The Sri Lanka Bombings Were a Preview of ISIS's Future
28 May 2019By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Two days after the bombings in Sri Lanka, the Islamic State came out and
saidit was behind them. It backed up its claim with video evidence that showed
the attackers gathering in front of its flag to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, the group's current leader. The attack had been coming for some
time, and others like it are almost certainly being planned—and not just in
Sri Lanka. That's because terrorism has long been a crucial promotional tactic
for ISIS. This won't change just because the organization, which tried to
build a proto-state on territory it held in Iraq and Syria, was militarily
defeated earlier this year.
In the aftermath of an attack like the one in Sri Lanka last weekend, we need
to ask what purpose it serves for those who claim credit. What's in it for
them? For ISIS, it's quite clear: The strategic utility of terrorism has never
been greater. That's because, to navigate through its loss of land over these
last few years, ISIS's propaganda has been claiming that it gave up on the
material reality of its state long ago, having already achieved a "victory."
In this telling, its proto-state was a way to build a global platform that
would ensure the movement's future by mobilizing tens of thousands of
supporters, imbuing them and their kin with its creed and its mission.
To be sure, dissenters in the organization were unconvinced of this claim,
arguing that the loss of its lands, prompted by its oppression and extremism,
had turned ISIS into a farce. Some have even urged a total revolt against
al-Baghdadi, calling for ISIS members in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere to rise up
against him.
But these dissenters, many of whom have now fled to northwest Syria and
Turkey, evidently have failed to convince ISIS's true believers—those who buy
into its propaganda hook, line and sinker. They are the ones who really matter
here, because it is they who stand to buoy the movement in months and years to
come.
For them, terror attacks like the Sri Lanka bombings, an attempted operation
in Saudi Arabia, and a border assault in the Democratic Republic of Congo last
week are all evidence of ISIS's greater victory. To the faithful, these events
show that the group was as successful in expanding its reach and capabilities
as its leaders claim it to have been. However, large-scale attacks are
exceedingly difficult to pull off and are therefore unreliable as a way of
signaling the group's power. So ISIS has been cultivating another key "proof"
of its continuing relevance: On its own organizational chart, it has been
untethering its caliphate brand from Syria and Iraq.
This effort began in earnest last summer, when the group compressed its
numerous wilayat ("provinces") in Syria and Iraq into just two, wilayat al-shamand
wilayat al-'iraq. It then applied the same treatment to its affiliates in
Yemen and Libya. Farther-flung branches—for instance, in Somalia and Southeast
Asia—were promoted to wilayat status, too. This was not just some obscure
lexical shift. ISIS was proactively reframing Syria and Iraq as just two of
many parts of its overarching global caliphate, something that made it much
easier to argue that the group would remain alive and well in the rest of the
world even if its proto-state lost all of its land.
We've seen this strategy before. Back in 2004, ISIS's predecessor, al-Qaeda in
Iraq, was militarily defeated in Fallujah—a city it had been occupying for six
months alongside other insurgents. At the time, AQI's then-leader, Abu Mus'ab
al-Zarqawi, framed territorial defeat as a tactical setback in the short-term
but a strategic victory in the long-term. He asserted that Fallujah mattered
most because of what the battle for the city said about AQI. It put AQI on the
map, he claimed, showing it to be a viable force capable of fighting the
"crusaders" head on and globalizing its ideology. That, he said, was
priceless. Sure, AQI was materially weakened, but that didn't matter because
at the very same time it had been ideologically strengthened.
This is how ISIS is trying to get through its territorial tribulations now,
and this is why we have to expect more activity from it, not less. It doesn't
really matter whether ISIS's leaders actually believe what they are spouting.
What matters is that ISIS's true believers are buying into it. If they
continue to do so, the group stands a good chance of surviving through this
next, post-territorial phase of its existence.
The same message has been ringing loud and clear in its propaganda for a long
time now: The proto-state in Syria and Iraq was great, but it has enabled
something supposedly even greater. In Sri Lanka, we are looking at that
"something even greater."
In the coming months and years, ISIS's core will go further underground as its
units on the periphery strive to become more dangerous. The group's thinking
is that this will plug the gap left by the proto-state and give ISIS what it
needs to sustain organizational and ideological inertia. It is critical that
we take this into account.
It's grim to say so, but we should expect more attempts at attacks like these
more regularly for the foreseeable future. Sri Lanka was not a one-off. If
anything, it was a test run.
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