From the Sinai Peninsula to Libya, jihadist groups have pledged allegiance to ISIS. The self-proclaimed “Islamic State” is exploiting its brand name to build loyalty and lure recruits.
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ISIS the Brand
In an audio recording released in early November 2014, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed that jihadi groups in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia had pledged allegiance to ISIS. Baghdadi urged these groups to wage jihad against their respective governments, and change their names to reflect devotion to ISIS. Earlier in the year, jihadi groups in the Philippines and Indonesia took similar action, swearing their loyalty to ISIS.  

According to Middle East expert Samer Shehata, smaller jihadi groups join ISIS for increased recognition and legitimacy. When these groups join ISIS, they go from being off-the-radar to enjoying the visibility of the ISIS brand name. In turn, ISIS expands its name, bolstering its notoriety and international influence. But money is thought to play the biggest role, with Baghdadi offering funding in exchange for pledges.

Money Talks
With its daily income estimated at upwards of $3 million, ISIS is believed to be the richest terrorist group in history. According to King Abdullah II of Jordan, ISIS fighters are paid approximately $1,000 per month, an amount equivalent to an upper-middle-class income in Jordan. Considering ISIS’s largesse, it’s no surprise that far-flung jihadi groups have flocked to Baghdadi’s “caliphate.”

Having deep pockets, (coupled with technological advancement) has allowed ISIS to try its hand at producing sophisticated, high production value videos in a brand-building effort. Whereas al-Qaeda filmed its fatwas in caves with a single camera and indifferent lighting, ISIS has taken self-promotion and jihadi recruitment methods to a new level. “Although the disbelievers dislike it,” an ISIS video released on November 16, is produced and edited to resemble a Hollywood action movie, albeit a gruesome one.

The slickness of ISIS’s propaganda is appealing to both international jihadist groups and individuals susceptible to radicalization. And ISIS surely knows its target audience, reinforcing its status with a steady outpouring of technologically advanced media, including a jihad-themed video game for children. Just as a profitable corporation uses its resources to build name recognition and increase market share, ISIS invests in controlling the narrative and building its brand to allure both organized groups and attract new recruits.  

[Screenshot taken from the slickly edited ISIS video, released on November 16, 2014]
http://www.iraqinews.com/features/urgent-video-peter-kassig-beheaded-isis-16-syrians/

In late October, ISIS fighters retreated from the Iraqi town of Jurf al-Sakher. According to Iraqi military sources, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) provided the Iraqi army with weapons and training in order to force ISIS’s retreat. The person reportedly guiding Iran’s intervention was Qasem Soleimani, a man praised by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as “a living martyr of the revolution.”

Soleimani heads the IRGC’s Quds Force, which carries out foreign operations on behalf of the Iranian government. Soleimani has been a major player in the region for years, even leading the insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq. Because of his influence over Iraqi insurgents, Soleimani emerged as a powerbroker in Iraq. In March 2008, he reportedly helped negotiate an end to fighting between U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders and followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. That same year, he sent a message to then-commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus: “General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qasem Soleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan.”

In Syria too, Soleimani has played the part of puppet master. In January 2012, Soleimani met with President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and pledged additional military aid against rebel forces. The following month, four Iranian jets carried munitions to Syria. In August 2012, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly ordered the Quds Force to step up attacks against Western targets in retaliation for the U.S.-backing of moderate Syrian rebels. In mid-May through early June 2013, Soleimani coordinated a two-week offensive by Syrian forces, aided by Hezbollah, to retake the rebel-controlled city of Qusair, leaving more than 500 rebels dead and 1,000 wounded. Soleimani “is now running Syria. Bashar is just his mayor,” said one commander in the Free Syrian Army.

Iran’s top general is also personally overseeing the fight against ISIS, and in marked contrast to past behavior, has willingly posed for pictures with troops following successful battles. In June, Iran sent IRGC units to Iraq to fight ISIS while providing tons of military supplies and equipment to Iraqi forces and directing surveillance drones over Iraq. Soleimani reportedly went to Baghdad to oversee the operations. According to several reports, he played an advisory role in recent victories against ISIS in Samarra (June) and Amirli (August).  All this despite living under a U.N. travel ban that was imposed in 2007.

Clearly, Iran and the United States share an enemy in ISIS. As the old adage goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” However, given Soleimani’s history of antagonism toward the West, in this instance, the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy.

In mid-December, at least 150 women and girls, some of them pregnant, were executed for refusing to marry or perform sexual acts for ISIS fighters. The women were systematically shot before being dumped into a mass grave in Fallujah, Iraq. According to regional Iraqi officials, a single ISIS militant, Abu Ana Al-Libi, was responsible for all the executions. Most of the 150 women and girls belonged to the Yazidi religious minority, which ISIS views as heretical.

This horrific incident comes nearly a month after ISIS’s Department of Research and Fatwas published a manual, “Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves.” The pamphlet was an apparent response to the many questions ISIS fighters posed on burning questions like whether it was OK to have sex with female captives, and the justification for buying, selling and beating these non-Muslim women. One representative section of the translated document reads:

“Question: Is it allowed to have intercourse with a female slave who has not reached puberty?”
“Answer: You may have intercourse with a female slave who hasn't reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however, if she is not fit for intercourse, it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse.”

[ISIS manual detailing permissible treatment of sex-slaves]

Personal accounts of slavery under ISIS, as told by women fortunate enough to have escaped, are disturbing. Hannan, a young Yazidi woman who escaped ISIS’s grasp, said ISIS militants denigrated the Yazidi religion. “They said: ‘Yazidis are infidels. Now you will live as Muslims.’ They took many girls for sex. They told us: ‘Forget the life you knew.’” Hannan recalled being sold at a slave market: “They were shooting to scare us. They took whomever they wanted, by force. We were crying the whole time. We wanted to kill ourselves but we couldn’t find a way.”

A report by Amnesty International (AI) tells of slave-girls so traumatized that they were driven to end their own lives. The girls feared rape, forced marriage or being traded amongst ISIS fighters. A Yazidi girl told AI, “[our master] said that either we marry him and his brother or he would sell us. At night we tried to strangle ourselves with our scarves. We tied the scarves around our necks and pulled away from each other as hard as we could, until I fainted.”

ISIS is holding 3,500 Yazidi women and girls captive. These figures, from late December, are based on Yazidi-kept records.

According to Middle East researcher Matthew Barber, ISIS has launched a “21st century slavery project.” In ISIS’s fourth issue of its English-language recruitment magazine Dabiq, the militant group brags about its Yazidi sex slaves, firmly justifying slavery under sharia (Islamic law). The magazine says: “One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar (nonbelievers) and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the sharia that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran and the narrations of the Prophet.”

More broadly, ISIS has an abysmal track record when it comes to its treatment of women. According to a U.N. report released in November 2014, women and girls living in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq are essentially confined to their houses, “excised from public life.” A female is not permitted to leave the house without a mahram, or male guardian. ISIS’s all-female brigades, Al-Khansaa and Umm Al-Rayan, patrol the streets to enforce a strict Islamic dress code. ISIS dictates every aspect of women’s lives; what they wear, with whom they interact, and where and with whom they work. Indeed, every woman, even Sunni Muslim women, experience a certain type of slavery under ISIS rule.

To enforce its rules for female behavior, ISIS imposes harsh penalties on dissenters. In August, ISIS militants beheaded a female dentist in Syria for continuing to treat male patients. In September, a woman was arrested, detained, and put on trial in a self-proclaimed “sharia court” in Mosul for speaking out against ISIS and “abandoning Islam.” She was tortured and publicly executed.

According to AI, ISIS’s atrocities constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is clear that the women and girls living under ISIS’s rule of terror, whether Sunni or non-Islamic Yazidis, require increased attention and international action.

As the forefather of modern jihadism, Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) profoundly influenced virtually every ‘Islamic’ extremist group operating today. According to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the diverse jihadist movement cites Qutb more frequently than any other modern author. Esteemed Egyptian political commentator Aly Salem writes, “It is not an exaggeration to say that Qutb is to Islamism what Karl Marx is to communism.”

So who is Sayyid Qutb? In one respect, he is one of the most provocative and controversial Islamic writers in history. Qutb is responsible for the concept of “new jahiliya,” the idea that the modern world exists in a deplorable state of barbaric ignorance akin to the pre-Islamic societies as described in the Qur’an. He is also responsible for theorizing the solution to jahiliya by introducing the concept of “offensive jihad,” as well as conveniently resurrecting the excommunication practice of takfir, in order to sanction the killing of uncooperative Muslims.

In The Looming Tower, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright probes the human side of the contentious theologian. In it, Qutb is revealed as an “alone and unconsoled” middle-aged man whose “dearest relationship… was that with his mother, Fatima.” One failed relationship dissuades Qutb from ever marrying any of the “dishonorable” women he encounters, Wright concludes. Nonetheless, Qutb “still enjoyed women—he was close to his three sisters—but their sexuality threatened him.” Wright’s portrait reveals a man who was capable of memorizing the Qur’an by the age of 10, yet clearly struggled, especially with the corporeal aspects of relationships with women. On his 1948-1950 trip to America Qutb writes proudly of closing the door in the face of a woman who propositioned him, saying, “I heard her fall on the wooden floor outside and realized that she was drunk. I instantly thanked God for defeating my temptation and allowing me to stick to my morals.”

In describing the overarching torment he feels from American women, Qutb writes, “A girl looks at you, appearing as if she were an enchanting nymph or an escaped mermaid, but as she approaches, you sense only the screaming instinct inside her, and you can smell her burning body, not the scent of perfume but flesh, only flesh. Tasty flesh, truly, but flesh nonetheless.” Charming.

The arc of modern jihadist groups has today overshadowed their ideological origins from within the mind of Sayyid Qutb. The ability to recruit young people to violent  groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda today seems to rely less overtly on theological arguments championed by Qutb than on the ability to tweet pictures of violence and encourage people to “put the chicken wings down and come to jihad, bro.” In this culture, women and young girls are recruited under the banner of “sex jihad” or jihad al-niqah, and an implicit promise of a future filled with romance, adventure and violence.

However, anyone who seeks a true glimpse into the ascetic future that awaits them before they go ahead and drop the chicken wings need look no further than the bleak and repressed example of their ideological inspiration.

ISIS has declared its intention to issue its own currency, an ‘Islamic State’ dinar coin minted in gold, silver and copper.

ISIS’s ideology will be greatly served if it can implement its own system of coinage. First and foremost, the issuance of currency will further ISIS’s claim of being a fully functioning state, rather than an insurgent group. Furthermore, mockups reveal that the coins are designed to evoke 7th century currency in circulation under the Umayyad caliphate. To a group that so existentially markets itself as the restoration of the caliphate, this historical connection is a strong and advantageous symbol.

ISIS’s rejection of paper currency is also instrumental to its ideology. In the group’s announcement, ISIS characterizes the dinar as liberation from the international system of borrowing and lending ‘usury’ that ‘poisons’ the current market. In contrast, coins with firm and ‘inherent’ value are presented as the only religiously legitimate, and thereforem economically stable alternative. In this proclamation, ISIS simply denies the inconvenient truth that the value of precious and industrial metals are themselves subject to fluctuations in international markets as well as the perceived value of the U.S. dollar. Such a recognition would undermine ISIS’s claim of total monetary independence from the prevailing, ‘un-Islamic’ international money system.

In strictly financial terms, ISIS’s announcement will provide almost no benefit for a group that the U.S. Treasury Department’s David S. Cohen calls “the best-funded terrorist organization we have confronted.” Politically, individuals residing in ISIS controlled territory may be made further dependent on the group if they are forced to use its currency, but the traders and smugglers involved in the oil and arms trade who deliver the vast majority of ISIS income and weapons are highly unlikely to accept ISIS’s new currency for payment. Clearly, anyone attempting to pass the ISIS currency outside ISIS territory will likely be subject to charges of terrorism.

It is unclear whether ISIS will follow through on its announcement in the near future, or if the announcement alone has already satisfied its main ideological purpose, i.e. to demonstrate its intention, if not capacity, to fulfill the functions of a state.

As the chief of Hamas’s political bureau, Khaled Meshaal is arguably the most powerful leader in the Hamas organization. Meshaal lives openly in Doha, Qatar, uninhibited by Israeli travel restrictions. Meshaal reportedly “sets the strategy…. [and calls] the shots.” He is considered Hamas’s public face and has raised significant funds for the group. Despite the perception in some circles that Meshaal is a more moderate, exclusively political actor within Hamas, his political and ideological views as expressed “in his own words” paint a different picture.  

"Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land…. we will never recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take." -December 8, 2012 public speech in Gaza

"We have been resisting for one hundred years and will continue to resist." –October 17, 2014 official statement from Doha

“The weapons of Palestinian resistance were partially manufactured inside the Gaza Strip, and the rest was supplied by certain countries, including Iran.” -November 2012 remark to journalists in Cairo

"Al-Aqsa is worth us becoming martyrs for, and anyone who can carry a weapon in the region should go and defend it, as this is the true meaning of jihad." –October 17, 2014 official statement from Doha

“We agree on the [Palestinian] state with the borders of June 4, 1967, Jerusalem as its capital, fully sovereign without settlements, the right of return, but without the recognition of Israel.” -March 2008 remark from a news conference in Damascus

"Israeli stubbornness, combined with the international impotence in solving the Palestinian issue with a just solution…this will lead to chaos in the region, not just in the Palestinian arena, but an open conflict  —  a bloodbath.” –December 4, 2014 interview with Sky News

"One of the rare occasions when a synagogue was targeted" was caused by "extreme anger…. [the terrorists] not having hope on the horizon for a just settlement of the Palestinian cause. When the public anger reaches its limit, it explodes on its own…” December 4, 2014 interview with Sky News

“You are right if you are in a stable, free land. You cannot achieve democracy by use of force. But our struggle is against occupation. It is not a struggle for democracy, but for national liberation." -August 25, 2014 remark from interview with Al Monitor

“So every single Palestinians can die for the next generations to live in peace and freedom.” -July 28, 2014 remark from interview with Charlie Rose

“We will not rest until we liberate the prisoners. The way we freed some of the prisoners in the past is the way we will use to free the remaining prisoners," [in reference to prisoner exchanges for kidnapped Israeli soldiers.] -December 8, 2012 public speech in Gaza

"This is the time for the third uprising... Resistance will continue through suicide missions." -December 27, 2008 speech

“[W]e believe the Holocaust was exaggerated by the Zionist movement to whip people… We don't accept the exaggerating of numbers and we don't accept that Israel uses this to do what it wants.” -March 2008 remark from an interview in Damascus with Sky News

“…. there is no recognition of Israel, no matter what the cost is." -February 21, 2006 speech at Tehran University

 “…it is necessary to scientifically analyze the event and determine the scope of the Holocaust.” -February 6, 2006 interview with Der Spiegel

“Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day. … Allah willing, we will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.” -February 3, 2006 address at as Damascus mosque

“We have no doubt that victory will come, and that just as we liberated Palestine from the Crusaders and from the Mongols, we will regain it – pure and purified - from the Zionist occupiers.” -December 30, 2005 remark at rally in Damascus

“We say to this West, which does not act reasonably, and does not learn its lessons: By Allah, you will be defeated…” -February 3, 2006 address at Damascus mosque

“America will be defeated in Iraq. Wherever the [Islamic] nation is targeted, its enemies will be defeated, Allah willing. The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Palestine. The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Iraq, and it will be victorious in all Arab and Muslim lands.” -February 3, 2006 address at Damascus mosque

The Syrian Civil War continues to frustrate the international community. A solution to effectively stop the slaughter or stem the flow of refugees has yet to be found.  What seemingly began as an effort to free the Syrian people from a tyrannical dictator has been transformed into a proxy war, with multiple opposition forces and their backers fighting a Syrian army bolstered by Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters.

For years, Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad has permitted and facilitated the flow of Iranian agents, money, and weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s growth has enabled Iran to transport its hardline-Shiite ideology to the Levant while also expanding Iranian reach and capability to Israeli, as well as Western targets and interests.

Hezbollah’s effort in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime is well documented. For example, in early 2013, Western intelligence accused Hezbollah and Iran of cultivating terrorist networks in order to maintain influence in Syria if Assad fell. Hezbollah later admitted it was fighting on Assad’s behalf in Syria.

The costs to Hezbollah resulting from its involvement in Syria have been high. For example, in May 2013, Israel bombed Hezbollah weapons sites in Syria to prevent the transfer of Iranian-made missiles into Lebanon. Hezbollah was also involved in a costly battle in late May to wrest the Syrian town of Qusair from rebel hands. More than 500 rebels were reportedly killed during the almost month-long battle, as was Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s brother, Khader.

In all, Hezbollah has reportedly lost 1,000 fighters in Syria, and in recent months, the group appears to have taken a page out of Israel’s playbook by building a security zone along the Syrian/Lebanese border manned by 1,000 fighters, to keep Sunni terrorists out of Lebanon.

Some interpret this security zone as a sign of Hezbollah weakness – the decision to pull back, rather than pushing forward. The terror group has taken heavy losses and may be overstretched. More Hezbollah fighters are mobilized now than even during the 2006 war with Israel, when Hezbollah relied heavily on Iran-supplied rockets to be able to strike from a distance.

The future of Syria is clearly in the vital interest of Iran. And the high costs being borne by Hezbollah prove it.