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ASSESSMENT OF THE JIHADI THREAT AND THE RESPONSE STRATEGIES
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them follow a similar modus operandi and that
some of their leaders have global delusions. In
fact, and under the impact that DAESH’s violent
return to the stage is having today, what is be-
ing detected is a growing internal fragmentation,
with individuals and splinter groups that break
away from their original organisations (affiliated
in varying degrees to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban)
and which are quick to publicly declare their loy-
alty to the group that currently appears to be the
most active and, though it may sicken us, most
attractive in the eyes of those who have radical-
ised to the extent that they believe violence to be
the only means of achieving their goals.
Neither Ayman al-Zawahiri, at the head of
Al-Qaeda, nor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (who has
now become the self-styled Caliph Ibrahim), in
charge of DAESH, have the capacity to coordi-
nate the efforts of so many jihadi groups that
only symbolically consider themselves to be part
of one of them. Neither of them is at the top of
an operational chain of command capable of
mobilising all the combatants enlisted in the ji-
hadi ranks. In most cases, while there is evi-
dence of ties among groups, each one acts in-
dependently, though they feel inspired by the
same or similar ideas - ideas with which, it is
also worth highlighting, not all of them identify
ideologically, but which very often only serve as
a mere front for bandits, criminals and merce-
naries of all kinds (Libya today is a very good
example, as was Afghanistan before it).
DAESH
DAESH has been around for quite some time in
the Middle East. One only need recall that it was
already operating in Iraq a decade ago as the
local franchise of Al-Qaeda, under the leader-
ship of the Jordanian Abu Musad al-Zarqawi
(who was eliminated by Washington in 2006).
Even then, despite its limited means, it stood
out on account of its jihadi activism in both Iraqi
and Jordanian territory. Its limited importance
kept it from controlling a territory of its own ef-
fectively yet, but, in keeping with the ever ambi-
tious aspirations of Al-Qaeda, it already aimed
to establish an emirate, which would serve as
springboard for creating a caliphate that would
take in the entire Islamic world.
Further depleted following the US “surge”
that began in 2007, the group did not rise to
any sort of prominence again until the end of
2011, as one of the violent groups immersed in
the conflict that had engulfed Syria for some
months. In its participation in the Syrian conflict
–under the name Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) at the time and still as part of Al-Qaeda– it
did not dutifully follow the guidelines laid down
by Al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s successor at the
head of Al-Qaeda. In fact, disobeying his orders
–which required Al-Baghdadi, the new leader,
to leave the Syrian battlefield in the hands of
the local branch of the terrorist network, Al-
Nusra Front–, ISIS expanded its radius of action
not only to the Syrian provinces in the east, but
also to Aleppo, even carrying out isolated action
on the Mediterranean coast.
With a reputation as a highly disciplined and
operative group, ISIS enlisted combatants from
diverse backgrounds (including radicalized
Westerners), rising to an estimated volume of
15,000 armed militants at the beginning of the
offensive launched on Iraqi soil in early 2014 (in
Fallujah and Ramadi, in the western province of
Al-Anbar, chiefly). This remarkable recovery was
not unrelated to Saudi Arabia’s interest in fund-
ing Sunni jihadi groups in both Syria and Iraq
that it aims to use as a spearhead to reverse the
advantage that Iran is slowly gaining in its bid to
become the regional leader.