The changing face of Syria’s Jihadists

The phenomenon of Islamists willing to change their ideological positions is not a new one in Syria. It’s worth noting that so-called “Islamists” who speak hardline Islamist rhetoric have often been shown to have no consistency between their actions and words. These abrupt and massive changes in ideology and practise have often been linked to the changing requirements of foreign-donors such as the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and very recently, Russia.

The most famous recent example was the case of Zahran Alloush, who is the deceased former leader of the Jaysh Al-Islam (Army of Islam) militia which controlled a large fiefdom mainly in the Eastern Damascus area. After trying to win support from worldwide Islamists and rich Gulf donors with hardline Islamist rhetoric and calls to implement Shariah and subjugate Alawites, we found that Zahran Alloush was willing to betray his ideology and rhetoric and embrace modern Western secular Democracy, with respect for minority rights, after the United States opened up talks with him about co-operating with each other [1].

This chameleon-like changing of appearance also occurred with Ahrar ash-Sham who have gradually evolved from a hardline Islamist group which implemented Shariah and had links to Al-Qaeda Central (though Abu Khalid Al-Suri), to a group which rejected the implementation of Shariah and embraced secular democracy through it’s former leaders signatory to the “Revolutionary Covenant” [2] and now openly calls for military assistance from the West and publicly rejects Islamism through its spokesman, Labib Al Nahhas [3]. This is a remarkable turnaround for a group which even until early 2014 was trying to show off its Islamist credentials by showing videos of its fighters applying Shariah law [4] and boasting about it’s connections to senior Al-Qaeda Central figure, Abu Khalid Al-Suri.

So we know that in the Syrian context, ideology is entirely a fluid situation and is subject to compromise depending on the incentives on offer and by whom it is offered by. The only group so far observed not to have compromised on any of it’s principled positions is the Islamic State (ISIS).

What made these drastic changes possible was after hardline elements within Ahrar ash-Sham conveniently died in attacks which were falsely attributed to the Islamic State. This occurred with the death of Abu Khalid Al-Suri whose death made it possible for Ahrar as-Sham to ideologically reconcile working with and allying with the West whilst still trying to retain its Jihadist and anti-West image. This was because Al-Suri was intensely anti-Western and advocated war against the West. This made co-operation between Ahrar as-Sham and Western nations impossible – until his demise.

Abu Firas Al-Suri, like Abu Khalid Al-Suri, was a senior Al-Qaeda Central operative in Syria. Only in Firas’ case, he was embedded within Jabhat Al-Nusra, rather than Ahrar as-Sham. He represented a hardline ideological strain within Jabhat Al-Nusra which was intensely loyal to Al-Qaeda Central and Ayman Zawahiri, while also being vehemently anti-Western. This too, made co-operation between Western nations and Al-Nusra impossible, even though other Syrian rebel groups openly asked the US to help them in their fight against Assad. The presence of hardline Al-Qaeda operatives within some rebel groups made total US support for these groups politically impossible.

Now that Abu Firas from Jabhat Al-Nusra is dead, it appears that the moderate elements within Al-Nusra represented by ex-Iraqi Baathist Abu Mariyah Al-Qahtani has been strengthened and is now open to co-operation with the United States military. In January 2015, major arguments broke out amongst Al-Nusra leaders about whether to break their allegiance from Al-Qaeda and merge with the Syrian nationalist rebel groups. They even argued publicly over Twitter about this proposed change of direction. However, the presence of hardline Al-Qaeda leaders like Abu Firas made this impossible on a political level as the United States did not want to be seen as co-operating with it’s once powerful Al-Qaeda enemy.

However, a few months later, Abu Muhammad Al-Jawlani, Nusra’s leader, said in a May 2015 AlJazeera interview [5] that Al-Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat Al-Nusra) poses no threat to the US and the West in general. He was trying to cease hostilities with America. Four Months later in a September 2015 interview with The Daily Beast, retired United States army General David Petraeus reciprocated Al-Jawlani’s peace gesture and stated that America should be willing to work with Jabhat Al-Nusra fighters in order to “take down” the Islamic State [6].

Petraeus said in the same interview that the US should only work with the Al-Nusra members who “don’t necessarily share all of core al Qaeda’s Islamist philosophy” [7]. Petraeus stated that he wanted to work with “less extreme al Nusra fighters”. This then brings us back to the arguements we witnessed amongst Nusra leaders in early 2015 about breaking off from Al-Qaeda Central and in particular, breaking off from Ayman Zawahiri. We know there is a current within Al-Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat Al-Nusra) who want to leave Al-Qaeda as they see it as a liability.

Abu Khalid al-Suri was Al-Qaeda’s man in Ahrar as-Sham. He was killed in an attack blamed on ISIS but later found to have been done by as-yet unidentified assailants. Abu Firas was a staunch Al-Qaeda man in Nusra. He too was killed. After Suri was killed, Ahrar become open to co-operating with the West. After Abu Firas was killed, we see signs of Nusra recieving assistance from US airstrikes against ISIS in Northern Aleppo. This is exactly the situation that General David Petraeus openly called for in September 2015. This situation necessitated the elimination of hardline Al-Qaeda elements within Nusra as Petraeus mentioned, and this has happened recently with the death of Abu Firas.

Leave alone the fact that this situation represents a failure of Al-Qaeda’s policy of changing “corrupt” groups from within, what can we guess about Nusra’s future ideological direction? When the West dangled a carrot to Jaysh Al-Islam and Ahrar ash-Sham to work with the West, we saw the leaders of these groups openly obliging US requests. Are we seeing a similar situation with Al-Nusra? And if so, the question needs to be asked, were the hardline Al-Qaeda elements within Ahrar as-Sham and Al-Nusra killed as a matter of co-incidence, or were forces within Ahrar as-Sham and Al-Nusra who wanted to become closer to the US involved in the deaths of these men? These are the moderate elements of these groups mentioned by David Petraeus. Have we now seen his strategy manifest itself?

Only time will tell. However, my predictions for the coming few months and years is that Jabhat Al-Nusra will adopt a gradualist approach where they will slowly drip-feed opinions and Fatwahs stating the permissability of accepting American help against ISIS. This would be part of the larger Western and Russian proposed peace process for Syria where rebel groups are being told to give up the fight against Assad and instead attempt to wipe out the Islamic State from Syria. The Syrian revolutionary cause will end it’s military element and end up with elections, where a unity government between the rebels and the Assad regime (with or without Assad) would be recognised as the legitimate government of Syria. Al-Nusra’s place within this context is still up for debate and rests on Al-Nusra’s future strategy; do they remain committed anti-Western Jihadists or do they become moderate and embrace the Western and Russian proposed peace process?

 

 

References:

[1] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24784780.html
[2] http://eaworldview.com/2014/05/syria-document-insurgents-issue-revolutionary-covenant/
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-deadly-consequences-of-mislabeling-syrias-revolutionaries/2015/07/10/6dec139e-

266e-11e5-aae2-6c4f59b050aa_story.html
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhu1a6CPIXM
[5] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/nusra-front-golani-assad-syria-hezbollah-isil-150528044857528.html
[6] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.html
[7] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.html

The bombing of Mosul University

The US Coalitions bombing of Mosul University, killing over 100 students and academics was probably one of the more egregious moments of violence in a single event since the US Coalition airstrikes against ISIS started in August 2014. What was particularly shocking about this incident – even compared to the bombing of hospitals in ISIS territory – was the number of casualties inflicted upon a target which is a purely civilian target.

Image taken from an AlJazeera TV Video report
Image taken from an AlJazeera TV Video report

What prompted the US to target civilian infrastructure in such a ferocious manner?

According to this December 2014 policy report from the Brookings Institute, it is motivated by the need to reduce the effectiveness of ISIS’ administrative capabilities by:

a) Reducing it’s material capability to rule (finances, oil, men, equipment etc).

b) Reducing the perception that ISIS is a capable administrator by creating the impression that ISIS rule only leads to destruction and misery for the general civilian population, thereby turning the people against ISIS (ie, terror in the absolute sense of the word).

The result of these late 2014 policy recommendations in the face of ISIS’ imperviousness to the US’ airstrikes against its manpower, has resulted in the deliberate targetting of ISIS’ civilian infrastructure as a means to reduce its ability to effectively administrate its territories and to diminish any support it may enjoy in its civilian population by associating ISIS rule with hardship and destruction.

A prominent example of this occurring shortly after the recommendations from the Brookings Institute was the destruction of the Aisha hospital in AlbuKamal by US Coalition airstrikes:

There are many more prominent examples of civilian infrastructure being targetted in ISIS territory by the US Coalition. Many examples can be found on this website: http://airwars.org/civcas-2015/.

After the airstrikes on Mosul University, local sources within Mosul confirmed to us that recruitment to ISIS ranks from within Mosul city went up by thousands, and these reports came in from multiple different sources.

It is therefore the contention that the Brookings Institute guidelines being followed are in fact counterproductive to the US’ stated aim to destroy ISIS and create a groundswell of Sunni Arab opinion against ISIS as a means to combat it both physically and through ideology. Reports indicate the opposite is happening and that ISIS’ popularity only increases due to these policies. This has also resulted in a muted condemnation to ISIS recent attack on Brussels, with many formerly anti-ISIS media personalities barely reacting to what happened in Brussels. This is a worrying sign as it indicates that the US is losing the war of opinions and minds within the Sunni Arab region.

A wholesale revision of these policies are required and it is necessary to stop the targetting of civilian infrastructure as a matter of immediate priority.