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1. A Policy Response to Islamic State Extremist Fighter Battlefield Migration

Author:
Dr. Robert J. Bunker
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
June 2014 to December 2017 represented the high tide of radical Islamist (Salafi-jihadist) territorial control under the authority of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. This monograph analyzes and provides policy response options for US national security and Army planners concerning the potential for postterritorial caliphate battlefield migration by the sizable contingent of battle-hardened Islamic State foreign fighters situated within various enclaves in Syria and Iraq. The monograph achieves these ends by discussing Islamic State territorial eras and demographics; offering an overview of the initial inflows of these fighters into the territorial caliphate, outflows to the United States, and lateral transfers to new battlefields, as well as mentioning special issues related to Islamic State women and children; highlighting and analyzing the four strategic options available to the Islamic State in its postterritorial caliphate phase; and offering senior US policy makers and planners options for counterbattlefield migration policy responses. These options pertain to policies focused on extremists and the Islamic State as an organization and embedded within the context of higher-level US foreign policies toward Syria and Iraq. Additionally, recommendations for counterforeign terrorist fighter programs and the Joint force are provided.
Topic:
Insurgency, Violent Extremism, Islamic State, Islamism, Army, and Foreign Fighters
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

2. December 2017 Issue

Author:
Hassan Hassan, Bryan Price, Goktug Sonmez, Johannes Saal, and Ryan Cummings
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
We’re proud to be publishing the 10th anniversary issue of CTC Sentinel. In the inaugural December 2007 issue, then Director of the Combating Terrorism Center Joseph Felter introduced the new publication with a favorite phrase of the late General Wayne A. Downing, “Who thinks wins.” Felter is now the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia and is the subject of our interview this month. “We wanted CTC Sentinel to be a resource to the academic, scholarly, and policy community … so we designed CTC Sentinel to include both high-quality scholarship from leading scholars as well as articles grounded in practitioner insights,” he recalls. “[It] has truly met and exceeded our hopes for it.” A great deal of credit for this is due to founding editor Erich Marquardt, the journal’s editorial board over the years—now led by Colonel Suzanne Nielsen, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Price, and Brian Dodwell—as well as Brigadier General Cindy Jebb, the Dean of West Point, who has been a longtime champion of the publication. There are still very significant challenges to think through. Hassan Hassan warns in this month’s cover article that the Islamic State is now attempting a resurgence in the border region between Iraq and Syria, having conserved forces for the same kind of attritional insurgency that led to its regeneration after its near-defeat in the late 2000s. This year has seen four international terror attacks involving ethnic Uzbeks, including a truck attack on New York City’s West Side Highway in October. Goktug Sonmez outlines how radicalization among Central Asians is becoming a growing international security concern. Johannes Saal examines what is known about what appears to be a new Islamic State external operations hub in Libya and the spokes connecting it to radical networks in Europe. Ryan Cummings outlines the evolving relationship between Boko Haram and al-Qa`ida and argues there are indications al-Qa`ida is trying to bring the group back into its fold.
Topic:
Terrorism, Insurgency, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Borders, Jihad, and Boko Haram
Political Geography:
Iraq, Central Asia, Middle East, Libya, Syria, and Southeast Asia

3. The Islamic State’s Strategy: Lasting and Expanding

Author:
Lina Khatib
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The self-proclaimed Islamic State is a hybrid jihadist group with a declared goal of establishing a “lasting and expanding” caliphate. Its strategy for survival and growth blends military, political, social, and economic components. Yet the U.S.-led international intervention against it has largely been limited to air strikes. The gaps in the international coalition’s approach as well as deep sectarian divisions in Iraq and the shifting strategies of the Syrian regime and its allies are allowing the Islamic State to continue to exist and expand.
Topic:
Civil War, Islam, Terrorism, Insurgency, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Arab Countries, and Syria

4. British Foreign Policy in an Unequal World

Author:
Edmund Cairns
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The UK needs a safe world in which to trade and invest, and to be free from the security threats caused by conflicts or fragile states. Yet spiralling inequality and climate change, among many other factors, threaten to create a more dangerous, unequal world. As the continuing tragedy in Syria shows, the world's old and new powers have not yet found a way to unite to end conflicts. The age of interventions, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, is over. But a new rule-based world in which China, India, and others unite with Western powers to protect civilians and end conflicts has not yet come into being. Whoever wins the 2015 UK general election, the greatest test for UK foreign policy will be how much it can do to help build that world.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Poverty, Insurgency, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Britain, China, Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, India, and Syria

5. Flight of Icarus? The PYD's Precarious Rise in Syria

Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
With the Syrian regime and opposition locked in a see-saw battle, Kurdish forces have consolidated control over large portions of the country's north. Their principal players, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD) and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG), now dominate three large, non-contiguous enclaves of Kurdish-majority territory along the Turkish border, over which the PYD proclaimed in November 2013 the transitional administration of Rojava (Western Kurdistan). Kurdish governance is unprecedented in Syria and for the PYD, an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish insurgent movement PKK, from which it draws ideological, organisational and military support. But it is unclear whether this is a first step toward stability and the Kurdish aspiration for national recognition, or merely a respite while the civil war focuses elsewhere. The PYD alone will not determine the fate of Syria's north, but it could greatly increase its chances by broadening its popular appeal and cooperating with other local forces.
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

6. TSG IntelBrief: The Death of the Free Syrian Army?

Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
The collapse of two prominent coalition-supported Syrian rebel groups at the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) has not just compounded doubts against the capabilities and loyalties of these groups but also doubt as to whether any "moderate" rebel group can succeed. This long-simmering uncertainty about arming and training rebel groups that aren't as cohesive or even as moderate as once hoped throws into question the prospects of an acceptable military solution to the almost four-year long Syrian civil war. The coalition-equipped rebel groups Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front were overrun in northern Syria by JN-though most rebel groups have long cooperated with it and, unlike Washington, don't consider the group to be a terrorist organization. Reports of increased airstrikes against JN will further drive a wedge between most rebel groups and the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), that demands the primary target is the Bashar al-Assad regime and not extremist groups fighting it. The realities of settling the civil war exclusively, thus far, via rebel military might open up other avenues for non-military actors to assume a role in resolving the war; after all, there are an estimated 2.5 million refugees and another 6.5 internally displaced persons in Syria, with obvious needs that perhaps new Syrian civilian leadership might stand up to address.
Topic:
Armed Struggle, Insurgency, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

7. TSG IntelBrief: The Islamic State: A Monopoly on Messaging

Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
The deliberate targeting and killing of journalists by The Islamic State (IS) and the resulting lack of outside reporting has created a nearly information-free zone for the group to fill with its own messaging. The group's embrace of the decentralized nature of social media has allowed its many thousands of cyber-supporters to create and operate their own ministries of propaganda. Abu Mohammad al-Adnani is the official spokesman for the group, but the notion of an official spokesman does not really apply to IS in the way it has applied to al Qaeda; the crowdsourcing of messages negates the need for a single point of contact.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, Communications, Mass Media, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Iraq, North Africa, and Syria

8. TSG IntelBrief: Ordered Chaos: The Structure of The Islamic State

Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
For a group that feeds on chaos, The Islamic State (IS) itself is rigidly structured and organized. The growing bureaucratic and administrative demands on IS as it attempts to govern the areas it controls-while under increasing military pressure-will stress the group and its structure like never before. The group benefits from ruling over populations that have little experience in effective government services, meaning that the very conditions that helped fuel IS's rise now give it wide latitude to deliver sub-par services for at least the near-term without risking revolt, at least for reasons of shoddy governance. From the caliph-level down to the district level, the group has a repetitive three-office ruling structure that provides easy-to-understand lanes of responsibility and authority, which is vital for a growing organization whose sole membership requirement is belief in its cause.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, Insurgency, and Governance
Political Geography:
Iraq and Syria

9. TSG IntelBrief: Removing The Islamic State from Local Economies

Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
Like a tumor, the Islamic State (IS) feeds off the vitality of its unwilling hosts, sustaining itself from the economies of the areas it controls Efforts to deprive IS of its million-dollar-a-day revenue will be as difficult as it will be vital, since the group takes a percentage of local economic activity; hurting those economies to deprive IS of money will be counter-productive The coalition efforts to defeat IS militarily must be sufficient enough to thwart its advances while remaining targeted enough to ensure the vulnerable population doesn't unite with IS in collective suffering Destroying mobile oil refineries is an effective use of air power to deny IS more finances but it will prove less effective against destroying the percentage IS takes from everyday transactions that it calls taxes In short, the solution is to remove IS from the money, not the other way around, which only will only weaken and radicalize already struggling populations.
Topic:
Economics, Terrorism, Military Strategy, Armed Struggle, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Iraq and Syria

10. The un-Islamic State

Author:
Mouin Rabbani
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
The Islamic State (IS) movement needs to be understood as a political project whose primary objective is to establish a viable entity in areas it can control rather than engage in permanent insurgency against more powerful adversaries. The conditions for its emergence were created by the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the dissolution of the Iraqi state and its replacement with a sectarian political system and conflict, and the collapse of state authority in regions of Syria. The available evidence indicates that the IS is at best uninterested in achieving the conventional forms of legitimacy and integration pursued by other Islamist movements; engagement is therefore unlikely to prove a viable option. There are no quick or simple solutions to the challenges posed by the IS. Those being considered, particularly Western military intervention, are almost guaranteed to make a catastrophic situation worse, while a strategy that relies on disaffected Sunni tribes and sectarian Shiite militias is unlikely to succeed. A comprehensive approach is needed involving a re-evaluation of policy towards the Syrian crisis, engagement with regional parties on a much broader spectrum of relevant issues, and a focus on establishing legitimate institutions that are able to address deep-seated grievances and resolve the conflicts that allow movements like IS to thrive.
Topic:
Insurgency, Non State Actors, Islamic State, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Syria