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CIWAG Case Studies 

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ISIS: The Terrorist Group That Would Be a State 

Michael W.S. Ryan 

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irregular warfare studies

number 2

center ON

 irregular warfare

 AND armed groups

ISIS: The Terrorist Group

That Would Be a State

Michael W. S. Ryan

U.S. Naval War College

CIWAG irregular

warfare

studies number 2
ISIS: The Terrorist Group That

Would Be a State
Irregular Warfare Studies

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In 2008, the U.S. Naval War College established the Center on Irregular Warfare 

and Armed Groups (CIWAG). The center’s primary mission is to bring together 

operators, practitioners, and scholars to share academic expertise and knowledge 

about and operational experience in violent and nonviolent irregular warfare challenges, and to make this important research available to a wider community of 

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The Irregular Warfare Studies are a collection of case studies that examine the use 

of irregular warfare strategies by states and nonstate actors to achieve political goals. 

These cases address a wide variety of irregular challenges on the spectrum of political 

violence and competition that encompass current-day or historic armed groups and 

conflicts, as well as the use of other irregular strategies and means to achieve political 

goals, including gray-zone activities, economic coercion, information operations, 

and resource competition.

The views expressed in the Irregular Warfare Studies series are those of the individual 

authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CIWAG, the U.S. Naval War 

College, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense.
ISIS: The Terrorist Group That

Would Be a State

Michael W. S. Ryan

U.S. Naval War College

Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups
The logo of the U.S. Naval War College authenticates Irregular Warfare Studies, Number 2, ISIS: 

The Terrorist Group That Would Be a State, by 

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Suggested citation: 

Ryan, Michael W. S. ISIS: The Terrorist Group 

That Would Be a State. Irregular Warfare 

Studies. Newport: Center on Irregular 

Warfare and Armed Groups, U.S. Naval 

War College, 2020.

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ISBN: 978-1-935352-47-1
Contents

Message from the Editors 3

Introduction ISIS: Its Evolution and Influences 5

CHAPTER ONE What’s in a Name? From Tawhid w’ al-Jihad to ISIS 9

Analytical Framework: Jihadist Strategy and 

Social Movement Theory 17

CHAPTER TWO How ISIS Adapts al Qaeda’s Doctrine and 

Strategy of Guerrilla Warfare 21

Guerrilla Doctrine: Lessons Learned 21 

Guerrilla Doctrine: Al-Suri’s Template and ISIS 29

Guerrilla Strategy: The Administration of 

Savagery as Operational Guide 33

CHAPTER THREE ISIS Group’s Successful Mobilization Tactics 41

Communication Strategy 41

Mobilization: Social Movement Theory Concepts 

Applied to ISIS 46

CHAPTER FOUR Conclusion: Net Assessment of ISIS Strengths and 

Weaknesses With Recommendations 57

The Enemy’s Strengths 57 

The Enemy’s Weaknesses 58 

Recommendations 59 

Further Reading 67

Study Guide 71

About the Author 75
Illustrations/Photographs

Islamic State video of militants marching in Raqqa, Syria 5

Map of ISIS Territory in 2015 8
ISIS: The Terrorist Group That

Would Be a State

Message from the Editors

As of 2015, the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) 

controlled or contested nearly all of the major population centers in 

northern Iraq and Syria. Although it has since lost that territory, for a 

significant period ISIS held the extensive fertile lands of Mesopotamia, 

from Raqqa and Mosul to Ramadi. How did ISIS gain so much valuable 

territory in such a short time? What were its goals, and how did a new 

and relatively small group achieve so much, albeit temporary, success?

Michael W.S. Ryan’s case study, ISIS: The Terrorist Group that Would Be 

a State, argues that ISIS is “an adaptive, learning organization” that takes 

advantage of “best thinking” in guerilla warfare doctrine and learns from 

U.S. operations in the Middle East. The study begins with an assessment 

of the group’s formation and direction under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 

in 1999 as Jama’at al-Tawhid w’al-Jihad, and continues from its establishment as an al-Qaeda affiliate pledged to Osama bin Laden through 

its evolution into a self-declared “caliphate.” Ryan then evaluates the 

strengths and weaknesses of ISIS as a political entity, its preferred methodologies, and its mobilization and communication strategies.

Ryan’s analysis sheds light on how Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s doctrine on 

guerilla warfare was adopted by ISIS and influenced how the group organized itself and waged war. He carefully examines how ISIS leveraged 

both propaganda and religious ideology to recruit followers across the 

world and utilized Abu Bakr Naji’s The Administration of Savagery as a 

strategic guide.
4 irregular warfare studies

This Irregular Warfare Studies case study, drawn extensively from primary 

source materials, is among the most comprehensive works to describe 

the ISIS group’s methodologies and to help explain its surprisingly rapid 

rise and control over a large state-like territory. Although ISIS has lost 

its physical territory in Iraq since 2015, it has continued to gain adherents in other theaters of operation. Ryan warns: “History has shown that 

we should expect the ISIS/al Qaeda phenomenon to reconstitute itself 

under a new name and new leadership in the event we manage to destroy 

its current organization and top leadership. As long as their ideas remain 

credible and even appealing to some, the threat of anarchistic violence 

will remain.” To this end, he offers suggestions for counterterrorism and 

counter-narrative operations at a local level, which may serve as a template to evaluate future confrontations with similar terrorist or non-state 

entities seeking to become state-like through the particular methods of 

local recruitment and territorial control. Ryan also argues that military 

success by itself is necessary but insufficient, and must therefore be accompanied by political solutions in Iraq and Syria.

Andrea Dew

CIWAG, Co-Director

David A. Brown

CIWAG, Co-Director

Andrea Dew

CIWAG, Co-Director

David A. Brown

CIWAG, Co-Director

Andrea Dew

CIWAG, Co-Director

David A. Brown

CIWAG, Co-Director
Introduction 

ISIS: Its Evolution and Influences

No lasting resolution to the ISIS threat in Syria and Iraq will be feasible until viable political solutions are found for both countries. At the time of the 

writing of this case study (2017), the U.S. has proposed no such solution. 

It has given priority to addressing the security challenge but has not yet 

settled on an overarching strategy for either country. Instead, the U.S. and 

its allies have put in place a series of military responses to local threats and 

have taken advantage of targets of opportunity in both countries using coalition airstrikes. In Syria, the U.S. has launched the occasional U.S. Special 

Forces mission. Additionally, the U.S. has provided military training and 

some equipment to the government of Iraq and has responded to requests 

for airstrikes in support of specific Iraqi military missions. 

A still image from a May 19, 2015, Islamic State video of militants marching in Raqqa, Syria.
6 irregular warfare studies

This case study presents a net assessment of ISIS: its strengths and weaknesses. 

The conclusion will propose some recommendations for degrading ISIS, both 

militarily and ideologically. Clearly, ISIS is a fluid topic, subject to change; 

please note that information in this case study is current as of August 2015.

It is beyond the scope of this case study to propose a political resolution to 

the political crises in Syria and Iraq, which have been a breeding ground for 

the group. Instead, the case study will address tactical recommendations for 

defeating ISIS at the military level and will suggest a strategic approach to 

countering the ideological challenge that ISIS poses to the region and beyond. 

A net assessment is descriptive, not prescriptive. Developed over time within the U.S. Department of Defense, a net assessment has been described 

as a practice or methodology based on asking questions from a variety of 

distinctive perspectives.1 It focuses on how the enemy operates and who 

the enemy is. It tries to understand how the enemy thinks about the U.S. 

in order to anticipate its strategy, if not its individual actions. To conduct a 

net assessment of ISIS, one needs to look at the strategic interactions of its 

component parts, its internal bureaucratic behavior, and the multifaceted 

nature of its strategy. 

Notes

1. The basis for the perspective on net assessment is based on Paul Bracken, “Net Assessment: A Practical 

Guide,” Parameters (spring 2006): 90-100. 

Reproduced with permission from Jane’s Global UK Limited
What’s in a Name? From Tawhid w’ al-Jihad to ISIS

ISIS developed its strategic approach within the modern jihadist tradition, which al Qaeda violently introduced to the United States with a 

series of escalating attacks, culminating in the attacks of September 11, 

2001. However, as an adaptive, learning organization, ISIS departed from 

al Qaeda’s strategy by taking advantage of its best thinking about jihadist 

lessons as codified by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, who is a major influence on the 

ISIS group’s military doctrine. In addition, ISIS has used a strategic plan for 

establishing an Islamic emirate, as presented in broad strokes by another al 

Qaeda strategist with the pseudonym Abu Bakr Naji. ISIS also has learned 

from U.S. operations, especially from the use of Sunni tribes during the successful “surge” in Iraq, which came close to destroying al Qaeda in Iraq. Lessons learned from U.S. operations were the basis of the successful rebirth of 

al Qaeda in Iraq under a new name and organization, now called ISIS, and 

following a new strategy.

Al-Zarqawi: Founder, Tawhid w’ al-Jihad

On June 8, 2006, in a remote area in the vicinity of Baquba, north of 

Baghdad, American F-16 aircraft targeted a jihadist “safe house” with two 

500-pound bombs, causing extensive damage and killing its most infamous 

inhabitant, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi. Major General William Caldwell, 

U.S. military spokesmen in Iraq, stated that Iraqi police arrived first on 

the scene, followed by U.S. Special Forces. The killing of the Iraqi jihadist 

followed intelligence information about the presence of one of al-Zarqawi’s 

known associates, Sheik Abd al-Rahman; tips received from Iraqi residents 

in the surrounding area led to the successful operation. Troops had been on 

the ground watching for al-Zarqawi. Major General Caldwell further stated 

that Rahman “was brought to our attention by somebody within the network of Zarqawi’s.”2

 In fact, the successful operation came after Jordanian 

authorities arrested members of al-Zarqawi’s network and, more importantly, after many Iraqi fellow insurgents had grown to loathe their bloody 

comrade-in-arms enough to act as informants.

 CHAPTER 

ONE
10 irregular warfare studies

Al-Zarqawi’s death was the culmination of an American search for one of 

the most ruthless Salafi jihadist leaders, who had an American bounty on 

his head of $25 million, an amount equal to the reward offered for Osama 

bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. The terrorist leader had been 

responsible for the killing of a U.N. envoy, numerous assassinations in Iraq 

and Jordan, and countless killings of noncombatants, bombings of mosques 

and Islamic shrines, and shocking video beheadings. It was to be hoped 

that his death, praised by his many enemies, would lead to a weakened al 

Qaeda effort in Iraq. President George W. Bush, however, sounded a sober 

note while praising the operation: “We can expect the sectarian violence to 

continue. Yet, the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders and it provides an opportunity for the new government to 

turn the tide in the country.”3

Because so many conflicting reports exist on a man who has become 

mythic, establishing the facts of al-Zarqawi’s life is problematic. What is 

told about him, however, shows a pattern that is important for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the ISIS group: a lost young Muslim 

without a traditional Islamic religious foundation who becomes a zealous adherent of a radical jihadist group to find salvation through violence 

against the established order. In effect, the wayward young man becomes 

a fearless fighter against everyone outside his group, but the very zeal that 

gives him his strength is also difficult to control and alienates the population he needs in order to succeed. 

The man known by the jihadi nom de guerre Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi was 

born into poverty in the Jordanian town of Zarqa as Ahmad Fadil Nazal 

al-Khalayleh circa October 1966. Despite his humble circumstances, he is 

reported to have belonged to a prominent Bedouin tribe, the Bani Hassan. 

Like many young men who later become strict Salafi jihadis, al-Zarqawi in 

his younger years did not show the influence of Islamic morals. He dropped 

out of school, drank alcohol heavily, sported tattoos, and engaged in general rowdiness. He was a taciturn, semi-literate, petty thief and gangster.4

According to some accounts, when he was only 15, al-Zarqawi participated 

in the violent robbery of a relative’s home, resulting in that relative’s death. 

People of Zarqa remember him as a bully, a thug, and even a pimp.5
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 11

Whether to escape Jordan or because of the lure of adventure, al-Zarqawi 

travelled to Afghanistan for the first time in 1989. He may have had a religious motivation, but the Soviet Union had withdrawn from Afghanistan, 

leaving only other Muslims to fight. One who knew al-Zarqawi remembers 

him as an utterly fearless fighter who seemed to put himself in the midst of 

the most dangerous situations: 

He wasn’t very religious during that time. In fact, he’d only “returned” to 

Islam three months before coming to Afghanistan. It was the Tablighi 

Jamaat [a proselytizing missionary group spread across the Muslim world] 

who convinced him—he had thirty-seven criminal cases against him by 

then—that it was time to cleanse himself. 6

Afghanistan was a formative influence for al-Zarqawi. He claimed that the 

jihadist icon Abdullah Azzam was a great influence, but perhaps the most 

important event in the formation of his ideology was his meeting with fellow Jordanian and one of the most influential ideologues of Salafi jihadism, 

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Al-Maqdisi is the author of many jihadist 

books and treatises, including the influential jihadist tract Millet Ibrahim

(The Religion of Abraham). Al-Maqdisi is important not only because he 

was al-Zarqawi’s foundational tutor but also because of his later role as a 

critic of his pupil and the ISIS group his student founded.7

Al-Zarqawi remained in Afghanistan until 1992, when he returned to 

Jordan, supported intellectually by al-Maqdisi and a handful of other jihadists to invigorate a Jordanian jihadist group that opposed the monarchy 

and democracy while calling for the killing of Jews and Christians. It was 

here the term Tawhid (monotheism) first appeared as a name he favored 

as a sort of precursor to his group, which exploded onto the scene after the 

U.S. invasion of Iraq. At some point al-Maqdisi and al-Zarqawi changed the 

name of the group from Tawhid to Bayat Imam (Allegiance to the Imam). 

Reportedly, al-Zarqawi was jailed in Jordan in 1993 for weapons possession 

and remained incarcerated with al-Maqdisi and other opposition elements 

until a general amnesty in 1999 freed him. 

Prison was an important school for the young jihadist. He made significant 

contacts, and became a feared leader. His jihadist group grew in prison and 

on the streets outside as a kind of religiously sanctioned criminal gang. In 

2000 he fled again to Afghanistan, now the leader of Jama’at al-Tawhid w’ 
12 irregular warfare studies

al-Jihad (The Group for Monotheism and Jihad). For the first time as a 

leader, he met Osama bin Laden, who was apparently repelled by the crude 

brawler, more talented with a knife than he was articulate. One hears that 

bin Laden did not trust al-Zarqawi because of potential infiltration of his 

group by the famed Jordanian intelligence apparatus, but hoped to use him 

in some capacity, a motivation no doubt shared by al-Zarqawi himself. This 

time in Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi ran his own training camp near the Iranian 

border, which was separate from al Qaeda although it received funds from 

bin Laden’s organization, probably on the recommendation of the military 

chief, the Egyptian Sayf al-Adel. Al-Zarqawi did not pledge allegiance to 

bin Laden in Afghanistan.8

With the fall of the Taliban and the dispersal of al Qaeda and its followers 

following a quick and effective campaign by U.S. forces and their Afghan 

allies, al-Zarqawi made his way to Iran before migrating in 2002 to the 

Kurdish area of Iraq. There, he teamed up with a small Kurdish jihadist 

group, Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), and prepared for the expected 

American invasion.9 Now a full-blown jihadi leader with considerable battle 

experience and violent charisma, al-Zarqawi started to build his Jama’at 

al-Tawhid w’ al-Jihad into the scourge it would become after the 2003 U.S. 

invasion. He targeted the international community, the United Nations, 

foreign contractors, American forces, and especially the Shia community. 

A harbinger of ISIS, al-Zarqawi’s group specialized in the new media with 

videos of lurid beheadings, constant Internet communications, and hyper 

violent sectarian killings featuring gruesome methods like using electric 

drills against skulls. He attacked mosques, sacred shrines, and public 

gatherings of all kinds. His message and methods such as suicide bombing 

inflated his capabilities in the imaginations of many, including U.S. officials. In fact, however, of the five groups of insurgents against American 

forces and the successor government to Saddam Hussein, al-Zarqawi’s was 

the smallest and arguably the weakest. While his group was composed of 

some Iraqis and foreign fighters, the other insurgent groups included Iraqis 

from Saddam’s regime, various nationalists, tribes, and local jihadist groups. 

Whether or not the U.S. inflated al-Zarqawi’s importance, his place in the 

jihadist pantheon would be fixed by his death, and he would become the 

mythic hero for the organizations that followed in his line.10
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 13

Al-Zarqawi’s group was a successful magnet for foreign jihadi fighters. By 

2004, the insurgency in Iraq had deprived al Qaeda’s ill-fated insurgency 

in Saudi Arabia (begun in 2003) of the recruits bin Laden expected to be 

available for his highest-priority effort, overthrowing the Saudi monarchy. Saudi jihadists and their preachers wanted to fight Americans, who 

had pulled out of the kingdom just weeks before the launch of al Qaeda’s 

insurgency. If a jihadi wanted to fight Americans, he went to Iraq. By 2004, 

the al Qaeda effort in Saudi Arabia was already on the road to defeat, so bin 

Laden and al-Zawahiri negotiated with al-Zarqawi the terms of affiliation 

with al Qaeda. The Tawhid group became the commander of the al Qaeda organization in the “land of the two rivers,” the jihadist name for Iraq. 

In the West, the organization was simply called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). 

Despite his pledge to bin Laden, al-Zarqawi was fully independent and did 

not follow direction from either bin Laden or al-Zawahiri, who became 

increasingly concerned about his indiscriminate violence against other 

Muslims as a course that would inevitably backfire. Referring to the videos 

of beheadings, al-Zawahiri presciently advised, “Among the things which 

the feelings of the Muslim population who love and support you will never 

find palatable are the scenes of slaughtering the [Muslim] hostages.”11

It is important to view al-Zarqawi’s career as a model on multiple levels for 

the Islamic State group. Again and again, one can perceive the mafia-like 

criminal enterprise beneath the extremist religious pretensions. Time and 

again, ISIS uses religion to justify violent attacks against noncombatants, 

which most Muslims find inexcusable, while the apparatus for terrorism is 

funded by bank robberies, looting of artifacts, the slave market, kidnapping, 

and extortion, as well as smuggling and trafficking of all kinds, including 

petroleum, antiquities, and even people. The inventive use of social media, 

publicizing atrocities resembling what nineteenth-century anarchists called 

the “propaganda of the deed” to attract recruits to the movement, and the 

preference for the knife over the gun or sword for wanton executions are all 

traits of al-Zarqawi, a man who was more comfortable with the knife than 

with the Kalashnikov. So it should not be surprising that after his 2006 

death in an American airstrike, his organization maintained many of his 

traits and tactics, including the penchant for changing the name of his organization when circumstances warranted. 
14 irregular warfare studies

From Al Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq to ISIS

In January 2006, AQI formed what was called the Mujahedeen Shura 

(advice) Council. Through it, the group hoped to draw in local jihadist 

groups, which were estranged from al-Zarqawi’s indiscriminate violence 

and violation of tribal customs. The council was not effective. After al-Zarqawi’s death, AQI became the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) in mid-October, a 

designation that went beyond anything al Qaeda had claimed for itself and 

to which a number of local jihadist groups and other insurgents objected. 

The new name in effect declared the transnational Salafi jihadist group the 

core of a state to replace Iraq and demoted other factions of the insurgency 

to supporters of the new state. 

AQI’s leadership had become blurred even before ISI was declared. The new 

leader, whose existence was questioned by many observers, was Abu Omar 

al-Baghdadi. The more likely leader was a man with the nom de guerre Abu 

Hamza al-Muhajir. Some argued that both names were aliases for an Egyptian, Abu Ayyub al-Masry, who was close to al-Zawahiri.12 In any case, both 

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir apparently were killed 

during a joint raid by Iraqi and American forces on April 18, 2010. The 

general decapitation operations continued across Iraq. In June 2010, the U.S. 

commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, told a Pentagon news conference 

that 80% of ISI leaders had been killed or captured.13

However, at the nadir of ISI’s fortunes in June 2010, a new and apparently 

much more effective leader emerged—Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was 

soon to become known to his followers as Caliph Ibrahim. Unlike al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda’s top leadership, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not only an 

experienced field jihadi but also claimed to have received a religious education, with the equivalent of a Ph.D. in Islamic law. He had been captured by 

American forces in 2004 and interned in Camp Bucca, but was released in 

less than a year because he was not considered important enough or dangerous enough to keep in custody. Although ISI was significantly weakened by 

2010, its foreign leadership had been replaced with Iraqis like al-Baghdadi. 

He was born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri near Samarra, Iraq, in 1971. 

Most of al-Baghdadi’s biography, however, should be seen as more propaganda than history; ISI spokesmen and clerics carefully crafted his biography to 

match the preferred characteristics of a caliph. Thus, he was described as a 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 15

descendent of the Prophet Mohammad, a member of the Prophet’s tribe, the 

Quraysh, and both a man of religion and a leader in battle. If propaganda 

and organization may be considered al-Baghdadi’s greatest strengths as a 

leader, his clandestine nature is no doubt his greatest survival skill.

Al-Baghdadi and his closest circle planned a comeback strategy that could 

be rolled out as U.S. forces pulled out of combat and then left Iraq. In 2011, 

two significant events occurred: the anticipated withdrawal of American 

forces from Iraq and the unanticipated full-scale insurrection against Bashar 

al-Assad in Syria in the context of the Arab Spring. Still nominally affiliated 

with al Qaeda, al-Baghdadi funded and sent Abu Muhammad al-Jolani into 

Syria in August 2011 to set up an organization that became operational long 

before it emerged as Jabhat al-Nusrain January 2012 in Aleppo.14

Al-Jolani was a Syrian who took his time to set up a credible insurgent organization viewed by other rebels as both effective and authentically Syrian. 

He hid his allegiance to al Qaeda and ISI. It appears that he was following 

a strategy championed by al-Zawahiri, very much Mao’s or Che Guevara’s 

strategy of seeking local support for guerrilla warfare against a strong central 

government, perceived as tyrannical. This was not new to al Qaeda and 

belonged as much to bin Laden as it does to al-Zawahiri, but it was more 

successful than al Qaeda’s previous attempts in Saudi Arabia or North 

Africa. Moreover, it had the advantage initially of falling outside of American 

concern. How did all that change?

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been part of AQI and ISI, quietly learning and organizing. He had likely never been important enough to pledge allegiance to 

al-Zawahiri, although his allegiance had been assumed and he had no reason 

to break with the organization. He also either felt no need to ask permission 

or at least thought it unwise to when, in April 2013, he declared that he had 

formed the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) as a single state. 

He must have felt strongly prepared with arrangements with tribal groups 

in Iraq and the solid support he had within ISI leadership and rank and file. 

He was fulfilling not only al-Zawahiri’s call for an Islamic emirate in the 
16 irregular warfare studies

heart of Muslim lands but also al-Zarqawi’s visions of the rebirth of Imad 

al-Din al-Zangi’s emirate. This stretched from Mosul to Aleppo and marked 

the “turning point in favor of the Islam” during the Second Crusade.15 In 

addition, as the propagandist-in-chief, al-Baghdadi saw the utility of the 

popular prophesies calling for an Armageddon in an area north of Aleppo 

called Dabiq and the associations with the hero Saladin, who defeated the 

Christians and overturned the Shia caliphate in Egypt. 

The wildly successful al-Jolani did not want to be merged into the new organization and appealed to al-Zawahiri for help. In June 2013, al-Zawahiri 

called for ISI to fight in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra to fight in Syria, without 

merging. After all, there was no need to merge when both were part of the 

umbrella of al Qaeda. When al-Baghdadi rejected al-Zawahiri’s unenforceable decision, the al Qaeda chief in October 2013 formally declared ISI, 

now ISIS, to be separate from al Qaeda in every sense.16

ISIS, however, refused to be disbanded. Using traditional guerrilla tactics 

coupled to semi-conventional army tactics, it became the most successful 

jihadist group in Syria and set about setting up a proto-state with its capital 

in al-Raqqa. ISIS mainly avoided Syrian regular forces, which were slowly 

grinding down the Syrian insurgents in a costly war of attrition. ISIS fought 

only when it could win, and that was mostly against other jihadist groups, 

including Jabhat al-Nusra. After securing its base in Syria, ISIS focused its 

attention on Iraq in June 2014. 

The newly energized group reactivated old networks within major cities and 

surrounding areas in the majority-Sunni provinces and proceeded with a 

jihadist version of blitzkrieg. The ultimate prize was strategically and historically significant Mosul, which fell to ISIS on June 10, 2014. About 800 to 

1,000 ISIS fighters took the city of two million people when Iraqi forces 

comprising two divisions of approximately 30,000 soldiers fled after initial 

skirmishes.17 In the following days, ISIS went on to capture a number of 

strategic Sunni towns, such as Tikrit, and the oil refinery town of Baiji. Soon, 

most of the so-called Sunni triangle was under attack or under ISIS control. 

The lightning campaign was so successful that on the first day of Ramadan 

( June 28), the spokesman for ISIS declared that the Khilafah (caliphate) had 

been revived under the Caliph Ibrahim, the Commander of the Faithful, 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 17

previously known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.18 The Sykes-Picot era borders 

between Syria and Iraq were erased and the Islamic State was born, bearing 

the slogan “Remaining and Expanding.”

Analytical Framework: Jihadist Strategy and 

Social Movement Theory

There is no doubt that ISIS is heir to al Qaeda’s legacy. ISIS has adopted 

al Qaeda’s theory and doctrine of revolutionary war and the strategy and 

tactics derived from classical guerrilla warfare doctrine as practiced by Mao 

Tse Tung and other revolutionary guerrilla warfare theorists. In the late 

1990s, a jihadist theorist who adopted the pseudonym Abu Ubayd alQurashi, and was later part of al Qaeda, defined revolution as:

a comprehensive and fundamental change to the political order, social 

structure, economic ownership, and the standing social order. Revolution also means the attempt of a nongovernmental group to take control 

of the government in order to establish a new political, social, and 

economic structure.19

Both al Qaeda and ISIS are attempting such an overthrow of the existing 

order on a global basis. Both organizations not only intend to revive the 

ancient Islamic caliphate based on the model that existed in the seventh century; they also want to expand its geographic scope beyond all historic precedents. To answer the question of whether ISIS is Islamic or a perversion 

of Islam, one may say with confidence that ISIS, like al Qaeda, is pursuing a 

revolution within Islam first; after winning that war, both organizations intend to impose the results of this revolution on the rest of the world. As one 

would expect, much of what makes ISIS the group it has become is identical 

to al Qaeda as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri conceived it. 

Like the current al Qaeda organization, ISIS is influenced by two major 

jihadist authors, Abu Mus’ab al-Suri and Abu Bakr Naji. Al-Suri is best 

known for his magnum opus, The Global Call to Islamic Resistance, which 

documents modern jihadist history and makes recommendations for the 

future, including a theory of small-unit and individual terrorism, often referred to as lone-wolf terrorism by Western authorities. Pseudonymous Abu 

Bakr Naji, also a member of al Qaeda, wrote a important strategic manual, 
18 irregular warfare studies

The Administration of Savagery, that both al Qaeda and ISIS are known to 

use to give recruits a broad overview of the strategy to create the modern 

Islamic emirates that will replace existing governments. Both authors/

strategists provide extensive materials to aid understanding the similarities 

and differences between ISIS and al Qaeda, as well as their strengths and 

weaknesses. However, if the two groups’ identities are shared to such a great 

extent, how does ISIS differ from al Qaeda? 

To begin to answer this question, it is useful to examine ISIS in light of 

the elements of a template developed by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri based on his 

exhaustive analysis of historical jihadist organizations from an insider’s perspective. He identified five prerequisites for a clandestine jihadist group: 

1. Manhaj (program or methodology): How do they apply their belief 

structure to society? What is the concept and driving ideology to 

which its members adhere? 

2. Qiyadah (leadership): Who are they? What are their connections to 

other forces hostile to democracy and the United States? 

3. Mukhattat (strategy or road map): Are they following a recognizable 

pattern or strategic plan to achieve goals? 

4. Tamwil (funding): What are their sources? How do they identify the 

means to achieve their goals? 

5. Bay’ah (allegiance): Is their allegiance to a local or external individual, 

or to an external group?20

After examining ISIS by applying an insider’s analysis, an outsider’s view 

may be obtained by using concepts derived from social movement theory 

(SMT). SMT is not a single theory; rather, it is a broad term used to capture 

the various interdisciplinary approaches within social science to examine 

why and how social movements form, mobilize resources, frame issues, and 

use networks to affect a social or political outcome. Much of SMT is irrelevant to the study of ISIS and jihadism in general. However, scholars have 

used specific SMT concepts to study Islamic activism with some success.21

The three concept pairs that are most useful to the analysis of al Qaeda and 

ISIS are culture and framing; violence and contention; and networks and 

alliances. Culture and framing is most useful for analysis of the ISIS group’s 

successful propaganda and mobilization strategy. The use of violence in 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 19

political contention is an important barometer of the level of violence used 

by ISIS to achieve its strategic goals of capturing and holding territory in 

the heart of traditional Muslim lands. Similarly, the distinction between 

networks and alliances can explain how ISIS and its components can form 

and break alliances at the strategic level while sharing the same networks 

with other groups at a tactical level, whether the networks involve criminal 

smuggling enterprises or shared guerrilla operations. 

Discussion Questions

1 When al-Baghdadi sent Abu Muhammad al-Jolani to Syria and funded 

his startup organization, this organization initially fell outside of 

American concern. What steps might be taken to help focus on and 

prevent similar startups?

2. How might the U.S. and its allies have better exploited the emerging 

split between al-Baghdadi (ISIS) and al-Jolani (al-Nusra)?

3. By killing al-Zarqawi, the U.S. severely weakened the capabilities of al 

Qaeda in Iraq, yet only a few years later, al-Baghdadi was able to revive 

AQI and radically expand its size and influence under the label of IS. 

What factors account for this dramatic success? 

4. The “surge” in Iraq came close to destroying AQI. What might have been 

some cost-effective steps the U.S. could have taken to finish the job?

5. ISIS has destroyed the Sykes-Picot border between Syria and Iraq, 

established by France and Great Britain after World War I. Can the 

borders ever be redrawn as they once were? Would a different configuration be achievable today? If so, what?

6. How can al-Suri’s five prerequisites for a clandestine jihadist group—

program, leadership, strategy, funding, and allegiance—be used to 

analyze Islamic State’s strengths and vulnerabilities?

7. Some analysts have referred to ISIS as generating a civil war within 

Islam. How does al-Qurashi’s definition of revolution apply? 

8. Is ISIS fomenting a civil war for leadership in a territory or establishing 

the basis for a revolution? Explain.
20 irregular warfare studies

Notes

2. “U.S. Military: Al-Zarqawi Was Alive After 

Bombing,” June 9, 2006, www.cnn.com.

3. “Bush: Al-Zarqawi Operation a ‘Remarkable 

Achievement,’” June 7, 2006, www.cnn.com.

4. Lawrence Joffe, “Obituary: Abu Mus’ab alZarqawi,” June 8, 2006, www.theguardian.com.

5. Mary Anne Weaver, “The Short, Violent Life of 

Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi,” The Atlantic, web ed., 

June 8, 2006.

6. Ibid.

7. For the relationship between al-Zarqawi and alMaqdisi, see Joas Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi: 

The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad 

al-Maqdisi (Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 2012), pp. 215-222.

8. Weaver, “The Short, Violent Life of Abu Mus’ab 

al-Zarqawi.”

9. Peter L. Bergen, The Longest War: The Enduring 

Conflict Between America and al Qaeda (New 

York: The Free Press, 2011), pp. 160-164.

10. Ahmad S. Hashim, “From al Qaeda Affiliate to 

the Rise of the Islamic Caliphate: The Evolution 

of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS),” policy report, S. Rajaratnam School of International 

Studies, Singapore, December 2014. 

11. Quoted in Bergen, The Longest War, p. 167.

12. Eben Kaplan, “Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, Zarqawi’s 

Mysterious Successor (aka Abu Ayub al-Masri),” 

Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, 

June 13, 2006.

13. “U.S. Says 80% of al Qaeda Leaders in Iraq 

Removed,” June 4, 2010, www.bbc.co.uk.

14. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside 

The Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 

2015).

15. See Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 10th 

ed. rev. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 

p.644 ff.

16. Hashim, “From al Qaeda Affiliate to the Rise of 

the Islamic Caliphate.”

17. “Iraq Army Capitulates to ISIS Militants in Four 

Cities,” June 11, 2014, www.theguardian.com.

18. “Khilafah Declared,” Dabiq: The Return of 

Khilafah 1 ( June-July 2014): 6-9.

19. See translation in Michael W. S. Ryan, Decoding 

Al Qaeda’s Strategy: The Deep Battle Against 

America (New York: Columbia University 

Press), p. 270.

20. For a discussion of al-Suri’s analysis, see ibid., p. 

242.

21. For example, see Mohammed M. Hafez and 

Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Violence and Contention in the Egyptian Islamic Movement,” Diane 

Singerman, “The Networked World of Islamist 

Social Movements,” and Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, “Interests, Ideas, and Islamist Outreach in 

Egypt,” in Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.), Islamic 

Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach

(Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2004).
 CHAPTER 

TWO

How ISIS Adapts al Qaeda’s Doctrine and Strategy 

of Guerrilla Warfare

Most accounts of ISIS military operations in Syria and Iraq tend to emphasize the lurid brutality shown to its victims rather than its less newsworthy 

tactics. In this context, ISIS appears to be quite different from al Qaeda, at 

least in theory. At the same time, a careful examination of ISIS operations 

reveals that its military and political doctrine comes from the documented 

experiences of decades of jihadist insurrections, as interpreted by al Qaeda 

ideologues. ISIS learned from these experiences vicariously and added its 

own formative lessons from its own losses to U.S. and allied forces in Iraq to 

create a new approach to creating its so-called Islamic state and caliphate.

Guerrilla Doctrine: Lessons Learned

In the autumn of 2001, Alan Cullison, on assignment from the Wall Street 

Journal, ventured into northern Afghanistan to write about the U.S.-assisted war against the Taliban. Cullison’s historic trip almost ended in one of 

the steep passes through the Hindu Kush mountain range. The old pickup 

truck the journalist had rented lost its brakes on a steep hill, crashed into 

the back of a Northern Alliance fuel truck, and turned over onto its side to 

continue its skid. The baggage slid into the gorge. Miraculously, none of the 

passengers, including “a Japanese journalist, two Afghan interpreters, the 

driver, and a shoeless boy who had been riding on the roof and wiping dust 

from the windshield,” 22 were seriously injured. One of Cullison’s interpreters, however, suffered a sharp blow to the ribs from what turned out to be 

the journalist’s laptop, which was destroyed in the collision. 

Finding himself in Kabul with other journalists covering what was the 

downfall of the Taliban regime without his laptop, Cullison soon wearied 

of dictating dispatches over his satellite phone and set out to find a new 

computer in a city in which that was a rare commodity. After a series of 

inquiries, the journalist finally found an enterprising thief, who had been 
22 irregular warfare studies

watching the al Qaeda offices. Every day, Mohammad Atef, al Qaeda’s military chief, entered the office building carrying a laptop computer. On the 

day before al Qaeda fled Kabul before the Northern Alliance and American 

entry into the city, the thief climbed over the wall surrounding the building and found the laptop and a desktop computer, which he took. Cullison turned the newly purchased computers over to U.S. authorities, who 

examined them before returning both. The laptop was curiously empty, but 

the desktop, which had belonged to Ayman al-Zawahiri, contained almost 

1,000 documents dating to as early as 1997. 

These documents included working papers, letters, business forms, checklists for interrogations, and a draft of al-Zawahiri’s unpublished writings. 

One of the working papers, which seemed to be written for the al Qaeda 

leader rather than by him, was an untitled treatise on guerrilla warfare filed 

under the file name ALKAER in a folder entitled “security.” A close examination of this untitled manuscript reveals that large sections are verbatim, 

unattributed quotes from the Arabic translation of American Robert 

Taber’s book The War of the Flea, thus linking the thought of al Qaeda’s 

top leadership to the study of twentieth-century left-wing guerrilla insurrections inspired by the writings and examples of revolutionary leaders like 

Mao Tse-tung, Che Guevara, and Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap.

Although the manuscript found in al-Zawahiri’s computer was anonymous, 

it is most likely the work of Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. The style of writing and 

presentation resembles his extensive published works; moreover, al-Suri 

taught Taber’s book in lectures on guerrilla warfare in Peshawar and the 

training camps in Afghanistan, and refers to Taber’s book as the best work 

on guerrilla warfare. Major al Qaeda strategists refer to it as well. The book 

can be found online in its Arabic translation as The War of the Oppressed 

with al-Suri’s commentary in the footnotes. The word translated as “oppressed” in Arabic may also be translated literally as “those deemed to be 

weak”; thus, the war of the guerrilla is the war of those who are deemed to 

be weak, like the insignificant flea, but who are actually a deadly force. 

One of the strengths of Taber’s book that al-Suri seems to have absorbed is 

that it documents what makes revolutionary wars succeed and what makes 

them fail. Al-Suri spent years analyzing why jihadist insurrections gener-
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 23

ally failed, and his studies on Algeria and Syria, as well as his 2004 Call to 

Global Islamic Resistance, emphasize the importance of learning from past 

mistakes.23 Al-Suri believed that jihadists following the Muslim Brotherhood 

model had not studied previous examples of jihadist struggles to learn from 

their mistakes as well as their rare successes. His commentary has been influential in al Qaeda’s thinking from its earliest days until today, and this work 

can be considered to have guided Syrian rebels against Bashar al-Assad. AlSuri influenced al-Zarqawi and should be seen as a major influence on ISIS.

The following description of the stages of guerrilla warfare is from this case 

study author’s translation of introductory material of the ALKAER document, before introducing examples from Taber’s book. 

First Stage: Attrition 

The first stage of guerrilla warfare is described as composed of classic hitand-run tactics used by guerrillas in insurrections, in preparation for the 

larger struggle to come. The mujahedeen’s aim here to weaken the central 

government’s hold on the periphery. The ALKAER document describes 

this stage as the equivalent of Mao’s metaphor of the “war of the flea” in 

which the weak flea, by means of its escalating numbers and numerous 

bites, first drives the powerful but helpless dog mad, and eventually kills it. 

The most important component of this stage, however, is political activity 

and propaganda to gain the support of the population.

Second Stage: Equilibrium

“Equilibrium” is the somewhat misleading term that describes the evolution of a guerrilla war (or war of resistance) into a stage in which the mujahedeen have acquired heavy weapons and begin to form more conventional 

or semi-conventional forces. These forces are strong enough to attack larger 

enemy forces, well-defended military installations to which government 

forces have withdrawn, and even cities. Meanwhile, guerrilla attacks continue as before, and political/propaganda operations continue or increase.

Third Stage: Decision

Stage three is characterized by a decisive battle or series of battles leading 

to the total defeat of the government and the surrender or flight of government forces. The ALKAER document points out that this stage is almost 

never reached because governments tend to collapse and their forces surrender before the decisive battle.
24 irregular warfare studies

In addition to presenting this brief description of the three stages of guerrilla warfare, the ALKAER author continues to demonstrate that the correct 

approach to this type of warfare is not academic and is not as tidy as the 

description would suggest. The author of the document points out that the 

concept may succeed in one land and not in another: the experience of one 

people with insurrection is not necessarily transferable to another people 

or another country. Geography, economics, and even the population’s 

susceptibility to ideology vary from country to country. The watchword 

for success is flexibility and the ability to adapt to local circumstances in 

executing a strategic plan, a lesson that ISIS has clearly learned and one that 

has allowed it to have more success in a short period of time. 

The influence of al Qaeda’s thinking on ISIS can be seen in the adaptation 

of Mao’s doctrine that guerrillas must be prepared to trade space for time. 

ISIS generally is ready to surrender one place in order to retreat and gain 

time to regroup, rebuild, and attack again in another place. This approach 

has the net effect of hurting its enemy’s morale and confidence at the same 

time as it builds morale among ISIS troops. The ALKAER document 

clearly states this concept:

We need to gain time to obtain new guerrilla units and supporters; and 

we need to gain time to obtain the people’s trust. We need to gain time 

to attack the regime politically—politics before military as the saying 

goes—the mere existence of a guerrilla in a district in itself is a victory and 

challenges the regime. Therefore, we sacrifice space to obtain time.24

The three-stage guerrilla war described in ALKAER shows the strong influence of Mao and Che Guevara.25 It is representative of the three-stage descriptions of jihadist warfare in major al Qaeda writers on the subject, which ISIS 

adapted for its strategy in Syria and Iraq. The importance of gaining time 

to produce the political outcome ISIS desires cannot be overstated. To 

cite just one circumstance, one can see that ISIS generally uses its guerrilla 

strategy and tactics to gain time and break the momentum of the political 

military narrative against it. One can see this in periods when ISIS has lost 

significant battles like Kobane in Syria or Tikrit in Iraq. To counter the coalition narrative after losing Tikrit to the Iraqi government (aided by American 

air power), for example, ISIS moved on another axis to achieve a surprise success and drove Iraqi forces out of Ramadi. To achieve this, it relied on suicide 
bombers in explosive-laden trucks and small groups of hardened guerrilla 

fighters to rout an arguably more powerful force, in greater numbers and with 

superior equipment. While ISIS may not have expected to be able to hold 

Ramadi indefinitely, it changed the narrative of losing to coalition forces and 

gained time to rebuild morale and recruit more forces.

To develop a greater understanding of ISIS’s doctrine for insurgency, it 

is helpful to examine another of al-Suri’s works that analyzes lessons he 

learned from the Muslim Brotherhood’s previous insurgency in Syria.

Al-Suri’s Lessons Learned from Syria

As a young man, al-Suri participated in the Muslim Brotherhood’s insurrection in Syria, which ended in failure in 1982. He established his bona 

fides as a jihadist strategist with his lengthy history of the insurgency, 

published in 1991 as The Islamic Jihadist Revolution in Syria. Part of 

that history was published as a separate manual entitled “Observations 

on the Jihadist Experience in Syria,”26 which he used for training jihadists. Al-Suri detailed what he called seventeen bitter lessons from the 

failed insurgency and the one positive lesson from the jihadist perspective: namely, that an organization could mobilize a Muslim population 

under the Muslim banner, even against great odds. However, mobilizing 

the population without a great deal of preparation was a betrayal of that 

population by the jihadist leadership.

The major failure by the Muslim Brotherhood was the lack of a strategic 

concept and plan for victory against the regular and irregular forces of a 

Middle Eastern praetorian state. Not having an overarching concept led to 

all the bitter lessons that al-Suri judged to be why the insurrection failed. 

For example, without an overarching narrative and strategic plan, leaders 

cannot explain their ideology and objectives to their foot soldiers; they 

cannot transform Salafi preachers into jihadists; and consequently they 

are unable to devise a powerful internal and external propaganda program, 

without which any guerrilla war is bound to fail. Al-Suri also believed that 

a successful revolution, which is what Salafi jihadists seek, must learn from 

previous lessons. 

It is clear that both ISIS and al Qaeda have addressed these mistakes. Both 

have a strategic concept that works for them, although ISIS has been able 

isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 25
26 irregular warfare studies

to leapfrog al Qaeda in propaganda. Another interesting observation is that 

the Muslim Brotherhood was thought to have accepted too many recruits 

when the Syrian regime pressed them militarily, and that this allowed the 

regime’s intelligence services to infiltrate the group to gain tactical and 

strategic intelligence. Clearly both ISIS and al Qaeda have well-conceived 

vetting programs and keep their inner circles small. Furthermore, both ISIS 

and al Qaeda execute accused spies on a regular basis as a warning to others.

A good indication of why the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has done relatively 

poorly, relative to either al Qaeda or ISIS, in the current uprising against 

the Syrian government is that they have not learned from al-Suri’s observations. For example, the FSA’s political leadership is outside the theater of 

operations; they depend on external states for support; they deal regularly 

with neighboring regimes; and of course they are devoid of any discernible 

ideology. Also, it is unclear what they would do if, contrary to expectations, 

they were to succeed against the Syrian government. Both al Qaeda and 

ISIS have been able to engage religious leaders successfully, and both have 

been able to forge alliances with powerful local tribes, even though these 

alliances could well be fragile in the longer term.

There are lessons outlined by al-Suri that ISIS has addressed better than al 

Qaeda. For example, al-Suri warned against engaging in a long war of attrition with the central government. So far, ISIS has generally avoided long 

set battles and sieges against either the Syrian or the Iraqi governments, 

whereas al Qaeda has engaged in sieges. The glaring exception for ISIS was 

their disastrous attempt to take over the Kurdish town of Kobane, which 

ended in defeat by a combination of Kurdish ground forces and American 

air strikes on January 26, 2015, after months of heavy fighting. On the 

other hand, al Qaeda initially had a superior capability to mount terrorist 

attacks outside of Syria and Iraq as a jihadist version of deterrence, especially against Europeans and the U.S., although ISIS is working to improve 

its capabilities in this area.

The greatest failure of both ISIS and al Qaeda in their efforts in Syria and 

potentially in Iraq is the lack of unity among the various jihadist movements. The constant warfare among competing groups inevitably weakens 

the effort in Syria. One could argue that ISIS and al Qaeda engage in a peri-
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 27

odic war of attrition against one another, which is greatly to the advantage 

of the Assad regime. Despite the ISIS group’s success with tribal groups, 

success depends on the tribes seeing ISIS as a better bet than either Damascus or Baghdad. Over time, tribal groups could see ISIS as a bad choice, 

but that would require more than ISIS blunders; it would require central 

governments to change their policies and overcome deep-rooted animus 

and lack of trust on the part of the tribes. 

Finally, despite their minor successes, neither ISIS nor al Qaeda has been 

able to win over or neutralize the Kurds in either Syria or Iraq. The net effect of this failure is that both jihadist groups have serious and able fighters 

threatening their flanks. The Kurds are not enough to overcome ISIS, but 

ISIS can never quite achieve its goals as long as determined, hostile Kurdish 

Peshmerga forces threaten the consolidation of ISIS gains.

Al-Suri’s Call to Global Islamic Resistance Model

The weakness was not in the methods of the organizations or in the 

organizations [themselves] in a general sense. On the contrary, it was the 

changing times and the givens of the new reality after 1990 that made 

these methods obsolete. I used a metaphor to clarify what I mean in some 

of [my] lectures in Afghanistan and I will return to it here.

So, [imagine] you have an electric machine that is excellent, powerful 

and outstanding! But it works only on an old electric system of 110 volts; 

then, as happened in our countries, there is a complete changeover of 

electric power providers to 220 volts.

Then, what happens if you were to insist on using it? The machine will be 

consumed by fire; your electric system will be destroyed and perhaps you 

will be electrocuted in the bargain! It goes without saying that the weakness is not with the machine itself, for it is flawless and perfect for its time, 

but the surrounding new circumstances made it obsolete. Its natural place 

became a museum in a corner of a vault as a relic from the past. And your 

love of it, your beautiful memories with it, and the fact that it is a legacy 

from your parents will not change the reality at all.27

Abu Mus’ab al-Suri used the metaphor above in his last major work, Call 

to Global Islamic Resistance, less than a year before Pakistani authorities 
28 irregular warfare studies

captured him in 2005. He intended this work to be his encyclopedic legacy 

of jihadist history and doctrine for future jihadists to study. He had been a 

jihadist for his entire adult life, starting with the Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in Syria until his sojourn with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan 

and Pakistan, which ended in his flight from Afghanistan after the American overthrow of the Taliban government. He had written histories of the 

major jihadist activities, including works on Syria, Algeria, Afghanistan, 

Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Central Asia. He became convinced that a jihadist insurrection based in one country, such as Egypt or Algeria, could not 

succeed after the U.S. emerged as the single global superpower after the fall 

of the Soviet Union. A jihadist insurrection based on a regional approach 

had a better chance; however, the only real hope for jihadists involved a 

globally networked effort. Al-Suri had great respect for the power of the 

modern U.S. military; he did not believe American forces, bolstered by 

their system of global alliances, could be defeated by traditional clandestine 

organizations anywhere. 

For years, Al-Suri urged jihadists to think in terms of a system rather than 

an organization. In his Call to Global Islamic Resistance, he described an 

ideal model for such a system of jihad, which he recognized would need 

to be adjusted to changing world conditions, just as the old single-country 

clandestine organization had to be abandoned in the face of the Americanled coalition of modern allies. Al-Suri recommended a system in which 

jihadists would unite under a global model with three components, which 

he referred to as circles: (1) a clandestine central leadership circle; (2) a 

coordination circle, which would be a collection of “open front” regional 

jihadist insurrections; and (3) a “call” circle, composed of individual and 

small-cell terrorism behind enemy lines. These enemy lines could be Europe, the U.S., or anywhere Muslims felt compelled to contribute to global 

resistance to the modern world order as jihadists, their only allegiance to 

the jihadist resistance.

The system that most resembles al-Suri’s model today is al Qaeda’s, led by 

al-Suri’s old friend and leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The central circle is 

the clandestine al Qaeda Central, based in South Asia. The coordination 

circle approximates al Qaeda’s system of affiliates and associated groups. 

Finally, the call circle approximates the small cells and individual jihadists 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 29

often referred to in the U.S. as lone-wolf terrorists. However, a “lone wolf ” 

is not what al-Suri had in mind. In fact, his model was based on lone-wolf 

jihadists, but he thought that such random acts had no political or systematic effect. His system was meant to coordinate the activities of small-cell 

terrorists with the policies of the central circle. This coordination was to 

be carried out by what we refer to as affiliates, al-Suri’s coordination circle. 

For security reasons, the coordination circle would need to minimize 

its contact with the isolated call cells. This contact at a maximum would 

involve initial funding and training by what al-Suri called a builder cell. At 

a minimum, the call cell would have no contact of any kind with the rest of 

the circle and would fund itself and train itself using materials provided on 

the Internet. One need only think of the role of al Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula (AQAP) in providing inspirational and instructional materials 

online for the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013 or, reportedly, initial 

funding for the Paris conspirators who attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices on January 7, 2015. We should expect, however, that in many 

cells there would also be an initial facilitator who pushes individuals into 

radicalization but is not personally an attacker, and may in fact commit no 

acts that would allow criminal prosecution.

The other system that resembles al-Suri’s model is the ISIS group’s selfstyled caliphate. This has a semi-clandestine center surrounding the selfproclaimed khalifa (caliph); a series of provinces, similar to affiliates, in 

Libya, Algeria, and the Sinai, for example; and growing indications of the 

presence of lone-wolf terrorists in the U.S. and Europe. By using al-Suri’s 

template as a guide to the basic requirements of a jihadist group, one can 

see how ISIS distinguished itself from al Qaeda and previous groups. 

Guerrilla Doctrine: Al-Suri’s Template and ISIS

The first building block of a jihadist organization is what al-Suri, like 

other jihadists, calls a manhaj, which is a program, methodology, or guiding ideology around which the members convene. Al-Zawahiri has always 

claimed that al Qaeda follows the manhaj al-nubuwah, or the prophetic 

program, which attempts to return Islam to the seventh-century governance of the first followers of the Prophet Mohammad, which the al 

Qaeda leader calls the “Rightly Guided Caliphate.” This is exactly the 
30 irregular warfare studies

manhaj that ISIS claims to follow, but with a key difference: For al-Zawahiri, the caliphate was a goal located somewhere in the undefined future 

and al Qaeda was considered an organization within the larger jihadist 

movement; for al-Baghdadi, on the other hand, the caliphate exists now, 

and he governs it as the Caliph Ibrahim. 

Al-Baghdadi emphasizes the concept of community (jama’ah) and claims 

that leadership embraces both the political and religious aspects of life. Al 

Qaeda never claimed to be a religious organization; its leadership claimed 

to combine political and military leadership in Osama bin Laden, and now 

in Ayman al-Zawahiri, as the vanguard of the jihadist movement. One can 

conclude, then, that although both groups use the same words for their 

manhaj, ISIS claims to have achieved al Qaeda’s goal and therefore to have 

supplanted al Qaeda as the leader—not just of the jihadist movement but 

of all Muslims, a breathtaking leap. It is difficult to see how the two groups 

can reunite without one of them abandoning its reason for existence.

The second building block is leadership, which includes a paramount 

leader to whom its members pledge allegiance (bay’ah), as well as an advisory council, other councils such as military and religious councils, and an 

administrative body. Both al Qaeda and ISIS have clearly identified structures that resemble this description, but again, ISIS has insisted that it has 

the elements of a state with territory and governing departments such as a 

consumer affairs council, an education council, and so on. 

The third necessary building block is the strategic plan or roadmap that 

allows a jihadist organization to meet its offensive and defensive goals. Al 

Qaeda and ISIS share the general roadmap for creating an Islamic emirate, 

written in 2004 by al Qaeda strategist Abu Bakr Naji. Naji does not provide a recipe for jihadist groups to follow; instead he emphasizes that he is 

providing a strategic outline in broad strokes. Only a field commander can 

devise a strategy for a particular area based on geographic, demographic, 

and economic circumstances of the target area. His work, The Administration of Savagery, was used as a training manual for recruits, which is exactly 

how ISIS uses it. (See “Guerrilla Strategy: The Administration of Savagery 

as Operational Guide.”) This strategy is based on creating or taking advantage of areas in the countryside or a city that have fallen into chaos in order 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 31

to drive out government troops and impose a proto-state, which Naji calls 

the administration of savagery. In a large countryside such as Yemen or 

remote areas in Syria and Iraq, a number of such liberated areas may be created, expanded, and consolidated. There may be specific strategic plans for 

special circumstances as well. 

ISIS devised a plan it called Khutah Istratijiyyah li Ta’ziz al-Mawqif alSiyasy li ‘l-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah fi al-Iraq (Strategic Plan to Strengthen the 

Political Position of the Islamic State in Iraq) in 2009/2010 after ISI had 

been decimated by a combination of attacks by American troops and the 

Iraqi tribal Awakening Councils (the Sahwah) during 2007-2008. Anticipating American troop withdrawals, it proposed to create alliances with 

Sunni tribes, similar to the Sahwah groups supported by the Americans, 

except this time to attack Shia communities in Iraq and central government forces and installations, which would be dominated by Shia factions. 

Once ISIS established itself in Syria, it followed this basic plan there as 

well. These well-conceived strategic approaches has given both al Qaeda 

and ISIS a significant advantage over other groups in Syria. On balance, 

ISIS has been more consistent than al Qaeda and has been able to keep the 

strategic upper hand and usually, but not always, comes out the winner in 

local tactical situations.

The fourth building block outlined by al-Suri is tamwil (funding). Al Qaeda 

and the ISIS group’s funding sources are very similar, although ISIS has been 

much more successful in self-funding. In the past, both groups have relied on 

funding from oil-rich Gulf countries, not directly, but from wealthy patrons. 

This funding has been replaced for the most part by criminal enterprises involving smuggling, human trafficking, robbing banks, and taking war booty.28

Perhaps because the ISIS group’s founder began his career as an enterprising 

criminal while al Qaeda’s founder was a businessman of sorts, ISIS has always 

had an advantage in funding from criminal enterprises like smuggling petroleum products. Since declaring itself to be the caliphate, ISIS has outstripped 

al Qaeda and every other jihadist group in funding itself exclusively through 

criminal enterprises, taxes, and fees in areas it controls. 

According to the general consensus of the Western analytical community, 

ISIS is the richest jihadist organization, with revenues of US$2 billion 
32 irregular warfare studies

to $2.5 billion per year, according to one estimate, although its expenses 

are much higher than that.29 We may well assume that ISIS prioritizes its 

funding for operations and keeping tribal allies faithful, but it is also fair 

to conclude that it desperately needs large revenue streams to continue to 

operate at current levels. 

As with al Qaeda, the U.S. government, working with its allies, has targeted 

the ISIS group’s sources of revenue. For example, ISIS funds itself in part 

through the sale of antiquities of all kinds.30 The U.S. Department of State 

has a program to combat this source of funding, but it needs more support 

and a higher profile. Similarly, tightening up enforcement on smuggling, 

while extremely difficult, is not impossible and could have a significant 

effect on ISIS revenues. The most lucrative target revenue stream for ISIS 

in October 2014 was based on petroleum products. At that time, the U.S. 

Treasury Department estimated that the group’s revenue from petroleum in 

Syria and Iraq amounted to US$1 million to $2 million per day. By December 2014, however, the revenue had tapered off significantly because of U.S. 

and coalition military activities.31 On February 3, 2015, the spokesman for 

the Pentagon announced that “oil revenue is no longer the lead source of 

[ISIS’s] income in dollars.” 32 U.S. officials have not specified the amount of 

the cut, but if the international coalition could cut petroleum refining and 

smuggling by ISIS only by half, we could see a drop in annual revenues to 

ISIS on the order of US$15 million to $30 million per month. 

These and other criminal activities are all known problems; efforts already 

exist and programs are in place to address them. Prioritizing and resourcing 

these programs across the spectrum of ISIS funding could pay large dividends. In addition, traditional counterinsurgency training and security assistance for local military and security elements in Iraq will continue to be 

necessary to ensure that local forces can eventually replace coalition forces 

in attacking revenue streams to ISIS. 

The last of al-Suri’s building blocks for a clandestine jihadist organization is 

the pledge of allegiance (bay’ah). Both organizations use the bay’ah to its leaders as an organizing principle. The bay’ah is an ancient Islamic ritual in which 

an individual personally swears a religiously binding pledge of fealty and 

obedience to a Muslim leader. In practice, this means that individuals become 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 33

members of a jihadist group by pledging bay’ah to its leader, whom they are 

now bound to obey. If this leader then pledges allegiance to the leader of 

another group, all the pledged members of the original group are also bound 

to follow the leader of the other group. This system of pledges of allegiance 

produces a jihadist network with centralized guidance and decentralized execution, which became the hallmark of al Qaeda operations. The ISIS group’s 

achievements on the battlefield and in propaganda has led to greater success 

in acquiring such pledges of allegiance from individuals and groups in, for example, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, al 

Qaeda still has strong allies and is expanding in South Asia to include India. 

Al-Suri argued that a jihadist enterprise must adapt to circumstances. ISIS 

has demonstrated that it is a learning organization. Al-Suri also argued for 

years that jihadists should work for a global system and not an organization 

(tanzim). ISIS has stated that it is not a tanzim but a state. Whether it can 

be as adaptable as a state with a population and territory to defend remains 

to be seen. Destruction of the ISIS group’s so-called state in Syria and Iraq 

likely also means destroying the carefully constructed ISIS system. On the 

other hand,al Qaeda currently appears to be an adaptable system composed 

of local organizations, any of which could be destroyed without destroying 

the system as a whole. 

Guerrilla Strategy: The Administration of Savagery

as Operational Guide

In his influential book, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner (circa 2001), 

Ayman al-Zawahiri demonstrates that knowledge of classic guerrilla warfare 

as practiced by ISIS and al Qaeda existed within the Salafi jihadist movement as early as the 1970s in Egyptian circles.33 In 1974, nine years after the 

publication of Robert Taber’s classic account of guerrilla warfare, a young 

man named Yahya Hashim came to al-Zawahiri for advice and support. 

Hashim was a deputy prosecutor who had turned against the Egyptian regime on religious principles and had converted to the “jihadist movement.” 

He was especially concerned about the fate of some young officers who 

were engaged in a revolt in the Military Technical College. Hashim had 

become obsessed with the issue, following details of the case in great detail, 

and beginning to consider armed confrontation with the Egyptian regime 
34 irregular warfare studies

via guerrilla warfare. He raised this idea with al-Zawahiri, who wrote, “I did 

not agree and told him that the nature of the country was not suitable for 

this kind of warfare. Then I gave him a book about guerrilla warfare.” 

The young man apparently did not learn from al-Zawahiri’s book. Gripped 

with idea of starting a guerrilla war, he shared his plan with some of his 

brothers. His idea was to get the officers out of jail and begin operations 

in the mountains near the desert in Minya Governorate, on the west bank 

of the Nile, about 150 miles south of Cairo. The plan was discovered, and 

Hashim fled to the mountains with a number of military officers. The mayor of a nearby community became suspicious of the group and informed 

security officials, who went after the would-be guerrillas in force. When 

the rebel group ran out of ammunition, the security forces seized them and 

Hashim was killed in the action. Al-Zawahiri praises him as a hero of the 

jihadist movement against the government, but remarks that the conditions 

favoring success for guerrilla warfare simply did not exist.

Like al Qaeda, ISIS is known to use Abu Bakr Naji’s The Administration of 

Savagery to give new recruits the big picture about the strategy and tactics favored by the group they have just joined. Like al-Zawahiri, Naji is a 

proponent of the Salafi jihadist movement and wrote his book as a universal guide to jihadist revolution and the creation of an Islamic emirate. Naji 

presents the ideal conditions for jihad to define priority states and refers his 

readers to studies performed by al-Suri. He uses the term “administration of 

savagery” to refer to the goal of setting up proto-governments in liberated 

areas, and gives five ideal conditions to establish these areas:

• Geographic depth and topography favorable to guerrilla operations

• Weak government unable to control peripheries or densely populated internal areas

• The nature of the people; lack of social cohesion allowing polarization

• Presence of a strong and expanding jihadist movement and preachers

• Availability of weapons distributed among the people

It is clear that Nilotic Egypt is missing several of these characteristics. Most 

of the country’s population is confined to a thin fertile strip along the Nile. 

While political divisions are apparent, there still exists a high degree of social 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 35

cohesion among the people and a strong identity as Egyptians. In post–Arab 

Spring conditions, the area is awash with weapons, but the strong central 

Egyptian government is able to uncover insurgent cells as they form. The Sinai, however, has much more favorable terrain for guerrillas and shows much 

less social cohesion. But even here, the strong central government tends to 

grind down the opposition, although it is hampered by lack of recent experience in counterinsurgency and a military still equipped and trained primarily for conventional warfare. The insurgency in the Sinai began as an al Qaeda 

enterprise calling itself Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in 2011, which increased its 

activity after the fall of the Morsi government in 2013. It gained much more 

international prominence, however, after the group pledged allegiance to alBaghdadi and the insurgency was subsumed within ISIS as an Islamic State 

province in the Sinai, sometimes referred to as Wilayat Sina.

Abu Bakr Naji’s book proposes a three-stage guerrilla strategy that mirrors the three-stage strategy found on al-Zawahiri’s hard disk in Kabul and 

echoes the strategy proposed by the foremost strategists and practitioners 

of the jihadist movement. Naji’s formulation is more colorful: 

1. Damage and exhaustion; 

2. “Administration of savagery” in liberated areas; 

3. Creation of Islamic state by consolidating liberated areas. 

ISIS deviated from this strategy by jumping ahead to declare itself the 

caliphate for all Muslims instead of stopping at an Islamic emirate. This 

declaration increased its ability to recruit significantly more members, but 

also poses problems with other jihadist groups because ISIS did not seek a 

consensus before moving to this end state.

When Mao Tse-tung proposed a strategy for guerrilla warfare, he felt compelled to justify using the word “strategy” to describe a tactic in warfare that 

was traditionally a tool of a conventional army, following a conventional 

strategy. Mao claimed, however, that when a territory is vast like China, 

guerrilla warfare “knocks at the gates of strategy.” 34 In Mao’s terms, guerrilla warfare becomes strategic in the case of a vast but weak state, China, 

fighting a small but powerful country, Japan, that occupies extended areas 

in a protracted war. In the third decisive stage of Mao’s strategy, however, 

conventional warfare returns and becomes primary.
36 irregular warfare studies

In the concept of jihadists like ISIS, the Muslim Umma is vast but weak 

and is occupied by foreign powers or their client apostate states.35 The 

three-stage strategy also requires conventional or at least semi-conventional 

forces in the third stage of consolidating liberated areas. However, as ISIS 

has implemented its war, the third stage may come when it “liberates” a 

rural area or cities such as al-Raqqa in Syria or Mosul in Iraq, or even sections within cities. The three-stage strategy is then a constant as ISIS moves 

from area to area, driving other forces out and whenever possible setting 

up its primitive government within the surrounding sea of chaos. Having 

no heavy industry of its own, it arms its semi-conventional forces from the 

arms left abandoned by its opponent.

ISIS uses guerrilla tactics throughout its campaign in Syria and Iraq. It 

attacks weak, isolated units for the most part and avoids stronger forces. 

When it attacks an isolated army installation or other fortified area, it often 

succeeds by using suicide bombers in the initial assault. In video after video, 

ISIS shows a smiling jihadist making a short speech in a large truck filled 

with explosives; and then, sometimes using aerial photography, ISIS shows 

the progress of the truck against a target until it explodes. Later, it films 

guerrillas in small units moving through the installation or town mopping 

up local forces. It avoids attrition of its own forces except when it believes it 

can prevail in a high-value target such as Kobane. In areas such as Baghdad, 

ISIS uses terrorist attacks to keep its enemy occupied, in hopes of exhausting and demoralizing their forces.

Mosul and al-Raqqa have become new safe havens and symbols of success. 

In both areas, but especially in Mosul, one can see the effects of criminal 

networks that apparently existed during al-Zarqawi’s time, when his cadres 

extorted money and in some cases acted as contract killers. ISIS today 

advertises its execution of freelance robbers and drug dealers as evidence 

of its intent to protect the people and provide security, the bare minimum 

requirement to set up Naji’s administration of savagery. 

As ISIS has consolidated its hold on cities and villages, it has used tribal 

alliances and former Baathist military to provide local governance and act, 

in Clausewitz’s term levée en masse, as an armed populace to oppose any 

encroachment by outside conventional forces or militias. Naji had advised 

jihadists with urban backgrounds to study tribal customs in sociological 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 37

studies to allow them to deal effectively with tribes; and he had anticipated 

that some members of the central government could be persuaded to join 

the jihadist cause, much as the former military and political cadres of Saddam Hussein’s government did after the U.S. invasion.

Naji had another important message: that ordinary Muslim people could not 

be relied on and were reluctant to join a jihadist operation because they were 

more concerned about their daily affairs or had been co-opted by the central 

government. He argued that jihadists needed to use polarization to mobilize 

a Muslim population. In his concept, one could polarize a community by using money to gain support, especially with tribes. ISIS has certainly used this 

tactic. But the main means of polarization in Syria and Iraq, where al-Zarqawi 

made great use of it, is the Sunni-Shia divide and sectarian warfare. In other 

areas such as the Sinai or Libya where this sectarian division does not apply, 

ISIS, and al Qaeda before it, uses other polarizing issues such as factional 

disputes in Libya or resentment of Sinai’s traditional residents against the 

government in Nilotic Egypt. Without polarization in an area, the ISIS 

group’s strategy would falter. The use of terrorism and videos of violence 

against enemies are powerful tools in its polarizing campaigns.

The U.S. and the coalition of nations against ISIS have the traditional military and political tools to weaken the group by understanding its strategy 

and tactics in detail and devising means to counter them. The most difficult 

issue to address, however, is polarization. The U.S. has taken the first major 

step to address polarization in Iraq by pressing for a more inclusive government, but Syria is still elusive. If progress in Iraq is slow and uncertain, in Syria 

it has not even begun. The air campaign is an extremely powerful (but not 

sufficient) military tool and can demonstrate that ISIS is less powerful than 

its propaganda would have us believe. However, addressing polarization can 

only occur in the context of a political solution that has not been described 

in great enough detail for Iraq and has not been articulated at all in Syria. 

The convincing description of political goals needs to accompany anticipated 

military success to avoid having any such success becoming temporary.

The importance for ISIS of The Administration of Savagery, and the reason 

that this group still uses it in training new recruits and as a guide for regional commanders, may be because the book distills the essence of jihadist 

strategic thinking on insurgency up until its completion in late 2004.36 Its 
38 irregular warfare studies

lessons are cast as universal truths based on what the author calls “universal 

laws” of war and politics. These laws naturally describe guerrilla doctrine 

and tactics that were as true for al Qaeda as they were for Mao, in the author’s view. The book also represents bin Laden’s and al-Zawahiri’s view that 

the United States can be driven out of the Middle East because it acts on 

self-interest, not principle. According to this view, if jihadists could demonstrate that the cost of staying in the region is too high in blood and treasure, 

the U.S. would leave the greater Middle East, and modern jihadists could 

then create a new empire using modern military tactics and an ancient plan 

of government. 

Part of the cost of staying could be addressed by guerrilla strategy, terrorism 

tactics, and brutality, which ISIS has always emphasized. Another aspect, 

according to Naji, is that seizing energy resources in the Middle East and 

North Africa would give jihadists the economic power to create the caliphate and cripple Western economies, especially the American system. Al 

Qaeda consistently failed to seize energy assets in the Arabian Peninsula; 

however, ISIS has made seizing oilfields a priority in Syria and Iraq and has 

succeeded to the extent that it strengthened its finances beyond any other 

jihadist group. Its threat to Saudi Arabia is in part to carry out bin Laden’s 

and al-Zawahiri’s greater plan.

Discussion Questions

1. The untitled paper found in al-Zawahiri’s laptop—most likely alSuri’s work—describes three stages of guerrilla warfare. What steps 

could a government take to keep the first stage of guerrilla warfare 

(attrition through hit-and-run tactics used by the guerrillas) from devolving into the second stage (equilibrium between the mujahedeen 

and government forces)?

2. Al-Suri’s jihadist global model has three components: (1) a clandestine central leadership circle; (2) a coordination circle of regional 

jihadist insurrections; and (3) a “call” circle of individual and smallcell terrorism behind enemy lines. In what ways do al Qaeda and the 

Islamic State follow this model? In what ways do they diverge from 

this model? 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 39

3. Develop a counterstrategy to attack the three key components of alSuri’s model outlined above.

4. How important is the role of politics for a government facing guerrilla warfare? What kind of political messages have worked in the past? 

What differences, if any, should there be between political messaging 

during a conflict with jihadists versus political messaging against a 

more familiar left-wing insurgency?

5. Setting the differences in their ideologies aside, how would you compare the ISIS group’s conduct of war with Mao’s wars against Japan 

and Nationalist Chinese forces, or any other left-wing insurrection 

with which you are familiar?

6. Using al-Suri’s analytical template for clandestine jihadist organizations, do you think that ISIS or al Qaeda will pose a greater threat to 

U.S. interests in the long run? 

7. With al-Suri’s template in mind, how would you recommend the U.S. 

government decrease the likelihood of a strategic alliance between al 

Qaeda elements in Syria and ISIS at some point in the future? 

8. The U.S. government devised a sophisticated network to attack 

funding sources for al Qaeda. What steps would you recommend to 

reduce funding for ISIS?

9. Is ISIS more like a clandestine organization or more like a state? Explain.

10. Al-Suri’s definition of the ideal conditions for jihadists seems to 

describe conditions in both Syria and Iraq at the present time. How 

could the U.S. government devise a cost-effective strategy and tactics 

to weaken the conditions that help jihadists?

11. The jihadists’ strategy is to increase the costs, in terms of both blood 

and treasure, of the U.S. presence in the region, thereby forcing Americans to leave the greater Middle East and allowing jihadists to fill the 

political vacuum. In what ways can the U.S. attack this strategy?

12. How does the ISIS group’s use of brutality and terrorism line up with 

other insurgencies with which you are familiar? Does the level of brutality matter to the outcome ISIS seeks?

13. What steps might the U.S. take (without occupying territory) to help 

diminish sectarian polarization in Syria and Iraq? 
Notes

22. Alan Cullison, “Inside Al-Qaeda’s Hard Drive,” 

The Atlantic, September 2004. http://www.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/09/

inside-al-qaeda-s-hard-drive/303428/.

23. For more on the significance of Taber’s book to 

al-Suri and other jihadi strategists see Michael 

W.S. Ryan, Decoding Al Qaeda’s Strategy: The 

Deep Battle Against America (New York: Columbia University Press); for an in-depth study of alSuri’s life and thought, see Brynjar Lia, Architect 

of Global Jihad: The Life of al Qaeda Strategist 

Abu Mus’ab al-Suri (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 2008). See also Andrew Black, 

“Al-Suri’s Adaptation of Fourth-Generation 

Warfare Doctrine,” Terrorism Monitor 4, no. 8 

(September 26, 2006).

24. The author of this case study translated the 

above passage from the unpublished ALKAER.

DOC, pp. 2-4; he received comments from a native speaker who wishes to remain anonymous. 

25. To see another example of an al Qaeda leader’s 

view of three-stage guerrilla warfare espoused by 

Mao, see Norman Cigar, Al-Qa’ida’s Doctrine for 

Insurgency: ‘Abd Al-’Aziz Al-Muqrin’s “A Practical 

Course for Guerrilla War” (Washington, DC: 

Potomac, 2009).

26. For a further analysis of al-Suri’s observations, see 

Ryan, Decoding Al Qaeda’s Strategy, pp. 198-199.

27. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, Call to Global Islamic 

Resistance (Da’wah al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah 

al-Alamiyyah), Part 2 (n.p.: December 2004), p. 

1359; translated in Ryan, Decoding Al Qaeda’s 

Strategy (2013), p. 223.

28. As a result of the devastating U.S. air campaign 

against its central leadership, funding for al Qaeda occurs now in its affiliates. Al Qaeda Central 

can offer advice and guidance, but is not a source 

of funding.

29. See Murad Batal al-Shishani, “The Political 

Economy of Islamic State and Its Financial 

Resources for War,” Terrorism Monitor 12, no. 24 

(December 19, 2014).

30. See Amr Al-Azm, Salam Al-Kuntar, and Brian I. 

Daniels, “ISIS’ Antiquities Sideline,” New York

Times, September 2, 2014; and Simon Cox, 

“The Men Who Smuggle the Loot That Funds 

IS,” February 17, 2015, www.bbc.com.

31. Jay Solomon, “ISIS’s Oil Revenue Is Falling, Administration Says,” Washington Wire, December 

15, 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com.

32. “Pentagon: Oil Is No Longer ISIS’ Main Source 

of Income,” February 5, 2015, http://english.

alarabiya.net.

33. This vignette is based on the account Ayman 

al-Zawahiri gave in his book Fursan Tahta Rayah 

al-Nabi (Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner), 

1st ed. (N.p.: Al-Sahab Publishers, n.d.), chapter 

4 (pagination varies in Arabic editions), http://

www.tawhed.ws/a?a=3i806qpo.

34. Mao Tse-Tung, The Art of War: Special Edition,

trans. by Foreign Language Press, Peking (El Paso, 

Texas: El Paso Norte Press, 2005), pp. 115 -117.

35. The Arabic word Umma means “community.” In 

jihadist literature, “the Umma” refers to the virtual community of all Muslims worldwide. The 

ultimate goal of modern jihadist groups such as 

ISIS is to unite this virtual community into an 

actual political community under the universal 

Shari’ah or Islamic law.

36. See Ryan, Decoding Al Qaeda’s Strategy (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 2013), p. 148.

40 irregular warfare studies
ISIS Group’s Successful Mobilization Tactics

A crucial part of the success of ISIS in Iraq and Syria is the group’s ability 

to continuously refresh its ranks of fighters despite heavy losses against 

other jihadist groups, the Kurds, the U.S.-led coalition air campaign, and 

regional governments. Recruiting foreign fighters to augment the ranks 

of local recruits is a key element of ISIS mobilization. By February 2015, 

U.S. officials estimated that as many as 20,000 recruits from perhaps 90 

countries had joined the group.37 The total ISIS fighting force from all 

sources in Syria and Iraq has been estimated to be as low as 30,000 and 

as high as 100,000. The estimate for all security forces, including police, 

could be as high as 200,000.38

The ISIS mobilization success so far has been based on its ability to use 

social media adroitly, but behind this success is a carefully constructed narrative of a foundational myth, the promise of apocalyptic victory against all 

enemies in the long run, and the myth of a welcoming home for all Muslim 

recruits in the immediate term. Before attempting to construct a counter 

narrative, we must first understand its content. The ISIS group’s magazine Dabiq reliably reflects the group’s policy and propaganda and is also 

one of the most accessible vehicles for its messages. Examining ISIS media 

content, especially Dabiq, reveals its key messages and its potential target 

audiences, the “what” of its mobilization effort. 

In addition, selected Social Movement Theory concepts, best known for 

use in analyzing political movements in Western societies, provide analysts 

with tools to understand “how” ISIS mobilizes support for its political and 

military program. 

Communication Strategy

The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify—

by Allah’s permission—until it burns the crusader Armies in Dabiq.

 CHAPTER 

THREE
42 irregular warfare studies

ISIS has attributed this inspirational saying to its founder Abu Mus’ab 

al-Zarqawi, and it appears in every issue of the magazine Dabiq. Dabiq’s 

first issue explains that its name comes from the place name of an area in 

the northern countryside of Aleppo, which was mentioned in a hadith (a 

reported saying of the Prophet Muhammad): “The [last] Hour will not 

be established until the Romans land at al-A’maq or Dabiq. Then an army 

from al-Madinah of the best people on the earth at that time will leave 

for them.” Dabiq continues the hadith as it describes an epic battle called 

“Malahim” in Arabic and “Armageddon” in English. The battle will be 

between the Muslim forces led by the Mahdi, but it will not occur until the 

Prophet Isa ( Jesus) descends on Damascus to confront a demonic “deceiver” who is leading the people astray. His appearance signals the beginning 

of the end times, which open with an epic battle in which Muslims triumph 

over Christian forces and culminate in the glorious end times, which represent not necessarily an end but the beginning of an indefinite period during 

which the entire world will be Muslim.39

This story used by ISIS is very old and is at the heart of popular Muslim 

Apocalyptic tradition. Scholars sometimes refer to this tradition as the 

A’maq cycle,40 after a series of valleys in northern Syria. Dabiq is now a small 

town of approximately 3,000 people, but some believe it will be the scene 

of the ultimate confrontation between Muslims and Christians before the 

last Hour. This imaginative setting is romantic and open to interpretation. 

Numerous books have been written about the signs of the end times and 

are best sellers in some parts of the Middle East. 

ISIS has chosen a tradition that may be found in one of the major collections of hadiths, the Sahih Muslim.41 Like all sibylline utterances, its 

interpretation is malleable and may fit a variety of circumstances. For 

example, Western troops landing in Syria would allow ISIS to call for jihad 

based on a hadith that anyone with access to the Internet or Islamic books 

could find. The hadith’s interpretation connects the lands stretching from 

the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia in the south, through Iraq and Syria, to 

the borders of Turkey in the north. Other traditions connect this area in 

imagination to the black banners of Khorasan and the founder of ISIS, Abu 

Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, who came from Afghanistan (Khorasan) through Iran 

to Iraq, to found a proto-state that would stretch from to Iraq to Syria. To 
a new convert to Islam, these founding myths may be embellished to give 

a romantic purpose and meaning to a life full of struggles, which like all 

romantic quests, is full of suffering before the goal is reached.

Al-Suri in his Call to Global Islamic Resistance cemented this romantic 

quest to the jihadist tradition side by side with his military theories 

of jihad, devoting the end of his long book to a catalog and analysis of 

apocalyptic hadiths.42 While some of these dealt with the black banner of 

Khorasan and the army of jihadists led by the Mahdi flooding out of the 

east to conquer all before them before taking Jerusalem, and were featured in some of al Qaeda’s recruitment efforts, the apocalyptic tradition 

was never in the forefront for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. 

Now, however, ISIS is embracing it in a powerful message to its potential 

recruits wherever they are.

ISIS and the Apocalypse

If the apocalyptic material is ancient, the ISIS group’s method of delivering it is thoroughly modern and shaped to make the message suit the 

group’s policies and recruitment efforts. ISIS has excelled in videos and 

glossy magazines with high production values, including professional 

editing of videos and high-resolution cameras for still shots. If the message is 80 percent of the struggle, it should not be surprising that ISIS 

takes great care in coordinating its messages and overlapping methods 

of delivery. The use of social media ensures that target audiences will be 

reached by a method that suits their circumstances. If a target population 

does not have ready access to computers, content targeted at smartphones 

offers an alternative. Where Facebook is popular, that is the chosen platform for messaging. If the smartphone is the preferred device, as it is with 

younger audiences, especially for recruitment, Twitter and even personal 

messaging are the delivery of choice. In short, all methods of delivery are 

available for general propaganda.

For example, the announcement of the “return” of the caliphate was handled in very carefully orchestrated fashion, including multiple languages 

and all available electronic forums. Online, one could read the announcement of the caliphate and its new caliph delivered by the ISIS spokesman; 

and then on popular commercial video platforms, one could watch a video 

isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 43
of the inaugural speech by the new self-styled caliph in the historic mosque 

in Mosul. A few days later, the first issue of Dabiq began appearing on 

selected websites, and it included quotes from the new caliph about various 

policies that first appeared on Twitter. Generally, commercial enterprises 

like Twitter and YouTube will remove such postings for violating content 

policies, but once posted they take on a life of their own on the Internet 

and can be found on a variety of public and private websites and blogs. 

ISIS Messaging

ISIS messaging may be lurid and overwhelming, as in the beheading videos, 

or it may be subtle and intended for specific audiences. For example, the 

first issue of Dabiq devoted an article to establishing that leadership means 

both religious and political leadership for ISIS. The article’s title, “The 

Concept of Imamah (Leadership) Is From the Millah (Path) of Ibrahim” 

contains some allusions that resemble “dog whistles,” or phrases with special 

significance to specific audiences (just as dog whistles are pitched outside 

the range of human hearing, where only dogs can hear them—and be 

trained to respond to them). For example, the statement that leadership is 

derived from the path or way of Ibrahim (Arabic for the Prophet Abraham) 

could simply mean that leadership derives from a Salafi jihadist concept 

of Islam, because that is what “Millah Ibrahim” means to jihadists. On the 

other hand, the path of Ibrahim could also allude to the other significant 

event announced in the magazine: the seizure of religious and political 

power by the new Caliph Ibrahim. 

The embedded dog whistle is more obscure; Millah Ibrahim is the title 

of an important book by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a famous jihadist 

religious authority and former mentor of al-Zarqawi. Al-Maqdisi turned 

against al-Zarqawi because of the latter’s excessive and brutal violence and 

became an outspoken critic of ISIS. Citing this book is signaling to other 

jihadists, especially in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, that ISIS is claiming to 

have accomplished what al-Maqdisi had only spoken about. Furthermore, 

Dabiq’s apocalyptic messaging context would appeal to extremists in Saudi 

Arabia, who admire al-Maqdisi’s works, tend toward a millenarian concept 

of history, and agree with his harsh criticism of the Saudi government. 

Dabiq contains other important indications of the ISIS group’s policies. For 

example, in describing the strategy of founder al-Zarqawi, the authors of 

44 irregular warfare studies
Dabiq introduce the transliterated Arabic words nikayah (damage/terrorism), tawahhush (savagery or chaos), and tamkin (establishing the protostate). These are ordinary words but are used as terms of art as the three stages 

of jihad in The Administration of Savagery. The magazine also describes deals 

with tribal councils, part of a strategy developed by ISIS in its written plan 

for a comeback in Iraq in anticipation of the withdrawal of American forces, 

and mimics the American approach to Awakening Councils among the tribes 

in Iraq to decimate al Qaeda in Iraq. In the context of this strategy attributed 

to al-Zarqawi, ISIS outlines a five-stage roadmap it will follow to expand its 

proto-state. The first two stages constitute the recruitment and absorption of 

individuals or groups into the ISIS structure, while the last three stages echo 

the three-stage cycle of guerrilla warfare described by Naji and al-Suri.43

The first stage is the call for recruits to travel (hijrah) to ISIS-held areas in 

Syria/Iraq or other battlefields. The second stage is to join (jama’ah) the group 

and be trained and absorbed. The third stage is to engage in destabilizing the 

central government with terrorism and guerrilla warfare. The fourth stage is 

the establishment of the proto-state after government forces are withdrawn or 

defeated—“the administration of savagery.” The final stage is the establishment 

of an Islamic emirate or, in the case of Syria/Iraq, the self-declared caliphate.

This sequence makes sense only if one considers that the expansion of 

the caliphate requires additional local and foreign recruits to be guided 

through the five-stage path. In Syria and Iraq, the process is mature and 

ISIS is fighting to survive, but in Egypt or Libya, to cite two active examples, the groups pledging allegiance to Caliph Ibrahim are in the beginning stages of the process. Anywhere ISIS exists, the stream of recruits is 

required to replenish its losses in its continuous armed struggle to establish 

its rule over new areas, consolidate those areas with previous conquests, and 

then continue to expand. Essentially unopposed, ISIS forces expanded rapidly in northern Iraq, subduing village after village and setting up a primitive government under its own version of Islamic law. In Syria, however, 

ISIS was able to consolidate its rule in al-Raqqa and increase government 

services to the point where it can claim to have a number of government 

services one would expect in a city. The most dramatic consolidation of 

power was between contiguous areas in Iraq and Syria after Mosul fell to 

ISIS forces when central government forces fled. The areas under ISIS conisis: the terrorist group that would be a state 45
46 irregular warfare studies

trol, however, are not static. The greatest challenge for ISIS so far has been 

Kurdish forces in both Syria and Iraq supported by U.S. air assets, which 

have managed to defeat ISIS forces and drive it out of a number of previously occupied areas. Without a strong propaganda campaign to replenish 

its ranks, ISIS could not sustain its momentum or continue to hold areas it 

has taken by force.

Space does not permit cataloging all the allusions and messages in the first 

issue of Dabiq, let alone all the messages in the following issues. Each page 

is carefully written and dense with messages framed for a variety of audiences that ISIS intends to reach, both friends and enemies. Even a casual 

reading of Dabiq demonstrates what one would expect from any jihadist 

group, that is, the holy places in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem are high mission priorities. A careful reading shows that, like al Qaeda, the ISIS group’s 

doctrine follows in the Egyptian revolutionary intellectual tradition of 

Sayyid Qutb and Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj. This tradition places the 

modern concept of jihad as an individual obligation at the center of Islamic 

doctrine; considers all Muslims except for Salafi jihadists to be apostate; 

and downgrades Jews and Christians to the status of implacable enemies 

that are not part of the Abrahamic tradition. 

Mobilization: Social Movement Theory Concepts 

Applied to ISIS

Several concept pairs developed in Social Movement Theory complement 

the contextual analysis of ISIS’s general propaganda and its targeted usage of 

social media for recruitment. These concepts are useful tools in assessing an 

organization’s approach to mobilizing political forces behind its programs 

and provide the frameworks for questions concerning how an organization is 

successful in terms of its strengths and vulnerabilities. The first pair is culture 

and framing, in which organizations frame all issues in terms of the culture of 

the group it intends to influence. Framing can also be used to convert target 

populations to a political culture mobilized for action. Over time, how an 

organization frames issues becomes the political brand of that organization. 

The second concept pair is violence and contention. The interplay of violence and contention44 in the political realm defines how and when violence 

becomes the chosen form of political contention. The last concept pair to be 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 47

considered is network and alliances. Here, the key is the distinction between 

the two and the identification of when collaboration within a network is permitted under revolutionary Salafi jihadism, when an alliance is not permitted.

Culture and Framing

Perhaps the strongest aspect of the ISIS group’s mobilization strategy is its 

ability to frame its messages consistently and with cross-references across 

multiple social media platforms. However, as Quintan Wiktorowicz argues 

in his groundbreaking book Islamic Activism, “One of the most critical 

dimensions of the framing process for movement mobilization is frame 

resonance.” 45 Like other Islamist recruiting efforts, ISIS frames messages 

with different cultural resonance for different audiences. And like other extremist groups before it, ISIS recruiters target individuals and groups with 

tailored appeals: purely political appeals, appeals to victimhood, religious 

appeals, appeals that offer a new identity, and apocalyptic appeals. The 

major overarching frames include the following:

• Salafi jihadist answer to world problems (true Islam)

• Fulfillment of end-times prophesies (apocalyptic adventure)

• Answer to unjust U.S. and its client tyrants (caliphate as powerful 

winner)

• Benign community of believers (paradise for lost millennials)

• Avenger of racial and ethnic humiliation (revenge and rebirth for 

victims)

• Best bet to survive (protector in war theaters)

ISIS framing exercises will change with changing events. The vocabulary 

and symbols will vary with audience. These appeals may be single source or 

mixtures such as Dabiq offers. What is new and a distinctive competitive 

advantage for ISIS is its ability to match the medium to the preferences of 

the target audience—in other words, it chooses the medium and message 

that resonates best with the target audience. In the case of recruitment, the 

framing may begin with a general framing on radical websites and Facebook 

using themes such as the alleged victimization of Muslims in wars the U.S. or 

its allies have fought. A general appeal using the usual framing of events in 

Iraq, Syria, or other areas with a majority Muslim population may be part of a 

broad radicalization effort. The appeal may be sharpened by Twitter offerings 
48 irregular warfare studies

in English that target a young audience in a specific country. Finally, if individuals self-identify with specific concerns, ISIS operatives may target them 

with personal messages to their phones or email accounts to continue the 

radicalization process. These might be totally political in nature or may have 

a religious cast. Where conditions permit, recruiters may offer these messages 

in person in a way that may be protected by laws allowing freedom of speech. 

If the message is religious, the target will be someone who may identify as a 

Muslim but does not know much about Islam beyond clichés. 

The distinctive framing used by ISIS, which is different from all other radical 

groups currently, is its self-identification as the caliphate for all Muslims. One 

of its most powerful appeals to lost souls is its representation of its Syrian 

capital, al-Raqqa, as a peaceful community of believers where every race and 

ethnicity is treated with respect and given a purpose in a loving community 

of believers. This image remains powerful despite al-Raqqa’s grim reality.

Violence and Contention

So until we return to the correct state of Islamic affairs, it’s upon us all to 

work together to eradicate the principle of “free choice,” and to not deceive 

the people in an attempt to seek their pleasure, neither by calling to “free 

choice” directly, nor by alluding to it indirectly. Rather, we must confront 

them with the fact that they’ve turned away from the religion, while we 

hold onto it, grasping its purity, its clarity, its comprehensiveness, without 

any blemishes due to shirk [idolatry], misguidance or heresy, and that we’re 

completely ready to stand in the face of anyone who attempts to divert us 

from our commitment to making the religion of Allah triumphant over all 

other religions, and that we will continue to fight the people of deviation 

and misguidance until we die trying to make the religion triumphant.46

In most political movements, the key question is how political contention 

is managed. The usual assumption is that denying any political space for 

opposition creates the conditions in which political violence is more likely. 

Furthermore, indiscriminate suppression of dissent is generally viewed as 

a mobilizing force for those who would engage in revolutionary activities. Some clandestine organizations in the Middle East and North Africa, 

such as the Muslim Brotherhood, inhabit a space that allows the pragmatic 

choice of violence or nonviolence depending on the circumstances. It is 

misleading to assert, however, that any Islamist group is inherently nonvio-
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 49

lent. While Salafi jihadists are at the extreme of Islamist identity, there is 

no Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. in Islamist ranks. Jihadists argue that 

violence is always necessary in dealing with political foes. Occasionally, a 

Salafi jihadist will argue that violence must be avoided to prevent damage 

or destruction to the jihadist movement as a whole or in a particular country. In general, however, those making such statements generally make them 

in jail or after being released. The question for Salafi jihadists is not whether 

they will resort to violence—but against whom, when, and how.

The quote above indicates an answer to the first two questions. ISIS is 

a modern totalitarian political movement based on a deviant Islamic 

analysis. It is a radical form of takfir (declaring someone to be an infidel) 

that is applied to all except those who accept the new caliphate. Therefore, violence is directed against anyone or any group that disagrees with 

the group’s ideology. Similarly, the timing of violence against those who 

disagree is always until all dissent is crushed. It is an eternal war until the 

end times. The first ones who must be killed or converted are those who 

say they are Muslims but reject the truth that ISIS claims to be bringing 

to the world. The “Flood” alluded to in the theme of issue 2 of Dabiq is 

the great Flood that destroyed the entire world except for the Prophet 

Noah (called Nuh in Islam).

The ISIS group’s practice of killing civilians and captive soldiers seems 

arbitrary and barbaric when viewed from the outside. Such violence is 

correctly recognized as primarily a terror tool and a recruiting vehicle. By 

killing those who resist, ISIS intends to encourage others to submit, an 

ancient practice that has precedents in Alexander the Great’s conquests, 

Caesar’s wars, and the Mongol invasion of the Middle East. However, 

when ISIS kills soldiers after they surrender or kills noncombatants, 

they discriminate between Sunnis, who are given a chance to repent and 

pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi, and Shia, who are executed. Shia are 

always framed as “rejectionists,” while Sunni are “apostates.” ISIS thus 

denies that it kills indiscriminately.

Many question whether ISIS is more violent than al Qaeda or a greater 

threat to the U.S. In fact, most signature atrocities such as videos recording 

ritualized beheadings belong as much to al Qaeda’s repertoire as to ISIS. Al 

Qaeda has beheaded Western civilians on camera clandestinely in Pakistan 
50 irregular warfare studies

and Saudi Arabia, to cite two examples. The leadership of al Qaeda thought 

these worked against its brand, but it is still possible to find video beheadings 

claiming to be by al Qaeda’s Jabhat Nusra in Syria today. Al Qaeda also has 

used suicide bombers against civilians in a number of countries. Certainly, al 

Qaeda, like ISIS, has been responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than 

non-Muslims in their numerous terror campaigns throughout the world. 

The more interesting comparison is between ISIS and the Armed Islamic 

Group (GIA) in Algeria during the 1990s. GIA developed into one of 

the most radical and violent jihadist groups in modern times, although its 

scope was local rather than transnational or global. In escalating waves of 

violence marked by the massacre of civilians, GIA eventually claimed that 

essentially all Algerians, except for their own members, were infidels meriting death. Even al Qaeda strategists al-Suri and Naji referred to the GIA 

as “deviant.” Professor Mohammad M. Hafez has argued that GIA’s anticivilian violence in Algeria was “the outcome of an ill-fated convergence 

of three variables—indiscriminate repression, exclusive organization, and 

antisystem ideologies.” 47 Hafez argued that the Algerian government, after 

a military coup that thwarted the legal election of an Islamist government 

and the defeat of the founding secular regime, resorted to indiscriminate 

violence to repress the protesting Islamist factions. This in turn allowed 

GIA, which was a marginal but highly exclusive and secretive group, to 

increase its membership, powered by powerful anti-government framing. 

GIA eventually lost the support of a terrified populace and fell to the militarized government. It was this example that al-Zawahiri had in mind when 

he counseled al-Zarqawi against anti-Shia violence and why al Qaeda today 

is taking a stand against video beheadings. But GIA did not have the ISIS 

group’s powerful media tools.48

In the face of other jihadist opposition, ISIS has turned video beheadings 

and even live burnings to its advantage, at least in the short term. What 

most people see as barbaric, a subset of radicalized individuals sees as heroic 

acts of revenge and a sign of power against arrogant enemies. This shortterm strength, however, may turn into a long-term vulnerability—but only 

if the U.S. and its allies can mount an effective counter narrative that rivals 

the effectiveness of ISIS propaganda. Otherwise, culturally framed violence 

will continue to be a significant tool in the ISIS arsenal.
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 51

Networks and Alliances

The Islamic State has an extensive history of building relations with the tribes 

within its borders in an effort to strengthen the ranks of the Muslims, unite 

them under one imam, and work together towards the establishment of the prophetic Khilafah. Its practice of attending tribal forums, addressing the concerns 

of the tribal leaders, and accepting their bay’ah is regularly met with success:

Last month, following instructions from the head of Public Relations in 

Wilayat Halab [Governorate of Aleppo], the wilayah’s head of Tribal Affairs attended a meeting with the following tribal representatives . . . 49

Clandestine groups, especially jihadist ones, operate within a shadow 

network that includes not only allies but also other groups that collaborate because of specific mutual advantage. When at its weakest point 

in 2009/2010 in Iraq, ISIS forged a strategy to strengthen its political 

position, at the core of that strategy was the recognition that the group’s 

treatment of Sunni tribes had created the circumstances in which the 

tribal leaders were ready to ally with the U.S. to destroy AQI. Winning 

over the Sunni tribes in Iraq was a large part of the ISIS reemergence in 

Iraq. Similarly, in Syria, gaining the cooperation of tribal groups is at the 

strategic core of the ISIS group’s tactical success.50

In the above quote, ISIS demonstrates how it succeeds with tribes by using a 

Syrian example, but the same scenario played itself out in Iraq as well. After 

the withdrawal of American forces, the Maliki government’s mistreatment of 

the Sunni tribes created a universal hostility among their ranks. ISIS needed 

to transform resentment, which could be passive, into active resistance. ISIS 

went about this transformation by both using political arguments and providing tangible rewards. The tangible rewards were delivered in the context of 

their proto-government, which is the equivalent of Naji’s Administration of 

Savagery in areas from which central government forces had been withdrawn 

in Iraq and Syria. These tangible benefits are succinctly described in Dabiq:

• Returning property to owners

• Investing millions of dollars in local services

• Providing security and stability

• Ensuring the availability of food and commodities in local markets

• Reducing crime rate
52 irregular warfare studies

ISIS also reported what it expected from the tribes around Aleppo in 

return. It requested that tribal elders collect the religious tax (zakat) and 

prepare lists of orphans and widows who would benefit from the tax. Next, 

it asked the elders to “encourage” youth to join its military forces and turn 

in any weapon acquired either from the Assad regime or the Free Syrian 

Army. Finally, ISIS told the elders that any of its members who had borne 

arms against ISIS could repent; ominously, their repentance must occur 

before ISIS captured them. 

Recounting the meeting in Syria and other meetings, ISIS listed the names 

of those tribes attending. However, Dabiq becomes vague when recounting 

the number of tribal leaders that pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi and ISIS. 

The clear implication is that ISIS is accepting tribes’ buying into the ISIS 

network and collaborating without actually becoming part of it. One could 

say that the relationship is more than a network but less than an alliance, 

especially since ISIS has substituted wilayat (governorates or provinces) for 

allies. Naji wrote about “faith-based bonds of loyalty” as a substitute for tribal 

loyalty, which he envied.51 This may be the model for ISIS seeking pledges 

of allegiance or bay’ah as a substitute for tribal bonds. In following this path, 

however, ISIS is vulnerable to tribal backlash and ultimately revolt under the 

same conditions that would allow such a course.

We have discussed how ISIS relies on criminal networks and in many ways itself constitutes a criminal network of smugglers and extortionists. In addition 

to using criminal networks logistically, ISIS appears to contract out killing. 

For example, on one occasion when Kurdish forces in Iraq allowed reporters to interview captured ISIS killers, it became clear that the men were paid 

killers, not ISIS soldiers. The men referred to ISIS in the third person, using 

the pejorative term Dae’sh52 casually, as though it were the most ordinary way 

to refer to the group, although use of that term would be avoided by any ISIS 

member, even under duress. ISIS also networks with other hostile jihadist 

organizations with which it is in a state of perpetual war. Such networking is 

based on pragmatism and is the field commander’s prerogative. When al Qaeda groups in Syria occasionally collaborate with local ISIS forces in military 

operations, such collaboration does not signify that the two parent groups are 

considering reuniting. Unless the official spokesman announces a rapproche-
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 53

ment or truce, any local accommodations should be considered normal 

pragmatic field decisions without wider political ramifications. 

To counter the ISIS group’s mobilization strategy requires collaboration 

between Muslim-majority countries and the U.S. and its Western allies. 

ISIS has shown its resilience as a social movement and a revolutionary 

concept, so the collaboration against it must be long term. The U.S. cannot 

effectively counter the specifically religious aspects of the ISIS narrative 

because only Muslim authorities have any credibility in that arena. That 

is not to say that the U.S. government should not collaborate with private 

Muslim-American organizations, especially in anti-radicalization programs 

in Muslim communities. However, addressing issues such as the end-times 

narrative requires a deep knowledge of Islamic texts and traditions. Funding translations from Arabic is one important aspect of this struggle. While 

Western public figures often state that Middle Eastern Muslims must do 

more to counter radical statements, many Arabic voices are in fact raised 

but go unnoticed because of language barriers. The West should at least 

match the ISIS group’s translation efforts into major European languages. 

Otherwise, the ISIS narrative goes unchallenged in, for example, English-, 

French-, and German-speaking countries.

Much of what the U.S. can do involves avoiding playing into the mobilization narrative and inadvertently feeding it. The most famous example is 

President George W. Bush’s use of “crusade” to describe American military 

actions. To avoid such gaffes, a great deal more effort needs to be placed 

on understanding the jihadist ideology. Much progress has been made, but 

much more effort is required.

The importance of criminal networks to ISIS and al Qaeda argues for 

vigorous cooperation among coalition law enforcement agencies to disrupt 

these networks. Attacking crime in general will not help because the category is too broad, but putting organizations and individuals on notice that 

the international community will give high priority to arresting and prosecuting individuals who receive goods smuggled by ISIS operatives would 

be a significant positive step.
54 irregular warfare studies

Discussion Questions

1. Much of the ISIS group’s political propaganda involves the use of 

Islamic symbols and popular beliefs. How can the U.S. and its coalition 

allies counter this propaganda (for example, the use of the concept of 

the Apocalypse) without making matters worse? What would be the 

effect of ignoring this part of ISIS propaganda?

2. How important are Kurdish forces in the battle against ISIS in Iraq 

and Syria? Should the U.S. arm the Kurds directly, even if the governments of Iraq and Turkey object? In other words, how would you make 

the tradeoff between military gains against ISIS versus political complications with allies?

3. What elements would you include in an information war against ISIS?

4. ISIS uses “culture and framing” in much of its public dialogue via 

terms and arguments that resonate with the culture of its target audiences to criticize its enemies, including the United States. How could 

the U.S. frame ISIS attacks on historical and religious landmarks that 

are much loved by local populations in ways that would resonate in the 

greater Middle East? What would be the military’s role, if any, in this 

messaging? Can you think of other issues that would be more effective 

to reframe?

5. What factors contribute to the success of ISIS on social media? What

countermeasures are available to mitigate that success?

6. ISIS uses networks of Sunni Arab tribes in Syria and Iraq to prosecute 

its war against the region. Much of its work with tribes was inspired 

by the successful U.S. strategy against al Qaeda insurgents during the 

“Surge” in Iraq. From your experience, could the U.S. replicate its work 

with Sunni tribes in present-day Iraq and Syria without a large military 

footprint? Explain.
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 55

Notes

37. Robert Windrem, “ISIS by the Numbers: Foreign Fighter Total Keeps Growing,” NBC News, 

February 28, 2015.

38. See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, “How Many 

Fighters Does the Islamic State Really Have?,” 

February 9, 2015, http://warontherocks.

com. Gartenstein-Ross includes high and low 

estimates from numerous sources to conclude 

that official U.S. estimates of 20,000 to 31,500 

fighters in ISIS are low.

39. The story of Dabiq appears in greater detail 

in Dabiq: The Return of Khilafah 1 ( June-July 

2014).

40. For an analysis of the ancient A’maq cycle, see 

David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic

(Princeton: Darwin Press, 2002), pp. 49-54.

41. The hadith cited by ISIS may be found in the 

standard compilation of hadith, the Sahih Muslim, chapter 40, no. 6924.

42. For an analysis and references to the apocalyptic 

tradition in al-Suri’s work, see Jean-Pierre Filiu, 

Apocalypse in Islam, trans. M.B. DeBevoise 

(Berkeley: University of California Press 2011), 

pp. 184-193.

43. ISIS is known to distribute Naji’s book to 

regional commanders and rank-and-file recruits. 

See Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: 

Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 

2015), pp. 40-41. In his book, Naji recommends 

other jihadist authors, most notably Abu Mus’ab 

al-Suri.

44. “Contention” is used in this case study as 

shorthand for political contention, including the 

various tools available to social movements to 

oppose the ruling system in a particular country 

or region. Social movements usually have a repertoire of tools for political contention, such as 

trade unions, political parties, and so on. The jihadist movement generally insists that rationally 

organized violence must be its major political 

tool and rejects any other form of democratically 

acceptable contention as a path to its goals.

45. Quintan Wiktorowicz, ed., Islamic Activism: A 

Social Movement Approach (Bloomington and 

Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004), 

p. 16.

46. Dabiq: The Flood, no. 2 ( July 2014), p. 11. 

47. Mohammed M. Hafez, “From Marginalization 

to Massacres: A Political Process Explanation of 

GIA Violence in Algeria,” in Wiktorowicz ed., 

Islamic Activism (2004), p. 53.

48. GIA also lacked many other competitive advantages that ISIS possesses. For example, it focused 

mainly on Algeria and did not have a wide appeal 

that would gain it regional support. Also, Algeria 

does not have the sectarian polarization that ISIS 

has been able to use to its advantage in Syria and 

Iraq. Thus the hyper violence that ISIS uses can 

be framed as discriminating, whereas GIA was 

seen to be indiscriminate in its violence. Perhaps 

the most important advantage for ISIS, however, 

is its strategic approach based on lessons learned 

from previous jihadist insurgencies.

49. Dabiq: The Return of Khilafah 1 ( June-July 

2014): 12.

50. See Murad Batal al-Shishani, “The Islamic State’s 

Strategic and Tactical Plan for Iraq,” Terrorism 

Monitor 12, no. 16 (August 8, 2014); Michael 

Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ch. 13, “Shakedown 

of the Sheikhs: ISIS Co-opts the Tribes” in ISIS: 

Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 

2015); for the ISIS account of its relationship 

with the Sunni tribes in Syria, see “Halab Tribal 

Assemblies,” in Dabiq: The Return of Khilafah 

( June/July 2014): 13-14.

51. See Michael W.S. Ryan, Decoding Al Qaeda’s 

Strategy: The Deep Battle Against America (New 

York: Columbia University Press) pp. 183-185.

52. Dae’sh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic 

State in Iraq and Sham, which avoids the use of 

“Islamic” in the group’s title and has a slighting 

sound when pronounced with a sneer but otherwise is meaningless. 

Conclusion: Net Assessment of ISIS Strengths and 

Weaknesses With Recommendations

As suggested earlier, this case study is intended to be a preliminary net assessment of the ISIS group’s strengths and weaknesses. To be useful, such a 

net assessment must take into account a relatively long time frame, which 

current trends suggest. What follows are conclusions gained from this assessment, with preliminary recommendations based on current research.

The Enemy’s Strengths

One of the greatest failures of the U.S. approach to ISIS mirrors a shortcoming with al Qaeda—namely, a failure to identify precisely who the enemy is and describe it in the terms it describes itself. This failure of concept 

stems from an attitude that is often heard in private conversation but not 

written down. Too often, analysis of ISIS and al Qaeda fails to recognize 

the importance of the written word to these groups. Both ISIS and al 

Qaeda are modern, adaptive learning organizations in spite of the primitive 

society they espouse, and their strategists and practitioners take great care 

in the written and spoken word. They produce written primers for recruits 

in grand strategy as well as strategic critiques of their own operations.

ISIS follows in al Qaeda’s footsteps by having multifaceted strategies based 

on lessons learned from past failures and successes. We know that ISIS’s 

military strategy begins from a model that would be recognized by Mao, 

Che Guevara, or General Giap. It is a strategy that hopes to defeat the most 

powerful global military by using a political strategy aimed at convincing 

the U.S. that staying the course in the Middle East will be too costly in lives, 

treasure, and international prestige. And it intends to defeat local powers by 

a version of Clausewitz’s levée en masse, using a mobilization strategy based 

on effective religiously-based propaganda, tangible rewards, and fearsome 

punishment. It has focused on the local themes that have always appealed 

to some groups within the Muslim majority of the greater Middle East, 

 CHAPTER 

FOUR
58 irregular warfare studies

including reestablishing a powerful caliphate, driving out foreign powers, protecting the sacred places of Islam, controlling the region’s natural 

energy resources, and, finally, producing a righteous version of social justice 

by overthrowing all authoritarian regimes. ISIS also enjoys the reputation 

of being the richest jihadist organization at present, capable of persuading 

citizens of some 80 countries to travel to join its struggle. In both Iraq and 

Syria, ISIS has managed to forge powerful relationships with Sunni tribes 

with grievances against Shia Muslim-majority governments.

ISIS is part of a social movement that describes itself as the leader of the 

global Salafi jihadist community, similar to al Qaeda’s claim to be the 

vanguard of the Salafi jihadist movement. ISIS is attempting to become a 

mass unified social movement by demonstrating almost miraculous success 

in a short period of time in Iraq and Syria. It also has aspirations to support insurrections in the Arabian Peninsula, beginning with Saudi Arabia. 

Further afield, it has seeded nascent groups in the Sinai, Libya, Algeria, and 

the Af/Pak region. In addition, the well-established Boko Haram group has 

pledged allegiance to ISIS.

The Enemy’s Weaknesses

Despite its quick success, ISIS is not militarily strong in a conventional 

sense. It has no defense against American and coalition airstrikes. It has not 

been successful over the long run against determined Kurdish ground forces 

in either Iraq or Syria. Its rapid initial success is based on a superior guerrilla 

strategy coupled to its ability to terrorize its opposition; this initial success 

must be sustained, but holding territory is proving more difficult over the 

long run. Similarly, over the long run ISIS will need to continue to generate large amounts of revenue to sustain its operations. It will inevitably give 

priority to its military operations, which will raise discontent among its 

subject Sunni population who accede to ISIS not out of love, but because 

of grievances against the Shia. However, it appears unlikely that ISIS will 

be able to generate the revenue it needs. American “strategic patience” in its 

air campaign is paying dividends by reducing ISIS revenues from petroleum 

smuggling and other criminal enterprises. Furthermore, its enemies among 

the Gulf nations have taken steps to stem donations from private sources. 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 59

One of the strategic hinge issues is the internal war among local jihadist 

groups. While ISIS has emerged as the most powerful group in terms of 

resources and ability to draw new members, it is weakened by its unwillingness to achieve a meaningful detente with al Qaeda and other jihadist 

groups despite its claim to the caliphate. ISIS would be strengthened by 

such a detente, but it seems highly unlikely in the short or long term. The 

barbaric public atrocities that have somehow inspired foreigners to travel to 

join ISIS have, at the same time, undermined its brand in the Middle East 

with the vast majority of Muslims in the most powerful countries. Finally, 

to succeed, ISIS needs to live up to its slogan “remaining and expanding.” If 

it can be contained or rolled back in the territories it occupies, it could lose 

its advantage of being seen as a winner worthy of fear, if not respect.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are based on information provided in 

this case study. Where direct U.S. military involvement is suggested, this is 

always intended to be a limited, mission-specific involvement such as the 

use of temporary direct action by Special Forces or air strikes. Such recommendations should not be understood to mean a massive involvement of 

conventional forces at the level of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Counterterrorism Recommendations

On balance, the competition between al Qaeda and ISIS is a zero-sum 

game: the U.S. cannot degrade one without strengthening the other. 

However, the counterterrorism and police measures used against ISIS 

can be adapted to degrade al Qaeda as well. For example, measures taken 

against an ISIS smuggling network would also affect al Qaeda capabilities. 

To address the ancient issue of smuggling requires the use of all the tools 

at the U.S. coalition’s disposal in the areas of counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and counter narrative. Importantly, American operations need to 

be executed in the context of a clear strategy, including publicly articulated 

and resourced goals and objectives. As it is unrealistic to expect to stop all 

smuggling into and out of Syria and Iraq, any anti-smuggling effort would 

need to discriminate between high-priority and low-priority targets. For 

example, coalition forces and intelligence assets could decide to target high-
value operations such as smuggling of people, arms, petroleum products, 

and historical artifacts. The U.S. also would need to give clear warnings that 

individuals engaging in such smuggling are considered to be members of 

ISIS, not innocent civilians. 

U.S. counterterrorism resources include police, intelligence agencies, and 

the military. These efforts are both domestic and foreign and include a 

coalition of allies. In a successful campaign against ISIS, allied efforts are 

crucial, particularly in countries where jihadists rally to the ISIS banner. 

Fortunately, this coalition is already in place and, at one level or another, 

the U.S. works with countries sharing a counterterrorism interest. The U.S. 

can greatly strengthen counterterrorism efforts by providing technical assistance to our allies, especially in forensic science and intelligence, two fields 

in which American technology is paramount. The key to success is sharing 

information among components and resourcing the analysis of data. Each 

country in the coalition must be responsible for its own enforcement; problems will always arise around data that is not shared.

Counterinsurgency theory and practice has risen and fallen over the last 

decade. There has been controversy concerning whether al Qaeda and ISIS 

should be addressed as a counterterrorism or a counterinsurgency problem 

set. Despite the hot political aspects of this debate, a cold eye on the nature 

of ISIS and al Qaeda reveals that both organizations are promoters and participants in transnational insurgencies and use terrorism as a major weapon. 

To be effective in the current atmosphere, the U.S. can make headway in 

counterinsurgency by using military and intelligence means against perceived ISIS strengths. For ISIS, legitimacy is based on success. By thwarting 

success, the U.S. and its allies can degrade the group’s brand and its legitimacy. To cite one example, ISIS financial strength allows it to fund groups 

like Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) in the Sinai. ABM has suffered severely 

under the Egyptian military campaign against it, but it has been able to 

improve its operations by declaring allegiance to ISIS. Being able to fund 

and arm groups like this is an important part of what gives ISIS legitimacy 

in the eyes of ABM members and other jihadist groups with ambitions of 

their own, whether in Libya, Algeria, or the Sahel. 

Finally, a key component is the need to put the occasional ISIS success in 

context. For example, it is not enough to note that ISIS uses classic guerrilla 

60 irregular warfare studies
warfare strategy that relies on the media and propaganda as much as on 

force of arms. The U.S. and its coalition allies need to use that knowledge to 

note that when ISIS forces lose ground in one area, their small-unit tactics 

using multiple suicide-vehicle-borne IEDs and their ability to move quickly 

allow them to mount successful surprise attacks. These attacks are “successful” if they manage to distract the media from recent coalition success on a 

wider scale and portray ISIS success as a change in momentum. Nevertheless, ISIS will not be able to hold the territory if coalition forces mount a 

determined counterattack.

From the beginning of its involvement, the U.S. has prioritized air strikes 

on economic targets within ISIS-held territory. Significantly increasing 

these strikes could over time degrade this source of legitimacy. Meanwhile 

all the local counterinsurgency efforts would remain the responsibility of 

local forces, ideally using subnational forces that possess a strong unity of 

purpose, with U.S. technical assistance and training. In locales such as Syria, 

Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, the U.S. may not be able to rely solely on local 

forces in the immediate and mid term. U.S. and coalition military forces 

tailored to the situation may need to be part of the military solution in 

such cases, whether through an air campaign or through ground forces at a 

level well below that of either the Iraq or Afghan wars.

Counter Narrative Recommendations

Counterterrorism and counterinsurgency programs need a counter narrative to transform operational success into political success. Like any effective political narrative, the anti-ISIS narrative must be composed of positive 

information about the coalition as well as negative information about ISIS. 

To be credible, both must be fact-based and consistent with the evidence. 

Posting accurate data online and using social media to lead individuals 

to that data could be powerful tools. However, such programs cannot be 

identified as a psychological operations campaign. They need to be part 

of an information campaign with high standards of accuracy and international credibility, delivered via all modern social media as well as traditional 

media. For example, if a nongovernmental group were to tabulate and update atrocities that ISIS itself claims, such a database could be an effective 

resource for journalists and others. The database would need to be timely 

and constantly available. While various NGOs and think tanks currently 

isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 61
62 irregular warfare studies

track ISIS activities that experts use piecemeal, creating an online clearinghouse for this work could be a useful first step for the U.S. government or a 

privately funded effort.

This approach could be difficult in its start-up phase. But without reliable 

public information, the counter narrative war on ISIS likely cannot be 

won—if winning means reducing the threat to the international order to 

acceptable levels by stopping the spread of jihadist cells across the globe and 

discrediting the ideology that spawns them.

One conclusion to be drawn from al-Suri’s analysis of the lessons learned 

in the Muslim Brotherhood’s failed Syrian insurrection is that the sensitive 

pressure points for a jihadist group like ISIS become clear. The greatest successes by ISIS in this regard suggest the potential for their greatest vulnerabilities to be exploited. For example, if the U.S. were to force ISIS into a 

war of attrition beginning with areas adjacent to or in Kurdish territories, 

essentially to achieve some strategic depth for the Kurds, we could damage 

more than the resultant military losses might suggest. Such an operation 

would begin to erode ISIS’s propaganda advantage, attacking the basis of its 

consistent propaganda slogan of “remaining and expanding” by demonstrating that ISIS cannot expand into Kurdish-declared no-go zones. One could 

make the same case for Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq and Syria. To succeed in 

this effort, the U.S. would need to lead the coalition in significantly arming 

and training Kurdish forces and Sunni Arab tribes directly, based on best 

military estimates of requirements. Political objections to such a course by 

local governments constitute a serious obstacle to direct efforts with subnational groups; but for the U.S. to continue to heed such objections would be 

nothing less than giving up a powerful tool with a record of success.

The U.S. would also need to enhance its tactical air campaign considerably 

while maintaining its current strategic campaign against economic targets. 

As this program becomes successful, the U.S. could work with the Iraqi 

Army to pursue similar campaigns against geographically significant targets 

held or under attack by ISIS, before eventually turning to a campaign to retake Mosul. We could then simultaneously declare the creation of coalition 

expeditionary quick-strike units, including U.S. Special Forces and Marines, 

and proceed with quick temporary strikes inside Iraq and eventually Syria 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 63

at strategic points. This would clearly demonstrate that ISIS is not a state 

and cannot protect the territory it now holds. 

These military moves would not be meaningful without an accompanying 

and coordinated strategic narrative. The narrative would have two parts. In 

the first part, Muslim coalition partners (Egypt would need to be a part of 

this campaign) would start a sustained campaign against the Islamic pretentions and arguments broadcast by ISIS. This campaign would include technical religious arguments offered by recognized religious authorities. These 

arguments would not be difficult to construct, but they would need to be 

sustained and not abandoned when they become subject to counterattacks 

by ISIS and its jihadist sympathizers. 

The second aspect of this counter narrative campaign would focus on the 

basic fallacy at the heart of the ISIS group’s strategy, beginning with the 

strategic flaw of trying to hold territory in the center of Muslim lands without any allies, economy of its own, or strategic advantage. This campaign 

could also focus on the non-religious aspects of a state. Such attacks already 

exist in Arabic on Christian Arab websites and argue that the Islamic State 

is a state without borders, without recognition from any state, without the 

ability to defend itself, without an economy outside of criminal enterprises, 

without any foreign embassies, and so on. In short, the political counter 

narrative would need to be basic, straightforward, and relentless in all forms 

of media. The U.S. could lead this, but through a public-private partnership 

that would engage the creative energies of the private sector—coordinated 

and supported but not dictated by the government. Such a campaign would 

need to include Muslim-American groups and collaboration with Middle 

Eastern partners as much as feasible.

Final Recommendations

The most important task for U.S. planners is to focus on how ISIS is carrying out its doctrine and strategy, to identify how it is adapting to U.S. 

pressure, and how it views victory as an organization. Most of the elements 

needed to defeat ISIS are in place. The American military has spoken of 

“strategic patience” to explain the slow, some would say cautious, pace of 

operations. The coalition’s emphasis on hitting economic targets is gradually paying dividends by first slowing and then significantly reducing the 
64 irregular warfare studies

ISIS group’s revenue from petroleum sales and other criminal activities. 

Local populations have on occasion indicated to reporters that they recognize and appreciate the coalition’s focus on avoiding civilian casualties 

during airstrikes. Airstrikes against targets of opportunity in the open have 

reduced the ISIS group’s ability to mass forces against vulnerable targets or 

reinforce its own units when they come under attack in Iraq. 

In the endgame, the U.S. will need to reconsider its policy of not using 

forward spotters for precision airstrikes in cities and towns. When coalition 

fighters first struck targets in al-Raqqa, local residents reported that ISIS 

fighters fled the city. However, we should expect that after experiencing the 

coalition’s policy of restraint, ISIS would continue to hide among the population in large cities, especially Mosul, to impede Iraqi or Kurdish forces. Placing U.S. Special Forces or Marines with allied ground forces would greatly 

assist clearing operations. The obvious problems with such a decision are the 

likelihood of American casualties and the perception that Americans and 

Iranian forces are fighting together against the Sunni population.

While American military involvement in Iraq and Syria is important to 

contain ISIS, it is insufficient to defeat ISIS or al Qaeda over the long 

run. Another key part of coalition success is to continue to focus on first 

containing and then reversing ISIS, not only on the ground but also in its 

crucial advantage in communications and propaganda. The U.S. would reap 

benefits from continuing to target ISIS communications facilities and finding ways to wage cyber war against its online propaganda servers. 

Even more important than attacking physical aspects of ISIS communications, the U.S. and its allied coalition need to develop a multi-tiered 

counter narrative. The U.S. may encourage Muslim-majority allies to 

consistently address the religious aspects of ISIS communications. Saudi 

Arabia and Egypt have a large role to play in this, and their efforts should 

be encouraged and supported technically. A joint fusion center to produce 

translations of statements and fatwas of major Muslim religious scholars 

or statements by recognized Islamic institutions would ensure that nonArabic speakers hear rebuttals to the ISIS group’s multilingual output. For 

its part, the U.S. response should be crafted as though it were a high-quality 

political or advertising campaign against a rival, using classic opposition 
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 65

research and reports that are factual and convincing, not polemical. Providing reports to the international press with fact-checked statistics on ISIS 

crimes, its destruction of mosques and beloved historical landmarks, its 

involvement in human trafficking, and so on could inform a widely dispersed population of events about which they are now unaware. Information confirmed and reported by local press sources would likely be more 

effective than statements by American officials.

While difficult, defeating ISIS militarily could well prove the easiest part 

of the struggle. Unless the U.S. and its partners also succeed in discrediting 

its ideology, we should expect current trends to continue until either the 

movement burns itself out or local populations somehow manage to destroy it—neither of which is guaranteed. The anti-ISIS coalition thus must 

fashion cost-effective strategies to contain ISIS militarily while working together to discredit its legitimacy. The overarching premise of the American 

response should be that ISIS is a long-term violent threat of a hostile transnational social movement, wrapped in a Salafi jihadist cover. Comparisons 

to historical movements, such as the Anarchist movement before World 

War I, could be used to show how transnational violence begets more 

violence and does not build healthy societies. History has shown that we 

should expect the ISIS/al Qaeda phenomenon to reconstitute itself under a 

new name and new leadership in the event we manage to destroy its current 

organization and top leadership. As long as their ideas remain credible and 

even appealing to some, the threat of anarchistic violence will remain.

Discussion Questions

1. This case study lists some ISIS strengths and weaknesses. How would 

you characterize the ISIS group’s greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses? 

2. In your opinion, which of the recommendations in this case study are 

the most useful? Which are the least useful? What other countermeasures could the U.S. take against ISIS? 

3. Should the U.S. continue to target al Qaeda forces in Syria? Explain.

Further Reading

“Assessing the Strategic Threat from ISIS.” Testimony before the House 

Committee on Foreign Affairs, by James F. Jeffrey of the Washington Institute (and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq), February 12, 2015. 

Berger, J.M. “The Metronome of Apocalyptic Time: Social Media as Carrier Wave for Millenarian Contagion.” Perspectives on Terrorism 9, no. 4 

(August 2015): 61-71. 

Brennan, Margaret, “ISIS Cashing In on Selling Plundered Antiquities to 

Fund Terror,” CBS News, September 29, 2015. 

Bunzel, Cole. “From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic 

State.” Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World: Analysis 

Paper 19 (March, 2015):1-45. Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings. 

“Countering ISIL’s Financing.” Testimony before the House Financial Services Committee by Patrick B. Johnston of the Rand Corporation, November 13, 2014. 

Crowcroft, Orlando. “ISIS: People Trafficking, Smuggling, and Punitive 

Taxes Boost Islamic State Economy,” International Business Times, June 16, 

2015. 

Di Giovanni, Janine. “Who Is ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?” Newsweek, December 8, 2014. 

Engel, Pamela. “ISIS Has a Cash-Flow Problem,” Business Insider, September 24, 2015.

Engel, Richard and Robert Windrem, “ISIS Makes Three Times as Much From 

Oil Smuggling as Previously Thought: Officials,” NBC News, July 24, 2015. 

Fairfield, Hannah, Tim Wallace, and Derek Watkins. “How ISIS Expands,” 

New York Times, May 21, 2015. 

Global Initative Against Transnational Organized Crime. “Libya: A Growing Hub for Criminal Economies and Terrorist Financing in the TransSahara,” policy brief, May 11, 2015. 
68 irregular warfare studies

Hansen-Lewis, Jamie, and Jacob N. Shapiro. “Understanding the Daesh 

Economy,” Perspectives on Terrorism 9, no. 4 (August 2015): 142-155. 

Hardy, Sam. “How the West Buys ‘Conflict Antiquities’ From Iraq and Syria 

(and Funds Terror),” The Great Debate (blog), Reuters, October 27, 2014. 

Harrison, Ross. “Newsflash: Time Is Running Out to Defeat ISIS.” National Interest, August 21, 2015. 

Huang, Reyko. “The Islamic State as an Ordinary Insurgency,” Washington 

Post, May 14, 2014. 

Kadercan, Burak. “Three Huge (and Dangerous) Myths about ISIS.” National Interest, August 30, 2015. 

Katz, Rita. “Follow ISIS on Twitter: A Special Report on the Use of Social 

Media by Jihadists,” INSITE Blog on Terrorism and Extremism, June 26, 

2014. 

Lewis, Jessica D. “Al Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent,” Middle East Security Report 

14, Institute for the Study of War, September 2013. 

——— . “Al Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent, Part II,” Middle East Security Report 

15, Institute for the Study of War, September 2013. 

——— . “AQI’s ‘Soldier’s Harvest’ Campaign,” Backgrounder, Institute for 

the Study of War, October 9, 2013. 

Lia, Brynjar. “Understanding Jihadi Proto-States.” Perspectives on Terrorism

9, no. 4 (August 2015): 31-41. 

Lister, Charles. “Profiling the Islamic State,” Brookings Doha Center Analysis 

Paper 13, November 2014. 

Malik, Shiv, Ali Younes, Spencer Ackerman, and Mustafa Khalili. “How 

ISIS Crippled al Qaida,” Guardian, June 10, 2015. 

Price, Brian, Dan Milton, Muhammad al-Ubaydi, and Nelly Lahoud. The 

Group That Calls Itself a State: Understanding the Evolution and Challenges 

of the Islamic State, Combating Terrorism Center, December 2014. 

Solomon, Erika, Robin Kwong, and Steven Bernard, “Inside ISIS Inc.: The 

Journey of a Barrel of Oil,” Financial Times, October 14, 2015. 

Walt, Vivienne. “ISIS Makes a Fortune From Smuggling Migrants Says 

Report,” Times, May 13, 2015.
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 69

Weaver, Mary Anne. “The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” 

Atlantic (Web edition), June 8, 2006. 

Weiss, Michael, and Hassan Hassan. ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. New 

York: Regan Arts, 2015. 

Winter, Charles. ”Islamic State Propaganda: Key Elements of the Group’s 

Messaging,” Terrorism Monitor 13, no. 12 ( June 12, 2015). 

——— . Documenting the Virtual “Caliphate”: Understanding ISIL’s Propaganda Strategy, Quilliam Foundation, July 2015. 

Zelin, Aaron. “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Has a Consumer Protection Office,” Atlantic, June 13, 2014. 

——— . “Picture or It Didn’t Happen: A Snapshot of the Islamic State’s 

Official Media Output,” Perspectives on Terrorism 9, no. 4 (August 2015): 

85-97. 

Study Guide 

Discussion Questions — from the text

CHAPTER ONE

1. When al-Baghdadi sent Abu Muhammad al-Jolani to Syria and funded 

his startup organization, this organization initially fell outside of American concern. What steps might be taken to help focus on and prevent 

similar startups?

2. How might the U.S. and its allies have better exploited the emerging 

split between al-Baghdadi (ISIS) and al-Jolani (al-Nusra)?

3. By killing al-Zarqawi, the U.S. severely weakened the capabilities of al 

Qaeda in Iraq, yet only a few years later, al-Baghdadi was able to revive 

AQI and radically expand its size and influence under the label of IS. 

What factors account for this dramatic success? 

4. The “surge” in Iraq came close to destroying AQI. What might have been 

some cost-effective steps the U.S. could have taken to finish the job?

5. ISIS has destroyed the Sykes-Picot border between Syria and Iraq, established by France and Great Britain after World War I. Can the borders 

ever be redrawn as they once were? Would a different configuration be 

achievable today? If so, what?

6. How can al-Suri’s five prerequisites for a clandestine jihadist group—

program, leadership, strategy, funding, and allegiance—be used to 

analyze Islamic State’s strengths and vulnerabilities?

7. Some analysts have referred to ISIS as generating a civil war within 

Islam. How does al-Qurashi’s definition of revolution apply? 

8. Is ISIS fomenting a civil war for leadership in a territory or establishing 

the basis for a revolution? Explain.

CHAPTER TWO

1. The untitled paper found in al-Zawahiri’s laptop—most likely al-Suri’s 

work—describes three stages of guerrilla warfare. What steps could a 
72 irregular warfare studies

government take to keep the first stage of guerrilla warfare (attrition 

through hit-and-run tactics used by the guerrillas) from devolving 

into the second stage (equilibrium between the mujahedeen and 

government forces)?

2. Al-Suri’s jihadist global model has three components: (1) a clandestine 

central leadership circle; (2) a coordination circle of regional jihadist 

insurrections; and (3) a “call” circle of individual and small-cell terrorism behind enemy lines. In what ways do al Qaeda and the Islamic State 

follow this model? In what ways do they diverge from this model? 

3. Develop a counterstrategy to attack the three key components of alSuri’s model outlined above.

4. How important is the role of politics for a government facing guerrilla 

warfare? What kind of political messages have worked in the past? 

What differences, if any, should there be between political messaging 

during a conflict with jihadists versus political messaging against a more 

familiar left-wing insurgency?

5. Setting the differences in their ideologies aside, how would you compare the ISIS group’s conduct of war with Mao’s wars against Japan and 

Nationalist Chinese forces, or any other left-wing insurrection with 

which you are familiar?

6. Using al-Suri’s analytical template for clandestine jihadist organizations, do you think that ISIS or al Qaeda will pose a greater threat to 

U.S. interests in the long run? 

7. With al-Suri’s template in mind, how would you recommend the U.S. 

government decrease the likelihood of a strategic alliance between al 

Qaeda elements in Syria and ISIS at some point in the future? 

8. The U.S. government devised a sophisticated network to attack funding sources for al Qaeda. What steps would you recommend to reduce 

funding for ISIS?

9. Is ISIS more like a clandestine organization or more like a state? Explain.

10. Al-Suri’s definition of the ideal conditions for jihadists seems to describe conditions in both Syria and Iraq at the present time. How 

could the U.S. government devise a cost-effective strategy and tactics to 

weaken the conditions that help jihadists?
isis: the terrorist group that would be a state 73

11. The jihadists’ strategy is to increase the costs, in terms of both blood 

and treasure, of the U.S. presence in the region, thereby forcing Americans to leave the greater Middle East and allowing jihadists to fill the 

political vacuum. In what ways can the U.S. attack this strategy?

12. How does the ISIS group’s use of brutality and terrorism line up with 

other insurgencies with which you are familiar? Does the level of brutality matter to the outcome ISIS seeks?

13. What steps might the U.S. take (without occupying territory) to help 

diminish sectarian polarization in Syria and Iraq? 

CHAPTER THREE 

1. Much of the ISIS group’s political propaganda involves the use of 

Islamic symbols and popular beliefs. How can the U.S. and its coalition 

allies counter this propaganda (for example, the use of the concept of 

the Apocalypse) without making matters worse? What would be the 

effect of ignoring this part of ISIS propaganda?

2. How important are Kurdish forces in the battle against ISIS in Iraq and 

Syria? Should the U.S. arm the Kurds directly, even if the governments 

of Iraq and Turkey object? In other words, how would you make the 

tradeoff between military gains against ISIS versus political complications with allies?

3. What elements would you include in an information war against ISIS?

4. ISIS uses “culture and framing” in much of its public dialogue via 

terms and arguments that resonate with the culture of its target audiences to criticize its enemies, including the United States. How could 

the U.S. frame ISIS attacks on historical and religious landmarks that 

are much loved by local populations in ways that would resonate in 

the greater Middle East? What would be the military’s role, if any, 

in this messaging? Can you think of other issues that would be more 

effective to reframe?

5. What factors contribute to the success of ISIS on social media? What

countermeasures are available to mitigate that success?

6. ISIS uses networks of Sunni Arab tribes in Syria and Iraq to prosecute 

its war against the region. Much of its work with tribes was inspired 
74 irregular warfare studies

by the successful U.S. strategy against al Qaeda insurgents during the 

“Surge” in Iraq. From your experience, could the U.S. replicate its work 

with Sunni tribes in present day Iraq and Syria without a large military 

footprint? Explain.

CHAPTER FOUR

1. This case study lists some ISIS strengths and weaknesses. How would you 

characterize the ISIS group’s greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses? 

2. In your opinion, which of the recommendations in this case study are 

the most useful? Which are the least useful? What other countermeasures could the U.S. take against ISIS? 

3. Should the U.S. continue to target al Qaeda forces in Syria? Explain.
About the Author

Michael W. S. Ryan is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation and 

an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, both in Washington, 

D.C. Formerly, he served as a senior executive in the U.S. departments 

of state and defense and as vice president of the Millennium Challenge 

Corporation and the Middle East Institute. He studied Arabic in Egypt 

and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Ryan is author of 

Decoding Al-Qaeda’s Strategy: The Deep Battle Against America, published 

by Columbia University Press (2013). His current research focus is jihadist ideology, doctrine, and strategy.
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