OBJECTIVE ·· RELEVANT ·· RIGOROUS || JUNE/JULYJANUARY 2019 2018 · VOLUME· VOLUME 12, 11, ISSUE ISSUE 1 6 FEATURE ARTICLE A VIEW FROM THE CT FOXHOLE FEATURE ARTICLE A VIEW FROM THE CT FOXHOLE RevisitingThe Jihadi the Ideological Threat Rebecca Weiner and LTC(R)Meghann Bryan Teubner Price Origin of the Islamic State Assistant Commissioner for to Indonesia Intelligence Analysis, NYPD, and Former Director, Tore Hamming Director of Counterterrorism Kirsten E. Schulze CombatingIntelligence Terrorism Analysis, Center NYPD FEATURE ARTICLE 1 The Hardline Stream of Global Jihad: Revisiting the Ideological Origin of the Editor in Chief Islamic State Paul Cruickshank Tore Hamming Managing Editor INTERVIEW Kristina Hummel 8 A View from the CT Foxhole: Rebecca Weiner, Assistant Commissioner for Intelligence Analysis, NYPD, and Meghann Teubner, Director of EDITORIAL BOARD Counterterrorism Intelligence Analysis, NYPD Paul Cruickshank Colonel Suzanne Nielsen, Ph.D. Department Head ANALYSIS Dept. of Social Sciences (West Point) 15 The Evolution of Extreme-Right Terrorism and Eforts to Counter It in the United Kingdom Brian Dodwell Graham Macklin Director, CTC 21 Iranian Resources and Shi`a Militant Cohesion: Insights from the Khazali Papers CONTACT Bryce Loidolt Combating Terrorism Center 25 Does al-Qa`ida’s Increasing Media Outreach Signal Revitalization? U.S. Military Academy Jami Forbes 607 Cullum Road, Lincoln Hall West Point, NY 10996 In our cover article, Tore Hamming revisits the ideological origins of the Phone: (845) 938-8495 Islamic State. He argues that “despite its history as a local al-Qa`ida afiate in Iraq, the Islamic State developed from an ideological and cultural trend Email: [email protected] born in late-1980s Afghanistan that was always in tension with the core idea and identity of al-Qa`i- Web: www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/ da,” setting the stage for the current bitter divide between the two groups and creating a significant obstacle to any reunification of the global jihadi movement. Our interview this month is with Rebecca Weiner, the Assistant Commissioner for Intelligence SUBMISSIONS Analysis at NYPD, and Meghann Teubner, NYPD’s Director of Counterterrorism Intelligence Analy- sis. Despite the demise of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate, they have not seen much of a fall-of The CTC Sentinel welcomes submissions. in jihadi terrorist plotting against New York City. While they assess Islamist terrorism remains the Contact us at [email protected]. primary threat to the city, their focus on far-right terrorism is more intense than ever before. With concern about violent right-wing extremism rising on both sides of the Atlantic, Graham Macklin examines the evolving far-right terror threat picture in the United Kingdom, focusing in The views expressed in this report are particular on the terrorist group National Action. In 2007, coalition forces captured Qais al-Khazali, the head of Asa`ib Ahl al-Haqq (AAH), an those of the authors and not of the U.S. Iran-backed Shi`a militia group accused of killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Al-Khazali was released in Military Academy, the Department of the 2010, continues to lead AAH, and has become a significant political player in Iraq. Bryce Loidolt Army, or any other agency of the U.S. outlines how the recently declassified interrogation reports from al-Khazali’s time in custody reveal significant rifts between Shi`a militant power centers in Iraq and argues that such “rifts are likely to Government. persist and will complicate Iran’s ability to project its influence in the future.” In 2018, al-Qa`ida’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released more messages than in the previous year and ratcheted up his threat rhetoric against the United States. Jami Forbes warns al-Qa`ida’s increased media outreach Cover: A still image from a video posted may signal both a revitalization and that it is readying to pivot back to attacking its far enemies. online on July 5, 2014, showing Islamic State Paul Cruickshank, Editor in Chief leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at a mosque in Mosul, Iraq JANUARY 2019 CTC SENTINEL 1 Te Hardline Stream of Global Jihad: Revisiting the Ideological Origin of the Islamic State By Tore Hamming ology that most influenced the Islamic State and led to a critical The Islamic State has lost almost all its territorial control ideological cleavage between the group and al-Qa`ida years later. in Syria and Iraq and thus a central part of its claim to con- stitute a caliphate. As the international community takes ‘The Jalalabad School’ stock, it is necessary to discard the myth of the group sim- To understand the Islamic State, it is necessary to go back to 1989 ply being a product of al-Qa`ida. Despite its history as a lo- in Afghanistan. Not more than four months after the devastating cal al-Qa`ida afliate in Iraq, the Islamic State developed defeat of the mujahideen in the battle of Jalalabad in July that year, Usama bin Ladin, already a prominent Arab-Afghan leader at the from an ideological and cultural trend born in late-1980s time, left Afghanistan for his native Saudi Arabia2 to take care of Afghanistan that was always in tension with the core idea family business in Jeddah. In November 1989, Abdullah Azzam, and identity of al-Qa`ida. bin Ladin’s mentor and the most influential figure among the Arab mujahideen, was assassinated. The departure of bin Ladin and the “The conflict between the Islamic State and the leadership of death of Azzam by late 1989 left a critical leadership vacuum among al-Qaeda is one of method … This is the issue. It is not an issue the Arab Afghans. This, in turn, facilitated the blossoming of a new of allegiance of whom to whom.” jihadi trend mainly composed of Arab youth from the Gulf and North Africa, especially Algeria, that promoted a more doctrinally – Islamic State Spokesman Abu-Muhammad al-Adnani, rigid view than al-Qa`ida’s hitherto in addition to a vehement op- May 2014 position to the authority of established jihadi leaders. As explained by the Australian scholar Leah Farrall, “Consequently, the youth he Islamic State grew out of al-Qa`ida. The Islamic looked elsewhere and found new ‘leaders’ who were still fighting or State’s founding father, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and sought to fight. The youth followed them and saw them as not only the leaders of al-Qa`ida initiated contact back in 1999 efective, but also less restrictive. These new leaders established in Afghanistan, and five years later, al-Zarqawi’s group themselves in the surroundings of Jalalabad, setting up their own ‘Jamaat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad’ became an official camps, and essentially followed an ‘anything goes’ approach to com- Tal-Qa`ida afliate. In February 2014, their common history ended, bat.”3 however, as the Islamic State was finally expelled from al-Qa`ida The youth espousing these more radical ideas quickly became as a result of its disobedience and aggressive attitude toward other infamous within jihadi circles for the internal conflict (fitna) they mujahideen.1 caused. One of the earliest seeds of such fitna was, in fact, sown a This trajectory and the Islamic State’s ‘origin’ in al-Qa`ida is few years earlier in 1986. An Algerian named Ahmed Abu Amra, a commonly accepted, but when looking closer, both seem to be too salafi in creed and doctor by profession, worked in a hospital in the simplistic. Despite its history of being an al-Qa`ida afliate, the Afghan province of Wardak. One day, an injured mujahid came into Islamic State and its predecessors, as al-Adnani indicated, are in the hospital, but when Abu Amra saw that the man wore an amulet essence not al-Qa`ida. The diferences may appear minimal to most (tamina), he asked him to remove it as it was idolatry (shirk). Abu observers, but that does not imply that they are unimportant. In Amra told the mujahid he would not treat him until he removed it. fact, the ideological vision of the Islamic State developed in some The family of the wounded man reacted angrily, threatening to kill ways in opposition to al-Qa`ida. And the Islamic State’s predecessor the doctor if he did not treat their family member. Whether Abu group was later only incorporated into al-Qa`ida due to the strate- Amra eventually treated the wounded mujahid remains unknown, gic gains both groups hoped to benefit from as a result of a merger. but after this incident, the jihadi doctor continued to preach his However, as the Islamic State’s caliphate has now crumbled, it is message of extreme doctrinal rigidity that was critical of many in- pertinent to re-examine the early history of the ideology and culture volved in the Afghan jihad and particularly against Azzam, whose that it espouses and put it into context. Islamic interpretation Abu Amra did not find satisfactory, in the From late-1980s Afghanistan to 1990s Algeria and Afghanistan streets and guesthouses of Peshawar.4 and in Iraq in the 2000s, this article will trace the distinctive ide- The seed of Abu Amra grew during 1989-90 in the vacuum left by Azzam and bin Ladin. The atmosphere in the guesthouses and training camps of Peshawar was negative. People wanted to either fight or to return home. They were “angry souls,” Azzam’s son-in- Tore Hamming is a Ph.D. candidate at the European University law Abdullah Anas told this author.5 In the decade that followed, Institute, studying inter-group dynamics within Sunni jihadism one particular issue would be their refusal to fight alongside the with a special focus on the al-Qa`ida-Islamic State relationship.