v Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Objective • Relevant • Rigorous | November/December 2015 • Volume 8, Issue 11 SPECIAL ISSUE: THE GLOBAL THREAT FROM THE ISLAMIC STATE The Islamic State The Paris Goes Global Attacks Why the group is pivoting toward international The evolving Islamic State threat to France terrorism richard barrett jean-charles brisard FEATURE ARTICLES 1 The Islamic State Goes Global Editor in Chief Paul Cruickshank richard barrett Managing Editor 5 The Paris Attacks and the Evolving Islamic State Threat to France John Watling jean-charles brisard EDITORIAL BOARD INTERVIEW Colonel Cindy R. Jebb, Ph.D. Department Head Dept. of Social Sciences (West Point) 9 A View From the CT Foxhole: An Interview with Zainab N. Ahmad, Assistant U.S. Attorney Colonel Suzanne Nielsen, Ph.D. paul cruickshank Deputy Department Head Dept. of Social Sciences (West Point) ANALYSIS Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Price, Ph.D. Director, CTC 13 A Frontline Report: The Ground War Against the Islamic State Brian Dodwell tim lister Deputy Director, CTC 19 Wilayat Sinai Risks Backlash After Metrojet Bombing CONTACT zack gold Combating Terrorism Center 23 U.S. Military Academy The Islamic State in Southern Syria 607 Cullum Road, Lincoln Hall aaron y. zelin and oula a. alrifai West Point, NY 10996 Phone: (845) 938-8495 Email: [email protected] PROFILE Web: www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/ 30 Paris Attack Ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud guy van vlierden SUPPORT The Combating Terrorism Center would like to express its gratitude BRIEFINGS to its financial supporters, for without their support and shared vision of the Center products like the 34 San Bernardino and the Islamic State Footprint in America CTC Sentinel could not be produced. lorenzo vidino and seamus hughes If you are interested in learning more about how to support the Combating 37 The Beirut Bombings and the Islamic State’s Threat to Lebanon Terrorism Center, please visit http://www. hassan rabih ctc.usma.edu or call Allison Barry at West Point’s Association of Graduates at 845-446-1561. SUBMISSIONS With the attacks in Beirut, the skies above the Sinai, and Paris, history may judge the final months of 2015 as the period during which the Is- The CTC Sentinel welcomes submissions. lamic State pivoted toward international terrorism, as Richard Barrett Please contact us at [email protected]. outlines in one of our two cover stories. The other, by Jean-Charles Bri- sard, provides new information on the Paris plot and the evolving threat to France. Guy van The views expressed in this report are Vlierden profiles the “ringleader” of the Paris attack. Zack Gold argues the Metrojet attack may those of the authors and not of the U.S. create a backlash against the Islamic State in the Sinai. Hassan Rabih examines the threat to Leb- Military Academy, the Department of the anon. Our interview is with Zainab Ahmad, a federal prosecutor in New York involved in several Army, or any other agency of the U.S. Islamic State-linked cases. This December saw the first deadly Islamic State–inspired attack in Government. America. Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes examine the threat after San Bernardino. We also feature a frontline view of the war on the Islamic State by Tim Lister and a deep dive into the Cover: The Eiffel Tower is illuminated in group’s operations in southern Syria by Aaron Zelin and Oula Alrifai. tribute to the victims of the November 13 Paul Cruickshank, Editor in Chief terror attacks in Paris. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 CTC SENTINEL 1 The Islamic State Goes Global By Richard Barrett These are the areas where a Sunni Arab majority gives way to a Recent terrorist attacks suggest that the Islamic State Kurdish or non-Sunni Arab majority, or where a competing Sunni has both the intent and capacity to strike its enemies Arab group is too strong. Such boundaries present what appear to outside Iraq and Syria. It may have been developing this be firm obstacles to the Islamic State’s territorial ambition. capability for more than a year. But while the Islamic State may encourage acts of terrorism and even facilitate Dependent on Victories them, it is still primarily focused on state building. Even though it represents an idea, the Islamic State depends on military victories for its survival. Unless it can demonstrate that it Nonetheless, with limited opportunity to increase the is true to its motto of enduring and expanding,a it will begin to look territory it controls, and being forced to retreat in some like just another failed enterprise, albeit a dramatic one, howev- areas, the Islamic State’s leaders may see advantage in er much its propaganda urges otherwise. And if its expansion and increasing their encouragement of overseas terrorism, endurance are constrained in the Levant, it must look elsewhere even to the point of directing attacks, in order to to keep alive the myth of its unstoppable progress. The desire for demonstrate that the group continues to “endure and vengeance also influences the Islamic State’s strategy because the expand,” as its motto holds. intervention of external powers causes its territory to contract, chal- lenging its narrative of preordained success. Rather than merely lash out at its enemies, however, the Islamic State seeks to present he terrorist assault on Paris on November 13, togeth- itself as both powerful and deliberate. er with the coordinated suicide attacks in Beirut the In this respect, the Islamic State has two options: persuade other previous day and the mid-air explosion that brought groups around the world to join its ranks on the basis of vaguely down a Russian airliner over the Sinai on October shared objectives or demonstrate its reach in other ways. The Islam- 31 suggest that the Islamic State, which has claimed ic State’s efforts to expand have seen the accretion of new provinces Tresponsibility for these atrocities,1 has gone global. The string of in West and North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, but this recent international attacks raises new questions about the Islamic has done little to increase its power. The Islamic State Wilayat of State’s capabilities and intentions as it faces increasing difficulties in West Africa, for example, remains indistinguishable from its prede- the Levant. It also raises questions about the impact of such attacks cessor group Boko Haram; Wilayat Khorasan is more an expression on its supporters, such as the husband-and-wife team that killed 14 of local Taliban rivalries than it is of an Islamic State expansion into people in San Bernardino, California, on December 2.2 South Asia. Only in Libya is there any suggestion of administra- By its very nature, the Islamic State is a global organization, or tive cohesion and strategic cooperation between the province and at least one that does not define itself by geographical boundaries. the capital, and even here, local conditions make the expansion of It claims to represent a faith rather than a people or a territory doubtful endurance. and to reject political divides, as it so clearly demonstrated when Demonstrating strength farther afield, in enemy territory, is an it bulldozed the berm that separated Syria and Iraq in June 2014. easier task than extending the boundaries of the Islamic State and It demands the support of all Muslims, wherever they are. And in risking their contraction. It may not be a tactic that defeats the en- addition to appealing to their sense of victimhood and other key emy, but it is certainly one that helps persuade potential and actual motivators, it draws on well-established, end-of-times prophecies supporters that the Islamic State is enduring. Overseas terrorism to present an illusion of historical inevitability. is an irresistible option for an organization that regards the whole At the same time, however, the Islamic State must operate in world as a target and has no qualms about using extreme tactics.3 the real world. It faces many enemies and it has begun to knock Before the Paris attacks, there had been warnings from West- up against the natural limits of its expansion among Sunni Arabs ern officials that the Islamic State had already tried to commit acts and within the political, ethnic, and sectarian divides of the Levant. of terrorism against overseas targets, and continued to plot.4 But despite individual acts that may have been inspired by the Islamic State, none had been demonstrably organized and directed by the Richard Barrett is a former British diplomat and intelligence group’s leadership. Based on the information so far available, Paris officer who from March 2004 to December 2012 led the al-Qa`ida would seem to have been more likely to have been directed than and Taliban Monitoring Team at the United Nations. Since 2013, inspired, but in either case, it fits a pattern of activity that goes back he has been a senior vice president with The Soufan Group, a se- curity consultancy in New York. He is also an advisor to several non-governmental organizations that deal with violent extrem- a Islamic State supporters customarily shout baqiya wa tatamaddad (endur- ism. You can follow him @rmdbarrett ing and expanding) when the Islamic State is mentioned. 2 CTC SENTINEL NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 BARRETT “The Islamic State now hovers between U.S. troops from combat operations in Iraq in August 2010. being a terrorist organization that Focus on State Building runs a state and being a state that While the Islamic State’s leaders promote the idea of the apocalypse, sponsors terrorism. For its founder, and would therefore welcome the return of U.S. soldiers back on the ground in large numbers,8 it accepts that the timing of the end of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, this would be the world is uncertain.