Exporting Global Jihad: Critical Perspectives from Asia and North America 9781788313315, 9781838604738, 9781838607586, 9781838607579

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
About the Editors
Contributor Bios
Introduction: Examining the global linkages of Asian and North American jihadis
Notes
From Afghanistan to Syria: How the global remains local for Indonesian Islamist militants
Notes
Mujahideen in Marawi: How local jihadism in the Philippines tried to go global
Notes
Contextualizing the appeal of ISIS in Malaysia
Notes
Uyghur militancy and terrorism: The evolution of a ‘glocal’ jihad?
Notes
The global–local nexus in the Kashmir insurgency: The Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Pakistani military and Al Qaeda
Notes
Political Islam and jihad in Eurasia: The case of the North Caucasus
Notes
Explaining the limited ISIS and Al Qaeda threat in the United States
Notes
The Canadian contribution to global jihad 2012–17
Notes
Australia: Who can it be knocking at my door?
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

EXPORTING GLOBAL JIHAD

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EXPORTING GLOBAL JIHAD Critical Perspectives from Asia and North America

Edited by Tom Smith and Kirsten E. Schulze

I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © Tom Smith and Kirsten E. Schulze Tom Smith and Kirsten E. Schulze have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. Cover design by Adriana Brioso Cover image © NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1331-5 PB: 978-1-8386-0473-8 ePDF: 978-1-8386-0757-9 eBook: 978-1-8386-0756-2 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS About the Editors Contributor Bios INTRODUCTION: EXAMINING THE GLOBAL LINKAGES OF ASIAN AND NORTH AMERICAN JIHADIS Tom Smith and Kirsten E. Schulze FROM AFGHANISTAN TO SYRIA: HOW THE GLOBAL REMAINS LOCAL FOR INDONESIAN ISLAMIST MILITANTS Kirsten E. Schulze and Julie Chernov Hwang

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MUJAHIDEEN IN MARAWI: HOW LOCAL JIHADISM IN THE PHILIPPINES TRIED TO GO GLOBAL Tom Smith and Joseph Franco

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CONTEXTUALIZING THE APPEAL OF ISIS IN MALAYSIA Aida Arosoaie and Joseph Chinyong Liow

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UYGHUR MILITANCY AND TERRORISM: THE EVOLUTION OF A ‘GLOCAL’ JIHAD? Michael Clarke

THE GLOBAL–LOCAL NEXUS IN THE KASHMIR INSURGENCY: THE JAISH-E-MOHAMMED, THE PAKISTANI MILITARY AND AL QAEDA Sajjan M. Gohel

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POLITICAL ISLAM AND JIHAD IN EURASIA: THE CASE OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS Galina M. Yemelianova

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EXPLAINING THE LIMITED ISIS AND AL QAEDA THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES Risa Brooks

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THE CANADIAN CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL JIHAD 2012–17 Sam Mullins

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AUSTRALIA: WHO CAN IT BE KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? Lizzy Ambler

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Selected Bibliography 201 Index 204

ABOUT THE EDITORS Tom Smith is a principal lecturer in International Relations at the University of Portsmouth. He is based at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell where he works as the assistant academic director for the University of Portsmouth team at RAF College Cranwell delivering professional military education to over 500 students a year on courses relating to international security. His research focuses on security in Southeast Asia with specific focus on terrorism and the conflict in the Philippines and Thailand. Tom has monitored the Abu Sayyaf Group for over a decade which has involved periods of fieldwork and a position as Visiting Lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila. Tom has had his research published in both the major terrorism academic journals, Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. Tom is a regular media commentator on Asian security and Filipino political issues and a prominent critic of President Duterte’s regime. He writes regularly for outlets such as The Guardian, The Independent, The Diplomat and The Conversation and has given testimony on the human rights abuses of the Duterte regime to the UK Parliament. Kirsten E. Schulze is Associate Professor in International History at the London School of Economics. She works on communal and separatist conflict as well as militant Islamism in Indonesia. Her publications include ‘From Ambon to Poso: Comparative and evolutionary aspects of local jihad in Indonesia’ (2019), ‘Why they join: Pathways into Indonesian jihadi organisations’ (2018), ‘Making Jihadis, Waging Jihad: Transnational and Local Dimensions of the ISIS Phenomenon in Indonesia and Malaysia’ (2018), ‘The “ethnic” in Indonesia’s communal conflicts: Violence in Poso, Ambon and West Kalimantan’, (2017), ‘The Islamic State and Southeast Asia’ (2016), ‘Transforming the Aceh Conflict: From Military Solutions to Political Agreement’ (2013), ‘The AMM and the Transition from Conflict to Peace in Aceh, 2005-2006’ (2010), ‘Indonesia – The Radicalisation of Islam’ (2009), ‘From the battlefield to the negotiating table: GAM and the Indonesian government, 1999–2005’ (2007), and The Free Aceh Movement (GAM): Anatomy of a Separatist Organisation (2004). Dr Schulze is currently working on a book on Islamist, Separatist and Communal Violence in Indonesia.

CONTRIBUTOR BIOS Lizzy Ambler is a PhD candidate at the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, Brisbane. Lizzy’s research explores the interaction between nation states including Australia, Denmark and the UK, and foreign fighter journeys in the context of the Islamic State in Syria. Her research incorporates her professional interest in interviewing, especially as it relates to the concept of storytelling in contemporary journalism. Lizzy also lectures in the areas of global security and counterterrorism practices.  Aida Arosaie is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at UW-Madison, working on religion, the economy and the environment in Indonesia. Aida holds a BA in Politics and Hindi from the SOAS and a MSc in Strategic Studies from NTU Singapore. Prior to joining UW-Madison, Aida was a researcher at NTU Singapore, working on religion and politics in Southeast Asia. Risa Brooks is Allis Chalmers Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Political Science at Marquette University, USA. She specializes in the study of American and comparative civilmilitary relations, terrorism in the United States and questions related to civilian targeting and societal constraints on non-state militant organizations’ violent practices. Among her current projects is a study of terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States in which she analyses the importance of territorial safe havens in facilitating militant groups’ capacity to attack remote targets. Professor Brooks is the author of  Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes  and Shaping Strategy: the civil-military politics of strategic assessment (2008) as well as numerous articles in the field of international security. Michael Clarke is Associate Professor at the National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University (ANU), and Director of the ANU-Indiana University Pan-Asia Institute. He is an internationally recognized expert on the history and politics of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China (PRC), Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia, Central Asian geopolitics and nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation. He is the author of Xinjiang and China’s Rise in Central Asia – A History (2011), (with Andrew O’Neil and Stephan Fruhling), Australian Nuclear Policy: Reconciling Strategic, Economic and Normative Interests (2015), editor of China’s Frontier Regions: Ethnicity, Economic Integration and Foreign Relations (2016), editor (with Anna Hayes) of Inside Xinjiang: Analysing Space, Place and Power in China’s Muslim North-West (2016) and editor of Terrorism and Counterterrorism in China: Domestic and Foreign Policy Dimensions (2018).

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Joseph Franco examines terrorist networks in Southeast Asia and global best practices in countering violent extremism (CVE). He obtained his MSc in International Relations through an ASEAN Graduate Scholarship. Joseph previously worked for the Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and the J3, AFP. He provided consulting services for the enhancement of internal security operations, deployment of peacekeeping forces and the employment of special operations forces. Joseph was also the lead writer of the AFP Peace and Development Team Manual – a novel, community-based approach to counterinsurgency. His research has been featured in journals such as Asian Security and Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies. Sajjan M. Gohel has a multidisciplinary background in global security. His current research and publications include looking at the ideology and doctrine that feeds international terrorism, the varying tactics and strategies of transnational political violence, border security challenges and the role new media plays for strategic communications. Sajjan received his BA (Hons) in Politics from Queen Mary, University of London and also holds a master’s degree in Comparative Politics and a PhD in International History from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). Sajjan is also a visiting teacher at the LSE and Co-Editor of NATO’s Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum (CTRC). Julie Chernov Hwang is an associate professor of political science and international relations in the Center for People, Politics and Markets at Goucher College. She is the author of Why Terrorists Quit: The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists (2018), Peaceful Islamist Mobilization in the Muslim World: What Went Right (2009) and the co-editor of Islamist Parties and Political Normalization in the Muslim World (2014).  Her articles have been published in Terrorism and Political Violence, Asian Survey, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific Issues, Southeast Asia Research and Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. Her new book project explores motivations for, and processes involved in, joining Islamist extremist groups in Indonesia and the Philippines. She is on the editorial boards of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Asian Security and Journal of Deradicalization. Joseph Chinyong Liow is Dean, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Tan Kah Kee Chair Professor of Comparative and International Politics, Nanyang Technological University.  He is also Research Advisor and former dean at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at NTU. Sam Mullins is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Hawaii, where he contributes to the professional education of security practitioners from the Asia-Pacific region and around the globe. He has been researching and teaching on terrorism, counterterrorism and countering violent extremism for more than a decade, and has presented his work for the FBI, the New York City Police Department, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Australian Federal Police, NATO and the Indonesian National Armed Forces, among others. He is also an honorary fellow at the University of Wollongong,

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Australia. His most recent book is Jihadist Infiltration of Migrant Flows to Europe: Perpetrators, Modus Operandi and Policy Implications (2019). Galina M. Yemelianova holds a PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies from the Institute of Asian and African Studies (ISAA), Moscow State University. She has researched the history and Islam-related contemporary politics of the Middle East and Eurasia for over three decades. Between 1996 and 2017 she researched and taught at the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, where she pioneered and taught the Masters pathway on the Caucasus and Central Asia. She is the author/editor/co-editor of nine books, including Russia and Islam: A Historical Survey (2002); Islam in Post-Soviet Russia (2003); Radical Islam in the Former Soviet Union (2010); Many Faces of the Caucasus (2014); Muslims of Central Asia: An Introduction (2019); Routledge Handbook of  the Caucasus (2020) and Islamic Leadership, the State and Global Islam: The Case of Eurasia (forthcoming). She is an editor of Caucasus Survey, a member of the editorial boards of Europe-Asia Studies and Oriens and a Research Associate at the Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

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INTRODUCTION EXAMINING THE GLOBAL LINKAGES OF ASIAN AND NORTH AMERICAN JIHADIS Tom Smith and Kirsten E. Schulze

On Sunday 13 May 2018 in Surabaya, Indonesia, Dita Oepriarto, his wife Puji Kuswati, their teenage sons Yusuf Fadhil and Firman Halim, and young daughters Fadhila Sari and Famela Rizqita were on their way to church, not to worship but to blow up themselves and as many Christian worshippers as possible. They split into three groups to target three different churches – the Santa Maria Catholic Church, the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church and the Diponegoro Indonesian Christian Church – and thus maximize the impact of their operation. The almost simultaneous suicide bombings killed thirteen, including all members of the Oepriarto family, and wounded forty-one. Later that day, another Muslim family of six was involved in the premature bomb explosion in a house in Sidoarjo, near Surabaya. The bomb maker Anton Febrianto and the two younger children were wounded in the explosion. His wife Puspitasari and the eldest son were killed.1 The following day, on Monday 14 May, a third family comprising the parents and their three children rode up to the entrance of Surabaya police headquarters on two motorbikes where they then blew themselves up. Four of the attackers were killed and three police officers as well as six civilians were injured. Of the suicide bombers, only the eight-year-old daughter, who had no explosives strapped to her, survived as she was flung off the motorbike by the blast.2 The Surabaya bombings were quickly claimed by ISIS through its Amaq news agency.3 The motive for the Surabaya church bombings was also explained in issue 10 of the Indonesian pro-ISIS online magazine Al-Fatihin, which was released the day after the bombings. The bombings featured as the main story and ‘celebrated’ not only the martyrdom of these ‘soldiers of the caliphate’ but also the tactical ingenuity of the church bombings, which were carried out in three different ways: by motorcycle, explosive vest and car.4 The reason for the Surabaya attacks, according to Al-Fatihin was to wipe out unbelief, idolatry and defiance of the word of Allah.5 At first glance the Surabaya bombings appeared to be globally inspired if not directed, as the Indonesian police claimed that the Oepriarto family were returnees from Syria. As it turned out later, none of the three families had been to Syria, although they would like to have gone to live in the ISIS caliphate. Closer examination of the bombings also revealed that there were distinctly local

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dynamics at play in addition to the inspiration provided by ISIS’ ideology. The targets chosen – churches and the police – are routine local targets of Indonesian jihadis irrespective of group affiliation. Churches were targeted by Jemaah Islamiyah in December 2000 and Indonesian Christians more generally have been seen by Islamists as not only holding Indonesia back from becoming an Islamic state but as a ‘force’ for Christianization. The police, too, have been the prime targets since the 2002 Bali bombings as they are on the frontline of implementing Indonesia’s counterterrorism policies. The Surabaya bombers’ target selection was thus clearly a continuation and reflection of local Indonesian dynamics. The ‘radicalization’ of Dita Oepriarto, too, was the result of the local Indonesian political environment, in this case the Suharto regime (1966–98). Former class mates of Oepriarto, who were interviewed by the media after the Surabaya bombings, stated that he never felt comfortable with the values advocated by Indonesia’s pluralistic state philosophy of Pancasila. Indeed, he believed that Pancasila should be actively opposed as it was not based on Islamic law.6 Already before the establishment of ISIS and the pro-ISIS network in Indonesia, Oepriarto rejected ‘secular rituals’ including raising the Indonesian flag and singing the Indonesian national anthem.7 Similarly, the ustadz who led the Islamic studies sessions that all three families had attended together every Sunday in Surabaya, was not a newcomer to a more radical interpretation of Islam. He already had a reputation of being a firebrand cleric, skilled at mobilizing Muslims to come to the defence of Islam in the 1990s. And like Oepriarto, his views had been shaped by the anti-Muslim policies of the Suharto regime. The emergence of ISIS in the Middle East resulted in an interplay of the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, whereby ISIS was grafted onto already existing radical Islamist organizations in Indonesia which then became the basis of a local pro-ISIS network – Jemaah Ansharut Daulah. The closing off of the possibility for most Indonesians to go to Syria after 2015 triggered a spate of attacks at home in Indonesia as a way to be part of the broader ISIS project, as a local alternative to going to Syria, but also to address local grievances and certainly feeding off local dynamics. This glocalisation in Indonesian Islamism is seen with different variances across Asia and North America.

Probematizing the periphery in the scholarship on jihad Exporting the Global Jihad: Critical Perspectives from the ‘Periphery’ creates a purpose-built platform for the ongoing battle to better understand the dynamics of the global reality of jihad. By providing tools to assess just how global jihad has become (or was) from a breadth of international viewpoints, this collection of works asks a series of critical questions about research and reporting on jihad in the ‘exotic’ lands far from Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Questions addressed in this book include – how connected are remote militant groups to ISIS and Al Qaeda? And what is the nature of these ‘linkages’? In doing so the book looks to assist in shifting the traditional research focus from the Middle East and

Introduction

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ideological radicalization by prominent groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS towards the jihadis in lesser-discussed peripheries. Critically examining the global reach of jihad in these peripheries has the potential to tell us much about both local mobilization and rejection of a grander centrally themed and administered jihad. By examining the various claims made by jihadis and experts of connections between the remote Islamist insurgencies of the ‘periphery’ and the global jihad, this book challenges portrayals of a pervasive global network of an exotic and cosmopolitan cadre of like-minded and similarly motivated jihadists in global union. As the two volumes of this book evidence, the global jihad is somewhat cosmopolitan and diverse but the limits and variations to this vary greatly depending on the nature of that union and the geographies under analysis. As such the works included here have been authored with the premise that exoticizing the jihad is a dangerous tendency and the default to globalize rather than localize our understanding of these conflicts, groups and individuals, undermines true analysis of the mixed local and global dynamics of jihad. This glocalism requires attention if we are to better understand the appeal of jihadism and so evidencebased analysis on the linkages throughout the global jihad is required at regular intervals with specific geographic concentration and expertise above and beyond to that of the general terrorism analyst. Exporting the Global Jihad is a direct response to two leading publications – Olivier Roy’s now seminal 2004 work Globalised Islam and Faisal Devji’s much under-appreciated 2005 work Landscapes of the Jihad – that began to scrutinize the global nature of jihad and the relationships among its wide variety of participants. Roy was quite adamant that a conscious decision was made by Al Qaeda to prioritize exploiting opportunities as far as the Muslim world stretched: The decision to wage a peripheral jihad was reached because the locations of such jihads seem like ‘virgin lands’ that have relatively poor organised resistance movements. Thus foreign volunteers can hope to influence not only their local comrades in arms but also society as whole. This is certainly not the case in areas like Israel / Palestine or other Middle Eastern countries, where nobody is likely to accept a lecture from a western Muslim. The periphery is more receptive to the jihadis’ millenarianist dream. But in Bosnia as in Afghanistan many local fighters, specifically Sufis, were antagonised by Salafi and Wahhabi propaganda. Ultimately no foreign jihadis have been able to impose their religious agenda on any Muslim society, though it would be fair to concede that they have played significant military roles in conflicts in Chechnya, Bosnia and Kashmir.8

Exporting Global Jihad is an attempt to answer how successful that attempt to exploit the ‘virgin lands’ of the periphery has been and to test Roy’s assertion. Has the periphery been receptive to an exported jihad from the centre as Roy suggested? Or does the locally rooted cosmopolitanism of the jihad in the periphery suggest a more complex glocal relationship? Portrayals of jihadis from across the globe

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joining ISIS in Syria and Iraq seem to support Devji’s observance that ‘the jihad, instead of being exported from the centre to the periphery, will be imported from the periphery to the centre’.9 As Exporting Global Jihad was being written, ISIS was losing its base in Syria and Iraq and many commentators wondered how ISIS and the global jihad more broadly will rebrand. Will a new centre emerge and reassert its claims to the periphery or will the next centre for jihad be in the periphery? In Exporting Global Jihad, we are presented with some interesting patterns as well as unique characteristics. The jihad, and its participants, are concurrently ‘exoticized’ by connecting with remote and exotic insurgencies in the periphery, yet also normalized into the everyday with constant coverage of conflicts, groups and individuals around the world within a single dominant global narrative.10 The global nature of jihad is too often taken for granted; yet the extent of the glocal connections deserve continued and focused investigation. Without such inquiry we risk a reductive understanding of the global jihad fostering Orientalist and Eurocentric attitudes towards local conflicts and remote violence in the periphery. Exporting Global Jihad draws attention to those who overlook and undermine the distinct and rich particularities of the global jihad: ‘The fact that the jihad today happens to be based for the most part outside the Middle East among populations that have barely an inkling of Salafi or Wahhabi traditions, seems to have escaped the notice of scholarly genealogies.’11 In bringing together experts from these periphery locations where ‘jihadi insurgencies’ or perhaps more accurately – where acts of violence labelled as jihadi - proliferate and are said to be part of a global phenomenon, this volume provides a unique reference to the reader to scrutinize the global nature of the jihad. This scrutiny can be confidently based on the fact that the authors intimately understand these geographies and the debates around the complexities of their violence. Each chapter explores the extent of connections to the global jihad and the relationship between ‘the centre’ and the ‘periphery’. In doing so, the volume challenges the reductive import/export  notion of a global jihad and notions of a centre and periphery as they relate to jihad. Scepticism of the portrayals of global jihad is strongest where the claims of these connections stretch the furthest and so this collection is born out of the community of regional experts, who have invested themselves in understanding the peripheries relationship to the global jihad. This volume attempts to turn that scepticism and disenchantment into an intellectual resistance against clichéd expressions of a global jihad often advocated by hollow connections to exotic Asian and African landscapes. While the global jihad may be notably cosmopolitan with a rich and diverse, ethnic and cultural community – just how global is this jihad? And what is the extent of these connections outside the traditionally viewed centre of the Middle East. This is a volume that understands its heritage in the literature and the ideas that have laid the ground to allow us to ask and answer such pertinent and impertinent questions. From Richard W. Bulliet’s Islam: The View from the Edge12 published in 1994 this book proposes to develop that ‘peripheral vision’ often lacking in discussions of global jihad. Focusing solely on the relationship with

Introduction

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the periphery allows us to ask how rooted the global jihad is in the periphery; was Roy’s ‘jihadi jet set’ ever realized? if so – where? why? and how? This new breed was above all largely uprooted and more westernised than its predecessors, had few links (if any) to any particular Muslim country, and moved around the world, travelling from jihad to jihad. The flying jihadi was born, the jihadi jet set.13

Devji recognized the importance of Roy’s claim, if not necessarily the accuracy of it. ‘According to Roy, the global jihad has to be distinguished from local struggles not simply by its geographical sweep, but also because it has become an individual duty for which these causes have been reduced to abstractions. He even suggests that such local struggles exist for it only as stereotypes.’14 This volume goes to that next stage and examines the validity of the peripheries ‘local struggles’ connections to the global jihad. This examination is built on an appreciation of the rich history of Muslim kinship and crucially understanding that when it comes to jihad, as Fred Halliday noted – such unity only goes so far: The world today contains more than fifty Muslim-majority countries, in which strong nationalist and patriotic sentiments flourish – often directed against fellow Muslim peoples (Iranians / Iraqis, Sudanese / Egyptians, Uzbeks / Tajiks, to name a few). This adherence to national as opposed to Islamic identities is reflected in the way that middle-eastern Muslim states (except Saudi Arabia) invoke elements of the pre-Islamic past as a form of legitimation; this, even though Islam formally denounces the pre-Islamic period as one of jahiliya (ignorance). Thus Egypt celebrates the Pharaohs, Tunisia the Phoenicians, Iran the ancient Persian empires, Yemen the kingdoms of Saba and Himyar. These considerations are relevant to Osama bin Laden’s transnational project; research on jihadi documents, and interviews with former or imprisoned members, reveal strong inter-ethnic tensions within the movement.15

For Halliday, the inherent danger in much of the material written on the global jihad, and the policies enacted off the back of that material, was that it rarely took account of the concurrent unifying and divisionary competing dynamics. Muslim kinship in the global jihad only goes so far – but how far? These dynamics and limits are acknowledged by only a few, and are understood as important for understanding the global nature of the jihad by fewer still. Yet from very early, with reference to Al Qaeda, Jason Burke also found that ‘national and ethnic divisions re-asserted themselves among the volunteers. Bin Laden’s group was formed with the aim of rousing Muslims, through active campaigning or “propaganda by deed”, to create an “international army” that would unite the umma or world Islamic community against oppression.’16 This disjuncture between aim and reality needs continual vigilance and exposure and this book seeks to do this across the landscape of the ‘periphery’. The vicissitudes in the Al Qaeda franchise model were the first and most striking points of confusion, for it ‘led, not to the formation of

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a huge and disciplined group “with tentacles everywhere”. … But imagining that all these groups were all created or run by bin Laden is to denigrate the particular local factors that led to their emergence.’17 A critical perspective is vital therefore to be able to identify the stereotyped jungle jihadi and to avoid any such denigration in the particular. It is also critically important for policy. As Burke recognized, when trying to decipher the supposed networked capabilities of Al Qaeda back in 2003, the flaws in understanding the reach and reality of the global jihad have adverse consequences: Little that had previously been published helped. It was clear to me that profound misconceptions were widespread. Foremost among them was the idea that bin Laden led a cohesive and structured terrorist organisation called ‘al-Qaeda’. Every piece of evidence I came across in my own work contradicted this notion of al-Qaeda as an ‘Evil Empire’ with an omnipotent mastermind at its head … but it was clearly deeply flawed. As a result, the debate over the prosecution of the on-going ‘war on terror’ had been skewed.18

In many of the peripheries, particularly those with intensive large-scale insur­ gencies, there is extensive, often international, military alliance and cooperation. The Bush doctrine to ‘fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here’ certainly looks to be alive and well in places like the Philippines, Nigeria, Mali and Somalia. Crucially, we must regularly and repeatedly ask: Is such reasoning sound? Further, is action in the peripheries under the guise of combating global jihad overlooking the local jihad and threatening to increase the threat where it was otherwise contained? Diagnoses of nations or regions as ‘afflicted’19 by a global jihad that has ‘shifted from the middle east to the Asia-pacific region’20 and elsewhere, as this volume demonstrates, often come with warnings that these remote locations become ‘ideal as substitute targets for anti-American aggression’.21 The spectre of choosing sides in a battle of civilizations looms over an increasing number of nations and regions, many reliant on good Western relations. Then there are the Western nations themselves whose own citizens present various challenges to our understanding of how the global connections often revolve around individual motivations and behaviour without wider group involvement. Violence by ISIS, Al Qaeda and Islamist groups more broadly, particularly where it is claimed in the remotest regions of the periphery, has at times become a ‘cottage industry’22 for those claiming a global menace by reciting the same propaganda of cohesive connections as the jihadis themselves. Bin Laden regularly invoked local struggles, perhaps never more pointedly than in his most famous address five years before 9/11; It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in

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Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani [sic], Ogadin, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnia [sic] and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear [sic], and not only didn’t respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.23

Fawaz Gerges astutely noted how ‘the shift to globalism masked an inverted orientation and propensity toward localism. We should not be fooled by the rhetoric of global jihad because lying just under the surface is a powerful drive to capture the state at home.’24 Yet sadly many commentators – especially those relating to the periphery – have been ‘fooled’ by the jihadi propaganda. The scepticism we have needed thus far must remain. Critical analysis of the propaganda itself can tell us a great deal about the ambition of the global jihad and likewise its reception in the periphery. Similarly, the value in fieldwork in the periphery, speaking to local communities about the claims of jihadi connections, is especially important when gossip is often the basis of many claims. This analysis is built on an understanding that the global jihad, as Halliday explained, has ‘fissures’ that need to be better understood and reconciled: The Muslim world is not, nor has ever been, defined wholly or mainly in terms of the umma or transnational linkages and identities. To be sure, forms of solidarity over the Muslim-related political conflicts and issues such as Palestine, Kashmir and now Iraq do exert a hold on many people, and inspire radical activism. But just as the international communist movement after 1917 masked sharp internal differences of culture, politics and interest, so today’s global jihadi movement contains such fissures. The umma may not be as stateless, fluid or international as it appears.25

Without critical scrutiny of propaganda and gossip when claimed as evidence of the global jihad’s reach into the periphery, those looking from afar, and often designing policy affecting the periphery, can be misled. Yet, Devji offered an alternative to understanding the peripheries in more locally nuanced terms: ‘The jihad is not a collective movement of the traditional kind, nor one that seduces alienated and vulnerable young men, but, like other global movements, attracts diverse volunteers for equally diverse reasons.’26 Rather than a network where ‘malignant “radicalisers” prey upon “vulnerable” individuals’,27 we are likely to find more solid evidence of the global nature of the jihad in the periphery, if we can attest to what Scott Atran describes as ‘moral commitment’28 and if this extends beyond the locale.

Unpacking the jihad in periphery Southeast Asian jihadis from Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Philippines and southern Thailand have never been more than a side story in the literature on

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the global jihad. This is, of course, not borne out by the demographic data which shows that Indonesia’s Muslim population alone comprises 12.7 per cent of the global Muslim population. Adding the Muslims in the southern Philippines, Malaysia, southern Thailand and Singapore raises this percentage to around 15 per cent for Southeast Asia. In contrast, areas considered as the ‘centre’, such as the ISIS caliphate territories in Syria and Iraq, only comprised 3.7 per cent and Afghanistan only 1.8 per cent of the global Muslim population. This notion of what constitutes the centre and the periphery is partially the result of the way the literature on the foreign fighters in the Afghan jihad as well as on Al Qaeda and ISIS has been Middle East-centric. It is also the product of the biases of the ‘core’ international jihadis, who, as Arabs, tend to view Southeast Asian Muslims as less authentic. At the same time, it reflects that the vast majority of Southeast Asian jihadis prioritized local aims, were driven by local dynamics and only selectively embraced international jihadism. Southeast Asia’s Muslim-majority areas, in particular Indonesia and the southern Philippines, have produced jihadis and have been arenas of jihad with jihadi battlefields. They have also attracted jihadis from other areas, from both within and outside the region. Thus, it would be more accurate to see Muslim Southeast Asia as an alternative centre of jihad rather than being peripheral. This is exemplified by the first two chapters on Indonesia and the Philippines where active ‘jihadi conflicts’ have been fought periodically since they became independent states. Aspects of the interplay between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ in Southeast Asian jihadism are discussed in the chapters on Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia emphasizing local dynamics and agency. Kirsten E. Schulze and Julie Chernov Hwang in their chapter on Indonesian engagement in the Afghan jihad from 1985 to 1993 and in the Syrian jihad from 2013 to 2018 explore why Indonesians went to Pakistan/Afghanistan and Syria and whether the Indonesians who went were globally inspired or locally propelled. The chapter then examines the extent to which Indonesian jihadis embraced international jihadi ideology and bought into the international jihadi political projects of Al Qaeda and ISIS by analysing the relationship between Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) as well as the local dimension of ISIS in Indonesia as exemplified by Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) and Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT). The chapter argues that while Indonesians were motivated by solidarity and the desire to help defend their fellow Muslims in Afghanistan and Syria, it is local dynamics and aims that are crucial for understanding why and how Indonesians engaged with international jihadism. Thus, while Indonesian jihadis were interested in some of the ideas and aims of international jihadism, their focus ultimately remained local. Tom Smith and Joseph Franco in their chapter on the Philippines look at the Islamist insurgency in Mindanao, challenging the ‘second front’ thesis advanced by so-called terrorism experts on Southeast Asia. They start by examining the deep roots of the Bangsmoro conflict that are often ignored in contemporary analysis. This is followed by discussion of the linkages in this ethno-nationalist conflict. Focusing on the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), the chapter then explores the degree to which the ASG should be considered opportunists rather than jihadis. Smith

Introduction

9

and Franco then proceed to analyse more recent events, starting with the Maute Group, and how the Maute, the ASG and other Moro groups are linked to ISIS, concluding with the 2017 battle of Marawi. This chapter argues that jihadism in the Philippines remains locally rooted, tethered to the complex Moro conflict. It further posits that mooted connections to global jihadism, most recently under the ISIS banner, are far weaker than those forged through decades of protracted political clan violence, and that the influence of powerful local militant groups far outstrips that of ISIS in the Philippines. While Indonesia and the Philippines have a pattern of periodic and persistent home-grown jihad, this is not the case for Malaysia. Malaysia has produced jihadis who participated in jihad elsewhere, including in Afghanistan and Syria as well as in Indonesia and the Philippines. It also saw a small number of lone wolf attacks in 2016. The absence of a domestic battlefield of jihad can be partially explained by the comparative local religious–political dynamics. Unlike the Philippines – a Muslim-minority country in which non-Muslims largely define what it means to be Filipino – and unlike Indonesia which, albeit having a large Muslim majority, pursued a ‘secular’ direction based on the state ideology of Pancasila, Malaysia has used the overlap between being Muslim and being Malay to place ‘Malayness’, and with it Islam, at the heart of the country’s identity and political and economic policies. Aida Arosoaie and Joseph Chinyong Liow in their chapter on Malaysia examine the degree to which ideas associated with ISIS have penetrated the Malaysian social fabric. Drawing on the political history of the country since the 1970s, this chapter highlights how key sociopolitical developments contributed to the creation of an exclusivist nation-wide Islamist discourse that resonated significantly with the rhetoric of ISIS. This, in turn, enhanced the appeal of ISIS and created a fertile ground for recruiting jihad-minded individuals. The strategic politicization of religious tenets by Malaysia’s two main Muslim political parties, UMNO and PAS, in their four decade-long Islamization race, the participation of the ulama in the political arena and the internationally informed have shifted patterns of Sunni identity in Malaysia, which have led to the heavy politicization of Islam, which, in turn, has created these conditions. As such, in contrast to the assumption that global jihad was exported to the periphery, this chapter argues that the global jihadi community is marked by great heterogeneity, wherein peripheral politics and culture play a fundamental role in supplementing the global jihadi narrative. Just as the term ‘periphery’ does not adequately reflect the Southeast Asian position, which is more accurately categorized as an alternative centre of jihad where local dynamics and agency have defined the engagement with the global jihad, it is also an awkward label for the jihadi resistance in Xinjiang, Kashmir and the Caucasus. The Xinjiang and Kashmir conflicts have both been linked to the ‘Af-Pak’ tribal areas since the end of 1980–89 Afghan jihad, which places them in direct proximity to a centre area of the global jihad, if not its crucible – Afghanistan  – albeit not an Arab Middle Eastern one. The Caucasus, as Galina Yemelianova has clearly shown, was an integral part of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates and thus part of the Muslim heartlands. This chapter, which examines

10

Exporting Global Jihad

militant jihad in the North Caucasus, starts by looking at the rise of political Islam from the historical role of the ghazawat (liberation war) of various Muslim peoples of the Caucasus against Russian advances to the impact of seventy years of Soviet rule on Muslims, and the post-Soviet influx into the region of Salafioriented non-governmental organizations from the Arab world. This is followed by the analysis of the failure of the Chechen jihad as well as the links between militant Islamists in the North Caucasus to the global jihad. This chapter challenges the assumptions about the decline of political Islam and the disconnection of jihadism from Islamic theology in the North Caucasus that would see it relegated to the periphery. It also challenges the broader assumptions on the de-territorialization of contemporary jihad. Michael Clarke’s chapter looks at the development of Uyghur militancy and terrorism in China’s far north-western province of Xinjiang. It starts by examining the historical and political roots as well as some of the dynamics of the Xinjiang conflict. This is followed by an analysis of the Uyghur resistance, focusing on the ideological and operational development of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP). The links of these organizations with the global jihad are then discussed alongside the claims made by the Chinese government since September 2001 that the episodes of political violence in Xinjiang not only have been the result of the efforts of ETIM and TIP but also have been abetted by international jihadi groups such as Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and more recently ISIS. This chapter challenges the Chinese narrative through two major arguments. First, contemporary Uyghur militancy and terrorism are not grounded in the influence of Salafi jihadism in Xinjiang but in the history of Chinese attempts to control the region and its non-Han ethnic groups. Second, ETIM and TIP have pursued a jihad that is simultaneously motivated and sustained by perceptions of declining local conditions for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and that, despite the increasing narrative solidarity with global groups such as Al Qaeda, their battle has been against the ‘near enemy’, the Chinese state. Sajjan Gohel’s chapter looks at the ideological and operational development of the Pakistani organization Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and its role in the Kashmir conflict. It explores the JeM’s relationship with the Pakistani military who have utilized them for their strategic interests in order to undermine Indian control over the state of Jammu and Kashmir through attacks on military and government targets. This chapter also explores JeM’s relations with Al Qaeda, focusing on key personalities that exemplify the glocal dimension. This chapter argues that the Kashmir conflict has created the space for the emergence of a local–global nexus between JeM, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and Al Qaeda as their objectives overlap in many areas. It further argues that the ‘local’ advantages terrorist groups like the JeM offer to the Pakistani security establishment outweigh the ‘global’ threat they pose to the West and that it is this ‘local’ dimension that explains why the Pakistani military chooses to ignore JeM’s close proximity with Al Qaeda. Unlike the North Caucasus, Xinjiang, Kashmir and Southeast Asia, which have all produced jihadis who have engaged in both local and global jihads and that

Introduction

11

have also been host to numerous jihads on their own soil, thus challenging the assumptions in the Middle East-centric literature underlying the notions of the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ and indeed the ‘global jihad’, the United States, Canada and Australia are more in line with the conventional understanding of the ‘periphery’. They have produced fewer jihadis, who, by and large, have been second- or thirdgeneration Muslim immigrants or converts to Islam. They have also seen less frequent and fewer successful attacks on their soil, with the notable exception of the 9/11 attacks. However, as Western countries they were and remain key targets of those that subscribe to attacking the far enemy. Moreover, Canada has seen the emergence of a distinct jihadi subculture and local geographic clusters, while it has been suggested that Australia serves as a regional hub. Risa Brooks’ chapter on the limited nature of the terrorist threat in the United States explains why despite American perceptions that a major attack from overseas militant groups is now greater than it was after 9/11, Americans, in fact, remain relatively safe from terrorist plots carried out by Al Qaeda, ISIS or their affiliates. This chapter starts with an examination of the Al Qaeda and ISIS threat to the United States since 9/11. It then discusses the fundamentals of terrorist plotting inside the United States as well as access and local security in America. Here it details the reasons why Al Qaeda and ISIS are unable to meet those basic requirements. The analysis also takes a close look at the limited number of attacks that were successfully perpetrated and the individuals who carried them out. This chapter argues that, contrary to the conventional explanation that attributes the violent Islamist mobilization in the United States to better assimilation and social status of American Muslims in comparison with European Muslims, the key lies in understanding what is required to plan, prepare and execute a complex terrorist attack and that foreign organizations’ inability to meet those requirements in the United States explains why the threat to Americans has remained limited. Sam Mullins’ chapter on the Canadian contribution to ‘global jihad’ seeks to shed light on who becomes a jihadi terrorist in Canada, how and why they choose this activity and what precisely they tend to do in support of terrorism. It starts with a discussion of the rate of mobilization, the geographic distribution and the demographic characteristics. This is followed by an examination of radicalization and recruitment focusing on stated motivations, group characteristics, international connections and operational activities. The analysis in this chapter demonstrates that, contrary to popular discourse on ‘home-grown’ terrorism, socio-economic marginalization does not appear to have played a decisive role in the Canadian context. Instead, it argues that the increase in mobilization to terrorism has been chiefly driven by three interconnected pillars: conflict in the Middle East, exposure to jihadi ideology and localized ‘hubs’ of radicalization featuring diverse groups of like-minded individuals. The final chapter of this volume is Lizzy Ambler’s chapter which looks at Australia in relation to the global jihad, flagging up its unique role both geographically and politically in relation to global Islamist movements and counter-terror practices. The questions at the heart of this analysis are: What is the relationship between Australia and global jihadi movements? What have

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Exporting Global Jihad

been the influences on this relationship? And finally, how do such influences ‘travel’? In line with these questions, this chapter explores the history of Australia in relation to jihadi networks and how these have evolved in relation to global movements with specific attention to the impact of the 2002 Bali bombings and the year 2003 as a turning point in Australia’s relationship with the global jihad. It then proceeds to examine the more recent relationship of Australian jihadis with ISIS. It concludes with a discussion of the politicization and reframing of stances in relation to global jihadi networks and the role this politicization, as well as subsequent stringent counter-terror laws, has played in encouraging local jihadi subcultures. This chapter shows that Australia has not just been impacted by global jihadi movements through external influence from the ‘centre’, but that it has also been shaped by and contributed to the norms and practices surrounding such movements. This differentiates it from other ‘Western’ states. Indeed, this chapter argues that Australia embodies a particular ‘centre’ of global jihadi movements and thus affirms Devji’s and Roy’s hypothesis that those countries often regarded as on the periphery are key in transforming the landscape of the global jihad.

Conclusion In attempting to understand the relationship between core and periphery, the chapters in this volume highlight that these phenomena are never static and evolve over time. In Asia, the dynamics vary across the geographies looked at in this volume. While most have seen individuals leave for the centre, few have taken many from the centre in return – despite long ongoing conflicts and a plethora of groups with varying methods, motives and means. As such our contributors all highlight the problems with deterministic analysis that does not allow for local peculiarities. In the Philippines, China, Kashmir and the Caucasus protracted and unique insurgencies mean for a much different dialogue with local issues and the importing of global jihadi influences has not overcome the primacy of local realities. In essence, jihad here is less mobile because of rooted conflict and group stasis by comparison to that of individuals in Malaysia, Australia and, to a lesser extent, Indonesia where individuals are able to act more independently. On the contemporary question of how global the global jihad is, history still matters, more in some geographies than others, but it explains the nature of some of the connections in the Asian periphery. Group participation dominates as our analysis demonstrates and those groups bind individuals – at least originally – to local causes. While there is always an interplay between global and local narratives, even without a strong history of local conflict, the road to jihadism is extremely diverse at the individual level. The patterns across North America chime with those in Europe as assessed in our Africa and Europe volume. There is undoubtedly an international dimension to jihad taking place across several Asian and American states. Jihadis have received material and ideological support from Al Qaeda and ISIS. But local militants’ affiliation to international jihadi groups is secondary,

Introduction

13

even opportunistic and sometimes only fleeting. Insurgencies against incumbent regimes are motivated by local grievances and therefore solutions lie primarily in that local context. Distraction from this and intervention and aid that focuses on inoculating against the ‘global menace’ and not the local one, is not just flawed, but likely to be inflammatory.

Notes 1 ‘Sidoarjo bomb also involved family of six: E. Java Police’, The Jakarta Post, 14 May 2018. http:​//www​.thej​akart​apost​.com/​news/​2018/​05/14​/sido​arjo-​bomb-​also-​invol​ ved-f​amily​-of-s​ix-e-​java-​polic​e.htm​l. 2 ‘Suicide bombers at Surabaya Police HQ one family’, The Jakarta Post, 14 May 2018. http:​//www​.thej​akart​apost​.com/​news/​2018/​05/14​/suic​ide-b​omber​s-at-​surab​aya-p​olice​ -hqon​e-fam​ily.h​tml. 3 Amaq, 13 May 2018. 4 ‘Bunulah Kaum Musyrikin Diamana Saja Berada’, Al-Fatihin, edisi 10, p. 1 continued on pp. 7–10. 5 Ibid., p. 9. 6 Noor Huda Ismail, ‘Ideologi Kematian Keluarga Teroris’, CNN Indonesia, 15 May 2018. www.c​nnind​onesi​a.com​/nasi​onal/​20180​51511​3011-​21-29​8324/​ideoo​gi-ke​matia​ n-kel​uarga​-tero​ris. 7 Ibid. 8 Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (London: Hurst and Company, 2004), p. 313. 9 Faisal Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality and Modernity (London: Hurst Publishers, 2005), p. 63. 10 Tom Smith, ‘Stop portraying Islamic State as a band of exotic globetrotters’, The Conversation, 2017. 11 Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad, p. 21. 12 Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Colombia University Press 1995). 13 Roy, Globalised Islam, p. 215. 14 Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad, p. 4. 15 Fred Halliday, ‘A transnational umma: Reality or myth?’ Available at http:​//www​.open​ democ​racy.​net/g​lobal​izati​on/um​ma 2904.jsp (accessed 25 May 2013). 16 Jason Burke, ‘What is al-Qaeda?’, The Guardian, 2003. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Bilveer Singh, The Talibanization of Southeast Asia: Losing the War on Terror to Islamist Extremists (New Delhi: Praeger, 2007), p. ix. 20 Andrew Tan and Kumar Ramakrishna, The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends, and Counter-Strategies (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 2002), p. 10. 21 Peter Chalk, ‘Al Qaeda and its links to terrorist groups in Asia’, in Andrew Tan and Kumar Ramakrishna (eds), The New Terrorism Anatomy, Trends and CounterStrategies (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 2002), pp. 107–28 (p. 118). 22 Thitinan Phongsutthirak, ‘Review of conflict and terrorism in Southern Thailand’, Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, xxviii, no. 1 (2006): 160–3 (p. 160).

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23 ‘Declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places’, Osama bin Laden, 1996. PBS, ‘Bin Laden’s Fatwa, Aug. 23, 1996’. Available at http:​// www​.pbs.​org/n​ewsho​ur/up​dates​/mili​tary/​july-​dec96​/fatw​a_199​6.htm​l (accessed 31 October 2013). 24 Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 273. 25 Halliday, ‘A transnational umma: Reality or myth?’ 26 Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad, p. 20. 27 Andrew Hoskins, Akil Awan and Ben O’Loughlin, Radicalisation and Media: Connectivity and Terrorism in the New Media Ecology (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), p. 10. 28 Scott Atran, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010), p. 298.

FROM AFGHANISTAN TO SYRIA HOW THE GLOBAL REMAINS LOCAL FOR INDONESIAN ISLAMIST MILITANTS Kirsten E. Schulze and Julie Chernov Hwang

According to Indonesian government estimates some 800 Indonesians went to Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2018.1 In the early days these included humanitarian aid workers who went to help Syrian Muslims being attacked by the Assad regime. They were soon followed by volunteers who joined a range of jihadi organizations including smaller groups such as Katibah Suqour Al Izz as well as the more prominent Jabhat Al Nusra (JN), Ahrar Ash Sham and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). After the announcement of the ISIS caliphate in June 2014 whole families left Indonesia to embark upon a new life in that caliphate. While the numbers of Indonesians leaving for Syria were unprecedented, the Syrian jihad was not the first to attract Indonesian Islamists. Three decades earlier, some 350 Indonesians went to Afghanistan between 1985 and 1994.2 Most of them trained in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas, notably in Abdul Rasul Sayyaf ’s ‘Camp As-Saddah’, and periodically crossed into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. In the later years, they had their own military academy in Torkham. Subsequently, between 1999 and 2001 some thirty members of the Indonesian jihadi group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) trained at Al Qaeda’s ‘Camp Al-Farouq’ in Afghanistan. The Indonesian engagement in the Afghan and Syrian jihads has led some analysts such as Rohan Gunaratna and Zachary Abuza to argue that Southeast Asian jihadi organizations must be seen as constituent parts of global Islamist networks. For instance in his book on Al Qaeda, Gunaratna asserted that JI ‘was formed by [Abdullah] Sungkar after meeting Osama [bin Laden] in Afghanistan’,3 that JI was then ‘incorporated as an associate group of al-Qaeda’,4 and ‘over time al-Qaeda gradually absorbed JI into its wider structure’.5 Likewise, Abuza described JI as ‘the regional affiliate of al-Qaeda’6 which was ‘put together and administered by Riduan Isamuddin … a senior al-Qaeda operative’.7 Similar analyses have also been advanced by Maria Ressa8 and Ken Conboy.9 The relationship between ISIS in the Middle East and pro-ISIS groups in Southeast Asia has been viewed in an equally globalist fashion whereby the impetus radiates outwards from the ISIS core to areas on the periphery, although not ruling out local agency. Here Gunaratna posited that ‘ISIS is determined to declare at least one province in Asia in 2016’.10 A year later, Kumar Ramakrishna asserted that regardless of whether a formal wilayah (province) is declared, ISIS’

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Exporting Global Jihad

influence and investment in Southeast Asia is evident.11 Reiterating his earlier position Gunaratna in 2018 claimed that ISIS is ‘shifting its centre of gravity from Iraq and Syria to its multiple wilayat and divisions in different countries’.12 These, he stated, include the ‘East Asia Division (mainly Philippines)’ and these will be used by foreign terrorist fighters ‘as bases to conduct attacks’.13 This notion that agency derives from the core is reinforced by the broader literature on ISIS which sees Southeast Asian foreign fighters as so peripheral that it either does not mention them at all or only in passing.14 This ‘globalist’ analysis has been challenged by both ‘regionalists’ and area specialists. Natasha Hamilton-Hart, John Sidel, Greg Fealy and Carlyle A. Thayer have criticized it for its oversimplified analytical frameworks as well as the ignorance of complex local factors.15 Solahudin, Sidney Jones and Julie Chernov Hwang have argued that rather than being the creation of Al Qaeda, JI is the product of Indonesian history, most notably the 1948–65 Darul Islam rebellions and subsequent suppression of Islamists by President Suharto’s New Order regime.16 While JI did have a transnational structure at one point and while one of its regions – Mantiqi I – did have links with Al Qaeda, its aims were ultimately about Indonesia.17 Similarly, in their article on the ISIS phenomenon in Indonesia and Malaysia, Kirsten E. Schulze and Joseph Chinyong Liow have argued that ‘the potency and appeal of the extremist narrative of ISIS derives from how it animates and feeds off prevailing debates in Indonesia and Malaysia’.18 At the heart of the debate between the ‘globalists’ and the ‘regionalists’ are the transnational elements of jihadism in Indonesia and how to evaluate them. It is here that this chapter makes its contribution by probing the global–local nexus in Indonesian jihadism, focusing on the two great international jihads that have attracted significant numbers of Indonesians: Afghanistan and Syria. It starts by examining the Indonesian experience in Pakistan/Afghanistan during the latter part of the Soviet-Afghan conflict (1985–89) and the early years of the Afghan civil war (1989–94). It then analyses the nature of the relationship between JI and Al Qaeda from the establishment of the former in 1993 until the 2009 Marriot bombing. This is followed by a discussion of the Indonesian involvement in the Syrian jihad since 2013, exploring the interplay of local and global dynamics with respect to motivations, aims and ideology. The chapter concludes by analysing the local dimension of ISIS in Indonesia and why certain Indonesian individuals and groups have sought to associate themselves with ISIS or operationalize ISIS through amaliyat (military operations). This chapter asks two key questions: Were the Indonesians who went to Pakistan/Afghanistan and Syria globally inspired or locally propelled? And, to what extent did Indonesian jihadis embrace international jihadi ideology and buy into the international jihadi political projects of Al Qaeda and ISIS? With respect to the first, this chapter argues that, while Indonesians were motivated by solidarity and the desire to help defend their fellow Muslims in Afghanistan and Syria, it is local dynamics and aims that are crucial for understanding why and how Indonesians engaged with international jihadism. With respect to the second, it argues that, while Indonesian jihadis were interested in some of the ideas and

From Afghanistan to Syria

17

aims of international jihadism, their focus ultimately remained local. For the Darul Islam members who would later become JI, this meant gaining military capacity through training, funding and establishing broader networks in order to advance their aim of establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia; for Indonesia’s pro-ISIS network – as opposed to those Indonesians who went to live in Syria – this meant attacking the ‘secular’ democratic government, strengthening the local jihad in Poso and trying to carve out a ‘Marawi-like area’ within Indonesia.

Indonesians and the Afghan jihad The Afghan jihad from 1980 to 1989, which followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is generally considered to be the starting point of international jihadism. It drew in tens of thousands of Muslims from across the world to fight the communists and liberate Afghanistan, including some 350 Indonesians according to Indonesian government estimates.19 This Soviet-Afghan conflict created the environment that gave rise to a more global interpretation of jihad and it facilitated the establishment of international networks of jihadis that outlasted it. In Indonesian militant Islamism, the Afghan jihad occupies a prominent, almost mythological, place. It provided an entry point to the ‘global’ and ‘universal’, but for the Indonesian Islamists it also provided an exit point from being seen as and, most importantly, perceiving themselves as being on the geographic periphery of the ummah. The Afghan experience also ‘created’ a new generation of founders, leaders and core activists for new organizations in Indonesia such as JI, Mujahidin KOMPAK, Laskar Jihad and Laskar Jundullah. As with most foreign Muslim volunteers who went to Afghanistan in the 1980s, Indonesians were driven by the desire to defend Afghan Muslims against Soviet brutality. This often fed off a keen awareness of the Soviet-Afghan conflict and sometimes prior anti-Soviet political protest. As one Indonesian Afghan veteran explained: I was excited [to be asked] to go to Afghanistan because the Russians were despotic toward the Afghan Muslims. I was enthusiastic to defend Muslims. I knew about the war in Afghanistan from the media – radio broadcasts. I had participated in protests once a week near my house, demanding that the Russians stop their aggression against the Afghans. I always joined them.20

In addition to global Muslim solidarity, Afghan veteran volunteers also explained their reasons for wanting to participate in the Afghan jihad in terms of personal aspirations – seeking adventure, a desire for military training and a wish to follow in family traditions to become a soldier, a mujahid or a fighter. For example, Abu Tholut, who later became the head of JI’s Mantiqi III (region III),21 recounted that the Afghan jihad appealed to his interest in all things military. I wanted to join the army. I had read books about Sudirman, Diponegoro, Imam Bonjol, Hasanudin – all were military men. This became my obsession. I wanted

18

Exporting Global Jihad to be like them. I asked my parents but although my father was a military officer himself, he disagreed. He said ‘Just go to university. If you join the military, you are not going to develop’. So I fulfilled my parents’ wish and went to Gadjah Mada University. … Then I met Abdullah Sungkar who reopened my obsession from before and gave me a way to pursue it.22

He was encouraged by Budiman, his contact in the movement, to go to Malaysia and see Sungkar. They conversed over three to four days, Abu Tholut recalls, before he was invited to go to Afghanistan, where he would spend eight years, first being trained, periodically going to the front, and subsequently training other Indonesians. The promise of adventure also attracted Abu Rusdan, who later became part of JI’s central leadership,23 and MB, a young graduate from Al Mukmim pesantren (Islamic boarding school) also known as Ngruki. MB, who was originally sent to Pakistan for study, found himself unable to resist after he heard about the fighting in Afghanistan and the mythos of the mujahidin; he felt this opportunity to gain military training and join the jihad was too valuable to pass up.24 While individual motivations were clearly a mix of the global and the personal, the organizational motivations were more local in nature. Of the 350 Indonesians who went to Afghanistan, some 200 came from the Darul Islam movement, also referred to as Negara Islam Indonesia (NII).25 Most of them were facilitated by Indonesian clerics Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who had fled to Malaysia in 1985 before they could be rearrested on subversion charges for their repeated criticism of Indonesia’s ‘secular’ state ideology of Pancasila, their call for Muslims to boycott elections, their efforts to revive syariah (Islamic law) and their aspirations to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state. Their treatment by Suharto’s New Order government as well as the broader perception among many Indonesian Muslims of being discriminated against by the regime provided a distinct local dimension to the Indonesian involvement in the Afghan jihad in that it determined both the timing – Indonesian volunteers only started to go after Sungkar’s and Ba’asyir’s flight in 1985 – and the aims, namely to increase Darul Islam’s capacity through military training and battle field experience. With this in mind, Sungkar and Ba’asyir sought out Afghan mujahideen commander Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, who offered the Darul Islam members military training at his Al Ittihad Al Islamy training camp – As-Saddah – as well as assistance with travel and accommodation. Between 1985 and 1991, they sent ten ‘batches’, varying in size between ten and fifty-nine persons per batch,26 drawing volunteers from Darul Islam families, alumni and students of Sungkar and Ba’asyir’s Al Mukmin Ngruki Islamic pesantren, Sungkar’s usroh (study circles) network and personal contacts.27 Sungkar ensured that the first batches of recruits comprised mostly well-educated students from prestigious universities as they were fluent in English or Arabic.28 These first Indonesian volunteers were trained by Afghans, Pakistanis and Arabs. They then translated the training materials into Indonesian and subsequently became the trainers for those Indonesians and Malaysians who followed.29

From Afghanistan to Syria

19

Indonesians trained at Camp As-Saddah until 1990–91 when Sayyaf provided funds for Darul Islam members to establish their own training camp in Torkham on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, which would be managed by As-Saddah alumni.30 This camp, according to Nasir Abas, took over the responsibility for training new batches of Southeast Asian fighters, until 1995, when pressure from the Taliban caused them to shut down.31 It was during this period that Sungkar and Ba’asyir split from Darul Islam over both leadership and doctrinal issues to form their own organization, Jemaah Islamiyah in January 1993. For Sungkar and Ba’asyir the primary motivation for establishing ties with Sayyaf and for sending Indonesians to Pakistan/Afghanistan was ultimately local. Sungkar and Ba’asyir were not sending the Indonesian volunteers to fight in Afghanistan but to obtain military training in Pakistan. Their repeated incarceration by the Suharto regime for what were essentially political activities such as refusing to raise the Indonesian flag every morning at their Islamic boarding school (as Indonesian schools did) led them to conclude that syariah and Islamic governance could not be successfully introduced through purely peaceful means. Obtaining military training and experience thus became a key goal and, as it had become nearly impossible to attain this in Indonesia, it had to be sought abroad. The full ‘Afghan’ training programme was three years long. The Indonesian volunteers were taught a curriculum comprising military subjects, including tactics, map reading and navigation, weapons training and field engineering, as well as the use of mines, explosives and bombs.32 Some were selected for further training in arms and ammunition repair, shooting, electronics and preparation of chemicals for making explosives and poison.33 There were some limited opportunities to gain combat experience, mainly during the three month summer break.34 While this battle field opportunity was fully embraced, all either knew upon arriving or would soon realize that the proximate reason for them being in Pakistan was ‘just i’dad (military preparation) – it was to prepare us for returning to Indonesia’.35 The understanding that Indonesian and other Southeast Asian volunteers were in Pakistan/Afghanistan to train rather than to fight was shared all the way up the ranks to Sayyaf himself. Thus, even when they were permitted to go to the battlefield during their holiday breaks, they were not included as part of the front-line, but were relegated to the rear-guard.36 Sayyaf refused to allow Indonesians to participate on the front lines because, he contended, they had to fight in Indonesia. Darul Islam members also began cooperating with members of the Egyptian Islamist militant group, Al Gamaah Al Islamiyah (GI), and a handful of Darul Islam members were offered the opportunity to participate in the GI training programme in Khost province.37 According to Nasir Abas, Darul Islam members, upon meeting their counterparts from Al Gamaah Al Islamiyah, saw themselves as sharing a common plight of being oppressed domestically by a tyrannical secular ruler.38 Darul Islam and subsequently JI members filtered the religious lessons through the prism of the Indonesian or Southeast Asian context, borrowing ideas from the global jihad that could help them advance a local or regional goal. For example, they adopted the Salafi-jihadi understanding of jihad as qital (war). This differed

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Exporting Global Jihad

from the broader understanding of jihad by Darul Islam’s founder, Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwirjo, who included doing good deeds in accordance with Islamic teaching39 and who saw qital as only one part of such an effort. As Solahudin explained in his book: In Afghanistan, Darul Islam cadres were taught the correct understanding of jihad was qital. They were also taught different categories of jihad. There was offensive jihad, which was … a collective rather than individual obligation … and there was defensive jihad, which was … obligatory for all Muslims. Defensive jihad was necessary when unbelievers attacked or occupied Muslim lands. There were also two types of occupation. Afghanistan and Palestine, for example, were under control of foreigners, whereas Indonesia and other Muslim countries were controlled by local unbelievers – namely, the nominally Muslim rulers who in the jihadist view were apostates because they did not implement Islamic law.40

These conceptions of jihad and occupation were useful to Darul Islam members and later, after the split, JI members as they sought to conceptualize and justify specific activities or decisions. When communal violence broke out in Poso city in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi in 1998 and in Ambon city in Maluku province in 1999, it was this understanding of defensive jihad as obligatory for all able-bodied Muslims that compelled JI members to go to those areas to defend the Muslims there against Christian violence. Likewise, Hambali initially rationalized the decision to launch attacks against churches in Indonesia on Christmas Eve 2000 in retaliation for the killing of Muslims by Christians in Ambon but also as a means of igniting a war between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia.41 According to fellow JI member and Afghan alumnus Nasir Abas, ‘Hambali saw what was happening in Ambon and tried to recreate this on a national level. If the whole country was wracked by Christian-Muslim conflict that would weaken the Indonesian government – that was the thinking behind the 2000 Christmas bombings.’42 Global ideas were also evident among the Bali bombers. According to Ali Imron, the 2002 Bali bombing had been conceived by its masterminds ‘as the trigger that would lead to the establishment of a jihad front in Indonesia’.43 Reminiscent of the more abstract notions of Sayyid Qutb in Milestones and remarkably similar to Abdel Salam Faraj’s The Neglected Duty, which formed the basis for the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, the Bali bombings were intended to spark a broader Muslim uprising which would topple the secular government and pave the way for an Islamic state. ‘Only when Amrozi was arrested’ did Ali Imron ‘realise that it wasn’t going to happen.’44 The Afghan experience affected the local landscape of Indonesian Islamist extremism in two important ways. First, the Afghan jihad birthed several of the most significant Islamist militant groups. These included JI, Mujahidin KOMPAK, Laskar Jundullah and the Salafi paramilitary group, Laskar Jihad. All had Afghan veterans in their leadership: Hambali, Mukhlas, Abu Tholut and Abu Rusdan as

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well as Aris Munandar, Agus Dwikarna and Jafar Umar Thalib. Of these JI had the most intensive Afghan experience, benefitting greatly from Darul Islam’s decision to send the members to train rather than to fight. As a result, the network had a core of highly motivated and trained fighters who could, in turn, train future generations. It had learned in Pakistan how to establish training camps within its territory, to deploy to jihad fronts in Ambon and Poso and to carry out a range of operations, including terrorist attacks. Notably, each of these newly established groups had primarily local aims: reviving syariah in Indonesia, defending Muslims in Indonesia, introducing Islamic governance in Indonesia and, ultimately, establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia. The Afghan jihad had provided them with improved capacities to do so. Second, the relationships built in the Afghan training camps enabled Indonesian Islamist militant groups to form ties with other Southeast Asian Islamist extremist groups that also had Afghan veterans as founding or leading members. These included Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM), the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Again, JI benefited most from these. When they sought to build a training camp, they called upon their friends in the MILF.45 In 1994, JI members started training in Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao where JI trainers also trained the MILF elite forces on the orders of Abdullah Sungkar.46 Then in 1997, when they sought a training camp of their own, the MILF gave JI territory within Camp Abubakar where they could establish their own training camp – Camp Hudaibiyah. As will be seen in the next section, JI’s ‘Afghan network’ not only extended across Southeast Asia but the Afghan experience also created bonds between specific JI members and specific individuals in and around Al Qaeda.

Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda There is a great deal of misinformation regarding the nature of the relationship between JI and Al Qaeda as exemplified by the aforementioned characterization of JI as an ‘associate’ of Al Qaeda by Gunaratna and as an ‘affiliate’ by Abuza. The reality of the connections between Al Qaeda and JI was far more complex, far more ad hoc and far more relational. It was grounded in shared common experiences during the Afghan jihad and, to some extent, a shared Salafi-jihadi ideology.47 It was also based on the personal relationships that existed between certain JI members in Mantiqi I and certain Al Qaeda members from 1994 to 2003 which enabled those JI members to take advantage of specific opportunities provided by Al Qaeda and facilitated collaboration on actions of mutual interest. The ideational framework for this cooperation was created by JI amir Abdullah Sungkar’s response to Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa, which called for attacks on Western targets and legitimated the killing of civilians. Sungkar, adopted an ambiguous position, calling for the fatwa to be disseminated among JI members but issued no instructions to implement it.48 The fatwa divided JI’s regional mantiqi leadership. Hambali and Mukhlas, the senior members of the Malaysia-based

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Mantiqi I, which had been more aligned with global jihadism since the establishment of JI, supported the fatwa, citing the American occupation of Muslim lands. By contrast, the Indonesia-based Mantiqi II seniors, led by Abu Rusdan and Achmad Roihan, rejected this view, contending that fighting the ‘near’ enemy – the Indonesian government – should take precedence.49 Furthermore, they asserted that jihad required proper i’dad (military preparation) and JI had not yet prepared.50 To bolster their case, they sought a fatwa from Hashim Salamat, the head of the MILF, who asserted that ‘the contents of the fatwa are good, but it is impossible to carry it out in Mindanao because the conditions do not allow for it’.51 The Mantiqi II seniors felt this was also true for Indonesia.52 Elements in Mantiqi III were also critical of the fatwa. Indeed, Nasir Abas, who was the head of JI in Sabah at the time, defied Sungkar’s order to read the fatwa to his subordinates, asserting he disagreed with bin Laden’s decision to legitimate attacks on civilians.53 Sungkar’s ambiguous response to bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa and the divergent positions adopted by the different JI mantiqis reveals the degree to which global jihadi ideas had penetrated Indonesian jihadism as well as the internal global– local debate within JI.54 It also shows that this debate was weighted towards the ‘local’. While JI had committed itself conceptually to both global and local jihad,55 the support for Al Qaeda was restricted to Mantiqi I. Sungkar’s ambiguity arguably was also adopted in order to preserve the unity of JI and to keep open the carefully established international links in order to strengthen JI’s position vis-à-vis the Indonesian government, in short to maximize JI’s capacity to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia. At the same time this ambiguity created the space for the cooperation between JI Mantiqi I and certain elements in Al Qaeda. This cooperation occurred in specific operations, particularly between 1999 and 2003 and was not the result of an official decision by JI’s central command or its amir. Instead, it was the product of friendships and relationships among specific individual members. On the JI side, this relationship was personified by Hambali, head of Mantiqi I.56 Hambali was particularly close to Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and had also spent four days in Afghanistan with bin Laden, where the two had informally agreed to cooperate on targets of mutual interest.57 Hambali’s ties with Al Qaeda enabled thirty JI members, mostly from Mantiqi I, to train at Al Qaeda’s Camp Al-Faruq between 1999 and 2001. There were a variety of course options on offer, including basic military training, a train the trainers course and a special course for the best graduates, which focused on sniper training and urban guerrilla warfare.58 These personal ties also enabled ad hoc collaboration between JI and Al Qaeda. For example, Al Qaeda member Omar al-Faruq helped JI set up training camps on the islands of Seram and Buru as well as his own training camp with the assistance of a Saudi financier named Rashid.59 However, this was not coordination between organizations or networks; it was cooperation among individuals with complementary interests. Likewise, Hambali led a number of joint JI-Al Qaeda operations in Southeast Asia. According to Indonesia’s head of police and former counterterrorism chief,

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Tito Karnavian, who interviewed Hambali in Guantanamo Bay, ‘Hambali, as head of Mantiqi I, would submit a proposal via secure communication channel, usually by e-mail, about a plan for an operation or attack with details about the amount of funding needed. If it was approved, Al Qaeda would send these funds by courier.’60 Funding for the 2002 Bali bombing, for instance, came directly from Khaled Sheikh Mohammed while joint JI-Al Qaeda attacks included a failed plot to attack Western targets in Singapore, an aborted plot to attack the Israeli Embassy in Australia, the successful Rizal Day bombings in the Philippines in 2000, the 2000 Christmas Eve bombings in Indonesia and the 2002 Bali bombings. Mantiqi I members also played small logistical roles in some Al Qaeda operations as well. Notably, in the planning of the ‘planes operation’, Hambali facilitated the use of Malaysia as a meeting point for several of the 9/11 plotters; Yazid Sufaat, a wealthy member of Mantiqi I, was instructed to provide one of his condos for use as a safe house.61 While there were attempts to enlarge the role of Mantiqi I beyond logistics, none transpired as planned. For example, Mantiqi I members were included as part of the second wave of airline attacks, which ended up being aborted.62 Likewise, Sufaat was brought to Afghanistan in an attempt to assist Al Qaeda in starting a chemical weapons programme, given his background as a biologist; that was also unsuccessful.63 What is important to note about all these points of collaboration is that they were the result of relationships between specific like-minded individuals who shared common goals. They were personal rather than institutional. Al Qaeda provided funds; JI provided local knowledge and occasional logistical assistance.64 At no time did JI’s leaders, including those in Mantiqi I, swear a bai’at (loyalty oath) to Osama bin Laden or subordinate themselves to Al Qaeda. JI remained an autonomous network, even during the peak of its collaboration with Al Qaeda, between 1999 and 2003.65 Thus, JI was not and has never been an associate, a branch or an affiliate of Al Qaeda as asserted by Gunaratna and Abuza. After the arrests of Hambali and Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, both in 2003, JI-Al Qaeda joint activities came to a halt and JI started to fracture along global–local lines. Mantiqi I members – Dr. Azhari Husin, master bomber and a graduate of the training at Al Qaeda’s Camp Al-Faruq, and Noordin M Top, the former director of Luqmanul Hakim Islamic boarding school – became the locus of the probombing wing of JI and which continued to pursue the far enemy.66 Their attacks on Western targets in Indonesia included the 2003 Marriott bombing, the 2004 Australian embassy bombing, the 2005 Bali bombings and the 2009 Marriott and Ritz Carlton bombings. However, with Mantiqi I leaders in prison, the remaining JI leadership was more willing to draw a clear line between their activities and those of the pro-bombing wing. As early as 2004, JI’s leadership gave its members permission to inform authorities if they had knowledge of the whereabouts of Noordin M Top or Azhari Husin, pointing to a clear break between the locally oriented JI and the globally oriented Top and Husin group.67 In 2005, the latter broke off from JI, calling themselves Al Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago and later Al Qaeda in Indonesia. However, those names spoke more to admiration rather than affiliation. Azhari was killed in a raid in 2005, Noordin M Top in 2009.

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During this same period, JI pursued local aims in Indonesia. While Mantiqi II leaders moved to protect their schools and the community from the post-2002 Bali bombings fallout, the Mantiqi III leadership attempted to establish a secure base in Poso, Central Sulawesi, between 2003 and 2007.68 After raids by the police counterterrorism detachment, Densus 88, caused them to lose that base, JI decided to take a step back from violence, asserting it was not the right time for armed jihad in Indonesia. Since then JI has focused on dakwah (Islamic propagation), expanding its network of schools and rebuilding its economic capacities, signalling a clear prioritization of the local over the global. 69

Indonesians and the Syrian jihad Just as the Indonesians who went to Afghanistan in the mid-1980s were motivated by a combination of global and local factors, so too were the Indonesians who went to Syria between 2012 and 2017. Similar to the Afghan jihad, the Syrian jihad was seen as a ‘Just War in which Muslims had to defend their co-religionists against repression and mortal threat’.70 It thus attracted Indonesians who wanted to provide humanitarian aid as well as those who felt called to defend Syrian Muslims from the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s forces. However, in order to fully understand the appeal of the Syrian jihad, it is imperative to go beyond the ‘Just War’ paradigm which equally applies to, for example the Palestine conflict, which has attracted considerable Indonesian solidarity but only a very small number of volunteers, almost exclusively humanitarian. It is argued here that the Syrian jihad has drawn such extraordinary numbers of Indonesian volunteers as it fed off the interplay between the Syrian dynamics and local Indonesian dynamics, in short, its appeal was in its ‘glocal’ nature. This interplay of the global and local is evident in three key areas when looking at why Indonesians went to Syria in, for Indonesian standards, unprecedented numbers. The first was the relevance of Syria’s profoundly sectarian conflict to Muslim identity politics in Indonesia. At the heart of this were efforts by Indonesian Sunni Muslim organizations to define and redefine what it meant to be a good Muslim, largely by denouncing those they saw as heretics: liberal Muslims, Ahmadis, and Shi’as.71 The Shi’as were seen as particularly threatening as they were perceived to have backing from Iran and were believed to have a plan to take over Indonesia between 2018 and 2020.72 The brutality of Syria’s Assad regime was thus read through this lens of Indonesian Muslim identity politics. At the same time, it provided further proof of Shi’a heresy, compelling Indonesians to go to Syria to battle the Shi’as in order prove the righteousness of their own beliefs. The second area of the local–global nexus concerned the ‘End of Times’ narrative that emerged out of the Syrian conflict. This narrative derived from a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad is believed to have said that the ‘Last Hour’ would see the Romans (the West) land at the Syrian town of Dabiq and that ‘an army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth’ (the mujahideen) would fight them.73 ISIS, in particular, drew upon this eschatology to cast itself in the role

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of bringing about the apocalypse,74 but the interpretation that the Syrian conflict signalled the countdown to the ‘Last Hour’ was held more widely. Indonesians almost enthusiastically started to travel to Syria in order to be part of the imminent prophesized ‘final battle’ between good and evil,75 whether they supported ISIS or not. This was the result of the convergence of this narrative with a considerable preexisting interest in the apocalypse in Indonesian Islamist circles before the Syrian conflict. This interest had been triggered by the recent increase in natural disasters in Indonesia, as well as a solar and lunar eclipse during Ramadhan in 2005, which prompted former JI amir Abu Bakar Ba’asyir together with some activists from the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) to form a committee to welcome the Mahdi (saviour).76 Indicative of this ‘End of Times’ enthusiasm in Indonesia is also that books on this subject were and continue to be bestsellers in Muslim book stores and are widely on sale after sermons and public prayer meetings. The third area where Syria’s increasingly global jihad resonated locally was with respect to the debate in Indonesian jihadi circles, which revolved around the legitimacy and effectiveness of armed jihad in bringing about an Islamic state in Indonesia as well as how to fulfil the obligation of jihad – especially if the time for armed jihad in Indonesia was not right – and the scope of takfir (the practice in which Muslims excommunicate their co-religionists).This debate started after the 2002 Bali bombings and was reinforced by the subsequent bombings by Noordin M Top as well as the defeat of JI-affiliated militants in Poso in 2007. It caused the Indonesian jihadi movement to splinter, pitting those who saw militant jihad in Indonesia as necessary against those who saw it as counterproductive because it alienated local Muslims and invited police reprisals against the community whose support was essential to achieving an Islamic state.77 It juxtaposed those who thought the time was right for jihad against those who believed it was not, and resulted in disagreement over whether Muslims working for the Indonesian state were guilty of ‘apostasy by association’.78 The Syrian jihad resulted in a general revival of jihadi fervour among Indonesian jihadis as it provided them with a way to fulfil their obligation of jihad immediately and irrespective of the ongoing debate on jihad in Indonesia.79 At the same time, it reinforced and also created further, highly acrimonious divisions, especially after ISIS started attacking Jabhat Al Nusra in Syria in late 2013. The largest number of Indonesians joined ISIS in Syria and to a lesser extent in Iraq. They were attracted by the ‘End of Times’ narrative, the rapid conquest of territory, which was seen as evidence of ‘divine favour’,80 and by the caliphate declared in that territory in June 2014. Those who chose to leave Indonesia in order to live in that caliphate sold everything and often took their extended families with them. They decided to leave Indonesia behind for good as they had come to the conclusion that an Islamic state in Indonesia was not possible. For them the globally oriented narratives arguably proved strongest as they had no intention of returning. This stands in stark contrast to those Indonesians who joined groups such as Jabhat Al Nusra (JN) and Ahrar Ash-Sham who were, by and large, linked to JI and MMI as well as Salafis associated with Radio Rodja. All three groups sent humanitarian aid workers who went for short periods for up to three months to

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help the Syrian civilian population. JI is also known to have sent six batches of volunteers for training with JN as well as other groups in order to acquire military capacity and battlefield experience. As with the Afghan jihad, it was expected that they too would return, and they were not permitted to volunteer for martyrdom operations. It is estimated that between sixty and eighty JI members went to Syria for limited periods of six to twelve months. While the motivations of individual JI members were no doubt a mixture of the global and local, the aim of JI as an organization was clearly local, namely, to rebuild the group’s military capacity. It is here that JI’s approach to the Syrian jihad mirrored its approach to the Afghan jihad three decades earlier.

‘ISIS’ in Indonesia – the local dimension While the departure of Indonesians to live in the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq signalled a shift from the local to the global and a physical commitment to ISIS’s global Islamist project, there was also a local pro-ISIS network in Indonesia. Here local aims, motivations and agency determined the extent to which ISIS ideology was embraced and by whom. Crucial to understanding this local dimension of ISIS in Indonesia are four key dynamics: competition between Indonesian jihadis, the desire to strengthen local jihads, wanting to be part of the ISIS project but being unable to go to Syria and the attempt to emulate the 2017 takeover of Marawi city in the Southern Philippines by some pro-ISIS militants. When ISIS emerged in the Middle East in 2013, the Indonesian jihadi movement was fractured and embroiled in a debate on the legitimacy and effectiveness of armed jihad as well as on the scope of takfir.81 The Syrian conflict fuelled these divisions, and support for or opposition to ISIS became part of the local competition between Indonesian jihadis. This allowed for ISIS to be grafted onto existing Indonesian networks such as Tawhid wal Jihad, Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT), and parts of Negara Islam Indonesia (NII).82 In 2015, these were consolidated into what became known as Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).83 This consolidation came at the behest of Indonesian cleric Aman Abdurrahman, who at the time was in prison on Nusakambangan island for his involvement in recruiting for and funding of a jihadi training camp in Aceh in 2010. He ordered two of his followers – Abu Musa and Zainal Anshori – to set up a ‘vessel to contain people who were sympathetic to Daulah Islamiyah [ISIS]’ with the aim of aligning ‘the methodology of its members with the methodology of Daulah Islamiyah and to help those who wanted to make hijrah (go to Syria) to be able to make hijrah’.84 Indonesian police have credited Abdurrahman with ‘importing’ the ideology of ISIS into Indonesia.85 Abdurrahman in his deposition after his same-day release and re-arrest in August 2017, however, pointed out that he had already been teaching his ‘different understanding of tauhid’ since 2003.86 Thus, it was not so much a case of ‘importing’ the ISIS ideology but a case of this ideology resonating with his own understanding of tauhid as well as his takfiri inclinations. His support for the ISIS

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caliphate resulted in himself as well as all JAD members taking the bai’at to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as he explained that it is ‘the obligation of every Muslim to swear loyalty to the Amirul Mukminin [leader of the faithful]’ and because of the ‘hadith of the Prophet which states: He who dies without having sworn the bai’at, dies in jahiliyah [ignorance/sin]’.87 The consequence of taking this oath, Abdurrahman further elaborated, was ‘the obligation to travel to Syam [Syria] if materially possible’ and for ‘those who do not have the capability to carry out the obligation … to work toward being able to fulfil this obligation and to pray for the victory of Daulah Islamiyah [ISIS]’.88 Until the emergence of ISIS Abdurrahman had operated on the radical margins of Indonesia’s jihadi circles. While he gave Islamic studies sessions focusing on tauhid in a number of locations including greater Jakarta, Semarang, Pamulang and Lamongan,89 he was above all known for his translations of the writings of Palestinian-Jordanian cleric Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Abdurrahman was admired for his Arabic language skills but never gained a significant following as he lacked the right jihadi pedigree and was fundamentally uncharismatic. This changed with the emergence of ISIS in the Middle East and his declaration of support for al-Baghdadi in June 2014. His endorsement of ISIS served as a vehicle for propelling him from the periphery into the centre of Indonesian radical jihadism. Indeed, embracing the ISIS ideology enabled Abdurrahman to place himself at the heart of the Indonesian pro-ISIS network. It also placed him in direct competition with the much more exclusive and more established JI. The second dynamic – how the ISIS brand was used in order to strengthen a local jihad – is best exemplified by MIT. MIT emerged out of the Poso branch of JAT  around late 2012 and was led, until his death in 2016, by Santoso alias Abu Wardah, who had been Poso JAT’s military commander.90 MIT’s jihad was conducted primarily against the Indonesian police motivated partially by an ideology which deemed the police and other state officials to be thoghut (un-Islamic) but also by revenge and grievances from the 1998–2007 ChristianMuslim communal conflict in Central Sulawesi.91 Santoso as well as many of his men were radicalized during this conflict either following the Walisongo massacre in May 2000 in which Christian fighters killed more than 100 Muslims in the Walisongo pesantren and nearby village or, in 2007, following the police shoot-out with local JI-affiliated militants in the Tanah Runtuh area of Poso city. Others joined MIT after attending one of the military training courses in the Poso mountains run by Santoso between 2011 and 2015, where MIT also trained volunteers of an array of Indonesian jihadi groups. MIT’s jihad did not gain much attention or support within Indonesia. Seen as parochial, MIT was relegated to the periphery of Indonesian jihadi circles along with Santoso who was neither charismatic nor particularly learned. Even the videos MIT produced were amateurish and unappealing. Thus, in order to increase the appeal of MIT’s Poso jihad, to elevate it beyond the parochial, to attract funding and to enhance his own jihadi credentials and standing, Santoso first reached out to Al Qaeda’s Global Islamic Media Front and then to ISIS. In 2013, Santoso took the bai’at to al-Baghdadi and MIT began adopting the black

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flag of ISIS on its media statements and videos.92 MIT also had its own link to ISIS in Bagus Maskuron, who had left Indonesia for Syria in November 2013.93 The Indonesian police believe that MIT received at least some logistical support from ISIS, most notably money to purchase weapons from the Philippines.94 MIT’s fighting force, which numbered around thirty persons including three women, was also augmented by several Uyghur foreign fighters who had been directed to Poso via contacts in the broader international ISIS network. While it is debatable whether Santoso increased his own standing as a jihadi leader or increased the appeal of his Poso jihad within Indonesia, he was able to put MIT on the global jihadi map and to obtain limited financial support. However, it is also clear that his main aim in reaching out to global jihadism was ultimately to serve local needs. The third dynamic was the desire to be part of the ISIS project. At the global level this prompted some 800 Indonesians to go to Syria and Iraq; at the local level it encouraged hundreds of others to join the existing pro-ISIS groups or establish their own JAD branch. The local contribution to the broader ISIS project was through amaliyat (military operations), in short operationalizing ISIS. The first of these attacks was the January 2016 Jakarta attack on a traffic police post and Starbucks café in the Thamrin business district.95 This was followed by the November 2016 attack on children playing in front of a church in Samarinda (East Kalimantan),96 the May 2017 Kampung Melayu (Jakarta) suicide bombing which killed three police officers,97 the June 2017 attack on a police station in North Sumatra which killed one police officer,98 the September 2017 shooting of two police officers in Bima (West Nusa Tenggara)99 and the May 2018 Surabaya church bombings.100 Interestingly, amaliyat were embraced both as a first choice and as a fallback option. Exemplifying amaliyat as a clear first preference is the case of Dian Yulia Novi who, had she been successful, would have become Indonesia’s first female suicide bomber.101 Dian was radicalized through social media (Facebook and Telegram) while she was a migrant worker in Taiwan in 2015.102 This is also how she met Mohamed Nur Solikin after her return to Indonesia, whom she married secretly in October 2016. It was Solikin who connected her to Indonesian ISIS supporter Bahrun Naim, who had been based in Syria since 2014 and whose role was to encourage attacks within Indonesia.103 Bahrun Naim had started looking particularly for akhwat (sisters) to carry out amaliyat in Indonesia as a way to circumvent Indonesia’s increasing vigilance and security measures.104 In November, Bahrun Naim had Dian take the bai’at to al-Baghdadi by phone and also gave Solikin the instructions for carrying out the amaliyah.105 In December, shortly before Dian was to take the bomb to the presidential palace in Jakarta where she would detonate it, she was arrested. In her deposition she stated that she had wanted to carry out a martyrdom operation ever since she started learning about ISIS in 2015.106 While for Dian the operationalization of ISIS was her preferred option, this was not the case for other Indonesians, who only went down the route of amaliyat once it became clear that hijrah to Syria was not possible because they either could not afford it, did not have the contacts to arrange the travel or because hijrah from 2015

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onwards had simply become too difficult as the Indonesian police had arrested those facilitating the travel and stepped up surveillance at airports and borders. Moreover, those few who did manage to leave often only got as far as Turkey where they were then detained and deported back to Indonesia.107 This shifted the focus of ISIS supporters and sympathizers to attacks in Indonesia. The Surabaya church bombings in May 2018 exemplify how amaliyat took the place of hijrah.108 On Sunday 13 May, three churches were targeted in Surabaya by almost simultaneous suicide bombings, killing thirteen and wounding forty-one. They were carried out by one family comprising Dita Oepriarto and his wife Puji Kuswati, their two teenage sons and two young daughters. These bombings were followed by a premature bomb explosion in a house in Sidarjo (near Surabaya), involving another family of six, injuring the bomb maker Anton Febrianto and the two younger children, while killing his wife Puspitasari and the eldest son.109 The following day, on 14 May, a family of five rode two motorbikes to the entrance of Surabaya police headquarters where they blew themselves up. Only the eight-yearold daughter, who had no explosives strapped to her and who was flung off the motorbike by the blast, survived.110 The three families knew each other. They had attended the same Islamic studies sessions together every Sunday in Surabaya.111 All three families wanted to go to Syria. That was their preferred option. However, they soon realized that this was no longer feasible. So they turned to amaliyat as an alternative way to become part of the broader ISIS project. Their contribution was recognized and celebrated in the pro-ISIS Indonesian online magazine Al-Fatihin, published the day after the church bombings, which referred to the bombers as ‘soldiers of the caliphate’ and explained that the reason for the Surabaya attacks was to wipe out unbelief, idolatry and defiance of the word of Allah.112 The families’ decision to carry out these amaliyat was also spurred on by the apocalyptic aspects of the ISIS ideology discussed earlier. Indeed, they ‘had become convinced the world would soon end and that if their families did not martyr themselves then they might be damned to eternal hellfire’.113 The ‘bombings against perceived foes of Islam – Christians and the police – would guarantee their salvation’,114 and they would go to paradise together.115 A final, interesting example which connects the third dynamic of wanting to be part of the broader ISIS project through amaliyat with the fourth dynamic of  emulating the 2017 siege of Marawi city in the Philippines is the attempt to construct a dirty bomb by a JAD cell in Bandung in August 2017. As in the case of Dian, social media played a role in both radicalizing and bringing together this group of ISIS supporters which included Adi Catur Rahman, Young Farmer, Sulton Hakim Amrulloh, Ridwan Iskandar and Anggi Indah Kusuma. This group, working off a manual for a ‘nuclear’ bomb posted by Bahrun Naim on the internet, was trying to ‘transform low-grade radioactive Thorium 232 (Th-232) into deadly Uranium 233 (U-233)’.116 This would then be added to home-made triacetone triperoxide (TATP). The plot was foiled by the police before the construction of the bomb had been completed and those involved were arrested. During his interrogation, Adi Catur Rahman explained to the police that he initially wanted to make hijrah but did not have enough money. It was only after

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his hijrah plans evaporated that his focus shifted to carrying out an amaliyah. Similarly, Young Farmer, during his interrogation explained that he had to abandon his plans for hijrah because it was too difficult and then he turned to making the ‘dirty bomb’ instead. This bomb plot, however, not only was the product of the closing down of the avenues for hijrah to Syria but was also inspired by the takeover of Marawi city in the southern Philippines by pro-ISIS jihadis including the Maute Group and the Abu Sayyaf Isnilon Hapilon faction together with some twenty Indonesian jihadis a couple of months earlier.117 Indeed, both Sulton and Young Farmer had tried to go to Marawi but, as they had not been able to get the required recommendation, were rejected. This then gave rise to the idea of replicating the success of the Marawi takeover in Indonesia by elaborating on an idea Young Farmer already had in 2015, namely to attack one or more of the warehouses of the Bandung-based Indonesian weapons manufacturer Pindad ‘by setting off an explosion at the warehouse and after that the ikhwan (brothers) would take the weapons’. ‘Dirty bombs’ would be used for this attack as well as for other targets, and once all the ISIS supporters in Bandung had raided the Pindad arsenals and armed themselves, there would be an uprising to establish a ‘Marawilike’ pro-ISIS territory in Indonesia.

Conclusion This chapter has examined the global–local nexus in Indonesian jihadism, focusing on the two great international jihads: Afghanistan and Syria. It looked at why Indonesian militants went to Afghanistan in the 1980s and to Syria between 2013 and 2018, examining both individual and organizational motivations. It also explored to what extent these Indonesians embraced international jihadi ideology and bought into the international jihadi political projects of Al Qaeda and ISIS. This chapter has argued that local dynamics and aims are crucial for understanding why and how Indonesians engaged with international jihadism and that, while Indonesian jihadis were interested in some global jihadi ideas, their focus ultimately remained local. Indonesians who joined the Afghan jihad did so for both global and local reasons, motivated, in some cases, by solidarity with oppressed Afghan Muslims and in others by a personal desire for adventure. At the organizational level, Darul Islam and later JI sent members to Afghanistan for an entirely local goal: to attain a level of military training that was impossible for them to gain at home in preparation for establishing an Islamic state in Indonesia. JI also drew upon the international jihadi network established in Afghanistan when it started searching for new training opportunities, reaching out to fellow Afghan alumni in the Philippines. There Indonesian Afghan veterans started training MILF fighters as well as their own until they were given territory within the MILF’s Camp Abubakar to set up their own training camp – Camp Hudaibiyah. This training like that in Afghanistan, served the same local aims, namely, gaining military capacity for a future struggle in Indonesia. Even the thirty JI members who were given the

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opportunity to train at Al Qaeda’s Camp Al-Faruq between 1999 and 2001 and engaged far more with global jihadi ideas, as well as having ties with Al Qaeda members and cooperating on operations of common interest, did not do so for purely global reasons. This explains why JI never became a branch or an affiliate of Al Qaeda. A similar interplay of global and local is evident when looking at the Syrian experience. Indonesians were motivated to go to Syria to fight the Assad government, which was oppressing Sunni Muslims, as well as by the desire to participate in the prophesized ‘End of Times’ battle in Dabiq. However, both of these motivations fed off local dynamics: namely, Indonesia’s ongoing debate over what it means to be a good Muslim, Indonesian identity politics and the local popularity of ‘End of Times’ eschatology which predated ISIS by almost a decade. Similarly, the emergence of a pro-ISIS network in Indonesia was largely the outcome of local agency, evident from it having been grafted onto existing jihadi networks. The bai’at to ISIS leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi was used by individual jihadi personalities and jihadi groups as a means for accessing resources and gaining recognition to bolster their position in the competition against other jihadi personalities and jihadi groups for status, power and influence. As with JI, the aims of those who joined Indonesia’s pro-ISIS network – as opposed to those Indonesians who went to live in Syria – were largely local. These included attacking Indonesia’s ‘secular’ democratic government, up until 2016 strengthening the local jihad in Poso and trying to carve out a ‘Marawi–like area’ within Indonesia. As demonstrated by this analysis of the Indonesian engagement with the Afghan and Syrian jihads, it is critical to understand the global and local dynamics at work. Indonesian jihadi groups have not been co-opted by Al Qaeda or ISIS, nor have they become affiliates or associates. Instead, they have remained independent actors engaging with the global where interests align and embracing those aspects that enable them to further their own local ambitions.

Notes 1 ‘Indonesian police hunt for more suspects over foiled terrorist attacks’, Australian Associated Press, 21 December 2015. The Indonesian government estimate of 800 has not changed since 2015. 2 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia: From Darul Islam to Jema’ah Islamiyah (Sydney: New South Publishing/University of New South Wales Press, 2013), p. 126. 3 Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2002), p. 187. 4 Ibid., p. 194. 5 Ibid. 6 Zachary Abuza, Political Islam and Violence in Indonesia (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 2. 7 Ibid., p. 38. 8 Maria A. Ressa, Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia (New York: Free Press, 2004).

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9 Ken Conboy, The Second Front: Inside Asia’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Network (Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 2005). 10 Prashanth Pamareswaran, ‘Islamic State eyes Asia Base in 2016 in Philippines, Indonesia: Expert’, The Diplomat, 14 January 2016. Available at https​://th​edipl​omat.​ com/2​016/0​1/isl​amic-​state​-eyes​-asia​-base​-in-2​016-i​n-phi​lippi​nes-i​ndone​sia-e​xpert​/. 11 Kumar Ramakrishna, ‘The “East Asia Wilayah” of ISIS: Long time in the making’, Institute for Autonomy and Governance, 14 October 2017. 12 Rohan Gunaratna, ‘Global Threat Forecast 2018’, Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis, 10, issue 1 (January 2018): 2. 13 Ibid. 14 For example, Christoph Reuter remarks that Indonesian mujahideen in Syria seem to be better trained than those coming from Europe. Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger mention the pledges of allegiance to ISIS by Abu Sayyaf militants and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. Abdel Bari Atwan incorrectly states that ‘Islamic State has allies in Indonesia’s Jamaa Islamiyyah’. See Christoph Reuter, Die Schwarze Macht: Der ‘Islamische Staat’ und die Strategien des Terrors (Munich: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 2015), Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror (London: William Collins, 2015), and Abdel Bari Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate (London: Saqi, 2015). 15 Natasha Hamilton-Hart, ‘Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Expert analysis, myopia, and fantasy’, Pacific Review, 18, no. 3 (2005): 303–25; John Sidel, ‘The Islamist threat in Southeast Asia: Much ado about nothing?’, Asian Affairs, 16, no. 3 (2008): 339–51; Greg Fealy and Carlyle A. Thayer, ‘Problematising “linkages” between regional and international terrorism’, in William Tow (ed.), Re-Envisioning Asia-Pacific Security: A Regional-Global Nexus? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 211–27. 16 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia. 17 Sidney Jones, ‘The changing nature of Jemaah Islamiyah’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 59, no. 2 (June 2005): 169–78; Julie Chernov Hwang, Why Terrorists Quit: The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018); Julie Chernov Hwang, ‘Terrorism in perspective: An assessment of jihad project trends’, Asia-Pacific Issues. #104 (September 2012). Julie Chernov Hwang, ‘The disengagement of Indonesian jihadists: Understanding the pathways’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 29, no. 2 (2017): 277–95. 18 Kirsten E. Schulze and Joseph Chinyong Liow, ‘Making jihadis, waging jihad: Transnational and local dimensions of the ISIS phenomenon in Indonesia and Malaysia’, Asian Security, online (February 2018), p. 2. 19 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 126. 20 Interview with Afghan veteran, Jakarta, 15 August 2018. 21 At its height, JI had a territorial structure comprising four regions or mantiqis. Mantiqi I covered Singapore and Malaysia, Mantiqi II encompassed Indonesia including Ambon but excluding Poso, Mantiqi III comprised the Southern Philippines, Sabah, Sarawak and Sulawesi including Poso, and Mantiqi IV covered Papua and Australia. 22 Interview with Abu Tholut, former head of JI Mantiqi III, Kudus, 7 August 2017. 23 Interview with Abu Rusdan, former member of the JI central leadership, Kudus, 7 August 2017. 24 Interview with M.B., former Jemaah Islamiyah operative, Jakarta, 3 August 2018. 25 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 126. 26 Nasir Abas, Membongkar Jemaah Islamiyah (Jakarta: Grafindo, 2005), pp. 42–68. 27 Chernov Hwang, Why Terrorists Quit, pp. 27–8.

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28 International Crisis Group (ICG), ‘Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia: Damaged but still dangerous’, Asia Report 63 (Jakarta/Brussels, 26 August 2003), p. 5. 29 Ibid. 30 Nasir Abas, Inside Jemaah Islamiyah (Jakarta: Grafindo, 2011), pp. 58–9; Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 134. 31 Ibid. 32 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 135. 33 Abas, Inside Jemaah Islamiyah, p. 61. 34 Interview with Abu Tholut, former head of JI Mantiqi III, Kudus, 7 August 2017. 35 Interview with Ali Imron, Jemaah Islamiyah, Jakarta, 3 April 2018. 36 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 141. 37 Ibid., p. 140. 38 Quinton Temby, Jihadists Assemble: The Rise of Islamism in Southeast Asia, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 2017, p. 151. 39 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, pp. 143–4. 40 Ibid. 41 Interview with Nasir Abas, former head of JI Mantiqi III, Jakarta, March 2006. 42 Interview with Nasir Abas, former head of JI Mantiqi III, Jakarta, 13 September 2007. 43 Interview with Ali Imron, member of Jemaah Islamiyah, Jakarta, 3 April 2018. 44 Ibid. 45 Abas, Inside Jemaah Islamiyah, p. 154. 46 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 164. 47 International Crisis Group, ‘Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia’, p. 1. 48 Ibid. 49 Chernov Hwang, Why Terrorists Quit, p. 34. 50 Temby, Jihadists Assemble, p. 193. 51 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 172. 52 Chernov Hwang, Why Terrorists Quit, p. 34. 53 Interview with Nasir Abas, former head of JI Mantiqi III, Jakarta, March 2006. 54 Temby, Jihadists Assemble, pp. 194–5. 55 Interview with Abu Rusdan, former member of the JI central leadership, 8 August 2019. 56 International Crisis Group, ‘Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia’, p. 1. 57 Temby, Jihadists Assemble, p. 184. 58 Solahudin, The Roots of Terrorism in Indonesia, p. 165. 59 Temby, Jihadists Assemble, p. 205. 60 Ibid., p. 196. 61 Ibid., p. 219. 62 Ibid. 63 Conboy, The Second Front. 64 Ibid. 65 Temby, Jihadists Assemble, p. 205. 66 Julie Chernov Hwang, ‘Dakwah before jihad: Understanding the behaviour of Jemaah Islamiyah’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 41, no. 1 (2019): 14–34. 67 Ibid. 68 For a more detailed discussion see Kirsten E. Schulze, ‘From Ambon to Poso: Comparative and evolutionary aspects of local jihad in Indonesia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 41, no. 1 (2019): 35–62. 69 For detailed analysis, see Chernov Hwang, ‘Dakwah before jihad’.

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70 Greg Fealy and John Funston, ‘Indonesian and Malaysian support for the Islamic State’, USAID, 18 September 2015, p. 2. 71 See Kirsten E. Schulze, ‘Indonesia – The radicalisation of Islam’, in Stig Jarle Hansen, Atle Mesøy and Tuncay Kardas (eds), The Borders of Islam: Exploring Samuel Huntington’s Faultlines from al-Andalus to the Virtual Ummah (London: Hurst, 2009). 72 ‘Tahun 2020 Syah berencana melakukan kudeta di Indonesia’, Arramah, 6 February 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.arr​ahmah​.com/​2015/​02/06​/tahu​n-202​0-syi​ah-be​renca​ na-me​lakuk​an-ku​deta-​di-in​dones​ia/; ‘Syiah sesat akan revolusi di Indonesia dalam rentang 2018-220’, Waislamanet, 26 April 2015. Available at https​://wa​islam​anet.​ wordp​ress.​com/2​015/0​4/26/​syiah​-sesa​t-aka​n-rev​olusi​-di-i​ndone​sia-d​alam-​renta​ng-20​ 18-20​20/. 73 Sahih Muslim, Book 54 The Book of Tribulations and Portents of the Last Hour, Chapter: The Conquest of Constantinople, Hadith 44 ‘The emergence of the Dajjal and the descent of “Eisa bin Mariam”’. Available at http://sunnah.com/muslim/54/44. 74 ‘The revival of Slavery before the Hour’, Dabiq, issue 4, p. 16. 75 Solahudin, ‘Syria as Armageddon’, Inside Indonesia (January 2014), www.i​nside​indon​ esia.​org/c​urren​t-edi​tion/​syria​-as-a​rmage​ddon.​ 76 IPAC, ‘Indonesians and the Syrian conflict’, IPAC Report No 6, 30 January 2014, p. 2. 77 See International Crisis Group, ‘How Indonesian extremists regroup’, Asia Report N°228, 16 July 2012. 78 Navhat Nuraniyah, ‘How ISIS charmed the new generation of Indonesian militants’, Middle East Institute, 9 January 2015. Available at http:​//www​.mei.​edu/c​onten​t/map​/ how-​isis-​charm​ed-ne​w-gen​erati​on-in​dones​ian-m​ilita​nts. 79 Interview with police general Tito Karnavian, Jakarta, 27 March 2015. 80 Fealy and Funston, ‘Indonesian and Malaysian support for the Islamic State’, p. 4. 81 ICG, ‘How Indonesian extremists regroup’. See also Nuraniyah, ‘How ISIS charmed the new generation of Indonesian militants’. 82 Also part of this network were Laskar Jundullah, the Islamic Sharia Activists Forum or Forum Aktivis Syariat Islam (FAKSI) and the Student Movement for Islamic Sharia or Gerakan Mahasiswa Untuk Syariat Islam (Gema Salam). 83 IPAC, ‘Disunity among Indonesian ISIS supporters and the risk of more violence’, IPAC Report No 25, 1 February 2016, p. 6. 84 Deposition (Badan Acara Pemeriksaan, BAP) of Oman Rahman alias Aman Abdurrahman alias Abu Sulaiman, Indonesian Police Headquarters, Special Detachment 88, 14 August 2017. 85 Interview with police general Tito Karnavian, Jakarta, 27 March 2015. 86 Deposition of Aman Abdurrahman. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 ‘Indonesia’s most wanted militant “killed in shoot-out”’, The Guardian, 19 July 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/wo​rld/2​016/j​ul/19​/indo​nesia​n-pol​ice-m​ ost-w​anted​-isla​mic-r​adica​l-san​toso-​may-h​ave-d​ied-i​n-sho​otout​. 91 For a comprehensive analysis of the Poso conflict, see Loraine Aragon, ‘Communal violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi: Were people eat fish and fish eat people’, Indonesia, 72 (2001): 45–79 and Dave McRae, A Few Poorly Organised Men: Inter-Religious Violence in Poso, Indonesia (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2013). 92 For instance, see Mujahidin Indonesia Timur, ‘Pernyataan 11: Hakikat Operasi PPRC thogut Indonesia’, April 2015, justpaste.it/b4yan11.

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93 IPAC, ‘The evolution of ISIS Indonesia’, IPAC Report No.13, 24 September 2014, p. 13. 94 ‘FBI confirms death of militant with DNA from severed finger’, Reuters, 1 April 2015. 95 Kirsten E. Schulze, ‘The Jakarta attack and the Islamic State threat to Indonesia’, CTC Sentinel, 9, issue 11 (January 2016): 29–31. 96 ‘Four children injured in suspected militant attack on Indonesia church’, Reuters, 13 November 2016. Available at https​://uk​.reut​ers.c​om/ar​ticle​/uk-i​ndone​sia-s​ecuri​ty/fo​ur-ch​ ildre​n-inj​ured-​in-su​spect​ed-mi​litan​t-att​ack-o​n-ind​onesi​a-chu​rch-i​dUKKB​N1380​B3. 97 ‘Suicide bombers strike Jakarta, killing 3 officers’, The New York Times, 25 May 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/0​5/25/​world​/asia​/indo​nesia​-jaka​rta-s​ uicid​e-bom​bings​.html​. 98 ‘Attack on North Sumatra Police headquarters kills one officer’, The Jakarta Post, 25 June 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.the​jakar​tapos​t.com​/news​/2017​/06/2​5/att​ack-o​ n-nor​th-su​matra​-poli​ce-he​adqua​rters​-kill​s-one​-offi​cer.h​tml. 99 ‘Island Focus: Cops shot by unknown assailants’, The Jakarta Post, 12 September 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.the​jakar​tapos​t.com​/news​/2017​/09/1​2/isl​and-f​ocus-​ cops-​shot-​unkno​wn-as​saila​nts.h​tml. 100 Kirsten E. Schulze, ‘The Surabaya bombings and the evolution of the jihadi threat in Indonesia’, CTC Sentinel, 11, issue 6 (June/July 2018). Available at https​://ct​c.usm​ a.edu​/sura​baya-​bombi​ngs-e​volut​ion-j​ihadi​-thre​at-in​dones​ia/. See also IPAC, ‘The Surabaya bombings and the future of ISIS in Indonesia’, IPAC Report 51, October 2018. Available at http:​//www​.unde​rstan​dingc​onfli​ct.or​g/en/​confl​ict/r​ead/7​5/The​ -Sura​baya-​Bombi​ngs-a​nd-th​e-Fut​ure-o​f-ISI​S-in-​Indon​esia.​ 101 For a more comprehensive discussion of the radicalization of Indonesian female migrant workers, see IPAC, ‘The radicalisation of Indonesian women migrant workers in Hong Kong’, IPAC Report No. 39 (26 July 2017). 102 Deposition (Badan Acara Pemeriksaan – BAP) of Dian Yulia Novi alias Dian alias Ukhti alias Ayatul Nissa Binti Asnawi, Indonesian Police Headquarters, Special Detachment 88, 16 December 2016. 103 Schulze and Liow, ‘Making jihadis, waging jihad’. 104 Interview with a friend of Bahrun Naim, Indonesia, August 2017. 105 Deposition of Dian Yulia Novi, Badan Acara Pemeriksaan (BAP) Dian Yulia Novi alias Dian alias Ukhti alias Ayatul Nissa Binti Asnawi, 16 December 2016. 106 Ibid. 107 ‘Police release names of sixteen Indonesians arrested in Turkey’, Antara News, 19 March 2015. 108 See Schulze, ‘The Surabaya bombings and the evolution of the jihadi threat in Indonesia’ and IPAC, ‘The Surabaya bombings and the future of ISIS in Indonesia’. 109 ‘Sidoarjo bomb also involved family of six: E. Java Police’, The Jakarta Post, 14 May 2018. Available at http:​//www​.thej​akart​apost​.com/​news/​2018/​05/14​/sido​arjo-​bomb-​ also-​invol​ved-f​amily​-of-s​ix-e-​java-​polic​e.htm​l. 110 ‘Suicide bombers at Surabaya Police HQ one family’, The Jakarta Post, 14 May 2018. Available at http:​//www​.thej​akart​apost​.com/​news/​2018/​05/14​/suic​ide-b​omber​s-at-​ surab​aya-p​olice​-hqon​e-fam​ily.h​tml. 111 Afrin La Batu, ‘Suicide bombing families attended same gathering prior to attacks’, The Jakarta Post, 15 May 2018. Available at http:​//www​.thej​akart​apost​.com/​news/​ 2018/​05/15​/suic​ide-b​ombin​g-fam​ilies​-atte​nded-​same-​relig​ious-​gathe​rings​-prio​r-to-​ surab​aya-a​ttack​s.htm​l? 112 ‘Bunulah Kaum Musyrikin Dima Saja Berada’, Al-Fatihin, edisi 10, p. 1 continued on pp. 7–10.

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113 Greg Fealy, ‘Apocalyptic thought, conspiracism and jihad in Indonesia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 41, no. 1 (2019): 63–85. 114 Ibid. See also IPAC, ‘The Surabaya bombings and the future of ISIS in Indonesia’, p. 6. 115 La Batu, ‘Suicide bombing families attended same gathering prior to attacks’. 116 Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa, ‘Exclusive: Indonesian militants planned “dirty bomb” attack – sources’, Reuters, 25 August 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.reu​ ters.​com/a​rticl​e/us-​indon​esia-​secur​ity-i​dUSKC​N1B51​FW. 117 IPAC, ‘Marawi, the “East Asia Wilaya”, and Indonesia’, Report 38, 21 July 2017.

MUJAHIDEEN IN MARAWI HOW LOCAL JIHADISM IN THE PHILIPPINES TRIED TO GO GLOBAL

Tom Smith and Joseph Franco

Introduction The Islamist insurgency in Southern Philippines has something of a dubious and long history for being tagged as the farthest flung outpost of international jihad, supposedly awash with Al Qaeda ‘affiliates’ almost two decades ago and more recently with ISIS networked fighters capable of storming the city of Marawi in Mindanao. Especially so, when audiences in Europe and the United States are the targets of such analyses. The country’s seemingly never-ending and utterly complex Islamist insurgency presented a number of ‘experts’ – inside and outside of the academy – an open goal to cast the Philippines as one of the most exotic characters in a global jihad. Indeed, the Philippines has been on many occasions the go-to location used to make the jihad global, as opposed to only a predominately Middle Eastern–European-focused phenomenon. The concoction of a tropical location and jungle setting, often with English speaking protagonists and plenty of media coverage has fuelled both jihadi propaganda and those with professional interests to almost always make more of the jihadi ‘connections’, ‘linkages’ than was deserved. An inflation of the global spectre of jihadism concurrently serves to inflate an international menace supposedly coming from the Filipino jungle. As a result, this has left very little scope for, and drowned out rare instances of, critical analysis into the evidence behind and meaning of these global connections. This chapter will look at the history and impact of how the Philippines has been used to exoticize and globalize the jihad before concluding with a contemporary assessment of the global nature of the insurgency. While the various facets of the Moro conflict in the Philippines have meant that political, criminal, clan-based and state-sponsored violence in various forms has been almost ever-present since the 1970s, the War on Terror cast a hawkish gaze towards the Philippines. Barely six months after 9/11, the Philippines had already been made into the headline act in what became known as the second front – a Southeast Asian offshoot of the Bush doctrine’s policy of ‘fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here’. Prominent outlets like

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Foreign Affairs, The Nation and CNN published articles using the term in their headlines.1 It would take critically minded observers with local knowledge five to six years to recognize that ‘the phrase “al-Qaeda-linked” has become a permanent, self‐perpetuating fixture that is questioned by no one and repeated by everyone’.2 However, the die was already cast, and the Philippines became ‘known’ as Al Qaeda’s exotic post-Afghanistan ‘safe haven’, ‘sanctuary’ and ‘breeding ground’ for a militant Islam that had now acquired truly global potency. The CNN Bureau chief in Manila during this period, Maria Ressa, became one of the key figures in reporting much of the events and linking them to the War on Terror. In doing so, Ressa relied heavily on reciting claims made most loudly by a small number of terrorism analysts, notably Rohan Gunaratna from within the region and Zachary Abuza from outside. These two seemingly authoritative voices on the menace of Southeast Asian jihadism more broadly, repeatedly used the Philippines as a vessel to claim that the jihad was as pertinent to Filipinos as it was to those in downtown Manhattan or the London Underground. From positions within academia and in union with a hungry news media, a ‘dominant model, perpetuated in the media by prominent commentators Rohan Gunaratna and Zachary Abuza’,3 the second front thesis created a formidable reputation for Mindanao and the region more broadly. One from which analysis struggles to add any of the complex nuance signposted in this chapter, let alone question or oppose. Ever since 2001 Mindanao has been an example of what David Miller and Tom Mills described as the ‘expert nexus’ that dominates mainstream media with an ‘orthodox’ view on terrorism linked to corporate and state institutions.4 Contemporary analysis on Mindanao has a troubled legacy and a lot of catching up to do to if it is to overcome the large void of accurate, evidentiary and substantiated sources. As ISIS lost its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the same expert nexus pushed the narrative that Mindanao would inevitably be the site of the next ISIS caliphate. Experts on Southeast Asian security, indeed some of the same ones from a decade previous under the Al Qaeda second front era, again began to warn audiences around the world that Mindanao was fertile ground for ISIS. As the battle for Marawi dragged on, ISIS propaganda developed an interest in Filipino history. At the same time, reporters and commentators seemed to forget that this was a conflict that predated ISIS and had protracted local roots. Following Marawi and the demise of the Maute-ASG leadership in Marawi we have come full circle and are now taking stock and rightly asking: Was the ISIS Threat in Southeast Asia Overblown?5 Furthermore it is important that we understand who was doing that blowing and why, as well as appreciating the effects and of almost two decades of Mindanao-Jihadist debate. This chapter dissects that debate to argue that jihadism in the Philippines remains locally rooted, tethered to the Moro conflict. The chapter argues that mooted connections to global jihadism, most recently under the ISIS banner, are far weaker than those forged through decades of protracted political clan violence and powerful local militant groups that far outstrip ISIS for influence in the Philippines.

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The roots of the Bangsamoro conflict Mindanao is the second largest island in the Philippines. According to the latest national census, it is home to around 24 million people.6 More than 23 per cent of the population identify as Muslims across Mindanao’s six regions. It must be emphasized that 61 per cent of the Filipino Muslim population reside within the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The ARMM was organized in 1989 to provide a modicum of self-rule for Filipino Muslims. Given the complex history of government-sponsored resettlement programmes and protracted conflict, the demography of Mindanao has shifted from a Muslim-populated area to a more Christianized region. This is exacerbated further with the movement of internally displaced people as a result of conflict and natural disasters. But even prior to the formation of the independent Philippine state, Filipino Muslims have a long history of contesting political authority emanating from Manila. In Western Mindanao, specifically in the island of Jolo, Muslims from the Tausug ethnic group carved out a prosperous sphere of influence – the Sulu Sultanate, through the systematic practices of maritime piracy and slavery. The so-called Sulu Zone was never fully colonized by the Spanish colonial administration from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.7 It was only in 1913, under the American colonial period, that the so-called Moros of Mindanao were pacified, through a heavy-handed military campaign. The Mindanao conflict is often cast as a sectarian response to both real and perceived discrimination of Filipino Muslims by the government of the majorityChristian population. A series of state-sponsored homestead and resettlement policies adopted after the Second World War made for an irreversible demographic shift, making a minority out of the Muslims in Mindanao. Since Filipino independence following the Second World War, the Moro people of Mindanao, who had previously fought their Spanish, Japanese and American colonists, turned their ire inwards against the Manila-centred Philippine state. These polices fostered a frontier spirit in the newly settled areas of Mindanao and led to the emergence of Christian militias, ostensibly for self-defence. However, these armed bands also manifested as anti-Muslim mobs engaging in illicit activities such as land grabbing, which in turn led to the emergence of Muslim militias known as the Blackshirts.8 In the 1970s, real and perceived grievances held by the Filipino Muslim rebels erupted into an insurgency. Organized armed secession in Mindanao is often associated with the formation of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) by former University of the Philippines professor Nur Misuari in 1972. The MNLF took the once pejorative term ‘Moro’ (an erroneous allusion made by the Spanish colonial authorities to link Filipino Muslims to the Moors of southern Spain and North Africa) into a revolutionary discourse. The MNLF sought to carve out an independent Bangsamoro, or ‘Moro Nation’. Widespread fighting from 1972 to 1976 prompted the government of Philippines and the MNLF to accede to the 1976 Tripoli Agreement. The Organisation of Islamic Conference brokered agreement called for the ‘establishment of Autonomy in the Southern Philippines’ within the

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bounds of the Philippine state.9 Negotiations between the government and the MNLF were protracted, but nonetheless recognized that outright secession would be an untenable goal. By the time the 1996 Final Peace Agreement was signed by the Philippines and the MNLF, which expanded the ARMM, a substantial segment of the MNLF had already splintered into another secessionist group. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was formally established in 1984 around the Central Mindanao revolutionary committees of the MNLF. The splintering was born out of tensions and disagreement between the Tausug-dominated MNLF leadership and personalities who were part of the Maranao and Maguindanao ethnic groups. Unlike Misuari and his core cadre, which featured a relatively cosmopolitan background and outlook, the MILF leadership emphasized the hierarchical and hereditary ‘royal lineage’ observed by Central Mindanao Muslims. Compared to the guerrilla tactics favoured by Misuari, the MILF sought to establish a protostate, and was relatively successful in building Camp Abubakar (also known as Abubakar al Siddique or Camp Iranun) as the showcase for Islamic-law-inspired rule in Mindanao.10 It was not until a large-scale assault by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in 2000 that the MILF were dislodged from their encampments in Central Mindanao and Camp Abubakar. Up until the present, the ‘Moro conflict’ or the ‘Mindanao problem’ has enveloped the Southern Philippines and spilled beyond into northern provinces of the Philippines as well as internationally – southwards into Malaysia as well. The conflict in Mindanao, and the violence waged by the MNLF and the MILF have been, and remain to be, prompted by a complex combination of identity politics, ethnic and clan-based rivalries and post-colonial legacies. A combination that is difficult to decipher for even the closest of observers to the Mindanao conflict with fieldwork experience. Much of this appreciation and understanding was missing in the second front era analysis of Mindanao. Instead, generic ‘terrorism experts’ with little local expertise used an anthropologically weak and historically shallow pedestal to proclaim not just that Al Qaeda was active in Philippines (and the wider region) with a persuasive global strategy that could supersede a half century of indigenous rebellion but also that they knew better than the regional experts.11 Such grand claims were never proven and yet dominated much of the public discourse, and were only rarely, but importantly, critiqued in academic circles.12 In short, the second front agenda had lost any anthropological or ethnographic understanding of Mindanao’s complex clan-based violence at the base of the Islamist insurgency.13 At present, the resolution of conflict in Mindanao is hinged on the fulfilment of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which is intended to be the definitive ‘solution to the Bangsamoro Question with honor, justice, and dignity for all concerned’.14 A look into the secessionist roots of the Bangsamoro conflict and organized violence in Mindanao reveals how it is driven largely by local considerations. Ethno-nationalism rather than jihadi internationalism triggered the emergence of the MNLF and the MILF, who remain the largest protagonists in the conflict. It cannot be denied however, that

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the violent milieu propped up by this complex secessionist conflict has provided the backdrop for other, smaller groups and factions to influence perceptions of Mindanao.

Links to the global jihad Manila’s limited resources have meant that various armed groups were dealt with in piecemeal fashion. Large groups such as the MNLF and the MILF, which have articulated a state-building goal within the Republic of the Philippines, have shown their intent and desire to compromise with the central government. As a result of this acquiescence and their considerable military capability, the MNLF and MILF and the AFP are at something of an ad hoc stalemate employing an unspoken policy of avoiding confrontation where possible. This stalemate has created a space for other fringe operators in the conflict, and with the near constant diet of peace talks providing reasons for intra-group fragmentation, more violent and fringe factions continue to emerge. Unlike for the MNLF and MILF, linkages with international terrorist organizations provide two theoretical benefits for these fringe actors. First, groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS could provide seed funding to a fledgling jihadi group. Second, even ostensible links to international groups could be a propaganda boon to generate fear and increase revenues from kidnapping ransoms. One of the first Filipino-based groups to have its jihadi credentials presented to the world was – and remains – the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), whose history can be charted back to the early 1990s in Basilan by way of Afghanistan. Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani is now a somewhat mystical figure in the story of Filipino jihadism. Janjalani’s background is contested and unverifiable (he was reportedly born in Basilan province), at some point he became a member of the MNLF, operating in Western Mindanao. He, along with an unverifiable number and cohort of Filipinos, went on to Afghanistan to fight with the anti-Soviet mujahideen. It was there that he allegedly met with Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and was subsequently endowed with $6 million of Al Qaeda seed money with the intent to establish a local jihadi franchise. While much of the second front literature relays this story with varying degrees of consistency, it is almost entirely un-sourced, and the few sources cited are questionable and themselves not checkable. By 1989, as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was winding down, Janjalani was back in Basilan. He attracted other ex-MNLF members, individuals and factions opposed to negotiations with Manila into what would be the precursor of the ASG: the Mujahideen Commando Freedom Fighters (MCFF).15 In 1991, Janjalani’s group emerged as a separate entity into the conflict by targeting the M/V Doulos, a Christian missionary ship then docked in Zamboanga City port, just across the Basilan Strait from ASG redoubts off the coast of Western Mindanao. In that same year, Janjalani rebranded the MCFF as Al Harakat Al Islamiyah (Islamic Movement) albeit its nom de guerre Abu Sayyaf (meaning ‘bearer of the sword’) stuck.

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Following several years of sporadic skirmishes, the ASG steadily built a reputation as the vanguard of jihadi internationalism in the Philippines. Whether this reputation was deserved is difficult to evaluate with much certainty, but importantly it was a reputation that we can scrutinize. It was reported that that even Mohamed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden’s brotherin-law, visited the Philippines several times, funnelling funds through the nowdefunct International Islamic Relief Organization. This was perhaps the height of the ASG’s integration with the global jihadi network built up by Al Qaeda. In 1995, Philippine police foiled the so-called Bojinka plot by Al Qaeda operatives Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to assassinate Pope John II and place bombs in eleven US-bound airliners. Bojinka has become a cornerstone of the global jihad’s narrative and places the Philippines in the centre of this story from the beginning when the jihad moved beyond Afghanistan and its battle with the Soviets. Bojinka and thus the Philippines, therefore, feature in most accounts. This, however, is again based on shaky evidentiary foundations and has become something of a well-worn incontestable ‘truth’. So, while Bojinka features prominently in the likes of Lawrence Wrights’ totemic Looming Tower,16 the checkable evidence that points to Bojinka as proof of international jihadism rooted in the Philippines long before 9/11 comes down to a few classified Philippines police reports. Philippine law enforcement records for indexing petty crimes are unreliable and this extends to something as controversial and significant as international terrorism. The ‘Bojinka effect’ though was clearly evidenced and helped foster a distorted interpretation of the ‘looking for patterns’ that proliferated. Zachary Abuza drew a diagram of the Bojinka plot but we are not able to tell how he came to this information to arrange the boxes and lines that link Osama bin Laden with various other characters in the Philippines.17 This ‘method’ of analysis led to wildly inaccurate conclusions, such as Abuza’s assertion that ‘the greatest threat to the Philippines in terms of international terrorism, does not come from the Abu Sayyaf or MILF but in the continued presence of independent Al Qaeda operatives who are networking with counterparts throughout the region’.18 Such was the confidence of the second front proponents, that even when Filipino officials attempted to play down these international linkages, it was cited as part of the ‘continuing official reluctance to acknowledge the scale of Al Qaeda penetration’.19 Rather than going back to scrutinize the basis of the original claim, or the merits of official rebuttal, the second fronters found themselves at odds with the government yet desperate to cite their privately shared reports. After 9/11, Manila had plenty to gain from being a victim of such ‘penetration’ and as an ally in the War on Terror, and because there was so little critical debate, it was never clear what the second fronters believed was motivating official ‘reluctance’. By 2006, it was clear that analysis desperately needed to be based on ‘the perspective of local realities, not externally imposed organograms’20 that Abuza and Bojinka had made acceptable. Analysis and commentary of Southeast Asian terrorism had become beholden to what Carlyle Thayer termed the ‘al-Qaeda-

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centric paradigm’,21 and, in 2009, he went into depth to observe how ‘international and regional terrorism specialists often use “linkage” in such an ill‐defined and indiscriminate way that lacks analytical acuity and explanatory power’,22 and the field of Southeast Asian terrorism was significantly flawed. This flawed model could only ever ‘evaluate local political violence largely in terms of its purported “links” back to the terrorist mainspring’23 and did so on the basis of very little evidence. The ASG became the vessel for much of this in regard to Mindanaofocused analysis, to claim that Al Qaeda had its ‘tentacles’24 into Mindanao. Despite the ASG being an enigma25 of whom we are able to confidently prove so little, the documented ‘abuse of the ASG label’26 showed how opportunist the expert nexus was when it came to using this entrepreneurial group.

Opportunists rather than jihadis Nearly a decade after the bombing of the M/V Doulos, the ASG would be thrust again onto the international stage. On 23 April 2000, an ASG faction based on Jolo Island, Sulu Province, launched a cross-border sortie and kidnapped nineteen foreign nationals from a dive resort on Sipadan Island, just off the coast of Sabah, Malaysia. After months of captivity, the hostages were released after payments were brokered by the Libyan government. The Sipadan kidnappings demonstrated an increased reach beyond ASG’s stronghold on Basilan. However, the subsequent events of 9/11 along with the ASG’s roots in the Afghan mujahideen inflated its purported links to Al Qaeda, which arguably died with Abdurajak Janjalani in Basilan in 1998. When his younger brother Khadaffy succeeded Abdurajak, the kidnap for ransom activities, more consistent with the Hispanic-period piracy-at-sea and slave trading in the aforementioned Sulu Zone, became the group’s focus, with Khadaffy lacking his brother’s Afghan alumnus credentials. Had pundits looked beyond the superficial anti-US, jihadi rhetoric of ASG spokesperson Abu Sabaya, the Sipadan and subsequent kidnappings which quickly escalated into a successful profit-generating campaign, may have been stymied. The deliberate targeting of Western nationals (and to a smaller extent Southeast Asians such as Indonesians and Malaysians) was intended to maximize potential ransom payments with the full force of a threat to behead captives under a jihadi banner – literally in many instances. McKenzie O’Brien’s 2012 study of the ‘fluctuations’ between crime and terror27 and research by Reyes and Smith using the Okonek kidnapping of 201428 strongly suggest that the ‘process of inflation’29 the ASG went through during the second front era is one not lost on the Filipino public who see through the jihadi branding. Influential, outward-facing commentators, however, largely ignore this evidence and the history of the practice of kidnapping.30 In contrast, after two decades of learning and bloody conflict, the AFP have come to comprehend the ASG as operating in what it terms ‘community armed groups’, where membership is often premised on convenience and financial considerations. Echoing pre-colonial slave trade, kidnap victims are brought to sympathetic

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villages that provide ‘room and board’ – a euphemism for detention intended to circumvent no-ransom policies of governments – to be released by local elected officials acting as ‘facilitators’.31 Thus, despite the War on Terror rhetoric in the headlines, government officials and military spokespeople remained cautious about the extent to which local militants were mixed up with international, even regional militant networks, preferring instead to frame this as a Filipino issue. The pattern of inflation from criminal-terrorist is not restricted to the ASG or the Sulu zone. Indeed, a plethora of other smaller armed groups complicate the insurgent landscape. In Maguindanao, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) emerged from the former 105th Base Command of the MILF.32 Founded by the late Umbra Kato, the BIFF broke off from the MILF in 2008 over the latter’s willingness to negotiate with Manila. The localized goals of the BIFF clash with progovernment militia as Kato’s followers sought to extort from local farmers. Attacks also happen during the rice harvest season, further underscoring how the BIFF’s calculus is largely focused on local issues rather than jihadi internationalism. The only BIFF link to ISIS, came after the death of Umbra Kato in 2015, when the AFP claimed the BIFF split between a pro-ISIS faction led by Esmael Abubakar (aka Commander Bungos) and the mainstream faction headed by Imam Minimbang (aka Commander Karialan) who ousted Bungos.33 Minimbang, regarded as a moderate preacher, appears intent to retain the ‘Robin Hood’ persona cultivated by Kato, while the more militant jihadi faction of Bungos use the ISIS brand to increase its stature among other private, non-sectarian militias operated by Mindanao politicians as private armies. Nonetheless, while the BIFF does not sortie out from its strongholds in the swamplands of the Liguasan Marsh, it can still create national-level setbacks for the entire Bangsamoro peace process. In January 2015, the Mamasapano ambush killed forty-four Special Action Force (SAF) police commandos from the Philippine National Police (PNP) in a joint BIFF and MILF ambush. The SAF were on a mission to capture wanted Indonesian bomb maker, Marwan (Zulkifli bin Hir). The incident further demonstrated the inherent difficulty of unpacking the alliances and violence of a myriad of mutating actors in Mindanao, whose ties with foreign militants are usually interwoven with pre-existing personal links such as marriage, as much as they are by organizational structuring and alliance. Following the concerted pressure by the Philippine military after the 2015 Mamasapano ambush, with assistance from the United Sates (which maintains a considerable military presence in the country, and in Mindanao), and as peace talks and legislative changes stalled with the MNLF and MILF, the ASG became the figurehead of the counterinsurgency effort. This was despite their banditry being well-established and the comparatively fewer number of deaths they have caused (though verifying estimated numbers quickly becomes a problematic issue of counting dead bodies). With forces focused on Basilan, the ASG moved out of their traditional stronghold, even venturing to the central Philippine island of Bohol before allying themselves with other militants – the Maute Group (MG) in the siege of Marawi in 2017.

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The origins of the Maute Group The Maute Group is the new bogeyman used to highlight the pervasive influence of ISIS in Southeast Asia with much of the ASG jihadist inflection transmitting over to their allies. Without evidence that can be corroborated, claims of operational links between the MG and ISIS-central must be understood within the context of the Bangsamoro problem and the socio-historical roots of conflict in Mindanao. The group gained international attention when it occupied the abandoned municipal hall in the centre of Butig town, Lanao del Sur province, on 24 November 2016. With the links of the MG to ISIS made visual by the Maute clan members raising an ISIS-inspired flag in the building, the images spread quickly on social media before being picked up by traditional news media outlets. Prior to the seizure of Butig town hall, as far back as March, the MG had already figured in clashes with the Philippine military, and ISIS flags were found in former MG camps.34 In the days after the Butig raid, President Duterte declared that ‘ISIS has connected with the Maute’35 with reports recycling the same images from six months previous. Prior to this obvious propaganda ploy, the Maute family was well known as a politically powerful local clan, and one of the many private armed groups in Mindanao. Political families are known to stand up their own armed wings for protection or to coerce voters during local elections. According to an explainer published by Reuters during the siege of Marawi, Farhana Maute, the clan matriarch, is a known political ‘kingmaker’ in conflict with a well-known Butig politician, Dimnatang Pansar.36 As early as 2013, the Maute clan was already formed as an armed unit, albeit known more simply as the Maute clan’s private militia, which figured in sporadic skirmishes with the Pansar militia. When the MG emerged in February 2016 and brandished its jihadi credentials, it was the first time that the extortion racket run by Omar and Abdullah Maute used the imagery and symbols associated with ISIS. This branding inflates the perceived capability of the group and further intimidates political opponents of the Maute clan.37 Through Caymora Maute, a senior figure in the MILF and Omar and Abdullah’s father, we can also trace a lineage to the major militant group of Mindanao in which the brothers were members until growing disillusioned with peace negotiations. In the Maute Group, we have a conglomeration of many roots of Mindanao’s political violence: historic guerrilla groups, the criminality of the clan-based politics and a small splinter terrorist group with international ambitions. As a result, the group became known locally by the residents of Lanao del Sur as ‘grupong ISIS’ or ‘group of ISIS’, a moniker that has appealed to out-of-school youth, who comprise the estimated bulk of its fighting force.38 Nonetheless, the brothers’ appeal to the out-of-school youth in Lanao del Sur was inhibited by traditional social structures and religious leaders in Mindanao. The MG was met with disdain by the older generation of ulama in Central Mindanao, who viewed the brothers’ Islamic theology as amateurish.39 By the end of 2016, what had started as an attempt to latch onto the ISIS brand for the MG became an act of survival by the Basilan faction of the ASG headed by

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Isnilon Hapilon, which was now under considerable pressure from the AFP.40 In late January 2017, Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana claimed that Hapilon acted on the ‘behest of the ISIS people in the Middle East’41 to check whether the area would be a viable place for a wilayat (official province of ISIS). If Hapilon had any ability to pursue this claim, the necessity of situating global jihadi ideology in a local context was far beyond what the ASG or any group had managed to achieve. At very best, Hapilon needed the political (if not ideological) clout of the Maute clan around Lanao del Sur to offset the losses his faction had incurred in Basilan against the military to lay claim to a very limited geography. We have no basis to interpret these events, claims and propaganda as anything more than an ASG-MG union of circumstance, combining abilities to wage a protracted guerrilla defence against oncoming government forces. Given the ASG now faced the prospect of not being able to operate their main revenue stream of kidnap-for-ransom payments, the promise of the Maute’s financial resources can also not be discounted.

Links to ISIS The ISIS modus that Lorenzana alluded to – where Filipino groups passively receive orders from the ‘centre’ – is more aligned with how Al Qaeda historically worked with its affiliates. It also chimes heavily with the centre and periphery model Oliver Roy outlined in Globalised Islam.42 Previously, Al Qaeda sought affiliates to achieve its ultimate goal of fighting the ‘far enemy’ or countries supporting ‘apostate’ regimes.43 In contrast, ISIS’ expansion doctrine baqiya wa tatamaddad (remaining and expanding) was focused on ‘fighting locally’ and instituting local governance.44 The significant difference being that an ISIS wilayat is premised on the military ability to exercise governance through armed coercion, as opposed to Al Qaeda’s cellular vanguard groups using violence to influence politics without the administrative burden. Based on this strategy and doctrine, the ISIS core found Hapilon’s and the Mautes’ capabilities adequate enough to pass its threshold to be declared a wilayat (of sorts). But even this partial recognition came slowly and only once the MauteASG union was maturing. The ASG under Hapilon had pledged itself to ISIS some two years prior in a video that generated a swathe of international attention. Despite the delay, the recognition was useful for propaganda purposes for both the ASG and ISIS. While the potential that it would then lead to a transfer of resources remained a tantalizing opportunity to exoticize what at the time was a strong ISIS brand, well rooted in its ‘centre’ of Iraq and Syria, no evidence supported the speculation. In November 2014 the fifth issue of the ISIS propaganda magazine, Dabiq titled ‘Remaining and Expanding’, briefly noted (without mentioning names of individuals or groups) that the pledge from the Philippines had been accepted ‘but delayed the announcement of their respective wilāyāt’ promising that ‘this delay should end with either the appointment or recognition of leadership … or the establishment of a direct line of communication between … the ISIS and thus receive information and directives from the Khalīfah’.45

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If ‘wilayat designations were only extended to those groups that had demonstrated they had implemented the infrastructure of control’,46 then ISIScentral was accurately reading the Mindanao landscape better than many headline writers. Despite the decades of militancy and maturity of its Islamist groups, Mindanao was not yet hospitable to the ISIS model of global jihad. Instead, Hapilon became an emir or leader of an ISIS division, with the Philippines being considered part of ‘the land of jihad’ and not as the ‘land of the caliphate’. This fudge was enough to satisfy many observers who were using these secondary labels to mirror the claims made by the ASG-MG, but when ISIS released its ‘Structure of the Caliphate’ video in July 2016, it was clear that not only were such lands and groups in the ‘periphery’ but also if they were not a full-fledged wilayat they were – quite literally – not on the diagram.47 Observers continue to debate whether ISIS have an officially undeclared wilayat in Mindanao, some even do so on the basis that the ‘impact if and when ISIS successfully secures a “wilayah” in Southeast Asia’48 will be significant, though it is unclear if a change of nomenclature and status would represent anything meaningful. Hapilon and his followers certainly tried hard, producing indigenous propaganda content that promoted the existence of an actively fighting ISIS division culminating in the battle for Marawi and the final push to join the world of international jihad.

The battle for Marawi Fighting broke out on in Marawi on 23 May 2017 after a hasty AFP raid to capture Hapilon from a Marawi safe house. The attempted raid quickly snowballed as the MG’s local militants came to the ASG leader’s aid. It took five months for the military to declare the end of combat operations, making it the longest urban battle in the country’s history with much of the city destroyed.49 The battle for Marawi quickly surpassed the damage of the 2013 Zamboanga Crisis, when an estimated 500 members of Misuari’s private army, the Misuari Group, occupied parts of Zamboanga City. Even before the MG or ISIS existed, the city’s built environment had seen urban conflict. Frequent incidents of clan violence or rido in the city, and wider Central Mindanao region, incentivized residents to build fortified houses. A large number of houses in Marawi are built with reinforced walls, with material colloquially known as buhos or poured concrete, compared to other Philippine cities in the region. It is also not uncommon for Marawi homes to have arms caches passed on to younger kinsfolk and, as the battle dragged on, a network of tunnels and bunkers were exposed.50 The MG was also able to learn from its prior skirmishes with the military in Butig where they appreciated their vulnerability – notably in intelligence and reconnaissance. The MG was first among many non-state armed groups in the Philippines to use commercial off-the-shelf unmanned arrival vehicles, or drones, fitted with cameras to spot troop movements and provide early warning of incoming raiding forces.51 As

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opposed to the more traditional guerrilla old guard MNLF and MILF, the MG’s clan-based roots have shown them to be markedly tactically innovative. The ASG-MG also proved to be practical fighters fashioning comparatively lowtech improvised explosive devices. Looted cooking gas cylinders were turned into firebombs while rolls of coins from the ransacked banks were used as shrapnel. Had the 23 May raid not occurred and sparked the battle, there is good reason to believe that the ASG-MG intended to take over the city, likely coinciding with the start of Ramadan. In footage found during the siege and made public, the ASG-MG planned a siege of Marawi and discussed several operational level issues that they followed through with. While the date of the recording is not known, and the meeting likely staged for recording purpose in conjunction with the stockpiling of food and weapons,52 an attack on Marawi was likely. In the footage, Hapilon sits quietly while Abdullah Maute leads the discussion, sketching diagrams and maps – the Maute’s local knowledge asserting itself in the leadership.53 Marawi was a labyrinth of concrete structures, waiting to be turned into Maute fighting positions. Reports of tunnels made by ISIS-linked militants were exaggerated, ignoring the maze of cramped alleyways and dugouts that naturally dotted the city and the MG knew intimately. The fortification of Marawi owed nothing to ISIS’s command and control. Nonetheless, the MG demonstrated their ability to blunt the advance of better-armed AFP troops who enjoyed drone coverage from American Special Forces.54 The combination of defensible terrain and the MG’s incremental improvements to their fighting capabilities explains why the battle for Marawi lasted so long. Other cities in the Philippines may have buhos houses and plenty of rural areas host arms caches, but the distinct physical and social geographies of Marawi allowed the ASG-MG union to form into a considerable foe. Ultimately though, for all the international headlines and ISIS conjecture, the ASG-MG were defeated with remnants now on the run. Despite several claims, there is no evidence that foreign jihadis were dispatched to Marawi by ISIS-central, which was simultaneously undergoing its own last stand in Raqqa and Mosul. Early in 2018, the Intelligence Service of the AFP warned that as many as fifty foreign terrorists remained in Mindanao seeking to rebuild a 400-strong force, but there is still a dearth of evidence to support the growing mountains of claims for foreign jihadis roaming around Mindanao. Given southern Mindanao’s and Sulu’s porous territorial borders, Malaysian and Indonesian foreigners should hardly make for headlines – but they continue to do so.55 Analysis cannot be based on a diet of news reports repeating unverified claims as evidence. When Reuters publish, ‘the source said they included Indonesians, Malaysians, at least one Pakistani, a Saudi, a Chechen, a Yemeni, an Indian, a Moroccan and one man with a Turkish passport.’56, for anyone who has spent time in Mindanao researching the conflicts to believe such a cosmopolitan development would need a lot more to be convinced, especially given the troubled history of analysis on Mindanao.

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Conclusions The complex nature of conflicts in Mindanao stem from deep roots in both its precolonial and colonial history. The ISIS phenomenon is just the most recent manifestation of global jihadism that local groups appropriated to legitimize their actions. Filipino Muslim secessionism has long contested the homogenizing impetus of Manila. But while mainstream groups have become pragmatic and intent on attaining autonomy, rather than independence, from the violent milieu of the various insurgencies, novel, opportunist and extremist factions continue to emerge and survive.57 Groups like the ASG and the MG function more as organized criminal organizations, whose financial motivations are no different from say, extortion and kidnapping groups in Luzon and the Visayas. Their ability to mass into seemingly more hierarchical organizations is testament more to the weakness of state presence in Mindanao – the lack of governance that by default cedes authority to those who can bring the most guns to bear – the clans. Instead of acting as the motivation for extremist activity, ideology in Mindanao appears to be the justification for violence. This cuts against the dominant current discourse of how ideological radicalization prompts behaviour. Decades of fighting in Mindanao does not appear to change the very rational motivations by extremist groups. At the time of writing, only one confirmed incident of a Filipino extremist killing himself in a suicide bombing has been reported. The 2019 attack in Indanan poses more questions than answers and may be a rediscovery of a pre-ISIS cultural phenomenon.58 It appears the appeal of a supposed paradise in the afterlife cannot fully offset the temporal benefits of a successful kidnap ransom or looting. Rather than commitment to more abstract concepts such as the ummah or the internationalist tenets of armed jihad, Filipino militants appear to continue to be concerned more with the here and now. Instead of passively taking in an ‘exported’ jihad, the majority of actors in the Mindanao keep it at arm’s length. Only when the smaller factions such as the ASG-MG have their criminal methods and powerbases threatened does the potential (still unfulfilled) of global jihad become attractive. Given the more material drivers of conflict, a fixation on de-radicalization and ideology-based counter-radicalization would be unproductive and an unmerited policy which, crucially, is not evidence-based. Furthermore, such an approach may prove to be counterproductive. Dialoguing with a phantom jihadi ideology in Mindanao may only serve to inadvertently legitimize other local narratives about how out of touch the government is with Mindanao. Even benign efforts to identify moderates and pro-state religious leaders could be misconstrued as an attempt to circumscribe the practice of faith. The relative success of the AFP’s counterinsurgency campaign against the communist movement is hinged on bringing in improvements to the socio-economic conditions of populations vulnerable to recruitment. Policies need not necessarily be reinvented but tweaked to address the issues faced by Filipino Muslims left to the mercy of powerful clans and corrupt political institutions.

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The military defeat of violent extremists in the battlefield is only part of the solution. Even if ISIS suddenly loses the power of its brand, it does not resolve the underlying issues in Mindanao. Guns, gangs and poor governance if unchecked will continue to allow a violent milieu to fester. If not ISIS, the entrepreneurs of violence in Mindanao will simply latch on to a new banner as they once did with Al Qaeda. President Duterte has confronted ISIS with a combination of typically incendiary speech and a plan to federalize the country. This constitutes a recognition of the gaps in governance, on the one hand, and scapegoating of a pernicious foreign enemy on the other. Foisting an inchoate, seemingly omnipresent threat to Mindanao is an attempt by the state to exculpate itself from the complex issues that the state needs to resolve. In a sense, the sins of the republic are exported away from the government and global jihad provides an opportune vehicle.

Notes 1 Maria Ressa, ‘CNN.com – The Philippines: War on terror’s second front – April 16, 2002’, CNN.com, 2002; John Gershman, ‘Is Southeast Asia the second front?’, Foreign Affairs, lxxxi, no. 4 (2002): 60; Walden Bello, ‘A “second front” in the Philippines’, The Nation, 2002. 2 Herbert Docena, ‘Philippines: Fanning the flames of war’, Asia Times Online, 2007. 3 Kit Collier, ‘Terrorism: Evolving regional alliances and state failure in Mindanao’, Southeast Asian Affairs, mmvi, no. 1 (2006): 26–38 (p. 26). 4 David Miller and Tom Mills, ‘The terror experts and the mainstream media: The expert nexus and its dominance in the news media’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, ii, no. 3 (2009): 414–37. 5 Sidney Jones, ‘Was the ISIS threat in Southeast Asia overblown?’ (London School of Economics, 2018). 6 Philippine Statistics Authority, The Siege Marawi: A New Dawn in Filipino Militant Islam or Business as Usual?, 2017. Philippine Statistics Authority, ‘Factsheet on Islam in Mindanao’, 28 September 2017. Available at http:​//rss​o11.p​sa.go​v.ph/​artic​le/fa​ctshe​ et-is​lam-m​indan​ao (accessed 05 March 2018). 7 James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (NUS Press: Singapore, 2007). 8 T. J. S. George, Revolt in Mindanao: The Rise of Islam in Philippine Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 166–9. 9 ‘The Tripoli agreement’, 1976. Available at https​://ww​w.hdc​entre​.org/​wp-co​ntent​/uplo​ ads/2​016/0​6/The​-Trip​oli-A​greem​ent-1​976.p​df (accessed 05 March 2018). 10 Joseph Franco, ‘The Philippines: The Moro Islamic liberation front – A pragmatic power structure?’, in Michelle Hughes and Michael Miklaucic (eds), Impunity: Countering Illicit Power in War and Transition (Center for Complex Operations, 2016). 11 David Martin Jones, M. L. R. Smith and Mark Weeding, ‘Looking for the pattern: Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia – The genealogy of a terror network’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxvi, no. 6 (2003): 443–57 (p. 452). 12 Natasha Hamilton-Hart, ‘Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Expert analysis, myopia and fantasy’, The Pacific Review, xviii, no. 3 (2005): 303–25; Graham Brown, ‘The perils

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23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

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of terrorism: Chinese whispers, Kevin Bacon and Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia – A review essay’, Intelligence and National Security, xxi, no. 1 (2006): 150–62; Michael K. Connors, ‘If you want to escape terrorism don’t ask Rohan Gunaratna what train to catch’. Available at http:​//sov​ereig​nmyth​.blog​spot.​co.uk​/2009​/10/i​f-you​-want​-to-e​ scape​-terr​orism​-dont​.html​ (accessed 26 June 2013). Antonius C. G. M. Robben and Carolyn Nordstrom, ‘The anthropology and ethnography of violence and sociopolitical conflict’, in Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Survival (London: California University Press, 1995). ‘The comprehensive agreement on the Bangsamoro’, (2014). Available at https​://ww​ w.off​i cial​gazet​te.go​v.ph/​downl​oads/​2014/​03mar​/2014​0327-​Compr​ehens​ive-A​greem​ ent-o​n-the​-Bang​samor​o.pdf​. Marites Dañguilan Vitug and Glenda M. Gloria, Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao (Quezon City: Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and Institute for Popular Democracy, 2000). Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda’s Road to 9/11 (London: Penguin, 2014), p. 235. Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 104. Ibid., p. 114. Jones, Smith and Weeding, ‘Looking for the pattern’, p. 452. Collier, ‘Terrorism: Evolving regional alliances and state failure in Mindanao’, p. 27. Carlyle Alan Thayer, ‘al-Qaeda and political terrorism in Southeast Asia’, in P. Smith (ed.), Terrorism and Violence in Southeast Asia: Transnational Challenges to States and Regional Stability (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 79–97. Carlyle Alan Thayer and Greg Fealy, ‘Problematising “linkages” between Southeast Asian and international terrorism’, in William T. Tow (ed.), Security Politics in the Asia-Pacific: A Regional-Global Nexus? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 226. Collier, ‘Terrorism: Evolving regional alliances and state failure in Mindanao’, p. 27. Zachary Abuza, ‘Tentacles of terror: Al Qaeda’s Southeast Asian network’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, xxiv, no. 3 (2002): 427+; Shawn Brimley, ‘Tentacles of jihad: Targeting transnational support networks’, Parameters, xxxvi, no. 2 (2006): 30. Kit Collier, ‘A carnival of crime: The enigma of the Abu Sayyaf ’, in Conflict, Community, and Criminality in Southeast Asia and Australia (Washington DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2009), pp. 44–57. Eduardo F. Ugarte, ‘“In a wilderness of mirrors”: The use and abuse of the “Abu Sayyaf ” label in the Philippines’, South East Asia Research, xviii, no. 3 (2010): 373–413. McKenzie O’Brien, ‘Fluctuations between crime and terror: The case of Abu Sayyaf kidnapping activities’, Terrorism and Political Violence, xxiv, no. 2 (2012): 320–36. Joseph Anthony L. Reyes and Tom Smith, ‘Analysing labels, associations, and sentiments in Twitter on the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping of Viktor Okonek’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 0 (2015): 1–19. Eduardo F. Ugarte and Mark Macdonald Turner, ‘What is the “Abu Sayyaf ”? How labels shape reality’, Pacific Review, xxiv, no. 4 (2011): 397–420 (p. 411). Eduardo F. Ugarte, ‘The phenomenon of kidnapping in the southern Philippines: An overview’, South East Asia Research, xvi, no. 3 (2008): 293–341. Joseph Franco, ‘Islamic State and Southern Philippines: Tenuous links with militants’, RSIS Commentaries, No. 181, 12 September 2014. Available at https://www.rsis.edu.sg/ wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CO14181.pdf.

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32 Joseph Franco, ‘Attacks in Central Mindanao: Overestimating the Bangsamoro splinter group’, RSIS Commentaries, No. 149, 13 August 2013. Available at https:// www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/CO13149.pdf. 33 ‘Military bares leadership split in BIFF’, GMA News Online, 2016. 34 Chiara Zambrano, ‘LOOK: PH flag raised at Maute terror group’s main camp’, ABSCBN News, 2016; Agence France-Presse, ‘Philippine troops seize Islamic militant camp’, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2016. 35 Marlon Ramos, ‘Duterte: ISIS creeping into PH through Maute group’, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2016. 36 Raju Gopalakrishnan and Manuel Mogato, ‘The Mautes of the Philippines: From monied family to Islamic State’, Reuters, 2017. 37 Joseph Franco, ‘The battle(s) for Butig: Contextualizing the Maute group’. Available at http:​//www​.secu​rityr​eform​initi​ative​.org/​2016/​12/23​/batt​les-b​utig-​conte​xtual​izing​ -maut​e-gro​up/ (accessed 5 March 2018). 38 Interview with former infantry company commander, 49th Infantry Battalion based in Butig, Lanao del Sur. 39 Interview with former military intelligence officer assigned to Western and Central Mindanao. 40 Tom Smith, ‘Panic about IS in the Philippines masks a very real war in the country’, The Conversation, 2016. 41 ‘15 terrorists killed as bombs dropped on Hapilon’s lair: AFP’, ABS-CBN News, 2017. 42 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (London: Hurst, 2006). 43 Daniel Byman, ‘Buddies or burdens? Understanding the Al Qaeda relationship with its affiliate organizations’, Security Studies, xxiii, no. 3 (2014): 431–70. 44 Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘The war between ISIS and al-Qaeda for supremacy of the global jihadist movement’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Research Note 20/ June 2014 (2014). 45 Islamic State, ‘Remaining and expanding’, Dabiq, 5 (2014): 24. 46 Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, Isis: The State of Terror (London:Harper Collins, 2015), p. 186. 47 Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, ‘Observations on the new Islamic State video “structure of the caliphate”’. Available at http:​//www​.ayme​nnjaw​ad.or​g/201​6/07/​obser​vatio​ns-on​ -the-​new-i​slami​c-sta​te-vi​deo (accessed 13 March 2018). 48 Jolene Jerard and Nur Aziemah Azman, ‘Wilayah Philippines: Are we there yet?’, Journal of the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers, xxv, no. 1 (2017): 3 (p. 3). 49 Euan McKirdy, ‘Satellite imagery shows devastation of ISIS-held Marawi’, CNN, 2017. 50 CNN Philippines, ‘#InsideMarawi: Gov’t soldiers clearing Maute tunnels in Marawi’, October 2017; Eleanor Ross, ‘ISIS-linked Maute rebels are hiding in tunnels and mosques as the Philippines military prepares for long siege’, Newsweek, 2017; The Straits Times, ‘Tunnels reveal ISIS-linked militants’ rat-like tactics in Marawi war’, The Straits Times, 2017. 51 Thomas Luna, ‘DJI drones are getting shot down in the battle of Marawi’. Available at https​://ww​w.wet​alkua​v.com​/dji-​drone​s-use​d-sur​veill​ance-​battl​e-mar​awi/ (accessed 13 March 2018). 52 BBC News, ‘Philippine militants “ready for long siege”’, BBC News, 2017. 53 ‘Maute group aimed to kill many civilians, seized video shows’, ABS-CBN News, June 2017.

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54 The Japan Times Online, ‘Philippines says U.S. special forces on ground near besieged Marawi, but not fighting’, The Japan Times Online, 2017; ABS-CBN News, ‘LOOK: Americans spotted flying drone in Marawi’, ABS-CBN News, 2017. 55 Tetch Torres-Tupas, ‘About 50 foreign terrorists now operating in Mindanao – military official’, Inquirer.net, 2018; BBC News, ‘“Foreign fighters” in Philippine clashes’, BBC News, 2017; Lara Tan, ‘Mindanao invaded by foreign terrorists - gov’t’, CNN Philippines, 2017. 56 Tom Allard, ‘Ominous signs of an Asian hub for Islamic State in the Philippines’, Reuters, 2017. 57 John Francis Morrison, ‘Splitting to survive: Understanding terrorist group fragmentation’, Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, iii, no. 3 (2017): 222–32. 58 Joseph Franco, ‘Indigenous roots of the “first” Filipino suicide bombing’. Available at https​://ww​w.low​yinst​itute​.org/​the-i​nterp​reter​/indi​genou​s-roo​ts-fi​rst-f​i lipi​no-su​icide​ -bomb​ing (accessed 07 August 2019).

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CONTEXTUALIZING THE APPEAL OF ISIS IN MALAYSIA Aida Arosoaie and Joseph Chinyong Liow

Introduction In the aftermath of the ISIS of Iraq and ash-Sham’s (ISIS) declaration of its caliphate on 29 June 2014, Malaysian authorities sent out warnings about the peril of extremist infiltration in the country. The underlying concern to this view, namely that jihadism has assumed a transnational nature, reflects the assumptions of a growing body of literature that maintains we are witnessing the emergence of a new phenomenon wherein a globalized jihad, detached from any national sociopolitical dynamics and epitomized by transnational terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, has been plaguing the Muslim world. In this chapter we critically analyse this literature, particularly in the context of ISIS. By adopting the concept of the boundary as a constitutive element of one’s identity, we outline how religious extremist boundaries emerge relationally and are informed by historical events. First, we challenge the perception that ISIS represents a unique manifestation of the global jihadi movement, whose sociological roots supersede local politics. Rather, we argue that the outfit represents a more complex phenomenon which, by virtue of its strategic discourse, brings together local, national and transnational grievances and motivations. ISIS is not a global movement informing the peripheries; rather, we claim it is the peripheries boosting ISIS. Second, we challenge the assumption that ISIS represents an external threat to the Malaysian population. Instead, by adopting a critical, historically informed perspective, we posit that ISIS’ narratives gained popularity among the Malaysian populace because its extremist, exclusionary and sectarian outlook simply overlaps with a domestic discourse that has come to inform the world views of some Malaysians. The ongoing Islamization race between the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) and the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) since the 1980s, along with the institutionalization of the Salafi ulama (religious scholars) in the government and the bureaucracy, as well as the decentralization of Islamic authority in the country and the institutionalization of jihadi discourse as a routine element in the national political narrative shifted the outlook of segments of the Malay population towards an increasingly exclusivist and sectarian register. These, we believe, represent fundamental milestones in the creation of an enabling ecosystem where ISIS-type narratives and ideologies resonate.

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ISIS’ global jihad – an uncritical assumption ISIS is a terrorist group that originated in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in 2004. From its early days, AQI was infamous for its extreme brutality which was even admonished by Al Qaeda’s central leadership. Throughout the years, the group morphed into various forms until 2013, when it withdrew its allegiance from Al Qaeda and became known as ISIS. On 29 June 2014, the group declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate after seizing swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory and rebranded itself as the ‘Islamic State’. Although most of the group’s leadership previously served under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, known for its secular outlook, ISIS legitimized itself strategically through the use of religion, which it interpreted in its most puritanical and intolerant form.1 The group emerged as a paragon of social media propaganda when it managed to attract over 30,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries, of which around 6,000 were from Europe and North America.2 In line with much of the academic discussion on Al Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks, writings on ISIS deemed it as the new epitome of global jihad. Yet, what characterizes the globality of either group remains a contentious issue. In the case of Al Qaeda, Fawaz Gerges outlined that global jihad was conceptualized in relation to the shift in targets, from the near enemy (local targets) to the far enemy (Western targets). According to Gerges, the attacks perpetrated in the first half of the 1990s against US targets, such as the 1992 bombing of hotels hosting US military personnel in Aden, Yemen, marked the turn towards global jihad.3 Essentially, global jihadism is understood as the focus on Western states, particularly the United States. This manner of conceptualization, however, suffers from two main shortcomings: it is Eurocentric and ahistorical. While the United States did emerge as the prime target, this phenomenon is part of larger dynamics of power contestation rooted in the colonial encounter. Starting with the 1830s anti-French resistance in present-day Algeria under the leadership of ‘Abd al-Qadir and continuing with anti-colonial insurgencies in modern Egypt, Libya, India or Indonesia, resistance against foreign rule and intervention have often been framed in jihadi terms.4 Along these lines, by virtue of the anticolonial references both ISIS and Al Qaeda made in their discourses,5 we argue that these outfits represent manifestations of the same phenomenon: struggles against occupation, intervention and perceived humiliation justified in religious terms.6 In June 2014, on the eve of ISIS’ declaration of the caliphate, Aaron Zelin claimed that its rise implied a declaration of an open war for supremacy of the global jihadi movement against Al Qaeda.7 This point is reinforced by Charles Lister who, in his well-documented discussion on the Syrian jihad, argues that the war in Syria defined and reconfigured the terms of the new global jihad.8 Graeme Wood highlights that, in contrast to Al Qaeda, ISIS appears to claim the leadership of the global jihadi movement by way of the establishment of the caliphate and global membership, based on its strong religious credentials.9 Challenging such assertions, this chapter argues that this literature obscures the social reality of ISIS’ membership and lacks analytical finesse by homogenizing ISIS recruits under

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the notion of global jihad. Indeed, this is evident from the diverse motivations that drive individuals to sympathize with, and even join, ISIS. In contrast to these prevailing perspectives, this chapter contends that ISIS is a more complex sociopolitical phenomenon which managed to bring together local, transnational and regional historical dynamics under the umbrella of jihad. Dexter Filkins disagrees with Graeme Wood’s rather simplistic proposition that ISIS is rooted in Islamic theology and practices. Based on his experience in the Middle East, he argues that the reasons individuals join ISIS – or for that matter, any religiously motivated terrorist organization – are complex and diverse; he argues some people are motivated to fight against the Shi’a ‘Other’, some are motivated by the financial reward, while others are using Islamic justifications as a veneer for their anti-Western sentiments.10 Moreover, in accounting for the high number of Europeans who joined ISIS, Olivier Roy departs from the commonly held belief that religious radicalization is the first step towards political radicalization. Instead, he claims, the situation is characterized by greater complexity; he outlines that beyond the various differences distinguishing European individuals who joined ISIS, the common thread is their dissatisfaction and nihilism.11 Exploring motivations beyond ISIS’s European membership, Scott Atran highlights sacred values and the power of camaraderie as strong factors for individuals joining ISIS: Despite our relentless propaganda campaign against the ISIS as vicious, predatory and cruel – most of which might be right – here is little recognition of its genuine appeal, and even less of the joy it engenders. The mainly young people who volunteer to fight for it unto death feel a joy that comes from joining with comrades in a glorious cause, as well as a joy that comes from satiation of anger and the gratification of revenge.12

Atran also discusses the ISIS-related ‘subliminal joy’ of people in the Middle East who still believe in the re-establishment of the historical caliphate and the end of the nation state era that the ‘Great Powers invented and imposed’.13 Along these same lines, Fawaz Gerges highlights how the rhetoric of ISIS is rooted in ‘identity politics whose main articulating pole is religious’.14 He mentions that the core of ISIS’s ideology and political task is the affirmation of Sunni identity over Shi’ism and, accordingly, the redefinition of ‘real’ Islam. This, he claims, resonates very well with many of its Middle Eastern members, supporters and sympathizers. As such, scholars noted that ISIS promotes a world vision that appears to simultaneously respond to the crisis of religiously inspired identity in the Middle East, the sectarian strife, the disillusionment with the nation state system, a growing nihilism related to the apparent collapse of progressive values and tolerance and a strong sense of betrayal by stigma and socio-economic injustice. These scholarly accounts on ISIS emphasize how the organization modelled itself as a one-size-fit-all type of outlet by virtue of its rhetorical construction. Thus, ISIS, as a sociopolitical phenomenon, is complex and entails a plurality of meanings not given to simplistic structural explanations such as those propounded by the New Terrorism/Global Jihadism schools discussed earlier. This is also valid for

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its extended membership, meaning the outfits around the world that pledged allegiance to the group or that formed locally to export its modus vivendi and operandi. In this vein, this chapter highlights that the case of Malaysians either joining or pledging allegiance to or supporting ISIS is a contextually and historically framed case of jihadism. Based on ethnographic research, as well as primary and secondary literature, this chapter argues that Malaysians are attracted to ISIS based on its supposed religious righteousness, in line with the political discourses that dominate the domestic political scene.

Contemporary jihad as overlapping boundaries In making sense of the confluence between ISIS’s rhetoric of global jihad and the jihad narrative espoused by Malaysians since 2014, the notion of the ‘boundary’ is helpful. The concept of ‘boundary’ is largely credited to Fredrik Barth who in 1969 held a seminal symposium where he defined ethnicity in terms of boundaries in order to make reference to the social organization of cultural difference.15 Anthony Cohen builds on Barth’s scholarship and outlines how the concept of ‘boundary’ refers to a matter of consciousness and of experience.16 A boundary, he argues further, is inherent in people’s identity and is a predicate of their culture.17 Here, Cohen defines culture as ‘the outcome and product of interaction’ and the ‘means by which we make meaning’;18 he defines identity as the way in which a person is, or wishes to be known by others. Cohen finds the common thread of all these concepts to be the individual’s attempt to represent the person or group in terms of a reified and/or emblematized culture. As such, a boundary enables the symbolic enaction of culture and it represents the substantiation of various webs of meanings. Using Cohen’s and Barth’s work in her study on inter-culturality in Turkey, Engin Sari outlines how symbolic boundaries emerge relationally and are negotiated, reinforced or reassessed by means of communication.19 Along these lines, Sari cautions against the usage of the term ‘culture’ in singular form, instead advocating for ‘cultures’ implying a multitude of boundaries that are fluid and, by default, relational. Michele Lamont and Virag Molnar take the discussion on boundaries a step further by highlighting a distinction between symbolic and social boundaries: that is, between the conceptual distinction made to categorize objects, people, practices, time and space, and the objectified forms of social differences manifested in unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources and social opportunities.20 Symbolic and social boundaries are equally real and manifest at an intersubjective level and as groupings of individuals. Lamont and Molnar claim that, fundamentally, boundaries emerge based on relational processes which take place across a wide range of social phenomena. To sum up, this chapter refers to boundaries as symbolic expressions of culture that emerge due to relational processes and that are contextually and historically contingent. As such, it understands jihad as a symbolic boundary based on the Islamic corollary of meanings which is defined relationally and contingently. In light of this, we argue that, while ISIS

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and its Malaysian supporters of ISIS share a similar substantiation of the symbolic boundary of jihad – a holy war waged against infidels and apostates for the realization of the caliphate, the most righteous Islamic governance – its meaning is rooted in different relational and contextual configurations. Therefore, the relationship between ISIS-central and Malaysian ISIS recruits is one of overlap, and not export. The symbolic boundary defining the meaning of jihad in Malaysia has deep roots into the country’s sociopolitical history, with the most immediate one tracing to the Islamization race between PAS and UMNO, the institutionalization of the ulama in the bureaucracy and the growing Islamic exclusivity within the civil sphere.21

ISIS and jihad in Malaysia According to the Pew Research Centre, in 2015 11 per cent of Malaysia’s Muslim population has a favourable opinion of ISIS.22 From one perspective, this can be considered a mere fraction of Malaysia’s overall population. Yet from another, the percentage is the second highest in the world after Nigeria in terms of support for ISIS. For a country which claims adherence to the principles of democracy and secularism, the number has been interpreted as a signal of increased extremism and religious intolerance at the grassroots level.23 Since the eruption of the Syrian civil war in 2011 approximately 100 to 150 Malaysian citizens have travelled to Syria, either alone or as families, and over 300 individuals have been arrested for allegedly sympathizing with ISIS, by which is meant that they have consumed ISIS propaganda or expressed support for the group.24 Initially, most of the Malaysians who travelled to Syria did so for the purpose of providing humanitarian relief and assistance to the Syrian people. As the conflict intensified from late 2012 onwards, many chose to join the fight, though gravitating towards the Al Qaeda-linked outfits, such as Ajnad Al Sham and Jabhat Al Nusra.25 It was only with the establishment of the so-called caliphate in June 2014 that Malaysians decided to join ISIS, primarily due to the perception that in establishing the caliphate ISIS was furthering the interests of Islam. According to the Soufan Group, most Malaysian families were persuaded to join ISIS on the justification of performing the hijrah (migration). Moreover, Malaysian ISIS recruits, unlike their Indonesian counterparts, ‘had no prior association with extremist groups, appeared to be motivated by a desire to be good Muslims and had a romanticized notion of an Islamic Caliphate’, and ‘they believed that the ISIS caliphate offered them a life of piety that would increase their chances of rewards in the afterlife’.26 According to a USAID report on the motivations of ISIS’ Southeast Asian fighters, the Malaysian recruits listed three important reasons: jihad, living in the Caliphate and ISIS’ legitimate authority for leading the Muslim world.27 While providing a more comprehensive list of motives for Malaysians joining ISIS, Maszlee Malik outlines similar motivational patterns. He claims that the vast majority of individuals felt compelled to travel to Syria to protect their Muslim brethren, were inspired by prophetic narratives, sought salvation by performing the hijrah and, sorely disappointed by the failures of the Malaysian government, they sought to live in an authentic Islamic state.28 While

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listed as separate reasons, all these motivations are integral parts of the scriptural corollary of a righteous Muslim existence. ISIS recruits in Malaysia hail from a variety of backgrounds and were mostly socialized online. This was a departure from previous generations of Malaysian jihadi militants, which include groups such as Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia/ Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), whose members had a marked political interest in joining jihad, received intensive religious training and fought in Afghanistan in well-organized contingents. Malaysian authorities reported that the occupational background of ISIS recruits in Malaysia ranged from university lecturers, businessmen, small traders, civil servants and military personnel to school teachers and shop assistants, and even an official from a state religious department.29 In September 2014, Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) officially stated that many Malaysian youths, who were ‘well educated (came) from homes which many would consider normal, having tertiary education’, expressed great interest in the activities of ISIS.30 For example, in late 2016, Al-Madinah International University, a small university in the state of Selangor, came under severe scrutiny as two of its students were arrested for pledging allegiance to ISIS and planning an attack on an international school in Kuala Lumpur.31 Most of the socialization with ISIS discourse in Malaysia occurs via social media; this is, perhaps, one of the most important reasons accounting for the great diversity among the group’s supporters and sympathizers in the country. The USAID report lists Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and WhatsApp, along with several websites and private online forums, as the main vehicles of socialization. These channels served as the main platform not only for disseminating information but also for the establishment of small groups and cells; these would be used for raising travel funds for Syria and Iraq or providing information on training and mobilization opportunities.32 Perhaps the single most notorious online cell is Gagak Hitam (Black Crow), formed on Telegram, whose members, allegedly in touch with a prominent Malaysian jihadi in Syria, Muhammad Wanndy, carried out the Movida nightclub attack.33 In an interview carried out in Kuala Lumpur in November 2016, an ISIS supporter who chose to remain anonymous, confessed he would travel to Syria to join the jihad, if not for his toddler. He mentioned the sacredness of the caliphate as a strong motivating factor, but, most importantly, he claimed that Malaysia was not Islamic enough. According to him, the leadership of UMNO failed to establish an authentic Islamic governance. The jihad in Syria, he argued, is justified for establishing precisely what UMNO failed to. He further maintained that he would be satisfied if PAS, the dominant opposition Islamist party, pledged allegiance to ISIS and ruled Malaysia as a wilayat (province).34 This view on the inadequacy of UMNO’s religious credentials notwithstanding, the point should be stressed that the ruling regime in Malaysia has in fact permitted a climate of greater religious intolerance to gradually take shape over the years, and it is in that context that extremist ideas and outlooks have become mainstreamed in Malaysia in forms that resonate discomfortingly with elements of the ISIS discourse.

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Contextualizing jihad in the Malaysian periphery: The UMNO-PAS Islamization race Understanding the social and political context in Malaysia is crucial to appreciating the evolution of an enabling environment for extremist ideas to proliferate. The domestic context of Islamization in Malaysia has long been informed by the political competition between PAS and UMNO. Because of the conflation of ethnic identity with religious identity in Malaysia, Sunni Islam has become an indivisible key element of Malay ethnic identity. In Malaysia, this conflation takes on significance by dint of the prevailing narrative of Malay lordship – Ketuanan Melayu – that forms the bedrock of how ‘Malaysian’ society is organized. In his discussion on the link between religion and violence, Rogers Brubaker claims that religion is a very effective political tool based on its capacity to provide an understanding of right order. As a ‘substantive regulation of public life’, religious claims to identity provide the individual with a strong normative basis; this materializes in clearly distinguishable, strong symbolic and structural boundaries of identity.35 In the case of Malaysia, the reinforcement of ethnic claims to identity with religious referents proved an effective political tool for the strong grounding of the Malay identity. Yet, the employment of religious repertoires fundamentally shifted the symbolic boundaries of Malay-Muslim identity, wherein ‘Muslim-ness’ begins to outweigh ‘Malayness’ as the key reference point. This phenomenon has found clear expression in politics, not least in the political rhetoric of the main Malay-Muslim political parties on both sides of the political spectrum, UMNO and PAS, who both count the Muslim electorate as their base. Joseph Liow notes that with the increased salience of Islam to Malay identity and politics in the 1980s, the culture of affirmative action helped to create a potentially combustible situation in which religion easily replaced ethnicity as the catalyst for the further polarization of Malaysian society and marginalization of Malaysian minority faiths. The intensification of Islamist discourse and praxis in Malaysia and the changing boundaries of its political terrain wrought by the amplification of the Islamic state debate between UMNO and PAS indicated a major shift in the traditional role of Islam in Malaysian politics.36 In addition to this, the point should also be stressed that as their patterns of association and categorization drew increasingly on Islamic symbols and structures, the symbolic boundaries of Malay-Muslims would eventually be enacted in and out of nationalist discursive confines. In response to the literature which presents the notion of an Islamic state as a post-colonial alternative to the nation state, Carla Jones and Ruth Mas argue that religion and nationalism do not exist in a dichotomized tension; rather, they historicize the nation state as a political category, and emphasize that this can be naturalized and constituted through communities that appear to supersede it.37 And, similarly, Jones and Mas note that contemporary conceptualizations of Islamic identity can also be constituted by forms, such as the nation state, which appear to limit their spectrum. Along these lines, Roger Friedland argues that religious nationalism combines discourses on nation and religion to form ‘an institutionally specific substance of the social’, one that is posited on the

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communal solidarities of faith.38 As such, the mutual constitution between Islam and Malay-ness in the context of Malaysia is disproportionate, as making Islamic claims to Malay identity also situates the boundary of Islamic solidarity transnationally. These boundaries emerged primarily at a relational level, across a wide range of institutional and historical phenomena.39 For example, in explaining the change in the discourse of PAS, Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman explained that the younger ulama in the party were strongly influenced by the political ideas and approach of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami. They were also inspired by the Iranian Revolution which normalized a sense of urgency regarding calls for the establishment of an Islamic state and the implementation of shari’a in Malaysia.40 Under the leadership of Yusuf Rawa, who assumed the presidency of the party in 1983, PAS adopted the Iranian styled ulama leadership structure (Kepimpinan Ulama) and escalated the call for the promulgation of an Islamic state, as well as the implementation of Islamic criminal law. For PAS, this new form of government entailed that the ‘ultimate sanctity, authority and moral legitimacy of the state rested on its adherence to Islamic laws and norms’.41 In response to PAS’s new Islamist agenda, UMNO carried out an Islamization programme of its own that impacted the political, economic and social spheres of the Malaysian state. During this time, the administration of Mahathir Mohamad (prime minister from 1981–2003) carried out a large-scale expansion of the religious bureaucracy which saw all Islamic initiatives centralized under Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM, also known as the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia).42 In the educational sphere, Islamic studies was made compulsory for students at all educational levels and the Malaysian government supported the establishment of an international Islamic university.43 In the economic sphere, Islamic banks and financial institutions were strongly supported by the government.44 Perhaps one of the most significant steps undertaken by the Mahathir administration was the expansion in the role of the Islamic shari’a courts which were now empowered to adjudicate cases of personal law pertaining to Muslims. The political competition between UMNO and PAS was manifested in their different understanding of Islamic concepts, such as what constitutes an Islamic state and shari’a – with a special emphasis on hudud punishments.45 For PAS, the cornerstone of its Islamic state is the implementation of Islamic law in all aspects of societal life, where Islamic law is understood to be ‘a body of moral and ethical code that is increasingly necessary to confront the social ills that plague Malaysia today’.46 Upon taking over the state governments of Kelantan in 1990 and Terengganu in 1999, PAS enacted hudud ordinances at the state level but numerous attempts by the party to actually implement these laws, which required approval of the federal parliament, were frustrated by UMNO. For UMNO, Malaysia was already an Islamic state. This was echoed in a statement made by Mahathir in 2001 where he noted that the UMNO-led government in Malaysia was an Islamic state.47 This intensified the debate on the Islamic state, where PAS amplified its call for the implementation of hudud as part of the actualization of UMNO’s claim. While the Mahathir administration

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and subsequent governments did institutionalize shari’a, ‘albeit incompletely and surrounded by weakness’, it did little to comprehensively address the matter on hudud. Rather, UMNO’s approach to hudud, which saw it adopt an ambiguous position that neither rejected nor proactively championed its implementation, was part of its political strategy and related to its desire for electoral victory.48 Having said that, the former prime minister Najib Razak seemed to have shifted UMNO’s position on hudud by postulating that hudud is a matter of extreme importance, and in so doing appears to have presided over a convergence of UMNO-PAS interests on the issue. His statement coincided with PAS’ successful tabling of its Hudud Bill in parliament, doubtlessly in an effort to gain electoral support ahead of the 2018 General Election.49 Indeed, a curious outcome of the UMNO-PAS Islamization race appears to be a paradoxical shift from contestation to cooperation predicated on mutual interests in politicizing Islam in Malaysia to the extent of naturalizing politics into a religious obligation.50 Importantly, this political brinkmanship and jockeying has not only mainstreamed and regularized Islamist discourse in terms of Islamic state, hudud and shari’a, it has also resulted in the marginalization and exclusion of alternative narratives, be they non-Muslim or indeed even Muslim views opposed to the Islamist agenda, the consequences of which are elaborated in the paragraphs that follow.

Expansion of the role of the ulama Another significant outcome of the Islamization race between PAS and UMNO has been the strengthening of the role, power and influence of the ulama within Malaysian society. The policies enacted by Mahathir to ‘out-Islamize’ PAS have led to the creation and expansion of a massive religious bureaucracy vested with legislative and judicial authority throughout the country that has helped entrench the prerogative authority of the ulama as the official interpreters of Islamic doctrine, teachings and legal principles.51 The expansion of the religious bureaucracy has continued with the budget allocation to JAKIM amounting to more than RM1 billion in 2017. The strengthened position of the ulama has created a sense of dependency on the part of the Malaysian government on the ulama to lend religious justifications to its policies. Previously, the fact that a majority of the ulama, including government religious officials, had sympathies for PAS was a huge political challenge for UMNO.52 As the ulama were singled out as arbiters of righteous Islamic policies, the predilection of the ulama for PAS suggested UMNO was not Islamic enough, thus potentially affecting its electoral support. It was for this reason that UMNO has through the years sought to bolster its ranks with ulama. In 2014, as part of UMNO’s attempt to further augment its religious legitimacy in the eyes of the Malaysian Muslim public, UMNO co-opted a group of young Salafi ulama who formed the party’s bulwark against the Malaysian opposition. Through this, the Salafis, previously marginalized by the traditionalist Islamist actors in Malaysia, gained ‘a national platform to promote their ideology and indirectly

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push the government for a stricter implementation of Islamic laws’.53 This marriage of convenience between UMNO and the Salafi ulama subtly institutionalized the latter’s intolerance of democracy, rejection of secularism and support for an exclusivist conceptualization of the Muslim community in Malaysia, as they could now gain access into different government institutions. For example, the inclusion of the Salafi ulama in the Malaysian government’s counterterrorism institution coincided with the reinstatement of the use of anti-democratic counter-terrorist practices under the Internal Security Act, such as prolonged detention without trial, that were long decried by human rights groups around the world. This move risks institutionalizing the misrepresentation of religious authority as ultimate, situating it beyond the spectrum of accountability even in cases of human rights violations.

Growing public piety among Malaysia Muslims Since the 1970s, Malaysian society has witnessed an increase in the public visibility of various Islamic symbols and practices. Once only an occasional sight, the Islamic veil or tudung is now ubiquitous. Malaysian Muslims are today also more disciplined in their honouring of Ramadan and conducting of the five daily prayers, and haj pilgrimages have become more popular than ever.54 The visible Islamization of the public sphere is further evident in the ‘public presence of Islamic symbols, ideas, and texts in the film, television, popular print media, music, and the Internet’.55 Increasingly, public demonstrations of religious piety have also found expression in popular culture, where ‘the mediated spaces of Islam in popular culture are some of the most creative and potentially powerful arenas for education and knowledge about Islam’.56 The point to stress here is that cultural products, both catered for local and international consumption, bear strong Islamic symbolisms. Television has also proven an important vehicle of socialization, wherein ‘Muslim values are produced within the dynamic and collaborative space of musical and televisual meditations’.57 This manner of mainstreaming of Islamic piety contributes significantly to re-drawing the religiosity boundaries of Malaysians by virtue of two aspects: the decentralization, fragmentation and pluralization of religious authority and the Salafi-informed piety norms. Nabil Echchaibi highlights that acts of publicness and the widening of the religious media from mosques to the virtual world empowers a larger audience to act both as receiver and as producer of religious meaning. This signals the fragmentation and pluralization of religious authority, as the individual becomes more autonomous in navigating existing structures. Moreover, this allows individuals frustrated with perceived lack of political agency to actively participate in the ‘moral and civic reconstruction of their communities and, by extension, their Muslim umma’.58 In the context of our discussion on the overlapping religiosity boundaries between ISIS and Malaysian recruits, this phenomenon is paramount for understanding the recruitment patterns and high levels of support for ISIS in Malaysia. Another important aspect of this phenomenon is the mainstreaming

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and normalization of Salafism as a benchmark for piety and religious morality, the consequence of which is not only growing religious piety among the MalayMuslim population but more so a piety that is predicated on an increasingly exclusivist attitude towards non-Muslims or even Muslims who do not share these norms. In other words, the concept of boundaries, in this climate of Salafi-inspired religious piety, in Malay-Muslim identity is increasingly finding expression by way of emphasis on difference. The virtual propagation of Salafism nowadays enabled the emergence of a unique expression of transnational Islamic solidarity. Peter Mandaville points out that the success of the transnational grassroots spread of Salafi tenets lies in the capacity to represent them as ‘outside the “base” worldly concerns of nation, politics and culture’, denying political affiliation.59 Yet, the spread of Salafism as a de facto piety language entails the drawing of rigid and categorical distinctions between believers and non-believers, often associated with revolutionary and even militant discourse. In this sense, Salafi norms become constitutive of what Brubaker termed as (religious) ‘hypercommitted selves’, implying the ‘selves constituted by radical and uncompromising forms of commitment to a political, moral, or religious cause’.60 It is precisely the decentralized mainstreaming of exclusivism and sectarian mindset that re-draws boundaries of Islamic piety to create an ecosystem where ISIS-type narratives and ideologies resonate. Growing piety in Malaysia is also facilitated by the mushrooming of civil society actors that dedicate their activities to this purpose. Perhaps the most relevant examples are the dakwah (Islamic proselytization) movements. Part and parcel of the predominant political agenda of conflating Malay-ness with Islam for electoral considerations, these groups advocate increasing Islamic conservatism of the Malaysian society.61 According to Liow, although these actors are marked by great diversity, they uphold similar principles: bringing about change in relation to the public engagement with Islam, expanding the space for public discussion of laws and policies designed in the name of religion and extending their influence deep into the public sphere ‘by interpreting and reinterpreting categories of Islam to legitimize and motivate their activism and intervention’.62 Mohamed Osman also notes that these groups lobby the ruling parties. For example, ABIM and JIM (Jamaah Islah Malaysia) have accused the government of being corrupt and un-Islamic.63 Others act as checks on UMNO and PAS when they appeared to violate Islamic or Malay hegemony,64 and yet others lobbied vehemently on issues such as apostasy and Islamic state, thus contributing to the re-drawing of boundaries of Islamist discourses.65 A telling example of the lobbying undertaken by these groups in the context of re-drawing the boundaries in favour of more extreme interpretations of jihad, calling for attention to focus on the other rather than the self as is the case in traditional orthodox interpretations of the priorities of jihad, is the depiction of global Christian forces as anti-Muslim. In 2013, a Malay court overturned on appeal a 2009 High Court decision to allow Catholics to use the word Allah in the Bible.66 While this had been a historical practice in Malaysia, the 2013 appeal is a good quantifier of the prevalent biases against non-Muslims, particularly Christians, as

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well as for the often-held assumption that Islam is under siege. This 2013 appeal was due to the concerted effort carried out by PEMBELA (Organization of Defence of Islam) and PERKASA (the Organization for Empowered Indigenous Peoples of Malaysia) who ‘declared their readiness to launch a crusade against subversive Christian influence’.67 This view has also led to a rise in conspiracy theories that the opposition DAP (Democratic Action Party) is in fact serving as the vehicle through which Christian forces intend to win control of Malaysia, after which they would convert the Muslim population en masse.68 These attitudes also informed the lobbying of JAKIM and IKIM vis-à-vis the denunciation of interfaith initiatives, such as the creation of an Interfaith Commission for Malaysia (ICM).69 Very much in line with the argument made in this chapter, James Chin argued that, while it is obvious that JAKIM, BTN, and similar bodies do not officially support ISIS’s caliphate project or its murderous ideology, their promotion of a uniquely narrow Malay-Islamic world view indirectly supports and complements the ISIS brand of intolerance.70

Mainstreaming and institutionalizing jihad in the Malaysian public discourse Along with the Islamization race in Malaysia and the decentralization of religious authority, the concept of ‘jihad’ has been evoked regularly as part of the mainstreaming of Islamist discourse that has taken place as previously argued. Mostly, this has been used to mobilize Malay-Muslims against the supposed threat of foreign neo-colonial forces and non-Muslim Malaysians. Within PAS, the conception of jihad has always been understood in the militaristic sense. Hadi Awang had articulated this view in a speech made in 1981 (famously referred to as the Amanat Haji Hadi) in which he said: ‘Our struggle is a jihad. Our speech is a jihad. Our donation is a jihad. We depend only on God in facing the enemies of Islam. For if we die while fighting them, we die as syahid.’71 This manner of conceptualizing jihad arguably inspired Ibrahim Libya, a former leader of PAS who has come to represent the manifestation of jihadi resistance against the ruling regime.72 In April 1985, Ibrahim Libya allegedly formed Gerakan Revolusi Islam (GRI). GRI sought to topple the government through jihad, framing this jihad as a road to martyrdom. As a result of Ibrahim’s rhetoric, the government-linked Islamic Centre declared his teachings deviant. Later, the Malaysian police sought to arrest him for an alleged plot to create intrareligious discord. In the outbreak of violence that ensued, Ibrahim Libya and thirteen of his supporters were killed. PAS declared the dead as syahid (martyrs) who, according to mainstream Islamic belief, will enter straight into heaven. The Mahathir administration labelled them militants, claiming that the government had defended Islamic sanctity, public peace and national security. PAS also used the involvement of its members and supporters in religiously justified conflicts outside the country, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, to lend credence to its image as a party that was committed to the struggle of Islam and jihad against

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its enemies.73 Echoing the narrative of transnational terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, Mohd Khairuddin at-Takiri, a member of the PAS Shura Council, explained that jihad requires the sacrifice of the soul, body, feelings, time and money: ‘The whole life is to be sacrificed for Islam and this sacrifice is not only necessary but will be rewarded by Allah.’74 Meanwhile, UMNO has ventured to publicize the party’s economic and cultural activities associated with jihad on its website. UMNO information chief Annuar Musa called for a ‘jihad’ to counter ‘hate politics … to fight against slander, hate, and divisive politics’.75 During a public rally to pledge support for Rohingya Muslims in 2016, UMNO Supreme Council member Ismail Sabri Yaakob referred to the gathering as a PAS-UMNO jihad ‘for the sake of Muslims’ which can be used as a platform for further Islamic cooperation.76 Additionally, UMNO delegate Syamsul Amri Ismail called for ‘jihad’ against ignorance by continuing educational programmes and scholarships, as well as against diseases and other ailments.77 More recently, Shahidan Kassim, a member of the UMNO Central Committee, claimed that it is a jihad for UMNO members to defend a government that is struggling for the interests of (the Malay-Muslim) religion, race and the nation.78 Allusions to jihad are evident not only in the mainstream narratives of government or political parties. Muslim organizations engaged in the civil society space have also contributed to the discourse on jihad. For instance, Ustaz Mohd Firdaus Salleh Hudin, a member of the ISMA Ulama Council, noted that jihad in fighting against non-Muslims and infidels must begin with hatred for them in the heart. Subsequently, the enemies must be chastised with their speech. Muslims must then sacrifice their financial resources and then their lives.79 The module on Islamic and Asian civilizations (Tamadun Islam dan tamadun Asia, TITAS), taught in all public universities and compulsory for all students, discusses and elaborates the concept of jihad. The module outlines that Muslims are obliged to wage military jihad against infidels who commit blasphemy against God and the Prophet. Also, it calls for one of the pillars of Islam to be abrogated and it clearly mentions that it is compulsory for Islamic laws to be imposed on Muslims.80 More than the literal meaning conveyed by these interpretations, it is the exclusivist character of Islamic truth claims that is perpetuated. Peter Jonkers emphasizes that it is not a particular religious tenet that underscores a militant outlook, but rather the narratives of eschatological antagonism, the exclusivist character of their truth claims and the portrayal of internal and external dissenters as existential threats to one’s religious identity.81 The TITAS’s narrative on jihad underscores that the concept of militaristic jihad is institutionalized and mainstreamed within Malaysian society. As such, the notion of militant jihad in Malaysia has been mainstreamed and used in a variety of contexts, bearing a plurality of meanings. In light of the earlier discussion on the decentralization of religious authority and the increasing autonomy of the individual in the moral constitution of the community, the meaning of jihad as militant appears as a fluctuating, yet ubiquitous boundary. In this sense, we claim that what appears as ISIS’ global export of jihad into Malaysia is, rather, a manifestation of local repertoires.

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Conclusion This chapter focused on a critical analysis of the extent to which ISIS narratives resonate with elements of ongoing discourses on religion and identity in Malaysia, drawing attention to the need to contextualize and historicize its growing support within segments of Malaysia’s Muslim population. To that end, a major point of contention has been the poverty of the New Terrorism and Global Jihad frameworks to provide analytical traction and the need to consider local contexts that give rise to localized motivations with clear historical trajectories. The domestic context of Islamization in Malaysia, informed by the political competition between PAS and UMNO, led to the conflation of ethnic identity with religious identity. Through this, Sunni Islam has become an indivisible element of the Malay ethnic identity. Moreover, the long-standing contestation between PAS and UMNO politicized Islam in Malaysia to the extent of naturalizing politics into a religious obligation. This trend continued with the strengthening of the role, power and influence of the ulama within Malaysian society, in particular the Salafi ulama. Infamous for their virulently exclusivist and sectarian rhetoric, Salafi scholars have become important benchmarks for the estimation of Islamic righteousness in the country. The grassroots Islamization in Malaysia manifests itself in the increase in the public visibility of various Islamic symbols and practices. The mainstreaming of Islamic piety contributes significantly to the re-drawing of the religious boundaries of Malaysians by virtue of two aspects: the decentralization, fragmentation and pluralization of religious authority and the Salafi-informed piety norms. As the individual becomes more autonomous in the interpretation of Islamic narratives, this can also have negative repercussions. The spread of Salafism as a de facto piety language entails the drawing of rigid and categorical distinctions between believers and non-believers, often associated with revolutionary and even militant discourse. Finally, we have outlined how the discourse on jihad has been mainstreamed in Malaysia, usually employed as a floating qualifier to fit strategic concerns. In light of the earlier discussion on the decentralization of religious authority and the increasing autonomy of the individual in the moral constitution of the community, the meaning of jihad appears as a fluctuating, yet ubiquitous boundary. This way, it appears obvious that the narrative employed by ISIS gained popularity in Malaysia based on the growing familiarity of Malaysians with exclusivist and sectarian attitudes towards the interpretation and implementation of Islamic notions.

Notes 1 Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror (New York: William Collins, 2015). 2 The Soufan Group, ‘Foreign fighters: An updated assessment of the flow of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq’, The Soufan Group, 2 December 2015. Available at: http:// soufangroup.com/wp- conte​nt/up​loads​/2015​/12/T​SG_Fo​reign​Fight​ersUp​date3​.pdf.​ 3 Fawaz Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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4 Michael David Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practices (Oxford and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). 5 Karin M. Fierke, Political Self-sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 6 Irm Haleem, The Essence of Islamist Extremism – Recognition through Violence, Freedom through Death (New York: Routledge, 2012). 7 Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘The war between ISIS and al-Qaeda for supremacy of the global jihadist movement’, Research Notes, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington DC, 2014. Available at https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onins​titut​e.org​/uplo​ads/D​ ocume​nts/p​ubs/R​esear​chNot​e_20_​Zelin​.pdf.​ 8 Charles Lister, The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency (New York: Hurst & Co., 2016). 9 Graeme Wood, ‘What ISIS really wants’, Atlantic, March 2015. Available at https​://ww​ w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/ma​gazin​e/arc​hive/​2015/​03/wh​at-is​is-re​ally-​wants​/3849​80/. 10 Dexter Filkins, ‘What do they want? Graeme Wood speaks with supporters of ISIS’, The New York Times, 19 January 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/0​ 1/19/​books​/revi​ew/wa​y-of-​the-s​trang​ers-i​sis-g​raeme​-wood​.html​. 11 Olivier Roy, ‘Who are the new jihadis?’, The Guardian, 13 April 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/ne​ws/20​17/ap​r/13/​who-a​re-th​e-new​-jiha​dis. 12 Scott Atran, ‘Why ISIS has the potential to be a world-altering revolution’, Aeon, 15 December 2015. Available at https​://ae​on.co​/essa​ys/wh​y-isi​s-has​-the-​poten​tial-​to-be​ -a-wo​rld-a​lteri​ng-re​volut​ion. 13 Ibid. 14 Fawaz Gerges, ‘The world according to ISIS’, Foreign Policy Journal, 18 March 2016. Available at www.foreignpolicyjournal.com /2016​/03/1​8/the​-worl​d-acc​ordin​g-to-​isis/​. 15 Fredrik Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (London: Little Brown & Company, 1969). 16 Anthony Cohen, ‘Culture identity and the concept of boundary’, Revista de antropologia Social, 3 (1994): 49–62. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., p. 50. 19 Engin Sari, ‘The construction of cultural boundaries and identities in intercultural communities: The case of Mardin as a Multicultural City’, Ankyra: Ankara Universitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitusu Dergisi, 1, no. 2 (2010): 37–62. 20 Michele Lamont and Virag Molnar, ‘The study of boundaries in the social sciences’, Annual Review of Sociology, 28 (2002): 167–95 (p. 168). 21 Kirsten E. Schulze and Joseph Chinyong Liow, ‘Making jihadis, waging jihad: Transnational and local dimensions of the ISIS phenomenon in Indonesia and Malaysia’, Asian Security, 5 February 2018. Available at https​://ww​w.tan​dfonl​ine.c​om/ do​i/ful​l/10.​1080/​14799​855.2​018.1​42471​0. 22 Jacob Poushter, ‘In nations with significant Muslim populations, much disdain for ISIS’, Pew Research Center, 17 November 2015. Available at https://www.pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2015/11/17/in-nations-with-significant-muslim-populations-muchdisdain-for-isis/​. 23 Abdul Hamid Ahmad Fauzi, ‘ISIS in Southeast Asia: Internalized Wahhabism is a major factor’, in Jihad Recruitment and Return: Asian Threat and Response (Singapore: Middle East Institute, 2016). Available at https​://ww​w.mei​.edu/​publi​catio​ns/is​is-so​ uthea​st-as​ia-in​terna​lized​-wahh​abism​-majo​r-fac​tor.

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24 Cristina Maza, ‘Malaysia’s reckoning with the Islamic State’, The Diplomat, 3 September 2017. Available at https​://th​edipl​omat.​com/2​017/0​8/mal​aysia​s-rec​konin​ g-wit​h-the​-isla​mic-s​tate/​. 25 Maszlee Malik, ‘ISIS in Malaysia: A case study’, Discussion Paper presented at Regional Outlook Forum 2016 at Yusof Ishak Institute Singapore (Singapore, 2016), p. 2 Available at https​://ww​w.res​earch​gate.​net/publication/301609128_ISIS_in_Malaysia_a_Case_Study​. 26 The Soufan Group, ‘Foreign fighters’, p. 19. 27 Greg Fealy and John Funston, ‘Indonesian and Malaysian support for the Islamic State’, United States Agency for International Development, Report contracted under Democracy and Governance and Peace and Security in the Asia and the Middle East (Washington DC, 2016), p 14. 28 Malik, ‘ISIS in Malaysia: A case study’, pp. 3–4. 29 Nadirah H. Rodzi, ‘Retired teacher linked to ISIS nabbed in Kelantan’, The Straits Times, 30 August 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.str​aitst​imes.​com/a​sia/r​etire​d-tea​cher-​ linke​d-to-​isis-​nabbe​d-in-​kelan​tan. 30 ‘Many Muslim youths keen on jihad with ISIS, says Abim’, Malaysia Today, 17 September 2014. Available at https​://ww​w.mal​aysia​-toda​y.net​/2014​/09/1​7/man​y-mus​ lim-y​ouths​-keen​-on-j​ihad-​with-​isis-​says-​abim/​. 31 ‘University of Selangor under scrutiny for ISIS recruits’, The Straits Times, 23 December 2016. Available at http:​//www​.stra​itsti​mes.c​om/as​ia/se​-asia​/univ​ersit​y-in-​ selan​gor-u​nder-​scrut​iny-f​or-is​is-re​cruit​s. 32 Fealy and Funston, ‘Indonesian and Malaysian support for the Islamic State’. 33 On 28 June 2016, Gagak Hitam carried out a grenade attack on a nightclub, Movida, located in Puchong, Selangor, which resulted in wounding eight but no casualties were reported. 34 Interview with ISIS supporter in Malaysia, 26 November 2016. 35 Rogers Brubaker, ‘Religious dimensions of political conflict and violence’, Sociological Theory, 33, no. 1 (2015): 1–19. 36 Joseph Chinyong Liow, Piety and Politics: Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 105. 37 Carla Jones and Ruth Mas, ‘Transnational conceptions of Islamic community: National and religious subjectivities’, Nations and Nationalism, 17, no. 1 (2011): 2–6. See also Joseph Chinyong Liow, Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 38 Roger Friedland, ‘Religious nationalism and the problem of collective representation’, Annual Review of Sociology, 27 (2001): 125–52. 39 Lamont and Molnar, ‘The study of boundaries in the social sciences’. 40 Mohamed Osman, ‘The Islamic conservative turn in Malaysia: Impact and future trajectories’, Contemporary Islam, 11 (2017): 1–20 (p. 7). 41 Farish A. Noor, ‘Blood, sweat and jihad: The radicalization of the political discourse of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) from 1982 onwards’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25, no. 2 (2003): 200–32. 42 Mohamed Osman, ‘The Islamic conservative turn in Malaysia’. 43 Nooraini Othman and Kairul Azmi Mohamad, ‘Educational reform and Islamic education in Malaysia’, in Habib Tiliouine and Richard J. Estes (eds), The State of Social Progress of Islamic Societies: Social, Economic, Political, and Ideological Challenges, e-book (Springer, 2016). 44 Daromier Rudnyckyj, ‘Islamic finance and the afterlives of development in Malaysia’, PoLAR, 37, no. 1 (2016): 69–88.

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45 Noor, ‘Blood, sweat and jihad’, p. 222. 46 Chinyong Liow, Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, p. 78. 47 Particia A. Martinez, ‘The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 23, no. 3 (2001): 474–503. 48 On 8 November 2013 the attorney general’s chambers had given the green light to amend the existing ‘356’, maximum penalty under the Akta Mahkamah Syariah (Bidang Kuasa Jenayah) (Pindaan) 1984, to enhance the punishment for crimes against Islam. Under existing provisions, the hukum was limited to three years imprisonment, a RM5,000 fine and/or six strokes of the cane. 49 Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman and Aida Arosoaie, ‘Re-igniting the Islamization debate in Malaysia’, Today Online, 6 June 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.tod​ayonl​ine.c​ om/co​mment​ary/r​e-ign​iting​-isla​misat​ion-d​ebate​-mala​ysia.​ 50 Friedland, ‘Religious nationalism and the problem of collective representation’, p. 126. 51 Mohamed Osman, ‘The Islamic conservative turn in Malaysia’. 52 Ibid. 53 Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, ‘Salafi Ulama in UMNO: Political convergence or expediency?’, Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, 36, no. 3 (2014): 206–31 (p. 222). 54 Mohamed Osman, ‘The Islamic conservative turn in Malaysia’. 55 Andrew Weintraub, ‘Introduction: The study of Islam and popular culture in Indonesia and Malaysia’, in Andrew N. Weintraub (ed.), Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 1–19 (p. 7). 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Nabil Echchaibi, ‘From audio tapes to video blogs: The delocalization of authority in Islam’, Nations and Nationalism, 17, no. 1 (2011): 25–44 (p. 36). 59 Peter Mandaville, ‘Transnational Muslim solidarities and everyday life’, Nations and Nationalism, 17, no. 1 (2011): 7–24 (p. 21). 60 Brubaker, ‘Religious dimensions of political conflict and violence’, p. 7. 61 Examples of conservative Islamic civil actors are Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM, the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia), JAKIM, PUM (Persatuan Ulama Malaysia), MACMA (Malaysia Chinese Muslim Association), JIM, (Pertubuhan Jamaah Islah Malaysia), IKRAM (Pertubuhan IKRAM Malaysia) and PERMIM (Federation of Indian Muslim Associations). 62 Chinyong Liow, Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, p. 188. 63 Mohamed Osman, ‘The Islamic conservative turn in Malaysia’. 64 Timothy P. Daniels, ‘Interplay of Sharia projects: Between Ketuanan Melayu, Islam, and Liberal Rights in Malaysia’, in Timothy P. Daniels (ed.), Sharia Dynamics: Islamic Law and Sociopolitical Processes (Cham: Palgrave, 2017), pp. 141–69 (p. 150). 65 Chinyong Liow, Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, p. 189. 66 Jaclyn Neo, ‘What’s in a name? Malaysia’s “Allah” controversy and the judicial intertwining of Islam with ethnic identity’, NUS Faculty of Law Working Paper Series 008 (Singapore, 2014). 67 Ahmad Abdul Hamid Fauzi, ‘Political Islam and Islamist politics in Malaysia’, Trends in Southeast Asia 2 (Singapore, 2013), p. 13. 68 Dennis Ignatius, ‘Are Christians a threat to the nation?’, Free Malaysia Today, 29 December 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.fre​emala​ysiat​oday.​com/c​atego​ry/op​inion​ /2017​/09/2​9/are​-chri​stian​s-a-t​hreat​-to-t​he-na​tion/​. 69 Daniels, ‘Interplay of Sharia projects’, p. 151.

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70 James Chin, ‘Malaysia: Clear and present danger from the Islamic State’, Brookings, 16 December 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.bro​oking​s.edu​/opin​ions/​malay​sia-c​lear-​ and-p​resen​t-dan​ger-f​rom-t​he-is​lamic​-stat​e/. 71 See http:​//wnu​rulhu​sna.b​logsp​ot.co​.id/2​013/0​2/ama​nat-t​in-ko​song-​hadi-​awang​.html​. 72 Ibrahim Libya was a Malaysian religious scholar who received his education in Islamic studies from Egypt, India and Libya. Upon his return to Malaysia, Libya worked at the Islamic Affairs department in the Prime Minister’s Office before leaving the civil service and becoming an independent preacher and joining Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). In 1978, he contested the Bayu seat in the 1978 elections amassing a sizeable level of support. 73 Noor, ‘Blood, sweat and jihad’, p. 221. 74 See post by Ust Dr Khairuddin at-Takiri on 17 March 2017. Available at https​://ww​ w.fac​ebook​.com/​drtak​iri/p​osts/​15065​21059​35791​9. 75 ‘Take up “jihad” against politics of hate, urges UMNO information chief ’, New Straits Times, 29 November 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.nst​.com.​my/ne​ws/20​16/11​/1928​ 93/ta​ke-ji​had-a​gains​t-pol​itics​-hate​-urge​s-umn​o-inf​ormat​ion-c​hief.​ 76 ‘Rohingya gathering: First Pas-Umno alliance for sake of Islam’, New Strait Times, 3 December 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.nst​.com.​my/ne​ws/20​16/12​/1941​66/ro​hingy​ a-gat​herin​g-fir​st-pa​s-umn​o-all​iance​-sake​-isla​m. 77 ‘UMNO should never give up in doing good deeds – Syamsul Debat’, Bernama, 3 December 2016. Available at http:​//fin​ance.​berna​ma.co​m/new​s.php​?id=9​62614​. 78 ‘Ahli Umno “jihad” pertahan Putrajaya, kata Shahidan’, The Malay Mail, 24 October 2017. Available at http:​//www​.them​alaym​ailon​line.​com/p​rojek​mmo/b​erita​/arti​cle/a​ hli-u​mno-j​ihad-​perta​han-p​utraj​aya-k​ata-s​hahid​an#oL​qIJ62​rAqMJ​6FQ1.​97. 79 See post by Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA) Cawangan Seremban, on 7 December 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.fac​ebook​.com/​isma.​serem​ban/p​hotos​/a.17​92485​22124​ 649.3​9258.​17857​24821​92253​/8893​83684​44445​9/?ty​pe=3&​theat​er. 80 Mashitah Sulaiman and Adibah Sulaiman, Tamadun Islam dan Tamadun Asia (Nilai: Penerbit Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, 2011), pp. 75–6. 81 Peter Jonkers, ‘Religion as a source of evil’, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 78, no. 4 (2017): 419–31 (p. 424).

UYGHUR MILITANCY AND TERRORISM THE EVOLUTION OF A ‘GLOCAL’ JIHAD? Michael Clarke

This chapter explores the development of Uyghur militancy and terrorism with a particular focus on the ideological and operational development of two militant organizations, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP). Since the events of 11 September 2001, the Chinese government has consistently claimed that episodes of political violence in its far north-western province of Xinjiang have been the result of the efforts of ETIM and TIP, abetted by international jihadi groups such as Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and more recently ISIS. These claims have been bolstered by a number of events linked to Uyghur terrorism that appear to bear the hallmarks of the current wave of ‘globalized’ jihadi terrorism. First, on 28 October 2013, a Uyghur family (husband, wife and the husband’s mother) drove their SUV vehicle into a crowd of tourists (killing two and injuring forty) while waving a ‘black Salafist flag’ before setting their vehicle alight with improvised petrol bombs.1 Second, on 1 March 2014, a group of eight masked and knife-wielding Uyghurs attacked commuters at Kunming’s major train station, killing 31 people and injuring 140 others.2 Chinese state media asserted that the attackers had been attempting to leave China, bent on joining ‘global jihad’ in Syria and Iraq but after they were prevented from crossing into Laos, the Uyghurs decided to ‘wage jihad’ in Yunnan instead.3 Such events have enabled Beijing to portray Uyghur opposition in Xinjiang as linked to wider currents of largely Salafi-inspired jihadism in the Middle East, Central Asia and beyond. This portrayal has been accepted by some governments with, for example, the United States listing ETIM and TIP as proscribed terrorist organizations.4 Here, ETIM and TIP are but a further manifestation of what some have described as a ‘globalized jihad network’.5 This chapter challenges such views through two major arguments. First, Xinjiang and the Uyghur have been defined by an inherently liminal quality that has been an enduring challenge to the centralizing tendencies of successive Chinese polities. Core elements of Uyghur identity – such as Turkic language and profession of Islam – have historically given their resistance a ‘glocal’ quality defined by both ethno-nationalist and Islamist-inspired modes of mobilization and linkages to transnational and/or trans-regional identities. Contemporary Uyghur militancy and terrorism are not grounded in the influence of Salafi jihadism in Xinjiang

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per se but in the history of Chinese attempts to control the region and its nonHan ethnic groups. Second, an examination of the evolution of the two groups identified by the Chinese government as terrorist organizations, ETIM and TIP, demonstrates the continuation of this dynamic. The evolution of ETIM and TIP has been induced by the convergence of push and pull factors: the intensification of the Chinese state’s ‘security state’ in Xinjiang and the growth of externally generated transnational jihadist narratives. ETIM and TIP have pursued a jihad that is simultaneously motivated and sustained by perceptions of declining local conditions for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and characterized by increasing solidarity with jihadi narratives that link their struggle to groups such as Al Qaeda. This glocality has been on display at tactical, geopolitical and rhetorical levels. Tactically, these groups have utilized modes of terrorism not often seen within Xinjiang such as suicide bombing. Geopolitically, the locus of their activities has shifted from a contiguous, ‘local’ one based in the ‘Af-Pak’ tribal areas from the late 1990s to Syria from 2012 onwards. Rhetorically, despite this geographic shift, TIP in particular retains a clear commitment to prioritize the battle against what they perceive to be their ‘near enemy’, the Chinese state. The evolution of ETIM and TIP tracked in this chapter provides further area-specific evidence for debates within the terrorism studies literature concerning correlations between domestic regime type, terrorism and effectiveness of counterterrorism measures. One major stream of this debate argues that authoritarian regimes, unconstrained by civil society and democratic processes, make it harder for terrorist groups to organize and operate.6 However, another stream holds that authoritarian regimes, while holding tactical advantages in the pursuit of counterterrorism via their willingness to deploy outright repression and overt instruments of political and social control, are in fact more likely to provide fertile conditions for terrorism.7 This is particularly the case in multi-ethnic states where disadvantage of particular minorities provides motive and opportunity for the mobilization of political violence. In such contexts, terrorist organizations can act as ‘instruments of mobilization that allow group grievances to be channelled into violent activity’.8

Xinjiang and the Uyghur: A history of geographic, cultural and political liminality Roland Robertson, reflecting on emerging theorizing on globalization in the early 1990s, suggested that much of it had assumed that ‘it is a process that overrides locality, including large-scale locality such as is exhibited in the various ethnic nationalisms’ which has seemingly (re)appeared with the end of the Cold War.9 He argued that ultimately such theorizing neglected the ‘extent to which what is called local is in large degree constructed on a trans- or super-local basis’ and devoted ‘little time to connect the discussion of time-and-space to the thorny issue of universalism-and-particularism’.10 Robertson thus proposed the concept of glocality/glocalization as a more apt problematique to capture what he perceived to be the syncretic interpenetration of the ‘global’ and ‘local’ inherent

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to globalization.11 Central to the concept’s utility is its assertion that ‘global’ and ‘local’ are ‘mutually constituent concepts’. This, as Victor Roudemet argues, entails not only that the ‘global’ and ‘local’ are not in opposition to each other but also that both are ‘participants in contemporary social life’ and that ‘the future is not determined solely by macro-level forces but also by groups, organizations, and individuals operating at the micro level’.12 Such an appreciation of the mutually constitutive role of ‘local’ and ‘global’ forces and identities is especially relevant in the context of examining the historical development of episodes of violent Uyghur resistance to the Chinese state. The region now known officially as the ‘Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’ (XUAR) encompasses an area of 1.664 million square kilometres, comprises one sixth of the total land area of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and shares borders with Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since Xinjiang was ‘peacefully liberated’ by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 1949, China’s approach to the region has been defined by one overarching goal: to integrate Xinjiang with China. This has been a quest not only to consolidate China’s territorial control and sovereignty over the region but also to absorb, politically, economically and culturally, the twelve non-Han ethnic groups of Xinjiang into the PRC. Despite China’s contemporary claim that Xinjiang has been ‘an inseparable part of the unitary multi-ethnic Chinese nation’ since the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 24), it often remained beyond Chinese dominion due to its geopolitical position as a ‘Eurasian crossroad’ and the ethno-cultural dominance of Turkic and Mongol peoples.13 It was only from the Qing conquest of the region in the 1750s that a China-based polity consolidated any extended period of control and administered the territory of what is now known as Xinjiang as a distinct administrative unit. Qing rule, however, was also challenged by Turkic-Muslim rebellion, most seriously that led by Yaqub Beg between 1864-1877.14 From the collapse of the Qing empire in 1911 to the establishment of the PRC in 1949, Xinjiang experienced a significant period of autonomy from China in which it was ruled by a succession of Han Chinese ‘warlords’. During this time the region experienced two significant rebellions in 1933 and 1944–49 that resulted in the establishment of an ‘East Turkestan Republic’ (ETR). Each of these sought to harness a number of transnational, and even global, intellectual and ideological currents for the ‘local’ purpose of defining a modern ‘Uyghur’ nation and defending it against the depredations of Chinese and Russian/ Soviet imperialism.15 Major influences here were the jadid modernist movement and currents of pan-Turkism associated with the Crimean Tartar intellectual, Ismail Gasprinskii (1851–1914).16 The pan-Turkist focus on the ‘Turkish’ nation stimulated an influential strain of thought that sought the unification of all of the world’s Turkic peoples not only those within the bounds of the Ottoman Empire. Given that Turkic populations existed across the Eurasian continent from the Caucasus to Mongolia, this panTurkic vision was an inherently expansionist one. However, such pan-Turkic unity was often envisaged to be primarily of a cultural, rather than political, nature.17 Nonetheless, it was an inherently anti-colonial current of thought for Turkic peoples

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residing outside of the Ottoman Empire. For the sedentary Turkic-Muslim peoples of Xinjiang – long divided by oasis, occupational or confessional identities – panTurkism’s emphasis on the cultural unity of the world’s Turkic peoples provided not only an overarching identity connecting them to the world beyond Xinjiang but also a reminder of the cultural and ethnic distance between them and their Qing and then Chinese rulers.18 Uyghur commitment to pan-Turkism, Shichor notes, was ‘an instrumental choice rather than a thorough ideological conviction’ to mobilize support for the consolidation and defence of a particularistic ethnonational identity.19 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has not surprisingly sought to embed an alternate discourse on the region’s history where Uyghur separatism is framed as going against the tide of history via its opposition to the ‘multi-ethnic’ and ‘unitary’ state that the party founded in 1949. There have been three key elements to this discourse: Xinjiang has been an ‘integral province’ of China since ‘ancient times’; Xinjiang’s population has been ‘multi-ethnic’ and religiously diverse ‘since ancient times’; and Uyghur separatism is the result of the influence of ‘religious extremism and national chauvinism’ and ‘hostile external forces’.20 Taken together this discourse challenges Uyghur assertions of indigeneity to Xinjiang, Islam’s central historical role and the independent development of Uyghur nationalism. The task of making Xinjiang an ‘inseparable’ part of China however has gone beyond such historiographic projects. The programme of state action in Xinjiang since 1949 can be characterized as one of integration, albeit integration that theoretically ensures the ‘autonomy’ of the officially recognized ethnic minorities.21 The constant instruments of Chinese power and rule between 1949 and the end of the Cold War were the establishment of military-agricultural colonies – through the instrument of the paramilitary Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (bingtuan) – encouragement of Han colonization, state control and management of religious expression and institutions and co-optation and/or repression of ethnic minority elites.22 These efforts were only partially successful and there were sporadic episodes of overt ethnic minority opposition to Chinese rule. Significantly, the most intense phases of unrest were often the result of periods of internal policy flux manipulated by the Soviet Union.23 This was particularly accurate with regard to the Maoist period (1949–76), where the policies, campaigns and crises induced by the ideological vicissitudes of national politics produced opposition from the region’s ethnic minorities that was opportunistically leveraged by the Soviet Union. At the height of the Sino-Soviet split, Moscow provided support to Uyghur diaspora figures in Soviet Central Asia to foment unrest in Xinjiang via such activities as regular Uyghur language radio broadcasts. During the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, the ‘biggest counterrevolutionary organization’ since 1949, the ‘East Turkestan People’s Party’ (ETTP), was formed under such influence in February 1968.24 Incorporation of Xinjiang into the PRC had also compelled many prominent Uyghur politicians of the 1930s and 1940s to flee, primarily to Soviet Central Asia and Turkey, creating a further ‘glocal’ imbrication to the issue of Uyghur separatism. Prominent among this group were Mehmet Emin Bughra and Isa Yusuf

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Alptekin who came to lead the Uyghur diaspora from exile in Turkey throughout the Cold War.25 Alptekin focused on a two-track approach to raise the profile of the Uyghur cause by actively cultivating links to Turkish political and military leaders with pan-Turkist leanings, most notably Suleyman Demirel and Turgut Ozal, and attempting to enlist support for Uyghur nationalist claims internationally through an appeal to anti-communist sentiment in the Muslim world and the non-aligned developing world albeit with limited success. As in the past, dynamics both within and external to Xinjiang converged to alter this picture. Externally, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the creation of five independent states in Central Asia and the growth of Islamist movements across the Muslim world presented Chinese authorities with greater fluidity and complexity of potential threats to its position in Xinjiang. Internally, the crisisladen dynamics of Chinese domestic politics of the late 1980s had reverberations in Xinjiang that challenged the party’s legitimacy. Ultimately, these dynamics not only played a major role in stimulating the enmeshment of Uyghur militancy with radical Islamist currents beyond Xinjiang but also contributed to a shifting Chinese discourse on unrest in Xinjiang by the end of the 1990s that framed Uyghur opposition, protests or violence as ‘terrorism’ rather than ‘splittism’. Xinjiang’s initial experience of the ‘reform’ dynamic of the CCP’s post-Mao era primarily concerned the party’s relative liberalization of its approach to ethnic minority religious and cultural practices.26 However, after large demonstrations in June 1988 against the publication of a book allegedly containing racial slurs against Uyghurs and Kazaks,27 and the May-June 1989 student demonstrations in sympathy with those in Tiananmen Square, the party partially reversed course.28 The tenor of this reversal can be gauged by the comments of the then deputy secretary of the regional party committee, Hamudun Niyaz, in March 1990, to a regional party work forum that ‘no one’ should be allowed to use religion to ‘disrupt the social order, obstruct administrative and judicial functions of the state, undermine the unity of the nationalities or encourage separatism or place religion above the state’.29 The independence of the Central Asian states and the ascent of various mujahideen factions in Afghanistan were also perceived as potentially generating a resurgence in either Turkic nationalism or radical Islam among the Uyghur.30 The first of these fears was, to a degree, realized with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan emerging as major sites of non-violent Uyghur diaspora political and cultural activism.31 More immediately, however, regional authorities explicitly accused Isa Yusuf Alptekin of rallying ‘social scum’ to the separatist cause from his base in Turkey, a reference that revealed that the authorities, at least implicitly, acknowledged that ‘splittism’ did not necessarily derive from religious imperatives alone but also from political and cultural ones.32 However, with the ‘Baren Incident’ of April 1990, it was a second scenario (i.e. radical Islamism) that seemed to be immediately threatening. Here, a group of Uyghur men conducted an armed uprising against Chinese police and security forces in a small township near Kashgar with the aim of establishing an ‘East Turkestan Republic’. The authorities claimed that their leader, Zahideen Yusuf, had

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not only been the leader of an ‘Islamic Party of East Turkestan’ that was bent on launching a jihad against Chinese rule but also that he had links to the mujahideen groups in Afghanistan.33 That Yusuf could have had such links should not be entirely discounted as China had provided assistance to the American-led effort to support the mujahideen’s resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.34 According to one source, this assistance may have also extended to recruitment of volunteers from among China’s Muslim populations, including Uyghurs.35 If this indeed was the case, Baren could be seen as an early episode of the ‘blowback’ of the Afghan jihad for its various external sponsors. Yet it is also clear that Baren was also sparked by clear local grievances stemming from the CCP’s renewed campaign against ‘illegal religious activities’ such as private ‘Islamic schools’ and unapproved mosque construction that had begun in earnest in 1989.36 Throughout the remainder of the 1990s Xinjiang experienced sporadic episodes of violence that authorities continued to blame on the influence of ‘pan-Turkist splittists’ (i.e. separatists) with links to Turkey and on the infiltration of Islamist influences from Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.37 Major incidents included two bus bombings in Urumqi in February 1992, a riot over the detention of two imams in Khotan in July 1995, large-scale protests in Kulja (Yining) sparked by the detention of two Uyghur religious students and three bus bombings in Urumqi on 27 February 1997 coinciding with the funeral of Deng Xiaoping.38 Such events, Justin Hastings notes, present a mixed picture of ‘episodic unrest and insurgent activity’ that included ‘riots and protest demonstrations, with or without visible leaders … often, but not always, localized’.39 In response to this upswing in unrest, the CCP instituted in 1996 annual ‘Strike Hard’ (yan da) campaigns that, while elsewhere in China focused on crackdowns on criminal activities such as drug dealing/smuggling, prostitution and gambling, in Xinjiang explicitly targeted religious observance. Another characteristic of the Strike Hard campaigns was that they tended to result in accelerated trials and punishment of offenders. The Strike Hard campaigns between 1997 and 1999, for example, resulted in the execution of approximately 210 Uyghurs and detention of numerous others in ‘re-education through labour’ camps after accelerated and non-transparent trials.40 As a contemporary editorial in Xinjiang Ribao made clear, even religious activities that the CCP did not define as explicitly ‘illegal’ were now not only deemed to be the handmaiden of ‘ethnic separatist forces’ but also constituted ‘a life-and-death class struggle’ in which there could be ‘no compromise or concession whatsoever’.41 The cause of such strident rhetoric was the party’s perception that ‘religious forces’ had subverted both its power and institutions in Xinjiang. A regional party work forum at the time, for example, asserted that ‘religious forces’ had ‘openly violated’ state regulations and ‘hoodwinked’ some of the ethnic minorities ‘into engaging in splittist and sabotage activities’.42 This focus on religion however as a source of opposition arguably strengthened Uyghur identification of Islamic practice as an intrinsic marker of Uyghur identity and ‘separateness’ from China.43 Yet it is important to note that anti-religious campaigns were not the only source of Uyghur grievance.44 Rather, such campaigns were arguably one

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manifestation of the state’s intensification of its centralizing and integrationist strategy of governance in Xinjiang. Of particular importance here in reinforcing Islam as a marker of Uyghur identity was the state’s indirect encouragement of Han migration to, and settlement of, Xinjiang. Indeed, ethnic minority unrest increased in the 1990s as the Han population rose from 5.7 million in 1990 to 6.6 million in 1997.45 This increase in Han Chinese settlement was primarily felt in urban contexts and it is perhaps not incoincidental that the major large-scale protests of the 1990s occurred in primarily urban settings. In such settings, as Joanne Smith argues, the political, economic and cultural discrepancies between Uyghur and Han became more visible ‘making religio-cultural differences harder to manage, and creating more instances of (intentional or unintentional) ethnic boundary crossing’.46 In this manner, the state’s strategy to integrate Xinjiang played a major role in neutralizing long-standing Uyghur sub-regional identities (primarily tied to locality) by presenting an encompassing ‘religio-cultural and socio-economic threat: Xinjiang’s Han Chinese immigrant population’.47 Thus, the mid-to-late 1990s witnessed an increasing emphasis among the Uyghur on ‘those ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious characteristics that distinguish them from the Han Chinese’ such as regular mosque attendance.48 From 1996 to 2000, China also embedded its concerns with Uyghur separatism in its diplomatic relations in Central Asia. In particular, Beijing was the driving force behind the creation of the ‘Shanghai Five’ (S-5) multilateral grouping in 1996 – comprising China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – and then its transformation in 2000 into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Both the S-5 and SCO committed to statements that member states would not ‘allow their territories to be used for the activities undermining the national sovereignty, security and social order of any of the five countries’. Over the course of the next two years, regional developments, including the consolidation of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the intensification of the insurgency of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the Ferghana Valley, assisted China in its ability to persuade its S-5 partners to take a stronger stance on what it increasingly termed the ‘three evils’ of ‘separatism, extremism and terrorism’.49 These issues became a foundational concern for the S-5’s successor organization, the SCO, when it was inaugurated on 14 June 2001. One of the SCO’s first acts was to adopt the Shanghai Covenant on the Suppression of Terrorism, Separatism and Religious Extremism declaring the organization’s intent to establish a regional response to the perceived threat of radical Islam.50

ETIM and TIP: The genealogy of a glocal jihad Significantly, it is within this decade (i.e. 1990–2000) of unrest and repression that it appears ETIM was born. According to Chinese official sources, Hasan Mahsum, identified as the leader of ETIM in its January 2002 White Paper on ‘East Turkestan terrorism’, was born in 1964 in a rural area near Kashgar in the south of Xinjiang.51 This places Mahsum within the generation of Uyghurs who

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would have experienced not only the severe repression of the Cultural Revolution but also the relative liberalization of party policy towards the religious and cultural practices of ethnic minorities in the 1980s.52 Additionally, Chinese sources assert that Mahsum ‘was  arrested in October 1993 by the Chinese police for terrorist activities and was sentenced to three years of re-education through labour’ before fleeing to Afghanistan in 1997. Thereafter it is claimed that Mahsum established ETIM at a Taliban-controlled training camp and sought assistance from Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.53 This apparently straightforward narrative blends both fact and, if not fiction, then politically motivated assertions. To begin with, the assertion that Mahsum was charged with ‘terrorist’ offences appears unlikely due to the fact that the main targets of the CCP repression in Xinjiang in the early 1990s were in fact those deemed to be ‘splittists’ or practitioners of ‘illegal religious activities’. This assertion is symptomatic of Beijing’s attempts to read back into the past its post9/11 political objective of painting Uyghur opposition to it as synonymous with Islamist-inspired terrorism. Yet, the subsequent assertion that Mahsum fled to Afghanistan, established ETIM and had links with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda appears from the available evidence to be correct and I will discuss this evidence later in this chapter. However, what is clear is that the 9/11 attacks irrevocably shifted Chinese perceptions regarding the locus of external threat vis-à-vis Xinjiang, as incidents of violence in Xinjiang were inevitably linked to ‘international terrorism’. This shift was felt almost immediately with Beijing’s release of its first detailed document cataloguing ‘terrorist incidents’ in, or connected to, Xinjiang in January 2002. This document claimed that a heretofore unknown organization, ETIM, based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and ‘supported and funded’ by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, had been responsible for many terrorist attacks in Xinjiang.54 Specific claims made by this document, however, created doubts about the accuracy of this assessment and reinforced, at least among Xinjiang and Uyghur studies specialists, the view that Beijing was opportunistically seeking to leverage post-9/11 international concerns regarding Islamist-inspired terrorism as justification for its decades-long suppression of Uyghur opposition.55 According to the introduction to this document, ‘East Turkistan terrorist forces’ rather than ETIM specifically, were responsible for ‘over 200 terrorist incidents’ between 1990 and 2001 that claimed the lives of 162 people and injured 440.56 The report states that these undifferentiated ‘East Turkistan terrorist forces’ carried out explosions, assassinations, attacks on police and government officials, ‘crimes of poison and arson’ and ‘established secret training bases’ in order to create an ‘atmosphere of terror’ in Xinjiang.57 There were a number of discrepancies regarding the number of incidents and the number of deaths and injuries for which evidence was provided in this document. Moreover, the nature and method of some of the incidents detailed raise questions as to whether they should in fact be defined as constituting terrorism as opposed to a merely criminal act (e.g. acts of ‘poison and arson’). From the data supplied in the document, the total number of deaths directly attributed to ‘terrorism’ in Xinjiang

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between 1990 and 2001 was in fact only 56, while the number injured was 362.58 These figures were thus substantially less than those cited in the introduction to the report. Finally, of the incidents detailed in the document only one – the rather broad and non-specific charge of establishing ‘terrorist bases’ and manufacturing weapons – is directly attributed to ETIM.59 Given such a paucity of detail on the birth and early evolution of ETIM from Chinese official sources, what do we really know about this group’s origins, its ideology and capabilities? Based on currently available open sources, it is possible to distinguish three major phases in the development of ETIM and TIP: ETIM under Hasan Mahsum (1997–2003) in Afghanistan; TIP under Abdul Haq al-Turkistani in Afghanistan (2004–10); and TIP in Syria (2011–present). Each of these phases also appear to correlate with shifts in the group’s ideological direction, its relationship with Al Qaeda (and other jihadi groups) and operational capabilities.

Hasan Mahsum and ETIM in Afghanistan, 1997–2003 Between the period of Mahsum’s establishment of ETIM in Afghanistan in 1997 or 1998 and his death in October 2003 as a result of a Pakistani military operation in Waziristan the record is in fact sparse. During this 1997–2003 period there is no record of ETIM claiming responsibility for incidents in Xinjiang such as those alleged to have been ‘plotted’ by the group in Urumqi and Khotan in February and December 1999. A China Central Television (CCTV) documentary televised in Xinjiang in August 2002 titled ‘On the Spot Report: The Crimes of Eastern Turkestan Terrorist Power’, repeated many of the details of the January 2002 White Paper. It thus noted that Hasan Mahsum left Xinjiang in 1997, found refuge in Afghanistan, joined or established ETIM, established a training camp and began to recruit Uyghurs to carry out a jihad in Xinjiang.60 Mahsum himself, in a brief interview with Radio Free Asia ‘from an undisclosed location’ in January 2002 however denied having organizational or financial connections with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.61 Coming in the midst of the US invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a denial of connections to either of these entities was perhaps to be expected. In 2004, Abudula Kariaji, who claimed to be ETIM’s deputy chairman, provided an interview to the Wall Street Journal that gave some further detail on the group’s early activities. Kariaji stated that it had established, with ‘permission’ from Al Qaeda, three ‘training camps’ near Khost in Afghanistan in 1997 or 1998 which he claimed at one point ‘sheltered up to 500 Uyghur families and trained men in small arms and explosives’.62 Kariaji also noted that while ‘dozens’ of Uyghurs went back to Xinjiang to carry out attacks between 1997 and 2001 none had been successful.63 Significantly, however, Kariaji asserted that while ETIM had received some financial and material support for establishing their bases from Al Qaeda, there were ‘deep differences with the Arab fighters’ due to the Uyghurs’ focus on attacking China. The Arabs, he continued, ‘told us that, as Muslims, your first duty is to free Palestine and the sacred Arab lands’ rather than attack the Chinese. 64

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Kariaji also provided an account of his path to joining ETIM that is of interest as it appears to confirm the hypothesis discussed earlier that the group was born out of the cycle of reform and repression in Xinjiang during the 1980s and 1990s. In this regard, Kariaji relates that as a boy ‘his father arranged to have him taught the Koran in secret, because the government had closed most religious schools’ but that he then subsequently ‘went to Pakistan for religious training’ before returning in the early 1990s. At this point he was inspired by ‘rebels in Kashmir and Chechnya’ and, presumably with associates, ‘discussed undertaking jihad’ in Xinjiang but was arrested three times and accused of ‘anti-government activity’ for which he spent nearly two years in detention during which time he ‘slept on the concrete floor of a windowless cell and was tortured for refusing to divulge names of underground Islamic leaders’.65 Kariaji’s claim of tension between ETIM and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the late 1990s is consistent with what is known about Al Qaeda’s own views of Xinjiang, the Uyghur and China in this period. In a March 1997 interview with the Pakistani journalist, Hamid Mir, bin Laden directly referred to the Urumqi bus bombings of February 1997 and suggested that they were in fact orchestrated by the CIA in order to pit China against the Muslim world: ‘The Muslims of Xinjiang are being blamed for the bomb blasts in Beijing. But I think these explosions were sponsored by the American CIA. If Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and China get united, the United States and India will become ineffective.’66 Expressing no particular interest in the plight of fellow Sunni Muslims, the Uyghur, at the hands of an overtly communist regime, bin Laden went on to exhort ‘Muslims all over the world’ to ‘support and assist the Taliban’ as it had ‘established the rule of Allah’. Moreover, it was the United States that constituted the ‘biggest problem of the Muslims’ and that driving it out of the Arabian Peninsula should be ‘the top priority’.67 This vein of thinking, as Bruce Fishman has detailed, continued after 9/11 among at least some Al Qaeda ideologues who believed that ‘competition between the United States and China for allies and resources’ as China continued its rise would create ‘opportunities for jihadis to reduce U.S. global influence’.68 Al Qaeda’s view at this time, then, can best be summed up as a mixture of ignorance or indifference regarding the specific situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and a larger strategic calculation regarding China framed by bin Laden’s obsession with attacking the ‘far enemy’ – the United States. Given this strategic focus, it is not surprising that supporting ETIM may have been a low priority for Al Qaeda. This narrative of tangential links to Al Qaeda is also bolstered by the testimonies of some of the twenty-two Uyghurs captured in Afghanistan and subsequently detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. Many of the Uyghur detainees’ testimony during their ‘Combatant Status Review Tribunals’ (CSRT) undertaken by American authorities suggested that (a) most had not heard of ETIM’s existence prior to being brought to Guantanamo Bay; (b) most had arrived in Afghanistan via Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan in 2000 and 2001; (c) most had stayed at a Uyghur camp outside Jalalabad with up to ‘fifty Uighur families’ according to one detainee; (d) most had received minimal ‘training’ with small arms; and (e) the Uyghurs had received little or no assistance from Al Qaeda or the Taliban.69 The primary

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motivations stated by the detainees for being in Afghanistan in 2001 almost uniformly stress repression or persecution by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang and the desire to fight for ‘East Turkestan’s’ independence.70 One detainee, Emam Abdulahat, for example, told investigators that he went to Afghanistan for two reasons: ‘To escape from the torturing, darkness and suffering of the Chinese government’ and ‘to go to some other country to live in peace’.71 Another detainee, Yusef Abbas, when asked by investigators why he went to receive ‘military training’ in Afghanistan, replied in reference to the Chinese that ‘we have one billion enemies, we need to be ready’.72 The detainees’ testimony also suggested that Chinese diplomatic success with the Central Asian republics had compelled them to seek to leave Xinjiang via Afghanistan rather than via the more accessible states of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.73

From ETIM to TIP: Abdul al-Haq and the ‘Af-Pak’ Years, 2005–11 With Mahsum’s death in Waziristan at the hands of the Pakistani military in October 2003, it appeared that ETIM’s already meagre threat to Xinjiang and China had been effectively snuffed out. However, two years later YouTube videos began to appear celebrating Hasan Mahsum’s martyrdom under the new name of the TIP led by Abdul Haq. According to a Chinese report, Abdul Haq, was born in 1971 and left China ‘illegally’ in 1998 to join ETIM ‘in a South Asian country’, presumably Afghanistan, before becoming the leader of the group in November 2003 after Hasan Mahsum’s death.74 This timeline is partly corroborated by the testimonies of some of the twenty-two Uyghurs detained at Guantanamo Bay, a number of whom stated that Abdul Haq had been one of the organizers of an ETIM training camp in Jalalabad.75 Post-9/11, however, there is relatively little information concerning Abdul Haq’s activities. A number of analyses suggest he was elected to Al Qaeda’s majles ash-shura (leadership council) in 2005, a significant demonstration of ETIM/TIP’s enmeshment with Al Qaeda’s wider network and trust of the leadership in the Uyghur militant.76 One possible explanation for this elevation concerned ETIM/ TIP’s integration into the military arm of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) from the late 1990s onward. IMU, under the leadership of jihadi Juma Namangani, had developed links into Afghanistan in the early 1990s during the post-Soviet civil war in neighbouring Tajikistan which by the late 1990s had developed into a full-fledged alliance with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. A linkage between the two Turkic groups – IMU and ETIM/TIP – is also consistent with reportage covering the rise of the Taliban-Al Qaeda axis in Afghanistan in this period.77 Analysis of TIP’s periodical, Turkistan al-Muslimah (Muslim Turkistan), provides some evidence that not only was TIP the successor organization to ETIM and had developed clear links with Al Qaeda but also that it remained focused on relieving the oppression of Uyghurs in ‘East Turkistan’ (i.e. Xinjiang). The first issue of the periodical in January 2008 celebrated the life and deeds of

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Hasan Mahsum, while later issues carried an interview with Abdul Haq where ‘the Amir spoke about the training camps he and his Uyghur colleagues attended in Khost, Bagram, Kabul and Herat in the late 1990s, when Afghanistan was still controlled by Taliban’ and ‘informed the readers that the Uyghur group was part of the military wing of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)’.78 Turkistan al-Muslimah was also published by al-Fajr Institute for Islamic Media, a wellknown conduit for Al Qaeda propaganda and media. The goal of the publication was to reveal ‘the real situation of our Muslim nation in East Turkistan, which is living under the occupation of the Communist Chinese and to disclose the falsehood of the Chinese government, exposing its crimes [against Muslims] to the world … [we want the] world to understand our cause and rights, that we are seeking our freedom and independence and to be ruled by God’s Shari’a’.79 This suggests that while TIP was now clearly aligned with Al Qaeda, its sights remained on combating Chinese oppression in ‘East Turkistan’ rather than on bin Laden’s core goal of attacking the United States and its allies. However, subsequent issues of this publication appeared to not be targeted at Uyghurs but a wider Muslim audience in China with the periodical published in Arabic and not Uyghur and featuring special features on Hui (Dungan) Muslims. Jacob Zenn concludes that ultimately Turkistan al-Muslimah was a marketing instrument designed ‘to position the struggle in Xinjiang and Central Asia as part of the global jihad movement on a par with Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan’ and ‘familiarizing the readership with the struggles of Xinjiang’s Muslims and the reasons for TIP’s jihad against Communist China’.80 At this stage TIP appeared to be a propaganda front for Al Qaeda, releasing a number of slickly produced videos on YouTube under the Islam Awazi (Voice of Islam) media arm,81 including an overt threat that it would target the 2008 Beijing Olympics.82 As with ETIM, however, TIP’s operational capabilities during this phase (i.e. 2005–11) remained unclear. Symptomatic of the lack of clear evidence at this juncture linking TIP to attacks in China was the video the group released in the lead up to the opening of the Beijing Olympics in October 2008. In the video a sole masked Uyghur militant, identified as ‘Commander Seyfullah’, brandishes an AK-47 and threatens that TIP will undertake suicide bombings in China during the Olympics and claims responsibility for two bus bombings in Shanghai and Kunming in July and May 2008.83 Chinese authorities, however, debunked both of these latter claims.84 Therefore it is possible to suggest that TIP’s jihad – as limited as it was at this juncture – was in effect being instrumentally ‘rebranded’ either by the group’s leadership or by Al Qaeda (or possibly by both) to appeal to multiple audiences. Its efforts in this regard were given a substantial boost by events in Xinjiang that, despite Chinese claims to the contrary, appear to have had little material or rhetorical connection to TIP. The July 2009 inter-ethnic violence in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, that resulted in the deaths of 184 people and injuries to 1,000 constituted the region’s largest outbreak of unrest since the protests in Kulja (Yining) in February 1997. These

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events served to heighten the profile of the Xinjiang and Uyghur issue among jihadist circles. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) issued a video in August 2009 that labelled China an ‘occupier’ and ‘oppressor’ of Muslims in much the same way it painted Israel, while in October 2009, a video featuring senior Al Qaeda ideologue, Abu Yahya al-Libi, framed ‘East Turkestan’ as the ‘forgotten wound’ of the Muslim world.85 What is striking about the video is the fact that he catalogues a set of grievances that would be familiar to anyone who has followed Xinjiang’s recent history. He thus charges Beijing with looting ‘East Turkestan’s’ resources, ‘flooding’ it with ‘greedy [Chinese] emigres’, ‘terrorizing’ the Muslim population ‘to limit their birth rates’, ‘closing all Islamic schools, institutes and universities’ and prohibiting ‘religious instruction’ and carrying out ‘massive recurring nuclear experiments in the Eastern Turkestan desert’ resulting in the ‘deaths of hundreds and thousands of Turkestanis’ by ‘strange illnesses and diseases’.86 The resolution to this catalogue of clearly local and particularistic grievances is, however according to al-Libi, inextricably bound to Al Qaeda’s Salafi agenda. For al-Libi, while ‘it is a duty for Muslims today to stand by their oppressed and wounded brothers in East Turkestan’ and ‘to support and aid them with everything they can’, ‘our brothers in Turkestan’ can only achieve salvation through ‘an honest return to their religion, holding on to it as much as possible’ in the ‘the face of harsh invaders’.87 TIP, for its part, had now reached some level of notoriety, with Abdul Haq being designated a ‘global terrorist’ by the US Treasury Department in April 2009 due to his role on Al Qaeda’s majles ash-shura, TIP’s threats against the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Haq’s role in recruiting and fundraising for a ‘terrorist organization’.88 Additionally, two Al Qaeda-linked terrorist plots were also uncovered during this period that demonstrated links between ETIM/TIP and Al Qaeda beyond the ‘Af-Pak’ context.89 In the first of these cases, two Uyghurs were convicted in Dubai on 29 June 2009 of plotting to attack a shopping mall selling Chinese goods. One of the plotters, Mayma Ytiming Shalmo, was recruited by ETIM during a trip to Mecca in 2006 and then spent time ‘training’ with the group in Waziristan before developing a plan for the attacks with a co-conspirator, Wimiyar Ging Kimili between December 2007 and June 2008. The second plot came to light when police in Oslo, Norway, disrupted a cell that was part of a larger network targeting the UK and New York. In this plot, one Uyghur suspect (with Norwegian citizenship) Mikael Davud, was believed by authorities to be a focal point of communication between the cell, TIP and Al Qaeda. ‘The strongest connections between Davud and terrorist groups’, Raffaello Pantucci notes, flowed from his connection to TIP commander Seyfullah who Norwegian authorities claimed ‘called Davud’s phone number in September 2008’.90 The significance of these plots is that Al Qaeda was seeking to use ETIM/TIP-linked individuals to carry out attacks on its behalf rather than in the name of the Uyghur cause itself.91 The lack of operational success for ETIM/TIP linked plots and Al Qaeda’s apparent disinterest in the specifics of the Uyghur cause began to shift soon thereafter however. TIP appeared to become more integrated with Al Qaeda in the ‘Af-Pak’ context after the reported death of Abdul Haq by a US Predator drone strike on the village of Zor Babar Aidak near Mir Ali in North Waziristan on 14 February 2010.92 After

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Haq’s reported death Abdul Shakoor, now identified as the amir of TIP, became in April 2011 the ‘commander of Al Qaeda forces’ in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).93 This growing integration appeared to play a role in stimulating new attacks in Xinjiang. In 18 July 2011 a police station in Khotan was attacked by multiple assailants leaving eighteen people dead, while on 31 July ‘a pair of men hijacked a truck that was stopped at a traffic light near a street filled with restaurants’ before driving ‘the truck into a crowd of people, killing eight and injuring 28’.94 These attacks were subsequently claimed by TIP in a video message from Abdul Shakoor. Jacob Zenn suggests that the larger scale of these attacks and their focus on targeting civilians ‘may be a sign that Al Qaeda’s penchant for killing civilians has seeped into the TIP’s strategy’.95 Such an analysis appeared to be borne out by a number of subsequent attacks including the SUV attack in Tiananmen in October 2013, the Kunming railway station attack of 1 March 2014, the suicide bombing at Urumqi’s main railway station on 1 April 2014 and the 18 September 2015 attack on a coal mine near Aksu.96 Notably, however, TIP in each of these subsequent cases only released messages of support, and not claims of responsibility, for these attacks.97 Chinese authorities, however, have maintained that these attacks were directly attributable to TIP either through involvement of avowed members of the group or through its recruitment of foot soldiers through virtual indoctrination.98 However, as some observers have noted, a number of these incidents are not as clear cut as the Chinese authorities claim. The 1 March 2014 mass knife attack at Kunming’s main train station noted at the beginning of this chapter, for instance, where eight masked Uyghur assailants attacked commuters, killing 31 and injuring 141, was clearly a violent act indiscriminately targeting civilians.99 The ethnicity of the attackers resulted in a presumption that the motive was connected to Chinese policy in Xinjiang, although the exact nature of that connection remained unclear. Indeed, two conflicting narratives emerged here. One, carried by Chinese state media and repeated by some international media, asserted that the attackers had been attempting to leave China bent on joining the ‘global jihad’ in the Middle East. After they were prevented from crossing into Laos, this narrative continues, the Uyghurs decided to ‘wage jihad’ in Yunnan.100 The other narrative reported by Radio Free Asia suggested that the group from Hanerik township in Khotan prefecture in Xinjiang’s far south had sought to leave after a Chinese ‘crackdown’ in the area following a violent incident in June 2013 where police had fired on Uyghurs protesting the arrest of a religious leader in the township. The group was subsequently prevented from crossing the Yunnan-Laos border and in an act of ‘desperation’ carried out the attack in Kunming.101 Both of these narratives are not mutually exclusive, however, as the circumstances surrounding events such as those in Kunming in 2014 suggest clear ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors for Uyghur militancy. Since the beginning of President Xi Jinping’s term as president in 2012, China has intensified its efforts to control Xinjiang and Uyghur society through the imposition of ever-expanding instruments of surveillance and social control. Xinjiang’s public security budget, for instance, increased from an annual budget of 1.54 billion yuan (approximately US$241 million) in 2009 to some 6 billion yuan (approximately US$938 million) in 2014.102 Other

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measures have included the establishment of hundreds of mobile ‘convenience police stations’ in urban areas,103 high-tech measures such as installation of China’s ‘Skynet’ electronic surveillance system in major urban areas,104 promulgation of new legal restrictions on religious practice and use of ‘political education centres’ to coerce Uyghurs displaying ‘deviant’ behaviours.105 Pressures such as these have played a major role in stimulating Uyghur migration out of Xinjiang. In this regard, since 2009 there have been welldocumented cases of significant Uyghur transmigration through South East Asia in which Uyghurs detained by authorities in transit countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, have often been travelling with forged documentation.106 This issue achieved particular prominence in the aftermath of the bombing of the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok on 18 August 2015, which some reports speculated was perpetrated by Uyghurs in retaliation for Thailand’s earlier deportation of 109 Uyghurs – discovered by Thai authorities in a people-smuggler run camp in southern Thailand – back to China.107 The ultimate destination for many of these Uyghurs has been Turkey. Turkey’s long-standing sympathy for the cause of Uyghur separatism (dating back to the late Qing period) has combined since 2011 with the geopolitical dynamics of the Syrian crisis to produce a troubling trend for Beijing. Seymour Hersh asserted in an article for the London Review of Books in 2015 that Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT) had in fact facilitated a ‘rat line’ to funnel Uyghurs ‘from China into Kazakhstan for eventual relay to Turkey, and then to ISIS territory in Syria’.108 Media reporting from the Middle East has also asserted that Turkey had supplied fake Turkish passports to ISIS and other jihadi groups to facilitate recruitment of militants.109 Chinese media reported on cases of prospective Uyghur recruits being supplied not only with forged Turkish documents but also directions to seek the assistance from Turkish embassies if apprehended in South East Asia.110 While the exact numbers of Uyghurs who have undertaken such journeys is unclear, Sean Roberts’ 2016 fieldwork in Turkey, where he conducted interviews with recent Uyghur refugees, provides some indication that it is potentially into the thousands as well as insights into their motivations. Roberts found that the majority of recent Uyghur refugees in Turkey came ‘primarily from rural areas in the regions with the most draconian counter-terrorism campaigns in the XUAR’ and had escaped China by paying ‘exuberant prices to Han Chinese human traffickers to get them to the border areas of Yunnan Province’ and then onto Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia.111

TIP in Syria, 2012–18 The trend of Uyghur migration and its intersection with events in Syria has seen a shift in TIP’s geographic centre of gravity away from the ‘Af-Pak’ region to northern Syria. As Al Qaeda itself became active in Syria with the announcement of Jabhat Al Nusra’s establishment as its affiliate in January 2012, TIP also began to release videos about the Syrian conflict and articles in its magazine.112 By 2015,

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TIP had a well-documented presence on the battlefield in Syria, with the group releasing a number of videos detailing its role in combat in Idlib, Jisr al-Shughur and the Al Ghab plain.113 Reflecting the ties forged during its ‘Af-Pak’ existence, TIP has not fought alongside ISIS but rather Jabhat Al Nusra. With the rise of ISIS as a competitor for jihadi allegiance, TIP has also remained a stalwart ally of Al Qaeda releasing videos stridently condemning ISIS and its self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’.114 TIP’s loyalty has been reciprocated by Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri releasing a recorded message in which he explicitly praised TIP and honoured Hasan Mahsum with a place in the jihadi pantheon alongside Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He explicitly notes that the ‘East Turkistan mujahideen fought in Tora Bora, Waziristan and many other areas in Afghanistan’ before, in a direct reference to the TIP, praising them for coming to the aid of their ‘brothers’ in the Levant. Thus TIP, in al-Zawahiri’s reading, are now fully embraced into the Al Qaeda ummah, providing a strong contrast with Osama bin Laden’s pre-9/11 indifference to the ‘East Turkestan mujahideen’.115 The number of TIP militants fighting in Syria is, however, difficult to ascertain. Chinese authorities at various times have asserted anywhere between a few hundred to up to 3,000. Others, such as Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the independent British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has estimated that there are up to 5,000 Uyghur fighters in Syria, mostly affiliated with TIP.116 A 30-minute documentary aired by UAE Television on 16 May 2017, however, suggests a much larger Uyghur presence in Idlib. The programme – based on covert filming by undisclosed sources – demonstrates major cooperation between TIP and Al Nusra in controlling Idlib and quotes local informants’ estimates that between 10,000 and 20,000 Uyghurs had settled there with their families.117 The town of Jisr al-Shughur in particular is identified as under the full control of TIP and to have been effectively ‘colonized’ by Uyghur fighters and their families.118 Some of TIP’s recent propaganda, now released under the name of ‘Hizb al-Islam al-Turkistani in Bilal al-Sham’ (i.e. Turkestan Islamic Party in the Levant) appears to demonstrate a significant fighting force complete with heavy weaponry, including tanks.119 Beyond Syria, the issue of Uyghur militancy has also become entangled with ISIS. Here, Beijing has claimed in the past that there may be somewhere between 300 and 500 Uyghurs fighting for the ‘caliphate’ primarily in Iraq.120 ‘Entry’ and ‘exit data’ for ISIS recruits analysed by Nate Rosenblatt at the New America Foundation, however, identified only 114 Uyghurs as fighting with the group between 2013 and 2014.121 The data collected by ISIS on these Uyghurs suggest that ‘not a single fighter in the sample reported to have previously fought in a jihad, suggesting that the sample is not comprised of seasoned veterans of foreign wars, such as with Uyghur separatists in the Al Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)’.122 Uyghur links to and involvement with ISIS thus appear to be much less significant than those related to TIP and Al Qaeda. The apparent linkage of Uyghur militants not only to long-standing sanctuaries in the ‘Af-Pak’ frontier region but increasingly also to the Syrian conflict points to an unprecedented transnationalization of Uyghur terrorism. While the number would appear to be small, the danger for Beijing is twofold: some may either return

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to Xinjiang or attempt to recruit others; and Uyghur militants, aided by other jihadis, will target Chinese interests abroad. A number of recent events appear to fit the second scenario. First, on 30 August 2016 a suicide bomber drove a van packed with explosives into the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz media reported that the suicide bomber was a Uyghur and ‘a member of the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement’ (ETIM), who ‘had a passport registered in the name of a Tajik citizen’.123 An ethnic Uzbek, who had undergone ‘terrorist training’ in Syria was suspected by Kyrgyz authorities of having assisted in making the explosive device and procuring the vehicle used in the attack before leaving the country on an Istanbul-bound flight just hours before the attack.124 Second, the gunman in the Istanbul nightclub attack on New Year’s Eve 2016 who was arrested by Turkish police has been reported to be a Uyghur with links to jihadi groups in Syria.125

Conclusion This chapter, through its attention to the appropriate contextualization of Uyghur militancy and terrorism, has demonstrated that it is unfortunately this dynamic that now appears to be in play. Beijing’s instrumentalization of the threat of Uyghur terrorism within its domestic governance of Xinjiang and its foreign policy has correlated with both an increase in terrorist attacks in Xinjiang itself and the threat posed to Chinese interests abroad. The repressive and surveillance instruments of the emergent ‘security state’ in Xinjiang – including a militarized police presence, use of facial recognition scanners, regular scanning of electronic devices and social media for ‘suspect’ content and detention of over one million Uyghurs in ‘re-education camps’ – have reinforced long-standing perceptions of marginalization among Uyghurs in Xinjiang. As noted earlier, such marginalization and repression has prompted significant numbers of Uyghurs to migrate abroad, often via insecure and illicit channels. This has created not only a flow of unregulated migration but also security challenges for both China and transit countries as migrants become targets of people smugglers and/or jihadi recruitment efforts. The gradual ‘glocalization’ of Uyghur terrorism and militancy, as demonstrated through the tracking of the evolution of ETIM and TIP in this chapter, suggests that the ‘global jihad’ should not be characterized in monolithic terms. Rather, the jihad that ETIM and TIP are waging is imbued with both undeniably ‘global’ and ‘local’ themes: an ideological commitment to Al Qaeda’s global agenda (as witnessed by engagement in the Syrian conflict), combined with a strategic eye on ultimately combating Chinese oppression in Xinjiang and attacking its interests abroad. ETIM and TIP appear to represent a shift in the history of Uyghur resistance and opposition to Chinese rule from what might be termed ethnoreligious nationalism towards ‘ideological religious nationalism’.126 The former type of nationalism is ultimately ‘linked to people and land’ and is ‘ethnic’ in the sense that it refers to ‘communities bound by race, history or culture who feel oppressed … and who wish to establish a political identity of their own, usually in a geographical region native to them’.127 Emblematic of this type of nationalism

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is activists’ ‘fusion’ of the religion of their ethnic community ‘with a slogan of liberation for oppressed people’.128 Since the formation of the PRC, this type of nationalism has been at the core of Uyghur resistance to rule from Beijing; the Uyghurs’ Islamic religious identity has become a key marker of difference and resistance to an ethnically non-Uyghur and avowedly atheist state. This was perhaps most clearly embodied in the movements that established the ‘East Turkestan Republic’ in the 1930s and 1940s. Uyghurs involved in ETIM and TIP, however, appear to be reframing the Uyghur struggle as an ‘ideological religious’ one. In this context, while ‘the ethnic approach to religious activism politicizes religion by employing religious identities for political means, an ideological approach does the opposite’, that is, it ‘tries to make politics religious’. Ideological religious nationalism, therefore, ‘embraces religious ideas as the basis for politics’, and ‘national aspirations become fused with religious quests for purity and redemption. Religious justice replaces secular law as the pillar of governmental authority.’129 This, as we have seen with respect to TIP, has enabled a much clearer ideological alignment with Al Qaeda. Ironically, Beijing’s increasingly repressive measures in Xinjiang over the past decade have provided the necessary conditions for this to occur by reducing the political and cultural space for the expression of Uyghur identity and aspirations. Since 2016, it has also become apparent that Beijing has embarked on a systematic attempt to erase the ‘glocal’ quality of Uyghur identity in the name of counterterrorism. Analysis based on Chinese government procurement contracts for construction130 and Google Earth satellite imaging131 has revealed the existence of hundreds of prison-like, ‘re-education’ facilities throughout Xinjiang that are estimated to hold up to 1 million of the region’s Turkic Muslim population. One of the largest facilities, Dabancheng near the regional capital, Urumqi, alone is estimated to have a capacity to hold up to 130,000 people.132 In these facilities detainees experience a regimented daily existence as they are compelled to repeatedly sing ‘patriotic’ songs praising the benevolence of the CCP, study Mandarin, Confucian texts and President Xi Jinping’s ‘thought’ and endure physical violence and torture.133 After previously denying their existence, Beijing has defended this system of mass incarceration in the name of counterterrorism with China’s foreign minister Wang Yi asserting on 13 November 2018 that this approach is ‘completely in line with the direction the international community has taken to combat terrorism, and are an important part of the global fight against terrorism’.134 As far as Beijing is concerned, then, its draconian measures in Xinjiang are a justifiable form of ‘preventative’ counterterrorism. However, such an approach not only amounts to gross human rights violations based primarily on ethnicity but also risks amplifying the rhetorical appeal of the militancy espoused by TIP.

Notes 1 Megha Rajagopalan, ‘China security chief blames Uighur Islamists for Tiananmen attack’, Reuters, 1 November 2013.

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2 A small portion of CCTV footage from the attack can be viewed at https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=saA​arcQO​tNU (accessed 8 March 2017). Four attackers were shot dead by police during the attack and four were captured, three of whom were sentenced to death in September 2014. See ‘Four sentenced in China over Kunming station attack’, BBC News, 12 September 2014. Available at http:​//www​.bbc.​com/n​ews/ w​orld-​asia-​china​-2917​0238 (accessed 8 March 2017). 3 昆明暴恐案始末:8人欲赴境外’圣战’受阻 [Violence in Kunming: 8 attackers attempting to join overseas jihad ‘blocked’], 5 March 2014. Available at http:​//www​.ce. c​n/xwz​x/gns​z/gdx​w/201​403/0​5/t20​14030​5_241​9638.​shtml​ (accessed 8 March 2017); and ‘Kunming massacre gang tried to become jihadists overseas’, South China Morning Post, 5 March 2014. Available at http:​//www​.scmp​.com/​news/​china​/arti​cle/1​44095​1/ kun​ming-​massa​cre-g​ang-t​ried-​becom​e-jih​adist​s-ove​rseas​-stat​ion-a​ttack​ (accessed 8 March 2017). 4 https​://ww​w.sta​te.go​v/j/c​t/rls​/othe​r/des​/1230​86.ht​m. 5 See David Kilcullen, ‘Countering global insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 28, no. 4 (2005): 597–617; and Fawaz Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global, 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press, 2009). 6 See Alex P. Schmid, ‘Terrorism and democracy’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 4, no. 4 (1992): 14–25; W. L. Eubank and L. Weinberg, ‘Does democracy encourage terrorism?’ Terrorism and Political Violence, 6, no. 4 (1994): 417–43; and J. Eyerman, ‘Terrorism and democratic states: Soft targets or accessible systems’, International Interactions, 24, no. 2 (1998): 151–70. 7 Ted R. Gurr, ‘Why minorities rebel: A global analysis of communal mobilization and conflict’, International Political Science Review, 14, no. 2 (1993): 161–201. 8 James M. Piazza, ‘Poverty, minority economic discrimination, and domestic terrorism’, Journal of Peace Research, 48, no. 3 (2011): 341. 9 Roland Robertson, ‘Globalisation or glocalisation?’, Journal of International Communication, 1, no. 1 (1994): 34. 10 Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity’, in Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (eds), Global Modernities (London: Sage, 1995), p. 26. 11 Ibid., p. 35. 12 Victor Roudomet, Glocalization: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge, 2016), p. 12. 13 James A. Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (Columbia University Press, 2007). 14 The definitive English language study of this episode is Hodong Kim, Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and Khanate in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). 15 See Sean R. Roberts, ‘Imagining Uyghurstan: Re-evaluating the birth of the modern Uyghur nation’, Central Asian Survey, 28, no. 4 (2009): 361–81; and Ondrej Klimes, ‘Nationalism and modernism in the East Turkestan Republic, 1933–34’, Central Asian Survey, 34, no. 2 (2015): 162–76. 16 See Edward Lazzerini, ‘Beyond renewal: The jadid response to pressure for change in the modern age’, in J. A. Gross (ed.), Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity Change (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992). 17 Alexandre Bennigsen, ‘Panturkism and Panislamism in history and today’, Central Asian Survey, 3, no. 3 (1984): 39–49. 18 Eric T. Schluessel, ‘History, identity, and mother-tongue education in Xinjiang’, Central Asian Survey, 28, no. 4 (2009).

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19 Yitzhak Shichor, ‘Artificial resuscitation: Beijing’s manipulation of pan-Turkism’, Asian Ethnicity, 1 (2018): 7. 20 Each element of this discourse is evident in, for example, Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, ‘White paper on the history and development of Xinjiang’, May 2003. Available at http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20030526/index.htm. 21 Colin Mackerras, ‘China’s ethnic autonomy policy: Ramifications and evaluation’, Archiv Orientalni: Quarterly Journal of African and Asian Studies, 71 (2003): 3. 22 See James A. Millward and Nabijan Tursun, ‘Political history and strategies of control, 1884-1978’, in S. Frederick Starr (ed.), Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), pp. 63–98. 23 Yitzhak Shicor, ‘Pawns in Central Asia’s playground: Uyghurs between Moscow and Beijing’, East Asia, 32, no. 1 (2015): 101–16. 24 Zhang Yuxi [Zhang Yumo], ‘Anti-separatism struggle and its historical lessons since the liberation of Xinjiang’, in Yang Faren (gen. ed.), Fanysilanzhuyi, fantujuezhuyi yanjiu [Research on Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism] (Urumqi: Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, 1994). English translation published online by Independent Media Center, India, http:​//ind​ia.in​dymed​ia.or​g/en/​2003/​08/66​65.ht​ml. 25 Yitzhak Shicor, ‘Ethno-diplomacy: The Uyghur Hitch in Sino-Turkey relations’, Policy Studies No. 53 (Honolulu: East-West Center, 2009). 26 Gaye Christoffersen, ‘Xinjiang and the great Islamic circle: The impact of transnational forces on Chinese regional economic planning’, China Quarterly, no. 133 (1993): 136. 27 Michael Dillon, ‘Central Asia: The view from Beijing, Urumqi and Kashgar’, in Mehdi Mozaffari (ed.), Security Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States: The Southern Belt (London: MacMillan, 1997), pp. 136–7. 28 June Teufel Dreyer, ‘The PLA and regionalism in Xinjiang’, Pacific Affairs, 7, no. 1 (1994): 49–50. 29 ‘Forum Held’, Urumqi Xinjiang Regional Service, 10 March in China Daily Report, FBIS-CHI 90-049, 13 March 1990, p. 50. 30 For a contemporary Chinese view, see Zhang Yumo, ‘Xinjiang jiefang yilai fandui minzu fenliezhuyi de douzheng ji lishi jingyanti’, in Yang Faren, Fan Yisila zhuyi, fan Tujuezhuyi yanjiu (Urumqi: Xinjiang shehui kexue yuan, 1994), pp. 331–63. 31 Gardner Bovingdon, The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 141–4. 32 ‘Xinjiang chairman views secessionism, stability cited’, Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao, 25 March 1990 in China Daily Report, FBIS-CHI 90-058, 26 March 1990, pp. 49–50. 33 For a detailed discussion of Baren, see Michael Clarke, ‘Xinjiang in the “reform” era: The political and economic dynamics of dengist integration’, Issues & Studies, 43, no. 2 (2007): pp. 50–4. 34 China’s documented support for this effort included not only provision of weapons and materiel but also agreement to construct two covert monitoring installations for use by US intelligence. See Michael E. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise in Central Asia-a history (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 75–6. 35 John Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 2002), pp. 52–5; see also Ahmad Lufti, ‘Blowback: China and the Afghan Arabs’, Issues & Studies, 37, no. 1 (2001): 160–214. 36 See Clarke, ‘Xinjiang in the “reform” era’, pp. 50–4. 37 On ‘pan-Turkist’ threats, see ‘Song Hanliang Blames “Separatists”’, AFP, 25 April 1990 in FBIS-CHI 90-080, 25 April 1990, p. 67; and ‘Turkish press on developments’, Istanbul Milliyet, 21 April 1990 in FBIS-CHI 90-080, 25 April 1990, pp. 69–70. Song

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Hanliang was then Xinjiang’s CCP first secretary. For South Asia, see Sean Roberts, ‘A “Land of Borderlands”: Implications of Xinjiang’s transborder interactions’, in S. Frederick Starr (ed.), Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2004); and Ziad Haider, ‘Sino-Pakistan relations and Xinjiang’s Uighurs: Politics, trade and Islam along the Karakoram highway’, Asian Survey, 45, no. 4 (2005): 522–45. 38 Adapted from Dillon, ‘Central Asia: The view from Beijing, Urumqi and Kashgar’, pp. 140–1 and James M. Millward, ‘Violent separatism in Xinjiang: A critical assessment’, Policy Studies No. 6 (Washington DC: East-West Center, 2004). 39 Justin Hastings, ‘Perceiving a single Chinese state: Escalation and violence in Uighur protests’, Problems of Post-Communism, 52, no. 1 (2005): 28–9. 40 Justin Rudelson and William Jankowiak, ‘Acculturation and resistance: Xinjiang identities in flux’, in Frederick S. Starr (ed.), Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderlan (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 317. 41 ‘Commentary on ethnic separatism, religious activities’, Urumqi Xinjiang Ribao, 7 May 1996 in China Daily Report, FBIS-CHI-96-100, 22 May 1996, pp. 74–5. 42 ‘Xinjiang Conference on separatism, religious activities’, Urumqi Xinjiang Ribao, 7 May in China Daily Report, FBIS-CHI-96-100, 22 May 1996, pp. 72–4. 43 See Graham E. Fuller and Jonathan N. Lipman, ‘Islam in Xinjiang’, in S. Frederick Starr (ed.), Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), pp. 338–9; and Joanne Smith, ‘“Making culture matter”: Symbolic, spatial and social boundaries between Uyghurs and Han Chinese’, Asian Ethnicity, 3, no. 2 (2002): 153–74. 44 Hastings, ‘Perceiving a single Chinese state’, pp. 30–2. 45 Colin Mackerras, ‘Xinjiang at the turn of the century: The causes of separatism’, Central Asian Survey, 20, no. 3 (2001): 293. 46 Joanne Smith, ‘Four generations of Uyghurs: The shift towards ethno-political ideologies among Xinjiang’s youth’, Inner Asia, 2, no. 2 (2000): 200. 47 Smith, ‘“Making culture matter”’, p. 156. 48 Fuller and Lipman, ‘Islam in Xinjiang’, p. 339. 49 ‘“Shanghai five” nations sign joint statement’, People’s Daily, 6 July 2000. Available at http:​//en.​peopl​e.cn/​20000​7/06/​eng20​00070​6_448​03.ht​ml (accessed 4 October 2016). 50 Marc Lanteigne, ‘In Media Res: The development of the Shanghai cooperation organization as a security community’, Pacific Affairs, 79, no. 4 (2005/06): 616. 51 See Information Office of the State Council of the PRC, ‘East Turkistan terrorist forces cannot get away with impunity’, People’s Daily, 21 January 2002. Available at http:​// www​.peop​ledai​ly.co​m.cn/​20020​1/21/​print​20002​0121_​89078​.htm;​ ‘Spokesperson’s remarks on the Death of Hasan Mahsum, Head of the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement”’, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States, 24 December 2003. Available at http:​//www​.chin​a-emb​assy.​org/e​ng/fy​rth/t​57039​.htm;​ and ‘“Eastern Turkistan” terrorist killed’, China Daily, 24 December 2003. Available at http:​//www​.chin​adail​y.com​.cn/e​n/doc​/2003​-12/2​4/con​tent_​29316​3.htm​. 52 Sean Roberts, ‘The narrative of Uyghur terrorism and the self-fulfilling prophecy of Uyghur militancy’, in Michael Clarke (ed.), Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in China: Domestic and Foreign Policy Dimensions (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 111. 53 See ‘East Turkistan terrorist forces cannot get away with impunity’. 54 Ibid. 55 This document is critically examined in Michael Clarke, ‘China’s “war on terror” in Xinjiang: Human security and the causes of violent Uighur separatism’, Terrorism & Political Violence, 20, no. 2 (2008): 271–301.

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56 ‘East Turkistan terrorist forces cannot get away with impunity’. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 The 24 December 2003 statement on ETIM posted on the PRC’s US embassy website cited in footnote 64 however also adds that ‘Hasan Mahsum plotted a series of violent terrorist activities … including robbery and murder in Xinjiang’s capital city of Urumqi on Feb. 4, 1999 and violent murders in Xinjiang’s Hotan region on Dec.14, 1999, causing heavy loss of lives and property’. 60 Yitzhak Shicor, ‘Fact and fiction: A Chinese documentary on Eastern Turkestan terrorism’, China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, 4, no. 2 (2006): 97–8. 61 ‘Uyghur separatist denies links to Taliban, al-Qaeda’, Radio Free Asia, 27 January 2002. Available at https​://ww​w.rfa​.org/​engli​sh/ne​ws/po​litic​s/858​71-20​02012​7.htm​l?sea​rchte​ rm:ut​f8:us​tring​=Hasa​n+Mah​sum. 62 David S. Cloud and Ian Johnson, ‘In post-9/11 world, Chinese dissidents pose U.S. dilemma’, Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), 3 August 2004, pp. A1–A6. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Interview with Osama Bin Laden by Hamid Mir, Jalalabad, 18 March 1997 in ‘Compilation of Usama bin Laden’s Statements 1994 to January 2004’, FBIS Report, January 2004, p. 45. Available at https​://fa​s.org​/irp/​world​/para​/ubl-​fbis.​pdf. 67 Ibid. 68 Bruce Fishman, ‘al-Qaeda and the rise of China: Jihadi geopolitics in a posthegemonic world’, Washington Quarterly, 34, no. 3 (2011): 50. 69 The transcripts of the detainees’ ‘unclassified’ CSRT hearings can be found through the US Department of Defense website, http://www.dod.mil.com 70 See, for example, the CSRTs of Arkin Mahmud, ‘Summarized transcripts of detainee CSRT’, pp. 22–4. Available at http:​//www​.dod.​mil/p​ubs/f​oi/de​taine​es/cs​rt/Se​t_19_​ 1561-​1605.​pdf, Ahmad Tourson, ‘Summarized transcripts of detainee CSRT’, pp. 2–14. Available at http:​//www​.dod.​mil/f​oi/de​taine​es/cs​rt/Se​t_38_​2608-​2628.​pdf, and Yusef Abbas, ‘Summarized transcripts of detainee CSRT’, pp. 18–25. Available at http:​ //www​.dod.​mil/f​oi/de​taine​es/cs​rt/Se​t_20_​1606-​1644.​pdf. 71 Emam Abdulahat, ‘Summarized transcripts of detainee CSRT’, p. 100. Available at http:​//www​.dod.​mil/p​ubs/f​oi/de​taine​es/cs​rt/Se​t_43_​2811-​2921.​pdf. 72 Yusef Abbas, ‘Summarized transcripts of detainee Combatant Status Review Tribunal’, p. 24. Available at http:​//www​.dod.​mil/f​oi/de​taine​es/cs​rt/Se​t_20_​1606-​ 1644.​pdf. 73 Hozaifa Parhat, ‘Summarized transcripts of detainee CSRT’, p. 46. Available at http:​// www​.dod.​mil/f​oi/de​taine​es/cs​rt/Se​t_18_​1463-​1560.​pdf. This detainee noted: ‘If you go to Kazakhstan, they will not let us get property, training or anything. They will not let us in; as soon as they know we are in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, they will return us back to the Chinese. That is the reason we went to Afghanistan.’ 74 ‘China identifies alleged East Turkistan terrorists’, Sina.com, 21 October 2008. Available at http:​//eng​lish.​sina.​com/c​hina/​p/200​8/102​1/193​062.h​tml. 75 Clarke, ‘China’s “war on terror”’, p. 294. 76 See ‘Treasury targets leader of group tied to Al Qaida’, US Department of the Treasury – Press Center, 20 April 2009. Available at https​://ww​w.tre​asury​.gov/​ press​-cent​er/pr​ess-r​eleas​es/Pa​ges/t​g92.a​spx; and Jacob Zenn, ‘Jihad in China? Marketing the Turkistan Islamic party’, Terrorism Monitor, 9, no. 11 (2011).

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Available at https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​jihad​-in-c​hina-​marke​ting-​the-t​urkis​ tan-i​slami​c-par​ty/. 77 See Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000); and Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). 78 Murad Batal al- Shishani, ‘Journal of the Turkistan Islamic party urges Jihad in China’, Terrorism Monitor, 7, no. 9 (10 April 2009). Available at https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​ gram/​journ​al-of​-the-​turki​stan-​islam​ic-pa​rty-u​rges-​jihad​-in-c​hina/​. 79 Quoted in Ibid. 80 Jacob Zenn, ‘Jihad in China? Marketing the Turkistan Islamic party’, Terrorism Monitor, 9, no. 11 (2011). Available at http:​//www​.jame​stown​.org/​singl​e/?tx​_ttne​ws[tt​ _news​]=376​62&no​_cach​e=1#.​U-g4e​0hYO7​A. 81 http:​//www​.yout​ube.c​om/wa​tch?v​=pwO_​wX5ol​NQ&fe​ature​=rela​ted. 82 Issues of Islamic Turkestan can be viewed at the following links: http:​//cjl​ab.me​mri.o​ rg/la​b-pro​jects​/moni​torin​g-jih​adi-a​nd-ha​cktiv​ist-a​ctivi​ty/ti​p-rel​eases​-issu​e-18-​of-is​ lamic​-turk​estan​-maga​zine/​; and https​://az​elin.​files​.word​press​.com/​2012/​04/e1​b8a5i​ zb-al​-islc​481mc​4ab-a​l-tur​kistc​481nc​4abs-​turki​stan-​islam​ic-pa​rty-2​2turk​istc4​81n-a​ l-isl​c481m​c4aby​yah-5​22.pd​f. 83 Part of the video can be viewed here, https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=RD1​ RQmZE​qy0. 84 Jim Yardley, ‘Bus blasts not linked to Olympics, China says’, New York Times, 23 July 2008. Available at http:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/20​08/07​/23/w​orld/​asia/​23kun​ming.​html?​ ref=w​orld.​ 85 Al-Libi was considered at this time by senior US intelligence officials to be al Qaeda’s ‘rising star’, see Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet, ‘Rising leader for next phase of Al Qaeda’s war’, New York Times, http:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/20​08/04​/04/w​orld/​asia/​ 04qae​da.ht​ml?_r​=1&or​ef=sl​ogin.​ 86 ‘Abu-Yahya Al-Libi video message: “East Turkestan: The forgotten wound”’. Available at https​://sc​holar​ship.​trico​lib.b​rynma​wr.ed​u/bit​strea​m/han​dle/1​0066/​5066/​AYL20​ 09100​7.pdf​?sequ​ence=​3. 87 Ibid. 88 ‘Treasury targets leader of group tied to al Qaida’. 89 Raffaello Pantucci, ‘Uyghur terrorism in the fractured Middle East’, in Michael Clarke (ed.), Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in China: Domestic and Foreign Policy Dimensions (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 160–2; and Raffaello Pantucci, ‘Manchester, New York and Oslo: Three centrally directed Al-Qa`ida plots’, CTC Sentinel, 3, no. 8 (August 2010): 10–13. 90 Pantucci, ‘Manchester, New York and Oslo’, p. 12. 91 Pantucci, ‘Uyghur terrorism in the fractured Middle East’, p. 162. 92 Bill Roggio, ‘ETIP leader thought killed in February Predator strike’, Long War Journal, 17 September 2010. Available at https​://ww​w.lon​gwarj​ourna​l.org​/arch​ives/​ 2010/​09/et​ip_le​ader_​kille​d_i.p​hp. 93 Jacob Zenn, ‘al-Qaeda’s Uyghur jihadi: A profile of the Turkistan Islamic Party’s Abdul Shakoor Turkistani’, Militant Leadership Monitor, 2, no. 12 (30 December 2011). Available at http:​//mlm​.jame​stown​.org/​singl​e/?tx​_ttne​ws%5B​tt_ne​ws% 5D​=3882​3&tx_​ttnew​s%5Bb​ackPi​d%5D=​567#.​U8pnl​vmSzU​U. 94 Austin Ramzy, ‘China’s restive Xinjiang region shaken by more attacks’, Time, 1 August 2011. Available at http:​//wor​ld.ti​me.co​m/201​1/08/​01/ch​inas-​resti​ve-xi​njian​g-reg​ion-s​ haken​-by-m​ore-a​ttack​s/. 95 Zenn, ‘al-Qaeda’s Uyghur jihadi’.

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96 Murray Scott-Tanner (with James Bellacqua), China’s Response to Terrorism (Washington DC: CNA, March 2016), pp. 31–2. 97 Shannon Tiezzi, ‘Turkestan Islamic party expresses support for Kunming attack’, The Diplomat, 20 March 2014. Available at http:​//the​diplo​mat.c​om/20​14/03​/turk​estan​ -isla​mic-p​arty-​expre​sses-​suppo​rt-fo​r-kun​ming-​attac​k/. 98 This latter point is made abundantly clear in this English-language documentary aired by China Central Television in February 2015, ‘CCTV Special Report: China and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement’, 13 February 2015. Available at https​://ww​ w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=ESH​u1XGi​HVg. 99 A small portion of CCTV footage from the attack can be viewed at https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=saA​arcQO​tNU (accessed 8 March 2017). 100 昆明暴恐案始末:8人欲赴境外’圣战’受阻 [Violence in Kunming: 8 attackers attempting to join overseas jihad ‘blocked’], 5 March 2014. Available at http:​//www​ .ce.c​n/xwz​x/gns​z/gdx​w/201​403/0​5/t20​14030​5_241​9638.​shtml​ (accessed 8 March 2017); and ‘Kunming massacre gang tried to become jihadists overseas’. 101 ‘China train station attackers may have acted “in desperation”’, Radio Free Asia. Available at http:​//www​.rfa.​org/e​nglis​h/new​s/uyg​hur/d​esper​ate-0​30320​14224​353.h​tml. 102 ‘Xinjiang doubles terror fight budget’, China Daily, 17 January 2014. Available at http:​ //www​.chin​adail​y.com​.cn/b​izchi​na/20​14-01​/17/c​onten​t_172​40577​.htm.​ 103 James Leibold, ‘Xinjiang work forum marks new policy of ethnic mingling’, China Brief. Available at https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​xinji​ang-w​ork-f​orum-​marks​-new-​ polic​y-of-​ethni​c-min​gling​/. 104 Julia Famularo, ‘How Xinjiang has transformed China’s counterterrorism policies’, The National Interest, 26 August 2015. Available at http:​//nat​ional​inter​est.o​rg/fe​ature​ /how-​xinji​ang-h​as-tr​ansfo​rmed-​china​%E2%8​0%99s​-coun​terte​rrori​sm-13​699c;​ and Adrian Zenz and James Leibold, ‘Xinjiang’s rapidly evolving security state’, China Brief, 17, no. 4 (2017). Available at https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​xinji​angs-​rapid​ ly-ev​olvin​g-sec​urity​-stat​e/. 105 Josh Chin and Clement Burge, ‘Twelve days in Xinjiang: How China’s surveillance state overwhelms daily life’, Wall Street Journal, 19 December 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.wsj​.com/​artic​les/t​welve​-days​-in-x​injia​ng-ho​w-chi​nas-s​urvei​llanc​esta​te-ov​erwhe​lms-d​aily-​life-​15137​00355​?mod=​fox_a​ustra​lian.​ 106 Zachary Abuza, ‘Uyghurs look to Indonesia for terror guidance’, Asia Times, 10 October 2014. Available at http:​//www​.atim​es.co​m/ati​mes/S​outhe​ast_A​sia/S​ EA-01​-1010​14.ht​ml (accessed 20 June 2016); and Zahara Tiba, ‘Uyghurs on trial in Indonesia are Turkish Citizens, Lawyer says’, Benar News, 4 September 2015. Available at http:​//www​.bena​rnews​.org/​engli​sh/ne​ws/in​dones​ian/i​ndone​sia-u​yghur​ s-040​92015​16161​1.htm​l (accessed 20 June 2016). 107 Catherine Putz, ‘Thailand deports 100 Uyghurs to China’, The Diplomat, 11 July 2015. Available at http:​//the​diplo​mat.c​om/20​15/07​/thai​land-​depor​ts-10​0-uyg​hurs-​to-ch​ ina/ (accessed 20 June 2016). 108 Seymour Hersh, ‘Military to military’, London Review of Books, 38, no. 1 (2015). Available at http:​//www​.lrb.​co.uk​/v38/​no1/s​eymou​r-m-h​ersh/​milit​ary-t​o-mil​itary​ (accessed 11 February 2017). 109 Michael Clarke, ‘Uyghur militants in Syria: The Turkish connection’, Terrorism Monitor, 14, no. 3 (2016). Available at https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​uyghu​r-mil​ itant​s-in-​syria​-the-​turki​sh-co​nnect​ion/ (accessed 15 March 2017). 110 ‘Illegal migrants’ failed dreams of “heavenly life”’, Xinhua, 18 July 2015. Available at http:​//new​s.xin​huane​t.com​/engl​ish/2​015-0​7/18/​c_134​42460​1.htm​ (accessed 15

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March 2017); ‘10 Turks said to be under arrest for aiding terrorist suspects in China’, New York Times, 15 January 2015. Available at http:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/20​15/01​/15/ w​orld/​asia/​10-tu​rks-s​aid-t​o-be-​under​-arre​st-fo​r-aid​ing-t​error​ist-s​uspec​ts-in​-chin​ a.htm​l?_r=​0 (accessed 15 March 2017); and Liu Chang, ‘Uyghurs, Turks held in smuggling, terrorism scheme’, Global Times, 14 January 2015. Available at http:​//www​ .glob​altim​es.cn​/cont​ent/9​01866​.shtm​l (accessed 15 March 2017). 111 Roberts, ‘The narrative of Uyghur terrorism’. 112 Zenn, ‘Jihad in China? Marketing the Turkistan Islamic party’; and Jacob Zenn, ‘Turkistan Islamic party increases its media profile’, Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 9 (2014). Available at https​://ww​w.cac​ianal​yst.o​rg/pu​blica​tions​/anal​ytica​l-art​icles​/item​ /1290​9-tur​kista​n-isl​amic-​party​-incr​eases​-its-​media​-prof​i le.h​tml. 113 ‘Turkistan Islamic party in Sahl al Ghab.’ Available at https​://ar​chive​.org/​detai​ls/TI​ PInSa​hlAlG​hab; ‘Ṣawt al-Islām presents a new video message from Ḥizb al-Islāmī al-Turkistānī [Turkistan Islamic Party] in Bilād al-Shām’: ‘Conquest of Jisr al-Shaghūr’, Jihadology, 1 May 2015. Available at http:​//jih​adolo​gy.ne​t/201​5/05/​01/ṣa​wt-al​-isla​ m-pre​sents​-a-ne​w-vid​eo-me​ssage​-from​-ḥizb​-al-i​slami​-al-t​urkis​tani-​turki​stan-​islam​ ic-pa​rty-i​n-bil​ad-al​-sham​-conq​uest-​of-ji​sr-al​-shag​hur/;​ and Caleb Weiss, ‘Turkistan Islamic party shows fighters on the frontlines in Northwestern Syria’, The Long War Journal, 14 October 2015. Available at http:​//www​.long​warjo​urnal​.org/​archi​ves/2​015/1​ 0/tur​kista​n-isl​amic-​party​-show​s-fig​hters​-on-f​rontl​ines-​in-no​rthwe​stern​-syri​a.php​. 114 Thomas Jocelyn and Bill Roggio, ‘Turkistan Islamic party leader criticizes the Islamic State’s “illegitimate” caliphate’, Long War Journal, 11 June 2016. Available at http:​// www​.long​warjo​urnal​.org/​archi​ves/2​016/0​6/tur​kista​n-isl​amic-​party​-lead​er-re​mains​ -loya​l-to-​al-qa​eda-c​ritic​izes-​islam​ic-st​ates-​illeg​itima​te-ca​lipha​te.ph​p. 115 Thomas Joscelyn, ‘Zawahiri praises Uyghur jihadists in ninth episode of “Islamic Spring” series’, Long War Journal, 7 July 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.lon​gwarj​ ourna​l.org​/arch​ives/​2016/​07/za​wahir​i-pra​ises-​uighu​r-jih​adist​s-in-​ninth​-epis​ode-o​ f-isl​amic-​sprin​g-ser​ies.p​hp. 116 Catherine Wong, ‘Concerns grow over rise in Chinese jihadis in Syria’, Associated Press, 22 April 2017. Available at http:​//www​.scmp​.com/​news/​china​/dipl​omacy​-defe​ nce/a​rticl​e/208​9808/​insid​e-sha​dowy-​world​-chin​ese-m​ilita​nts-f​i ghti​ng-sy​ria. 117 ‘Undercover in Idlib’, UAE Television, 16 May 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=aEs​qk826​Yj4. 118 Ibid. 119 Caleb Weiss, ‘Turkistan Islamic party parades in Northwestern Syria’, Long War Journal, 5 November 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.lon​gwarj​ourna​l.org​/arch​ives/​ 2017/​11/tu​rkist​an-is​lamic​-part​y-par​ades-​in-no​rthwe​stern​-syri​a.php​. 120 Qiu Yongzheng, ‘Turkey’s ambiguous policies help terrorists join IS jihadist group: Analyst’, Global Times, 15 December 2014. Available at http:​//www​.glob​altim​es.cn​/ cont​ent/8​96765​.shtm​l. 121 Nate Rosenblatt, All Jihad Is Local: What ISIS’ Files Tell Us about Its Fighters (Washington DC: New America Foundation, July 2016), p. 26. 122 Ibid. 123 ‘China Embassy attack: Suspect is 21yo Tajikistan national’, AKIpress, 6 September 2016. Available at http://akipress.com/news:581921/. 124 Ibid. 125 Daren Butler and Tulay Karadeniz, ‘Turkey says Istanbul nightclub attacker probably Uighur’, Reuters, 5 January 2017. Available at http:​//www​.reut​ers.c​om/ar​ticle​/us-t​ urkey​-atta​ck-id​USKBN​14P0T​V.

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126 Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘The worldwide rise of religious nationalism’, Journal of International Affairs, 50, no. 1 (1996): 8. 127 Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘Religious challenges to global security’, Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, 1 (2005): 101–9. 128 Ibid., 105. 129 Ibid. 130 Adrian Zenz, ‘“Thoroughly reforming them to a healthy heart attitude”: China’s political re-education campaign in Xinjiang’, Central Asian Survey, 38, no. 1 (2019): 102–28. 131 John Sudworth, ‘China’s hidden camps: What happened to the vanished Uyghurs of Xinjiang?’, BBC News, 24 October 2018. Available at https​://ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/res​ ource​s/idt​-sh/C​hina_​hidde​n_cam​ps. 132 Ibid. 133 See Michael Clarke, ‘Patriotic songs and self-criticism: Why China is “re-educating” Muslims in mass detention camps’, The Conversation, 25 July 2018. Available at https​ ://th​econv​ersat​ion.c​om/pa​triot​ic-so​ngs-a​nd-se​lf-cr​itici​sm-wh​y-chi​na-is​-re-e​ducat​ ing-m​uslim​s-in-​mass-​deten​tion-​camps​-9959​2; and ‘Behind the walls: Uyghurs detail their experience in China’s secret “re-education” camps’, Radio Free Asia, 30 October 2018. Available at https​://ww​w.rfa​.org/​engli​sh/ne​ws/sp​ecial​/uygh​ur-de​tenti​on/. 134 ‘China tells world to ignore “gossip” about Xinjiang’, Reuters, 13 November 2018. Available at https​://ww​w.reu​ters.​com/a​rticl​e/us-​china​-germ​any-x​injia​ng-id​USKCN​ 1NI0S​W.

THE GLOBAL–LOCAL NEXUS IN THE KASHMIR INSURGENCY THE JAISH-E-MOHAMMED, THE PAKISTANI MILITARY AND AL QAEDA Sajjan M. Gohel

Introduction Afghanistan and Pakistan serve as part of the centre of the global jihad movement which stems from the mujahideen battle against the Soviets in the 1980s. The consequences of that directly spawned the insurgency in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir soon after the Soviets left Afghanistan. Although the insurgency may be perceived as local or regional due to its close proximity to Pakistan, there is an additional, more complex, ‘glocal’ relationship. Primarily, individuals who were either born in or lived in the West, mostly of Pakistani heritage, contributed significantly to what is known as the ‘Kashmir Escalator’. This has been the process by which members of the diaspora were initially radicalized in the West, and then travelled to Pakistan, utilizing familial ties to connect with terrorist groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed, JeM) who would then provide ideological instruction as well as training in guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism.1 Some would take part in attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, which they perceived as a conflict ‘local’ to them.2 However, often, they would also be rerouted towards becoming part of Al Qaeda and engaging in transnational attacks in the West. This process was made possible because of the close ideological linkages and personal relationships that the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s leadership shared with Pakistani terrorist groups such as the JeM. This chapter will examine the connections to the global jihad in Jammu and Kashmir and crucially the ‘glocal’ relationship with the centre, which represents Pakistan and Afghanistan, and what connects the periphery, which entails the West, to the centre. This interplay of the local with the global has manifested itself most clearly in the role the JeM has played in the entry process of introducing Western-educated men to Al Qaeda. This well-trodden path became a direct line to Al Qaeda and enabled Western recruits of Pakistani heritage to migrate from the ‘local’ to the ‘global’, culminating in several transnational plots including the 7 July 2005 London bomb attacks.3 This chapter contributes to the growing body of literature on terrorism that connects Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan by specifically looking at the role,

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impact, strategy, tactics and ideology of the JeM, and through that its relationship with Al Qaeda. This chapter shows that Jammu and Kashmir embodies a symbiotic relationship with the global jihadi movement and has become key in transforming the landscape of the global jihad. This chapter will also discuss the local dynamics and aims of the JeM that are crucial for understanding why and how Pakistanis engaged with international jihadism. An additional dynamic is the interconnected relationship that Pakistani terrorist groups like the JeM have with the Pakistani military establishment and, in particular, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). This chapter will assess the extent to which the ISI supports terrorism based on the three criteria defined by Daniel Byman: whether a state provides intentional assistance to an organization to employ violence, sustain itself or bolster its political position.4 It is important to note that the Pakistani ‘state’ is not a monolithic entity. However, though there are distinctions between civilian and military administrations, the military’s control over foreign policy has minimized the influence of civilian officials. This chapter will argue that the strategic utility terrorist groups like the JeM offer to the Pakistani security establishment outweighs the threat they pose to the periphery of the West. The JeM is not only a useful but also a reliable asset for the Pakistani military. Their respective objectives may not always perfectly align with the security establishment’s objectives, but they certainly overlap. Complicating the relationship is the JeM’s close proximity with Al Qaeda, which the Pakistani military cannot separate, either by choice or because they are unable to. This chapter will provide a brief background to the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan as well as put into context the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the battle against the mujahideen. It will then provide a discussion of the Deobandi movement in Pakistan followed by an examination of the Harkat-ul Mujahideen ((Movement of the Religious Fighters, HuM) terrorist group and Maulana Masood Azhar in the establishment of JeM based on his regional travels and his trips to the periphery. This chapter will subsequently proceed to explore the dynamics and relationships that have underpinned the JeM’s relationship with both the Pakistani military and Al Qaeda before and after 9/11, the JeM–ISI–Al Qaeda nexus, factoring in the local and global connections, including the Pakistani diasporas based in the West. This chapter further argues that the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir has created the space for the emergence of a local–global nexus between the JeM and Al Qaeda as their objectives overlap in many areas. The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir has engendered a considerable amount of literature such as the works by Sumit Ganguly,5 Sumantra Bose,6 Malik Iffat,7 Victoria Schofield8 and Cabeiri deBergh Robinson9 who collectively have examined the dynamics of the insurgency which they view through the framework of the local context. There has also been a growing body of scholarly literature on militancy within Pakistan and the relationship with global jihad such as the works by Bruce Riedel,10 Syed Saleem Shahzad11 and Zahid Hussein whose respective research has also drawn linkages with key Pakistani military institutions as well as the connections to the centre of global jihad through Al Qaeda and the Taliban.12 They argue that jihad was exported from the centre to the West which comprises

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the periphery as well as to Jammu and Kashmir which forms the local based on its proximity to Pakistan. J. Greig has aptly noted that virtually every Al Qaeda terrorist incident since 11 September 2001 worldwide has had some connection to Pakistan.13 Mitch Silber demonstrates the Al Qaeda relationship in Pakistan and the reverse flow to the periphery.14 S. P. Winchell emphasizes the importance of Pakistani military ruler Zia ul-Haq’s ‘Islamization’ policies which served to transform the ideological orientation of the state and its key institutions that brought Pakistan into the centre of global jihad.15 When exploring the relationship of specific Pakistani terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and transnational connections from the centre and the ‘glocal’ factors, there have been seminal contributions by Stephen Tankel16 and Christine Fair.17 However, in comparison, there have been no academic studies on the role and importance of the JeM and its dynamics with global jihad as well as on the Pakistani security establishment. It is here where this chapter seeks to contribute and argue that terrorism associated with the JeM is exported from the centre, Pakistan, to both the local, Jammu and Kashmir, and the periphery, the West. Equally, it will also demonstrate that terrorism has been imported from the periphery, with Western recruits travelling to the centre. There is a global–local nexus.

The Deobandi movement in Pakistan The Deobandis are a Muslim religious revivalist movement that emerged in British colonial India in reaction to the threat to Islam from both Western and Hindu influences. Like the Wahhabis, the Deobandis believe that certain Sufi-related practices such as seeking the mediation of saints and adopting innovations are un-Islamic. In Pakistan, followers of the Deobandism formally subscribe to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence. They emphasize a puritanical interpretation of Islam that rejects the inclinations to syncretism that are characteristic of local, pre-Islamic and Sufi influences, which mark much of South Asian Islam. Following the partition of British India in 1947, the centres of Deobandi learning moved to the Pakistani urban centres of Karachi and Lahore as well as Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan. During the rule of General Zia ul-Haq, who seized power in Pakistan in 1977, the Deobandi movement in Pakistan was radicalized as a result of his Islamization policies exemplified by the movement pushing for instituting the doctrine of Sawad-e-Azam Ahl-e-Sunnat (Greater Unity of the Sunnis), which demanded that Pakistan be declared a Sunni state and that Shi’ites were apostates.18 At the same time, the Deobandi movement was also cultivated by the Pakistani military establishment.19 The Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979 and the Afghan jihad that followed from 1980 to 1989 further reinforced the radicalization of the Deobandi movement in Pakistan as one of its madrassas – Jamia Uloom-eIslamia – based in Binori Town, Karachi, was transformed into a centre for jihad.20 Indeed, Jamia Uloom-e-Islamia became the fountainhead of Deobandi militancy in Pakistan as a significant number of its former students proceeded to establish

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jihadi organizations which sent volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.21 Another Deobandi madrassa, Darul Uloom Haqqaniyah in Akora Khattak, part of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), was central in educating the Afghans who would later become the Taliban. Thus, Pakistani Deobandi madrassas created strong links to the insecurity in Afghanistan by providing fighters that were ideologically radicalized and shaped by a narrow dogmatic doctrine. They viewed anyone that thought differently to their goal to create an Islamic state in Afghanistan as a direct threat.22 The battlefields of the Afghan jihad were key to the early operational development of Pakistani Islamist militancy. They also brought the Deobandi movement into direct contact with the mujahideen, who were arriving from all parts of the Muslim world and beyond. To assist these mujahideen, the JordanianPalestinian ideologue Abdullah Azzam created the service bureau Maktab Al Khadamat (MAK) in Peshawar to provide them with housing and food while they joined the Afghan jihad against the Soviets.23 Its cofounder was the Saudi, Osama bin Laden, whom Azzam had met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. An heir of his father’s expansive construction business, bin Laden had come to Pakistan to join the jihad and brought with him financial support to aid the campaign.24 Initially, the MAK funded hostels for jihadis in Peshawar, then, with support from the Pakistani military, set up training camps where volunteers could hone their tradecraft before going off to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. As bin Laden later noted, ‘volunteers from all over the Arab and Muslim countries … were trained by the Pakistanis, the weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis’.25 The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1988 led to the further fracturing and radicalization of the local and regional Sunni militant movements in terms of ‘what comes next’. For the Pakistani Deobandi movement and the Pakistani military the direction had already been set as Zia ul-Haq had already started planning for the next stage of jihad after the Soviets had been defeated in Afghanistan. Against this background, Pakistan’s ISI formulated two intersecting Islamist projects. First, to orchestrate the rise to power in Afghanistan of a proPakistani Pashtun Islamist student-led movement, which would be known as the Taliban. Second, an attempt to wrestle control of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir from India.26 In 1947 British India was partitioned into the secular state of India and the majority Muslim state of Pakistan. As the border was being drawn, princely states that were to be affected by partition were given the option of deciding which country to join. This included the state of Kashmir where the ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, was Hindu while most of his subjects were Muslim, with a sizeable Hindu and Buddhist minority. Unable to decide which nation Kashmir should become part of, Hari Singh chose to remain neutral. Starting on 14 August 1947, soon after Pakistan and India became independent states, Muslim tribesmen aided by Pakistan attempted to seize control of Kashmir. In response, Hari Singh appealed to the Indian government for military assistance and  signed the Instrument of Accession, ceding Kashmir to India on 26 October 1947. This prompted the first

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India-Pakistan war. When it ended with a ceasefire on  1 January 1949, 65 per cent of Kashmir resided within India, Jammu and Kashmir, and the remainder under Pakistani control. The ceasefire was intended to be temporary but the Line of Control remains the de facto border between the two countries. Since then conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has erupted periodically. From 1989 onwards, this has seen the involvement of jihadi groups which deliberately coincided with the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan. In order to achieve its aims with respect to Kashmir, Pakistan was particularly supportive of groups that saw the future of Jammu and Kashmir as being under Pakistani patronage rather than those that sought an independent future, free from both India and Pakistan.27 Under the command of General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, the ISI used the extensive intelligence and militant network that it had built up during the Afghan war to support an insurgency against the Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir.28 Rehman was consequently elevated to the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The plan was that as soon as the Afghan war had successfully seen off the Soviets, fighters would pour into Jammu and Kashmir. Neither Rehman nor Zia ul-Haq saw their plans come to fruition as both were killed in an air crash on 17 August 1988. However, Rehman’s successor as head of the ISI, Hamid Gul, continued to implement the plan with renewed vigour. As the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, violence commenced in full force in Kashmir.29 The ISI had in its possession a treasure trove of an unused military arsenal which the West had supplied for use against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It also had a willing army of jihadi volunteers who were looking for the next jihad. In the 1990s, in an attempt to side-line the indigenous Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), the ISI started supporting and increasing the role of Pakistani-based militant Islamist groups such as Hezb-ul Mujahideen and HuM. Those jihadis changed the complexion of the Kashmir insurgency.30 The increasing involvement of Pakistani groups gave further momentum to the insurgency, but it also increased the divisions as many Kashmiri groups resented the ISI’s interference and attempts to ‘Pakistanize’ and then to ‘Islamize’ the movement.31 The Pakistani military’s attitude towards groups operating on and from its soil is based on a careful balance between the strategic utility they provide and the potential inward threat they could pose.32 Pakistan’s security policy is engrossed with both India and Afghanistan and is driven by the suspicion that there are designs to fragment the Pakistani state. The utility some militant organizations provide against India or in Afghanistan is the most common reason why the Pakistani military either supports or tolerates them. This support can vary and involve a combination of financial and material assistance including training, operations, logistics and intelligence sharing.33 These relationships became more complicated and murky once Al Qaeda came into the equation as exemplified by the ISI setting up the initial meeting between the Taliban and bin Laden with the intention that the two would work together, especially to help train militants fighting in the Kashmir insurgency.34

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Harkat-ul Mujahideen One of the first Pakistani Deobandi jihadi groups was HuM, which until October 1997 was known as Harakat ul-Ansar (HuA), when it changed its name after it was placed on the list of terrorist organizations by the US State Department.35 Established in 1984 and led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil,36 it was the predecessor to JeM and it is thus important to examine its role and connections during the Afghan jihad. During the latter half of the 1980s, HuM worked together with Afghan warlord and future senior Taliban figure, Jalaluddin Haqqani.37 In March 1988, Haqqani commanded HuM fighters from Pakistan and Arab jihadis during a battle against an outpost defended by Soviet-backed Afghan forces near Khost.38 Several HuM commanders were killed during the assault.39 HuM fighters also participated in the battle of Gardez in 1988, alongside Arab fighters who would go on to form Al Qaeda.40 This close cooperation was possible due to their shared Deobandi ideology. HuM, like the Taliban, holds to a very strict interpretation of Islamic law and denounces pluralist, parliamentary democracy and equal rights for women as the corrupting influence of the West on Islamic societies. In February 1998, Osama bin Laden created the ‘International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders’. The Front was declared at a press conference in Pakistan in the same month. On behalf of the HuM, Khalil signed the fatwa which called for attacks on US and Western interests.41 After the August 1998 US embassy bombings by Al Qaeda in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, the United States launched cruise missile attacks on terrorist training camps in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, run by bin Laden and on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that US officials suspected of involvement in the manufacture of chemical weapons.42 The training camps of the HuM bore the brunt of the American cruise missile attacks. Khalil claimed that nine HuM members died in the US attack and warned that HuM would take revenge on America. In a statement faxed to news agency Reuters, HuM announced that the Americans and Jews should now prepare for their destruction. … America has challenged the honour of the entire Muslim world. The self-respecting Muslims of the world, particularly the Mujahideen of Islam, have announced they will wage a holy war against America. And they will teach the Americans and their puppets, the Israeli Jews, a lesson they will remember forever.43

Maulana Masood Azhar While HuM laid the foundation for JeM’s relations with the Taliban, it was HuM propogandist, fundraiser and recruiter for the Kashmir jihad, Maulana Masood Azhar, who is key to understanding the JeM’s relations with Al Qaeda. Azhar was born in 1968 in Bahawalpur, southern Punjab, Pakistan. The third of twelve children of a schoolteacher, Allah Baksh Sabir Alvi, he grew up in an deeply religious environment.44 Azhar received his Islamic religious education at the

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aforementioned Deobandi Jamia Uloom-e-Islamia, in Karachi, before joining the institution as a teacher which then took him towards his journey into jihad. In the mid-1980s he went to Afghanistan to fight with the mujahideen in the Khost province. It was in Afghanistan that he joined HuM.45 Several of Azhar’s brothers would later follow in his footsteps. Azhar became close to the HuM’s Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman Khalil. He would become the HuM’s general secretary. Because of his weak physical condition, he was assigned propaganda and organizational work and became the organization’s most firebrand ideologue who made his mark on the Deobandi movement.46 Audio tapes of his speeches were used to galvanize individuals to join the jihadi cause. Senior Al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot once even compared Azhar to Abdullah Azzam, stating that Azhar was ‘one of the few revivers of Jihad in our time who mirrors in the Indian sub-continent what Abdullah Azzam was to the Arab world. His works in many languages have greatly inspired men and women in realizing the low state of the Muslim people and its duty to revive itself through jihad’.47 As a propagandist, Azhar also edited a magazine called Sadai Mujahid (Voice of the Mujahid) that exalted the virtues of jihad in Afghanistan and then later in Jammu and Kashmir. One of Azhar’s tasks was to mobilize support in other countries and, during the 1990s, he made trips to several European countries, including the UK in 1993, where he toured various religious institutions.48 Azhar gave the Friday sermon at Madina Mosque in Clapton, East London, focusing on the duty of jihad. While attending a reception with a group of Islamic scholars, he engaged in discussions on the merits of ‘jihad, its needs, training and other related issues’.49 Azhar then headed north to provide radical sermons at the Zakariya Mosque in Dewsbury, Madina Masjid in Batley, Jamia Masjid in Blackburn, Darul Uloom Bury and Jamia Masjid in Burnley, where he claimed that a significant part of the Qur’an and Hadiths had been devoted to ‘killing for the sake of Allah’ and jihad.50 In one emotive speech Azhar said that ‘the youth should prepare for jihad without any delay. They should get jihadi training from wherever they can. We are also ready to offer our services.’51 His audiences were so inspired that many women donated their jewellery to provide funds to support the Kashmir insurgency.52 After his UK sojourn, Azhar followed Osama bin Laden, who had gone to Sudan in 1992 and fought in Somalia along with Arab fighters, most of them former Afghan war veterans.53 In his diary, Azhar wrote that he travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, in 1993 to meet with leaders of the Somali group Al Ittihad Al Islamiya, the predecessor group to Al Shabaab. After US President Bill Clinton deployed troops to Somalia in 1993, Azhar was credited with teaching Somali warlords how to trim the fins on their rocket-propelled grenades so they would detonate in midair and bring down US helicopters.54 In 1993, at the height of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, Al Ittihad militants with Al Qaeda’s assistance brought down two American helicopters and killed eighteen marines with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The mission of the US forces was to capture warlord Mohammed Aidid. American TV networks portrayed the horrific images of the marines’ mutilated bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.55 It is

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unlikely that Azhar had forgotten about Kashmir but he saw the insurgency as part of the broader strategy to assist his friend bin Laden in the goal of global jihad, of which Kashmir was a part of a bigger picture. Azhar was in Somalia during the same period when bin Laden sent some of his senior operatives such as Saif al-Adl, Abu Hafs al-Masri and Saif al-Islam to scout for places to train local Somali units.56 Azhar was also involved in the training of militants in Yemen with Al Qaeda operative Tariq Nasir Fadhli, who was behind the December 1992 hotel bombings in Yemen that targeted US marines headed for Somalia.57 Having collaborated with bin Laden and his cohorts in developing new skills in combat, Azhar eventually returned to Pakistan to develop and enhance HuM’s network in Jammu and Kashmir.58 Captured by Indian forces in February 1994 for travelling on a forged Portuguese passport, Azhar spent six years in Indian jails, where he wrote numerous articles on jihad, often referring in his writings to Africa. In an attempt to free him, HuM engaged in a campaign of kidnappings that targeted Westerners in India and Jammu and Kashmir in 1994.59 The plot was led by British-Pakistani Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. Sheikh was a student at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Azhar had encountered Sheikh and his family during his trip to the UK. Sheikh eventually travelled to fight in the jihad in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and met Abdur Rauf, a Pakistani HuM fighter. Rauf brought Sheikh to Miran Shah in Pakistan’s tribal areas, then into Afghanistan to the Khalid Bin Waleed camp located between Khost and Zhawar Kili in late 1993.60 Many of Sheikh’s instructors were from the Pakistani army’s Special Services Group.61 Assisting Sheikh’s hostage-taking strategy was Ilyas Kashmiri, who was born in Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri spent several years in the Afghan war against the Soviets which hardened him. After the Soviet defeat, Kashmiri returned to Jammu and Kashmir, where, with ISI assistance, he formed a militant faction called the 313 Brigade which was successful in launching attacks against the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir. In 1991, he was captured and spent two years in an Indian prison but eventually managed to escape.62 Kashmiri, would later go on to serve as a key nexus point between Al Qaeda and the JeM, and even later formally join Al Qaeda. Kashmiri was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in 2011.63 In 1994, while in India, Sheikh and Kashmiri kidnapped three British tourists and one American in New Delhi.64 Sheikh and Kashmiri wanted Azhar to be released in exchange for the four hostages. The captives were eventually rescued and Sheikh was captured and sent to prison. However, Kashmiri escaped.65 These attempts were followed by a similar kidnapping incident of six Western tourists that occurred in Jammu and Kashmir in July 1995.66 The abductions were seen as a way for HuM, operating under the alias of Al Faran, to apply additional pressure on the Indian government to secure Azhar’s and Sheikh’s release. The tourists had been trekking in the hill resort of Pahalgam when they were abducted.67 One of the American hostages, John Childs, managed to eventually escape but the beheaded body of another, the Norwegian Hans Christian Ostro was discovered in August when the kidnapper’s demands were not met. The other four have never been found and are believed to have met the same fate as Ostro.68

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Revealing the extent of connections between HuM and Al Qaeda as well as the Taliban even more clearly were the events that transpired in December 1999. In early December 1999, Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID) discovered a number of terrorist plots in which Al Qaeda played a role. These included the planned multiple simultaneous attacks on a luxury hotel in Amman, Jordan,69 on the Los Angeles International Airport,70 an attempt to load a boat with explosives and then ram it into American destroyer USS Sullivan in Aden, Yemen,71 and the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC814 in Kathmandu, Nepal.72 Only the final operation succeeded. It was carried out on Christmas Eve 1999 by five HuM terrorists, including Ibrahim Athar, Azhar’s younger brother. The plane was forced to fly to Amritsar (India), Lahore (Pakistan) and Dubai (United Arab Emirates) before finally settling in at Kandahar, Afghanistan on 25 December. Here the Taliban surrounded the aircraft with heavy weaponry, at the request of the hijackers, to thwart any rescue mission. The hijackers had told the pilot to ‘fly slowly, fly carefully, there is no hurry. We have to give India a millennium gift.’73 This gift was a bomb which had been smuggled into the plane’s cargo hold in Nepal and was timed to go off at midnight on 31 December 1999 unless Azhar, Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, a third HuM member, were released.74 To demonstrate their intention to use lethal force, the hijackers stabbed to death one passenger, Rupin Katyal a young bridegroom on his honeymoon. His bride witnessed his murder.75 India’s government eventually relented and agreed to the deal.76 US officials believe that bin Laden was directing the plot and negotiations behind the scenes.77 This is supported by the fact that Azhar after his release from prison was not only greeted by Taliban Kandahar corps commander Maulvi Mohammad Akhtar Usmani and Taliban emir Mullah Mohammed Omar in Afghanistan78 but also met with bin Laden.79 Indeed, according to an interview with Nasser al-Bahri, who served as a bodyguard to bin Laden during the late 1990s, ‘Bin Laden had wanted Azhar freed and … had ordered al Qaeda to plan the Indian airlines hijacking with Harkat’.80 This was reportedly done because ‘Bin Laden admired Azhar and needed his help’.81 Azhar later recalled that ‘everything had gone amazingly smoothly due to the Taliban’s excellent political acumen and superb handling of the situation’.82 The millennium plots illustrated Al Qaeda’s growing ambitions in planning transnational operations drawing upon recruits and jihadi organizations with shared interests such as HuM across the world. The hijacking of IC814 would serve as a basis for Al Qaeda to use airplanes when planning terrorist strikes.

The Jaish-e-Mohammad After the meeting with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, Azhar, along with the hijackers, travelled to Pakistan where he addressed 10,000 supporters at his alma mater Jamia Uloom-e-Islamia in Karachi.83 In this speech he emphasized the importance of the local struggle for Kashmir but he also voiced his far more

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global ambitions, stating that ‘I have come here because this is my duty, to tell you that Muslims should not rest in peace until we have destroyed America and India’.84 Shortly thereafter, he set up JeM on 31 January 2000. He then organized recruitment rallies, which were screened on state-owned television stations across Pakistan calling upon Muslims to join the jihad. Through Azhar, the JeM invoked the doctrine prophesizing Ghazwa-e-Hind, a battle for India between the believers and unbelievers, as theological justification.85 This illustrated that the JeM’s ideological goals extended beyond the local goals of seizing Jammu and Kashmir and in fact extended towards all of India. The JeM effectively became the successor organization to HuM which, after the Indian Airlines hijacking, came under scrutiny of the United States for its close relationship with Al Qaeda that included being a signatory to the 1998 bin Laden fatwa and the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight. This new jihadi organization reflected both the HuM’s and Azhar’s goals and established how intertwined the local and global had become. Its recruitment, for instance, was very local with most of the JeM militants coming from Azhar’s hometown Bahawalpur.86 The Pakistani military also hoped to use it for distinctly local purposes, namely renewing the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. However, Azhar not only received assistance for establishing the JeM from the ISI but also from the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. Indeed, bin Laden provided generous funding for the establishment of the JeM.87 The JeM grew rapidly and set up a number of camps in Pakistan which provided both religious instruction and military style guerrilla training. Here the JeM focused on preparing jihadis with locally focused goals with either low intensity, hit-and-run-type operations or suicide attacks. Kashmir’s first suicide bomber, a seventeen-year-old schoolboy Afaq Ahmad from Srinagar, put the JeM on the local jihadi map when he blew up an explosives-laden car at an Indian military compound in spring 2000.88 This attack also marked a new phase in the militancy. The JeM would continue to carry out more suicide bombings, employing its Voluntary Martyr’s Squad (Khudkush Shaheed Dusta), which also attracted second-generation Pakistani British youths. One of these was Asif Sadiq from Birmingham.89 Sadiq was a member of Omar Bakri Mohammed’s Al Muhajiroun network, an organization that was banned in the UK in 2005.90 Bakri facilitated Sadiq’s travel to Pakistan,91 where Sadiq blew himself up outside an army barracks in Srinagar, killing six Indian soldiers and three civilians in December 2000.92 While Sadiq, despite being British and living in Britain, must be considered as part of the Pakistani ‘local’ dimension, the JeM’s network also a comprised a regional ‘Afghan’ dimension. At the heart of this were the close ties with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Several of Azhar’s family members were employed by the Taliban in Kabul.93 Furthermore, hundreds of JeM activists received training in camps in Afghanistan. And the JeM’s weekly newspaper, Zerb-i-Momin, became a mouthpiece of the Taliban.94 At the time, it represented a new breed of jihadi journalism which saw huge growth during the 1990s. It propagated a militant Islamic and anti-Western world view. Zerb-i-Momin did not publish pictures of human faces in accordance with the radical Deobandi interpretation of Islam.

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Instead, it printed images of Islam’s holy places or of weapons and news about Al Qaeda and Taliban activities. Zerb-i-Momin continued its publication even after the proscription of JeM. In a June 2001 issue of Zerb-i-Momin, Azhar clarified the objectives of the JeM, which, on the one hand, were in alignment with the Deobandi doctrine shared by the Taliban and, on the other hand, showed that the JeM advocated transnational ideological goals similar to Al Qaeda: The Jaish-e-Mohammed is a World Islamic movement based on the principles of sharia. After just one year of its inception it has progressed much, by the grace of God. This movement will remove apostasy and strive for the implementation of sharia. …The organisation is conducting jihad against enemies of religion and country and trying to bring Muslims close to the prophet. In simple words one can say jihad against infidels and fight against apostasy.95

Post 9/11 dynamics Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the JeM stepped up its operation in Kashmir, which at times were so bold that they threatened to push India and Pakistan to war several times. These included the JeM’s single most deadly attack targeting the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in Srinagar on 1 October 2001, killing 23 civilians.96 In its claim of responsibility the JeM identified the suicide bomber as Wajahat Hussain, a Pakistani national. Just over two months later, the JeM expanded its regional dimension to India. On 19 December 2001, six individuals from the JeM attacked the Indian parliament building in New Delhi after easily penetrating a lax security cordon. As they sought to infiltrate the parliament’s Central Hall, a gun battle ensued between the militants and the parliament’s security forces. In the end, all six attackers and eight members of the security forces had died.97 The attack was the most brazen in a series of attacks against India carried out by the JeM who had become increasingly emboldened. Although no politicians were killed, by targeting the parliament of the world’s largest democracy, the JeM were deliberately seeking to provoke India to retaliate. Indian authorities not only linked the attackers to the JeM but they also contended that the group had acted under the directive of the Pakistani military.98 The BJP government gave a number of ultimatums which included Pakistan banning the JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the two groups implicated in a number of attacks in India. India also wanted Pakistan to extradite twenty individuals whom India accused of having carried out terrorist attacks on its soil, including Maulana Masood Azhar. Lastly India demanded an end to the infiltration of insurgents into Jammu and Kashmir. These ultimatums were followed by hundreds of thousands of mobilized troops, heavy tanks, artillery and fighter bombers deployed on each side of the border for the next six months. The resulting India-Pakistan military standoff was no coincidence. Indeed, it had been engineered by the JeM to create a diversion to allow the Al Qaeda leadership, which was on the run, trapped in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan, to

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escape.99 Alluding to the JeM’s global dimension, Azhar helped bin Laden and several other Al Qaeda leaders to cross over to Pakistan using the JeM’s network of safe houses and agents across Pakistan’s tribal regions. They travelled in disguise, and were sent first to Dera Ismail Khan, a city on the edge of the tribal areas. From there, journeys were coordinated by senior Al Qaeda planner Abu Zubaydah’s allies in the JeM.100 Once in Pakistan, bin Laden stayed in Karachi, then Swat and then Abbottabad. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks, was responsible for employing several subordinates to work with bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership including informers, police constables, security guards and shopkeepers.101 All of them were members of the JeM.

The JeM–ISI–Al Qaeda nexus The JeM–ISI–Al Qaeda nexus revolved around key personalities. One of these is British-born Pakistani Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was the third JeM member exchanged by India in return for the hijacked plane. Sheikh had trained at the Al Qaeda camps in Khost and boasted of having met bin Laden in early 2001.102 Given his English birth and education as well as his middle-class upbringing in East London, he was seen as a prize asset to Al Qaeda. Sheikh was involved in the brutal murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. In January 2002, the Wall Street Journal’s journalist had been writing about Pakistan’s terrorist groups and their links with Al Qaeda and the ISI.103 Pearl had uncovered a ‘charity’ linked to both bin Laden and the ISI. In another story he wrote about JeM working freely despite a government ban. Pearl then attempted to trace the background of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, which brought him to Karachi. On 23 January 2001, he was to have had a meeting with a contact named Chaudhry Basheer.104 Basheer, in fact, was Sheikh. They got into a car together and that was the last anyone saw of Daniel Pearl. After holding Pearl for a period, Sheikh handed him over to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. A week later, a series of e-mails was sent to American newspapers with a list of demands and photographs showing the journalist in chains and with a gun held to his head. After a month, the US consulate in Karachi received a chilling three-minute videotape. It showed Pearl apparently answering questions from his captors. ‘My father is Jewish’, he says. ‘My mother is Jewish. I’m Jewish.’105 Suddenly the film cuts to a shot of the man slumped on the floor. A hand reaches into the frame and, in a few brief seconds, cuts his head from his body.106 Pearl’s decapitated body was later found in a shed on property owned by a Pakistani businessman who also served as a financier of the Al Akhtar Trust International, a humanitarian relief agency established by the JeM.107 It is perhaps no coincidence that Pearl was beheaded. A grisly precedent had been set when Norwegian Hans Christian Ostro was beheaded in 1995 by HuM terrorists. The tactic remained a tool to be used against Westerners to try and extract concessions from the West. While Pearl was still alive some of the demands by those holding the journalist alive seemed very unusual and curious. One of the kidnappers’ demands was

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for the delivery of several F-16 fighter jets bought by Pakistan from the United States in the early 1990s. No militant group in Pakistan had ever before shown any interest in the F-16 deal, although the Pakistani military had. It hardly squared with the outlook of a militant Muslim organization fighting a jihad in Jammu and Kashmir.108 In addition, the kidnappers also demanded the release of Pakistani Al Qaeda suspects held by the US at Guantanamo Bay. As soon as Sheikh’s name emerged as a suspect, the ISI tried to limit the damage. Sheikh gave himself up, not to police, but to his old ISI contact, Ijaz Shah who used to direct the activities of the JeM before he became the Home Secretary of the Punjab.109 Sheikh told US investigators that Pearl’s murder was part of a wider plot that included a car bomb attack on the American consulate in Karachi in July 2002 jointly conducted by the JeM, Al Qaeda and the Sunni sectarian group Lashkare-Jhangvi (LeJ). The attack, which killed twelve people and wounded dozens, was financed by Al Qaeda but executed by JeM and LeJ operatives.110 Sheikh and three JeM co-defendants – Sheikh Mohammed Adeel, Fahad Naseem and Salman Saqib – were convicted of kidnap and murder.111 The former was sentenced to hang, while his co-defendants were sentenced to twenty-five years in jail. To this day, Sheikh remains in prison awaiting his hanging. Because of his close ties with the ISI, it is unlikely to ever happen. Another person in the JeM–ISI–Al Qaeda nexus is Rashid Rauf, a BritishPakistani who Azhar met during his travels in the UK. Rauf, who is married to a member of Azhar’s family,112 provided the link between the senior leadership of Al Qaeda and the ‘British’ terrorist cells. Rauf also played a role in recruitment of British nationals who travelled to Pakistan and maintained communications with them and issued directives as they prepared their plots.113 Rauf, who had grown up in Birmingham, fled to Bahawalpur, Pakistan from the UK in 2002 after being sought by the police following the murder of his uncle. It was through JeM that Rauf developed ties to senior Al Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas of Pakistan.114 As JeM was having its activities more closely monitored, individuals like Rauf chose to dedicate their time to redirect would-be JeM recruits to Al Qaeda. In fact, Rauf was part of a coordinated campaign by Al Qaeda to target the UK in a series of attacks.115 Rauf met the 7 July 2005 London bombing ringleaders, Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shezad Tanweer, shortly after they arrived in Pakistan in late 2004 and sent them to Al Qaeda camps in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Prior to the multi-pronged operation, which killed fifty-two people, Khan and his accomplice Tanweer also trained at a JeM camp in Manshera, Pakistan.116 Rauf ’s role was to organize and strategize. He coordinated the activities of Mukhtar Said Ibrahim the ringleader of 21 July 2005 London plot, as well as of Assad Ali, the ringleader of the 2007 airline liquid bomb plot, who planned to simultaneously blow up of several airlines over the Atlantic Ocean en route to airports in North America. Rauf also assisted Assad Sarwar, the bombmaker for the plot.117 It was this plot that led to Rauf ’s arrest in Pakistan. Soon after appearing before a judge in an Islamabad court to face extradition to the UK, Rauf escaped as he was being taken back to a high-security prison. He had asked his police

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guards to let him say his afternoon prayers at a roadside mosque from which he fled through the back door.118 The questionable circumstances of Rauf ’s escape shone a further spotlight on the relationship militants have with the Pakistani security establishment. While at large in a JeM safe house, Rauf played a role in another Al Qaeda plot in 2009 by Najibullah Zazi to attack the New York City’s subway system.119 It was not until 2012 that US authorities were able to track Rauf and eliminate him in a drone strike operation.120 Other persons exemplifying the JeM–ISI–Al Qaeda nexus include BritishPakistanis Omar Khyam, Aabid Khan and the American-educated Dr Aafia Siddiqui. Omar Khyam was involved in the ammonium nitrate plot in 2004, which planned the use of half a ton of the substance for bomb attacks on a wide array of targets in southern England. In his UK court testimony Khyam recounted how he had initially been recruited by the ISI to fight with the JeM in the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir.121 He stated that he had attended a training camp in Malakand, Pakistan, where he learnt to use AK-47s and RPGs, and in the evenings would read aloud from Azhar’s book The Virtues of Jihad.122 He was later co-opted by Al Qaeda. Aabid Khan was radicalized on the internet when he often visited newsgroups and forums to discuss jihad and where he befriended a group of like-minded Canadians from Toronto who were interested in travelling to Pakistan for training. Khan led the Toronto group’s online discussions on how to train, where, with whom, and how to finance the training. He arranged the group’s passage to Pakistan for terrorism training, and discussed ‘a worldwide battle’.123 Khan was ideologically committed to the global ideas of Al Qaeda but evidence from his computer revealed that his contacts were far more local, with the LeT and the JeM.124 Dr Aafia Siddiqui who is currently incarcerated in prison in Carswell, Texas, was captured by US forces in Ghazni, Afghanistan in 2008 and convicted in 2010 in New York for her association with Al Qaeda and the attempted murder of US federal agents when they detained her.125 Siddiqui had studied in the United States at MIT and later at Brandeis where she obtained a PhD in neuroscience. When apprehended, Siddiqui had in her possession sodium cyanide as well as documents describing how to make chemical weapons and dirty bombs.126 At one time Siddiqui focused on the local and was part of the Banaat-e-Ayesha, the women’s wing of the JeM and moved to Balakot where the JeM had a training camp.127 Siddiqui also represents yet another person who transcends the JeM relationship with the Pakistani military and Al Qaeda. The latter is particularly unusual as Al Qaeda has tended to avoid using women in its organization. Illustrating the influence the ISI has on the Pakistani government, Prime Minister Imran Khan proposed a prisoner swap with the Trump administration, exchanging Siddiqui for Shakil Afridi, a jailed doctor in Pakistan who helped the United States track down Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan,128 Siddiqui was at the centre of an Al Qaeda cell based in Karachi between 2002 and 2003 and led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who wanted to build on the success of the 9/11 attacks by planning new attacks in the United States and United Kingdom.

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Siddiqui’s role was to obtain safe houses provided by the JeM and give organizational support for the operation. Siddiqui would also serve as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s courier who had much faith in her. She married Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew, Ammar Baluchi, in a secret ceremony near Karachi in February 2003.129 Within counterterrorism circles Siddiqui is known as ‘Lady Al Qaeda’. Her case had become a cause célèbre within Pakistan not just among jihadis but also in the Pakistani military establishment. In 2012, they presented a proposal to the Obama administration to release Siddiqui in exchange for US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been missing since 2009 and was being held in Pakistan by the Taliban. The Pakistani military would act as intermediaries.130 Although the deal was rejected, the United States would agree to take back Bergdahl in a swap deal with several senior Taliban militants who had been detained in Guantanamo Bay.

The return of the JeM On 12 January 2002, Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf declared that no Pakistan-based organization would be allowed to engage in terrorism in the name of religion.131 In a televised speech, he appeared to condemn all acts of terrorism, including those carried out in the name of Kashmir. He banned five terrorist groups including the LeT and the JeM.132 Within two days, in the full blaze of publicity, Pakistani security forces detained more than 1,200 accused Islamists throughout the country. Among those arrested by Musharraf under US pressure was Azhar, the head of the JeM.133 After Azhar’s arrest and heighted international scrutiny particularly from the United States, the JeM adopted a lower operational profile at least as far as ‘official’ operations were concerned. There was also evidence of friction between the JeM and the Pakistani military, despite the fact that many of the arrested JeM militants were subsequently released on the grounds that there was no evidence of their involvement in terrorism and Azhar was moved from jail to house arrest so that he could be with his family.134 The Pakistani military appeared to isolate the JeM to avoid further pressure from the United States. As attacking India seemed to be off the cards for the time being, members of the JeM would end up freelancing for other groups including Al Qaeda. The underlying tensions between the JeM and the Pakistani military came to a head in 2007, when the Pakistani military decided to storm the Lal Masjid in Islamabad which had been occupied by Islamists for eighteen months. The Islamists called for the overthrow of the Pakistani government and the introduction of sharia law. They had also killed two Chinese nationals whom they had kidnapped. Azhar believed that the Pakistani military had stormed the Lal Masjid at the behest of the Chinese and he was angry as this had direct implications for the JeM which was forced to continue to maintain a low profile as a result, restricting their activities to Bahawalpur. While the JeM and its leader Azhar continued to be explicitly proscribed by the United States, United Kingdom and several other European countries, the JeM

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group has shown signs of expansion in recent years. Since at least 2011, the ISI has been slowly resurrecting the JeM under Azhar’s leadership. In 2011, the JeM restarted operations under the guise of an ‘educational and religious charity’ Al Rahmat Trust (ART), headed by Azhar, Maulana Ghulam Murtaza, once head of HuM’s Punjab chapter, and by Maulana Ashfaq Ahmad, a close confidante of Azhar.135 It also resumed its propaganda activities with two publications Al-Qalam and Muslim Ummah, which are widely circulated by print as well as online.136 Both have Audit Bureau of Circulation certifications issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting that allow the publications to solicit advertisements.137 These publications can also solicit donations for religious and/or humanitarian causes which has raised concerns that donations will be redirected to JeM activities. In addition to its rhetoric on the Kashmir issue, Al-Qalam has also addressed perceived grievances it believes have been inflicted upon Pakistan by the West. This includes taking up the cause of Dr Aafia Siddiqui. Al-Qalam described Siddiqui’s situation as the ‘arrest/torture of our innocent, Muslim sister by the infidel’.138 On 26 January 2014, Azhar resumed his public speaking engagements when he delivered an anti-India tirade at a rally in Muzaffarabad and encouraged his followers to avenge the hanging of JeM member Afzal Guru. Guru was one of the plotters behind the 2001 Indian parliament attack.139 The JeM’s revival can be explained by the LeT going into hibernation when its leader Hafiz Saeed was declared a global terrorist on 17 December 2008 after the Mumbai attacks on 16 November 2008. The link between the LeT and the military establishment in Pakistan had thus become a liability for the ISI which, in turn, needed to reduce its dependence on the LeT. However, it should be pointed out that the group could be reactivated at a later point. This mirrors similar issues JeM faced after the Indian parliament attack. The JeM was forced into a period of inactivity but was subsequently revived. Indeed, the ISI has often been accused of playing a game of musical chairs with these groups.140 The Pakistan military’s support for terrorist groups, like the JeM and the LeT, stems primarily from the benefits it creates domestically, ideologically and strategically. Pakistan has tied down large segments of the Indian military in Jammu and Kashmir which enables them to maintain influence in the region. Also, the military establishment can perpetuate Pakistan’s identity as a homeland for Muslims via supporting groups operating in Kashmir, and continue to define itself in opposition to secular India.141 History appears to be repeating itself. On 25 December 2015, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan and met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in an attempt to improve bilateral relations. This proved to be unpopular with the Pakistani military establishment, and within a week, IndiaPakistan relations lurched towards yet another crisis. On 2 January 2016, a heavily armed group of JeM militants attacked the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force. The five attackers and six security forces personnel were killed in the ensuing battle.142 Then on 18 September 2016, four JeM militants attacked an Indian Army brigade headquarters in Uri, near the Line of Control in a predawn ambush. Seventeen army personnel were killed

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during the attack along with the four militants.143 In the attack on the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif on 3 January 2016, JeM terrorists left messages stating that the attack was to avenge the death of Afzal Guru.144 The attack also illustrated that the JeM had the ability to plot attacks in Afghanistan which would have been in part thanks to collaboration with their Deobandi soulmates, the Taliban. However, worse was to come. On 14 February 2019, a suicide bomber driving a car laden with explosives rammed a convoy of vehicles that was carrying Indian troops in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. The attack resulted in the deaths of forty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. The JeM was quick to claim responsibility for the deadliest single attack against Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir since the insurgency began in 1989.145 Abdul Rauf Asghar, a brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, was identified as the operational planner for the attack who oversees the JeM’s cross-border plots.146 Just as the JeM had succeeded in raising tensions between India and Pakistan following the 2001 parliament attack, the Pulwama attack also resulted in an escalation between both countries. On 26 February 2019, Indian fighter jets crossed into Pakistani territory, conducting what was termed a ‘non-military pre-emptive action’ against the JeM’s training camp in Balakot, known as Madrasa Syed Ahmad Shaheed Balakot.147 Balakot is in close proximity to Camp Manshera where the JeM had once harboured the Britons who went on to take part in Al Qaeda plots. Another brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, Maulana Ammar, confirmed that the JeM camp had been hit by Indian airstrikes and vowed revenge.148 The Kashmir Escalator experienced a mechanical glitch once senior members of Al Qaeda were being captured or killed, with the group seemingly unable to replenish its ranks. This had ramifications for its ability to recruit people from the West, more so after Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals in Abbottabad, Pakistan. However, Al Qaeda is once again showing signs of recovering from its setbacks and attempting to reconstitute. Coupled with this, the West has pursued a hasty exit from Afghanistan with a virulent Taliban growing in the ascendency. Along with the JeM’s rapid re-emergence, these factors provide the tools for the potential of the Kashmir Escalator being repaired and restarted. Since 2019, the JeM has contributed to the significant worsening of ties between India and Pakistan. Despite JeM’s involvement in various plots, Azhar has not been charged with any crime although he has been accused of being involved in terrorism for two decades. On 1 May 2019, the United Nations Security Council designated Azhar as a terrorist.149 However, his status as a protected asset of the Pakistani military remains, which creates a dangerous situation in terms of further tensions between India and Pakistan. It also increases the potential threat to other countries.

Conclusion This chapter has explored the growth, ideology, operations and evolution of the JeM and has argued that its networks are both local and global due to its Deobandi ideological connection with the Taliban as well as the personal ties between

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Masood Azhar and senior members of Al Qaeda. The Pakistan military’s strong support for the Taliban coupled with the resurgence of Al Qaeda as well as the expansion of the JeM’s activities in recent years, all provide indicators that the blurred lines between these entities will continue to cause insecurity in South Asia and create tensions between India and Pakistan as well as potentially provide a new flow of foreign terrorist fighters who could pose a threat in the West, as has been the case before. Following the Pulwama attack, the JeM has received more international scrutiny since their brazen assault on India’s parliament in 2001. Yet, the JeM still operates more freely than other militant outfits in Pakistan. This makes it an appealing destination for Western militants. Since the JeM’s networks are both local and transnational and have their roots in the urban centres of the Punjab, there is little hope the Pakistani military establishment will voluntarily choose to dismantle its infrastructure in the near future since the group remains a potential asset to the state. The JeM has shown it can be one of the most reliable militant groups in the local and regional struggle against India and elements within the Pakistani military clearly wish to maintain this capability. Hence, its refusal to shut down militant training camps in Pakistan. Western security officials continue to worry about the JeM’s global connections, that the JeM serves as a gateway to Al Qaeda and other transnational actors actively seeking people from the West to train for terrorist attacks back home. However, the West will not be able to pressure Pakistan as long as it remains dependent on it as its main influencer to achieve a so-called reconciliation in Afghanistan. Ironically, the West’s dependence on Pakistan may have strengthened its resolve to retain the JeM’s operational capability. The fact that the JeM’s leadership is free to travel around publicly in Pakistan, with the patronage of the state, giving speeches on television and attending rallies, despite being on several proscribed lists in the West, creates a mindset with an entire generation growing up believing this to be normal. Despite this, whenever JeM or any Pakistan-based organization claim credit for a terrorist attack, the standard response of the Pakistani security establishment is to deflect from taking any responsibility.150 Therein lies the problem.

Notes 1 Omar Khyam Defendant Testimony, ‘Operation crevice trial’, Old Bailey, 15 September, 2006. 2 Ibid. 3 Mitch D. Silber, The al-Qaeda Factor: Plots against the West (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), p. 117. 4 Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 7. 5 Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).

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6 Sumantra Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 7 Malik Iffat, Kashmir: Ethnic Conflict International Dispute (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 8 Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003). 9 Cabeiri deBergh Robinson, Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013). 10 Bruce Riedel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad (Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2011). 11 Syed Saleem Shahzad, Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban (London: Pluto Press, 2011). 12 Zahid Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 13 J. Greig, ‘Riding the tiger: The threat to Pakistan from terrorism’, in Ravi Kalia (ed.), Pakistan’s Political Labyrinths: Military, Society and Terror (Routledge, 2015), p. 23. 14 Silber, The al-Qaeda Factor: Plots against the West. 15 Sean P. Winchell, ‘Pakistan’s ISI: The invisible government’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, 16, no. 3 (2003): 374–88. 16 Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 17 C. Christine Fair, In Their Own Words: Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 18 Arshi Saleem Hashmi, ‘Historical roots of the Deobandi version of jihadism and its implications for violence in today’s Pakistan’, in J. Syed, E. Pio, T. Kamran, A. Zaidi (eds), Faith-Based Violence and Deobandi Militancy in Pakistan (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), p. 144. 19 Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 22. 20 Hussain, Frontline Pakistan, p. 63. 21 ‘Pakistan: Karachi’s madrasas and violent extremism’, International Crisis Group, No. 130, 29 March 2007. 22 Christophe Jaffrelot, Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (New Delhi: Manohar, 2002), p. 168. 23 Mustafa Hamid and Leah Farrall, The Arabs at War in Afghanistan (London: Hurt & Co, 2015), p. 75. 24 Riedel, Deadly Embrace, p. 31. 25 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 132. 26 Shaun Gregory, ‘The ISI and the war on terrorism’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30, no. 12 (2007): 1013–31. 27 Phil Rees, Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the World’s Most Wanted Militants (London: Pan Books, 2006), pp. 275–6. 28 Syed Saleem Shahzad, ‘Pakistan rethink over support of militants’, Asia Times, 20 December 2001. Available at http:​//www​.atim​es.co​m/ind​-pak/​CL20D​f01.h​tml. 29 Hussain, Frontline Pakistan, pp. 21–2. 30 Ibid., p. 25. 31 Ibid. 32 Stephen Tankel, ‘Beyond the double game: Lessons from Pakistan’s approach to Islamist Militancy’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 41, issue 4 (2018): 545–75.

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33 Ibid. 34 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 62. 35 Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000, United States Department of State, April 2000. 36 Muhammad Amir Rana, A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan (Lahore: Mashal, 2006), p. 244. 37 See Karachi 01617: U.S. Consulate Karachi, Cable, ‘The Harakat-ul-Ansar – The Pakistan Dimension [Excised]’, 29 March 1995. Available at http:​//nsa​rchiv​e2.gw​u.edu​ /NSAE​BB/NS​AEBB3​89/do​cs/19​95-03​-29%2​0-%20​Karac​hi%20​HUA%2​0and%​20Haq​ qani.​pdf (accessed 16 March 2019). 38 Edward Gorman, ‘Khost outpost falls to mujahidin led by foreign fighters’, The Times, 21 March 1988. 39 ‘Martyrs of Khost’, al-Irshad, 28, issue 5 (May 1991): 29–40; Masood Azhar, ‘Glimpses of Khost Conquest’, Sada-e-Mujahid (in Urdu), 2, issue 5 (July 1991): 5. 40 ‘Remembrance of Akhtar Shaheed’, Sada-e-Mujahid, 3, issue 3–4 (March–April 1992): 5–9; Anne Stenersen, Al-Qaida in Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 29–30. 41 Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM), The International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism. Available at http:​//www​.ict.​org.i​l/int​er_te​r/org​det.c​fm?or​gid=1​4 (accessed 5 October 2013). 42 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the Great New Game in Central Asia (London: I.B. Tauris Press, 2001). 43 Mohammad Amir Rana, Gateway to Terrorism (London: New Millennium, 2003), p. 240. 44 ‘Pakistan: Karachi’s madrasas and violent extremism’. 45 Hussain, Frontline Pakistan, p. 64. 46 Interview with US official, 23 August 2018. 47 Isa Al Hindi, The Army of Madinah in Kashmir (Maktabah Al Ansaar, 2000). 48 ‘Masood Azhar: The man who brought jihad to Britain’, BBC Magazine, 5 April 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/mag​azine​-3595​9202 (accessed 16 March 2019). 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Raffaello Pantucci, ‘Maulana Masood Azhar in the British Jihad’, Hurst, 24 January, 2013. Available at https​://ww​w.hur​stpub​lishe​rs.co​m/mau​lana-​masoo​d-azh​ar-in​-the-​ briti​sh-ji​had (accessed 17 March 2019). 53 Abou Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks, p. 30. 54 Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York: Viking, 2008), p. 113. 55 Paul Watson and Sidhartha Barija, ‘Pakistani may be linked to U.S. deaths in Somalian battle’, Los Angeles Times, 26 February 2002. 56 For background on Al Qaeda’s activity in Somalia at the time see ‘Al-Qa`ida’s (mis) adventures in the Horn of Africa’, pp. 5–6; Harmony document AFGP-2002-6000104; Paul Watson and Sidhartha Barua, ‘Somalian link seen to al-Qaeda’, Los Angeles Times, 25 February 2002. 57 John F. Burns, ‘Yemen links to bin Laden Gnaw at F.B.I. in Cole inquiry’, New York Times, 26 November 2000; Gregory Johnston, The Last Refuge (New York: One World, 2013), pp. 16–34. 58 Don Rassler, ‘Al-Qaida and the Pakistani Harakat movement: Reflections and questions about the pre-2001 period’, Perspectives on Terrorism, 11, no. 6 (2017).

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59 Kim Housego, ‘Who took me hostage?’, The Independent, 4 February 1997. Available at http:​//www​.inde​pende​nt.co​.uk/l​ife-s​tyle/​who-t​ook-m​e-hos​tage-​12767​90.ht​ml (accessed 8 March 2019). 60 Jason Burke, al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam (London: I.B. Taurus., 2004), p. 88. 61 Ibid. 62 Riedel, Deadly Embrace, p. 40. 63 ‘Taliban hero Ilyas Kashmiri killed by US drones’, Channel 4 News, 4 June 2011. Available at https​://ww​w.cha​nnel4​.com/​news/​talib​an-he​ro-il​yas-k​asmir​i-kil​led-b​y-us-​ drone​s (accessed 8 March 2019). 64 John Johnson, ‘American recalls his 1995 abduction’, Los Angeles Times, 9 February 2002; Seth Nye, ‘Al-Qa`ida key oerative: A profile of Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri’, CTC Sentinel, September 2010. 65 Ibid. 66 Yossef Bodansky, Pakistan’s Kashmir Strategy (Freeman Centre for Strategic Studies, 1995); Michael Smith, ‘SAS joins Kashmir hunt for bin Laden’, Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2002. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 174–5. 70 Ibid., pp. 176–9. 71 Riedel, Deadly Embrace, p. 58. 72 Ibid.; ‘Three get life term for hijacking Indian plane’, Dawn, 6 February 2008. Available at https​://ww​w.daw​n.com​/news​/2881​27/th​ree-g​et-li​fe-te​rm-fo​r-hij​ackin​g-ind​ian-p​ lane (accessed 16 March 2018). 73 Neelesh Misra, 173 Hours in Captivity: The Hijacking of IC 814 (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000), p. 47. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (Washington DC: United States Institute for Peace, 2008), p. 192. 77 Riedel, Deadly Embrace, p. 59. 78 Interview with US official, 23 August 2018. 79 Ibid. 80 ‘Osama guard says Indian plane hijacked for Azhar’s release’, AFP, 17 September 2006. 81 Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 113. 82 Hussain, Frontline Pakistan, p. 62. 83 Ibid., p. 63. 84 David Hearst, ‘Militant at heart of hijack vows to “liberate” Kashmir’, The Guardian, 6 January 2000. Available at https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/wo​rld/2​000/j​an/06​/kash​mir.i​ ndia (accessed 8 March 2019). 85 Hussain Haqqani, ‘Prophecy & the jihad in the Indian subcontinent’, Hudson Institute, 27 March 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.hud​son.o​rg/re​searc​h/111​67-pr​ophec​y-the​ -jiha​d-in-​the-i​ndian​-subc​ontin​ent (accessed 28 March 2019). 86 Don Rassler, C. Christine Fair, Anirban Ghosh, Arif Jamal and Nadia Shoeb, ‘The fighters of Lashkar‐e‐Taiba: Recruitment, training, deployment and death’, CTC Occasional Papers, Harmony Program, April 2013.

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87 Rahul Bedi, ‘Kashmir insurgency is being “Talibanised”’, Janes Defence Weekly, 5 October 2001. 88 Muzamil Jaleel, ‘Explaining the history of Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammad, the mystery of its re-emergence’, The Indian Express, 5 January 2016. 89 Neil Johnston, ‘Extremists Hizb ut-Tahrir targeting inner-city youth in Birmingham’, The Times, 22 September 2018. 90 Petter Nesser, Islamist Terrorism in Europe: A History (London: Hurst, 2015), pp. 41–4. 91 Rassler, ‘Al-Qaida and the Pakistani Harakat movement’. 92 Nesser, Islamist Terrorism in Europe. 93 Hussain, Frontline Pakistan, p. 79. 94 Ibid. 95 Rana, Gateway to Terrorism, p. 215. 96 Barry Bearak, ‘26 die as suicide squad bombs Kashmir legislative building’, New York Times, 1 October 2001. 97 Sumit Ganguly and Michael R. Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani crisis: Exposing the limits of coercive diplomacy’, Security Studies, 14, no. 2 (2005): 290–324. 98 ‘Terror in India’, The Economist, 19 December 2001. 99 Cathy Scott Clark and Adrian Levy, The Exile (London: Bloomsbury, 2017). 100 Ibid., p. 32. 101 Ibid., p. 35. 102 Karl Vick and Kamran Khan, ‘Al Qaeda tied to attacks in Pakistan cities, militants joining forces against Western targets’, Washington Post, Thursday, 30 May 2002. Available at https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/arch​ive/p​oliti​cs/20​03/02​/08/e​xtrem​ ist-g​roups​-rene​w-act​ivity​-in-p​akist​an/ce​788d0​d-aa5​8-449​1-af3​d-5b9​6e3b0​8ad9/​ ?utm_​term=​.a96d​6433f​b 9b (accessed 17 March 2019). 103 Nick Fielding, ‘Omar Saeed Sheikh – The British Jackal’, Sunday Times, 21 April 2002. 104 Rory McCarthy, ‘Pakistan’s secret agents of death’, The Melbourne Age, 17 July 2002. 105 Jeff Jacoby, ‘Pearl video brings the horror home’, Boston Globe, 13 June 2002. 106 Ibid. 107 Khaled Ahmed, Sectarian War: Pakistan’s Sunni-Shia Violence and Its Links to the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 134. 108 Fielding, ‘Omar Saeed Sheikh – The British Jackal’. 109 Rory McCarthy, ‘Underworld where terror and security meet’, The Guardian, 16 July 2002. Available at https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/wo​rld/2​002/j​ul/16​/paki​stan.​rorym​ ccart​hy (accessed 17 March 2019). 110 Dexter Filkins, ‘Al Qaeda paid for car bomb at U.S. office, Pakistani says’, New York Times, 3 July 2002. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​002/0​7/03/​world​/al-q​ aeda-​paid-​for-c​ar-bo​mb-at​-us-o​ffice​-paki​stani​-says​.html​ (accessed 17 March 2019). 111 Kamran Khan, ‘Pakistani court finds 4 guilty in Pearl’s death’, The Washington Post, 15 July 2002. Available at https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/arch​ive/p​oliti​cs/20​02/07​/15/ p​akist​ani-c​ourt-​finds​-4-gu​ilty-​in-pe​arls-​death​/f372​b482-​b662-​460a-​8c52-​6eff7​bd25f​ 4b/?u​tm_te​rm=.3​2276b​de7c3​2 (accessed 17 March 2019). 112 Cahal Milmo, Ian Herbert, Jason Bennetto and Justin Huggler, ‘From Birmingham bakery to Pakistani prison, the mystery of Rashid Rauf ’, The Independent, 19 August 2006. Available at https​://ww​w.ind​epend​ent.c​o.uk/​news/​uk/th​is-br​itain​/from​-birm​ ingha​m-bak​ery-t​o-pak​istan​i-pri​son-t​he-my​stery​-of-r​ashid​-rauf​-4125​10.ht​ml (accessed 17 March 2019).

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113 Nic Robertson, Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, ‘Document shows origins of 2006 plot for liquid bombs on planes’, CNN, 30 April 2012. Available at https​://ed​ition​.cnn.​ com/2​012/0​4/30/​world​/al-q​aeda-​docum​ents/​index​.html​ (accessed 17 March 2019). 114 Interview with US official, 23 August 2018. 115 Kim Sengupta, ‘Terror plots and conspiracy theories: The hunt for Rashid Rauf ’, The Independent, 27 September 2008. Available at https​://ww​w.ind​epend​ent.c​o.uk/​news/​ world​/asia​/terr​or-pl​ots-a​nd-co​nspir​acy-t​heori​es-th​e-hun​t-for​-rash​id-ra​uf-94​4064.​ html (accessed 17 March 2019). 116 Silber, The al-Qaeda Factor: Plots against the West, p. 117. 117 Pantucci, ‘Maulana Masood Azhar in the British jihad’. 118 Gary Cleland, ‘Bomb plot suspect escaped while praying’, Daily Telegraph, 17 December 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.tel​egrap​h.co.​uk/ne​ws/wo​rldne​ws/15​72870​/ Bomb​-plot​-susp​ect-e​scape​d-whi​le-pr​aying​.html​ (accessed 17 March 2019). 119 Interview with US official, 23 August 2018. 120 Bill Roggio, ‘Al Qaeda leader Rashid Rauf killed in drone strike, family says’, Long War Journal, 29 October 2012. Available at https​://ww​w.lon​gwarj​ourna​l.org​/arch​ives/​ 2012/​10/al​_qaed​a_lea​der_r​ash.p​hp (accessed 17 March 2019). 121 Sebastian Rotella and Janet Stobart, ‘Terrorism defendant cites fears of Pakistan’, Los Angeles Times, 20 September 2006. 122 Ibid. 123 ‘Terrorist “Mr. Fix-It” convicted with two others of terrorism offences’, Crown Prosecution Service, London, 18 August 2008. 124 ‘United States of America v. Syed Haris Ahmed’, Specific Findings of Fact, United States District Court of Atlanta, 10 June 2009. 125 C. J. Hughes, ‘Pakistani scientist found guilty of shootings’, New York Times, 3 February 2010. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​010/0​2/04/​nyreg​ion/0​4sidd​ iqui.​html (accessed 17 March 2019). 126 Declan Walsh, ‘Guantánamo files paint Aafia Siddiqui as top al-Qaida operative’, The Guardian, 26 April 2011. Available at https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/wo​rld/2​011/a​ pr/26​/guan​tanam​o-fil​es-aa​fia-s​iddiq​ui-al​qaida​ (accessed 22 March 2019). 127 Rafia Zakaria, ‘Women and Islamic militancy’, Dissent Magazine, Winter 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.dis​sentm​agazi​ne.or​g/art​icle/​why-w​omen-​choos​e-isi​s-isl​ amic-​milit​ancy (accessed 17 March 2019). 128 Roberta Rampton and Doina Chiacu, ‘Trump, Pakistan’s Khan discuss way out of Afghanistan war’, Reuters, 22 July 2019. Available at https​://uk​.reut​ers.c​om/ar​ticle​ /uk-u​sa-pa​kista​n/tru​mp-pa​kista​ns-kh​an-di​scuss​-way-​out-o​f-afg​hanis​tan-w​ar-id​ UKKCN​1UH20​O (accessed 22 July 2019). 129 Walsh, ‘Guantánamo files paint Aafia Siddiqui as top al-Qaida operative’. 130 Shane Harris, ‘Lady al Qaeda: The world’s most wanted woman’, Foreign Policy Magazine, 26 August 2014. Available at https​://fo​reign​polic​y.com​/2014​/08/2​6/lad​ y-al-​qaeda​-the-​world​s-mos​t-wan​ted-w​oman (accessed 22 March 2019). 131 In Musharraf ’s Words: ‘A day of reckoning’, New York Times, 12 January 2002. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​002/0​1/12/​inter​natio​nal/i​n-mus​harra​fs-wo​ rds-a​-day-​of-re​ckoni​ng.ht​ml (accessed 17 March 2019). 132 Ibid. 133 John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, ‘Extremist groups renew activity in Pakistan’, Washington Post, 8 February 2003. 134 Bob Drogin and Josh Meyer, ‘Terror: U.S. hopes man taken in Pakistan will divulge details on cells and plots around the world’, Los Angeles Times, 2 April 2002.

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135 Animesh Roul, ‘Jaish-e-Muhammad’s charity wing revitalizes banned group in Pakistan’, Jamestown Foundation, Terrorism Monitor, 9, issue 41 (November 2011). Available at https​://ja​mesto​wn.or​g/pro​gram/​jaish​-e-mu​hamma​ds-ch​arity​-wing​-revi​ taliz​es-ba​nned-​group​-in-p​akist​an (accessed 17 March 2019). 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 Qandeel Siddique, ‘Aafia Siddiqui’, Jihadica, 24 February 2010. Available at http:// www.jihadica.com/author/qandeel/ (accessed 22 March 2019). 139 Poulomi Ghosh, ‘Why Afzal Guru remains so significant for life and death in Kashmir’, Daily O, 15 February 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.dai​lyo.i​n/lif​estyl​e/pul​ wama-​attac​k-why​-afza​l-gur​u-rem​ains-​signi​fican​t-jai​sh-e-​moham​mad-a​fzal-​guru-​ squad​-parl​iamne​t-att​ack-2​001/s​tory/​1/294​90.ht​ml (accessed 17 March 2019). 140 Winchell, ‘Pakistan’s ISI’, p. 378. 141 Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 2–3. 142 Raj Verma, ‘Pakistan and Jaish-e-Mohammad: An unholy alliance’, The Interpreter, The Lowly Institute, 7 July 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.low​yinst​itute​.org/​the-i​ nterp​reter​/paki​stan-​and-j​aish-​e-moh​ammad​-unho​ly-al​lianc​e (accessed 17 March 2019). 143 Ibid. 144 Bruce Riedel, ‘Blame Pakistani spy service for attack on Indian air force base’, Daily Beast, 5 May 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.the​daily​beast​.com/​blame​-paki​stani​-spy-​ servi​ce-fo​r-att​ack-o​n-ind​ian-a​ir-fo​rce-b​ase (accessed 17 March 2019). 145 ‘Pulwama attack: What is militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad?’, BBC News, 15 February 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.bbc​.co.u​k/new​s/wor​ld-as​ia-47​24998​2 (accessed 17 March 2019). 146 Kunwar Shahid, ‘Pakistan unlikely to act against terror group’, Asia Times, 18 February 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.asi​atime​s.com​/2019​/02/a​rticl​e/pak​istan​-unli​ kely-​to-ac​t-aga​inst-​terro​r-gro​up/ (accessed 5 May 2019). 147 Asad Hashim, ‘India bombs targets inside Pakistan’, Al-Jazeera, 26 February 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.alj​azeer​a.com​/news​/2019​/02/p​akist​an-mi​litar​y-acc​uses-​ india​-viol​ating​-airs​pace-​19022​60404​37318​.html​ (accessed 17 March 2019). 148 ‘In message to cadre, Jaish chief Masood Azhar’s brother confirms Balakot camp strike’, Hindustan Times, 3 March 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.hin​dusta​ntime​s.com​ /indi​a-new​s/in-​messa​ge-to​-cadr​e-jai​sh-ch​ief-m​asood​-azha​r-s-b​rothe​r-con​firms​-bala​ kot-c​amp-s​trike​/stor​y-1d5​tyfPJ​QRcBo​tjKpc​5InJ.​html (accessed 17 March 2019). 149 ‘Mohammed Masood Azhar Alvi’, United Nations Security Council, 1 May 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.un.​org/s​ecuri​tycou​ncil/​conte​nt/mo​hamme​d-mas​ood-a​zhar-​ alvi (accessed 5 May 2019). 150 Irfan Hussain, ‘Now the hard part’, Dawn, 16 March 2019. Available at https​://ww​ w.daw​n.com​/news​/1469​960/n​ow-th​e-har​d-par​t (accessed 17 March 2019).

POLITICAL ISLAM AND JIHAD IN EURASIA THE CASE OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS Galina M. Yemelianova

Introduction The position of the Muslim North Caucasus, and of the wider Muslim Eurasia,1 within the ‘centre-periphery’ paradigm is ambivalent.2 This is because, unlike various countries and areas of the non-European ‘Muslim periphery’,3 most of which were Islamicized in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a result of being either conquered or subjected to commercial and missionary activities by non-Arab Muslims – the Caucasus,4 as well as Central Asia, were Islamicized directly by the Prophet Muhammad’s companions or their immediate successors in the seventh and eighth centuries.5 Its territories were included within the Arab caliphates under the Umayyads (661–750 CE) and Abbasids (750–1258 CE) while its ‘ulama’ (Islamic scholars) played a central role in the compilation of hadiths (the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and deeds)6 and the formulation of aqeedah (Islamic creed), fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and kalam (Islamic scholastic theology). Hence even by Salafi7 standards, the Caucasus, and Muslim Eurasia as a whole, belong to the Islamic heartlands. It is also significant that, historically, jihadism8 in the North Caucasus has been ontologically and theologically linked to Islamic revivalism, that is, the movement for the purification of Islam from alleged non-Islamic regional and ethnic accretions which have been blamed for the spiritual, socio-economic and political failings of some Muslim societies.9 Thus, between the mid-eighteenth and the early twentieth century the region witnessed various manifestations of Islamic revivalism-related jihadism which were not dissimilar to those in Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Algeria and some other Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire.10 Of particular relevance to this discussion is the ghazawat (liberation war) of various Muslim peoples of the Caucasus which they waged against the Russian advance in the region between 1834 and 1856. This ghazawat turned into an Islamicized war against non-Muslim, Russian Orthodox invaders. Seventy years of atheistic Soviet rule had major sociocultural implications for the Muslims of the region as well as for wider Muslim Eurasia. In the course of Sovietization they were transformed into a distinctive secularized sociocultural entity – ‘Soviet Muslims’ – who combined their Muslim-ness with Soviet secularism and therefore had more commonalities with other representatives of the Soviet people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, than with their co-religionists across the Soviet Union’s borders. This transformation was enhanced by such

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allegedly common characteristics between Islam and communism as social justice, communalism, concern for the poor and disadvantaged and the denunciation of profit-making (ribaˊ), all of which were highlighted by Muslim communists.11 On the one hand, the Soviets integrated so-called official Islam12 into a secularized state by further developing state-Muslim relations and the institution of the statecontrolled muftiate, both of which were introduced in 1788 by Catherine the Great (1729–1796), and by dissolving Islam within the particular ethno-national cultures of various Muslim peoples. On the other hand, despite the detrimental impact of the Soviet period, Islamic scholarship and teaching had been kept alive, albeit in a highly restricted form, by undisclosed ˊalims (Islamic scholars),13 Sufi sheikhs and other representatives of ‘unofficial Islam’ who ensured their transmission through the system of underground Islamic cells. In the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost reforms triggered the so-called ‘Islamic revival’14 in Dagestan. This comprised the resurfacing of Islamic traditionalism,15 especially Sufism, and the resurgence of Islamic revivalism, dubbed ‘Salafism’ or ‘Wahhabism’. Its trajectory was affected by the influx into the region of Salafi-oriented non-governmental organizations and Islamic charities as well as funds from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries, which made use of the newly relaxed border controls to ‘re-integrate’ Eurasia’s Muslims within the ummah (Islamic community). These foreign Islamic organizations were major investors in the building of mosques, madrasahs and Islamic universities while their representatives became directly involved in Islamic proselytism and Islamic education across the region. Given the low level of Islamic education among the majority of Soviet Muslims,16 the interpretations of Islam promoted by foreign proselytizers were often accepted as ‘true Islam’. Among the effects of foreign Salafi proselytism was the splitting of local communities along doctrinal lines. Particularly divisive was the introduction by some foreign ‘educators’ of the concept of takfir (the excommunication of some Muslims by other Muslims) as an essential characteristic of ‘true Muslim-ness’, and its subsequent instrumentalization by Islamicized criminal groupings for political and economic profit in the general context of the seizure of ex-Soviet state property and resources. An extreme manifestation of this trend was exemplified by the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria of 1996–99, later renamed the Islamic Republic of Ichkeria, which adopted shariˊah (Islamic law), and in terms of its ideology, and political and criminalized violence strikingly foreshadowed ISIS (‘the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’). The collapse of Islamic Ichkeria in 2000 signified the resilience in Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus of ‘Sovietized Muslim-ness’, which has been to a considerable extent re-integrated into regional, pan-Russian and panEurasian politics. At its core is an ideological discourse on family-centred social conservatism and ‘traditional’ values, which has been generated to replace the Soviet-era discourse on multinational and poly-confessional Soviet citizenry and ‘friendship of peoples’. Nevertheless, the region has not been aloof from global jihad, albeit the level of the North Caucasian Muslims’ participation in it has remained relatively low compared to jihadists coming from Georgia, the North Caucasian diaspora in central Russia and the West.

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Islam, Islamic revivalism and jihad in the North Caucasus: A historical perspective The Muslim North Caucasus, and Caucasian jihadism in particular, are widely associated in the West with Chechens. It might be that this misperception derives from the media’s and political scientists’ focus on the Russo-Chechen wars of 1994–96 and 1999–2000 as well as the presence of Chechens such as Abu Omar al-Shishani (lit. ‘Umar from Chechnya’, 1986–2016), among the high-profile commanders of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other jihadist formations which have fought in Syria and Iraq. But it is Dagestan, rather than Chechnya, that for centuries has been the regional centre of Islamic culture, scholarship, Islamic revivalism and jihad. Southern Dagestan was the first locality in Muslim Eurasia to adopt Islam in the mid-seventh century and to became a wilayat (province) of the Umayyad Caliphate.17 Of particular significance was Dagestan’s considerable ethnic Arabization through family alliances between Arab warriors and local rulers and colonization by Arab settlers and the country’s inclusion into the caliphate’s tax system, consisting of ‘ushr (tithe) and zakat (alms) for its Muslim population and jizya (individual tax) and kharaj (land tax) for non-Muslims.18 Another marker of Dagestan’s Arab legacy is the proliferation in it of a stricter Shafiˊi madhhab (school of Sunni jurisprudence) which is dominant in eastern Egypt, Jordan and Palestine. By contrast, the majority of Sunni Muslims in other parts of Muslim Eurasia belong to the more flexible Hanafi madhhab. Throughout history, multi-ethnic Dagestan has been the regional centre of Islam and Arab Islamic culture and its ˊalims were involved in the codification of the Shafiˊi madhhab.19 It is also symptomatic that, there, the Arabic language preserved its lingua franca status until the nineteenth century and even a century later – and despite seventy years of Sovietization – most Dagestani Muslim clerics and many representatives of its intelligentsia retained their fluency in Arabic. In the twelfth century, Dagestan was also the first in the region to embrace Sufism, which by the nineteenth century had turned into the dominant form of Islam in the north-eastern Caucasus. Among the first influential Sufis was Sheikh Muhammad ibn Musa al-Derbendi who lived in Derbent in the eleventh century. In the same century Dagestan acquired a notable number of followers of the Suhrawardi tariqat (Sufi order) which was introduced by Sufis from Abbasid Baghdad. From the fifteenth century, the Suhrawardiyya was superseded by the Naqshbandi tariqat which turned into the dominant form of Islam in Dagestan. In the second part of the nineteenth century, many Chechens, Ingush and some Dagestanis embraced the Qadiri tariqat. In the early twentieth century, Dagestan witnessed the proliferation of the Shadhili tariqat which was close to the Naqshbandiyya in terms of its teaching and practices. In fact, some Dagestani sheikhs teach along the lines of both Naqshbandi and Shadhili tariqats.20 Compared to Dagestan, the Islamicization of other parts of the North Caucasus occurred much later as a result of the military, trade and missionary activities of Dagestanis, Central Asians, Ottomans and Crimean Tatars. For example, the Islamicization of lowland Chechnya, which also occurred along Shafiˊi and Sufi lines, began in the late

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sixteenth century and intensified in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the course of the anti-Russian ghazawat. During the same period, most Adyghe (Circassian) and Turkic peoples of the north-western Caucasus also converted to Islam, albeit following the Hanafi madhhab. The proliferation of Sufism in Dagestan introduced a theological dualism among Dagestani religious authorities and their followers whereby highly respected ‘alims retained their adherence to de facto Salafi Islam while mid-level Muslim clergy and ordinary people turned to Sufism, which was less doctrinally and practically rigid and therefore allowed for the preservation of various local adats (customary norms). This dualism was overtly manifested during the Caucasian War (1817–64) when the Dagestani leaders of the anti-Russian resistance, including the legendary imams Ghazi Muhammad (1793–1832) and Shamil (1797–1871) – both ethnic Avars – used the Sufi Naqshbandi network for the purposes of cross-ethnic popular mobilization under the Islamic banner. In the context of ghazawat, the intrinsically apolitical and quietist Naqshbandiyya morphed into muridism (lit. Sufi disciple-ism), an Islamicized armed struggle of Avars, Dargins, Laks, Chechens and some other North Caucasian Muslims against the incursions into the region of Orthodox Christian Russia. In this struggle the function of murshid (Sufi teacher) was transformed into that of naib (‘deputy’, a military commander). However, having established an Islamic state – an imamate (1828–59) on the territory of present-day Dagestan and Chechnya – Imam Shamil chose shariˊah as the founding principle of the new state. In doing so, he followed the Salafi teachings of the late seventeenth-century ˊalim Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kuduki.21 Accordingly, Imam Shamil made Arabic the official language of his Islamic state and launched a campaign against adats and various Sufi manifestations which were deemed shirk (polytheism).22 The solid presence of a Salafi tradition in Islamic scholarship in Dagestan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is often overlooked in academic writing on various historical manifestations of jihad.23 Subsequently, following the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus, St. Petersburg particularly targeted the Naqshbandis, with whom it associated ghazawat and shariˊah rule and indirectly supported those traditionalist Muslim clerics who heavily relied on ‘adats’ in their Islamic practices. As a result, the Naqshbandis were forced either to go deep underground or to flee the country, a significant number of them undertaking hijrah (migration) to the Ottoman Empire in search of the Caliph’s protection. Many of them settled in present-day Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria; and over a century later some of their descendants would return to their ancestral lands under the banner of jihad. Among the implications of the tsarist crackdown on the Naqshbandiyya was a growing transfer of local Muslims, especially Chechens and Ingush, from the Naqshbandi tariqat, which was at the forefront of the struggle against the Russian expansion into the North Caucasus, to the more inward-oriented Qadiri wird (branch) of Kunta-hajjee (1796–1867), who was ethnic Chechen. Kunta-hajjee advocated non-violence and peaceful co-existence with Russians within the Russian state. Subsequently, Chechen and Ingush followers of Kunta-hajjee became known as dhikrists due to the centrality of loud dhikr (recollection of Allah) in their Sufi practices.

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Ironically, in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution and especially following the consolidation of Soviet rule in the region by the mid-1920s, the Bolsheviks directed their atheistic assault against the dhikrists who were publicly visible. They were weakened even further as a result of their collective deportations to Kazakhstan and other republics of Central Asia during the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany (1941–45)24. The geographical dispersal of Chechens and Ingush during the deportation period led to their religious fragmentation into a number of smaller wirds which originated from the Kunta-hajjee wird.25 On the other hand, the Stalinist leadership’s targeting of the Qadiris proved to be advantageous for the remaining Naqshbandis, who abandoned their muridist militancy and opted for collaboration with the Soviet state. A corollary was their institutional and theological supremacy over Salafis, who were reduced to underground existence in the highlands. Throughout the post-Great Patriotic War, the Naqshbandis and the Shadhilis26 dominated the state-controlled muftiate of the North Caucasus established in the Dagestani city of Buinaksk in 1944 and acted as the main guardians of Islamic traditionalism.

The rise of political Islam in the North Caucasus Since the Gorbachev’s perestroika Dagestan has remained the regional centre of indigenous Islamic activism of both Sufi and Salafi orientation. As in the nineteenth century, Sufi leaders mobilized their followers by instrumentalizing strict tariqat and wird discipline and the murids’ unconditional submission to their sheikhs and Sufi mentors. By the mid-1990s Sufis from the Naqshbandi/Shadhili wird of Said-effendi Chirkeiskii (Atsaev, 1937–2012),27 an ethnic Avar, had established their control over Dagestan’s muftiate and had also acquired a notable undisclosed presence in government structures. According to some estimates, by the late 1990s as a result of the advance of politicized Sufism, which became referred to as ‘tariqatism’, around 60 per cent of Dagestani Muslims had become affiliated to over fifty wirds, many of which corresponded to particular ethnic clans. This enabled the tariqatists to exert pressure on the secular authorities for a wider re-Islamicization of Dagestani society along the lines of Islamic traditionalism.28 But during perestroika and in the early post-Soviet period the tariqatists’ domination in the Islamic sphere of Dagestan, as well as of neighbouring ChechenoIngushetia,29 was contested by the resurfacing of indigenous Islamic revivalists, or Salafis. Initially, the latter were roughly equally represented by moderates and radicals. It is estimated that in the 1990s around 7 per cent of Dagestan’s Muslim population supported Salafism. The leader of the moderate Salafis was Akhmadqadi Akhtaev (1942–98), an Avar Islamic scholar and the chairman of the Dagestani branch of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), the USSR-wide Salafi organization which was established in 1990 in the Volga city of Astrakhan. Moderate Salafis campaigned against alleged various bidˊah (innovation) in tariqatist-endorsed Islamic traditionalism, especially related to the intermediary role of Sufi sheikhs and the sacralization of ziyarats (pilgrimage to Sufi sacred sites); they also opposed

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madhhab divisions among Sunni Muslims. In political terms their programme resembled that of the moderate wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), calling for the gradual societal re-Islamicization of Dagestan and the wider Muslim Caucasus by democratic means. On this point they were not very different from the tariqatists, with whom they sought constructive dialogue as well as with the secular government. Significantly, they did not regard Russia as Dar al-Harb (Abode of War) and consequently opposed the application of the concept of armed jihad towards it, as well as of the concept of takfir towards ‘non-pure’ Muslims.30 The leader of radical Salafism/Wahhabism was another Dagestani theologian, Bagauddin Kebedov (b.1942), who founded the first Salafi jama‘at (community) in 1989 in the town of Kyzylyurt as well as the first Salafi madrasah and publishing house ‘Santlanda’, which propagated his Islamist project for the region. This included the liberation of the North Caucasus from Russian rule by armed jihad, the creation there of a unified Islamic state and the region’s ‘cleansing’ of ‘non-pure’ Muslims through the mechanism of takfir. On the outbreak of the first RussoChechen war in December 1994 Bagauddin and his close associates relocated to Ichkeria (Chechnya),31 which provided a more congenial environment for the implementation of his agenda. There, together with a ‘professional jihadist’, Jordanian-born Fathi al-Shishani (1940–1997),32 he played a central role in the instrumentalization of Islam for the purposes of the Chechen ethno-national separatist movement. In parallel, he continued to coordinate his remaining supporters in Dagestan who succeeded in establishing a mini Islamic state (1997–99), known as the ‘Kadar zone’, encompassing the villages of Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, Kadar and Vanashimakhi of Buinaksk district. From the late 1990s, under the radicalizing influence of the Russo-Chechen war of 1994–96 and the indiscriminate suppression of all Salafis by the secular regional and local authorities and their tariqatist allies, the balance between moderate and radical Salafis in Dagestan and Chechnya shifted in favour of the radicals. In the north-western Caucasus, which is administratively divided between the autonomous republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, KarachaevoCherkessia and Adygea, a similar shift occurred later, in the mid-2000s.33 By comparison, in Ingushetia, because of the more balanced religious policy of the republic’s authorities throughout the entire post-Soviet period, moderate Salafis have preserved their notable presence in the religious sphere.34

The failure of the ‘Chechen jihad’ The ‘Chechen jihad’ was initially declared by the then Chechen mufti, Muhammad Husein-hajjee Alsabekov, under the instigation of the first Chechen president and a former Soviet general, Dzhokhar Dudayev (1944–1996). Given the communist and atheistic background of Dudayev and his entourage and their ethno-national, rather than religious, political agenda, the main rationale behind this declaration was to solicit financial and other assistance from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Muslim countries for Chechen ethno-national separatism from Moscow. This also

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explains the employment of the term ‘jihad’ for external use alongside the term ‘ghazawat’, which was used internally. Another issue with the ‘Chechen jihad’ was its mobilization patterns which reflected teip (ethno-territorial community) and wird rather than cross-ethnic and cross-clan pan-Islamic solidarity.35 Thus, Dudayev’s core supporters came from his own teip Yal’khoi, as well as from associated teips Ma’lkhi, Albakov and Merzhoev. The second tier of his support came from members of the Qadiriyya’s Kunta-hajjee wird, to which Dudayev formally belonged by birth, as well as from the Qadiri wirds Chimmirza and Vishajjee. The ‘Chechen jihad’ was strongly opposed by Chechnya’s Naqshbandis under the leadership of Ilias Arsanov (1909–2002) despite the fact that it was the Naqshbandis who had been at the forefront of the nineteenth-century anti-Russian ghazawat, while the Qadiris had denounced it. The ‘jihad’ was also inconveniently rejected by most Ingush, who belong to the same Vainakh ethno-linguistic group as Chechens and share with them similar teip and wird affiliations. The actual Islamicization of the Chechen struggle against Moscow’s rule, associated with the pro-Western regime of Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007), began in August 1996 after Chechen rebels had defeated Russian federal troops and forced them to withdraw from Chechnya. Contributing factors behind this change were Dudayev’s death in April 1996 and the increased presence inside the Ichkeria leadership of professional jihadists, such as Fathi al-Shishani, Abu Omar al-Saif (1968–2005)36 and Amir Ibn al-Khattab (1969–2002),37as well as their regional soul mates under the leadership of Movladi Udugov (b.1962), a Minister of Information of Ichkeria.38 Under their pressure, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev (1952–2004), who in April 1996 succeeded Dudayev as president of Ichkeria, made Islam the state religion and embarked on the ‘shariˊatization’ of Ichkeria’s legal system and the ‘de-Suficization’ of Chechen Islam. Under al-Saif ’s guidance the Ichkeria Criminal Code was re-organized along the same principles as the shariˊah criminal codes in Sudan. Traditional Chechen clerics were marginalized, while some were physically eliminated. Chechen ziyarats, which were central to the Chechen Sufi tradition, were pronounced shirk, while the application of the ‘non-Chechen’ practices of takfir and female suicide bombers, known as ‘black widows’, against kafir (nonbeliever) and murtad (apostate) targets was officially endorsed. In 1999, Ichkeria’s then-president Aslan Maskhadov (1951–2005) introduced ‘full shariˊah rule’ and established a supreme Islamic government – the Shurah.39 The institutional Islamicization of Ichkeria went hand in hand with its transformation into an economic and legal black hole fraught with money laundering, black marketeering, oil smuggling, gangsterism, hostage-taking and other forms of terrorism and violent crimes. During its brief existence Ichkeria accommodated a number of jihadist training camps which were run by foreign and Chechen jihadists with international experience going back to the ‘Afghan jihad’ of 1979–89.40 These camps included consciously radical Salafis, foreign ‘students’ and Islamicized criminals from Chechnya and wider Muslim Eurasia who had fled prosecution at home.41 Overall, in historical and theological terms, the Ichkeria of 1996–99 represented a departure from indigenous traditions of both Islamic revivalism and ghazawat, though it shared major ideological, political

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and economic characteristics with the anti-Soviet ‘Afghan jihad’ which had been instrumentalized and militarily enhanced by the Pentagon, the CIA and Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in order to halt the Soviet Army’s advance into Asia and to prevent the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in Kabul from allying with Soviet-friendly India.42 As with the ‘Afghan jihad’, the ‘Chechen jihad’ was indirectly funded by Saudi Arabia, the world custodian of Wahhabism, as well as some other Muslim countries. In a similar way, Islamic Ichkeria was economically sustained by its integration into the region’s black and grey economy and finance, as well as providing ‘transferable’ jihadi skills to volunteers across the world.43 In May 2000, the Islamic state of Ichkeria fell as a result of the joint military offensive by Russian federal troops and pro-tariqatist Chechen fighters. Surviving Islamists and Islamicized militants either switched to low level insurgency or dispersed across the region and wider Russia, undertook hijrah (migration) to Turkey, or were given asylum in the West.44 Since July 2000 Chechnya has been ruled by the pro-Kremlin Kadyrov clan. Its first representative was Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov (1951–2004), who in August 1999 changed sides in favour of Moscow and in October 2003 became president of Chechnya. An important factor in Kadyrov’s political switch was the ascendance in Moscow of Vladimir Putin (b.1952) as Russia’s new assertive and Eurasia-centric leader. While in office, Akhmad Kadyrov disavowed the Salafi political, legal and religious reforms of his predecessors. Instead he initiated the transformation of his wird of Kunta-hajjee into the main pillar of the national consolidation of Chechens who had been deeply fractured by a decade of devastating warfare and blood feuds.45 Kadyrov’s religious policy has been continued by his son, Ramzan Kadyrov (b.1976) who became Chechnya’s president in 2007. During Ramzan’s presidency the institutionalization of the Kunta-hajjee wird has been accompanied by the integration of Chechen ‘adats and shariˊah norms into the republics’ political and legal system. A corollary has been the creeping Islamicization of nominally secular institutions and structures; for example, each district administration acquired a qadi (Islamic judge) who became involved in the political and legal process. Polygamy has been tacitly encouraged and justified by both Islamic tradition and a severe gender imbalance due to the two successive wars, while Chechen women have been required to adhere to Islamic norms of morality and Islamic dress. The sale and consumption of alcohol has been restricted and, in some parts of Chechnya, completely phased out. Casinos, orphanages and old peoples’ homes were closed as being incompatible with Chechen Islamic culture. Kadyrov’s re-traditionalization of Chechnya along Sufi Qadiri lines has been conducted in line with the Kremlin’s drive towards all-Russia spirituality, social conservatism, family-centred ‘traditional’ values and opposition to what is seen as US-spearheaded universalism, individualism and cultural and moral degradation.

North Caucasians and the ‘global jihad’ The military and religious defeat of Ichkeria’s Islamists and Islamicized militants and the expulsion of most of them from Chechnya encouraged their pan-regional

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and global ‘jihadization’. This discursive change was reflected in the language and content of KavkazCenter, the Islamist website established by the aforementioned Movladi Udugov. From the summer of 2000, Ichkeria-affiliated Islamists and militants under the leadership of Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev (1965–2006) joined forces with Islamists across the region to establish a loose, clandestine panCaucasus jihadist network consisting of a number of local jama‘ats headed by amirs (leaders). Jama‘at members, who numbered between several hundreds and over one thousand, became involved in armed and suicide attacks on police, politicians, traditionalist Islamic clerics and ‘ordinary kafirs’ in Grozny, Dagestan and other localities in the Caucasus and Russia’s heartlands.46 This period also witnessed the increasing influence of non-Chechen jihadist leaders.47 Foreign jihadists inducted their Caucasian ‘brothers’ into the logistical and financial intricacies of the global jihad and connected them with Al Qaeda and sponsors in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and other Muslim countries through a network of Islamic charities.48 The formal transformation of the Chechen and other Caucasian jihadists into warriors of the global jihad was completed in November 2007, when Chechen warlord Doku Umarov (1964–2013) announced the establishment of an underground pan-regional Islamic state in the form of the Caucasus Emirate, or Imarat Kavkaz (IK, 2007–16), divided into wilayats roughly corresponding to existing political-administrative units.49 IK was declared to be an inseparable part of the ummah and its struggle against Russia was linked to the global jihad against the enemies of Islam in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Palestine.50 It is symptomatic that at this stage Doku Umarov completely abandoned reference to indigenous ‘ghazawat’ in favour of a universalist ‘jihad’ and also chose the Arabic name ‘emirate’ over ‘imamate’, associated with Imam Shamil. Compared to the Chechen leaders of Ichkeria, the leadership of IK was truly multi-ethnic and included Magas (Akhmad Yevloyev, b.1974), an Ingush, Anzor Astemirov (1976– 2010), a Kabardinian, and Sayeed Buriatskii (Alexander Tikhomirov, 1982–2010), a half-Russian convert. From the 2010s, the ideological alignment of Caucasian jihadists with mujahideen (fighters for Islam) across the world was enhanced by a generational shift. Theologically motivated Salafis of the late Soviet and the early post-Soviet period, most of whom were from Dagestan, were superseded by angry young men, who for various reasons had become detached from local clan and ethnic structures and social hierarchies. They had opposed the widespread corruption and lack of opportunities in the name of the illusionary social justice of the caliphate.51 Theologically, they had been formatted along the lines of a simplified Salafism emanating from the internet and other electronic resources and social media. Its key components were a one-sided interpretation of some Qur’anic ayats (verses) and hadiths, the concept of takfir and an emphasis on military skills rather than on Islamic scholarship. One effect of this trend was the weakening of the Islamic authority of the IK amir, who came to be challenged by other contenders on military and organizational rather than theological grounds. From autumn 2012, as a result of the concerted efforts of the Russian federal and regional special forces, especially in Kadyrov’s Chechnya, the IK-affiliated

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underground jihadist network in the North Caucasus was being severely undermined. Most of its commanders were killed, while many mid-level commanders and rank and file militants were forced outside the region. In 2013– 14 their main jihadist destination became Iraq, which, along with Syria, was the core territory of the ISIS ‘caliphate’ – proclaimed by Iraqi Muslim cleric, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019) in June 2014. Facilitating factors behind this hijrah were targeted and aggressive online propaganda on behalf of both Al Qaeda and ISIS and the Russian federal and regional authorities’ policy of squeezing radical Islamists beyond the borders of the North Caucasus on the eve of the Sochi Olympic Games. By the spring of 2015, most Chechen and Dagestani mid-level commanders had switched their allegiance from the then IK amir Aliaskhab Kebekov (1972–2015) to al-Baghdadi. In June 2015, the ISIS leadership endorsed Abu Muhammad al-Qadari (Rustam Asel’derov, 1981–2016) as amir of the caliphate’s newly formed ‘Caucasus wilayat’.52 At the forefront of the IK’s defectors to the Middle East were Chechens from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, as well as from the North Caucasian diaspora in Russia and the West. Subsequently, the Pankisi Gorge has generated the largest number of non-Arab Chechen (Shishani) commanders for Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS and other jihadist formations in Iraq and Syria.53 Mujahideen from the Pankisi Gorge began to arrive in Syria in the spring of 2011 in support of the anti-government uprising, making up the core of Katibat al-Muhajireen (KM, The Migrant Brigade), which in the summer of 2012 played a central role in attacks on Syrian government forces around Aleppo.54 Later on KM merged with several other jihadist groupings to form Jaish al-Muhajireen wa al-Ansar (JMA, The Army of Migrants and Helpers); and at the end of 2013 most Pankisi jihadists joined Jabhat al-Nusra, which was affiliated with Al Qaeda, while some moved to ISIS and others formed the Caucasus Emirate in Syria.55 The high jihadist rating of the Pankisi Gorge can be explained by its geography, ethno-cultural make-up and socio-economic and political factors. It is a remote enclave in the Caucasus mountains mainly populated by Shafiˊi Muslim Kists, the Georgian Chechens. Historically, Kists, who number around 12,000, originated from lower Chechnya from where they migrated to the Pankisi Gorge in the mid-nineteenth century. They are closely related ethnically, linguistically and confessionally to the Chechens, albeit culturally they are closer to the eastern Georgian mountaineers. The Pankisi Gorge has been one of Georgia’s least economically developed areas with high levels of youth unemployment. In the 1990s, the Gorge’s socio-economic conditions worsened even further as a result of the influx of refugees from war-stricken Chechnya. For over a decade the Pankisi Gorge served as a safe haven and ‘recreation zone’ for Chechen militants and provided a corridor for global jihadists on their way to Chechnya. In the aftermath of the second Russo-Chechen war, the Gorge turned into a stronghold of Ichkeria militants under the leadership of Abu Hafs al-Urduni (1973–2006), the leader of the Arab mujahideen in Chechnya, and Ruslan Gelayev (1964–2004), a charismatic warlord with dubious Islamic credentials. The inability or unwillingness of official Tbilisi to control the Pankisi Gorge was conducive to its transformation into a

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hotbed of organized crime, drugs and weapon trafficking, hostage-taking and the smuggling of foreign jihadists to the North Caucasus. For a considerable period, it served as the main site for the jihadist indoctrination of young men conducted by representatives of various Middle Eastern Islamic charities based in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Of particular influence were the Islamic charities ‘The Muslim Protection Organisation’, based in Tbilisi, and the ‘Foundation for Chechnya’, based in Azerbaijan.56 It was reported that in the early 2000s around sixty mujahideen from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab countries, as well from the UK and France, were based in the Pankisi Gorge.57

Conclusion As we have seen, the Islamic dynamic in the North Caucasus challenges assumptions about the decline of political Islam, the disconnection of jihadism from Islamic theology and the de-territorialization of contemporary jihad.58 Since the late 1980s, the North Caucasus and wider Muslim Eurasia have witnessed a notable re-Islamicization, which has manifested itself in young people learning Arabic, reading the Qur’an, hadiths and tafsir (commentaries on the Qur’an) and observing Ramadan and other major Islamic festivals. For historical and theological reasons, the epicentre of the ‘Islamic revival’ has been in the northeastern Caucasus, Dagestan, in particular. There, the resurgence of Sufi-centred Islamic traditionalism has combined with Islamic revivalism, both of which have largely drawn on indigenous Sufi and Salafi traditions. In contrast, in the northwestern Caucasus where Sufism was barely in existence, the ‘Islamic revival’ has predominantly developed in Salafi form, which has drawn on both indigenous and external theological sources. Incidentally, a similar correlation between the strength of Islamic heritage and the forms and sources of political Islam and the latter’s proclivity to ‘jihadization’ could be observed in Central Asia. Thus, in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where the Islamic heritage is solid, the rise of political Islam has occurred along the lines of both Islamic traditionalism and Salafism. By comparison, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where native Islamic tradition was disrupted in the 1930s in the course of the coercive sedentarization of Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, political Islam has acquired an exclusively Salafi form. This also explains the relatively greater susceptibility of young Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, especially from the diaspora, to jihadism.59 By the 2000s historically prevalent Islamic traditionalism in the North Caucasus had been broadly integrated into local and regional politics while Salafism had been delegitimized and consequently radicalized, except in the case of Ingushetia. Some radical Salafis merged with Islamicized militants and criminals and embraced jihadism. Contributing factors behind the jihadization of radical Salafis from different ethnic backgrounds, including ethnic Russian converts to Islam, have been their indiscriminate military and administrative suppression by the local and regional authorities, endemic corruption within government bodies, dire socio-economic conditions, high youth unemployment

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and the absence of social mobility. The main catalyst for the proliferation in the region of jihadism, albeit on relatively low level, as well as the latter’s fusion with ‘global jihad’ was the brutal Russo-Chechen conflict. It provided a framework for trans-ethnic Islamic mobilization vis-a-vis the Russian centre and the Kremlinbacked regional and local authorities, most of whom were Muslims by birth. The conflict attracted scores of veterans of the Afghan, Kashmir, Bosnian and other ‘jihads’ who interlinked the North Caucasian ‘brothers’ with the international jihadist network and its centres of funding and military training and ideological indoctrination. Islamic Ichkeria of 1996–99 became the first regional site of international jihadism, which subsequently shifted to Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge. Between 2007 and 2016 international jihadists also increased their presence in the Caucasus-centred regional jihadist underground formation – the Imarat Kavkaz. The transformation of the North Caucasian jihadists into global ones was completed in 2016 when most IK mid-level commanders and rank and file militants switched their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Since 2014 over five thousand North Caucasians, including women and children, have travelled to parts of Iraq and Syria controlled by ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other affiliated jihadi groupings.60 It is critical to note, however, that in quantitative terms they represent a tiny minority of the region’s Muslim population of 15 million, which has largely remained aloof from and hostile to jihadism as incompatible with their perception and sense of Muslim-ness. In proportional terms, the number of jihadists from the North Caucasus per se has been significantly lower than the number of their counterparts from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge and from the North Caucasian diaspora in Russia and other nonMuslim parts of Eurasia,61 where they have experienced sociocultural alienation and Islamophobia, that is the environment which was comparable to conditions for radicalization of some Muslims in the West.62 It is indicative, that, for example, in 2016, out of around 27,000 foreign ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq, the North Caucasian jihadists, even including those from the Pankisi Gorge, numbered around 5,500 which constituted 0.04 per cent of the region’s total Muslim population of 15 million. In relative terms this figure is considerably lower than the number of ISIS fighters from Belgium and some other European countries.63 It could be argued therefore that Muslims in the North Caucasus, as well as in wider Muslim Eurasia, have remained largely within the parameters of Eurasian Islam centred on post-Soviet Muslim post-secularism,64 and have been only marginally affected by universalist Salafism and de-territorialized global jihad.

Notes 1 Here I use the term ‘Eurasia’ to denote a distinctive sociocultural area, rather than the much wider geographic region of Eurasia. 2 Most authoritative Western scholarship on the subject refers to the North Caucasus and the wider Muslim Eurasia as ‘the Muslim periphery’. See, for example, Giles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), Faisal Devji, Landscapes

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of the Jihad: Militancy. Morality. Modernity (London: Hurst & Company, 2005) and Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, rev. edn (London: Hurst & Company, 2004). I am leaving Muslim communities in the West outside this comparison given their relatively recent formation as a result of the labour migration from former colonies in Muslim Asia and Africa to the West, or more recently, the influx of refugees fleeing from war-torn zones in the Middle East and northern Africa. The political-administrative delimitation of the Caucasus into Russia’s North Caucasus and the South Caucasus, or Transcaucasia (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia) took place in the 1920s in the course of Soviet nation-building. Historically, therefore, the Islamicization of Azerbaijan occurred within roughly the same time frame as in Dagestan. The Islamicization of the Volga-Urals region which is the home of present-day Muslim Tatars and Bashkirs was also initiated by the Arab conquerors in the early eight century CE. See Rafik Mukhametshin, ‘Islamic discourse in the Volga-Urals region’, in Galina M. Yemelianova (ed.), Radical Islam in the Former Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 33. Thus, one of the most authoritative hadith collections in the Muslim world was authored by Muhammad ibn Isma‘il al-Bukhari (810–69) from Bukhara. See Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 71. Here I use the term ‘Salafi’ (lit. ‘of ancestors’ in Arabic) Islam to describe the views and activities of advocates of the return to the pure, unadulterated Islam of Prophet Muhammad and the four righteous caliphs, which allegedly existed during the first three generations of Muslims after the Prophet Muhammad and when politics and religion were guided by the same legal principles. Here I use the term ‘jihadism’ to denote Islamicized violence. The first manifestations of Islamic revivalism related to the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Among its key ideologues was Ibn Taimiyya (1263–1338), a Syrian Islamic scholar, who called for the return of Islam to its sources – the Qur’an and the Sunnah (tradition of a custom of the Prophet Muhammad). Among these were, for example, the movements led by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92) in Arabia; Muhammad Ali al-Sanusi (1787–1859) in Cyrenaica in present-day Libya; Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abdallah (1844–85) in Sudan and Abd al-Qadir (1808–83) in Algeria. See Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, pp. 21–5. See more on Muslim communism in Galina M. Yemelianova, Russia and Islam: A Historical Survey (London: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 101–5. Here I use the term ‘official Islam’ to denote Islamic authorities affiliated to the statecontrolled Spiritual Directorate (muftiate) of the Muslims of the North Caucasus in Buinaksk. I acknowledge, however, the complex relationship between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ Islam in imperial Russia/ USSR/ the Russian Federation. Here I use the regional conventional plural form ˊalims for ˊalim (Islamic scholar) rather than the correct plural form ˊulama’. See more on problematic nature of the ‘Islamic revival’ in the late Soviet–early postSoviet periods in Yemelianova, Radical Islam. Here the term ‘Islamic traditionalism’ denotes a Sovietized version of Islamic beliefs and rituals which were integrated within the Soviet system. The only official providers of Islamic education in the Soviet Union were the Mir-iArab madrasah in Bukhara and the Islamic Institute in Tashkent.

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17 Islam was brought to southern Dagestan’s ancient city of Derbent in 643 CE by Arab troops under the command of Salman ibn Rabi‛ah al-Bahili and Habib ibn Muslim. The Arabs called the city Bab al-Abwab (‘Gate of all Gates’, to the Caliphate – G.Y.) and its central gate as Bab al-Jihad (‘Gate of Jihad’). 18 It is estimated that over 24,000 Arabs from Greater Syria were settled in Dagestan. See Magomed Abdullayev, Iz Istorii Filosofskoi i Obshchestvenno-Politicheskoi Mysli Dagestana (Makhachkala: Yupiter, 1993), p. 91. 19 Among these were, for example, ˊalims Suleiman al-Gumiki, hajjee Umar al-Gumiki, Ali-hajjee al-Gumili who lived in Kumukh in the sixteenth century (Abdullayev, Iz Istorii, p. 106). 20 Abdullayev, Iz istorii, p. 180; Kaflan Khanbabaev, ‘Islam and Islamic radicalism in Dagestan’, in Yemelianova, Radical Islam, pp. 84–7; Anna Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom: Sufi Responses to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus (London: Hurst & Company, 2000), pp. 33–4. 21 Domitilla Sagramoso, ‘The radicalisation of Islamic Salafi jamaats in the North Caucasus: moving closer to the global jihadist movement?’, Europe-Asia Studies, 64, no. 3 (2012): 580; Ruslan Kurbanov, ‘Globalisation of Muslim consciousness in the Caucasus: Islamic Call and Jihad’, Central Asia and Caucasus, 42, no. 6 (2006): 62. 22 Andarbek Yandarov, Sufizm i Ideologiia Natsional’no-Osvoboditel’nogo Dvizheniia (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1975), p. 127. 23 See, for example, Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad, p. 21. 24 In the Soviet Union, the World War II was referred to as the Great Patriotic War, during which peoples of different ethnic and religious background united against the invasion by Nazi Germany and in which over thirty million Soviet people lost their lives. 25 Among those were, for example, wirds of Bamat-Girei-hajjee Mitaev, Ali Mitaev, Chimmirza, Vis-hajjee, Mani-sheikh and Battal-hajjee Belkhroev. See Vahit Akaev, ‘Islam and politics in Chechniia and Ingushetiia’, in Yemelianova, Radical Islam, p. 67. 26 Shadhili tariqat took root in Dagestan in the early twentieth century as a result of the proselytizing activity of Lak sheikh Saifulla-qadi Bashlarov (d.1915). Khanbabaev, ‘Islam and Islamic radicalism’, p. 86. 27 Sheikh Said-effendi Chirkeiskii was based in the village of Chirkey in Buinaksk district of Dagestan. In the 1990s, he was reported to have over 10,000 murids. (Khanbabaev, ‘Islam and Islamic radicalism’, pp. 94–5). Sheikh Said-effendi was a harsh critic of Salafis. In August 2012 he was killed as a result of an Islamist suicide attack. 28 Thus, the tariqatists advocated the inclusion of Islam in the republic’s constitution, the introduction of elements of shariˊah law into the legal system and of Islam-related courses into the school curriculum. See Dmitrii Makarov and Rafik Mukhametshin, ‘Official and unofficial Islam’, in Hilary Pilkington and Galina M. Yemelianova (eds), Islam in Post-Soviet Russia: Public and Private Faces (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 134–43. 29 In 1936–44 and 1957–91 Chechnya and Ingushetia were part of single ChechenIngush autonomous republic of the Russian Federation. 30 Makarov and Mukhametshin, ‘Official and unofficial Islam’, pp. 150–7. 31 The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, as a separate republic within the Soviet Union, was proclaimed in late 1991 by Dzhokhar Dudayev. In 1996 its name was amended to the ‘Islamic Republic of Ichkeria’. Ichkeria ceased to exist in 2000 as a result of Moscow’s defeat of Chechen separatists.

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32 Fathi al-Shishani was a descendant of Chechens who fled Chechnya following the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus in the 1860s. 33 See more on the specifics of the Salafi movement in the north-western Caucasus in Domitilla Sagramoso and Galina M.Yemelianova, ‘Islam and Ethno-Nationalism in the North-Western Caucasus’, in Yemelianova, Radical Islam, pp. 112–45. 34 Dominic Rubin, Russia’s Muslim Heartlands: Islam in the Putin Era (London: Hurst & Company, 2018), p. 296. 35 Historically, Chechens were divided into 135 teips which differed in terms of their size and economic and political influence. The most influential were teips Benoi, Ts’enntoroi, Gendergeroi and Ch’antiy, while the least influential were teips G’attai, Nikhaloi, Kh’akkoi, Shuonoi, and Yal’khoi. Parallel to teip affiliation over 80 per cent of Chechens and Ingush belonged to various wirds of the Qadiri and Naqshbandi tariqats. Akaev, ‘Islam and politics’, p. 64. 36 Abu Omar al-Saif (Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah ibn Saif al-Buainain) was an Arab, who was born in Saudi Arabia. 37 Amir Ibn al-Khattab (Samir Salih Al-Suweilem) was an ethnic Chechen, who was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up in Jordan. 38 Other Ichkeria’s ideologists were Bagauddin Kebedov, Isa Umarov, Islam Khalimov and Shamsutdin Batukayev. 39 Akaev, ‘Islam and politics’, p. 73. 40 The main jihadist training camps were located in the Urus-Martan and Vedeno districts of Chechnya. Its ‘staff ’ was dominated by Arab jihadists who combined military instruction with Islamist indoctrination. Akaev, ‘Islam and politics’, p. 70. 41 Sagramoso and Yemelianova, ‘Islam and ethno-nationalism’, pp. 134–6. 42 See more on the role of the CIA and Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) in the ‘Afghan jihad’ and the latter’s economics in Aisha Ahmad, Jihad &Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 43 See more on the jihadist financial network in the region in Timothy Wittig, ‘Financing terrorism along the Chechnya–Georgia border, 1999–2002’, Global Crime, 10, no. 3 (2009): 248–60. 44 From 1997 to 2006 the main destination of Chechen and other North Caucasian asylum seekers were Poland (28,906 applications), Germany (24,796), Austria (22,771), France (17,302), Belgium (15,110), the UK (9,675), the Czech Republic (9,034), Sweden (8,298), Norway (7,949) and Slovakia (7,305). See Alexander Schahbasi (ed.), Chechens in the European Union (Vienna: Austrian Integration Fund, 2008), pp. 15–16. 45 The ziyarat of Khedi, the mother of Kunta-hajjee, acquired a particular prominence. See Alexei Malashenko, Ramzan Kadyrov: Rossiiskii Politik Kavkazskoi Natsional’nosti (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2009), p. 114. 46 Among the most gruesome attacks were the jihadist assault on the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow in October 2002, which left 133 civilians dead; the siege of the school in Beslan (North Ossetia) in September 2004, resulting in 334 deaths, mainly of children, and the coordinated attack on the security policy facilities in Nal’chik (KabardinoBalkaria) in October 2005 which left around fifty security servicemen and civilians dead. 47 Among those were Anzor Astemirov (1976–2010), amir of the jama‘at ‘Yarmuk’ of Kabardino-Balkaria and a mastermind of the 2005 Nal’chik attack, the aforementioned Abu Omar al-Saif, Ali Soytekin Ogly, a Turkish national, Kamel Rabat Bouralha, a British national of Algerian descent, and Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, a Kuwaiti national.

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48 Khanbabaev, ‘Islam and Islamic radicalism’, p. 111. 49 The largest wilayats were Nokhchicho (Chechnya), Galgaycho (Ingushetia and North Ossetia), Cherkessia (Adygea and southern part of Krasnodar krai (province)) and Dagestan. 50 Sagramoso, ‘The radicalisation’, p. 589. 51 Rubin, Russia’s Muslim Heartlands, p. 219. 52 ‘Jihad na Export?’, Kavkazskii Uzel, 16 March 2016. Available at http:​//www​.kavk​az-uz​ el.eu​/arti​cles/​27922​4/ (accessed 27 March 2018). 53 Among them were, for example, Abu Omar al-Shishani, Seifullah al-Shishani, Salahuddin al-Shishani, Abdul Khakim al-Shishani, Muslim al-Shishani and Abu Jihad al-Shishani. Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, ‘Abu Miaso’, Novaya Gazeta, 11 May 2016. 54 Jean-Francois Ratelle, ‘North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: Assessing the threat of returnees to the Russian Federation’, Caucasus Survey, 4, no. 3 (2016): 226. 55 Mark Yongman, ‘Between Caucasus and caliphate: The splintering of the North Caucasus insurgency’, Caucasus Survey, 4, no. 3 (2016): 199–200. 56 Wittig, ‘Financing terrorism’, p. 256. 57 Timothy Wittig, Understanding Terrorist Finance (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 6. 58 See, for example, Kepel, Jihad, p. 368 and Roy, Globalised Islam, p. 2. 59 For a detailed discussion of political Islam and jihadism in Central Asia, see Galina M. Yemelianova, Muslims of Central Asia: An Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019). 60 According to some other sources, the number of North Caucasian jihadists in Syria and Iraq exceeded eight thousand. See, for example, Akhmet Yarlykapov, ‘Islamic State propaganda in the North Caucasus’, in Ofer Fridman, Vitaly Kabernik and James C. Pearch (eds), Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare: New Label, Old Politics (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2019), p. 221. 61 See more on the higher rate of ‘jihadization’ of North Caucasian Muslims in the diaspora in Alexei Malashenko and Alexei Starostin, Islam na Sovremennom Urale (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 2015). 62 For a detailed discussion of factors for Islamic radicalization in the West, see Marc Helbling (ed.), Islamophobia in the West: Measuring and Explaining Individual Attitudes (London: Routledge, 2012). 63 Galina M. Yemelianova, ‘How “Muslim” are Central Asian Muslims? A historical and comparative enquiry’, Central Asia Affairs, 4 (2017): 267–6; ‘ISIS foreign fighters: Which countries do they come from?’, TIME. Available at http:​//tim​e.com​/4739​488/i​ sis-i​raq-s​yria-​tunis​ia-sa​udi-a​rabia​-russ​ia (accessed 28 March 2018). 64 See more on positioning the post-Soviet secularism within the wider academic debate on post-secularism and de-secularization, in Rubin, Russia’s Muslim Heartlands, pp. 292–3.

EXPLAINING THE LIMITED ISIS AND AL QAEDA THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES Risa Brooks

Since 2001, the threat of terrorist attacks posed by ISIS and Al Qaeda has been foremost among Americans’ security concerns. The US government has spent enormous sums on counterterrorism-related initiatives and Americans continue to prioritize the terrorist threat posed by these groups.1 Indeed, in 2016 more than 40 percent of Americans believed that the threat of a major attack was greater than it was after 9/11.2 Despite these fears, Americans, in fact, remain relatively safe from terrorist plots carried out by Al Qaeda, ISIS or their affiliates. A limited number of attacks have been successfully perpetrated by individuals inspired by these groups’ ideology. These individuals, however, have acted independently, without direct guidance or instruction from ISIS or Al Qaeda leaders. No Americans have died in successful attacks in the United States in which leaders or operatives of the foreign groups, or individuals trained overseas by them, have participated in planning or executing the plot. Moreover, the handful of lethal attacks by self-initiated terrorists that have killed Americans have all been relatively unsophisticated, relying on readily available weapons against soft targets with little premeditation or skill required. Americans, in short, have been relatively safe overall from terrorist attacks – and from terrorist spectaculars in particular  – especially in comparison with their European allies and states in the Middle East whose populations have faced the brunt of Al Qaeda’s and ISIS’s lethal violence. What explains the relatively limited terrorist threat faced by American citizens from Salafi Islamist militant organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda? The conventional answer points to differences in the assimilation and social status of American Muslims, which renders them less motivated to engage in terrorist activity compared with some marginalized Muslim communities in Europe.3 While important, however, this is only part of the answer. Despite the widespread rejection of militancy by American Muslims,4 foreign terrorist organizations retain the means through which they could, at least in principle, orchestrate complex plots. Some contend, for example, that the internet provides opportunities for these organizations to ‘remote control’ attacks among the small number of Americans who do become indoctrinated by extremist ideology.5 Al Qaeda and ISIS also have access to overseas safe havens and could train Americans who travel there and then return home to plot attacks. They could also just forgo the use of Americans altogether and rely on vetted and trained foreign recruits, as Al Qaeda ddid with the hijackers in 2001. Indeed, the fear that these groups’ safe havens will facilitate another 9/11 has led American presidents repeatedly to prioritize eliminating those havens.6

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In this chapter, I explore the reasons why the foreign terrorist threat has remained limited in the United States to only basic (if sometimes lethal) attacks. I argue that the key lies in understanding what is required to plan, prepare and execute a complex terrorist attack.7 Terrorist attacks are not singular acts, but rather the outcome of a series of precursor and preparatory steps undertaken by militants. Carrying out those steps requires technical capability on the part of militants who have been trained and instructed for the task. It also requires that those militants have security in proximity to their target to prevent their precursor activities from being detected and the plot foiled. Without the ability to locate trained or experienced operatives in the area of operations (in this case, the United States) and supply them with local security, foreign militant organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS are extremely limited in what they can accomplish. In short, it is the basic requirements of planning complex plots – and foreign organizations inability to meet those requirements in the United States – that explains why the threat to Americans has remained limited. In recent years there has been relatively little attention paid to the threat that ISIS or Al Qaeda will execute complex attacks compared with concerns about simpler, so-called lone wolf attacks inspired by these groups’ propaganda. In part this may reflect the absence of sophisticated plots, such that their importance has received less attention in public discussion of terrorism in the country. Yet, the lack of spectacular attacks by these groups merits investigation, for both analytical and practical reasons. Analytically, focusing on the causes of these non-events sheds light on what factors facilitate sophisticated attacks – that is, by evaluating why complex attacks have not occurred in the United States, we can better understand what enables terrorist organizations to undertake them. On a practical level, complex attacks – of the kind experienced by Londoners in 2005, or by Parisians in 2015 – are important because they can have significant strategic and political effects. Research shows that event characteristics affect the psychological impact of terrorist attacks: more complex attacks generate more media attention and more fear among target populations.8 Understanding what factors have insulated the United States from these attacks is crucial. 9 This chapter is organized as follows. I begin by reviewing the pattern of terrorism in the United States since 9/11, breaking it into four categories: successful, failed, foiled attacks and terrorist-related activities that do not constitute plots in the United States. I then explore the basic prerequisites for plotting complex attacks. The chapter then details the reasons why Al Qaeda and ISIS are unable to meet those basic requirements and explains why the United States has not experienced terrorist spectaculars in the decades following 9/11.

Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorism in the United States since 9/11 Terrorist activity inspired by Al Qaeda and ISIS within the United States can be grouped into four categories. The first category is successful attacks, or those in which a plot within the country was executed and was at least partially successful in

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that the weapon operated as intended (e.g. the explosive detonated) and the attack resulted in deaths or injuries other than the perpetrator.10 In the years between 2001 and 2018, there have been twenty-six attacks in which at least one person was injured and which involved Muslim Americans who appear in part to be politically motivated. Some of these attacks have been serious efforts by individuals clearly inspired by Al Qaeda or ISIS ideology and propaganda. Alternatively, a few have been motivated by anti-Israel sentiments and do not appear to be inspired by Al Qaeda or ISIS (the attacks by Hesham Hadayet in 2002 and by Naveed Haq in 2006 – see Table 1). Other plots have included those where mental illness played a role, complicating assessments of the perpetrators’ motivations, such as the case of Matthew Llaneza, who had a history of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder when he was arrested in 2014 and charged with plotting to blow up a bank building.11 In other cases, the motivation is ambiguous, such as the 2014 killing by Alton Nolan of his former co-workers in a supermarket, or the racially tinged 2017 killings by Kori Muhammad. Eight of these twenty-five incidents were non-lethal and involved only injuries to bystanders (in some cases serious, and in others not).12 There have been 145 total fatalities. Most are the result of four attacks: the husband and wife team who in 2015 killed fourteen work colleagues in San Bernardino; Omar Mateen’s 2016 shooting spree, which left forty-nine dead in the Pulse nightclub; Major Nidal Hasan’s 2009 killing of thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood; and the Tsarnaev brothers who in 2013 bombed the Boston Marathon and killed three (but injured many more). A second category of terrorism events is failed attacks. These are attacks that were attempted (carried out to the execution phase) prior to the perpetrators coming to the attention of law enforcement. The plots, however, failed to unfold as planned and no bystanders were harmed. These include the failed 2009 attempt to bomb Times Square by Faisal Shahzad and a home-made bomb placed by Abdullatif Aldosary in 2012 outside an Austin social security building that failed to detonate. They also include the 2011 arrest of Yonathan Melaku for shooting at military buildings in Virginia, in which no one was harmed. Although I have included them in successful attacks in Table 1, two other attacks might also be classified as failed. These include the 2017 failed pipe bomb explosion by Akayed Ullah near a crowded bus terminal in NYC in which some bystanders were injured, but none seriously; and Ahmad Khan Rahimi’s 2016 New York and New Jersey bombings. Although Rahimi planted multiple bombs, only one pipe bomb and one pressure cooker bomb went off as intended; the blast from the latter was largely absorbed by the metal dumpster in proximity to where Rahimi chose to place his bomb (effectively neutralizing much of the effect of the blast).13 A third larger class of plots are those foiled prior to execution: the plot is uncovered and the militants apprehended or charged with offences prior to the implementation phase. In the United States this has constituted the bulk of all plots. There have been, between 2011 and 2018, sixty-five ‘plots’ in which a militant had expressed some aspiration to attack a target in the United States (as opposed, for example, to seeking to join a group fighting an insurgency overseas).14 The aims and operational development of these plots varies widely, however, as does

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Table 1  Politically motivated attacks by Muslims in the United States resulting in deaths or injuries, 2002–2018 2002 2006 2006 2009 2009 2013 2014 2014 2014 2014 2015 2015 2015 2015 2016 2016 2016 2016 2016 2016 2017 2017 2017 2017 2017 2018

Hesham Hadayet opens fire at the El Al Los Angeles airport ticket counter, killing two and injuring four. Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar drives his SUV into students at University of North Carolina, injuring nine (none seriously). Naveed Haq kills four and wounds two in a shooting at a Jewish Federation building in Seattle. He professed anger at Israel. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills thirteen, injures thirty in a shooting at Fort Hood military base. Adbullah Mujahid Muhammad (aka Carlos Bledsoe) kills one soldier and injures another in a shooting outside an army recruiting centre in Little Rock, Arkansas. Brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev bomb the Boston Marathon with home-made pressure cooker bombs killing three and injuring dozens, many seriously. In several shootings between April and June, Ali Muhammad Brown kills four men in New Jersey and in Washington State. He states that he is targeting gay men in a violent ‘jihad’ consistent with his religious beliefs. Alton Nolen beheads one and mortally wounds another former co-worker at a supermarket. His motives are not clear. Zale Thompson injures two police officers (one seriously) in an attack with a hatchet on a sidewalk in Queens, NY. Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley shoots and kills two police officers sitting in their patrol vehicles in Brooklyn, NY in a revenge killing against police. His motivations are unclear. Elton Simpson and Nader Soofi injure a security guard in a shooting at an anti-Muslim event in Texas. Faisal Mohammed stabs four at UC Merced. Mohammed Abdulazeez kills five military personnel in two attacks, in a drive-by shooting at a naval recruiting centre and at a US Navy Reserve centre in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shoot co-workers at a social service building in San Bernardino, California, killing fourteen. Edward Archer shoots and injures a police officer in a car in Philadelphia. Omar Mateen kills forty-nine people at the Pulse Nightclub in Florida. Dahir Adan injures ten people with a knife at a Minnesota mall. Ahmad Khan Rahimi injures thirty with a pressure cooker bomb in New York City. Arkan Cetin kills five in a Seattle mall. Motivation is unclear. Abdul Razak Ali Artan injures eleven (none critically) when he stabs and drives his car into students on the Ohio State campus. Esteban Santiago kills five and injures six at a Fort Lauderdale airport. He has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and initially blames government mind control and later ISIS videos for his act. Joshua Cummings shoots and kills a police officer on a Denver street. His motives for the attack at trial are unclear. Kori Ali Mohammed, a Muslim convert, shoots and kills three in Fresno, California in an attack that appears at least in part to be racially motivated. Saifullo Saipov kills eight when he drives a vehicle into pedestrians in New York City. Akayed Ullah injures five in a failed pipe bomb explosion at a bus terminal near Times Square. Ullah was the only one seriously injured when the crude bomb failed to ignite. Seventeen-year-old Corey Johnson stabs friends and mother at a sleepover, killing one thirteen-year-old child.

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when they are discovered and foiled. In many cases, the perpetrators have been discovered early when their plots were more aspirational than operational, such as when they have yet to acquire weapons or the means to produce explosives and have only expressed extremist views or a desire to engage in violence, but have not taken concrete steps to carry out the plan.15 In addition, most of these aspiring militants are poorly skilled amateurs.16 Various factors have led to the exposure of these militants in the United States. Foiled plots are discovered at an early phase due to basic errors in operational security, such as when individuals broadcast their intentions online, or try to openly recruit co-conspirators on social media.17 One means of exposure has involved tips by alert spectators, such as the chemical supplier and freight company that reported Khalid Aldwasari to the FBI after he ordered phenol under suspicious circumstances.18 In other cases, family members have turned in militants.19 According to figures compiled by the New America Foundation, a significant source of information about suspected militants has come from tips from Muslim community members in the United States.20 Informants have been another source of exposure; recruited by law enforcement, these individuals who report to authorities any suspicious behaviour among those they observe in their communities or social networks.21 Another common tactic employed by law enforcement in the United States is the use of undercover ‘sting’ operations to expose potential plots. In a sting operation, an undercover FBI agent befriends an individual suspected of harbouring militant tendencies. The suspected militant is then supplied with resources and with comradeship as he or she moves from expressing extremist views to taking actions preparatory to an attack. FBI agents have been known to supply fake weapons, discuss potential targets and in some cases provide basic material support, even rent money, as well as emotional support to militants.22 These tactics are controversial, although they are deemed essential tools by law enforcement given the challenges of surveilling large numbers of individuals; they allow law enforcement to accelerate the planning stage to see who is capable of violent activity. Analytically, however, they are important when assessing the terrorist plots in the United States because they can lead to an inflated estimation of the actual terrorist threat. The assistance law enforcement provides is in some cases extensive. Consequently, it is uncertain whether those plots would have been advanced in the absence of this support; the use of these methods can generate plots that otherwise might have never been attempted, or otherwise fizzled, whatever the odious beliefs of the perpetrator.23 Given increased reliance on these methods in recent years, this is an important consideration when evaluating the terrorism threat in the United States.24 A final category of terrorism plots is not actually plots – but actions that involve supporting or assisting overseas terrorist organizations. Overall arrests for ‘terrorism-related activity’ undertaken on behalf of foreign organizations are commonly included in data on the terrorist threat to the United States.25 This may include providing material support (e.g. money) to overseas militants, or seeking to join a foreign terrorist organization. This constitutes the majority of terrorism-

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related arrests in the United States. According to Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, of the seventy-one people arrested for some terrorist-related offence associated with support for ISIS between 2013 and late 2015, for example, 73 per cent were not involved in plotting in the United States (they were charged with attempting to travel to join ISIS or provide material support).26 Many terrorism statistics do not differentiate material support activities from plots aimed at targets in the United States.27 Yet the distinction can affect how the terrorism threat is interpreted. Joining or supporting a foreign insurgency is different than attacking Americans at home; collapsing the former into counts of ‘plots’ in the United States distorts understanding of the terrorism threat. Regardless of how the numbers are compiled, however, on thing is notable: there were no successfully executed complex attacks between the years 2001 and 2019 in the United States. As complex plots are defined here,28 all successful attacks in the United States since 9/11 have been basic in nature. In fact, only two plots aimed at targets inside the United States that reached an advanced stage of development qualify as complex. These include the 2009 failed effort by Faisal Shahzad to bomb Times Square and the foiled effort by Najibullah Zazi to employ TATP devices against the New York subway.29 What explains the absence of complex plots and the inability of overseas militant groups to execute them in the United States? I argue that these groups lack two vital ingredients to carrying out complex attacks: gaining access for skilled militants trained by the group to the area of operations (in this case, the United States) and local security once there to carry out tasks essential to preparing an attack. Understanding why these deficiencies are so important becomes clear when we examine the prerequisites to terrorist plotting.

The fundamentals of terrorist plotting Carrying out a sophisticated terrorist plot is an involved and technically challenging process. A number of phases or precursor steps are involved. These include developing an operational concept, recruiting operatives, developing a working relationship among them, undertaking surveillance of local conditions (especially security measures), acquiring weapons or ingredients, fabrication of weapons (explosives), practice or dry runs and execution of the plot. Each phase or step must be undertaken in a manner to avoid exposure; maintaining operational security (OPSEC) is critical. A complex plot with many steps and sub-steps can be especially fraught in this regard, as each step has some associated risk of drawing scrutiny and when cumulated, yield an overall significant risk of exposure. It only takes one breakdown in OPSEC to lead to the unravelling of a cell’s activities, as many aspiring militants in the United States have discovered.30 To overcome these obstacles requires that militants have particular skills and training. They require technical skills in acquiring and handling weapons (explosives and firearms), or in fabricating explosives when using readily available materials in the case of acetone-based TATP, a popular material for bomb-making

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by terrorists in Western countries. It requires what is called skills in ‘terrorist tradecraft’, as well as experience, which allows militants to translate their technical knowledge into practical know-how.31 Success also needs a forgiving environment to neutralize the risks of exposure that are inherent in plotting, and the mistakes that almost all militants make. A permissive environment helps provide cover and concealment and to compensate for errors in operational security. Take the 9/11 attacks: although often considered the iconic terrorist spectacular undertaken by a cell of disciplined and ruthless operatives, a closer look raises questions about this depiction of the hijackers. In fact, they committed several egregious mistakes in operational security. Two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, behaved bizarrely during flight lessons in San Diego, and drew the attention of their instructors.32 Mihdhar subsequently left without approval to see family in Yemen when he became homesick.33 Hazmi bragged to his roommate that he would soon be famous and, according to the 9/11 report, told employees at a gas station at least something about his involvement in a terrorist plot.34 Another Al Qaeda operative in the United States, Zacarias Moussaoui, prompted an instructor at a flight school in Eagan, Minnesota, to report his odd behaviour to authorities.35 Even Mohammed Atta, the plot’s disciplined tactical ringleader, violated his own prohibitions against contacting relatives when he called his father overseas prior to the attack.36 Even more striking is that these men were carefully vetted and trained under near ideal conditions by skilled terrorists in part in a foreign safe haven. Still they made major errors in operational security – errors that if made today would have likely exposed the plot. In sum, to execute successfully complex attacks, foreign terrorist organizations need capable individuals operating in an environment that provides cover and concealment for their preparations. That is, they require ‘access’ for a skilled group of militants to the area of operations and ‘local security’ once there. Next I explain why Al Qaeda and ISIS have been handicapped on both fronts in the United States.

‘Access’ and ‘local security’ in the United States There are three ways in principle that a foreign terrorist organization could provide itself skilled operatives in the United States. First, it could rely on individuals who are already in the country and who already have skills and training to prepare a complex plot. Second, it could recruit US citizens or residents who travel overseas to their territorial safe havens, receive guidance and training there and then return to execute attacks. Third, it could infiltrate foreign operatives into the United States who have previously been trained and vetted (as in the case of 9/11). None of these pathways, however, constitutes a reliable means for these organizations to provide skilled operatives in the United States. Tapping into a local talent pool is problematic because the United States lacks a cohort of former foreign fighters, or a network of experienced militants from which the groups could hope to draw. This is one significant difference with Europe, where members

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of past networks of Algerian militants, and those with Al Qaeda ties dating from the 1990s have played a role in several terrorist cells.37 The United States also lacks the radical networks and pockets of extremism that have in the past thrived in parts of Europe, such as the famous mosques central to ‘Londonistan’,38 or in Hamburg, Germany where the core operatives in 9/11 met and established close relationships.39 Relying on those who travel to the territorial safe havens is also a poor option for terrorist organizations. In part, this originates in the ‘remoteness’ of their territorial havens from the United States and the difficulty of accessing them and returning without drawing the attention of authorities. That remoteness is the product of geography and is a logistical obstacle for moving people to and from overseas camps and battlefields. But security obstacles and political barriers also intensify that remoteness; the barriers to accessing the United States are not just geographic, but political in origin, the result of the significant hardening of immigration control and port security, as well as monitoring of foreign travel. Consequently, travelling to the Middle East, acquiring training and returning without being exposed to authorities is not an easy proposition in the contemporary United States. Some Americans have sought to travel to join Al Qaeda affiliates, ISIS or other militant groups, although most have been caught before they successfully made it overseas. A smaller number have fought with those groups and later been apprehended by authorities.40 Similar problems limit opportunities to infiltrate foreign militants trained in safe havens. Doing so requires deploying a cell of foreign militants that has been vetted and trained in militant camps into the United States, where the individual lack local knowledge and experience. In the United States, since 9/11, there have been almost no arrests of purely foreign infiltrators (defined as citizens of foreign countries trained, vetted and selected for a plot prior to entering the United States).41 The one potential exception is the arrest of two Hezbollah operatives, Ali Kourani and Samer el-Debek, recruited in 2008 by the group’s Islamic Jihad Organization who were, according the men’s account, supposed to act as a sleeper cell.42 Even if Al Qaeda or ISIS were capable of infiltrating foreign operatives, or training Americans to return to carry out plots, those operatives face a second obstacle: they lack local security in the area of operations. In other words, militants operate in a hostile security environment in the United States that renders them vulnerable to exposure while undertaking essential preparatory steps (meeting with co-conspirators, fabricating and practising with weapons, undertaking surveillance) or to the breakdowns in operational security to which, as noted earlier, even the most seasoned militants succumb. Given that even relatively basic plots require some antecedent steps and associated risks of exposure,43 the challenge of carrying out a complex plot without attracting law enforcement attention during those activities, or making errors that draw the attention of authorities, is significant. To appreciate the demands of preparing and plotting a complex plot – and the need for security in order to hide or obscure preparations – consider the

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2008 Mumbai plot planned by American David Headley on behalf of Pakistani militants. Despite the fact that the attack aimed at soft targets (a train station and hotels), Headley engaged in extensive surveillance in five extended trips to Mumbai, beginning in March 2008.44 These included taking a surveillance video of the Mumbai harbour and hiring fishermen to take him on private tours of the harbour to scout locations for the militants to land.45 He also stayed in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel (one of the main targets) at least twice. Similarly, the 9/11 attackers’ preparations included surveillance of targets, and numerous rides on commercial aircraft to assess security conditions and a flight up the Hudson River corridor to observe local conditions.46 In short, complex plots often require significant precursor steps, which risk attracting attention, especially in a hostile security environment where they cannot conceal these activities. The ability of militants to benefit from local security depends on several factors: the capacity of intelligence and law enforcement and especially how well different units coordinate and communicate; the availability of local supporters who are willing (at the least) to passively abide the presence of militants, and not report suspicious activity to authorities; and the overall level of societal awareness or vigilance about aberrant or suspicious behaviour, which affects whether individuals in the local community detect terrorist plotting. Social support from a larger community has long been a salient theme in explaining the organizational capacity and resilience of terrorist organizations.47 Groups that derive support from radicalized communities, such as the Provisional IRA or the Basque militant group ETA, have been able to mount sophisticated terrorist campaigns;48 some research, in fact, ties the organizational sophistication of their terrorist attacks to the magnitude of their social base.49 Local security, however, also depends on the role of the state and the efficacy and capacity of the counterterrorism effort. These factors together play a major role in shaping the security environment and providing opportunities for militants to obscure the preparatory phases of a terrorist plot from authorities. The network that carried out the 2015 Paris and 2016 Belgian attacks illustrates the facilitating role that local security provides. The local security was a product of several factors, including serious deficiencies in intelligence and law enforcement coordination. There was, for example, flawed cross-national cooperation that would have possibly aided detection of the movements of some of the operatives who had travelled to Syria. Consequently, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who helped plan and coordinate the attack, was able to travel in and out of Europe via the Balkan route, after first going to Syria to fight in 2013.50 Within Belgium, there were also some alarming deficiencies in the monitoring and investigation of known militants prior to the attacks.51 In addition, the militants were able to conceal their activities and hide in neighbourhoods in Brussels – principally Molenbeek.52 Several operatives involved in both the Paris and Brussels attacks had ties to Molenbeek.53 Najim Laachraoui, who had been trained and sent by ISIS to Europe, is believed to have fabricated explosives for both attacks in the suburb of Schaerbeek.54 The militants

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thus benefited from local security, in which they could congregate, interact with a local coordinator with ties to ISIS in Syria and plan and prepare attacks. Finally, to see the importance of this combination of access for trained operatives and local security, consider the record of complex attacks that have occurred in Europe. Every complex attack executed in Europe between 2001 and 2019 (those that have involved coordinated/temporally linked attacks, or high impact explosives, such as TATP bombs) has included at least one member who has been trained by a militant organization. The 7/7 London bombings, 2004 Madrid train bombings, Charlie Hebdo attacks, Paris 2015 and Brussels 2016 and the Manchester attacks55 evince this pattern.56 This was also the case for many of the more serious plots that were foiled at an advanced phase, such as the network and vast arsenal uncovered in 2015 in Verviers, Belgium (whose members had ties to the Molenbeek-based network responsible for the Paris and Brussels attacks), and the 2004 foiled complex plot in the UK involving fertilizer bombs (often referred to as Operation Crevice).

Conclusion The United States has faced a limited terrorist threat from Al Qaeda and ISIS since 9/11. While some lethal attacks perpetrated by individuals inspired by these groups’ ideology and propaganda have occurred, Americans have not experienced complex attacks, especially of the kind endured by some of their European counterparts. Two factors help explain why the threat has remained limited. First, Al Qaeda and ISIS do not have ready access to skilled operatives in the United States. The absence of pre-existing militant networks in the United States that might provide a pool of experienced terrorists, along with challenges in training Americans overseas or in infiltrating foreign operatives, present obstacles to these groups. In addition, militants lack local security to carry out essential pre-operational steps. The combination of law enforcement and intelligence improvements since 9/11, societal awareness of terrorism and the absence of radical communities in which to hide or obscure their activities, means that militants lack local security to provide essential cover for their terrorist plotting. In short, there are clear reasons why the threat to Americans from ISIS and Al Qaeda has remained limited. Americans are fortunate to remain relatively safe from foreign terrorist organizations like these.

Notes 1 Andrew McGill, ‘Americans are more worried about terrorism than they were after 9/11’, The Atlantic, 8 September 2016. See also John Mueller and Mark Stewart, Public Opinion and Counterterrorism Policy (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2018). Available at https​://ob​ject.​cato.​org/s​ites/​cato.​org/f​i les/​pubs/​pdf/w​hite-​paper​-publ​ic-op​inion​ -coun​terte​rrori​sm-po​licy.​pdf (accessed 04 March 2019). 2 ‘Fifteen years after 9/11, a sharp partisan divide on ability of terrorists to strike U.S.’, Pew Research Center, 7 September 2016. Risa Brooks, ‘Muslim “homegrown” terrorism

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in the United States: How serious is the threat’, International Security, xxxvi, no. 2 (2011). For a critical analysis of counterterrorism expenditures, see John Mueller and Mark Stewart, ‘Responsible counterterrorism policy’, Cato Institute, 10 September 2014. Available at https​://ww​w.cat​o.org​/publ​icati​ons/p​olicy​-anal​ysis/​respo​nsibl​e-cou​ ntert​error​ism-p​olicy​ (accessed 04 March 2019). On the assimilation and success of American Muslims, especially the immigrant population, see Daniel Byman, ‘Europe vs. America: Comparing the terrorism threat’, Brookings Institution, 5 April 2016; Dave Phillips, ‘Muslims in the military: The few, the proud, the welcome’, New York Times, 2 August 2016. See ‘Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world’, Pew Research Center, 22 July 2016. Available at www.p​ewres​earch​.org/​fact-​tank/​2016/​07/22​/musl​ ims-a​nd-is​lam-k​ey-fi​nding​s-in-​the-u​-s-an​d-aro​und-t​he-wo​rld/ (accessed 04 March 2019). Rukmini Callimachi, ‘Not lone wolves after all’, New York Times, 4 February 2017. Eliminating the territorial havens has been a major and consistent rationale for military action in the Middle East since 9/11 across the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. See CRS Report to Congress, ‘Removing terrorist sanctuaries: The 9/11 commission recommendations and U.S. policy’, Francis T. Miko, 10 August 2004. Available at http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL32518.pdf. The concern with sanctuaries dates to the Reagan era, but intensified post 9/11. Ryan Lizza, ‘ISIS, terrorist sanctuaries and the lessons of 9/11’, The New Yorker, 19 November 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.new​yorke​r.com​/news​/dail​y-com​ment/​isis-​terro​rist-​sanct​uarie​s-and​ -the-​lesso​ns-of​-91. For examples of US political and military leaders justifying military action for the sake of preventing terrorist havens, see the rationale in Bush’s letter notifying Congress of military action in Iraq on 21 March 2003. Available at http:​// geo​rgewb​ush-w​hiteh​ouse.​archi​ves.g​ov/ne​ws/re​lease​s/200​3/03/​print​/2003​0321-​5.htm​l; Richard Perle, ‘The US must strike at Saddam Hussein’, New York Times, 28 December 2003; ‘Statement by the President on Afghanistan’, 6 July 2016. Available at https​:// ww​w.whi​tehou​se.go​v/the​-pres​s-off​i ce/2​016/0​7/06/​state​ment-​presi​dent-​afgha​nista​ n; ‘Remarks by President Trump on the Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia’, 21 August 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.whi​tehou​se.go​v/the​-pres​s-off​i ce/2​017/0​8/21/​ remar​ks-pr​eside​nt-tr​ump-s​trate​gy-af​ghani​stan-​and-s​outh-​asia;​ General John W. Nicholson, ‘Statement for the record’, 9 February 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.arm​ ed-se​rvice​s.sen​ate.g​ov/im​o/med​ia/do​c/Nic​holso​n_02-​09-17​.pdf;​ Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne, ‘U.S. officials warn ISIS’ Afghanistan branch poses a major threat’, CNN. com, 19 February 2019. Available at https​://ww​w.cnn​.com/​2019/​02/19​/poli​tics/​isis-​ afgha​nista​n-thr​eat/i​ndex.​html.​ A complex attack involves one of the following: a network or cell that uses firearms that are not easily acquired (e.g. assault rifles in Europe), or high impact explosives, such as those made from aluminium nitrate or TATP; in a temporally clustered set of coordinated attacks, and/or against secured targets. In contrast, more basic attacks involve attacks by solo or intimates (married couples; siblings) using readily available firearms or easy to fabricate, lower impact explosives (pipe or ‘pressure cooker’ bombs), against accessible targets that do not require evading defensive security measures. Ginny Sprang, ‘The psychological impact of isolated acts of terrorism’, in Andrew Silke (ed.), Terrorists, Victims and Society (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2003); See Adrienne Stith Butler, Allison M. Panzer and Lewis R. Goldfrank (eds), Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism: A Public Health Strategy (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2003), pp. 56–7.

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9 A basic attack, of course, can still be lethal (an easily acquired automatic weapon used against an enclosed, highly populated venue can do a lot of harm as Americans saw when Omar Mateen attacked the Pulse nightclub in 2016). 10 A plot is defined here as involving an attack at a target in the United States in which at least a basic concept is established and an initial step towards operational development has occurred. ‘Material Support’ acts, like joining a foreign terrorist organization, or sending money overseas are excluded from my definition of terrorist plots in the United States. Also excluded from the count are incidents in which no concrete actions were taken and the individuals were arrested; for example, for making threatening statements online or trying to encourage others to engage in terrorism, or where police officers were injured when a suspect was taken into custody for those actions. If no concept is developed, no weapon is acquired and pre-operational steps are not taken towards an attack, it is not counted as a plot. In my accounting of ‘foiled’ plots, I have excluded incidents that do not meet this basic threshold. For a similar distinction, see Petter Nesser, ‘How did Europe’s global jihadis obtain training for their militant causes?’, Terrorism and Political Violence, xx, no. 2 (2008): 234–56. 11 Lisa Leff, ‘San Jose’s Matthew Llaneza sentenced to 15 years for trying to blow up bank’, NBC Bay Area, 27 February 2014. Available at https​://ww​w.nbc​bayar​ea.co​m/ new​s/loc​al/Sa​n-Jos​es-Ma​tthew​-Llan​eza-F​aces-​Priso​n-In-​Bombi​ng-Ca​se-24​76282​ 71.ht​ml (accessed 04 March 2019). 12 These include the attacks by Taheri Azar, Zale Thompson, Elton Simpson and Nader Soofi, Faisal Mohammed, Dahir Adan, Ahmad Khan Rahimi, Abdul Razak Ali Artan and Akayed Ullah. See Table 1 for details. 13 Michael Wilson, ‘Bomber sentenced to two life terms for Manhattan attack’, New York Times, 13 February 2018. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​018/0​2/13/​nyreg​ion/ b​omber​-chel​sea-m​anhat​tan.h​tml (accessed 04 March 2019). 14 For what is counted as a ‘plot’, see endnote 10. 15 See the annual reports by Charles Kurzman on Muslim-Americans involvement in extremism. Available at http://kurzman.unc.edu/. 16 Michael Kenney, ‘“Dumb” yet deadly: Local knowledge and poor tradecraft among Islamist militants in Britain and Spain’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, xxxiii, no. 10 (2010): 914–15; Daniel Byman and C. Christine Fair, ‘The case for calling them nitwits’, The Atlantic, July/August 2010, pp. 106–8; John Mueller (ed.), Terrorism since 9/11: The American Cases (Columbus: Mershon Center, 2016). 17 For a recent example, see ‘Jalil Bin Ameer Aziz sentenced for conspiracy to provide material support and resources to designated foreign terrorist organization and transmitting a communication containing a threat to injure’, Department of Justice Press Release, 20 December 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/jali​l-ibn​ -amee​r-azi​z-sen​tence​d-con​spira​cy-pr​ovide​-mate​rial-​suppo​rt-an​d-res​ource​s-des​ignat​ ed (accessed 04 March 2019). 18 ‘Texas resident arrested on charge of attempted use of weapon of mass destruction’, FBI Press Release, 24 February 2011. Available at https​://ar​chive​s.fbi​.gov/​archi​ves/d​ allas​/pres​s-rel​eases​/2011​/dl02​2411.​htm (accessed 04 March 2019). 19 See Adam Goldman, ‘An American saved their son from joining the Islamic State: Now he might go to prison’, Washington Post, 6 September 2015; Matt Apuzzo, ‘Only hard choices for parents whose children flirt with terror’, New York Times, 9 April 2016. 20 See the comments by FBI director James Comey, ‘U.S. officials say American Muslims do report extremist threats’, Reuters, 16 June 2016. See the data available on the New

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America Foundation’s website, ‘Terrorism in America after 9/11’. Available at http://www.n​ewame​rica.​org/i​n-dep​th/te​rrori​sm-in​-amer​ica/.​ Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot against America (New York: Atria Books, 2013); Trevor Aaronson, ‘To catch the devil: A special report on the sordid world of FBI informants’, Foreign Policy. Available at http:​//for​eignp​olicy​.com/​2015/​05/12​/to-c​atch-​the-d​evil-​ fbi-i​nform​ant-p​rogra​m/# (accessed 04 March 2019). Lisa Rose, ‘How a suicidal pizza man found himself ensnared in an FBI sting’, CNN. com, 29 November 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.cnn​.com/​2017/​11/29​/poli​tics/​aby-r​ ayyan​-fbi-​terro​r-sti​ng-pi​zza-m​an/in​dex.h​tml (accessed 04 March 2019). For discussion of this point, see Brooks, ‘Muslim “homegrown” terrorism’. Eric Lichtblau, ‘FBI steps up use of stings against ISIS’, New York Times, 7 June 2016. This has all arrests on terrorist-related activity inside the United States, or against American targets located abroad (e.g. fighting in support of a militant group overseas). ‘Who are the terrorists’, New America Foundation. Available at https​://ww​ w.new​ameri​ca.or​g/in-​depth​/terr​orism​-in-a​meric​a/who​-are-​terro​rists​/ (accessed 04 March 2019). Notably, over half of those arrested had been subjected to sting operations. Figures appear in Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, ‘ISIS in America: From retweets to Raqqa’, in Program on Extremism (Washington DC: George Washington University, 2015). Available at https​://cc​hs.gw​u.edu​/site​s/cch​s.gwu​.edu/​files​/down​loads​/ISIS​ %20in​%20Am​erica​%20-%​20Ful​l%20R​eport​_0.pd​f (accessed 04 March 2019). There are, in addition, some number of individuals arrested in the United States on suspicion of being inspired by groups such as ISIS or Al Qaeda, but who are charged with offences related to immigration, firearms, fraud or drugs (hence they do not show up in terrorism arrest statistics). In the US Code, terrorist offences include charges related to use of a weapon of mass destruction (employed when some kind of explosive is involved), or material support for a foreign terrorist organization. The fact that some individuals are charged with non-terrorist charges reflects the expediency of prosecuting them for lesser crimes. See Devlin Barrett, ‘Arrests in domestic terror probes outpace those inspired by Islamic extremists’, Washington Post, 9 March 2019. It suggests, however, that the acts undertaken are often not sufficiently developed into plots or terrorist activities to allow for prosecution on a material support charge. See endnote 7 for definitions. For discussion, see Brooks, ‘Muslim “homegrown” terrorism’. Many plots have been foiled by a single mistake that led to their exposure. Take, for example, Najibullah Zazi’s aforementioned plot to bomb the New York subway with TATP explosives. The plot was foiled when Zazi emailed a militant contact in Pakistan in order to get clarification about how to fabricate explosives. The email address also had been used by another militant involved in a major plot in the UK that had been exposed by mistakes, so was being monitored by British authorities. See Michael Kenney, ‘Beyond the internet: Metis, techne, and the limits of online artifacts for Islamist terrorists’, Terrorism and Political Violence, xxii, no. 2 (2010); Blake W. Mobley, Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Evade Detection (Columbia: University Press, 2012). The men, for example, asked to skip training on small planes and instead to focus on large Boeing aircraft, and they showed little interest in learning how to take off or land. The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 221–2. Available at https​://ww​w.9-1​1comm​ issio​n.gov​/repo​rt/91​1Repo​rt.pd​f (accessed 04 March 2019).

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Ibid., p. 222. Kenney, ‘“Dumb,” but deadly’, p. 916; 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 222, 249–50. Ibid., pp. 246–7. Ibid., p. 249. Although the United States does not have the legacy of established foreign militant networks as does Europe, there have been, since the 1980s, some Americans who have travelled to join militant groups, notable those fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Some of these individuals were involved in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Vidino and Hughes, ‘ISIS in America’, p. 14. 38 Raffaello Pantucci, ‘The Tottenham Ayatollah and the hook handed cleric: An examination of all their jihadi children’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, xxxiii, no. 3 (2010): 226–45. 39 Since 9/11, the closest we have seen to militant networks or cells are some clusters of individuals who have sought to provide material support to ISIS or Al Qaeda and their affiliates and specifically sought to travel together to fight overseas, tried to recruit others to do so, or sent money or goods to associates who have. These include a group of Somalis who sent money to support a Somali American in 2014 who joined ISIS; a group of immigrants from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan who gave money to a friend to purchase a flight to join ISIS; a group that was charged for efforts in 2012 to provide money and other assistance to Anwar Al-Awlaki and AQAP; and Bosnian Americans associated with Abdullah Ramo-Pazara who rose to a position of leadership in ISIS in Syria, before his death. On the latter, see Seamus Hughes and Bennett Clifford, ‘The Bosnian-Muslim who joined ISIS’, The Atlantic, 25 May 2017. See ‘Four men charged with providing material support to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’, Department of Justice Press Release, 5 November 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/ four​-men-​charg​ed-pr​ovidi​ng-ma​teria​l-sup​port-​al-qa​eda-a​rabia​n-pen​insul​a (accessed 04 March 2019). 40 These include the following cases: Abdirahman Mohamud who had been trained by the former Al Qaeda affiliate al Nusra Front and was arrested in April 2015. ‘Ohio man pleads guilty to providing material support to terrorist’, Department of Justice Press Release, 29 June 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/ohio​-man-​ plead​s-gui​lty-p​rovid​ing-m​ateri​al-su​pport​-terr​orist​s (accessed 04 March 2019). Eric Harroun who was arrested in 2013 for joining and fighting with al Nusra Front. ‘U.S. citizen indicted for conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization’, Department of Justice Press Release, 20 June 2013. Available at https​ ://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/u​sao-e​dva/p​r/us-​citiz​en-in​dicte​d-con​spiri​ng-pr​ovide​-mate​rial-​ suppo​rt-fo​reign​-terr​orist​-orga​nizat​ion (accessed 4 March 2019). Mohamad Saeed Kodaimati who fought with al Nusra Front was first interviewed by FBI agents in March 2015 in Ankara, Turkey/arrested in April 2015/California, USA. Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen (alias Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum) fought against the Assad regime (arrested in October 2013/Mexico); Bilal Abood charged with fighting in Syria in May 2015. ‘Iraqi-born U.S. citizen sentenced to 48 months in prison for making false statements to the FBI’, Department of Justice Press Release, 25 May 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/iraq​i-bor​n-us-​citiz​en-se​ntenc​ed-48​-mont​hs-pr​ ison-​makin​g-fal​se-st​ateme​nts-f​b i (accessed 04 March 2019). Maalik Jones who in December 2015 was caught near Yemen and charged with providing material support and training with al-Shabaab in Somalia; Warren Christopher Clark captured in Syria, transferred to US custody and charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/texa​s-man​-arre​sted-​attem​

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pting​-prov​ide-m​ateri​al-su​pport​-desi​gnate​d-for​eign-​terro​rist.​ Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab arrested in 2016 after traveling to Syria to fight with Ansar al-Islam. See Bennett Clifford and Seamus Hughes, ‘United States vs. Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab: A case study on transnational prosecutions of jihadi foreign fighter networks’, CTC Sentinel, xi, no. 11 (December 2018): 26–30. Available at https​://ct​c.usm​a.edu​ /unit​ed-st​ates-​v-aws​-moha​mmed-​youni​s-al-​jayab​-case​-stud​y-tra​nsnat​ional​-pros​ ecuti​ons-j​ihadi​-fore​ign-f​i ghte​r-net​works​/. Kary Paul Kleman who lived in ISIS-held territory. Michael Weiss, George Heil and Paul Cruikshank, ‘American convert who lived in ISIS territory detained by Turkey’, CNN.com, 28 April 2017. Available at https​ ://ww​w.cnn​.com/​2017/​04/26​/us/a​meric​an-de​taine​d-tur​key/i​ndex.​html.​ Abdullah Roma Pazara, a Bosnian-American who joined ISIS. Seamus Hughes and Bennett Clifford, ‘First he became an American and then he joined ISIS’, The Atlantic, 25 May 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/in​terna​tiona​l/arc​hive/​2017/​05/fi​rst-h​ e-bec​ame-a​n-ame​rican​then-​he-jo​ined-​isis/​52762​2/. Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh a dual Saudi and US citizen who was captured at a checkpoint in September 2017 by SDF in Syria and subsequently released in Iraq; Ibraheem Izzy Musaibli who was captured in Syria in June 2018 by SDF and transferred to US custody. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/mich​igan-​man-c​harge​d-pro​vidin​g-mat​erial​-supp​ ort-i​sis. Omar Ameen who was arrested in August 2018 in California and accused of fighting with ISIS in Iraq; Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj who was arrested February 2018 in Oklahoma after his fingerprint was found on an Al Qaeda document from the later 1990s Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan and two men, Ali Kourani and Samer el Debek, arrested in June 2017 in the United States for being suspected Hezbollah sleeper agents. 41 In the years preceding and following the 9/11 attacks, there have been some failed plots involving foreign recruits that were directed by Al Qaeda and its affiliates. These include the foiled radiological attack by Jose Padilla in 2002, the failed ‘shoe bombing’ in 2001 by Richard Reid and the failed ‘underwear bomb’ in 2009 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Although the men in the latter cases were aiming at US targets (transatlantic airliners), they initiated their plots at foreign airports outside the United States and had not infiltrated into the country. There were also arrests in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of some members of Al Qaeda who had been in the United States prior to the attacks, such as Ali Al-Marri and Majid S. Khan, as well as individuals arrested who have been linked to Iran and Hezbollah, such as Sameer Debek and Ali Kourani (both in 2017), as well as Manssour Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri who in 2011 were arrested for plotting to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. In addition, Hesham Hadayet, who opened fire at the EL Al airline counter in 2002 (see Table 1), may have formerly been a member of Al Gama’a al-Islamiyya in Egypt. There are also a small number of instances where militants had online contact with militant group leaders overseas in recent years who helped encourage them in plotting attacks, although these plots were not complex and were easily foiled or failed. See Seamus Hughes and Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, ‘The threat to the United States from the Islamic State’s virtual entrepreneurs’, CTC Sentinel, x, no. 3 (March 2017): 1–8. See John Mueller, ‘The cybercoaching of terrorists: Cause for alarm?’, CTC Sentinel, x, no. 9 (October 2017): 29–35. Available at https​://ct​ c.usm​a.edu​/the-​cyber​coach​ing-o​f-ter​roris​ts-ca​use-f​or-al​arm/.​ Finally, a Bangladeshi man who had associated with militants overseas came to the United States in January 2012 with the intent to carry out an attack. While seeking co-conspirators, he came across an undercover agent and was arrested as part of an ensuing FBI sting operation, but he did not have a weapon nor had he developed a plot prior to encountering

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authorities. With the exception of Faisal Shahzad’s failed Times Square bombing and Najibullah Zazi’s foiled subway plot, there were no developed complex plots in which foreign organizations had a direct hand in training or planning the militants between 2001 and 2019. Benjamin Weiser, ‘Bronx man accused of casing J.F.K. airport for potential Hezbollah attack’, New York Times, 8 June 2017. Note that there is some debate about whether the Lackawanna 6, whose members were arrested in 2002 constituted an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. A study of plots in the United States shows that even basic attacks have required between four and ten antecedent activities, such as meetings, surveillance and acquiring weapons. ‘Update on geospatial patterns of antecedent behavior among perpetrators in the American terrorism study’, START (October 2013). Bruce Hoffman, ‘American jihad?’, National Interest, May/June 2010. ‘Chicagoan charged with conspiracy in 2008 Mumbai attacks in addition to foreign terror plot in Denmark’, Department of Justice Press Release, 7 December 2009. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/chic​agoan​-char​ged-c​onspi​racy-​2008-​ mumba​i-att​acks-​addit​ion-f​oreig​n-ter​ror-p​lot-d​enmar​k (accessed 04 March 2019). The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 242–5. For an overview, see Christopher Paul, ‘How do terrorists generate and maintain support?’, in Paul K. Davis and Kim Cragin (eds), Social Science for Counterterrorism: Putting the Pieces Together (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2009). Stefan Malthaner and Peter Waldmann, ‘The radical milieu: Conceptualizing the supportive social environment of terrorist groups’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, xxxvii, no. 12 (2014): 979–98. Lindsay Heger, Danielle Jung and Wendy H. Wong, ‘Organizing for resistance: How group structure impacts the character of violence’, Terrorism and Political Violence, xxiv, no. 5 (2012): 743–68. Sebastian Rotella, ‘How Europe left itself open to terrorism’, ProPublica, 18 October 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.pro​publi​ca.or​g/art​icle/​how-e​urope​-left​-itse​lf-op​en-to​ -terr​orism​(accessed 04 March 2019). Krishnadev Calamur, ‘The Brussels attacks: What the Belgians missed’, The Atlantic, 25 March 2016. Roger Cohen, ‘The Islamic State of Molenbeek’, New York Times, 11 April 2016; Nima Elbagir, Bharati Naik and Laila Ben Allal, ‘Why Belgium is Europe’s front line in the War on Terror’, CNN.com, 24 March 2016. Several of the operatives in both plots had links to Brussels. Larry Buchanan and Hayeon Park, ‘Uncovering the links between the Brussels and Paris attackers’, New York Times, 9 April 2016. Weapons from Molenbeek were also used in other plots such as the shootings at a Paris supermarket attack by Amedy Coulibaly in January 2015 and a May 2014 shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Liam Stack and Palko Karasz, ‘How Belgium became home to recent terror plots’, New York Times, 23 March 2016. Available at http:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/in​terac​tive/​2015/​11/15​/worl​d/eur​ope/b​elgiu​ m-ter​roris​m-sus​pects​.html​ (accessed 04 March 2019). The perpetrator of the Manchester attack (which used TATP explosives) had been trained in Libya (apparently by a group with ties to the Paris/Brussels network). As Bergen notes the head of the 7/7 plot had received explosives training from al Qaeda in Pakistan. Peter Bergen, ‘Paris explosives are a key clue to plot’, CNN.com, 17 November 2015. Available at http:​//www​.cnn.​com/2​015/1​1/17/​opini​ons/b​ergen​-expl​ osive​s-par​is-at​tacks​/ (accessed 04 March 2019). The bombers in the London attacks

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had relied on community institutions, including a local bookstore, community centre and youth annex in Leeds. Aidan Kirby, ‘The London bombers as “self-starters”: A case study in indigenous radicalization and the emergence of autonomous cliques’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, xxx, no. 5 (2007): 418. ‘Report of the official account of the bombings in London on 7th July 2005’, inquiry by the House of Commons, pp. 16–17. Available at http:​//new​s.bbc​.co.u​k/2/s​hared​/bsp/​ hi/pd​fs/11​_05_0​6_nar​rativ​e.pdf​(accessed 04 March 2019). In Madrid, the plotters relied on access to a local mosque to plan and coordinate the plot. Javier Jordan, Fernando M. Manas and Nicola Horsburgh, ‘Strengths and weakness of grassroots jihadist networks: The Madrid bombings’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, xxxi, no. 1 (2008): 17–39. On Al Qaeda’s alleged role, see Fernando Reinares, ‘The Madrid bombings and global jihadism’, Survival, lii, no. 2 (2010): 83–104.

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THE CANADIAN CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL JIHAD 2012–17 Sam Mullins

Introduction Geographically, Canada lies very much on the periphery of the ‘Global Salafi Jihad’.1 Compared to Europe, relatively few Canadians have ventured overseas to become mujahideen, and until recently, the country was untouched by Islamist terrorist attacks at home. Nevertheless, the history of violent jihad in Canada dates back to the 1980s, and Canadian citizens inspired by Al Qaeda first plotted to attack their own country more than a decade ago.2 Since the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, followed by the establishment of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014, Canada has experienced a dramatic increase in related terrorist activity, much like the rest of the world. According to official reports, by early 2014 there were approximately 130 people ‘with Canadian connections’ involved in terrorist activities abroad, including about thirty individuals in Syria.3 By the end of 2017, the total had risen to just over 190, with slightly more than half located in Syria, Iraq or Turkey.4 Some of these so-called high-risk travellers (HRTs) featured prominently in official ISIS propaganda videos, burning their passports and encouraging fellow Canadians to make hijrah (i.e. migrate) to ISIS territory, or else conduct attacks at home.5 Others have occupied more senior positions. In 2015, a Bangladeshi-Canadian chemistry graduate named Tamim Chowdhury – a close friend of some of the aforementioned jihadi ‘poster boys’6 – was appointed the head of ISIS in Bangladesh.7 The following year, he was revealed to be the architect behind the horrific attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka on 1 July 2016, which led to his own demise at the hands of security forces in August.8 Another alleged Canadian, who went by the name of Abu Mohammed al-Kanadi, was reportedly ‘one of the top commanders in Raqqa’9 before his death in October of the same year.10 Meanwhile, Canadian authorities have prevented numerous aspiring jihadi combatants from leaving the country and, beginning in 2013, there has been a substantial increase in the number of terrorism-related arrests, including for planning attacks. Moreover, having never before suffered such an attack at home, Canada experienced five jihadi-motivated acts of violence between October 2014 and September 2017 (three involving fatalities). In addition to this, Canadian citizens have planned and/or conducted terrorist attacks in the United States on two separate occasions since mid-2016.11

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It is thus quite apparent that Canada is less peripheral to the global jihadi movement than it once was. As a result, the threat has increased both to and from Canada. However, in order to understand how and why the threat is evolving, and what the implications are for Canadian and global security, it is necessary to explore these developments in greater depth. This chapter contributes to the growing body of literature on terrorism in Canada,12 and expands upon a previous analysis of Canadian jihadis by the current author that compared the pre- and post-9/11 landscape up until 2011 (‘the previous study’).13 Even before the conflict in Syria and the rise of ISIS, it was apparent that jihadi terrorism in Canada had become increasingly ‘home-grown’ and also more domestically focused, much as it had in other Western countries. This was reflected by an increasing number of individuals born and/or raised in Canada who, radicalized at home, were often lacking meaningful international connections and were evidently willing to attack their own country. Yet the relatively low average rate of jihadi mobilization in Canada remained quite consistent up until 2011.14 Understanding the changes that have occurred in Canada since 2012 is important not only for the Canadian context but also more broadly for our understanding of jihadi terrorism in the West. In particular, this chapter attempts to clarify, first, who has been drawn into this activity in Canada; second, how and why they became involved; and third, what these individuals have done in support of terrorism. The time period under examination is restricted to 2012–17 since this coincides with the increase in mobilization to terrorism in connection to events in Syria and Iraq. This also fits neatly with the previous study, which analysed the same issues in Canada up to and including 2011, thus enabling an assessment of how things have changed over time. The analysis demonstrates that, contrary to popular discourse on ‘homegrown’ terrorism, socio-economic marginalization does not appear to have played a decisive role in the Canadian context. Instead, the observed increase in mobilization to terrorism has been chiefly driven by three interconnected pillars: conflict in the Middle East, exposure to jihadi ideology and localized ‘hubs’ of radicalization featuring diverse groups of like-minded individuals.

Methodology It is important to note that the analysis is focused exclusively on Sunni Islamist extremists who appear to have been inspired by, or were to varying degrees affiliated with, jihadi terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda (including its erstwhile branch in Syria, Jabhat Al Nusra (JN)) and ISIS. Relying on open source materials – mostly press reports, jihadi propaganda and social media posts, legal documents and official publications – an effort was made to identify and catalogue all Canadian residents and/or citizens who mobilized in support of violent jihad from 2012 to 2017. This includes people who were ●●

Convicted of terrorist and/or relevant non-terrorist offences at home or abroad

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Facing related legal allegations Subject to administrative sanctions, such as peace bonds, deportations or financial asset freezing, based on suspected terrorist activity Reported to have been killed during the course of alleged terrorist activity Involved in terrorism by their own admission (e.g. by appearing in a terrorist propaganda video) Publicly alleged to have been involved in terrorism

Using these criteria, and excluding cases for which there was insufficient information, this yielded a sample of ninety-seven individuals (divided into fifty-nine cases).15 A narrative timeline of events was constructed for each case, and each subject was entered into an Excel spreadsheet containing seventy-five data-points or cells per individual, pertaining to biographical details, operational activities and counter-terrorism (CT) measures taken against them. This enabled a combination of extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis, the results of which are discussed next. Despite striving for methodological rigour in conducting this research, it is important to acknowledge that when examining such illegal and clandestine activity, missing information is an ongoing problem. The quantity and quality of information available on any given terrorism suspect in the public domain varies enormously, but all too often it is incomplete and of questionable reliability. Moreover, it must be noted that the majority of individuals included in this analysis have not been convicted in a court of law, but are suspected or alleged to have been involved in terrorism.16 Although in many cases, the degree of confidence in such allegations is still quite high, it is entirely possible that some of these individuals will eventually be exonerated in future.17 We must nevertheless attempt to collect and analyse what is presently available in the public domain, while taking due care in the interpretation of results and making sure to update the analysis in response to any new developments.

Rate of mobilization Since 2001, at least 175 Canadian residents/citizens have joined the ‘Global Salafi Jihad’ (see Figure 1).18 Ninety-seven of those individuals (55 per cent) mobilized between 2012 and 2017. At a rate of sixteen jihadis per year, compared to the preceding eleven-year period, this represents a 290 per cent rise in the number of people who mobilized to violent jihad each year. Of course, this does not take into account the official, unverifiable estimate of 190 Canadians involved in terrorism abroad during this period, which would suggest an even larger surge in mobilization.19 This very pronounced increase in activity coincided with the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011–12, and peaked during 2014 when ISIS declared its caliphate. Compared to other Western nations, in which a similar pattern of events has unfolded, the rate of terrorist activity in Canada relative both to general and to Muslim population size appears to be somewhat higher than the United States, but considerably lower than Australia and much of Western Europe.20

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Figure 1  Number of Canadian residents/citizens involved in Islamist terrorism according to when they began and ceased offending (2001–17).

Individual classifications Each individual in the sample was classified according to the following criteria, which unless otherwise stated, are not mutually exclusive. Almost a third (29 per cent) of individuals were subject to administrative sanctions in the absence of prosecution – most notably peace bonds and confiscation of passports. Another 13 per cent were subject to international sanctions – primarily deportation from Turkey. Twenty-three per cent were reported to have been killed during the course of conducting terrorist activities (three persons killed in Canada against nineteen while fighting overseas21). Another 23 per cent have been subject to nothing more than public allegations, compared to just 14 per cent so far successfully prosecuted in Canada (and two in the United States); however, five of the fourteen domestic cases were convicted under ‘ordinary’ legislation, as opposed to specialized CT laws. Nevertheless, at the time of writing, an additional 12 per cent of the sample is facing legal allegations in Canada (including five in absentia), while another three individuals are facing charges in Senegal, Turkey and the United States, meaning the number of prosecutions will likely rise. Finally, 12 per cent of the sample publicly admitted their involvement in violent jihad by way of social media posts and/or appearances in online propaganda videos (including 5 per cent of the total who were identified exclusively on this basis). Compared to the previous study of Canadian jihadis active from 2001–11, several readily apparent changes have occurred. Specifically, there has been a notable increase in the use of administrative sanctions aimed at monitoring and controlling suspected terrorists who cannot be prosecuted – generally due to lack of sufficient evidence. Public allegations and reports of Canadians being killed while conducting terrorist activities have also increased. Meanwhile, there has

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been a corresponding decrease in legal allegations and prosecutions. Collectively, this reflects what may be seen as a reduction in the overall quality and reliability of information that is available, both publicly and to investigators, despite the fact there has been a significant increase in the quantity of such information. Of course, given that most Canadian HRTs or ‘foreign fighters’ are still believed to be overseas, in many cases legal action is not currently a realistic option. Even so, there is no guarantee they will be prosecuted if/when they return home.

Geographic distribution As depicted in Figure 2 Canadian jihadis tend to emerge from within major population centres – particularly Montreal (29 per cent), the Greater Toronto Area (GTA; 24 per cent), Calgary (13 per cent), Edmonton and Ottawa (9 and 8 per cent respectively). Taking into account the previous study, it is clear that Ontario (39 per cent) and Quebec (37 per cent) are consistently home to the majority of Canadian jihadis. This is not surprising given that they are Canada’s two most populous states and are also home to approximately 80 per cent of the Canadian Muslim population.22 However, it is interesting to note that these traditional ‘hotspots’ are in a constant state of flux, while new areas of concern have emerged. More specifically, the previous study observed a decrease in terrorism activity in Montreal, which appears to have reversed quite dramatically. At the same time,

Figure 2  Location of Canadian residents/citizens involved in Islamist terrorism according to when they began and ceased offending (2012–17). Locations approximate.

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new hotspots seem to have emerged in Calgary and Edmonton, together making Alberta the third largest producer of jihadis in Canada at 24 per cent. This variation is likely at least partly explained by the fact that – unlike groups like Al Shabaab – ISIS’s appeal has not been limited to a particular nationality or ethnicity.23 This has enabled it to strike a chord across a broader ethnic, and therefore geographic, range of the Muslim population.

Demographic characteristics In comparison to the previous study, there are several points of continuity in the demographic profiles of Canadian jihadis. With an average age-range of 23–24, they remain young. Moreover, the number of children who were actively involved in terrorism has barely changed, from three individuals in the earlier period to just five from 2012 to 2017.24 There is further continuity in the sense that more individuals in the sample are Canadian than any other nationality, and this has continued to increase proportionally from just 17 per cent in 2001–11 to between 36 and 70 per cent as a first nationality in the current period.25 Somalis and Pakistanis also remain in second and third place but – consistent with the earlier discussion of geographic distribution of cases – they now account for smaller proportions of the sample at just 7 and 5 per cent respectively.26 Nevertheless, foreign ethnicity has an important role to play. Ninety-five per cent of the sample appeared to hold Canadian citizenship (either as a first or second nationality) or else had permanent residence. However, at least sixty-seven individuals (69 per cent of the total in 2012–17) were evidently of non-Caucasian (mostly Middle Eastern, African or Asian) heritage. This figure includes twenty-six first-generation immigrants,27 twenty-two second- or third-generation immigrants and nineteen who were clearly of immigrant background but for whom it could not be determined whether they were first or second/third generation. Typically, it is the latter group which are believed to be most susceptible to radicalization and involvement in terrorism in Western countries,28 although it is unclear, based on the present data, whether this holds true in the Canadian context. In relation to this, it is worth noting that among first-generation immigrants for whom there was data (n =16), the average length of time spent in Canada prior to becoming involved in terrorism was 8.4 years. It thus seems that few immigrants come to Canada as existing members of terrorist organizations. On the contrary, they are more likely to become involved in terrorism after their arrival. In terms of education, information was missing for more than 40 per cent of the sample; however, there appears to have been a significant decrease in those who have completed university-level education (from 24 per cent down to just 7 per cent in 2012–17). That said, 40 per cent of the current sample had at least attended college/university and the proportion of students has remained constant at about a third, thus demonstrating that they are by no means uneducated as a group. Similarly, the number of Canadian jihadis who had not completed high school

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increased in recent years (up to 9 per cent) but more than half of these individuals were still of high school age. The occupational picture is similarly ambiguous and plagued by missing information. Skilled occupations reduced from 14 to 4 per cent, but there was also an apparent reduction in unemployment from 17 to 3 per cent.29 At the same time, there has been more than a threefold increase in the number of people with previous criminal records (from four individuals in the eleven years from 2001 to 2011 to thirteen individuals in the following six years). Although this represents an almost identical proportion of both samples at 14 and 13 per cent respectively, there is reason to believe that the number of people with criminal histories is higher. A recent study by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reported the figure to be 27 per cent – more than double the rate identified in open sources but significantly less than reported in many European countries.30 Combined, the results on education, occupation and criminality perhaps suggest a slight reduction in overall socio-economic standing, which is again consistent with the previous study. Nevertheless, Canadian jihadis appear to be considerably better off than many of their European counterparts,31 and are neither destitute nor lacking opportunities. On the whole, they remain both unremarkable and extremely diverse. The single biggest change in terms of who becomes an Islamist terrorist in Canada has been the rise in female involvement. Whereas no females were confirmed at the time that the previous analysis was conducted, the current sample contains at least fifteen women or girls (15 per cent).32 This is very much in accordance with broader trends throughout the Western world33 and can be expected to continue at least in the short term, if not longer. Curiously, however, there was a sizeable decrease in the proportion of people known to be married/ co-habiting at the time of first getting involved in terrorism, from 38 per cent down to just 10 per cent. A second subgroup of interest consists of Canadian converts to Islam. The current sample includes eighteen converts (seventeen males and one female) over the course of six years. At 19 per cent, this represents a slight proportional increase but a rather large numerical increase: 4.5 times the number seen in the preceding 11-year period. Interestingly, converts also account for about a fifth of Islamist terrorists in the United States and – like their American counterparts34 – Canadian converts are particularly likely to show overt signs of being marginalized. Compared to Canadian non-converts they are less educated. From 2012 to 2017, 17 per cent of adult converts failed to complete high school and just 11 per cent had been to university, compared to 1 and 47 per cent respectively for the rest of the sample. Converts also account for all recorded cases of unemployment in the current dataset and are more than twice as likely to have a criminal record (28 per cent as against 11 per cent). In addition, between 22 and 39 per cent of Canadian converts had confirmed or suspected histories of mental health problems, compared to 3 per cent of non-converts. This provides quite compelling evidence of the existence of a jihadi ‘underclass’ in Canada, similar to that which exists south of the border. In summary, the findings on demographic backgrounds of Canadian jihadis are indicative of further entrenchment of Islamist terrorism as a ‘home-grown’

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phenomenon, as reflected in the growing number of geographical hotspots of activity, the increased number of Canadians becoming involved, the increasingly diverse demographic profiles (including growing numbers of females and converts) and the fact that radicalization and recruitment are continuing to take place within Canada. Furthermore, although the results here are necessarily tentative due to missing information, they are broadly in accordance with Dawson, Amarasingam and Bain’s assertion, based on interviews with twenty foreign fighters35 that, contrary to popular belief, socio-economic marginalization does not appear to play a particularly important role.36 Certainly, the picture that is gained is not one of destitution in absolute terms. Moreover, although missing information makes it difficult to draw comparisons with the rest of the Canadian population, it is worth considering that the 2016 Census found that 29.1 per cent of Canadian males aged 25–34 had a bachelor’s degree or higher.37 Among the twenty-three males in the sample of the same age, just 17 per cent had completed college/university, but another 22 per cent had at least some education at the same level. Given that some of these individuals abandoned their studies in order to pursue their interest in violent jihad, this may explain the lower level of educational attainment, rather than the other way around. In any case, it is not apparent that they were particularly marginalized at the time of deciding to engage in terrorism. As noted earlier, converts seem to be an exception to this rule;38 however, the mechanisms of radicalization are largely the same.

Radicalization and recruitment Radicalization is defined here as the psychological, emotional and behavioural process preceding involvement in terrorism (though it is not assumed that this relationship is linear or inevitable). Frequently, the radicalization of Western youth is seen as the consequence of online terrorist propaganda, although experienced terrorism scholars and practitioners tend to ascribe equivalent, if not more significance to offline (real world) interactions.39 Unfortunately, in the present sample it is impossible to say exactly how the process unfolded in the majority of cases due to a lack of detailed and reliable information. Nevertheless, the information that is available suggests that radicalization in Canada largely takes place within the context of small groups of friends who regularly interact with each other on a face-to-face basis in settings such as prayer groups, Muslim Students’ Associations and participation in outdoor activities. Thirty-one per cent of the sample was classified as having radicalized in such a manner, compared to just 5 per cent who seemingly radicalized primarily as a result of online activities (all of whom were converts), and 8 per cent where the two were clearly combined (the remainder being unknown). In reality, given the pervasive popularity of online terrorist propaganda, it is highly likely that most face-to-face discussions drew upon online sources of information, and in some cases incorporated virtual interaction with contacts on

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social media. However, it is quite clear that for many Canadian jihadis, small group dynamics have been the catalyst for ideological and behavioural transformation. Speaking about radicalization in the West more generally, Vidino, Marone and Entenmann state that ‘the formation of “clusters” often occurs around organized structures (militant Salafist groups, radical mosques), charismatic personalities or, in some cases, tight-knit groups of friends without formal leadership that promote the progressive radicalization of those involved via maintaining a horizontal internal structure’.40 This is precisely what has occurred in Canada, where several such groups have been documented to varying extents. The most infamous of these was the so-called Calgary cluster (consisting of Damian Clairmont, Tamim Chowdhury, brothers Collin and Gregory Gordon, Salman Ashrafi, and Waseem Youcef), who congregated at the now defunct 8th and 8th Musallah.41 Similar groups spontaneously formed around the country, including Ottawa (Awso Peshdary, John Maguire, Khadar Khalib, Suliman Mohamed and the Larmond twins42), Edmonton (the Kariye brothers, Mahad Hirsi, Omar Abdirahman Aden and Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi43), Sherbrooke (Samir Halilovic, Zakria Habibi, Youssef Sakhir and Assane Kamara44) and Windsor (Ahmad Waseem and Mohamed El Shaer45). At least three relatively large groups also formed in Montreal. The first was apparently led by Tarek Sakr and Wassim Boughadou, who organized training at a shooting range for a group of up to ten like-minded individuals before departing for Syria in mid-2012.46 The others included a group of between six and eight youths who left for Syria in January 201547 and another group of ten who were prevented from leaving just three months later48 – both of which shared connections to the Collège de Maisonneuve, the Assahaba mosque and alleged terrorist Adil Charkaoui.49 By comparison, the Torontonian cases have been somewhat more disparate. Yet there too, there is evidence of meaningful connections between cases. In particular, it appears that an influential convert from Timmins named André Poulin played a role in the radicalization of several others including an oil field worker named Mohammed Ali and a group of Canadian-Bangladeshi friends consisting of Tabirul Islam, Malik Abdul and two others known only as Adib and Nur.50 Moreover, Abdul’s brother, Kadir, was later subject to a peace bond for allegedly attempting to go to Syria with a friend named Samuel Aviles in March 2016.51 Although the nature of interactions that took place within these groups is a matter of some speculation, it is clear that processes of radicalization in Canada are fundamentally based upon localized, social interaction in the majority of cases. Of course, this is not to deny both foreign and online influence. Naturally, both groups and individuals draw their inspiration from propaganda and news of events that take place in the Middle East and elsewhere abroad, which are circulated online by members of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).52 There are even reports of Canadian youths – including members of local clusters – being ‘groomed’ by online recruiters.53 Yet Canadian jihadis are not simply passive consumers, nor are they merely being manipulated from afar. Furthermore, as already noted, many of those who joined ISIS and other FTOs remained active on social media, or else

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appeared in official propaganda videos, thus helping to inject a Canadian flavour to online messaging. Some of these individuals also acted as facilitators, providing encouragement, advice and contacts that were likely crucial to others’ successful mobilization.

Stated motivations Small-group dynamics appear to be the primary mechanism of radicalization; yet it is equally important that we try to understand the motivations of individuals within these groups. It seems that the single, unifying point of reference for these people was their sense of religious identity, which they viewed through the lens of conflict – both physical and ideological. Within this overarching framework, numerous individuals expressed the desire to escape the perceived hedonism – and in some cases alleged persecution54 – of life in the West in order to live under shari’a law in a ‘true’ Islamic state. There were also frequent references to the desire to defend fellow Muslims and to wreak revenge for what was widely seen as a war on Islam.55 André Poulin summarized these sentiments in a posthumous video released in July 2014 in which he proclaimed that ‘Life in Canada was good. … But at the end of the day, it’s still dar al-kufr [a land of disbelief] and at the end of the day you cannot obey Allah as fully as you can by living in … an Islamic state.’ ‘My brothers’, he asked rhetorically, ‘how can you answer to Allah when … you’re paying taxes … and they use these taxes to assist their war on Islam?’56 This idea of being at war was given particular emphasis by those who orchestrated or conducted attacks. Writing in ISIS’s Rumiyah magazine, Tamim Chowdhury justified the Holey Artisan Bakery attack as retaliation for ‘Crusader’ bombings in Iraq, Syria and Libya, and further explained that the target was selected for being ‘a sinister place where the Crusaders would gather to drink alcohol and commit vices’.57 Aaron Driver – who was killed by Canadian police after detonating an improvised explosive device in August 2016 – expressed similar sentiments in a martyrdom video he recorded before the attack. ‘Your war on Islam is not the kind of crime we allow ourselves to dismiss, to forgive or to forget’, he proclaimed, ‘you will pay for everything you ever brought against us. Whether you drop a bomb or fire a single bullet. … Whether you spend millions in the war against Islam or you spend a single cent, we will hold you accountable, insha’Allah [God willing].’58 Obviously, these are public statements designed for purposes of propaganda. However, similar themes emerge within more private settings. For example, in May 2015 Montreal police recovered two notebooks belonging to a young girl who they prevented from going to Syria. In it, she had written of her obligation to live under shari’a law, concluding that ‘my place is not in this country of unbelievers. … The war on Islam is clear.’59 Ismael Habib (a Syria returnee convicted in June 2017 for planning to go back to the conflict zone) was recorded speaking to an undercover officer saying he ‘dreamed’ of living under shari’a but wanted to be sure to pay off all his debts first, otherwise he would be denied entry to heaven and

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would not get his 72 ‘beautiful … virgins’.60 Likewise, Merouane Ghalmi, who was prevented from travelling to Syria in January 2015, told police that trying to live an Islamic life in the West was like trying to mix ‘oil and vinegar’ and that dying a martyr was the ‘best death’.61 Ultimately, there can be no denying that ‘the lives of these men (and women) are saturated with a Salafi-jihadi religio-political discourse’.62 Of course, this is not to dismiss the many other factors at play, including such things as desire for meaning, the allure of adventure or simply the rewards of friendship and belonging. Yet these other motivations tend to be implicit, perhaps even subconscious in nature, and it is through Islamist ideology that these individuals interpret their experiences and make sense of their lives.

Group characteristics and international connections Having considered how and why Canadians become involved in Islamist terrorism, we now turn our attention to operational activities. As discussed, most Canadians appear to have radicalized within the context of small groups, although these often became divided during the course of mobilization to terrorism. It is also important to note that in most cases they were not content to act autonomously – rather they actively sought connections with FTOs, primarily in Syria and Iraq. A total of 69 per cent of cases had links to foreign terrorists, although some of these involved online communication only. In 56 per cent of cases, Canadian jihadis successfully travelled overseas and were absorbed into FTO hierarchies.63 Another 20 per cent were connected to other extremists – foreign or domestic – outside of their immediate operational group, but were generally unsuccessful, or did not attempt to join FTOs and were operationally autonomous. Finally, just 5 per cent of groups were classed as isolated, meaning they had no known relevant connections and were therefore entirely independent.64 It is important to highlight that differences in connectivity tend to translate into differences in resources and capability. Isolated and connected groups and individuals do not have the benefit of organizational support and are frequently lacking capability. Examples include Amor Ftouhi, who stabbed a police officer at Bishop International Airport in Michigan in June 2017,65 and Abdul Aziz Aldabous, who was subject to a peace bond in 2015 after it was discovered he was in contact with several prominent ISIS members online.66 By comparison, those who succeed in joining FTOs present a potentially far more formidable threat. However, it is also important to recognize that all such cases in the current sample (including those who returned home) restricted their operational activities to locations overseas.67 Indeed, 78 per cent of individuals in the sample appeared to be focused exclusively on achieving overseas outcomes, suggesting that while the threat to Canada has undoubtedly increased, for most, domestic operations are not the priority. Importantly, however, the domestic versus overseas focus of operations appears to vary according to available opportunities. From 2001 to 2011, just 45 per cent of Canadian jihadis were focused exclusively overseas, the

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rest being focused wholly or in part on domestic operations.68 During this period there were of course various conflicts that attracted Western jihadis, but none on the scale of the war in Syria. It follows that as overseas opportunities again diminish, collective interest in targeting the homeland may rise.69

Operational activities In line with the observation that overseas conflict is of central importance, by far the most popular goal of Canadian jihadis is to become a foreign fighter, that is, a member of an FTO (whether or not they engage in combat). Fifty-one per cent of individuals in the sample succeeded in this regard, and another 35 per cent attempted to do so. This represents a significant increase compared to the period 2001–11, in which just 31 per cent joined an FTO and 7 per cent attempted but failed. Moreover, the fifty foreign fighters included in the current sample are only about half of the estimated number in Syria and Iraq, and little more than a quarter of the estimated total of Canadians involved in terrorism worldwide. It is thus abundantly clear that the focal point of jihadi mobilization is overseas conflict. Of course, in the current context, the centre of this attention has been the Middle East, with 95 per cent of individual links to foreign terrorists connecting to Syria and/or Iraq.70 Furthermore, it comes as no surprise that Canadians, much like everyone else, appear to have fixated on the so-called caliphate: 74 per cent of individual links were to ISIS against just 10 per cent to JN. Given that ISIS has invested substantial resources in attacking Western countries, this has serious implications for Canadian security as more of these fighters eventually return home. So far, the Canadian government is aware of approximately sixty returnees, although only ‘a relatively small number’ of these travelled to Syria or Iraq.71 The current sample includes just five returnees identified by name who succeeded in making contact with FTOs in that region, three of whom have been prosecuted.72 Although the remaining returnees are no doubt being monitored to varying degrees, they will present potential threats to security for many years to come. Besides fighting overseas, the second most frequent activity that Canadians have engaged in has been promoting violent jihad, typically by way of producing and/or distributing online propaganda. This applied to 24 per cent of individuals in the current period, compared to 14 per cent prior to 2012. Again, this is largely connected with the increase in foreign fighters, combined with the growth of social media. As alluded to earlier, despite being ‘non-violent’, it is also a rather concerning development in that it likely increases the resonance of jihadi messages in Canada by giving them a familiar-sounding voice. Perhaps in relation to this, Canadian jihadis have demonstrated an increased willingness to carry out attacks. From 2001 to 2011, a third of jihadis were involved in attack planning, though none were successful. Since 2012, 5 per cent of individuals planned attacks, which did not come to fruition, while another 8 per cent executed attacks with varying degrees of success (see Table 2). Proportionally, this represents

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Table 2  Jihadi terror attacks by Canadians, 2012–17 Date

Location

Nov 2013 Iraq Oct 2014 Canada

Perpetrator

Event

Salman Ashrafie Martin Rouleau

Suicide bombing, Tarmiyah (multiple dead) Two Canadian soldiers run over in Quebec (one dead) Oct 2014 Canada Michael Zehaf-Bibeau Shooting attack at Parliament Hill, Ottawa (one dead) Aug 2016 Canada Aaron Driver Attempted suicide bombing, Strathroy Mar 2017 Iraq Abu Maliha al-Kanadi Suicide bombing, Mosul (multiple dead) Jun 2017 Canada Rehab Dughmosh Attempted knife attack, Toronto Jun 2017 United States Amor Ftouhi Stabbing of a police officer, Eishop Airport, Michigan Sep 2017 Canada Abdulahi Hasan Sharif Vehicle and stabbing attack, Edmonton

an overall decrease from 29 to 13 per cent (combining the latter two categories), but a numerical increase from eight to thirteen individuals within a much shorter timeframe. Perhaps most importantly, Canadians were responsible for six attacks in North America and it seems at least two ISIS suicide bombings in Iraq.73 While focusing on the North American attacks, it is instructive to note that all were conducted by lone attackers and none were particularly successful, notwithstanding two fatalities in 2014. Three individuals (Rouleau, Zehaf-Bibeau and Driver) were in communication with other extremists; however, there is currently nothing in the public domain to suggest that any of these individuals conspired with others or received operational support. These same three individuals each desired to travel overseas but were prevented from leaving Canada.74 Rehab Dughmosh (the only female) had got as far as Turkey, but failed to achieve her goal of crossing into Syria.75 Unable to join ISIS, and with calls to attack ringing in their ears, they decided to act at home. With the exception of Driver, who was subject to a peace bond at the time of his attempted bombing, the remaining attackers were either unknown to security services or not regarded as high priority threats – likely due to their peripheral position relative to known extremist networks. This, combined with the fact that five out of six attackers utilized very basic weapons – for the most part, vehicles and knives – helps explain why authorities failed to prevent them from acting.76 The bad news is that Canadian residents are increasingly interested in attacking their own country and have become more successful at putting such plans into action. The good news is that – as noted earlier – none of these plots has so far involved returning foreign fighters, who at a minimum would likely have experience with firearms, and might also benefit from training in explosives and ongoing organizational support. Indeed, more sophisticated attacks remain relatively unlikely in Canada. Nevertheless, as this chapter highlights, their probability has increased. Before we turn our attention to the implications of these developments, it is worth noting that Canadian jihadis have engaged in a variety of other activities, including domestic training (14 per cent), financing (9 per cent) and facilitation of others’ activities (10 per cent).77 Importantly, the vast majority of activities have

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been directly connected with jihadis or their associates attempting to join FTOs. For instance, Awso Peshdary currently stands accused of organizing paintballing sessions at which he apparently recruited people to fight in Syria, as well as helping to finance and organize the travel of John Maguire and Khadar Khalib.78 Although most of these cases appear to have been small scale and somewhat amateur in nature, they provide yet further affirmation of the conflict in Syria and Iraq as the focal point of contemporary jihad, around which the vast majority of other activities seem to orbit.

Lessons learnt from the Canadian experience Although we should be careful not to over-generalize, the current examination of Canada also contributes to the much broader body of literature on jihadi terrorism in the West. In terms of who becomes involved in this particular form of terrorism, the stereotype image that comes to mind is of marginalized, second- or thirdgeneration immigrant youths from the Middle East or North Africa, who often come from a background of petty crime and have fewer prospects in life. However, this appears to be a gross oversimplification, as evidenced by the diverse demographic profiles of individuals in the sample. Importantly – with the notable exception of converts – many of these people had plenty of opportunities available to them, but then gave these up after becoming exposed to jihadi narratives. We should therefore not expect to find the answer for terrorism in simplistic, demographic explanations, nor should we assume one-directional, causal relationships between so-called root causes and terrorism. This brings us to questions of how and why radicalization takes place. The undeniable centre of gravity of the Global Salafi Jihad in recent years has been the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Although other conflicts in places like Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen have not had the same impact, they have served a similar purpose. Wars enable jihadi propaganda to resonate by providing it with relevance, meaning and a strongly emotive sense of urgency, combined with practical opportunities to do something. Physical conflicts are framed as part of a much bigger ideological struggle, thus igniting an acutely felt sense of increasingly militant religious identity, which over time becomes the dominant lens through which the world is seen. Although the internet, and social media in particular, are undoubtedly playing an important role in the spread of such views, the central mechanism – at least in Canada – appears to be localized hubs of radicalization: small groups of friends who besides being avid consumers of online jihadi propaganda, interact with each other in the real world on a daily basis and are active agents in their own, and each other’s extremist transformation.79 Together, these three elements – overseas conflict, exposure to jihadi ideology and localized hubs of radicalization – have formed the backbone of Islamist terrorism in Canada, if not the West as a whole. Domestic policies, for example in relation to integration of Muslim populations, also surely contribute, but are not the central, driving force they are often made out to be.

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Conclusion Events in Syria and Iraq have drawn Canada deeper into the seemingly neverending Global Salafi Jihad, thereby demonstrating that the ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ are increasingly interconnected. The current conflict will of course eventually die down; however, this is no cause for complacency. Radicalization and recruitment to violent jihad will surely continue for the foreseeable future and may become more inwardly focused as the situation abroad quietens down. Looking further ahead, it will almost certainly rise once again whenever the next relevant conflict ignites. Canada would do well to recognize and prepare for this, while simultaneously striving to counter the spread of jihadi ideology and disrupt the mechanisms of domestic radicalization, utilizing a combination of both hard and soft measures depending on local and individual circumstances. With this in mind, there are certain developments underway that are likely to complicate these efforts. In particular, there appears to be growing Islamophobia and violent, right-wing extremism in Canada, evidenced by the increased number of hate crimes against Canadian Muslims since 2012 and punctuated by the Quebec City mosque attack of January 2017.80 Canada’s Muslim population thus appears to be grappling more and more with feelings of alienation.81 At the same time, it is rapidly expanding,82 including a burgeoning second and third generation – generally thought to be more susceptible to extremist ideas. Should the country fail to effectively manage these issues, the potential for mobilization to violent jihad will grow. Finally, this chapter has aimed to shed light on jihadi terrorism in Canada. In doing so, it has highlighted the interplay between ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ and identified three pillars of central importance to understanding mobilization to terrorism: overseas conflict, exposure to jihadi ideology and localized hubs of radicalization. Others should seek to learn from the Canadian experience and understand the role these factors play in their own particular context. Hopefully, this will lead to more effective efforts to counter terrorism.

Notes 1 See Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 2 Sam Mullins, ‘Global jihad: The Canadian experience’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 25, no. 5 (2013): 734–76. 3 Public Safety Canada, 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada (2014). Available at http:​//www​.publ​icsaf​ety.g​c.ca/​cnt/r​srcs/​pblct​ns/20​14-pb​lc-rp​r-trr​rst-t​ hrt/2​014-p​blc-r​pr-tr​rrst-​thrt-​eng.p​df (accessed 16 March 2015). 4 Public Safety Canada, 2017 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada (2017). Available at https​://ww​w.pub​licsa​fety.​gc.ca​/cnt/​rsrcs​/pblc​tns/p​blc-r​prt-t​rrrst​-thrt​ -cnd-​2017/​pblc-​rprt-​trrrs​t-thr​t-cnd​-2017​-en.p​df (accessed 29 December 2017). 5 See, for example, Stewart Bell, ‘ISIS fighter from Ottawa appears in video threatening Canada with attacks “where it hurts you the most”’, National Post, 7 December 2014.

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Available at http:​//new​s.nat​ional​post.​com/2​014/1​2/07/​john-​magui​re-an​-isis​-figh​ter-f​ rom-o​ttawa​-appe​ars-o​n-vid​eo-wa​rning​-cana​da-of​-atta​cks-w​here-​it-hu​rts-y​ou-th​ e-mos​t/ (accessed 8 December 2014); “Farah Mohamed Shirdon of Calgary fighting for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’, CBC News, 18 June 2014. Available at http:​//www​ .cbc.​ca/ne​ws/ca​nada/​farah​-moha​med-s​hirdo​n-of-​calga​ry-fi​ghtin​g-for​-isla​mic-s​tate-​ of-ir​aq-an​d-syr​ia-1.​26802​06 (accessed 18 June 2014). Amarnath Amarasingam, ‘Searching for the shadowy Canadian leader of ISIS in Bangladesh’, Jihadology, 2 August 2016. Available at http:​//jih​adolo​gy.ne​t/201​6/08/​ 02/gu​est-p​ost-s​earch​ing-f​or-th​e-sha​dowy-​canad​ian-l​eader​-of-i​sis-i​n-ban​glade​ sh/ (accessed 2 August 2016); Abu Dujana al-Muhajir, ‘Story of Abu Abdullah: The smiling warrior!’, Beneath Which Rivers Flow, 2014. Available at http://abumuhajir. tumblr.com/ (accessed 14 June 2014); Abu Dujana, ‘Islamophobe to Mujahid: Journey of Abu Talha’, Beneath Which Rivers Flow, 2014. Available at http://abumuhajir.tumblr. com/ (accessed 14 June 2014). Paritosh Bansal and Serajul Quadir, ‘New evidence shows deep Islamic State role in Bangladesh massacre’, Reuters, 1 December 2016. Available at http:​//www​.reut​ers.c​ om/ar​ticle​/us-b​angla​desh-​islam​icsta​te-in​sight​-idUS​KBN13​P2WK?​feedT​ype=R​SS&fe​ edNam​e=wor​ldNew​s&utm​ (accessed 2 January 2016); Dabiq, 12 (2015): 41. Available at http:​//jih​adolo​gy.ne​t/201​5/11/​18/ne​w-iss​ue-of​-the-​islam​ic-st​ates-​magaz​ine-d​ abiq-​12%e2​%80%b​3/ (accessed 8 January 2018); Dabiq, 14 (2016): 58–66. Available at http:​//jih​adolo​gy.ne​t/201​6/04/​13/ne​w-iss​ue-of​-the-​islam​ic-st​ates-​magaz​ine-d​abiq-​14 (accessed 8 January 2018). Stewart Bell, ‘“He is from Windsor”: Canadian identified as leader of ISIL affiliate in Bangladesh’, National Post, 7 June 2016. Available at http:​//new​s.nat​ional​post.​com/n​ ews/c​anada​/he-i​s-fro​m-win​dsor-​canad​ian-i​denti​fied-​as-le​ader-​of-is​il-af​fi lia​te-in​-bang​ lades​h (accessed 7 June 2016). Michelle Shephard, ‘Why are foreign fighters drawn to the Islamic State?’ Toronto Star, 23 January 2015. Available at http:​//www​.thes​tar.c​om/ne​ws/wo​rld/2​015/0​1/23/​why-a​ re-fo​reign​-figh​ters-​drawn​-to-t​he-is​lamic​-stat​e.htm​l (accessed 29 November 2017). Tweet by Amarnath Amarasingam, 27 October 2016. Available at https​://tw​itter​.com/​ amara​maras​ingam​/stat​us/79​16050​89358​24588​9 (accessed 27 October 2016). ‘Charges unsealed against three men for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in New York City for ISIS in the summer of 2016’, US Department of Justice, 6 October 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/o​pa/pr​/char​ges-u​nseal​ed-ag​ainst​-thre​e-men​ -plot​ting-​carry​-out-​terro​rist-​attac​ks-ne​w-yor​k-cit​y-isi​s (accessed 6 October 2017); Matt Stevens and Matthew Haag, ‘Police officer stabbed at Michigan airport in “act of terrorism”’, New York Times, 21 June 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​ 017/0​6/21/​us/fl​int-a​irpor​t-sta​bbing​.html​?emc=​edit_​tnt_2​01706​21&nl​id=59​67953​ 5&tnt​email​0=y (accessed 21 June 2017). Christopher Anzalone, ‘Canadian foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria’, CTC Sentinel, 8, no. 4 (2015): 14–19. Available at https​://ct​c.usm​a.edu​/wp-c​onten​t/upl​oads/​2015/​ 04/CT​CSent​inel-​Vol8I​ssue4​6.pdf​ (accessed 21 November 2017); Lorne Dawson, Amarnath Amarasingam and Alexandra Bain, ‘Talking to foreign fighters: Socioeconomic push versus existential pull factors’, TSAS Working Paper Series, No. 16–14 (2016). Available at http:​//tsa​s.ca/​wp-co​ntent​/uplo​ads/2​016/0​7/TSA​SWP16​ -14_D​awson​-Amar​asing​am-Ba​in.pd​f (accessed 5 January 2018); Gaetano Joe Ilardi, ‘Interviews With Canadian radicals’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 36, no. 9 (2013): 713–38; Nathaniel Kennedy, ‘The maple leaf Mujahideen: The rise of the Canadian jihadi movement’, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1 September 2017.

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Available at https​://ww​w.fpr​i.org​/arti​cle/2​017/0​9/map​le-le​af-mu​jahid​een-r​ise-c​anadi​ an-ji​hadi-​movem​ent/ (accessed 3 January 2018); Michael Zekulin, ‘Canada’s new challenges: Facing terrorism at home’, Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (2014). Available at https​://d3​n8a8p​ro7vh​mx.cl​oudfr​ont.n​et/cd​fai/p​ages/​442/a​ttach​ ments​/orig​inal/​14183​41197​/Cana​das_N​ew_Ch​allen​ges_F​acing​_Terr​orism​_at_H​ome. p​df?14​18341​197 (accessed 5 January 2018). 13 Mullins, ‘Global jihad: The Canadian experience’. 14 Ibid. 15 The author does not presume this sample to be inclusive of all Canadians who mobilized to Islamist terrorism during this period. Nevertheless, it still represents one of the largest samples of Canadian terrorists anywhere to date. 16 Importantly, no new allegations are made at any point, and this analysis has no bearing on cases before the courts. 17 For instance, Mahmoud Jaballah was first subject to a security certificate in 1999, which was quashed in May 2016. Similarly, alleged Al Qaeda sleeper agent Adil Charkaoui had his security certificate quashed in October 2009. Others who were charged with terrorism offences and subsequently acquitted include Matin Abdul Stanikzy, John Nuttall and Amanda Karody, Ayanle Hassan Ali and El Mahdi Jamali and Sabrine Djermane (although the latter two were still subject to peace bonds). 18 Author’s database, as of 7 January 2018. Includes only publicly identifiable individuals and excludes estimated numbers of foreign fighters, which cannot be independently verified. 19 Bearing in mind that the government does not state that all 190 suspects are jihadis. It seems likely that the number is inclusive of other types of terrorist as well. 20 Kennedy, ‘The maple leaf mujahideen’; Sam Mullins, ‘Islamist terrorism in Australia since 2012: The impact of the war in Syria and the rise of ISIS’, Presentation delivered at the 5th Elcano Forum on Global Terrorism, Madrid, Spain, 14 November 2017. 21 This excludes several unconfirmed or unclear reports of Canadians fighting in Syria and Libya. 22 Michael Adams, Muslims and Multiculturalism in Canada (Ottawa and Toronto: Environics Research Group, 2007), p. 7. Available at http:​//www​.envi​ronic​sinst​itute​ .org/​PDF-M​uslim​sandM​ultic​ultur​alism​inCan​ada-L​iftin​gtheV​eil.p​df (accessed 16 January 2012). 23 Anzalone, ‘Canadian foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria’. 24 Excluding the children of Canadian parents in Syria/Iraq. 25 Note that place of birth could not be reliably determined in most cases. 26 This refers to first nationalities (i.e. by birth). If we also include ethnic heritage, Somalis account for 13 per cent of the sample, while the Pakistani figure is unchanged. 27 Within which there were four confirmed asylum-seekers. 28 Michael King and Donald Taylor, ‘The radicalization of homegrown jihadists: A review of theoretical models and social psychological evidence’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 23, no. 4 (2011): 602–22. 29 Not counting those who obviously became unemployed as a result of going to fight in Syria, for example. 30 Mobilization to Violence (Terrorism) Research: Key Findings (Canadian Security Intelligence Service, 2018). Available at https​://cs​is.gc​.ca/p​blctn​s/thr​pblct​ns/IM​V_-_T​ error​ism-R​esear​ch-Ke​y-fin​dings​-eng.​pdf (accessed 11 February 2018). 31 See Thomas Hegghammer, ‘Revisiting the poverty-terrorism link in European jihadism’, Presented the Society for Terrorism Research Annual Conference, Leiden,

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35 36 37 38 39

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the Netherlands, 8 November 2016. Available at http:​//heg​ghamm​er.co​m/_fi​les/H​ eggha​mmer_​-_pov​erty.​pdf (accessed 9 January 2018). The gender of five individuals who were part of a group of ten young people from Montreal who attempted to go to Syria in May 2015 could not be determined. Regarding the fifteen confirmed females, while it is beyond the scope of this study to systematically compare them with their male counterparts, it is interesting to note that the females appear to be younger (average age 19.7) and none are known to have a criminal history prior to engaging in terrorism. Peter Bergen, Courtney Schuster and David Sterman, ISIS in the West: The New Faces of Extremism (New America, 2015). Available at https​://st​atic.​newam​erica​.org/​attac​ hment​s/118​13-is​is-in​-the-​west-​2/ISP​-ISIS​-In-T​h e-We​st-Fi​nal-N​ov-16​-Fina​l.662​41afa​ 9ddd4​ea2be​7afba​9ec0a​69e0.​pdf (accessed 23 November 2015). Sam Mullins, ‘Home-Grown’ Jihad: Understanding Islamist Terrorism in the US and UK (London: Imperial College Press, 2016); Sam Mullins, ‘Re-examining the involvement of converts in Islamist terrorism: A comparison of the U.S. and U.K.’, Perspectives on Terrorism, 9, no. 6 (2015). Available at http:​//www​.terr​orism​analy​sts.c​om/pt​/inde​ x.php​/pot/​artic​le/vi​ew/47​4 (accessed 21 December 2015). ‘About a third’ of whom were Canadian. Dawson, Amarasingam and Bain, ‘Talking to foreign fighters’. ‘Education in Canada: Key results from the 2016 census’, Statistics Canada, 29 November 2016. Available at http:​//sta​tcan.​gc.ca​/dail​y-quo​tidie​n/171​129/d​q1711​29a-e​ ng.ht​m (accessed 9 January 2018). Note that the twenty-three males aged 25–34 includes four converts. If they are removed from the analysis, the educational achievement is considerably higher. Seamus Hughes, ‘To stop ISIS recruitment, focus offline’, Lawfare, 7 August 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.law​fareb​log.c​om/st​op-is​is-re​cruit​ment-​focus​-offl​ine (accessed 7 August 2016); Sam Mullins and James Howcroft, ‘Global priorities in terrorism and counter-terrorism: Practitioner perspectives’, Marshall Center Perspectives 1 (13 September 2017). Available at http:​//www​.mars​hallc​enter​.org/​ MCPUB​LICWE​B/mcd​ocs/f​i les/​Colle​ge/F_​Publi​catio​ns/pe​rspec​tives​/pers​pecti​ves_1​ .pdf (accessed 14 September 2017); Lorenzo Vidino, Francesco Marone and Eva Entenmann, Fear Thy Neighbor: Radicalization and Jihadist Attacks in the West (Milan: Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2017), pp. 77–100. Available at https​://ic​ct.nl​/wp-c​onten​t/ upl​oads/​2017/​06/Fe​arThy​Neigh​bor-R​adica​lizat​ionan​dJiha​distA​ttack​sinth​eWest​.pdf (accessed 9 January 2018). Vidino, Marone and Entenmann, Fear Thy Neighbor, 83. Nazim Baksh and Devin Heroux, ‘Key member of Calgary jihadist cluster revealed for 1st time’, CBC News, 30 March 2017. Available at http:​//www​.cbc.​ca/ne​ws/ca​nada/​ calga​ry/ca​lgary​-cana​da-ji​had-t​error​ism-w​aseem​-youc​ef-da​mian-​clair​mont-​iraq-​ 1.404​6574 (accessed 9 December 2017); Amarasingam, ‘Searching for the shadowy Canadian leader of ISIS in Bangladesh’. Aedan Helmer and Gary Dimmock, ‘The case against Awso Peshdary’, Ottawa Sun, 26 February 2016. Available at http:​//www​.otta​wasun​.com/​2016/​02/26​/the-​case-​again​ st-as​wo-pe​shdar​y (accessed 22 November 2017). Adrienne Arsenault, Nazim Baksh and Ghalia Bdiwe, ‘ISIS paperwork reveals names of 6 Canadians’, CBC News, 11 March 2016. Available at http:​//www​.cbc.​ca/ne​ws/ca​ nada/​isis-​docum​ents-​canad​ians-​1.348​6552 (accessed 29 November 2017); United States vs. Marchello Dsaun McCain (2018) United States District Court Southern District of California, 3:15-cr-00174-W, Sentencing Memorandum, January 12.

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44 Allan Woods, ‘Long, winding road from Senegal to Canada and back home for accused terrorist’, Toronto Star, 29 October 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.the​star.​ com/n​ews/c​anada​/2016​/10/2​9/lon​g-win​ding-​road-​from-​seneg​al-to​-cana​da-an​d-bac​ k-hom​e-for​-accu​sed-t​error​ist.h​tml (accessed 25 November 2017). 45 Stewart Bell, ‘Windsor man who made repeated mysterious journeys to Middle East arrested on terrorism peace bond’, National Post, 16 June 2016. Available at http:​//new​ s.nat​ional​post.​com/n​ews/c​anada​/wind​sor-m​an-wh​o-mad​e-rep​eated​-myst​eriou​s-jou​ rneys​-to-m​iddle​-east​-arre​sted-​on-te​rrori​sm-pe​ace-b​ond (accessed 24 November 2017); Craig Pearson, ‘Windsor man sentenced to 90 days for passport fraud’, Windsor Star, 19 December 2014. Available at http:​//blo​gs.wi​ndsor​star.​com/n​ews/w​indso​r-hig​h-ris​k-tra​ velle​r-sen​tence​d-to-​90-da​ys-fo​r-pas​sport​-frau​d (accessed 29 December 2014). 46 Sonia Desmarais, Chantal Lavigne and Karine Bastien, ‘Identities of 2 Quebec men who fought in Syria revealed’, CBC News, 8 December 2016. Available at http:​//www​ .cbc.​ca/be​ta/ne​ws/ca​nada/​montr​eal/s​yria-​milit​ants-​quebe​c-ter​roris​m-hos​tages​-1.38​ 85740​(accessed 4 December 2017). 47 Hugo Joncas, ‘Deux derniers djihadistes allégués identifies’, Le Journal de Montréal, 2 March 2015. Available at https​://tr​ansla​te.go​ogle.​ca/tr​ansla​te?hl​=en&s​l=fr&​u=htt​p:// w​ww.jo​urnal​demon​treal​.com/​2015/​03/02​/deux​-dern​iers-​djiha​diste​s-all​egues​-iden​ tifie​s&pre​v=sea​rch (accessed 1 October 2017); Catherine Solyom, ‘Montreal youths’ return from the Middle East shifts focus to reintegration’, Montreal Gazette, 6 August 2015. Available at http:​//mon​treal​gazet​te.co​m/new​s/loc​al-ne​ws/mo​ntrea​l-you​ths-r​ eturn​-from​-the-​middl​e-eas​t-shi​fts-f​ocus-​to-re​integ​ratio​n (accessed 12 January 2018). 48 Allan Woods, ‘Montreal judge unseals RCMP document on would-be travellers to Syria’, Toronto Star, 6 May 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.the​star.​com/n​ews/c​anada​/2016​/05/0​ 6/my-​place​-is-n​ot-in​-this​-coun​try.h​tml (accessed 2 December 2017); Allan Woods, ‘Montreal father says daughter arrested at airport an “innocent victim”’, Toronto Star, 26 May 2015. Available at https​://ww​w.the​star.​com/n​ews/c​anada​/2015​/05/2​6/mon​treal​ -rcmp​-raid​s-bel​ieved​-link​ed-to​-radi​caliz​ation​-prob​e.htm​l (accessed 2 December 2017). 49 Graeme Hamilton, ‘Radical Islamist preacher or victim of a witch hunt? The new case against Adil Charkaoui’, National Post, 22 May 2015. Available at http:​//nat​ional​post.​ com/n​ews/c​anada​/the-​new-c​ase-a​gains​t-adi​l-cha​rkaou​i (accessed 10 January 2018). 50 Nazim Baksh and Adrienne Arsenault, ‘Timmins, Ont.-born jihadist recruited 5 others for ISIS’, CBC News, 2 March 2015. Available at http:​//www​.cbc.​ca/ne​ws/wo​ rld/t​immin​s-ont​-born​-jiha​dist-​recru​ited-​5-oth​ers-f​or-is​is-1.​29789​88 (accessed 29 November 2017). 51 Stewart Bell, ‘Toronto man arrested on suspicion he’d travel and engage in terrorism agrees to no contact with ISIL’, National Post, 15 July 2016. Available at http:​//new​s.nat​ ional​post.​com/t​oront​o/tor​onto-​man-a​rrest​ed-on​-susp​icion​-hed-​trave​l-and​-enga​ge-in​ -terr​orism​-agre​es-to​-peac​e-bon​d (accessed 3 December 2017). 52 The internet was utilized in some fashion in at least 58 per cent of cases in the current sample. However, the true figure is likely closer to 100 per cent. 53 Tu Tanh Ha, ‘Montreal dad “crushed” by son’s arrest after reporting jihadi tried to recruit him’, Globe and Mail, 24 March 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.the​globe​andma​ il.co​m/new​s/nat​ional​/mont​real-​dad-c​rushe​d-by-​sons-​arres​t-aft​er-re​porti​ng-ji​hadi-​ tried​-to-r​ecrui​t-him​/arti​cle34​11921​7/ (accessed 2 December 2017). 54 Gabrielle Duchaine, ‘Montréalais soupçonné de terrorisme: “Ils ont tout fait pour me radicaliser”’, La Presse, 19 January 2017. Available at http:​//www​.lapr​esse.​ca/ac​tuali​tes/ j​ustic​e-et-​faits​-dive​rs/20​1701/​19/01​-5061​001-m​ontre​alais​-soup​conne​-de-t​error​isme-​ ils-o​nt-to​ut-fa​it-po​ur-me​-radi​calis​er.ph​p (accessed 13 January 2018).

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55 At least 72 per cent of the sample expressed some form of religious motivation (often combined with political themes), and 19 per cent expressed some form of dissatisfaction with the domestic situation in Canada. 56 Stewart Bell, ‘“Regular Canadian” killed in Syria conflict featured in slick, new ISIS propaganda video’, National Post, 11 July 2014. Available at http:​//nat​ional​post.​com/ n​ews/c​anada​/regu​lar-c​anadi​an-ki​lled-​in-sy​ria-c​onfli​ct-fe​ature​d-in-​slick​-new-​isis-​ propa​ganda​-vide​o (accessed 12 January 2018). 57 Abu Dujanah al-Bengali (Tamim Chowdhury), ‘The Shuhadah of the Gulshan attack’, Rumiyah, 2 (2016): 8–11. Available at https​://az​elin.​files​.word​press​.com/​2016/​10/ro​ me-ma​gazin​e-2.p​df (accessed 13 January 2018). 58 ‘Transcript of Aaron Driver’s martyrdom video released Thursday by police’, CFJC Today, 11 August 2016. Available at http:​//www​.cfjc​today​.com/​artic​le/53​8167/​trans​cript​ -aaro​n-dri​vers-​marty​rdom-​video​-rele​ased-​thurs​day-p​olice​ (accessed 13 January 2018). 59 Woods, ‘Montreal judge unseals RCMP document on would-be travellers to Syria’. 60 Graeme Hamilton, ‘“We love death like you love life”: Devoted to jihad, Montreal man yearned to live under ISIL, court hears’, National Post, 2 December 2016. Available at http:​//new​s.nat​ional​post.​com/n​ews/c​anada​/we-l​ove-d​eath-​like-​you-l​ove-l​ife-m​ ontre​al-ma​n-was​-devo​ted-t​o-jih​ad-an​d-dre​amed-​of-li​ving-​under​-isil​-cour​t-hea​rs (accessed 6 December 2017). 61 Steve Rukavina, ‘Montreal father of would-be jihadi hid passports to try to keep son home’, CBC News, 18 August 2016. Available at http:​//www​.cbc.​ca/ne​ws/ca​nada/​montr​ eal/g​halmi​-dark​o-doc​ument​s-rel​eased​-1.37​26070​ (accessed 26 November 2017). 62 Dawson, Amarasingam and Bain, ‘Talking to foreign fighters’, 40. 63 This compares to 80 per cent of cases during 2001–11; however, there were just fifteen groups in the earlier period, meaning that (a) the percentage is easily skewed, and (b) there has nevertheless been a sizeable numerical increase in such cases. 64 The remaining 17 per cent were classed as unknown. 65 Stevens and Haag, ‘Police officer stabbed at Michigan airport in “act of terrorism”’. 66 Stewart Bell, ‘Crown withdraws terrorism peace bond against Toronto man once accused of communicating with ISIL’, National Post, 16 November 2016. Available at http:​//www​.nati​onalp​ost.c​om/m/​wp/ne​ws/bl​og.ht​ml?b=​news.​natio​nalpo​st.co​m/new​ s/cro​wn-wi​thdra​ws-te​rrori​sm-pe​ace-b​ond-a​gains​t-tor​onto-​man-a​ccuse​d-of-​commu​ nicat​ing-w​ith-i​sil-e​xtrem​ists (accessed 2 December 2017). 67 One arguable exception to this is Ismael Habib, who was targeted in a sting operation in which he apparently believed he was helping an organized crime gang send people to Syria; however, he did not organize these activities of his own initiative and his primary goal was to leave the country himself (R c. Habib, ‘Judgement sur Voir-Dire Admissibilité des Déclarations’, 2017 QCCQ 1581 (2017) Montreal, Quebec. Available at https​://ww​w.can​lii.o​rg/fr​/qc/q​ccq/d​oc/20​17/20​17qcc​q1581​/2017​qccq1​581.h​tml?s​ earch​UrlHa​sh=AA​AAAQA​PIklz​bGFta​WMgU3​RhdGU​iAAAA​AAE&r​esult​Index​=15 (accessed 7 December 2017). 68 Mullins, ‘Global jihad: The Canadian experience’. 69 This has been seen on a number of occasions already at the individual level when prospective foreign fighters have been prevented from travelling (see notes 70–72). 70 Other locations included Tunisia, Algeria, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Two individuals excluded from the sample also had connections to Islamist militants in Libya. 71 Public Safety Canada, 2017 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada, 6. 72 These five are Ismael Habib, Mohamed El Shaer, Abu Huzaifa al-Kanadi, Hussein Borhot and Kevin Omar Mohamed. At least two other unnamed individuals from

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73

74

75

76

77 78

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Montreal who left for Syria in January 2015 had reportedly returned by August that year. Others (such as Pamir Hakimzadah and Rehab Dughmosh) also travelled overseas to join FTOs and returned to Canada but had not achieved their goals. Of these, Salman Ashrafie’s identity is well-established. Abu Maliha al-Kanadi’s identity is uncertain, although he is alleged to have lived in Canada for “many years” (Tweet by Amarnath Amarasingam, 5 June 2017. Available at https​://tw​itter​.com/​ AmarA​maras​ingam​/stat​us/87​17286​20410​15500​9 (accessed 9 December 2017)). Others using the “al-Kanadi / al-Kindi” monikers were excluded from the sample pending specific allegations of links to Canada. Robyn Doolittle and Patrick White, ‘Ottawa gunman sought Libyan passport three weeks before attack’, Globe and Mail, 24 October 2014. Available at http:​//the​globe​ andma​il.co​m/new​s/nat​ional​/otta​wa-gu​nman-​sough​t-lib​yan-p​asspo​rt-th​ree-w​eeks-​ befor​e-att​ack/a​rticl​e2128​7097/​(accessed 30 December 2014); Leslie Ferenc, ‘RCMP tried to get peace bond on Quebec man who killed soldier’, Toronto Star, 5 January 2015. Available at http:​//www​.thes​tar.c​om/ne​ws/ca​nada/​2015/​01/15​/poli​ce-tr​ied-t​ o-get​-peac​e-bon​d-on-​quebe​c-man​-who-​kille​d-sol​dier.​html (accessed 16 January 2015; Lauren McKeon, ‘The suicide bomber next door’, Toronto Life, 19 January 2017. Available at http:​//tor​ontol​ife.c​om/ci​ty/cr​ime/a​aron-​drive​r-isi​s-sui​cide-​bombe​r-nex​ t-doo​r/ (accessed 1 December 2017). Fatima Syed, ‘RCMP lays terror charges against woman accused of wielding a knife at Canadian Tire’, Toronto Star, 4 July 2017. Available at https​://ww​w.the​star.​com/n​ews/g​ ta/20​17/07​/04/r​cmp-l​ays-c​harge​s-aga​inst-​woman​-accu​sed-o​f-wie​lding​-a-kn​ife-a​t-can​ adian​-tire​.html​(accessed 8 December 2017). See Sam Mullins, ‘Lone-actor vs. remote-controlled jihadi terrorism: Rethinking the threat to the West’, War on the Rocks, 20 April 2017. Available at https​://wa​ronth​erock​ s.com​/2017​/04/l​one-a​ctor-​vs-re​mote-​contr​olled​-jiha​di-te​rrori​sm-re​think​ing-t​he-th​ reat-​to-th​e-wes​t/ (accessed 20 April 2017). These are proportional decreases compared to 2001–11; however, this is likely a product of missing information and all three activities (domestic training, financing and facilitation) have probably occurred on a much wider scale. Bruce Campion-Smith and Michelle Shephard, ‘RCMP charge John Maguire and two others in terror investigation’, Toronto Star, 3 February 2015. Available at http:​//www​ .thes​tar.c​om/ne​ws/ca​nada/​2015/​02/03​/rcmp​-to-a​nnoun​ce-te​rrori​sm-ar​rest-​and-c​ harge​s-at-​3-pm.​html (accessed 4 February 2015); Aedan Helmer, ‘Alleged jihadists in Ottawa share common link’, Ottawa Sun, 14 February 2015. Available at http:​//www​ .timm​inspr​ess.c​om/20​15/02​/14/a​llege​d-jih​adist​s-sha​re-co​mmon-​link (accessed 22 November 2017). For an in-depth account of the role of small-group dynamics in radicalization, see Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks. Monique Scotti, ‘Hate crimes against Muslims are down as overall number of hate crimes increases’, Global News, 28 November 2017. Available at https​://gl​obaln​ews.c​a/ new​s/388​4829/​hate-​crime​s-aga​inst-​musli​ms-do​wn/ (accessed 14 January 2018). Tania Kohut, ‘Muslim misconceptions: The everyday Islamophobia facing Canadians’, Global News, 5 February 2017. Available at https​://gl​obaln​ews.c​a/new​s/321​6963/​ musli​m-mis​conce​ption​s-the​-ever​yday-​islam​ophob​ia-fa​cing-​canad​ians/​ (accessed 14 January 2018). ‘The future of the global Muslim population’, Pew Research Centre, 27 January 2011. Available at http:​//www​.pewf​orum.​org/2​011/0​1/27/​the-f​uture​-of-t​he-gl​obal-​musli​ m-pop​ulati​on/ (accessed 14 January 2018).

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AUSTRALIA WHO CAN IT BE KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? Lizzy Ambler

Introduction It is perhaps unsurprising that Australia has received little attention in relation to links with the global jihad. Over 14,000 kilometres away from Europe, the hub of the so-called home-grown threat, and from the United States, known as the spearhead of the ‘War on Terror’, geographically, the land down under has a relatively isolated proximity to other ‘Western’ states and the centre target for counter-terror measures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. When Australia is analysed in relation to the global jihad, it is generally grouped together with these other ‘Western’ states, with little attention to its unique role both geographically and politically in relation to global movements and counterterror practices. Despite debates surrounding the strategic significance of Australia to jihadist groups and its assumed role on the so-called periphery, Australia has attracted both externally and locally driven attacks since the year 2000.1 Although the number of attacks successfully carried out has remained limited, there have been a significant number of planned and foiled plots, with strong links to attacks that have taken place in the wider Oceania region. Since 2011, we have also witnessed 120–150 known foreign fighters from Australia go to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside various Islamist groups,2 with others also joining conflicts in Somalia and Yemen.3 Indeed, Australia is far less isolated from jihadi movements than one might first suspect. As will be explored in this chapter, with the rise of Islamist jihadi terrorism in ‘the West’, we have also seen Australia, which previously attempted to keep terror attacks under wraps, utilize this post-9/11 environment as way to counteract its position geographically on the fringe,4 and to further solidify alliances. In particular, Australia has used this environment to justify the implementation of further legislation that has been criticized for encroaching on civil liberties and crept into discussions on refugee and asylum seeker policies. Though such efforts have predominantly been externally focused, with such a logic therefore assuming Australia is on the periphery through the othering and exoticizing of the ‘centre’, this chapter highlights the emergence of Australia as a particular hub with its own distinct subculture of activity in relation to global jihadi movements worldwide.

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Although initially appearing geographically isolated from global jihadi movements and counter-terror operations, Australia has a closely intertwined relationship with the ‘centre’ of such movements. Australia embodies a particular locale, influenced by a number of factors that will be explored throughout this chapter. This includes the politicization of global jihadi narratives and subsequent stringent counter-terror laws that have encouraged local jihadi subcultures rather than externally guided attacks, individuals with previous jihadi experience shaping localities within Australia in a transaction of experience, and a particular association with the Southeast Asia region. Individuals in Australia can be seen as an intrinsic example of norm entrepreneurs involved in contemporary global jihadi movements through adapting and utilizing local environments in a complex exchange of ideas and action. Australia shows it has not just been impacted by global jihadi movements through external influence, but it has also actively shaped the norms and practices surrounding such movements. This includes some distinguishing factors that differentiate it from other ‘Western’ contexts, with this chapter problematizing existing discussions that tend to overlook more micro or regional levels of analysis. This chapter therefore argues that, in this sense, Australia embodies a particular ‘centre’ of global jihadi movements and thus affirms Devji’s and Roy’s hypothesis that those countries often regarded on the periphery are key in transforming the landscape of the global jihad.5 Ultimately, this chapter assesses the utility of the concepts ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ in analysing global jihadi movements, and questions whether such a dichotomy is useful for exploring details beyond dominant global narratives and whether such terms are able to assist in dismantling the dominant logics of knowledge production and reproduction around global jihadi movements. Utilizing a critical analysis to understand Australia’s relationship with the global jihad, the following discussion centres around three questions: What is the relationship between Australia and global jihadi movements? What have been the influences on this relationship? And finally, how do such influences ‘travel’? The chapter begins with orientating the scope of existing literature and the importance of adopting a critical analysis within the terrorism field. Secondly, the analysis will explore the history of Australia in relation to jihadi networks and how these have evolved in relation to global movements. This includes specific attention to the impact of the 2002 Bali bombings and the year 2003 as a turning point in Australia’s relationship with the global jihad. An analysis of Australia’s more recent relationship will then highlight how it is linked to the ISIS group. Finally, the analysis will then turn to the politicization and reframing of stances in relation to global jihadist networks and how knowledge is produced by Australia. The counter-terror practices adopted by Australia will then be explored in assessing their links to global jihadi movements.

The land shunned over Given Australia’s geographical location and the lack of successful largescale attacks on home soil, it has received comparatively little attention from

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scholars. Furthermore, the terrorism studies literature has tended to focus on the biggest vehicles of jihad such as Al Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS, with a noticeable dearth of research in the fields of right-wing terrorism; Christian, Jewish and Sikh terrorism; gender terrorism; and the terrorism experienced in developing regions such as Africa, India, the Pacific and elsewhere.6 Traditional terrorism studies have therefore been described as contributing to a ‘fetishization of parts’,7 with a tendency to study certain terror groups separately from the wider context of ‘social movements, state structures, conflicts, history, contexts, and international relations within which it occurs’.8 Australia’s geographical location means that as a case study it has often been overlooked, or has been regarded as irrelevant despite its unique proximity to the Pacific region. This lack of scholarly focus is symptomatic of research typically engaging in traditional security analysis, with a focus on spectacular violence or terrorist acts (rather than foiled attacks as with the Australian case), externally guided plots by Islamist groups (of which there are few in Australia post-2003), a geographical focus on the MENA region (that overlooks Australia’s close proximity and relationship with Southeast Asia) and, finally, a general focus on security and counter-terror measures that focus on security at a state level. Importantly and relevant to this book, such literature overlooks the possibility or significance of subcultures or hubs that feed, sustain and guide global jihadi movements and narratives outside of the assumed ‘centre’ of jihadi organizations. A traditional security lens takes for granted the routes in which knowledge of global jihadi movements in relation to ideologies, cultures, ideas and actors involved ‘travel’ or ‘transfer’, with these assumed to be emanating from the ‘centre’. Adopting a sceptical view of the dominant discourses surrounding Australia’s links with the global jihad can assist in breaking down these assumptions and allow researchers to engage in a more critical analysis that acknowledges global jihadi movements in the broader Oceania region. In particular, it reveals how such influences ‘travel’ between the assumed ‘periphery’ of Australia to the ‘centre’ of the MENA region, and the grand ideological narratives that dominate the mainstream. Although existing research shows that ‘quantitatively speaking and in terms of precise qualitative features (e.g., ethnic backgrounds), overall patterns in terrorist activity are comparable to other Western countries’,9 this chapter puts forth that Australia has a particular relationship with the global jihad based on unique features that certainly differentiates it from other ‘Western’ states. Furthermore, it is a strong example of how politicization of ‘terrorism’ has been utilized at a national level in order to attempt to remain on the ‘periphery’ of movements, while gaining strategic and political strength through doing so. The chapter also stipulates a strong case for further research that engages with a critical lens in order to challenge the way knowledge of jihadi movements is produced and reproduced by various forces. In doing so, states such as Australia are able to be analysed in their fuller context, with links to global jihadi movements being far more complex than often assumed when the focus is on an analysis of the ‘centre’.

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From limited experience to a hub of self-starters Australia and jihadist movements prior to 9/11 Prior to 9/11, Australia had few links with terror and anti-terror movements. In 1995–96, within the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s (ASIO) Annual Report to the Federal Parliament, no specific terrorist threats were mentioned in relation to Australia, with ASIO remaining focused on tackling right-wing extremists including nationalist groups and neo-Nazi organizations.10 Despite the 1997 and 2000 White Papers that identified a growing number of nonmilitary threats in relation to Australia’s security interests, terrorism as a concept remained unspoken of.11 Scholars have amounted this to Australia’s comparative lack of experience of sustained terrorist campaigns compared to other countries that had experienced the likes of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Ulster Freedom Fighters, Basque Homeland and Freedom, the Red Brigades, and BaaderMeinhof.12 In more recent history, Australia had also been relatively isolated from events relating to modern jihadism, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the rise and fall of Islamist movements in the MENA region.13 This was in contrast to Europe which had witnessed fleeing Egyptian and Algerian jihadi groups from the 1980s, with support networks also forming and mobilizing foreign fighters to Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.14 As such, Europe was more visibly linked to these regions through the flow of foreign fighters and membership of jihadi groups. Despite limited links to these ‘centres’, the few experiences Australia did have were informally linked to other jihadi groups outside of these regions. These groups tended to be small (around thirty members across Perth, Sydney and Melbourne), and were connected to the Indonesian jihadi group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), usually through support such as financing.15 There were also a limited number of trained networks with individuals having been to Afghanistan with Al Qaeda and to Pakistan with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to train. The networks surrounding individuals such as Belal Khazal, a prominent figure in Sydney who had been part of a Sunni jihadi milieu based in Palestinian camps in Sidon, were also closely networked with JI’s Australian branch also known as Mantiqi (region) IV.16 This division covered the geographical regions of Australia, the Maldives and West Papua, with the Australian faction being established in the early 1990s and led by Abdul Rahim Ayub based in Sydney. During this time he welcomed visits from JI leaders Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir and slowly recruited members into JI while continuing fundraising efforts for the movement. Later this included jihadi training in the Blue Mountains and sending recruits to train in camps in Mindanao with members of Al Qaeda and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).17 During this time, the group also began associating with the Lakembabased Islamic Youth Movement (IYM) and their publication Nida’ul Islam (Call of Islam) forming strong ties between the groups .18 Notwithstanding these limited networks, this resulted in Al Qaeda attempting to utilize Mantiqi IV to conduct an attack directed towards Israeli and Jewish

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targets in Australia that it hoped would coincide with the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Despite the potentially disastrous effect of what became known as the Jack Roche Plot, Australia seemed to uphold a dislocated and unthreatened disposition towards jihadi groups prior to the 9/11 attacks. Nevertheless, the effect of such a collaboration between Al Qaeda and parts of JI is significant. Indeed, intelligence sources at the time said JI was undoubtedly ‘more rooted in the country than the Australian authorities were aware of, or wished to acknowledge’,19 with the planned attack being considerably more global in influence than first anticipated. Roche had received military training in Afghanistan in 2000 where he had met Al Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden), and was instructed to conduct surveillance on Israeli interests in Australia.20 Roche was eventually arrested in 2002 under suspicion of conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra in 2000, but appealed his sentence on the grounds of cooperation with the Australian authorities where he provided information about his contacts within JI and Al Qaeda. Even prior to 9/11, Australia had links with the global jihadi network through individuals who had been militarily trained and who were able to travel to and from Australia, being observant to instruction from the ‘centre’. Such links between those in Australia and groups elsewhere, although made predominantly visible through the 2002 Bali bombings, were already noticeable prior to 9/11. Al Qaeda’s attempt to utilize JI’s Mantiqi IV within Australia during such a highprofile event challenges the idea that the ‘West’ only became significantly threatened within the post-9/11 context. Furthermore, the links that were established during such a plot were significant to the threat felt to Australia in the following years, with many of the individuals who featured on the periphery of the group becoming involved in subsequent jihadi plots uncovered across Australia.21 This included the notorious Abdul Nacer Benbrika (otherwise commonly referred to as Abu Bakr), alongside several men in cells discovered across Sydney and Melbourne in 2005 who had close connections with Mantiqi IV, showing the ability of such groups to utilize previous networks, fragment and regroup for further attacks. As HarrisHogan argues, Mantiqi IV played the dual role of not only bringing jihadi ideology and activity to Australia but also establishing networks that would later develop into significant groups of ‘home-grown’ terrorists in Australia.22 Australia and the twilight of a post-9/11 world Like many ‘Western’ states, the events of 9/11 had a profound impact on Australia. Zammit argues the post-9/11 environment presented three key factors that changed what this chapter has so far argued was a feeling of dislocation with global jihadi networks prior to this point,23 regardless of the failed Jack Roche plot. First, there was a rise of Al Qaeda affiliates after the grand exposure of the ideology after the 9/11 attacks, with theatres of conflict being available for Australians to join.24 Furthermore, combat training was available in states such as Pakistan alongside the LeT, Osbat al-Ansar and Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon and groups in Somalia and Yemen. Foreign fighting increased during this time, forming a web of physical links between Australia and these states. Australia had also gained an increased

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strategic significance to jihadi groups following their response to the attacks and their role in the ‘War on Terror’ in both Afghanistan and Iraq.25 Australia’s profile in the fight against terrorism became increasingly visible after the events of the 2002 Bali bombings where, in response to the attacks, it provided countries in Southeast Asia with counter-terror assistance. By this stage, Australia was now being referred to by groups such as Al Qaeda as a target and were packaged in the language of fighting against ‘the West’. Finally, although more combat zones were now becoming available for individuals to join, a number of individuals were also returning home having fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan.26 A new cohort of returned foreign fighters were now back in Australia, bringing with them their experience and ideas shaped by their combative experience. This inevitably had an effect on milieus at a local level. Unlike other states where 9/11 seemed to solidify their position on the ‘War on Terror’ in which many had already been wary of terrorism as a security issue, for Australia, it presented the opportunity to acknowledge terrorism as a threat that it had previously shied away from. This is particularly noteworthy as Australian mainstream discussions, despite having a significant attack planned on their own soil, had refused to acknowledge the links Australia had with global jihadi networks. 9/11 provided the chance for Australia to externalize these links through joining the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ that externalized the threat and focused counter-terror efforts in the MENA region. Indeed, this focus on the MENA region remains, with the current focus on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, relegating other regions such as Southeast Asia to the periphery despite its sustained links with terror groups.

Impact of the 2002 Bali bombings Although there was this focus on the MENA region in relation to the post9/11 environment, for Australia, perhaps a more demonstrative example in understanding its links with the global jihad was the 2002 Bali bombings. Despite the bombings taking place elsewhere, 88 among the 202 dead were Australian, with Bali being a notoriously popular tourist destination. The bombings not only displayed the ‘centre’ focus of jihadi groups to be far more widespread and complex than generic links with the MENA region and Al Qaeda as a group but they also established Australia as a contributing participant in jihadi movements both as a target and as a pipeline of support. Despite the failed attack in Canberra during the Sydney Olympic Games and the disillusion this caused for many Mantiqi IV members, it is worth noting that Al Qaeda’s cooperation with parts of JI’s network contributed towards a significant escalation in large-scale jihadi violence in Indonesia.27 The 2002 Bali bombings were specifically formed and coordinated off the back of the foiled Jack Roche attacks, utilizing the networks that had been previously established. The Bali bombings were carried out by Mantiqi I, the Hambali-led Al Qaeda inspired faction of JI. While JI was seriously damaged by the arrests that ensued

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by the Indonesian National Police (POLRI) with the assistance of the Australian Federal Police (AFP),28 a small group within Mantiqi I led by Noordin Mohammad Top, was able to continue the campaign against Western targets including the Jakarta Marriot Hotel in 2003, the Australian Embassy in 2004, and the Bali II bombings in 2005. The Noordin Top group eventually split from JI and became an independent unit but often utilized foot soldiers from JI.29 Despite the group becoming increasingly fragmented with a change in tactics aimed at more local targets and utilizing simpler methods of attack, ‘it is clear that al-Qaida’s co-optation of a small element of JI helped catalyse a domestic jihadist threat in Indonesia that remains multifaceted and persistent’.30 The Bali bombings, Michaelsen argues, triggered an important psychological reappraisal within Australia of national security threats, as the bombings were interpreted as a direct attack on its citizens.31 The attacks challenged the perceived detachment of Australia from the ‘centre’ of the global jihad in the MENA region. Indeed, the ‘centre’ could be much closer than they had ever imagined. Ungerer asserts that Australians became ‘more willing to accept the proposition that terrorism shifted from a nuisance criminal behaviour that predominantly affected parts of the Middle East, to an immediate security problem on Australia’s doorstep’.32 This was exacerbated further through the development and cooperation of jihadi groups in Southeast Asia. The Howard Government began referring to the Bali bombings as evidence that the threat of terrorism had reached Australia,33 and efforts were made to form greater intelligence cooperation and bilateral assistance packages not only in Indonesia but also in the Philippines to tackle the conditions in which it was thought terrorism bred.34 Indeed, in 2002, the Labour Party’s shadow foreign minister Kevin Rudd reflected on the Bali bombings: There is a temptation in policy elites to regard foreign policy and security policy as high policy, removed from the influences, the impact and the impulses of the general community. Just as that is no longer true of the United States after September 11, so too it is no longer true of Australia after October 12. For Australians, foreign and security policy have become personal, relevant and immediate … it has become central to everyday life – and death. As a consequence, it is a realm of policy which now moves from the periphery to the centre of the national political debate.35

The combination of the Bali bombings within this post-9/11 environment created a ‘political legitimacy to the task of rethinking aspects of the links between internal and external security policies, and about the way the national security institutions responded to terrorism’.36 While Australia had played a role in the ‘War on Terror’, this was arguably a bandwagoning tactic under the threat felt through its allies, rather than one felt personally at home. The reasons for such a stance after 9/11 will be analysed later, however Australia was now faced with creating a counterterrorism strategy that required cooperating with its geographical neighbours in the Pacific region. While jihadi movements might have been thinking globally, they were acting out locally,37 with the direct involvement of Australians both as victims and as enablers of attacks.

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2003  as a turning point The impact of 9/11 and the 2002 Bali bombings certainly affected Australia and its relationship with the global jihad. However, the year 2003 has also been marked as a turning point in this relationship. Indeed, 2003 had a noticeable lack of external command from the ‘centre’ of global jihadi movements in Australia,38 with the emergence of self-starting plots as a new norm.39 Although this was not the first time Australia had experienced ‘home-grown’ terrorism, with 176 attacks during the period of 1969–72 by mainly by left-wing activists,40 it was the first time Australia experienced significant Islamist self-starter plots. This is notable as it is often assumed that ‘home-grown’ terrorism started after the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London bombings. However, Australia played a critical role as a norm entrepreneur for global jihadi networks and the influential tactics employed by them. The link between the ‘home-grown’ tactics used in Australia prior to other attacks in Europe are not to be understated given the previous analysis that highlighted how ideas from afar were able to travel and influence jihadist movements, regardless of whether plots were successfully carried out. While it is often assumed Australia was detached from this ‘home-grown’ element of terrorism that appeared to plague Europe, cases already existed within Australia prior to 2004. Australia is an interesting case study in this sense. The existing literature has analysed the different types of structures adopted by jihadi groups, with Neumann and Rogers dividing them into various categories including ‘chain of command’, ‘guided’ and ‘self-starting’.41 Similar to this, Mitchell and Silber have separated plots into ‘al-Qaida command and control’, ‘al-Qaida suggested/endorsed’ and ‘al-Qaida inspired’,42 with Helfstein and Wright also dividing them into ‘core’, ‘periphery’ and ‘movement’.43 Unlike other ‘Western’ countries however, Australia seems to fit into the latter of all of these categories in the post-2003 timeframe, as plots ‘lacked any form of external command-and-control, prior endorsement, or direct support’.44 Zammit provides a more detailed analysis, differentiating externally guided plots from self-starting ones, stating that self-starting plots ‘may have international connections but the initiative and planning occurs among the group of perpetrators, without direct support from established organisations’.45 In doing so, he argues that Australia demonstrated unique patterns from those of other states that were experiencing a mix of externally guided or orchestrated and selfstarting jihadi plots. While Australia’s first two jihadi plots were externally guided, including the Jack Roche affair and the LeT guided plot in 2003, where planned bombings of a Sydney electricity grid or army base by Faheem Lodhi and Willie Brigitte were uncovered, there was a clear shift to self-starting plots after 2003. This included the extremist terror cells uncovered by Operation Pendennis in 2005 that were convicted for planning to carry out violence against the Australian government in relation to their participation in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and Operation Neath in 2009 that foiled an Al Shabaab associated mass-shooting plot against the Holsworthy Army Barracks in Sydney. Although some individuals involved in

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Operation Pendennis had previously trained with Al Qaeda and LeT, these attacks were without external guidance, signalling a particular locale in Australia in which such plots manifested. Individuals in Operation Neath had connections with the Pendennis cell and Al Shabaab, however, they were actually advised against the attack by the organization as it was thought to risk jeopardizing its support base. The Operation Neath convictions confirmed that, although Australian involvement in violent Islamist activities had involved individuals in overseas countries including Kuwait, Somalia and Lebanon, there was nevertheless a persistent ‘home-grown’ jihadi element within Australia46 that was able to construct physical plots and the justification behind them. These plots are significant, as they show how individuals outside of ‘centre’, both geographically and instructionally, were able to compose their own styles of attack, sometimes against the instructions of an affiliated organization. Furthermore, they show individuals can have a significant impact regardless of support from the ‘centre’.47 Zammit amounts such patterns to ‘an after-effect of previous plots and travel experiences, and from people becoming newly radicalized in the post 9/11, particularly the post–Iraq War environment’.48 Although there were other less serious cases of Australian jihadi activities post-2003, often involving activities such as fundraising, distribution of instructional materials, threats of violence and attempts to go to conflict zones, these also lacked any particular external guidance showing the breadth of entrepreneurship by these individuals within these smaller networks, and the evolution of tactical support among Australian jihadis. This pattern contrasts with Australia’s Western counterparts in the United States and Europe, which experienced a mix of self-starting and externally guided plots.49 In this sense, Australia had its own nucleus of self-starting jihadis that were particularly detached from the ‘centre’ in terms of external influence and instructional guidance, but were linked in other ways, through ideologies, imaginaries and various other overarching dynamics. Sageman predicted such an evolving pattern of smaller networks ‘carrying out terrorist actions on their own (unguided and not controlled by any central terrorist organization) while they were still connected to the virtual extremist community’;50 however, there remains a lack of literature that acknowledges the impact Australia has had on global jihadi movements through engaging in such strategies from as early as 2003. But why was such a pattern so prominent in Australia? Although the decentralization of Al Qaeda networks was taking place due to the war in Afghanistan, this fails to explain why Australia in particular experienced such a pattern of self-starting plots. Australia’s geographical location and political involvement in Indonesia after the Bali bombings, and to a lesser extent involvement in Malaysia, meant the scope of plots in the region were likely to align with local political contexts rather than the ‘centre’ in the MENA region, with patterns of participation likely differing regionally. Although perhaps being of limited strategic significance to the ‘centre’ in the early years after 2001, Australia had become an arena (as opposed to a direct target) for jihadi plots. However, this fails to explain why plots in Australia were self-starting in nature. Although Mullins argues that ‘the nature of organisational contact … changed over time

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from being more involved (supportive and sometimes controlling) to being more inspirational (offering training and advice only)’,51 Australia seemed often to completely ignore instruction from the ‘centre’. Zammit argues these differing patterns of involvement between Australia and other Western states can be explained through key individuals within Australia who facilitated access to the global jihad having their activities disrupted by the authorities.52 This included the cutting-off of access to LeT training camps in states in Pakistan after the Lodhi plot was unveiled where there was a planned attack on an Australian electricity supply and defence location. In this sense, the changing environment in Australia that revealed links to training camps meant aspiring jihadists were forced to utilize more local and everyday tactics within the confines of Australia. Physical links in the form of individual actors between Australia’s local networks to the global jihad were limited by this, despite dozens of Australian jihadis having managed to train or fight overseas. This included going to Afghanistan up until 2001, Pakistan until 2003, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen and more recently, Syria.53 There was certainly scope for externally guided plots via individuals who had gained fighting experience despite these numbers being minimal in comparison to other countries, problematizing the idea that such movements and availability to them was completely limited in Australia. However, Australia demonstrated a more insulated pattern of start-ups compared to that of other ‘Western’ states, utilizing more immediate networks and links for jihadi plots. Beyond exploring why a major plot has not been successfully executed within Australia, it is important to address what actually facilitated these plots, given they were so disconnected from external command. What was it about the Australian locale that enabled or perhaps encouraged such a modus operandi? Given the self-starting nature of these, the idea of a locale or ‘centre’ within Australia seems plausible. Research utilizing social network analysis also supports this theory of the prominence of local networks in Australia, with Harris-Hogan highlighting that ‘although prominent facilitators are identifiable within the network, most Australian neo-jihadis are recruited through close contact with active members connected to them by either kinship or friendship’.54 These local networks composed of tight-knit connections seem to have facilitated the growth of the global jihadi webs in Australia that further enabled these nodes to develop. Other research has focused on how individuals within these centres, such as Australia, serve as facilitators55 or hubs.56 Although perhaps being a useful area of analysis in explaining key organizational layers between a grassroots level and senior leadership,57 such logic assumes that the aim of global jihadi movements prioritize this particular type of participants, with little scope for the inclusion of self-starter plots and individuals that do not serve as a link between an organization and local centre. This chapter demonstrates the impact of individuals who fit outside of this notion who are able to inspire and associate with global jihadi movements at a more macro level, through their own engagement of tactics that capitalize on a particular local context. This challenges ideas discussed by scholars such as Cruickshank who argues that a classical jihadi typically seeks to fight against a perceived enemy of Islam

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in a conflict zone but is then redirected by groups such as Al Qaeda to attack in their home countries.58 Australia problematizes this link of commitment through affiliation with a group in a physical way (i.e. travelling to a conflict zone or to ‘the centre’), and questions what it actually means to identify with a global jihadi movement beyond receiving instructions from an organization. It also highlights the importance of local networks that may otherwise be overlooked in mainstream narratives that often focus on dominant groups or numbers of membership in relation to the threat they pose. Indeed, the case of Australia concurs with other research that shows the number of members that identify with an organization has no correlation with the scale of attacks possible,59 given the potential outcomes of plots that either failed or were uncovered by the Australian authorities. This challenges Mullins’ assertion that it is surprising, given the focus on these selfstarting plots, that contact remained prevalent with foreign terrorist organizations during this time,60 as individuals demonstrate an allegiance and connection to these groups, albeit through a different kind of association. It therefore may be more useful to begin an analysis at a local level to understand how this has the potential to emanate outwards in contributing to global jihadi movements. This analysis shows how several foiled ‘home-grown’ attacks have potentially impacted the norms of global jihadi movements due to the actions of a small number of individuals, demonstrating the influence this can have on a much broader scale. Although this discussion has focused on the prevalence of self-starting plots in Australia and the unique pattern of this,61 it has also touched on the importance of analysing Australia in relation to neighbouring regions and within these wider norms of decentralization of networks in the post-9/11 environment which no doubt further fuelled this self-starter mindset. Australia geographically seems to have been a location where the imaginaries of local jihadi networks were particularly demonstrative of this new wave of individual norm entrepreneurs, where participants themselves made sense of their own actions in relation to more prevalent global jihadi movements. In doing so, they adapted to their local environment whereby the introduction of stringent counter-terror legislation in a context of the Bali Bombings that had a profound impact on Australian politics, no doubt also encouraged such a pattern of participation and identification.

What of Australia today? While much of this chapter has centred around the lack of successful attacks in Australia, three Islamist inspired attacks were committed within a short period of thirteen months:62 the 2014 stabbing of two police officers in Melbourne, the 2014 siege of a Sydney café and the 2015 fatal shooting of a New South Wales police employee. More recently, Australia has experienced the ISIS-inspired 2016 Minto stabbing whereby a man was killed in Sydney and the 2017 Brighton siege where one woman was shot dead and another held hostage by a man claiming the attack on behalf of ISIS and Al Qaeda. There have also been Australian foreign fighters who have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS’ global jihad.63 This, however, does

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not account for those within Australia who are part of these hubs or have links to the global jihad in other ways than travelling to a conflict zone. For example, many more individuals engage in social media propaganda and financing; both recognized under terrorism laws as supporting a terrorist organization and thus contributing to sustaining global jihadi networks. The contemporary literature that focuses on these more globalized aspects of jihadi movements highlights that individuals do not need to be physically engaged in violence abroad to be a vehicle for or identify with broader jihadi movements.64 Such relationships are a lot more complex, especially given that the ‘virtual’ world is not necessarily virtual to those involved in the global jihadi movement.65 These practices now have a very real impact on the actions and ideas of individuals that squash this clear-cut idea of enclosed spheres or spaces of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ or ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’. Such limitations will be discussed later, but it is worth noting that despite the limited number of Australian foreign fighters in mainstream jihadi movements, this does not mean that Australians do not play key roles in other ways. Furthermore, such logic certainly extends to movements that are outside of the ‘centre’ in relation to ISIS, including Southeast Asia and groups that already have existing affiliations with Australia. Such online networks and associations are far more accessible than ever before and it is still unclear how involved Australians are in these. What can be confirmed is that the internet plays a key role with Australian jihadis, with Mullins highlighting that the internet has so far been explicitly mentioned in 9 out of 16 (56%) of cases, namely those of Roche, Hicks, Thomas, Brigitte and Lodhi, Ul-Haque, Khazaal, Feiz Mohammed, and the Pendennis groups. Yet more information is needed – especially as to whether the Internet is serving as people’s first point of contact with extremist ideology and whether it is being used to make social contacts both locally and internationally.66

Financing has also been a serious issue, with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) revealing Australians have funded the daily expenses of operatives, travel, training, propaganda and administrative expenses, as well as compensation for the wounded and the families of those killed in recent years.67 Suspicious money transfers, including in 2014 when Sydney-based firm Bistoel Reih Pty Ltd run by Damour Sharrouf, the sister of Khaled Sharrouf (the most senior Australian in the ISIS ranks and infamous for posting a picture on social media of his seven-year-old son holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier), have triggered counter-terror raids.68 The company was found to have transferred AUS$21.3 million between January and August 2014, to Turkey and Lebanon, of which AUS$9 million were unaccounted for.69 In 2014 the US FBI also tipped off Australia and assisted with the tracking down of 23-year-old Melbourne-based pizza shop employee Hassan El Sabasabi, who was later charged with six counts of terrorism financing to enable American citizens to join ISIS and the Al Qaeda affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra.70 Similar links have also been found between Australia and Somalia in financing Al Shabaab military training.71 Despite the focus being

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on large-scale attacks or individuals involving themselves in violence through foreign fighting, such facets are often overlooked in assisting and sustaining global jihadi movements. For those Australians who are involved in fighting abroad, Hegghammer suggests that jihadi culture (within the ‘centre’) is shaped by ‘Westerners’ engaged in the rituals and normalities of jihad.72 However, these are also potentially brought back with individuals as they return to the ‘West’. In this sense, the locale within Australia and the imaginaries of an individual are carried to conflict zones, much in the same logic that often assumes these are formed in the ‘centre’ and are exported back to the ‘West’. This idea of the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ is therefore less clear-cut; especially, as we have seen in the previous analysis that individuals who had previously fought abroad have become involved in subsequent attacks. Ideas are not simply exported from conflict ‘centres’ to the ‘peripheries’ of ‘Western’ states, or imported through foreign fighting as suggested by Hegghammer. The interaction between the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ is far more complex, with foreign fighters embodying one example of a travelling sphere of influence that is not necessarily linear. The emergence of ISIS and its successful strategy for mass mobilization and support in the form of Australian foreign fighters, and with it, the explicit inclusion of Australia as a target from September 2014, highlights particular facets of the Australian case that both support and challenge the simplicity of conceptions of the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’. The use of travel bans by the Australian government in an attempt to limit what is presented to be an external threat (highlighting the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ can be understood and perpetuated differently by different actors, perhaps purposefully or politically), the transportation of ideas and rituals in shaping jihadi culture and environments from the ‘periphery’, the adoption of symbols in relation to ISIS within Australia to draw on powerful narratives and the support of jihadi movements through other means such as social media and financing demonstrate more complex patterns of engagement. A historical analysis also demonstrates the sustained strength of these movements over time, and the fluid and often changing nature of these linkages and how they are understood by different actors. Given the evident complexity of the relationship between the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ described throughout this chapter, it is useful to ask at a micro level whether jihadis themselves situate and identify themselves within such a framework. If these conceptions are somewhat redundant in a jihadi world, is this a useful framework to try to understand the truly global nature of these movements discussed in this chapter and the transcendent nature of these complex localities that simultaneously identify with macro associations?

Australia’s strategic ‘periphery’ Adopting a critical analysis, and starting from the premise that we need to think about who this conceptualization of the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ is for, it is useful to think about the possible politicization of such a framework. As Jackson highlights,

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governments have tended to reframe their struggle against dissidents by using the terrorism rubric of Washington.73 It is therefore important to attempt to break down this politicization in understanding how doing so might lead to varied understandings and perceptions of Australia’s relationship with the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’. Australia’s perceived place on the ‘periphery’ can be seen as in part due to the politicization of this position. Such rhetoric has externalized threats to the ‘centre’ and justified hard-line counter-terror measures that have sought to establish further this boundary between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ through the establishment of extensive counter-terror practices in 2002 and beyond. In doing so, the Australian government has utilized these as a tool in the reproduction of social order and to reinforce control over a national political agenda in relation to a perceived threat,74 and ‘othering’ those involved in jihadist movements.75 The Attorney General noted when introducing terrorism legislation, ‘since September 11, there’s been a profound shift in the international security environment. This has meant that Australia’s profile as a terrorist target has risen and our interests abroad face a higher level of terrorist threat.’76 It was also noted by the Commonwealth Attorney General that there was ‘no known specific threat of terrorism in Australia at present’. 77 Hocking argues that the ‘threat’ of terrorism was deliberately played on by the Howard Government to exploit feelings of insecurity.78 In doing so, it was able to utilize a post-9/11 environment to lift terrorism and so-called related issues above normal democratic politics through the construction of it as an existential threat requiring exceptional measures.79 Some scholars have gone as far as to accuse the Howard Government of having equated Muslims with terrorists in the hope of capitalizing on underlying threads of racism in Australia.80 Such politicization illustrates Australia’s desire to keep potential threats as externally located and to utilize such an environment to capitalize on widespread feelings of uncertainty. This account of being on the ‘periphery’ and the need to enforce legislation to ensure attacks were not carried out in Australia was utilized despite the numerous ‘home-grown’ attacks, both planned and successful as discussed previously, displaying clear links between the region and the global jihad. An apparent politicized awareness of this ‘centre’ within Australia was not revealed within the counter-terror strategy until later in the aftermath of the 7/7 London Bombings where the UK was intrinsic in shaping counter-terror measures worldwide with its PREVENT Strategy. This kick-started a recognition of the possibility of a ‘centre’ being alive within Western states, in which Australia capitalized on a post-7/7 context as a vehicle for domestic counter-terror implementation. Such attempts allowed John Howard to re-affirm established alliances and further justify engagement with counterterrorism rhetoric and practices in the name of state security. It also enabled Australia to entrench counterterrorism practices in the neighbouring Southeast Asia region. 81. While initially being perceived as on the ‘periphery’, in reaffirming these alliances, Australia has become a target for terrorist attacks orchestrated by jihadi groups,82 often appearing in jihadi propaganda. This included references to Australia in videos by Osama bin

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Laden with Australia being referred to as a crusader nation for its involvement in East Timor, and more recent videos by ISIS that encourage domestic attacks. Australia’s involvement in the ‘War on Terror’ cannot be cited as the only reason for Australia becoming more of a focus for jihadi groups. The analysis shows Australia clearly had global links and subcultures relating to jihadi terrorism prior to 9/11. What 9/11 and subsequent attacks did do however, was to change the way in which Australia dealt with terrorism through acknowledging it as a threat; first externally and then as a possible internal threat to security. Previously, Australia had been reluctant to formally recognize either. Our knowledge of Australia is therefore extensively warped within the conventional perception of the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’. As shown in previous analysis, Australia is well connected and a hub of local jihadi activity, with strong links to other regions or centres. Yet, we have seen the Australian government attempt to create a façade of the periphery in order to capitalize on utilizing particular counter-terror measures to their own political ends and as a way to strengthen their position in the world order. In particular, Australia has been criticized for lowering the barrier of monitoring, detaining and charging thresholds for those suspected of engaging in terrorism or having links to it regardless of an act of terror taking place,83 and broadening the scope of how terrorism-related offences are defined.84 Indeed, a remaining problem with research in this area is that, due to a lack of primary data, much of the scholarly literature mirrors government publications. Australia’s established links are therefore silenced through such research, constructing ‘a particular kind of political “knowledge” … to promote state and elite hegemonic projects’,85 with little attention to support of movements that fit outside of the generic spectacle of violence. Such politicization of the Australian case, and with it the apparent gaps and silences in the literature, has limited and distorted our understanding of the phenomenon and provides poor foundations for further research.86

Counterterrorism as shaping global jihadi movements A critical analysis of Australia’s relationship with the global jihad also requires an analysis of Australia’s state practices in relation to knowledge production and understanding of global jihadi movements. As previously alluded to, ‘state power ceases to be the sole explanatory factor and becomes part of what is to be explained’.87 Indeed, looking at Australia and how it has responded to global jihadi movements can give an indication of its logics of understanding behind these. Of particular curiosity, is the amount of legislation Australia has implemented in the post-9/11 environment whereby ‘between 2001 and 2014 there were over 60 separate terrorism law changes’.88 Although initially being slow to incorporate terrorism into the legislation, these have become increasingly dominant, following the publication of the White Paper on transnational terrorism in 2004 that ‘dismissed notions that Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia was the product of “root causes”, but committed Australia to tackle the political, economic and social

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forces that give rise to Islamic extremism as part of a global “battle of ideas”’.89 Currently, the implemented legislation exceeds states such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom by fifty-four pieces of law.90 While this period after 9/11 has been criticized for what Roach has coined as ‘hyper-legislation’,91 this is perhaps surprising given the limited number of successful attacks Australia itself had witnessed in comparison to other Western states. The extent of this counterterrorism legislation implemented by Australia has not gone unnoticed, with extensive criticism claiming ‘the erosion of civil liberties under antiterrorism legislation has been greater in Australia than in countries that face more significant terrorism threats’.92 Given Australia’s reluctance to engage with terrorism as an issue until becoming embroiled in the ‘War on Terror’, despite its documented experience and links with jihadi movements throughout this chapter, it seems plausible that, for Australia, ‘the construction of “terrorism” as something that the state can do something about is central to the justification for the expansion of its juridical and military reach’.93 This chapter has argued that the impact of such extensive legislation can be seen in the strategic direction adopted in Australia by local jihadis that have subsequently influenced groups on a more macro level since 2003. Australia’s legislation remains extensive, ranging from passing new laws to prevent Australians from joining ISIS and other proscribed groups, prosecuting individuals upon their return from conflict zones, preventing attacks within Australia by providing greater powers to intelligence and police agencies, increasing arrests and crackdowns and strengthening community cohesion against radicalization through Countering Violent Extremism programmes, indicating a comprehensive preventive and punitive counter-terror response.94 This legislation has undoubtedly had an impact on the way in which global jihadi groups operate, particularly within Australia, emphasizing the importance of how states engage with counterterrorism practices and the potential impact this has on global jihadi movements.

Conclusions This chapter has challenged the assumed place of Australia as being on the ‘periphery’ in relation to the global jihad. Such an assumption has generally been made due to Australia’s geographical positioning as a relatively lone Western power in the southern hemisphere, dislocated from the assumed ‘centre’ of the global jihad in the MENA region, and regarded as a state of allegiance, rather than power, in the ‘War on Terror’. Yet, a critical analysis demonstrates the multifaceted and complex relationship Australia has had prior to 9/11 with global jihadi movements. Alongside the shortcomings of a logic that understands states as either on the ‘periphery’ or ‘centre’ in relation to the global jihad, Australia displays a unique and significant locale in relation to such movements. Although the Australian government has recognized elements of its close relationship with these, they are generally externalized in a way that dislocates them further from possible contributing factors of involvement and ‘others’ participation in the

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movements, with little attention paid to the ways in which Australia as a state both contributes and reproduces knowledge on this area. The concepts of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ therefore go some way in emancipating local knowledge and dynamics of the national in relation to global jihad and challenging the often binary way in which these are perceived. In particular, this discussion has highlighted the importance of asking what we actually mean by the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ of global jihadi movements. A traditional analysis of assessing where Australia fits in with the ‘centre’, assuming this is in the MENA region, reveals that Australia has an evident subculture that not only contributes to the global jihadi movement more than traditional analysis often assumes but also plays a vital role in shaping the norms visible in contemporary global jihadist movements. Indeed, environments in the ‘periphery’ are vital in shaping jihadi organizations, even from afar, with the Australian example demonstrating an entrepreneurship of tactics later mirrored in other states. This includes the initiation of self-starter plots without external guidance, stringent counter-terror laws that have encouraged the simplification of attacks in order to deter detection, the support of movements through other means than violence including financing and social media propaganda dissemination, the involvement of Australian foreign fighters and with it their ability to shape movements and its strong links to Southeast Asia and the jihadi groups prevalent in the region. The analysis displays how Australia plays an intrinsic role in the scaffolding that upholds the apparent ‘centre’ of global jihadi movements, predominantly through links further enabled by globalization. With such an analysis, this chapter questions whether there is such a thing as a ‘periphery’ when analysing global jihadi movements, given the ways in which support for groups is provided often falls outside of the generic focus on violence and large-scale attacks. The analysis also highlights how, at a national level, Australia has become increasingly involved in global jihadi movements through employment of counterterror measures and politicization of ‘terrorism’ as a concept. Indeed, this book is an important contribution in understanding the importance of contextual factors for the national and regional structures of political communication and dominant discourse around it, including culture, the media and political systems,95 and how these relate to global jihadi movements. Yet, when the focus is turned to how the Australian government perceives itself in relation to the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, it shows that although it wished to remain isolated in terms of ‘othering’ the threat in relation to control and hegemony of the state in producing positions of domination,96 it has moved increasingly to the ‘centre’ of targets by jihadi groups, partially due to its employment of counter-terror measures and the broader ‘War on Terror’ narrative. Such analysis is therefore useful in problematizing the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ model in understanding how, when conducting various levels of analysis, greatly different patterns will appear based on the actors analysed. Further research should continue to deconstruct the dominant narratives that serve to, often purposefully, reproduce knowledge in this area in order to understand how such politicization occurs and links to our understanding of global jihadist movements.

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While it is useful to think of what the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ mean for different actors and how knowledge of global jihadi movements is affected by this, this analysis has also shown some limitations of such a dualistic model. Australia as a case study challenges the logic of travel assumed or suggested by the concept of a ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, as it is often presumed this relationship is linear, and being imported or exported between realms. This is despite areas outside of the MENA region becoming hubs of ‘home-grown’ activity in relation to the global jihad. The analysis reveals this notion of ‘traveling’ between the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ in such a fashion is much more complex, with various ‘centres’ which are not necessarily state-based, or are determined by factors other than rates of violence or large-scale attacks. Furthermore, the relationship between the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ is not a static one, but one that is consistently changing and developing over time. Such concepts are particularly problematic when analysing actors such as foreign fighters and vehicles like social media because cultures and practices are able to travel and shape movements in ways that are often unaccounted for within traditional logics. While the ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ are useful concepts in highlighting and problematizing the assumed cores of movements and shedding light on these as demonstrated in this analysis, perhaps a further useful focus would be on how ideas and norms travel in movements. This would turn the focus to other facets of movements beyond violence or conflict as the assumed ‘centre’, given that the link between local and global is not always clear cut.97 As we have seen with the Australian case, the pipelines of support and influence are far more complex than a ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ model is able to convey, with complex exchanges of ideas and various modes of showing support. This is particularly pertinent given the increased frequency of jihadi plots in Australia, not necessarily by individuals who have returned from ISIS, and the diverse nature of these since 2014. Further research on regional ties and a focus on the locale could assist in challenging these state-centric analyses that often warp our understanding of movements that frequently deny the existence or legitimacy of states themselves through questioning the appropriate unit of analysis; the national state, geographic, cultural, linguistic or economic area of possible influence on movements.98 Research designs therefore may be more insightful in integrating regions, countries or cultures as context factors in exploring their relationship to global jihadi movements.99 This would assist in the quest to engage with critical analysis and challenge the way in which ‘knowledge’ is produced and reproduced around us, as through a nation state analysis researchers perhaps are perpetuating the already politicized nature of ‘terrorism’.

Notes 1 John Battersby, ‘Terrorism where terror is not: Australian and New Zealand terrorism compared’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xli, no. 1 (2017): 66. 2 The Soufan Group, Foreign Fighters: An Updated Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Iraq (New York: The Soufan Group, December 2015), p. 7.

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3 Andrew Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxxvi, no. 9 (2013): 745. 4 Sean Brawley, ‘“Days of rage” Downunder: Considering American influences on “home-grown” terrorism and ASIO’s response in 1970s Australia’, Australian Historical Studies, xlvii, no. 2 (2016): 298. 5 Faisal Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality and Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (Ithaca: Columbia University Press, 2004). 6 Richard Jackson, Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning, ‘Critical terrorism studies: Framing a new research agenda’, in R. Jackson, M. B. Smyth and J. Gunning (eds), Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda (Oxford: Routledge, 2009), p. 218. 7 Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy and Critical Theory (London and Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005), p. 22. 8 Jackson, Smyth and Gunning, ‘Critical terrorism studies’, p. 219. 9 John Battersby, ‘Terrorism where terror is not: Australian and New Zealand terrorism compared’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxiii, no. 2 (2011): 255. 10 Carl Ungerer, ‘Australia’s policy responses to terrorism in Southeast Asia’, Global Change, Peace & Security, xviii, no. 3 (2007): 194. 11 Ibid., p. 195. 12 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, p. 740. 13 Andrew Zammit, ‘Australian jihadism in the age of the Islamic State’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, x, no. 3 (2017): 24. 14 Michael Taarnby, ‘Recruitment of Islamist terrorists in Europe: Trends and perspectives – research report by the Danish Ministry of Justice’ (2005). Available at https​://ec​.euro​pa.eu​/home​-affa​irs/s​ites/​homea​ffair​s/fil​es/do​c_cen​tre/t​error​ism/d​ocs/e​ c_rad​icali​satio​n_stu​dy_on​_mobi​lisat​ion_t​actic​s_en.​pdf (accessed 8 May 2018); Petter Nesser, Islamist Terrorism in Europe: A History (London: Hurst, 2016). 15 Sally Neighbour, In the Shadow of Swords: On the Trail of Terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia (Sydney: Harper Collins, 2004), p. 301. 16 Zammit, ‘Australian jihadism in the age of the Islamic State’, p. 24. 17 Neighbour, In the Shadow of Swords, pp. 181–92. 18 Ibid., pp. 135–45. 19 ‘Terror plot to hit Sydney Olympics’, The Guardian, 3 December 2002. Available at http:​//new​s.bbc​.co.u​k/2/h​i/asi​a-pac​ific/​25375​39.st​m. 20 Anne Aly and Jason-Leigh Striegher, ‘Examining the role of religion in radicalization to violent Islamist extremism’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxxv, no. 12 (2012): 854. 21 Shandon Harris-Hogan and Andrew Zammit, ‘Mantiqi IV: al-Qaeda’s failed co-optation of a Jemaah Islamiyah support network’, Democracy and Security, x, no. 4 (2014): 327. 22 Shandon Harris-Hogan, ‘Anatomy of a terrorist cell: A study of the network uncovered in Sydney in 2005’, Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 5 (2012): 137–54. 23 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, pp. 739–55. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Harris-Hogan and Zammit, ‘Mantiqi IV’, p. 326. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 327.

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30 Ibid., pp. 326–7. 31 Christopher Michaelsen, ‘Australia and the threat of terrorism in the decade after 9/11’, Journal of Political Science, xviii, no. 3 (2010): 255. 32 Ungerer, ‘Australia’s policy responses to terrorism in Southeast Asia’, p. 196. 33 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, ‘Transnational terrorism: The threat to Australia, terrorism white paper’ (2004), p. 13. Available at https​://ww​w.nat​ional​secur​ ity.g​ov.au​/Medi​a-and​-publ​icati​ons/P​ublic​ation​s/Doc​ument​s/Aus​trali​as-Co​unter​-Terr​ orism​-Stra​tegy-​2015.​pdf (accessed 20 May 2018). 34 Andrew O’Neil, ‘Degrading and managing risk: Assessing Australia’s counter-terrorist strategy’, Australian Journal of Political Science, xlii, no. 3 (2007): 480. 35 Kevin Rudd, ‘Arc of instability – Arc of insecurity’, Sydney Papers, xiv, no. 4 (2002): 104–19. 36 Allan Gyngell and Michael Wesley, Making Australian Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 168. 37 Ibid., p. 169. 38 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, p. 740. 39 Sam Mullins, ‘Islamist terrorism and Australia: An empirical examination of the “home-grown” threat’, Terrorism and Political Violence, xxiii, no. 2 (2011): 267. 40 Brawley, ‘“Days of rage” Downunder’, p. 310. 41 International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, ‘Recruitment and mobilisation for the Islamist Militant movement in Europe’ (2008). Available at http:​//ics​r.inf​o/wp-​conte​nt/up​loads​/2012​/10/1​23451​6791I​CSREU​Resea​ rchRe​port_​Proof​1.pdf​ (accessed 18 May 2018). 42 Mitchell Silber, The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots against the West (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2012). 43 Scott Helfstein and Dominick Wright, ‘Success, lethality, and cell structure across the dimensions of Al Qaeda’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxxiv, no. 5 (2011): 367–82. 44 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, p. 740. 45 Ibid. 46 Mullins, ‘Islamist terrorism and Australia’, p. 267. 47 Sam Mullins highlights that a focus on networks can often overlook smaller or less well-connected groups and individuals, despite the fact that they can make significant contributions to both network functioning and disruption . See: Sam Mullins, ‘Social network analysis and counter-terrorism: Measures of centrality as an investigative tool’, Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, v, no. 2 (2012): 115–36. 48 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, p. 741. 49 Paul Cruickshank, ‘The militant pipeline: Between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and the West’, National Security Studies Program Policy Paper, New America Foundation (2011). Available at http:​//ics​r.inf​o/wp-​conte​nt/up​loads​/2012​/10/1​23451​ 6791I​CSREU​Resea​rchRe​port_​Proof​1.pdf​ (accessed 18 May 2018). 50 Marc Sageman, ‘The stagnation in terrorism research’, Terrorism and Political Violence, xxvi, no. 4 (2014): 568. 51 Mullins, ‘Islamist terrorism and Australia’, p. 267. 52 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, p. 746. 53 Ibid., p. 745. 54 Shandon Harris-Hogan, ‘Australian neo-jihadist terrorism: Mapping the network and cell analysis using wiretap evidence’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxxv, no. 4 (2012): 303.

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55 Shandon Harris-Hogan, ‘The Australian Neojihadist network: Origins, evolution and structure’, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, v, no. 1 (2012): 18–30. 56 Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), pp. 137–9. 57 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, p. 748. 58 Cruickshank, ‘The militant pipeline’, p. 1. 59 Helfstein and Wright, ‘Success, lethality, and cell structure across the dimensions of Al Qaeda’, p. 379. 60 Mullins, ‘Islamist terrorism and Australia’, p. 267. 61 Zammit, ‘Explaining a turning point in Australian jihadism’, pp. 739–55. 62 Sam Mullins, ‘Counter-terrorism in Australia: Practitioner perspectives’, Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, xi, no. 1 (2016): 93. 63 The official count in 2015 was 120, although it is suspected there are substantially more. See: The Soufan Group, Foreign Fighters, p. 7. 64 Jytte Klausen, ‘Tweeting the jihad: Social media networks of Western foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxxviii, no. 22 (2015): 1–22; Joseph Carter, Shiraz Maher and Peter Neumann, ‘#Greenbirds: Measuring importance and influence in Syria’s foreign fighter networks’ (2014). Available at http:​//ics​r.inf​o/wp-​ conte​nt/up​loads​/2014​/04/I​CSR-R​eport​-Gree​nbird​s-Mea​surin​g-Imp​ortan​ce-an​d-Inf​ leunc​e-in-​Syria​n-For​eign-​Fight​er-Ne​twork​s.pdf​ (accessed 8 May 2018). 65 Carter, Maher and Neumann, ‘#Greenbirds: Measuring importance and influence in Syria’s foreign fighter networks’, p. 29. 66 Mullins, ‘Islamist terrorism and Australia’, p. 269. 67 Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, ‘Terrorism financing in Australia 2014’ (2014), p. 5. Available at http:​//www​.aust​rac.g​ov.au​/site​s/def​ault/​files​/docu​ments​ /terr​orism​-fina​ncing​-in-a​ustra​lia-2​014.p​df (accessed 20 May 2018). 68 Ashutosh Misra, ‘Australia’s counter-terrorism policies since September 11, 2001: Harmonising national security, independent oversight and individual liberties’, Strategic Analysis, xlii, no. 2 (2018): 107. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, Australian Terror Suspects Sent Funds to Somalia to Support Terrorist Group. Available at http:​//www​.aust​rac.g​ov.au​/ case​-stud​ies/a​ustra​lian-​terro​r-sus​pects​-sent​-fund​s-som​alia-​suppo​rt-te​rrori​st-gr​oup (Accessed 22 May 2018). 72 Thomas Hegghammer, Jihadi Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 73 Richard Jackson, ‘Security, democracy, and the rhetoric of counterterrorism’, Democracy and Security, I, no. 2 (2006): 166–7. 74 Michael Head, ‘Counter-terrorism Laws: A threat to political freedom, civil liberties and constitutional rights’, Melbourne University Law Review, xxvi, no. 3 (2002): 667. 75 Jonny Burnett and Dave Whyte, ‘Embedded expertise and the new terrorism’, Journal for Crime, Conflict and the Media, i, no. 4 (2005): 1–2. 76 Head, ‘Counter-terrorism Laws’, p. 670. 77 Peter Slipper, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration, Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 13 March 2002, p. 1042. 78 Jenny Hocking, ‘Counter-terrorism and the criminalisation of politics: Australia’s new security powers of detention, proscription and control’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, xlix, no. 3 (2003): 371.

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79 Ole Wæver, ‘Securitization and desecuritization’, in R. D. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 46–87; Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998). 80 Allison (2006) in O’Neil, ‘Degrading and managing risk’, p. 472. 81 David Wright-Neville, ‘Fear and loathing: Australia and counter-terrorism’, Elcano Royal Institute Paper. Paper no. 156 (2005). Available at http:​//www​.real​insti​tutoe​lcano​.org/​anali​sis/8​ 71.as​p (accessed 18 May 2018). 82 Richard Woolcott, ‘Why we are a bigger target’, The Age, 10 September 2004. Available at https​://ww​w.the​age.c​om.au​/arti​cles/​2004/​09/09​/1094​53076​4777.​html.​ 83 O’Neil, ‘Degrading and managing risk’, p. 477. 84 Ibid., p. 478. 85 Jackson, Smyth and Gunning, ‘Critical terrorism studies’, p. 218. 86 Ibid. 87 Robert Cox, ‘Social forces, states and world orders: Beyond international relations theory’, in Robert Keohane (eds), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 223. 88 Battersby, ‘Terrorism where terror is not’, p. 66. 89 Ungerer, ‘Australia’s policy responses to terrorism in Southeast Asia’, p. 196. 90 Kent Roach, The 9/11 Effect Comparative Counter-Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 310. 91 Ibid., pp. 74–5. 92 Battersby, ‘Terrorism where terror is not’, p. 66. 93 Burnett and Whyte, ‘Embedded expertise and the new terrorism’, p. 2. 94 Misra, ‘Australia’s counter-terrorism policies since September 11, 2001’, p. 114. 95 Hernando Rojas, Yariv Tsfati, Marina Popescu, Marcus Maurer, Carsten Reinemann and Shanto Iyengar, ‘Theorizing and conducting research of glocal phenomena’, International Journal of Communication 6 (2012): 235. 96 Hussein Solomon, ‘Critical terrorism studies and its implications for Africa’, South African Journal of Political Studies, xlii, no. 2 (2015): 223. 97 Jean-Luc Marret, ‘al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb: A “glocal” organization’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, xxxi, no. 6 (2008): 541. 98 Rojas et al., ‘Theorizing and conducting research of glocal phenomena’, p. 233. 99 Ibid.

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INDEX Abas, Nasir  19–20, 22 Abdurrahman, Aman  26–7 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)  21, 30, 38, 41–9 Afghanistan  1, 9, 15–20, 22–4, 30, 41–2, 60, 66, 75, 78–84, 88, 99–103, 105–9, 112, 115–16, 130–1, 170, 182–4, 186–8 Al Qaeda  3–6 in Australia  181–4, 187, 189–90 in Canada  157–8 in China  73–4, 80–90 in Indonesia  15–16, 21–3, 27, 31 in Kashmir  99–101, 103–13, 115–16 in Malaysia  55–6, 59, 67 in Philippines  37–8, 40–3, 46, 50 in Russia  131–2 in U.S.A.  139–41, 145–6, 148 Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)  56, 85 Atran, Scott  7, 57 Azzam, Abdullah  88, 102, 105 Ba’asyir, Abu Bakar  18–9, 25 al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr  27–8, 31, 132, 134 Bali bombing  2, 20, 23–5, 180, 183–9 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF)  44 bin Laden, Osama  5–6, 15, 21–3, 41–2, 80, 82, 84, 88, 102–10, 112, 115, 183 Bojinka plot  42 Camp Abubakar  21, 30, 40 Camp Al-Faruq  22, 23, 31 Camp As-Saddah  15, 18–19 Camp Hudaibiyah  21, 30 Christianity  1, 2, 20, 27, 29, 39, 65–6 clans  37–8, 40, 45–9, 127, 129–31 colonialism  23, 39–40, 49, 56, 61, 66, 75, 101 crime  37, 42–5, 49, 78, 80, 115, 124, 129, 133, 163, 170, 185

Darul Islam  16–20 Deobandi movement  100, 101–5, 108, 115 Devji, Faisal  5, 7 East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)  73–4, 79–85, 89–90 ethnicity  4–5, 39–40, 58, 61, 68, 74–80, 84, 86, 89–90, 123, 125–7, 129, 131–4, 162, 181 family  1–2, 15, 17–18, 25, 29, 45, 59, 73, 81–2, 88, 106, 108, 111, 113, 124–5, 130, 143, 190 financing  22, 28, 43, 46, 49, 57, 62, 67, 81, 102–3, 110–12, 128, 130–1, 169–70, 182, 190–1, 195 fundraising  85, 104, 182, 187 Gerges, Fawaz  7, 56–7 Halliday, Fred  5, 7 Hambali  20–3, 184 Hapilon, Isnilon  30, 46–8 Harkat-ul Mujahideen (HuM)  100, 103–8, 110 Isamuddin, Riduan  15 ISIS  1–4, 8–9, 11 in Australia  180–1, 184, 189–91, 193, 196 in Canada  57–159, 165, 167–9 in China  87–8 in Indonesia  15–7, 24–31 in Malaysia  55–60, 64, 68 in Philippines  38, 41, 44–50 in Russia  124–5, 132, 134 in U.S.A.  139–41, 144–8 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)  73, 83–4 Israel  3, 23, 85, 104, 141, 182–3

Index Jabhat al-Nusra (JN)  15, 25–6, 59, 125, 132, 134, 158, 168, 190 Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)  99–101, 108–16 Janjalani, Abdurajak Abubakar  41, 43 Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD)  2, 8, 26–9 Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT)  26–7 Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)  2, 15–17, 19–27, 30–1, 60, 182–5 Kariaji, Abudula  81–2 Kartosuwirjo, Sekarmadji Maridjan  20 Katibat al-Muhajireen (KM)  132 Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia/Kumpulan Militan Malaysia (KMM)  21, 60 language  27, 65, 68, 73, 76, 105, 125–6, 131, 184 Laskar Jihad  17, 20 Laskar Jundullah  17, 20 Mahsum, Hasan  79–81, 84, 88 Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS)  55, 59, 60–8 marriage  28, 44, 64, 111, 113, 163 Maskhadov, Aslan  129, 131 Maute  30, 38, 44–9 Mohammed, Khaled Sheikh  22–3, 42, 112–13 Mohammed, Omar Bakri  108 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)  21–2, 30, 40–2, 44–5, 48, 182 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)  39–41, 44, 48 al-Muhajiroun  108 Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT)  26–8 Mujahidin KOMPAK  17, 20 Negara Islam Indonesia (NII)  18, 26 Novi, Dian Yulia  28–9

205

propaganda  3, 5–7, 37–8, 41, 45–7, 56–7, 59, 84, 88, 105, 114, 132, 140–1, 148, 157–60, 164–6, 168, 170, 190, 192 radicalization  2–3, 7, 27–9, 49, 57, 99, 101–2, 112, 128, 133–4, 147, 158, 162, 164–7, 170–1, 187, 194 recruitment  26, 49, 56, 59–60, 64, 78, 81, 85–9, 99, 101, 104, 107–8, 111–12, 115, 139, 143–6, 164–5, 170, 171, 182, 188 Roy, Olivier  3, 5, 12, 46, 57, 180 Rusdan, Abu  18, 20, 22 Salafi  3, 19–21, 25, 55, 63–5, 68, 73, 85, 123–4, 126–31, 133–4, 139, 157, 167 Saudi Arabia  22, 48, 102, 124, 126, 128, 130–1, 133 Sayyaf, Abdul Rasul  18–19 Al Shabaab  105, 162, 186–7, 190 Sharia  62, 109, 113, 166 social media  28–9, 45, 56, 60, 89, 106, 131, 143, 158, 165, 168, 170, 190–1, 195–6 Soviet-Afghan war  15–17, 41–2, 75–8, 83, 99–104, 106, 123–31, 134, 182 Sungkar, Abdullah  15, 18–19, 21–2, 182 Tholut, Abu  17–18, 20 Top, Noordin Mohammad  23, 25, 185 tribalism  74, 86, 102, 106, 110–1 Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)  73–4, 79, 81, 83–90 United Malays National Organization (UMNO)  55, 59–68 Wahhabi  3, 101, 124, 128

orientalism  4

Yusuf, Zahideen  78–9

Palestine  3, 6–7, 20, 24, 27, 81, 84, 102, 125, 131, 182

al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab  56, 88 al-Zawahiri, Ayman  88

206