Political geography of Daesh: expansion as a survival strategy. The article by Grigory Lukyanov

10 September 2019

The year of 2019 has become the turning point for an international terrorist organization Daesh (the editor’s note: ISIL is officially banned in Russia, here and after in the text the Arabic language acronym Daesh is used), which has managed to show their willingness to change in an effort to survive after the military defeats in Syria and Iraq. We cannot speak of a complete defeat of the self-proclaimed Caliphate despite the complete loss of the territory conquered in 2013-2014, the main competitive advantage of Daesh over Al-Qaeda (the editor’s note: a terrorist organization that is banned in Russia), although it let consider Daesh as a terrorist organization with “alternative statehood”, which was a reason why it attracted thousands of supporters from all over the world.

 

Expanding their geographic presence far beyond the war-torn Arab states of Western Asia has become an important component of Daesh survival strategy.

 

Political geography of Daesh: expansion as a survival strategy. The article by Grigory Lukyanov

One of Daesh propaganda maps – there shown the territories, which should be under the terrorists’ control / CC BY-SA 4.0

 

When in 2014 the official representative of Daesh Abu Mohammad al-Adnani announced the creation of several provinces of the self-proclaimed Caliphate beyond the Arab Mashreq, there were hardly any people who supposed that those surrogates would be able to function independently, taking into account their remoteness from “the core” of the Caliphate and the fact that so many unique conditions and factors had simultaneously emerged in Iraq and Syria in order to enable the appearance of the phenomenon Daesh. However, during the next 5 years, several regional branches demonstrated their high resilience and capacity for development. They not only successfully survived decline of the maternal organization in Mashreq but also managed to gain and demonstrate a certain degree of political autonomy and economic self-sufficiency and significantly strengthened militarily, politically and economically.

 

Khorasan Province, which had claims to the territories of Afghanistan and Central Asian states, was the most successful. Taking advantage of Mullah Omar’s death, who was the leader of the Taliban (the editor’s note: “The Taliban” is a terrorist organization banned in Russia) in 2013 and the ensuing turmoil within the largest radical movements of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Daesh placed their bets on young and ambitious field commanders that are not strong enough for participation in a real fight for power and resources within the Taliban, as well as on extreme radicals, irreconcilable opponents of any negotiations with the government, and non-Pashtun Taliban allies (Uzbeks, Uyghurs). Over the past 5 years, Afghan proponents of Daesh had seized and defended their share in the regional system of drug trafficking, thus gaining the possibility to ensure themselves stable income and support. Strong economic base made it possible for Khorasan Province to go beyond single-handed or suicide terrorist attacks, but also to supply and sustain armed groups that were able to fight on an equal footing with regular army of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as well as to seize and hold large territories.    

 

 

Political geography of Daesh: expansion as a survival strategy. The article by Grigory Lukyanov

The Daesh fighters captured by the Afghan army/ Mirwais Bezhan (VOA), Public Domain

 

In 2019, the province reached a fundamentally new level of organization and turned into an umbrella structure that coordinated and supported the activities of Daesh new provinces not only in Afghanistan, but also in Iraq and South Asia: Hindh (India), Kashmir, Pakistan, Bengal (Bangladesh) and Saylani (Sri Lanka) provinces. The intensified Indo-Pakistan confrontation in Kashmir let Daesh increase their influence in the border areas of the two nuclear powers, accumulating support from local radical groups and provoking a new wave of inter-confessional violence.

 

A series of terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, the largest since the end of the civil war 10 years ago, has become the turning point that triggered a renewal of vows of allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi around the world.

 

Declarations of the old (those which existed within 2014-2015) and new provinces, spread through Daesh's information channels in spring and autumn of the year 2019, showed significant expansion of the self-proclaimed Caliphate eastward due to Muslim regions of South and Southeast Asia and southward in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Tremendous and untapped potential of Daesh for growth remains in the island part of South-East Asia – in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Here, local Daesh cells bring together not only inexperienced activists but also professional “guerillas” with decades of experience in armed struggle for rights and independence of local Muslim communities (like, for instance, in Thailand and in the Philippines). It was in the very Philippines, despite the failure of the attempted seizure of Marawi City in 2017, which did not become the Philippines Mosul, the Daesh supporters announced the creation of East Asia Province in 2019.

 

In 2015, the Nigerian movement “Boko Haram” (the editor’s note: an organization that is banned in Russia), recognized as one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world, became a part of Daesh. Certain success of the federal government in pushing the organization’s militants out of Nigeria and split among its leaders in 2017-2018, somewhat weakened its positions in Nigeria but Daesh continued to carry out active combat operations and terrorist attacks in the country and surrounding areas. In 2019, West Africa Province included Great Sahara Province within the borders of the modern states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in its sphere of responsibility. At that time, the establishment of Central Africa Province, which comprised extremist groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and even Mozambique became known.

 

Political geography of Daesh: expansion as a survival strategy. The article by Grigory Lukyanov

The maximum territorial expansion of “Boko Haram” is marked in grey/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

 

Such umbrella regional groupings of Daesh as Khorasan, East Asia, West and Central Africa Provinces, are much the same as the experience of Al-Qaeda, which had established similar regional networks at the beginning of the 2000-s. In this regard, the continued expansion of Daesh is inevitably leading either to increased confrontation between Daesh and Al-Qaeda or to convergence and merger of the two terrorist organizations. 

 

Against this background, small local provinces in the areas of unresolved armed conflict that feed them and allow them to exist almost autonomously play equally important role. Sinai Province, which has successfully destabilized the situation on the peninsula of the same name for several years and effectively counteracted the Egyptian armed forces, is fully economically and politically self-sufficient. The alliance with the Bedouin tribes and control over cross-border trade has allowed Daesh to provide for itself and continue the struggle. Ongoing armed conflicts, which create new social divisions and increase economic inequality and the dominance of  shadow economy, continue to create favourable conditions for the Barca, Tarabulus, Fezzan (Libya), Yemen and Somalia Provinces.

 

Having lost direct military and political control over the territory and population, the provinces of the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria have not been completely defeated and they have not rejected the struggle. Having gone into hiding, they are still accumulating significant financial and organizational resources and keeping certain military and big subversive-terrorist potential, especially in Iraq, where many veterans and leaders of the defeated Ba’ath Party remain allies of Daesh. In the former Caliphate lands longstanding policy of repression of the al-Hashd ash-Shaabi Shiite militias against local residents, who have accepted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s power, does not contribute to full reintegration of the latter into the post-conflict recovery process, which is why the Sunnis of Iraq continue to be a source of funding for Daesh. Nomadic forces of Daesh in Syria, who act against the government and the SDF opposition forces throughout the entire Syrian Desert and the region of Al Jazeera, are a remnant of the former military power of the Caliphate and, obviously, soon, they will repeat the experience of Iraq, being defeated or having gone into hiding.

 

 

Political geography of Daesh: expansion as a survival strategy. The article by Grigory Lukyanov

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Camp Bucca in 2004 / U.S. Army, Public Domain

 

The results of Daesh expansion in Asia and Africa, which turned from a propaganda technique into a survival strategy after their military and political defeat in Syria and Iraq, have far exceeded the most daring expectations even of the very their leaders, who hardly thought in terms of categories outside the Syrian-Iraqi context. Nowadays, in the conditions of crisis, Daesh is becoming a smaller regional and a bigger global threat due to their real rather than a mystical spread and entrenchment in various regions of the world.

 

Following spread of ideology there has begun organizational expansion, giving the terrorist organization not only new opportunities but also certain risks. In this way, Daesh is becoming increasingly similar to their predecessor and main rival – the organization of Al-Qaeda. It is obvious even now that the main directions of Daesh expansion are along al-Qaeda-established routes and that the degree of cooperation and interpenetration between the two structures is steadily increasing on the ground. As the rapid growth leads to change of the leadership within DAESH, there grows the possibility that the conflict between the two organizations will eventually fade away, after which their convergence and merger will become inevitable.

 

 

Grigory Lukyanov - Senior Lecturer at National Research University Higher School of Economics, Researcher at the Centre for Arabic and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, Expert of the Russian International Affairs Council

 

The photo: Levi Clancy on Unsplash