(Jihadica) Omar Dhabien
Despite reports of the Islamic State’s growing threat in the Horn of Africa and the leadership’s alleged relocation to the Puntland region in Somalia, the central lands of Iraq and Syria, the original area of the group’s territorial caliphate announced in June 2014, continue to occupy a key place in the group’s propaganda and ideology. However important it maybe be, the Islamic State’s control over large areas of the Horn of Africa does not do for propaganda and recruitment what the narrative of the return of Islamic rule in the lands of Iraq and Syria has long done. Indeed, it would be unreasonable for the organization to suddenly abandon a geographical area that has achieved much for it and which was witnessing an increase in terrorist activity until the fall of Assad regime in early December, especially in what is known as the Syrian Badiya.
Organizational culture and the transition to the African continent
Unlike al-Qaeda, which was founded in Pakistan, the Islamic State emerged in the heart of the Arab world from a small organization known as Jama‘at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad led by Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi. The strategic Arab location in Iraq provided the organization with everything it needed to support its ideology and logistical presence, especially in the dual success of its propaganda and recruitment, which despite its limitations at the beginning, was the building block from which the organization was formed. In terms of ideological legitimacy, the region presented a unique opportunity for fighting American forces in Iraq under the concept of defensive jihad (repelling the aggressor) and fighting the “Crusaders.” As a result, the organization received great support, especially before the fighting between it and other groups and factions on the Iraqi scene after the declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq in October 2006.
A key factor that shaped the organization’s early structure was the distribution of its fighters and leaders among different Arab nationalities, starting with al-Zarqawi, who was Jordanian. The phase that followed the announcement of the Islamic State of Iraq, however, saw a narrowing of the organization’s structure and a transition from pan-Arab leadership and fighters to an emphasis on Iraqis and Syrians, to the point where the leadership of the organization in its military and security councils would later be dominated by Iraqis, Syrians being relegated to second place. Most critically, the position of the organization’s overall leader has known no one but Iraqis, from the organization’s formation in 2006 to the declaration of the caliphate in 2014 and up to the present day. This emphasis on Iraq and Syria, and on Iraq especially, illustrates the strangeness of the African environment to the organization’s identity and leadership core.
In June 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate in Mosul, the Iraqi city that has witnessed unrest since the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003. Following the declaration, the extremist organization’s media machine sought to appeal to Western societies and Muslims in the diaspora (if that is the right expression) by issuing written and visual media publications in multiple languages, most notably English and French, calling for immigration to the so-called “land of the caliphate.” Despite these calls, which achieved actual results on the ground and raised concerns among Western governments about the danger of returnees carrying out terrorist operations, the organization maintained a structure based on ethnic distinction between its Arab and foreign members, and on a more narrow distinction between most Arab nationalities and Iraqis, who maintained and controlled the highest positions in leadership, including the position of caliph, and to a lesser extent Syrians. The foundations of the ethnic structure of the organization go back to the period after Zarqawi with the declaration of the proto-caliphate, the Islamic State of Iraq. Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, its first leader, worked to separate Iraqi members from other nationalities that represented the pillar of the organization during Zarqawi’s time, so that al-Baghdadi became responsible for the Iraqis in the organization, while the Egyptian Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the minister of war, took responsibility for the non-Iraqi “immigrants.”
The system of ethnic discrimination in the Islamic State organization was strengthened following the killing of Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi and the assumption of power by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2010, which was soon followed by the outbreak of civil war in Syria and then by the declaration of the caliphate several years later. Al-Baghdadi worked to create a new bureaucracy for the organization, one based on restructuring the position of minister of war, recentering his functions in the military council, whose members he chose from a group of former Iraqi army officers who were new to the jihadi ideology. This group, composed of those trusted by al-Baghdadi, included such figures as Abu Ali al-Anbari, Abu Ahmed al-Alwani and Abu Abdulrahman al-Biblawi. Through these he worked to neutralize the immigrants, especially the Arabs, distributing them within the new structure in various bodies and media institutions.
Some of these immigrants represented the currents accused of extremism that were later liquidated by al-Baghdadi’s inner circle. Al-Baghdadi also reinforced the importance of the position of the caliph. This was reflected in the criticism directed by the dissident Abu Muhammad al-Hashimi, a self-proclaimed defector from the Islamic State, in his 2019 book “Restrain Your Hands from Pledging Allegiance to al-Baghdadi,” in which he accused al-Baghdadi and his inner circle of dominating the organization through what is known as the Delegated Committee. He also accused them of extremism and brutality and accused al-Baghdadi of having forfeited the caliphate with reference to religious and jurisprudential eligibility requirements.
Despite the collapse of the territorial caliphate in its last stronghold in Baghouz, Syria in 2019 and the subsequent loss of the organization’s geographic influence in Iraq and Syria, the leadership environment of the Islamic State organization continued to reflect an Iraqi character. With the demise of al-Baghdadi in October 2019, the assumption of the position of caliph by Amir Muhammad Sa‘id al-Mawla (aka Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi; d. Feb. 2022) coincided with the onset of a more decentralized administration of the organization’s provinces. This character was evident in both the Shura Council (which is responsible for choosing the caliph) headed by Jum‘a al-Badri, al-Baghdadi’s brother, and the Delegated Committee (responsible for executive management) headed by the so-called Sami Jassim al-Jubouri and composed entirely of Iraqis. Despite the lack of complete certainty about the identity of the third and fourth caliphs, Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi (d. Oct. 2022) and Abu al-Husayn al-Husayni al-Qurashi (d. Apr. 2023), it is widely assumed that they were Iraqis as well.
In January 2023, the Telegram account “Exposing the Worshippers of al-Baghdadi and al-Hashimi,” an account run by defectors from the Islamic State, referred to a person called “Abu Sara al-Iraqi,” who was subsequently killed, as being in charge of the administration of the provinces at the time. According to the same account, Abu Sara had wide influence over the Shura Council and forbade non-Iraqis from assuming the position of caliph.
The killing of Abu Sara, if the account is correct, raises the question of non-Iraqis assuming the position of caliph and the possibility that Abdul Qadir Mumin al-Somali in Somalia (or any other non-Iraqi figure) is in fact the current caliph, Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. However, this hypothesis remains weak. Although shifting the Islamic State’s leadership to Somalia would place the caliph directly in the region where the organization carries out its most intensive financial operations, undertaken through what is known as the al-Karrar office, as well as some 60% of the total military operations in Africa branches of the organization worldwide, The current focus on Africa is best understood as temporary and expedient as opposed to representing a genuine strategic shift.
The Islamic State’s turn to Africa in recent years is due to a number of reasons, most notably the lack of international focus on counterterrorism in the African continent and conditions there of political chaos and economic malaise. The relatively poor living conditions mean that the organization does not need a high operating budget, specifically in paying the monthly salaries of fighters, while relatively weak counterterrorism pressure makes the area suitable for establishing financial networks that feed other branches of the organization worldwide. In this way, Somalia has become a prominent node in the Islamic State’s financial network, supporting provinces in in central and southern Africa, Mozambique, and other states outside the African continent.
Iraq and Syria in the organization’s narrative
The centrality of Iraq and Syria to the organization’s caliphate is primarily due to the ways in which this geographical area enhances the appeal of the organization’s narrative about the caliphate, and the fact that this was the original headquarters of the caliphate where most of its leaders and key actors have hailed from. As in Africa, the area of Iraq and Syria suffers from political instability and economic malaise, yet it also possesses a historical distinctiveness for the group that Africa does not. For one, this was the seat of the caliphate in the past (the Abbasids in Baghdad and the Umayyads in Damascus), a fact that strengthens the organization’s narrative surrounding the caliphate claim. In more recent times, it was also promoted by the organization as a land of immigration (hijra), and the memory of having reestablished the caliphate there looms large in the group’s propaganda and narrative.
Although the organization proclaimed a universalist vision back in 2014 with its “the breaking of the borders” between Iraq and Syria, in theory making African and other lands equal to all others, in reality the organization remains wedded to the environment in which it was born. For all its successes in Africa, it has not been able to achieve the necessary level of influence and control there as was the case in Iraq and Syria in the years beginning in 2014. Indeed, Africa today does not have a realistic strategic advantage over these Arab lands that qualifies it to be a center of the Islamic State other than the absence of local and international efforts to combat terrorism.
A major theme in the Islamic State’s propaganda, which distinguishes it from other jihadi groups, is the claim of having transcended the stage of preparation and proceeded to the stage of statehood, in other words, of having moved from the stage of advocacy and incitement to the stage of conquest and empowerment. This theme goes back to 2006 with the proclamation of the Islamic State of Iraq, which promoted a narrative about the restoration of Islamic rule and the glories of the early caliphate in Medina. This was critical to its propaganda efforts in appealing to the feelings of Muslim youth, Muslim Arab youth in particular, who generally suffer from political oppression, poor economic conditions, and a sense of civilizational decline relative to the West, all of which contributes to a longing for the early Islamic era of victories and conquests. Indeed, there is a sense in which Muslim Arabs live imprisoned by certain jurisprudential interpretations glorifying the Islamic sword, which may not apply in the case of Africa.
The Islamic State’s naming of its previous magazine Dabiq, which was published in English, is an example of the importance of the Iraqi and Syrian geographic area to the organization’s narrative. The name Dabiq goes back to a statement attributed to the Prophet Muhammad in which he refers to one of the battles the End Times in which the armies of the Muslims (which the organization assumes it represents) will fight their enemies before launching a campaign towards Constantinople (Istanbul) and the rest of the world. The supposed battle takes place in the Syrian village of Dabiq, 35 kilometers northeast of the city of Aleppo. The organization took control of Dabiq in August 2014 and fought fiercely there until it lost control of it in October 2016. No Islamic references of such theological or eschatological importance are to be found in Africa.
In August 2023, Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansari, the Islamic State’s official spokesman, announced the appointment of Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi to the position of caliph in a speech titled “Rejoice in the Pledge You Have Made.” Abu Hafs thus became the fifth caliph in the line beginning with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in October 2019. While little of his identity is known, Abu Hudhayfa did state that the new caliph is a veteran of the Islamic State with experience fighting “the Crusaders and apostates” who was “bolstered by adversities, and made experienced by severe trials of fate.” Notably, Abu Hudhayfa compared the four slain caliphs before Abu Hafs to the Rightly Guided caliphs of the seventh century who were similarly “killed through treachery.” And while he paid tribute to “the soldiers of the caliphate” in the lands of Khurasan and Africa, he first did so to those in “Iraq and al-Sham,” once again illustrating the primacy of this area to the Islamic State’s self-conception.
Quraysh, without a doubt
Despite the wide influence that the Egyptian Abu Hamza al-Muhajir had in al-Qaeda in Iraq, which led the Bush administration to put bounty on him as the successor to al-Zarqawi, it was not he but Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi who was chosen as the emir of the Islamic State of Iraq when this was announced in 2006. In this way would the new leader meet one of the traditional conditions for assuming the office of the caliphate, which, as mentioned by the scholar al-Mawardi (d. 1058) and others, is Qurashi lineage, meaning a pedigree that traces back to the Prophet’s tribe of Quraysh. At first, however, the Islamic State of Iraq’s media refrained from underlining al-Baghdadi’s Qurashi lineage, presumably because it did not wish to present him as being the actual caliph. The initial statement announcing the Islamic State of Iraq only identified him as “Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi,” while the author of I‘lam al-anam bi-milad dawlat al-Islam, a key ideological text legitimizing the group’s early statehood bid from January 2007, did not emphasize it as a condition for the caliph, only discussing the condition in passing. The first reference to al-Baghdadi’s Qurashi lineage appeared in Abu Hamza al-Muhajir’s pledge of allegiance to al-Baghdadi in a statement issued in October 2006, where he was described as “the Husayni, Qurashi, Hashemite” (al-husayni al-qurashi al-hashimi). All of this raised a number of questions and criticisms from various jihadis about the meaning of the term “state” and the bestowing of the title “Commander of the Faithful” on al-Baghdadi, as would be addressed by the al-Qaida leader ‘Atiyyatullah al-Libi in an essay penned in December of that year.
Despite the limited research into the truth of the Qurashi lineage of Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, it later represented a pivotal point that resurfaced with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi when he was presented as a Qurashi Husayni, a fact used to illustrate how he met the conditions of the caliphate as explained by Turki al-Bin‘ali in his book “Extend Your Hands to Pledge Allegiance to al-Baghdadi,” from July 2013. Later, opponents of the Islamic State would seize on the lineage issue to claim that the successor of al-Baghdadi, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi, could not be caliph as his Turkmen origin allegedly made him not of Qurashi descent. While that issue failed to discredit the Islamic State leader in the eyes of his supporters, the condition of Qurashi lineage remained an important axis in the appointment and legitimation of subsequent caliphs, featuring (as least in public statements) as a more critical qualification than other traditional requirements such as religious knowledge, probity, bravery, etc.
In early 2024, rumors began to spread that Abdul Qadir Mumin, the emir of the Islamic State’s branch in Somalia, was in fact the newly appointed caliph Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, a possibility some believed was plausible because of the tribal ties between Abdul Qadir’s Darod clan and the Quraysh through ‘Aqil ibn Abi Talib, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. The Islamic State has neither confirmed nor denied these reports, but the prospect that Abdul Qadir is in fact Abu Hafs appears highly unlikely. Whether he has a valid claim to Qurashi lineage in the eyes of the Islamic State’s traditional base of Iraqi leaders is unknown, but even if he did, those leaders, who form the powerful Iraq lobby within the organization, would be loath to abdicate their authority by appointing an African caliph, who, in the case of Mumin at least, is a relative latecomer to the group. The importance of the position of caliph in the extremist organization is highlighted by the fact that it plays a political and spiritual role for the organization. Moreover, with the creation of what is known as the General Directorate of Provinces (GDP) and its management of the financial offices and global networks in the organization, the caliph no longer plays the most prominent administrative role he once did. While the paramountcy of the caliph has not been challenged, the rise of the GDP has entailed a greater degree of decentralization in the running of the pseudo-state’s affairs. In such circumstances, it seems unnecessary for the organization to transfer the position of caliph to someone whose pedigree is questionable in terms of Qurashi lineage and whose empowerment would cause disputes in the original geographic center of Iraq and Syria and among Middle Eastern Arabs more generally. Since reports indicate that Abdul Qader has assumed the leadership of the Karrar office for financial coordination within the structure of the GDP, there would be no need to transfer the office of the caliphate to Somalia except in the possible interest of keeping the caliph alive for more than a period of months, which is how long the two previous caliphs lasted. Yet while the possibility cannot be ruled out, for the reasons mentioned above, it appears unlikely indeed.
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Omar Dhabien:
Omar Dhabien, a former Iraqi intelligence official, is a researcher on extremism and counter-terrorism affairs, focusing on the Sunni jihadi movement