What is the issue?

• Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, but the Islamic State (IS) isn’t. The death of its “Caliph” is certainly a blow to the terrorist group.
• The IS is ideologically stronger to survive the fall of its leader, so its ideology is to be overcome in a region free of interventions.

How will IS survive the death of its leader?

• The geopolitical conditions that led to the rise of the group remain more or less intact. Much has been discussed about these conditions.
• Geopolitical tensions, civil conflicts and foreign interventions have been a source of power for jihadist groups such as the al-Qaeda and the IS.
• It is to be remembered Osama bin Laden was a nobody before the Americans and their allies started bankrolling and training the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Red Army.
• The Taliban was hosting the al-Qaeda when it carried out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Virginia.
• The al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) rose from the ruins of the Iraq that was destroyed by the American invasion.
• The AQI morphed into today’s IS, exploiting the chaos Syria fell into in the wake of the civil war.

What is the difference between al-Qaeda and IS?

• Though the al-Qaeda and the IS are cut from the same cloth, there are tactical and strategic differences in their operations.
• The al-Qaeda was basically a hit-and-run organisation until the IS changed the landscape of terrorism.
• The group would carry out attacks and then retreat to the deserts, caves or mountains where it was hiding.
• It did not expose itself to the conventional military might of its enemies.
• The IS started holding on to territories it captured, established a proto-state in those territories and called it the Islamic State.
• Revival - While the al-Qaeda also wants to create a global emirate, the IS took steps to implement its world-view.
• It declared a Caliphate, trying to revive an Islamic institution that ceased to exist following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.
• By doing so, Baghdadi tried to place himself in the long list of Islamic Caliphs, the rightful leaders of the global Muslim community, ummah.

What is Salafi-Jihadism?

• Violent jihadism is inherently anti-modern and very unpopular among Muslims across the world; because of this they are involved in extreme violence.
• With their asymmetrical barbarity, jihadist groups have sought to overcome not just the shortcomings in their military capabilities but also the lack of their political capital.
• For Baghdadi’s group, violence was both a means and an end in itself.
• The puritanical interpretation of Islam by the IS has echoes from Salafi Islam. The Salafis follow the “pious forefathers” of Islam.
• For them, man cannot interpret the holy book or the Hadith. But Salafism itself is not a monolith. It can be a spiritual way of life.
• There are Salafi organisations whose members dedicate themselves to a “pure” Islamic way of life and have nothing to do with violence.
• But for groups such as the al-Qaeda and the IS, Salafism is a political ideology to attain power.
• Since they cannot attain power through mass movements, elections or revolutions, they turn to violent jihadism as a vehicle to reach that goal, which makes them Salafi-Jihadists.

What does a ‘Pure’ Islamic State mean?

• Unlike the al-Qaeda, the IS’ operations were not confined to carrying out suicide attacks in the West or West-backed countries.
• It wanted to create a “pure” Islamic State where the “true” believers can come and live.
• For the IS, these true believers were Sunni Muslims alone and who followed the IS’ diktats, not the Shia Muslims.
• In areas under their control, the minority communities had to pay minority tax to the state for protection and could not publicly practise their religion.
• The concept of nation-states is alien to the IS world-view, for whom the world is the Caliphate and where the ummah should be living under the leadership of their rightful Caliph.
• The IS is opposed to everything modern liberalism offers - individual freedom, equality, liberty are all completely denied by the group.
• The IS also frowns upon and denies critical thinking, demanding only loyalty to its cause.
• Where the IS succeeded is in exploiting the contradictions within modern societies - the contradictions that were swept under the carpet by the nationalism.
• Followers - It was for the first time in decades that a group claimed to have established a caliphate by erasing the borders of modern states and by calling upon followers to migrate.
• The IS succeeded in attracting tens of thousands of people to its “Caliphate”- from Tunisia to India and the U.S.
• It was also opposed to the diversity of Islam terming Shias, Ismailis, Ahmedias and Alawites as non-Muslims.
• Syncretic traditions of Islam such as Sufism were branded anti-Islam by the IS.

What are the problems in the anti-IS fight?

• The objective conditions that led to IS’s rise remain intact in West Asia and the larger Arab world.
• The group still has affiliates and arms in several parts of the world.
• The recent Turkish incursion into north-eastern Syria is threatening the limited advances made in the fight against the IS.
• The Shia-Sunni sectarianism that the IS tried to exploit is still burning across West Asia.
• The IS will be defeated only when its ideology will be defeated, which is a tall ask.
• The IS isn’t an organisation that was created by western imperialism, but an organisation that used the chaos created by imperialism.
• It will continue to do so even after all these setbacks.

What could be done?

• If the IS goes silent, it becomes irrelevant in the global jihadist landscape and all its talk of the expansionary Caliphate will come to an end.
• The group will retain its need to kill in order to survive.
• To stop the group, its organisational and ideological apparatus has to be taken down in a region that is free of foreign interventions and repressions. For now, this looks a distant possibility.