*3.1. The 'Caliphate' Enters the Westphalian Order*

Every study of IS and its self-proclaimed 'Caliphate' inevitably stumbles upon the fundamental question of how best approach the 'Islamic State' entity and the global jihadi movement in general. IS has global interests and nearly global reach, to a degree that few militant organizations had in the past, including al-Qaeda. Contrary to al-Qaeda, though, IS has 'presented' the international community with its version of being a state. In this capacity, IS has operated simultaneously in two systems: the international—Westphalian—system and the jihadi (sub)system. From mid-2014 until 2016, IS controlled more than 100,000 square kilometers of territory and a population of over 11 million people (Jones et al. 2017), which were governed through sophisticated administrative structures. In this regard, it was larger, more populous and better-governed than many contemporary states. This raised the question if we should continue treating IS as a terrorist organization or the concept of a (revolutionary) state is more appropriate (Rich 2016; Walt 2015) and if that is the case what should be the stance of the international community.

Previous research on revolutionary states has shown that revolutionary states have a deep impact on the international system, either by increasing the possibility of international conflict (Maoz 1996; Walt 1996) or by challenging and occasionally changing the norms and logic of the

established international order (Armstrong 1993; Halliday 1999). The aim of revolutionary groups is not only to seize power, but to radically change also the socio-political relations and the society. This aim is not restricted to the domestic front. It involves the international society as well. By the same token, revolutionary regimes perceive the international order under a Manichean prism; a struggle between the forces of 'good and evil, rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, old and new' (Armstrong 1993, p. 197). Often guided by a teleological view of world politics, they do not consider themselves bound by the established rules, putting forward instead notions of 'universal society' and world revolution (Halliday 1999). Hence, an inherent feature of revolutionary states is their aspiration to export their revolution, either through conquest or by providing an inspirational example for others to copy (Walt 2015). This aspiration is equally guided by their ideological convictions and the need to strengthen the regime internally by finding scapegoats for their troubles (Maoz 1996).

These dynamics are readily evident in the 'Islamic State'. The basic tenet of IS's conceptualization of territoriality rests on the conviction that the 'rebirth of the ummah and the caliphate ... require deterritorializing and dismantling the colonial geopolitical heritage and its national borders and nation states and reterritorializing the ummah and caliphate' (Jabareen 2015, p. 53). Indeed, IS has, on several occasions, rejected any obstacle (be it nationalism or factionalism) that stands in the way of a united ummah (Dabiq 2015d, pp. 3–6). As al-Baghdadi stated in 2012: 'the Islamic State does not recognize synthetic borders, nor any citizenship besides Islam' (Bunzel 2015, p. 24). In other words, IS believes that no aspects of territorial sovereignty, such as 'borders... passports or visas' (Dabiq 2014, p. 23) might limit its global claims to 'Makkah and al-Mad¯ınah ... Baytul-Maqdis and Rome' (Dabiq 2014, p. 3). Therefore, it does not see itself as part of and does not have any 'commitments towards the international community' (Al-Shishani 2014). In this light, all states but the *Islamic State* are considered illegitimate.

Nevertheless, the ideological fervor of revolutionary states and their e ffort to change the international order is reciprocated by intense structural pressures to 'socialize' in the same norms and logic they abhor (Armstrong 1993; Walt 1992). In order to secure their survival and protect themselves from internal and external counter-revolution forces, they need to engage in international trade and find allies. At the same time, the fact that they have to run a state ironically forces them to resort and legitimize the international norms and tools that safeguard sovereignty and by extent the international order (Armstrong 1993, p. 302). Indeed, when IS state-project came under western military attack in 2014, IS appeared to contemplate some type of socialization within the international system's norms. The conditions of this socialization are outlined in a series of articles, authored by the captured journalist John Cantlie (Dabiq 2015a, pp. 48–50; 2015d, pp. 64–67). Exploring the conditions for a respite in IS's war against the western countries, Cantlie draws on previous examples of revolutionary states, such as Bolshevik Russia and Maoist China, but stops short of foregoing IS's aspirations of global revolution. The editorial note on one of Cantlie's articles clearly states that IS could o ffer the West nothing more than a *temporary truce* (Dabiq 2015d, p. 67). Its ideological rigidity, notwithstanding, the IS has an additional characteristic that renders its socialization in the international system more problematic. Contrary to other revolutionary states, it was not established within the borders of an existing state, but from the start it was a transnational project that covered parts of both Iraq and Syria, without though overthrowing either of the ruling regimes.

Given the revolutionary logic and the formative conditions of IS, the question that remains is whether the international order will choose to accommodate such as state or find ways to destroy it. Vu and Van Orden (2019) employ a three-pronged test to examine IS's 'suitability' for incorporation in the international order: power capabilities, shared values and self-destructive tendencies. They claim that, first, IS was not powerful enough and did not have a powerful patron to 'force' the international community to accept the reality of its existence. Second, ISIS shared no values whatsoever with Western societies. Hence, there was no common ground that could ease IS into the international order with the prospect of future moderation, as happened for example in the case of Iran. Third, IS's extremism was

inherently self-destructive as it alienates possible allies and the local population. Hence, as the authors predicted IS was doomed to self-destroy.

IS's extremism and inherent contradictions lied at the heart of discussions around the stance the international community should assume vis-à-vis the IS and the best possible strategy for dismantling its state. One approach was containment. The idea behind this strategy was that IS's ideology was too parochial to inspire a revolutionary wave and in any case it was not as powerful as many feared to warrant a military intervention, which could inadvertently strengthen the resolve of its supporters and boost its prestige (Walt 2015, p. 42). At the same time, though, its existence was too damaging to simply be left alone, as is the case for other de facto states, such as Somaliland. Instead, IS was bound to fail because its economy and its state model was unsustainable in the long run. Hence, the best strategy was to contain and isolate it, while applying subtle pressure through local and regional forces to heighten its contradictions and accelerate its demise. Clint Watts (2015) proposed a similar approach, which he dubbed a 'let them rot' strategy. Drawing from the experience of Algerian forces in dismantling the enclaves of the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA) during the Algerian civil war, he claimed that by actively preventing the formation of these jihadist states, one allows the preservation of Sharia governance dream. Instead, if we allow them to form, the proponents of such a state will see that after all it is not the utopia they dreamed.

Both scholars, however, highlighted some requirements for this strategy to work, which were absent or were di fficult to implement in the specific context, such as the relatively large territory of IS's state, the inability of local and international forces to provide alternatives to demobilized fighters, the lack of consensus within the international coalition and the diverging interests of neighboring states and regional powers (Walt 2015, p. 46; Watts 2015, pp. 159–61). Most importantly, perhaps, this strategy required patience, which was di fficult to sustain in the wake of terrorist attacks in Europe and increasing refugee flows. Western powers deemed that the time needed to contain and gradually degrade IS was politically not viable, opting instead for an intensification of air raids, while arming and training local (Kurdish) forces for ground operations against the IS.

### *3.2. Fratricide in the Jihadi Sub-System: The Rift between IS and Al-Qaeda*

The threat of compromising its global brand does not only concern IS's authority and interaction with the international—Westphalian—system, but also the jihadi (sub)system. In his study of jihadi pro-states, Brynjar Lia (2015) claims that one of the main characteristics of jihadi de facto states is that they are all intensely ideological and internationalist projects. Guided by the ideological imperative to establish Sharia and alter the border-delimitated world order, jihadi proto-states, like IS, often prefer to 'sacrifice state building on the altar of ideological purity'. According to Lia, two interlinked factors may explain this reluctance to forego their ideological rigidity: first, the dependence of jihadi proto-states on external constituencies, namely foreign fighters and donors, and second, their competition with rival jihadi groups (Lia 2015, p. 37). In other words, a jihadi proto-state needs to preserve its ideological edge to keep competition in check and attract more fighters and resources than its competitors.

Building on Lia's argument, this article claims that, above all, IS's rise constitutes a bid for increased power and influence vis-à-vis rival Islamist groups. The Caliphate was not restored in an ideological void or organizational vacuum. IS built on a long history and legacy of state-building paradigms within the salafi-jihadi movement (Lia 2015, pp. 34–35). By being the first one to venture building an 'Islamic State' of this magnitude and Islamic connotations, IS poses a direct challenge to other groups within the jihadi sub-system. The challenge is most direct towards the other jihadi claimant to a global brand, al-Qaeda.

The intra-movement rift between the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda was not the first one to rock the jihadi scene, but to this day, it has been the most spectacular. The beginning of the crisis can be traced to al-Baghdadi's decision, in April 2013, to move the forces of Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) into Syria and announce a merge with Jabhat al-Nusra. In Baghdadi's eyes, ISI was merely subduing a jihadi group, that he had sent to Syria, and which lately had been showing signs of disobedience

(Hassan 2018, pp. 3–4). In the eyes of al-Nusra's leader, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, this was a violent take-over, which threatened his and his group's survival. In the eyes of the new al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, it was a direct challenge to al-Qaeda's long-held position as the main jihadi hub and brand within the jihadi movement.

Al-Qaeda has a long history of internal disagreements and tense relations with affiliates. These internal tensions have been documented in al-Qaeda's long bureaucratic log of organizational blueprints and lengthy letter-exchanges. Studies of captured internal documents have identified several dividing lines within the wider salafi-jihadi movement, such as the divide between 'strategists' and 'doctrinaires', the global/local and the global/classical dichotomies (Lahoud et al. 2012; Moghadam and Fishman 2010). As a bureaucratic organization, al-Qaeda has been plagued also by financial quarrels, power struggles over recruits and territory and local leadership ambitions, which are exacerbated by the geographical distance and poor communication (Brachman and McCants 2006; Brown 2007; Byman 2014; Hamming 2019). The jihadi movement has also a history of internal fighting and cases of local forces going rogue. However, neither the fratricide that followed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan nor the ultra-violent spree of GIA during Algeria's civil war (Hamming 2019) managed to stir the jihadi scene as much as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al-Baghdadi's demonstration of disrespect towards al-Qaeda was built on a history of often strenuous relations between al-Qaeda central and its Iraqi affiliate. However, despite some suggestions within the leadership core, Osama bin Laden never considered severing ties with its first leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

What was different in Baghdadi's challenge that forced al-Zawahiri to expel the group from al-Qaeda's ranks? According to Hagerty (2016), the relationship between al-Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliate hinges on four parameters: the levels of strategic cohesion, need fulfillment, trust, and communication between the two. Although the two groups never shared a common strategic outlook, their affiliation fulfilled some needs for both al-Qaeda and al-Zarqawi. Al-Qaeda gained a vigorous group that kept the organization relevant after post-9/11 setbacks. Al-Zarqawi, on the other hand, gained an affiliation with the al-Qaeda brand and the access this offered to recruits and sources of funding (Hagerty 2016, p. 15). Contrary to al-Zarqawi, Al-Baghdadi assumed that al-Qaeda no longer fulfilled the group's needs and that, after bin Laden's death, there was room for a new brand. The strategic 'misunderstanding' between the two was further fueled by the diminishing levels of trust and communication, both exacerbated by the geographic distance that separated the two groups.

Nevertheless, the al-Qaeda–ISIS rift was more than a misunderstanding. Access to new resources and recruitment opportunities in the Syrian conflict, offered ISIS the additional material incentives to disassociate itself from al-Qaeda. The Syrian civil war allowed ISIS much more maneuvering room for empowerment, compared to al-Qaeda leadership, which is long entrapped in the Af-Pak borderland. This change in the distribution of power within the jihadi movement spearheaded a re-balancing act, gradually turning the unipolar jihadi subsystem into an –aspiring—bipolar one. In the process, the jihadi subsystem entered a period of turbulence that eventually engulfed the entire movement.

According to Clint Watts (2016), the ISIS–al-Qaeda competition has gone through two distinct phases. The first, covering the period from summer 2013 until mid-2014, was dominated by 'destructive competition', that is competition centered around direct violence between the adversaries. After ISIS's march through Nineveh and the declaration of the Caliphate in Mosul, competition between the two has shifted to 'escalating'. Escalating competition largely resembles the outbidding strategy, which is often used by competing militant groups in an effort to outpace their adversaries. This transition, according to Watts, was made possible by the stabilization of the intra-jihadi territorial borders in Syria, which allowed the two adversaries to 'swivel their weapons outward ... solidifying their stake in a crowded global jihadist landscape' (Watts 2016, p. 3). Hamming (2017) agrees with the distinction, but claims that the first phase of the al-Qaeda–ISIS competition involved both destructive and escalating features.

This article posits that destructive competition, in terms of direct conflict between al-Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate and ISIS, was in reality limited. Apart from some skirmishes and localized fighting, the lion's share of anti-ISIS violence came from local jihadi forces, such as Ahrar al-Sham (as Islamic

Front), rather than al-Qaeda a ffiliated al-Nusra (Bunzel 2014). The jihadi movement su ffered from weak institutions, ye<sup>t</sup> the degree of institutionalization within the movement, at least in terms of informal norms, routines, customs, and traditions (Bakke et al. 2012, p. 269), was high enough to prevent high-level fighting. Indeed, al-Zawahiri and a number of al-Qaeda a ffiliated ideologues, such as al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada, initially stroke a didactic, ye<sup>t</sup> conciliatory, tone in their messages to ISIS. The tone started to change after ISIS killed al-Nusra's emir in Raqqa and particularly after the assassination of Abu Khalid al-Suri, a founding member of Ahrar al-Sham and a prominent jihadi in Syria (Hamming 2017, pp. 74–75; Lahoud and Al-Ubaydi 2014, p. 4). In response, Al-Qaeda went as far as severing o fficial ties and dubbing ISIS a Khawarij<sup>1</sup> group (Jackson 2014); still though, both al-Nusra and al-Qaeda stopped short of calling for violence against ISIS, advocating the use of violence only as last resort (Hamming 2020, pp. 10–11; Skovgaard-Petersen 2017, pp. 30–31).

ISIS was not as chivalrous. Verbal attacks against al-Qaeda became all more explicit after Baghdadi's rebuttal of Zawahiri's 'ruling' in favor of al-Nusra. In Baghdadi's words, he had to 'chose the order of God over the orders that contravenes Allah in the letter [of al-Zawahiri]'. A year later, Baghdadi stood at the pulpit of Mosul's Grand al-Nuri Mosque to announce the restoration of the Caliphate. Although ISIS often flirted with the notion of *takfir* (excommunication) against al-Qaeda, it crossed the line only in the end of 2015, when an article featured in ISIS journal Dabiq (no.12), titled 'The Allies of al-Qa'ida in Sham: the End', explicitly called al-Nusra apostate (Hamming 2017, p. 75). By that time, however, intra-jihadi fighting in Syria had largely ceased and the competition had shifted to global outbidding.

After the declaration of Caliphate, ISIS shed the geographical references in its name, and as 'Islamic State' (IS) shifted its focus to the global propagation of the newly-created Caliphate and its new brand. IS's foray into the global scene was three-pronged. First, an outward propaganda campaign that took by storm the internet, raising eyebrows inside the jihadi online community and the western media. Building on previous e fforts to modernize jihadi propaganda—namely al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) journal *Inspire*—IS media production became the new golden standard in online propaganda. Sleek, edited down-to-the-detail and flirting with internet culture (e.g., memes) and gaming aesthetics, IS propaganda was selling a new—and competitive to al-Qaeda—brand and a new methodology (manhaj) to disgruntled Muslims around the world. This was a glaring e ffort on IS's part to outbid al-Qaeda in attracting recruits. Contrary though to al-Qaeda, IS had a 'state' to present to possible recruits, o ffering thus the option of 'civilian hijra' (immigration to the Caliphate), besides the *career* of 'foreign fighter'. IS made every e ffort to highlight this di fference with al-Qaeda, often featuring scenes of serene daily life under the 'Islamic State' in its propaganda.

The second prong of IS's hegemony quest in the jihadi sub-system was the escalation of attacks on western countries. One possible explanation for the surge of IS-related attacks in western capitals is the international coalition's attacks on IS in Syria and Iraq. This explanation, which sees the rise of IS violence as a reaction to western attacks on its 'state', is supported by the fact that the rate of terrorist plots increased after the anti-IS coalition was formed and that countries actively participating in the coalition's operations were targeted to a larger extent (Nesser 2019, pp. 17–18). That was also the reasoning that IS's spokesman al-Adnani used to call for attacks against Europe in a number of statements issued in that period (Nesser et al. 2016, p. 5). Another possibility is that IS-related violence was a reaction to the e fforts of some western countries to close the 'gates of hijra'. In this sense, tighter border controls and the implementation of travel restrictions on possible recruits have *forced* some to resort to domestic terrorism. IS's publications and Al-Adnani's statements, on occasions, explicitly referred to the increasing di fficulties recruits faced in their e ffort to reach the Caliphate, urging them instead to conduct attacks against civilians in their countries of residence (Al-Adnani 2016;

<sup>1</sup> Khawarij was the first dissident group within Islam. It was formed after the death of Prophet Muhammad expressing disagreements on how Muhammad's successor should be chosen. In Islamic parlance it has come to denote extremism and it is considered a very serious accusation.

Dabiq 2015c, p. 54). A third explanation, and closer to this article's argument, is that this surge of terrorist attacks also constituted an open effort to outbid al-Qaeda on its preferential field: attacks on the far-enemy (Watts 2016). In this regard, the escalation of IS violence against western countries is essentially directed towards its jihadi antagonist, al-Qaeda, which has been long advocating attacks on the West, but lately has been having problems delivering such attacks.

The third conduit of al-Qaeda–IS competition took the form of a 'war of bay'as'. Prominent ideologues and jihadi groups around the world were called to take a stance on the al-Qaeda–IS conflict. Many felt the need to situate themselves on the new jihadi map, either reiterating their loyalty to al-Qaeda or siding with the new-comer. This resulted in a flurry of competitive pledges of oath; including Zawahiri, who renewed his oath to Mullah Omar and, when the death of Mullah Omar was announced, to his successor, Mullah Mansour. This war of bay'as ushered a period of alliance re-building in the jihadi movement. This process of system recalibration, local fragmentation and alliance-building, which affected most local jihadi scenes and conflicts, is explored in more detail in the following section.
