troops and Air Force to Syria.

Taking this cue from the British parliament, the U.S. Congress also pressed Obama to seek approval before another military intervention; and since both those administrations lacked the requisite majority in their respective legislatures and because public opinion was also against another Middle Eastern war, Obama and Cameron dropped their plans of bombing Assad’s military and imposing a no-fly zone over Syria. (Obama also was confronted with U.S. intelligence analysts doubting that Assad’s forces were responsible for the sarin attack.)

In the end, France was left alone as the only Western power still in favor of intervention; at this point, however, the seasoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov staged a diplomatic coup by announcing that the Syrian regime was willing to ship its chemical weapons’ stockpiles out of Syria and subsequently the issue was amicably resolved.

Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Arab states – the main beneficiaries (and benefactors) of the Sunni jihad in Syria, however, had lost a golden opportunity for dealing a fatal blow to the Shi’a alliance comprising Iran, Syria and their Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah.

Then, the Islamic State, one of the numerous Sunni jihadist outfits fighting in Syria, exceeded its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul in northern Iraq in June 2014 and threatened the capital of America’s most steadfast ally in the oil-rich region – Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani’s Erbil. (The Islamic State also engaged in high-profile decapitations of U.S. and Western hostages.)

The U.S. had no choice but to adopt some countermeasures to show to the world that it was still sincere in pursuing its schizophrenic and hypocritical “war on terror” policy; at the same time, it assured its Turkish, Jordanian and Gulf Arab allies that despite fighting a symbolic war against the maverick jihadist outfit, the Islamic State, the Western policy of training and arming the so-called “moderate Syrian rebels” would continue apace and that Bashar al-Assad’s days were numbered, one way or the other.

Moreover, declaring war against the Islamic State in August 2014 served another purpose – in order to commit the U.S. Air Force to Syria and Iraq, Obama Administration needed the approval (or at least the acquiescence) of Congress, but by declaring war against the Islamic State as a designated terrorist organization, the Obama Administration could avail itself of the “war on terror” provisions that had existed since the 9/11 attacks.

(So, while the U.S. and its allies launched aerial assaults against the Islamic State, TOW missiles and other weapons systems were still being delivered to the Saudi-organized Army of Conquest for its 2015 offensive against the Syrian army in Idlib Province, which also helped enable the Islamic State to seize Palmyra and surrounding Syrian territory.)

But then Russia threw a wrench into this scheme of NATO and its Gulf Arab allies. In September 2015, Russia pulled off a military buildup in its Syrian base at Latakia that had an element of surprise unheard of since Rommel, the Desert Fox. (The Russians then launched an air offensive against Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and other rebel forces, including the Islamic State, enabling Assad’s Syrian army to regain the offensive.)

Turkey, Jordan, the Gulf Arab states and their Sunni jihadist proxies in Syria found themselves on the receiving end in the Syrian civil war. Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian jet in November 2015 seemed like a desperate attempt by a NATO member to provoke Russia into a military encounter against Turkey and thus invoke NATO’s treaty obligation of “collective defense” in the face of “aggression” against any of NATO’s member states.

Structure of Islamic State:

The only difference between the Afghan jihad back of the 1980s, which spawned an Islamic jihadist movement with the Taliban and Al Qaeda for the first time in history, and the Libyan and Syrian jihads since 2011 is that the Afghan jihad was more overt – with the Western political establishments and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media openly bragging about how the CIA was providing all those AK-47s, RPGs and Stingers to the Pakistani ISI which then forwarded them to the Afghan mujahedeen to combat Soviet troops trying to bolster the pro-Moscow secular regime in Kabul.

After the 9/11 attacks, however, the Western political establishments and corporate media have become a lot more circumspect. Therefore, this time around they instigated covert jihads against the Gaddafi regime in Libya and the Assad regime in Syria, selling the Islamic jihadists to the Western audience as “moderate rebels” with secular and nationalist ambitions.

Since the “regime change” objective in those hapless countries went against the established mainstream narrative of “the war on terror” – after all, Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad ran largely secular regimes and claimed to be fighting Islamic jihadist terrorists – the Western political establishments and the mainstream media had to muddle the reality by offering color-coded schemes to identify gradations of militant and terrorist outfits that have operated in those countries – like the “red” militants of Islamic State which the Western powers want to eliminate; the “yellow” militants of the Army of Conquest, which includes Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, with whom NATO can collaborate under certain circumstances; and the “green” militants of Free Syria Army (FSA) and a few other inconsequential outfits which together comprise the so-called “moderate Syrian opposition.”

It’s an incontrovertible fact that more than 90 percent of the militants who are operating in Syria are either the Islamic jihadists or armed tribesmen, and less than 10 percent are those who have defected from the Syrian army or otherwise have secular and nationalist goals.

As far as the infinitesimally small secular and liberal elite of the developing countries is concerned, such privileged classes can’t even cook breakfasts for themselves if their servants are on a holiday and the corporate media has us believing that the majority of the Syrian militants are “moderate rebels” who constitute the vanguard of the Syrian opposition.

Notwithstanding, it is a fact that morale and ideology play an important role in the battle; moreover, we also know that the Takfiri brand of most jihadists these days has been directly inspired by the Wahhabi-Salafi ideology of Saudi Arabia, but ideology alone is never sufficient to succeed in the battle.

Looking at the Islamic State’s spectacular gains in Syria and Iraq in the last couple of years, one wonders where its recruits get all the training and sophisticated weapons that are imperative not only for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare but also for capturing and holding vast swathes of territory? Even the Afghan National Army, which has been trained and armed by NATO’s military instructors, is finding itself in trouble these days trying to hold territory in Afghanistan in the face of the unrelenting Taliban insurgency.

Apart from the CIA’s training and arms that are provided to the Islamic jihadists in the training camps located on the Turkish and Jordanian border regions adjacent to Syria in collaboration with the Turkish, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence agencies, another factor that has contributed to the spectacular success of the Islamic State is that its top cadres are comprised of the former Baathist military and intelligence officers of the Saddam regime.

According to a highly informative August 2015 Associated Press report, hundreds of ex-Baathists constitute the top-tier command structure of the Islamic State, planning all the operations and directing its military strategy.

Moreover, the U.S. State Department appears to be quite “worried” these days about where Islamic State jihadists get all the sophisticated weapons and especially those fancy, white Toyota pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns, colloquially known as “The Technicals” among the jihadists?

I think that I have found the answer to this riddle in an unprecedented December 2013 report: “Syrian rebels get arms and advice through secret command center in Amman,” from a website affiliated with the UAE government which is highly biased in favor of the Syrian opposition: it clearly mentions that along with AK-47s, RPGs and other military gear the Saudi government provides machine gun-mounted Toyota pick-up trucks to every batch of five jihadists who have completed their training in the border regions of Jordan or Saudi Arabia.

Once those jihadists cross over to Daraa and Quneitra in Syria from the Jordan-Syria border then those Toyota pick-up trucks can easily travel all the way to Raqaa and Deir ez-Zor and thence to Mosul and Anbar in Iraq.

While we are on the subject of Islamic State’s weaponry, it is generally claimed in the mainstream media that the Islamic State came into possession of those sophisticated weapons when it overran Mosul in June 2014 and seized huge caches of weapons that were provided to the Iraqi armed forces by the Americans during the occupation years.

On empirical grounds, however, is it not a bit paradoxical that Islamic State conquered large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq before it overran Mosul, when supposedly it did not have those sophisticated weapons, and since allegedly coming into possession of those weapons it has been losing ground?

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is that the Islamic State had those cutting-edge weapons, or equally lethal weapons, before it overran Mosul and that those weapons were provided to all the Sunni jihadist groups in Syria, including the Islamic State, by the intelligence agencies of the Western powers, Turkey and the Gulf Arab states.

Maintaining ‘Credibility’

In order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policy-makers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on the present and the future. However, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside.

In the case of the formation of the Islamic State, for instance, U.S. policy analysts are willing to concede that invading Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated the sectarian divisions and gave birth to a Sunni insurgency against the heavy-handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government; similarly, the “war on terror”-era political commentators “generously” accept that the Cold War-era policy of nurturing Al Qaeda, the Taliban and myriads of other Afghan “freedom fighters” against the Soviets may have been a bit of a mistake. But these admissions have little or no bearing on the present policy.

The corporate media’s spin doctors conveniently forget that the formation of Islamic State and the new generation of Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq have as much to do with the unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2003 under the previous Bush administration’s policies as they have to do with the Obama administration’s Syrian policy of funding, arming, training and internationally legitimizing the Sunni militants against the Syrian regime since 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

If the Obama administration stops providing money, arms and training to the so-called “moderate rebels” and declares them terrorists (Islamic jihadists) – and makes sure its Mideast “allies” do the same – the insurgency in Syria would likely fizzle out within months, at least, in the densely-populated urban Syria from Damascus and Homs to Hamah, Idlib and Aleppo and the coastal Latakia. Northern Syria will likely remain under the control of the Kurds (who are seeking an autonomous zone in a federated Syria).

But central and eastern Syria from Raqqa to Deir ez-Zor which is dominated by the Islamic State, is a different ball game. It will take years to subdue the insurgency in those rural-tribal areas of Syria, if at all.

Beyond funding, training and arming these insurgencies, there is the international legitimacy that the West can bestow on these rebel or jihadist movements, as was done for the Afghan “freedom fighters” during the Cold War and for the “moderate and democratic” Libyan and Syrian insurgencies of today.

It is simply beyond the power of minor regional players and their nascent media, with their geographically and linguistically limited audience, to cast such brutal insurrections in a positive light, to give them international legitimacy. Only the Western mainstream media with its global audience – serving as the mouthpiece of the Western political establishments – has perfected this absurdist game of selling satans as saviors.

 

consortiumnews.com

 

thestar.com

The March 27 recapture of Palmyra by the Syrian Army—with significant support from Russian and Iranian forces as well as Lebanese Hizballah—demonstrated that the resilience of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is limited. The group is facing sustained military pressure in both countries, as both local and international actors continue to devote significant resources to rolling back the group’s territorial gains. Though the Islamic State has undeniably proven militarily capable, the group will be hard-pressed in the long-term to stand up to the combination of sustained airstrikes, U.S. Special Forces raids, and rebel groups and militaries both armed and supported by various international actors. 

For all its ideological fervor, the Islamic State is also pragmatic and opportunistic. As strategic setbacks mount, the group will take steps to safeguard its key leadership, primarily by attempting to remove them from besieged territory in Iraq and Syria. While the proliferation of Islamic State affiliates has served the ideological purpose of expanding the so-called caliphate, it has also provided the group with strategic fallback positions, making it more difficult to destroy. As with al-Qaeda before it, removing the Islamic State from its core territory will not immediately remove the threat posed by the group. 

Territorial control is a critical element of the Islamic State’s ideological legitimacy as a caliphate amongst its members and supporters. Therefore, the most important external positions for the group are weak states that allow for an increased level of territorial control. The most significant Islamic State presence outside of Iraq and Syria is in Libya, where the group actively controls territory along the central coast. From its self-declared capital in Sirte, the group has been able to consolidate territory in every direction, and exert pressure on territory controlled by the rival governments in both Tripoli and Tobruk. From camps along the western coast, the group has also managed to launch attacks against Tunisia. 

Libya provides access to weapons, oil, and lucrative smuggling routes. It also provides a new destination for foreign fighters—particularly those from Tunisia, which has seen at least 6,000 of its citizens travel to fight in Syria. However, the growth of the Islamic State in Libya has not gone unnoticed by the international community, which has taken steps to contain the group there. As in Iraq and Syria, intervention by international actors presents a serious threat to the ability of the Islamic State to maintain its territory. 

In the past year, the Islamic State has increased its presence in Yemen, targeting both the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government. The instability in Yemen has provided the Islamic State with room to establish a foothold, and the sectarian nature of the conflict has increased the recruiting power of the group there. However, if a cease-fire were to be successfully implemented, the military focus of the Yemeni government—and its international allies—would quickly shift to the Islamic State, particularly if it continues to target government officials. The group also faces competition from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has an established presence in Yemen, and does not look kindly towards its upstart protégé infringing on its territory. 

The affiliate Wilayet Sinai also presents a possible fallback position for the group, as the remote Sinai region could provide some level of security for Islamic State leadership. However, the group does not openly hold territory in the Sinai, and faces persistent pressure from the Egyptian military. If the Egyptian government perceives significant growth of the group in the Sinai, that pressure will undoubtedly increase dramatically. The Islamic State has also capitalized on the persistent and growing security vacuum in Afghanistan, establishing a presence by forming Wilayet Khorasan. For decades, Afghanistan has served as a fallback position for violent extremist groups, and it could serve the same purpose for the Islamic State. However, the al-Qaeda-aligned Taliban remain dominant, and have launched military operations against Islamic State positions.

Like its al-Qaeda predecessor, the Islamic State thrives in the security vacuums of weak states. It is not a coincidence that many Islamic State affiliates have emerged in spaces also occupied by al-Qaeda affiliates, often drawing extremist fighters away from its rival. Ultimately, wherever weak states persist, the Islamic State too will have the space to persist. Rolling back Islamic State territorial gains is, undeniably, critical to degrading the capacity of the group to carry out terror attacks, both in the region and globally. However, only by strengthening weak and failing states can the international community hope to deny the Islamic State, and other extremist groups, continued safe haven. 

soufangroup.com/

On Friday morning in Brussels, police sirens screamed throughout the capital as officers raced to hunt down the suspects behind the devastating March 22 bombings. On that Tuesday morning, two explosions ripped through Brussels airport, bringing the roof down on fleeing travelers and killing 11 people. An hour later, a bomb exploded on a train leaving Maalbeek station for the city center. This proved the most deadly attack, killing 20 people.

At the time of writing, 300 victims were still in hospitals, 61 of them with critical injuries. Armed guards patrolled the streets, incongruous in their bulky camouflage. Police were still launching raids on the neighborhoods of Molenbeek and Schaerbeek, while others stopped commuters at metro stations to sift through their bags.

Beneath the grief of Brussels residents was anger. Their government had been warning for weeks of an impending attack—previous raids on militants’ safe houses had unearthed guns and traces of explosives. Perhaps most damning of all, police were aware of two of the assailants, the el-Bakraoui brothers, one of whom Turkey had even arrested in July 2015 and warned Belgium about. In the minds of many Belgians, it was clear: The government had failed.

But answering the question, “Why Brussels?” requires more than just looking at the leads security services missed. Counterterrorism experts who spoke with Newsweek noted the economic deprivation of neighborhoods with a high Muslim population; radicalization in the country’s prisons; the convoluted Belgian governance system; and a lack of European integration as factors that could also explain why ISIS sympathizers found Brussels an easy target.

For the past few years, Belgium has struggled with extremism. Since 2012, it is estimated that close to 500 Belgians have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join militants there. Per capita, it has the largest number of foreign fighters in Europe. Some of these militants are believed to have come from the district of Molenbeek, close to central Brussels. Around 25 to 30 percent of its population identifies as Muslim and more than 20 mosques serve the neighborhood. Contrary to some media reports, it is not a “no-go zone” nor a ghetto. The day after the attacks, people in Molenbeek were going about their business as usual. The area seemed ordinary if a little run down—public housing is abundant and rubbish litters the streets.

“It is not dangerous to live here,” says 30-year-old Hicham who runs a bodega a few doors down from where police arrested Paris attack suspect Salah Abdeslam on March 18. (Hicham asked that Newsweek not use his last name.) “These guys [who join ISIS] are young. They have been manipulated by the true radicals. They’re just seeking someone to teach them religion and to guide them.”

A dearth of opportunity is one of the factors pushing these young men toward radicalizers promising them a better life. Unemployment in the district is around 30 percent, compared with the national average of 8.5 percent.

“There’s a strong social disparity in areas like Molenbeek,” says Pauline Massart, deputy director, global and security Europe, at the think tank Friends of Europe. “People have been parked in ghettos; unemployment is rife. No investment has been made in public infrastructure.”

One resident of Schaerbeek—another “problem” area—who asked to remain anonymous told Newsweek that radicalizers target the disfortunate. “I went to give food to the poor at the Gare du Nord [in Brussels],” he says. “While I was there, a person was going round trying to convince them to go to Syria.”

Those who can resist the extremists’ messages may still turn to petty crime in order to earn an income. If they are caught and sent to prison, experts warn that it is here that some are being radicalized.

The mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, spent time in a Belgian prison where he met, and possibly recruited, Abdeslam. The el-Bakraoui brothers had also spent time behind bars.

Outside Brussels’s Forest prison, Nicolas Cohen, co-president of the monitoring group the International Observatory of Prisons, further explained the problem. “There is no public information on the level of radicalization in Belgian prisons,” he says. “We know that they are looking for it; prison authorities have asked the guards and imams to report any sign of it.” In France, which has tried to measure the problem, it is believed that 15 percent of all radicalized people were converted in prison.

But Belgium’s prison authorities are preoccupied with other problems besides extremism. Earlier in March, the human rights organization the Council of Europe published its annual report on European penal systems. It found that Belgium’s prisons were dangerously overcrowded, with 129 inmates per 100 places. Forest is particularly bad, Cohen says: “Everything is broken, everything is rotten. Of the four wings, one has been closed since the end of 2015. Some prisoners are sleeping on mattresses on the floor of cells.”

Though authorities are supposed to keep prisoners accused of terrorist activities separate from the rest of the prison population, it is easier said than done. “All the Belgian prisons have a problem with radicalization,” says Denis Bosquet, president of the Oversight Commission of Forest Prison. “Authorities think it is impossible for the radicals to communicate. All they think about when they’re in isolated cells is how to make contact.”

While these young men, and it is almost exclusively young men, make prime targets for radicalization—be they unemployed, in jail or angry at their socioeconomic standing—Belgium has also suffered from extremism as a result of its policing and governance systems.

In Brussels alone, six police forces protect the capital, Massart says. Government is split at a communal, state and federal level, while each section has a French-speaking and Flemish-speaking department. Unsurprisingly, facilitating effective communication between the various levels and departments can prove challenging.

“We need greater coordination to make sure every level is addressed by the right power,” says Serge Stroobants, the Brussels representative for the Institute for Economics and Peace, a think tank.

But, Massart says, communication isn’t the only problem. “I think there’s been a failure at government level to stop radical groups from recruiting,” she says. “[Security services] don’t have the necessary resources—Arabic speakers, people who speak the language of the communities where these extremists come from,” she adds.

In the aftermath of the Brussels attacks, intelligence agents—speaking anonymously—have said that their departments are underfunded and understaffed. Alain Winants, head of the Belgian intelligence service from 2006 until 2014, said Belgium was one of the last countries in Europe to buy modern intelligence-gathering tools such as phone taps.

Belgian security services, stymied by bureaucracy and shoestring budgets, say there is a desperate need for greater coordination between EU nations to counter extremism. At the moment, Massart says, a small international database exists between nations, but it is not comprehensive enough.

“I don’t think this problem is too big to solve,” adds Stroobants. “But what Europe needs to do is become a more integrated continent, working better on a daily basis.”

This seems particularly important given the clear links between the Brussels and Paris attackers. Khalid el-Bakraoui, one of the Brussels bombers, rented a house in the southwestern suburb of Forest for Abdeslam. Police also found DNA of three of the Paris gunmen and a possible suspect in the Brussels assaults, Najim Laachraoui, in the same apartment in Schaerbeek.

“This is a problem that everyone faces,” says Massart, referring to attacks in Madrid in 2004, London in 2005 and Paris in 2015. “We have to look outside Belgium and work more closely with the rest of Europe.”

The problems that Belgium faces are many and varied—and security officials know that the fight is far from over. Three days after the attacks, the terrorist threat level in Brussels remained at its highest, with police warning that more assaults could follow.

Staving off another tragedy, Massart says, will require government investment into deprived communities and intelligence services as well as fundamental changes to its functioning and how security services operate. “We’re in this for the long haul,” she says. “Our citizens need to be as protected as possible, and that means stopping the breeding of extremism.”

 

newsweek.com

 

 

Tuesday’s attacks underscore how Belgium has become a hotbed of terrorist activity…

Explosions that rocked the Brussels Zaventem airport and a metro station in the city on Tuesday morning were “terrorist attacks,” Belgium’s federal prosecutor has said. At least 28 people were killed in the airport and Maalbeek metro station blasts, the Associated Press reported.

The prosecutor said a suicide bomber was “probably” behind one of the attacks.

Here’s why that may not be surprising: Belgium, home of the EU parliament, has become Western’s Europe’s capital of terrorism. Belgium supplied the most foreign fighters to Sunni militant organizations per capita of any Western European country in 2014, according to data compiled by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence.

In fact, the nation bordering northern France supplied 40 fighters per one million people last year, far exceeding any other nation in Western Europe. It also supplied more fighters per capita than France, the UK and Germany, which produced the highest number of fighters to militant groups.

Just four days ago, Salah Abdeslam—a suspect in last November’s devastating and deadly Paris attacks—was captured in Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb. In total, six of the assailants involved in those attacks were born in, or had been living in, Belgium.

According to ICSR’s latest estimate, from January 2015, the total number of foreign fighters to have joined such groups exceeds 20,000, of which nearly a fifth were residents or nationals of western European nations.

It is unclear who carried out Tuesday’s attacks, but ISIS loyalists celebrated them online in the immediate aftermath.

 

vocativ.com

A potentially critical conflict has gone largely unnoticed in southern Libya yet could open up a gateway to sub-Saharan Africa for the Islamic State group, analysts say.

IS has consolidated its hold along Libya’s northern coast, and experts are concerned the jihadists may now be pushing into the remote desert region of Fezzan in the southwest of the country.

Sitting on the crossroads between Algeria, Niger and Chad, Fezzan offers lucrative sources of income from smuggling and already acts as a hideout for Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) and other jihadist groups.

It is one of Africa’s main drug routes, traversed by migrants from sub-Saharan Africa hoping to get to Europe as well as by foreign mercenaries, mostly African, heading to join IS at their Sirte stronghold in northeastern Libya.

Penetrating south through Fezzan could ultimately help IS link up with its brutal Nigerian sister organisation, Boko Haram, as well as providing a rear base in case of any international assault on its positions along the Mediterranean coast, analysts say.

However, the desert region remains something of an intelligence black hole and the extent of IS’s intrusion is unclear.

Aumentano gli ebrei israeliani favorevoli agli insediamenti, ritenendoli utili alla sicurezza di Israele. Non quelli che invece credono nella soluzione “due popoli due stati”. Quest’ultima soluzione è ritenuta poco praticabile anche dagli arabi israeliani, che però negli ultimi anni hanno pure smesso di ritenerla una misura utile per porre fine al conflitto.

Solo l’8% degli ebrei israeliani si identifica politicamente con la sinistra. Il dato è significativo, perché solamente chi si ritiene di quest’area politica è in netta maggioranza favorevole alla soluzione dei due stati, contrario agli insediamenti e contrario all’espulsione degli arabi da Israele. Chi si autodefinisce di destra la pensa nel modo opposto. La maggioranza degli ebrei israeliani si ritiene invece di “centro”, ma con posizioni perlopiù di destra in tema sicurezza.

Questi sono i risultati di un sondaggio che è oggi riportato sui maggiori media israeliani. I dati, secondo noi, vanno contestualizzati al periodo attuale, molto delicato in Israele: operazione Margine protettivo (sondaggio iniziato nell’ottobre 2014) e rapporti burrascosi con gli Usa dell’amministrazione Obama.
Vediamoli nel dettaglio, riportandoli come descritti dal Times of Israel.

Quasi la metà degli ebrei israeliani concorda sul fatto che gli arabi debbano essere espulsi o trasferiti da Israele e una solida maggioranza (79%) ritiene che in Israele debba essere applicato un trattamento preferenziale nei confronti degli ebrei, secondo il sondaggio reso pubblico ieri dal Pew Research Center in Israele.

Il sondaggio, 5.601 interviste ad adulti israeliani tra ottobre 2014 e maggio 2015, ha anche rilevato che gli ebrei israeliani credano sempre più che gli insediamenti in Cisgiordania rappresentino un aiuto piuttosto che un problema per la sicurezza di Israele e la maggior parte (61%) ritiene che Israele sia un dono di Dio al popolo ebraico.

I tre quarti degli ebrei israeliani si sentono profondamente uniti agli ebrei americani, ma più della metà ritiene che la politica americana non sia sufficientemente di supporto ad Israele. Inoltre, il sostegno alla soluzione dei due Stati non è cambiato notevolmente negli ultimi anni tra gli ebrei israeliani  (anche se sono meno ottimisti rispetto ai loro omologhi americani) ma è crollato tra gli arabi israeliani.

Infine, nel complesso la maggior parte degli israeliani si identifica politicamente nell’area centrista. Alla domanda sulle idee politiche, circa il 55% degli israeliani ha risposto identificandosi nel centro, il 37% dicendo di essere di destra e l’8% di sinistra.

Espulsione degli arabi
L’indagine non fa alcuna distinzione tra gli arabi palestinesi della Cisgiordania e i cittadini di Israele nella domanda sul fatto che gli arabi debbano o meno essere espulsi da Israele. Tuttavia, il 48% degli ebrei israeliani ha dichiarato di essere a favore, 46% contrario, il 6% ha risposto di non sapere.

Dividendo in gruppi religiosi, gli ortodossi moderni (il sondaggio utilizza il termine ebraico dati’im) sono i più propensi a sostenere una tale misura con il 71% di favorevoli. Al contrario, gli ebrei laici sono perlopiù a sfavore, con il 58% di risposte contrarie (ma oltre un terzo a favore). Gli Ebrei Sefarditi o di stirpe Mizrahi – molti dei quali hanno antenati che sono stati espulsi dai loro paesi di origine – sono i più entusiasti (56%) rispetto alla controparte Ashkenazita (40%).

Gli intervistati che si autodefiniscono di destra sono significativamente i più favorevoli (72%), mentre coloro che si identificano nella sinistra sono fortemente contrari (87% contro). Tra i centristi, il 37% è a favore, il 52% si oppone e il 9% ha risposto di non sapere. Non ci sono state notevoli differenze riscontrate tra i coloni (54% a favore) e gli israeliani che risiedono altrove (47% a favore).

Nel complesso, gli ebrei israeliani in maggioranza schiacciante (79%) ritengono di meritare un “trattamento di favore” non specificato rispetto alle minoranze non ebraiche in Israele. I coloni sono leggermente più inclini a sostenere un trattamento preferenziale (85%) rispetto al resto della popolazione, ma la misura sarebbe popolare tra tutti i gruppi di ebrei in Israele, indipendentemente dal livello religioso, in particolare tra gli ultra-ortodossi (97%) e ortodossi moderni ( 96%), anche se pure il 69% degli ebrei laici e l’85% dei conservatori (Masorti) è d’accordo.

Allo stesso tempo, la maggior parte degli ebrei israeliani (76%) ha dichiarato di ritenere uno stato ebraico come compatibile con la democrazia, ma così non la pensano i cittadini arabi, il cui 64% ritiene che Israele non possa essere sia una democrazia sia uno Stato ebraico (63% dei musulmani, il 72% dei cristiani, e il 58% di drusi hanno risposto in questo modo).

Dio, la terra di Israele e gli insediamenti
Circa sei su dieci ebrei israeliani (61%) credono che Dio abbia donato la terra di Israele agli ebrei. Gli ultra-ortodossi e ortodossi moderni sono quasi unanimi su questo punto (99 e 98 per cento, rispettivamente), mentre l’85% degli ebrei israeliani conservatori è d’accordo. Tra gli ebrei israeliani laici, il 31% è d’accordo, il 19% non è d’accordo e il 50% ha detto di non credere in Dio o di non sapere.
Circa un quinto dei cristiani e drusi in Israele ritiene che questa credenza sia vera (19% e 17%), ma “a causa di sensibilità politiche, ai musulmani in Israele non è stata posta questa domanda”.

Circa il 42% degli ebrei israeliani ritiene che gli insediamenti giovino alla sicurezza di Israele, il 30% dichiara che rappresentano un male per la sicurezza di Israele e il 25% afferma che non fa alcuna differenza. Le divergenze sono state in gran parte accentuate dalle idee politiche, con l’81% degli intervistati di sinistra a rispondere che gli insediamenti siano dannosi, il 62% degli intervistati di destra che sono utili e i centristi divisi equamente tra chi ritiene aiutino, chi siano negativi e chi che non faccia differenza (32% per ciascuno).

In un sondaggio del Pew nel 2013, il 35% aveva detto che gli insediamenti danneggiano Israele, il 31% ha dichiarato che aiutano e il 27% che non fa alcuna differenza.

Israele e Stati Uniti
I tre quarti degli ebrei israeliani sentono di condividere un destino comune con gli ebrei americani in gran parte o in una certa misura e il 59% ritiene che gli ebrei statunitensi abbiano un “buon ascendente” su Israele (solo il 6% ha risposto che gli ebrei americani hanno un cattivo ascendente su Israele, il restante 31% ha dichiarato che il loro ascendente non è né buono né cattivo).

Ma in generale, gli ebrei israeliani ritengono che il sostegno degli Usa sia carente.
Circa il 52% afferma che “la politica degli Stati Uniti non sia di supporto sufficiente ad Israele”, mentre il 34% afferma che il sostegno sia dato nella giusta misura e l’11% che gli Stati Uniti siano troppo a sostegno di Israele. Il 62% degli esponenti di destra, il 49% dei centristi e il 33% di sinistra ritengono che gli Stati Uniti non siano sufficientemente d’aiuto ad Israele.

Invece, la maggioranza dei cittadini arabi – 77 per cento – ha risposto che gli Stati Uniti sono “troppo solidali” con Israele. Circa l’86% dei cristiani, il 76% dei drusi e il 75% dei musulmani la pensano in questo modo.

La fine della soluzione dei due stati?
Il 43% degli ebrei israeliani ritiene che Israele e uno stato palestinese possano coesistere pacificamente fianco a fianco, il 45% crede che sia impossibile e il 13% dice che “dipende”. Coloro che si identificano come elettori di sinistra sono molto più propensi a credere nella soluzione a due stati (86%), rispetto a quelli di destra (29%) e a quelli di centro (46%). Le cifre non sono state radicalmente differenti da quelle del 2013 (quando il 46% ha detto che tale soluzione è possibile).

La metà degli arabi israeliani è ottimista sulla soluzione dei due stati, mentre il 30% ha risposto che non è praticabile. Questo sondaggio ha segnato un profondo declino nella fiducia araba israeliana nei confronti di tale soluzione: dal 74% del 2013 al 64% dopo i colloqui di pace che si sono interrotti nel 2014, fino al 50% dopo la guerra di Gaza nel 2014.

L’Istituto Pew ha anche citato un sondaggio dell’Università di Haifa che ha chiesto agli arabi israeliani se la soluzione dei due Stati debba essere il principio guida per porre fine al conflitto, ma non se fosse praticabile. I dati mostrano che, a partire dal 2003, i numeri sono scesi dall’89% al 71% nel 2015.
Ma mentre gli ebrei israeliani e arabi ritengono sempre più che la soluzione dei due Stati non è sia fattibile, il 61% degli ebrei americani ritiene invece che possa essere possibile. I più grandi ottimisti sono gli ebrei americani che si autodefiniscono liberal, il 70% dei quali ha risposto che si possa adottare tale soluzione. I dati sugli ebrei americani sono stati elaborato da uno studio del Pew nel 2013 e confrontati con le attuali risposte degli israeliani.

Riccardo Ghezzi

linformale.eu