Abu Bakr AlBaghdadi might be dead and might not be! The real question is whether the Islamic State can survive without its Caliph or not!
The main reason why I think ISIS will survive and will continue to be strong with or without AlBaghdadi, is that the organization is focusing on “ideology” and addressing the Muslim communities around the world using this particular tool. It is true that they have pledged allegiance to the caliph and considered him as “Amir Al-Mo’meneen” however, the focus of this group is not on the caliph himself but on the establishment of the Islamic State and its growth, because:
1. AlBaghdadi appeared only once ever since he was appointed as a Caliph.
2. Jihadists are coming from all over the world to join ISIS for the sake of the cause itself and not for the sake of the caliph.
3. Al-Baghdadi has a cabinet of advisors and two top deputies Abu Ali al-Anbari who is responsible on the operations in Syria and Abu Muslim al-Turkmani who is in charge on the operations in Iraq and a chief spokesperson for ISIS Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, so this shows the importance of the distribution of tasks and powers in this group.
IS addressed people in the past couple of months using ideology as a tool to attract the Muslim communities around the world to join their cause, and fight the “Kuffar”! However, IS is now addressing people using the aggression on Sunnis led by the international coalition claiming that the world is fighting IS to defeat the Sunnis not IS itself.
Though ISIS lacks the infrastructure form of the state however, with the help of many Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesian experts as well as relying on so many stories from the Quran, the biography of the prophet and the Hadith they will still be able to keep functioning and growing because the ideology is what keeps these people alive.
ISIS is a whole new level of terrorism, and in order to defeat it, the international community should come up in parallel with a whole new level of defense mechanisms and strategies. I personally think that the international community didn’t find a new way to deal with this new threat, and this is giving IS the ability to grow, improve, expand and to remain existing.
Just like the rise of Ebola! Cancer treatment and medicines cannot be used to defeat Ebola.
This explains why President Obama’s strategy is not working well and is not meeting the required level of action to reach the coalition goal in defeating IS.
We should not underestimate the Islamic State’s capabilities.
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Sarah
04 September 2014
كــمــشــة حـــبــــر 