ISIL Declares New Islamic Caliphate

Iraq: Central Front

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“This is more about inter-Islamic things. It doesn’t have to do with the West,” said Mr. Zelin. Nonsense, Mr. Zelin. In Sunni Islamic law only the caliph is authorized to declare offensive jihad against non-Muslim states. Right now all jihads have to be defensive, which is why jihadis always haul out a laundry list of bogus grievances when they’re explaining why they kill. But now no such justifications will be needed. Expect the jihad against the West to step up in intensity.

“ISIS Declares New Islamist Caliphate,” by Matt Bradley, Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2014:
BAGHDAD—The Sunni Islamist militant group whose three-week blitz through northern Iraq has nearly upended the country’s fragile unity announced itself as a new Islamist “caliphate” on Sunday, unilaterally declaring statehood and demanding allegiance from other Islamist groups.

“ISIS Declares New Islamist Caliphate,” by Matt Bradley, Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2014:
BAGHDAD—The Sunni Islamist militant group whose three-week blitz through northern Iraq has nearly upended the country’s fragile unity announced itself as a new Islamist “caliphate” on Sunday, unilaterally declaring statehood and demanding allegiance from other Islamist groups.
The announcement, recited in Arabic on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan by spokesman Abu Mohammed Al Adnani into an audio file, effectively renames the group the Islamic State, canceling its previous title of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.
“We have had all the requirements of the Islamic state like fundraising, almsgiving, penalties, and prayers and still have only one thing which is the caliphate,” said Mr. Adnani in the recording. “The legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and arrival of its troops to their areas.”
The spokesman also declares the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, as the new Islamic State’s caliph. The recorded message was recorded on an Mp3 audio file and distributed through the group’s expansive social media presence.
The announcement revives the idea of an Islamic caliphate that hasn’t existed as a recognized political entity since it was abolished 90 years ago by Kemal Atatürk, the first president of modern Turkey.
There have been various caliphates throughout Islam’s 1,400-year history. The last one, which was governed by the Istanbul-based Ottoman Empire, extended across vast lands throughout North Africa, the Persian Gulf, Eastern Europe, modern Greece and Iraq.
But the importance of the message wasn’t immediately clear on Sunday. The significance of the declaration will largely depend on the reaction it elicits from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the global al Qaeda that had been considered the foremost Islamist militant group until the sudden ascension of Mr. Baghdadi’s ISIS over the past year.
Mr. Zawahiri’s once-powerful movement has been eclipsed by Mr. Baghdadi’s ISIS throughout the past year when the latter group emerged as an important militia force in Syria.
“Zawahiri is in a no-win situation,” said Aaron Zelin, an expert on Islamist movements at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He’s not going to relinquish his position as heir to global jihad and to al Qaeda to somebody else. He’s going to have go along a very thin line in terms of being excited about this announcement without hurting his own stature.”
Mr. Zawahiri inherited leadership of al Qaeda from Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, after the latter was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011.
Unlike Mr. Zawahiri’s al Qaeda, ISIS has long distinguished itself from other militant Islamist groups in its pursuit of a statelike emirate that would fully realize notions of a unified Islamic nation. Mr. Zawahiri has criticized Mr. Baghdadi’s use of vicious attacks against local populations in land ISIS has occupied. Mr. Zawahiri expelled Mr. Baghdadi’s ISIS from the al Qaeda franchise this year.
The group’s more practical, less theoretical approach to waging jihad, or Islamic holy war, has made it attractive both to young recruits and to wealthy donors eager to see their dreams of an Islamic state become a reality.
Sunday’s declaration is as much a shot over the bow of Mr. Zawahiri’s al Qaeda as it is an early declaration of victory over Mr. Baghdadi’s other enemies, such as the Iraqi government and its Iranian and Western backers.
At one point in the recording, Mr. Adnani, Mr. Baghdadi’s spokesman, taunts unnamed skeptics who had doubted the emergence of a caliphate—probably like-minded fellow jihadists who were more sympathetic to Mr. Zawahiri’s al Qaeda, said Mr. Zelin.
“This is more about inter-Islamic things. It doesn’t have to do with the West,” said Mr. Zelin. “I think that there’s a likelihood that you’ll see more infighting than we would have before. Not necessarily in Syria.”