Questions for discussion:
- A question for debate: Is it possible to seperate the political goals of ISIL and their religious beliefs? Take a position, and back up all claims with evidence-based analysis (either within the week’s materials or by conducting minor outside research). Do not offer a personal opinion. Rather, develop a position based upon what you have observed and learned.
- Given the hostility of ISIL towards outsiders (both as a social group and their spatial embedding in a region rife with violent conflict), how can anthropology/anthropologists contribute to understanding ISIL safely and productively? Can you cite and/or discuss any examples of effective qualitative research of ISIL from 2014 onward? If so, how was it conducted? Or, is this impossible given the hazards to personal safety and the acquisition of reliable fieldwork data.
hey please pick one of the questions and indicate which one you choose and ALSO PROVIDE A DISCUSSION QUESTION BASED ON THE MATERIAL AS YOU DO EVERY WEEKI sent a screenshot message from my professor and there is a video and the link to access it ishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wY_URYzvw8&bpctr=1589978040
will provide lecture tomorrow morning so please check in.also providing everything for this week ( need writer 557853 they do it every week
Untitled 1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction Although U.S. and allied coalition forces easily overthrew the govern- ment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, a vicious insurgency soon developed, and the most vicious insurgent was a Sunni Muslim Jor- danian named Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi. He aimed not only to expel the Americans and exterminate Shia Muslims—the majority of the Iraqi population—but to do this with the goal of establishing a Sunni Islamic government and spreading it into neighboring countries.1 Al-Zarqawi did not to live to see the results—an American attack killed him in the summer of 2006. But in October of that year, his group, the Base of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers, better known as al-Qa‘ida in Iraq (AQI), led its allies in declaring a new entity, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).2 Fewer than three months later, in early Jan- uary 2007, the group’s media wing released a document titled Inform- ing the People About the Birth of the Islamic State of Iraq.3 In it, the author drew parallels between the new ISI and the proto-state estab- 1 “The Al-Zarqawi Beliefs: ‘Allah Has Permitted Us to Repay Them in Kind,’” Irish Times, September 24, 2004; Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, “Zarqawi Letter: February 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority English Translation of Terrorist Musab al Zarqawi Letter Obtained by United States Government in Iraq,” U.S. Department of State, 2004. 2 “The Base of Jihad” is a literal translation of the official full name of al-Qa‘ida, Qa‘idat al-Jihad, adopted after the 2001 merger of al-Qa‘ida and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad Group. Note that the Iraqi group (AQI) sometimes used an alternate name, al-Qa‘ida Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers. Both formal AQI names avoided the use of the name Iraq. 3 Our description of this book and its contents draws from Brian Fishman, Fourth Genera- tion Governance—Sheikh Tamimi Defends the Islamic State of Iraq, West Point, N.Y.: Com- bating Terrorism Center, West Point, March 23, 2007. 2 Foundations of the Islamic State lished by the Muslim prophet Muhammad when he fled from Mecca to Medina in the seventh century. These parallels immediately empha- sized that the group was authentically Muslim, without the accretion of interpretation and innovation that the group claimed had crept into Islam since the religion’s founding. The author emphasized that ISI was different from a modern state: Its territory would not be well defined but would extend any- where it could hold by force of arms, and all people within that terri- tory would swear allegiance to the emir, the leader. The group might not provide the same services as a modern state, but it would improve both the religious and worldly conditions of its citizens, with specific services, including judicial processes, dispute resolution, collection of the Islamically required charity (zakat), the freeing of prisoners, and support for families of people killed in the group’s service.4 The world now faces a seemingly new foe: the Islamic State, a violent group that rules territory in Iraq and Syria and has affiliates in territories that it has declared to be its provinces, or wilayat, around the greater Middle East. The group has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, enslaved others, beheaded still others, and claims to be the rees- tablishment of the Islamic caliphate grounded in early Islamic history.5 There is a clear line of descent from the AQI of 2004–2006, to the ISI of 2006–2013, to today’s Islamic State. ISI was routed from most of Iraq by a combination of coalition forces, led by the United States, under the command of Multi-National Force–Iraq (MNF-I); local Sunni militias; and Iraqi security forces (ISF), particularly Iraqi Army units, from mid-2006 through early 2009. The group withdrew into a limited terrorist campaign in northern Iraq and maintained a supporting network in the Mosul area of Ninewa governorate that resembled a ruthlessly violent and effective organized-crime syndicate. 4 Fishman, 2007, p. 7. 5 As explained more fully below, the Islamic State is also referred to as ISIS, for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; ISIL, for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; or Daesh or Da‘ish, an abbreviation of the Arabic for both names, al- Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-‘Iraq wa al-Sham. We refer to the group as the Islamic State, for ease of exposition and to reflect its expansive goals. In accordance with the rest of the world, we do not recognize it as an actual state, although it does conduct a variety of statelike activities. Introduction 3 As ISI developed this infrastructure, the United States was winnow- ing its military presence in Iraq in preparation for a full withdrawal in December 2011. Meanwhile, a bloody civil war in Syria broke out and divided much of the population and the armed groups, which formed along sectarian lines. Leaders in ISI quietly sent fighters into Syria in 2011 to fight covertly under the alias of Jabhat al-Nusrah. Differences of opinion over strategy, tactics, and goals led to a split with the Jabhat al-Nusrah leadership, and ISI, in April 2013, began fighting directly under its own banner in Syria and changed its name to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL]). Following extensive anti- government protests in Iraq’s Anbar governorate, from January 2013 to December 2013, which were met by an aggressive Iraqi government response, ISIL expanded in Iraq in force with the support of some local political organizations—including many of the same tribal organiza- tions that had fought against it in 2006—and quickly overwhelmed Iraqi Army outposts in Fallujah and other cities. In June 2014, follow- ing the retreat of the Iraqi Army from Mosul and the group’s conquest of that city, the group renamed itself the Islamic State and proclaimed a caliphate with the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the caliph of all Muslims.6 This report presents a comprehensive overview of the predecessors of the Islamic State, AQI and ISI, from 2005 to 2010, analyzing their organization and mechanisms of territorial control, their human capi- tal policies, their compensation practices and career paths, and their financial practices. Research was substantially completed in 2014, with selected updates made in 2015. There are two notable aspects to this report: an analysis of the group’s internal documents and a historical recounting that reveals enormous detail relevant to the group of today. 6 For a useful overview, see Cole Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Center for Middle East Public Policy, Analysis Paper No. 19, March 2015. 4 Foundations of the Islamic State The Group’s Own Words First, the report provides an analysis of the Islamic State predecessors, based on more than 140 of their own internal documents, captured and found throughout Iraq.7 Documents captured by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the Iraq War offer a unique opportunity to understand the organization. These documents went into the U.S. Department of Defense’s Harmony database. For this report, we identified useful doc- uments and worked with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point to declassify them, providing a window into how ISI orga- nized, operated, and financed itself. CTC has posted documents on its Harmony Program website, making them available to analysts and researchers worldwide.8 In addition, a CTC report presents an over- view of what the documents reveal about ISI.9 For example, the documents show that even as early as the 2005 to 2006 period, the group was highly organized and bureaucratic. It also expected members to take religious obligation seriously. But during this period, when the Islamic State was still largely clandestine, it valued a lower profile, as this document captured in western Anbar governorate shows: In the name of God the merciful and the compassionate Some instructions to the beloved brothers, we expect compliance with it, those who fail will be held accountable. 7 We have chosen to use the translations produced by linguists supporting U.S. and coali- tion forces during the Iraq war—even when these translations are sometimes difficult to fully understand—for two reasons. First, it will give the reader a sense of what U.S. analysts had to work with to understand AQI and ISI during the war. Second, many of the docu- ments were hard to comprehend in the original language, and in some cases it would be dif- ficult to improve on even a spotty translation. 8 These documents are accessible online. See “ISIL, Syria and Iraq Resources,” database of declassified documents, Combating Terrorism Center, 2015. 9 Danielle F. Jung, Jacob N. Shapiro, Jon Wallace, and Pat Ryan, Managing a Transnational Insurgency: The Islamic State in Iraq’s “Paper Trail,” 2005–2010, West Point, N.Y.: Combat- ing Terrorism Center, West Point, 2014. Introduction 5 1- All problems should be addressed to the Amir according to the chronology; problems should not be discussed in public in front of people. 2- Speed limit in villages should be 50; while in public roads should not exceed 120.10 3- Vehicle driver is the person in charge in terms of cleaning and maintenance. 4- Emphasis on group prayer and remembrance [morning and evening] and to follow the norms for the cause of victory. 5- Sleeping after dawn’s prayer is strictly forbidden, this period should be utilized to recite the Quran and remembrance and then to start their work. 6- Security procedure should be followed; weapons must be con- cealed and should not be exposed in public, appearance in public place for no reason is forbidden.11 Continuity The second notable aspect is that our analysis of the Islamic State’s predecessor groups is more than a historical recounting. This report provides enormous detail on the group of today. As with any organiza- tion, certain characteristics concerning how the organization is run are likely very slow to change, including organizational culture, person- nel policies, and administrative structure. Understanding the starting point is thus valuable for understanding the Islamic State. One would not expect the