ISSN 1812-1098, e-ISSN 1812-2973 CONNECTIONS THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL Vol. 16, no. 1, Winter 2017 Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Creative Commons Academies and Security Studies Institutes BY-NC-SA 4.0 Connections: The Quarterly Journal ISSN 1812-1098, e-ISSN 1812-2973 https://doi.org/10.11610/Connections.16.1 Contents Vol. 16, no. 1, Winter 2017 Editorial Disunity in Global Jihad: A Preface 5 Manni Crone and Flemming Splidsboel Hansen Research Articles The Mole and the Mallet: Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the 7 ‘Thirty Years' War’ in the Middle East Lars Erslev Andersen Heirs of Abu Bakr: On the Ideology and Conception of History 25 in al-Qaeda and Islamic State Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen Islamic State Enters al-Qaeda’s Old Hotbed: Afghanistan and 37 Pakistan Mona Kanwal Sheikh Islamic State in Yemen – A Rival to al-Qaeda? 50 Maria-Louise Clausen Islamic State’s Incursion into North Africa and Sahel: A Threat 63 to al-Qaeda? Manni Crone Jihad in Russian 77 Flemming Splidsboel Hansen Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Creative Commons Academies and Security Studies Institutes BY-NC-SA 4.0 Table of Contents Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s foreign fighters 87 Maja Touzari Greenwood Migrants, Housewives, Warriors or Sex Slaves: AQ’s and the 99 Islamic State’s Perspectives on Women Andrea Sjøberg Aasgaard 4 Connections: The Quarterly Journal ISSN 1812-1098, e-ISSN1812-2973 Crone and Hansen, Connections QJ 16, no. 1 (2017): 5-6 https://doi.org/10.11610/Connections.16.1.00 Editorial Disunity in Global Jihad: A Preface Manni Crone and Flemming Splidsboel Hansen Danish Institute for International Studies, http://www.diis.dk As this special issue on “Disunity in global Jihad” goes into print in January 2017, the Islamic State (IS) is facing a possible military defeat throughout its territory in Northern Iraq and Syria. Yet, at the same time, it has proudly claimed responsibility for the 19 December 2016 lorry attack on a Christmas market in Berlin and the 1 January 2017 attack on a nightclub in Istanbul. Experts warn that as the self-proclaimed IS caliphate is crumbling, the or- ganization may re-direct its attention, through its many supporters, to car- rying out still more terrorist attacks throughout large parts of the rest of the world, including of course in the West. The heavy focus in the Western media on IS has pushed al-Qaeda (AQ), until recently the subject of most of our counter-terrorist thinking and ef- forts, into the background of our collective consciousness. AQ, now serving mostly as a unifying brand for the smaller groups operating under its name, is still active, however, and in several places locked in a bloody conflict with IS. The possible military defeat of IS in Northern Iraq and Syria by a combi- nation of local and foreign troops may pave the way for AQ to re-assert it- self on the global Jihadist scene. Several of the contributions in the special issue suggest such a development as they discuss the rivalry of IS and AQ in several theaters. The special issue is based on work done mainly at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), where, as a consequence of the emergence of especially IS, the more traditional counter-terrorist studies have been complemented by more recent counter-radicalization research. Special funding by several Danish ministries has allowed DIIS to build up a consid- Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Creative Commons Academies and Security Studies Institutes BY-NC-SA 4.0 Crone and Hansen, Connections QJ 16, no. 1 (2017): 5-6 erable research base, part of which is now offered to the readers of Con- nections. The contributors express their gratitude to the Editorial Board of the PfP Consortium for the opportunity to launch this special issue. Copenhagen, 4 January 2017 About the Guest Editors Dr. Manni Crone PhD, is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Inter- national Studies. Her current research focuses on terrorism and counterter- rorism in Europe, North Africa and Sahel. Recent publications include “Radi- calization revisited,” International Affairs 92:3 (2016) and “French interven- tionism in the post-American MENA-region: filling a void?,” in Between Re- gional Autonomy and Intervention: New Conflict Dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa (DIIS, 2017). Dr. Flemming Splidsboel Hansen is a Senior Researcher and Coordinator of the International Security Research Unit at DIIS. Before joining DIIS, he has held positions in the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, at various universities and in the Danish military. His research interests include Russian identity politics, Russian disinformation campaigns and integration in the post-Soviet space. Flemming Splidsboel Hansen is the corresponding guest editor and he may be contacted at [email protected]. 6 Connections: The Quarterly Journal ISSN 1812-1098, e-ISSN 1812-2973 Lars Erslev Andersen, Connections QJ 16, no. 1 (2017): 7-24 https://doi.org/10.11610/Connections.16.1.01 Research Article The Mole and the Mallet: Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the ‘Thirty Years' War’ in the Middle East Lars Erslev Andersen Danish Institute for International Studies, http://www.diis.dk Abstract: This article investigates the developments of al-Qaida and The Islamic State in the context of the war on terror. The Iraq war 2003 – 2010, including the US Counterinsurgency strategy implemented in Iraq in 2007 onwards, together with the political developments in Iraq after the US withdrawal of combat troops at the end of 2011 is seen as the breed- ing ground for Islamic State in Iraq and thus for establishment of the Nusra Front (al-Qaida) in Syria. The chapter argues that without political developments based on reliable states in the Arab Middle East there is no solution in sight for ending the conflicts and wars in the region. Keywords: Iraq, Syria, Islamic State, al-Qaida, al-Nusra, War on Terror. Introduction Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen has an arcade game named ‘Whack-A-Mole.’ The game involves competing about who can hit most moles with a mallet in the shortest period of time. You cannot win against the moles, as they keep pop- ping up from their holes, but you can hit most moles in the shortest period of time. If the moles symbolize al-Qaeda (AQ) and Islamic State (IS), and the mal- let symbolizes the military instrument chosen by the West to defeat these two terrorist groups in the Middle East, ‘Whack-A-Mole’ illustrates quite well how the mallet, the military instrument, cannot win against the moles, al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The game is kept going by feeding money into the machine. Ob- viously, the big question in the war against terrorism is what keeps AQ and IS going? The disheartening conclusion is that part of the explanation is the way in which the war against terrorism has been organized in the Middle East and elsewhere, using the mallet. Another and just as important explanation is the struggle for power, political influence and resources in the authoritarian states Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Creative Commons Academies and Security Studies Institutes BY-NC-SA 4.0 Lars Erslev Andersen, Connections QJ 16, no. 1 (2017): 7-24 in the Middle East which, with the Sunni-Shia conflict orchestrated by the two regional ‘super powers,’ Saudi Arabia and Iran, is tearing the Middle East apart. The situation resembles a Middle Eastern reconstruction of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. Current Status However, the war against AQ and Taliban and against the Middle Eastern dicta- tors, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, has fueled the Middle Eastern conflict. This is the lesson learned from 15 years of war against terrorism in the Middle East. The war was initiated by the bombing of AQ’s training camps in the mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan, it continued with wars in Iraq and Libya, and has now returned to Iraq and a new war in Syria. AQ has also re- turned, particularly in Syria and Yemen, but also to other countries. Moreover, Islamic State has spread to areas such as Africa, Yemen, Afghanistan and Paki- stan, and has established training camps in Syria to train Europeans who return to Europe as terrorists, as we have seen in Paris in November 2015 and Brus- sels in March 2016. It is noteworthy that the war against terrorism has contrib- uted to moving terrorist training camps from Afghanistan to Syria, and thereby closer to Europe. Thus in 2016, we can conclude that AQ, which many people, including the author of this article, considered defeated in 2011 following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, perhaps once again is becoming a dangerous global terrorist organization with declared ambitions of hitting targets in the West as well. Following the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, and the killing of many of the infamous AQ leaders in the drone war intensified by Barack Obama when he became President in 2009, many people concluded that AQ had been defeated and were singing their final swan song.1 However, others warned that AQ could return and that small AQ networks still existed in the Middle East, which could regain their momentum under the right conditions, and in the right context.2 They were right, although those who had declared AQ as dying were not entirely wrong. Today a very different AQ is setting the agenda compared to the AQ that ruled under their great leader, Osama Bin Laden. The death sen- tence over AQ has proven to be true in terms of AQ’s senior leadership. Ayman al-Zawahiri is the last of the great leaders who formed AQ, however he does not have the authority that he had in AQ’s heyday.