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Robert Spencer in PJM: ISIS following al-Qaeda’s game plan for a caliphate

Jun 19, 2015 11:29 am By Robert Spencer

(FILES) -- A TV grab from the Qatar-baseIn PJ Media today I explain how Ayman Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden communications reveal that a caliphate has always been the goal.

It has been almost a year since June 29, 2014, when the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) declared the formation of a new caliphate and dropped the second half of its name, rebranding itself as simply the Islamic State. It has survived nine months since Barack Obama vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” it.

It has survived, and has continued to attract Muslims from all over the world, even after virtually every major world leader and Islamic group has condemned it as un-Islamic. And it shows no sign of going anywhere anytime soon.

All this is well-known. What is less known is that the plan for the restoration of the caliphate was sketched out ten years ago by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and has been followed out more or less exactly by the Islamic State.

The claim to reconstitute the caliphate is the key to the Islamic State’s success — the importance of this cannot be overstated.

The revival of the caliphate is, in the eyes of those who support it and have longed for it all these years, a return to the form of government of the glory days of Islam. From Muhammad’s death through Islam’s Golden Age up until the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the end of World War I, Muslims were ruled by a caliph, the successor to Muhammad as spiritual and political leader of Islam.

And the declaration of the caliphate, and its placement in and around Syria and Iraq, was not an invention of the Islamic State, or incidental to what it perceived as its mission from the beginning. In reality, a new caliphate had long been an aspiration dear to the hearts of many jihadi terrorists, including al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (which ultimately became the Islamic State), Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on July 9, 2005:

It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established in the manner of the Prophet in the heart of the Islamic world, specifically in the Levant, Egypt, and the neighboring states of the Peninsula and Iraq; however, the center would be in the Levant and Egypt.

Zawahiri also heaped praise on Zarqawi for helping bring that state — the revived caliphate — closer to reality:

If our intended goal in this age is the establishment of a caliphate in the manner of the Prophet and if we expect to establish its state predominantly — according to how it appears to us — in the heart of the Islamic world, then your efforts and sacrifices — God permitting — are a large step directly towards that goal.

Zawahiri then offered Zarqawi his “humble opinion that the Jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals,” the first of which was to “expel the Americans from Iraq.” The second stage, wrote Zarqawi, would be exactly what the Islamic State ended up doing nine years later:

The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate — over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at taking power.

Following the establishment of this state, the third stage would be to “extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq,” followed by the fourth stage, which “may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.”

Zawahiri wrote in an extremely deferential manner to Zarqawi, repeatedly assuring the Iraq commander that his analysis was not “infallible.” Nonetheless, he did not hesitate to give him direction, emphasizing that:

The mujahedeen must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal.

If they did that:

We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us. Instead, their ongoing mission is to establish an Islamic state, and defend it, and for every generation to hand over the banner to the one after it until the Hour of Resurrection.

Zawihiri summed up the “two short-term goals” as “removing the Americans and establishing an Islamic amirate in Iraq, or a caliphate if possible.” Attaining them, he wrote, would ensure possession of “the strongest weapon which the mujahedeen enjoy — after the help and granting of success by God,” which was “popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries.”…

Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: Al-Qaeda, caliphate, Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden


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Comments

  1. Jaladhi says

    Jun 19, 2015 at 11:53 am

    Muslims never give up their dream of converting the whole world to Islam and we must not give up our goal of annihilating Islam!!

    • Don McKellar says

      Jun 19, 2015 at 2:34 pm

      Right and wrong.

      Right: Muslims never give up their dream of converting the whole world to Islam.

      Wrong: We must not give up our goal of annihilating Islam!!

      Why: You cannot annihilate an ideology. You can only annihilate those who preach it, the governments who implement it. But we still have communists and neo-nazis, don’t we? Islam is even worse, far worse, because of the religious component to the ideology — and bizarrely we have lunatic level politically correct retards continuing to try and defend it and block honest discussion!

      • Wtf? says

        Jun 21, 2015 at 2:46 am

        Build a large wall around IS and let in sink into medieval savagery. No trade and no passage of persons in or out. No UN recognition or help and then build viewing platforms like at the zoo so civilised people came come and be entertained. Seriously this Caliphiate has no diplomatic , economic or administrative future. It is just an over the top boys club which will disappear as their leaders are destroyed.
        Future scholars will examine another failed state and look at it in comparison with PolPot . It cannot succeed because it cannot survive in a modern world. Can you imagine an ISIS embassy in your country?

  2. Michael Copeland says

    Jun 19, 2015 at 12:13 pm

    Ayman Al Zawahiri’s letter is about a month before the 2005 article in Der Spiegel which expressed the planned “An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps”.
    Following the planned deposition of hated Arabic leaders like Mubarak and Gadaffi (2010-2013) comes “Declaration of the Caliphate” (2013-2016). After that, from 2016, will be “Total Confrontation”.
    Six months to go.
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-future-of-terrorism-what-al-qaida-really-wants-a-369448.html

    • Michael Copeland says

      Jun 19, 2015 at 5:24 pm

      http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/news-libertygb/6648-total-confrontation-2016-al-qaeda

  3. jihad3tracker says

    Jun 19, 2015 at 12:18 pm

    ********** OFF-TOPIC BUT ABOUT THE SPLC PUBLISHING A HIT LIST **********

    Go to http://www.pamelageller.com. Read her post about this — https://medium.com/@splcenter/women-against-islam-a9f42563e1c2

    THAT COMPILATION OF COUNTER-JIHAD TRUTH TELLING AMERICANS DOES EQUATE, AS PAM SAYS, TO A “KILL THESE PEOPLE NEXT” SUGGESTION FOR MUSLIMS.

    I urge you in the strongest possible way to:

    1. Email law enforcement authorities in the SPLC’s home state, and make it absolutely clear that by compiling this list, SPLC is recklessly ruthlessly subjecting innocent Americans to harm and SHOWING ITS REAL GOAL IN SYMPATHY WITH ISLAMIC VIOLENCE..
    2. Email members of Congress like Pete King and others who “get it” about Islam, and give them the hotlink.
    3. Follow up with phone calls — their LOCAL DISTRICT OFFICES are much less busy and the ones in Washington DC. Make sure you speak to the staff chief, not some overworked intern.

    Act fast — and grab a screen shot of that linked webpage before SPLC takes it down.

    • Huck Folder says

      Jun 19, 2015 at 2:30 pm

      I have a complete copy of that sanitized (taqiyyated?) propaganda piece, complete with images.

      I would just LOVE to see what they really say among themselves!

      I’m guessing that ten sinislam lawyers have reviewed this hate document, to prevent any backlash, but it would be nice if there were some class action suit against SPLC (what a lurid Monty Python name!).

      They should be charged with all kinds of treason, for carrying water for the jihadist fifth column. If that doesn’t happen now, I hope it happens in the future, and they ALL go to jail for life, as accessories before, during, and after the jihadi crimes against the United States and its people.

      • jihad3tracker says

        Jun 19, 2015 at 2:55 pm

        Hello Huck — There may be some interesting developments eventually coming out of the bunghole (as my wonderful redneck Alabama Irish daddy used to say) due to that piece of jihad at the SPLC’s website.

        Muslims and their wannabee Leftist traitors really ought to keep one fact in mind, above all : IF YOU F&CK AROUND WITH PAM GELLER, THERE WILL BE UNPLEASANT RESULTS.

        Oh, by the way : have you ever swapped around the first letters of your name ? Gee — it really says something rude about a former U.S. A.G. But you know that already, right ???

  4. mortimer says

    Jun 19, 2015 at 1:56 pm

    These guys have followed through on their plans. Western intelligence had better clue in to the declarations of the jihadists…learn what texts they come from and start to realize there is a HUGE base of some 65% of Muslims that want a CALIPHATE…that’s close to a billion Muslims.

    Are Muslims putting the whole world at risk of WW III by demanding an aggressive, belligerent caliphate?

    You betcha.

  5. Angemon says

    Jun 19, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    They had their game plan in the open for 10 ears, and still they managed to carry it through.

    Where does the buck stop?

    • Ed says

      Jun 20, 2015 at 10:20 am

      It doesn’t stop, it continues with Pres. Barr@k Hussain 0. The Second.

  6. Stephanie says

    Jun 19, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    Interesting article, but why then did Dr. Zawahiri later decide that IS’s brutality is bad PR and they would be better off following a more pragmatic strategy? When was it that Dr. Zawahiri then excoriated Zarqawi over his methods, leading to the rift between the two organizations? Now IS and Al-Qaeda are sworn foes. Pretty much the only good thing that has come from ISIS’s rise (other than hopefully exposing radical Islam / Islamism’s rotten fruit for what it is) is the weakening and some say possible collapse of Al-Qaeda.

  7. Joseph says

    Jun 20, 2015 at 12:32 am

    Why is he depicting the Allen sign with his left hand, the hand he wipes his ass with.

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