The structure of jihadi/takfiri Islamic terrorism has begun to take a significant turn. Terrorist Muslim groups are becoming leaderless. This new form borrows from the anarchist theory that by being diverse, amorphous, and flexible they are less easily attacked and destroyed.
Egypt, and the Sinai Peninsula in particular, faces an existential threat from these autonomous groups. Western news outlets scarcely report them, but local organizations, such as the non-government group Eshhad, track sectarian attacks against religious minorities in Egypt do. Since it was founded on August 14, 2013, Eshhad has documented over 500 sectarian incidents or attacks in the country.
The new approach using leaderless terrorist groups has significantly increased domestic terrorism there.
Essentially, leaderless cells are small, with only three to eight members. They act without a leader’s command. They do not report through a hierarchy of authority. Most members have no systematic training in terrorist operations nor a connection to geographic headquarters. Instead, they have been indoctrinated by extremist content on the internet and through direct contact with extremists and terrorists in mosques, prisons, and elsewhere.
This shift to direct and internet contact was addressed by Steven Stalinsky in American Traitor. He reported that jihadis today use social media so effectively that printing presses are becoming unnecessary. Traditional publishing methods have been outdistanced.
The Anarchism and Islamic Leadership Hybrid
Anarchists are normally ambivalent or even negative to any form of leadership. A popular anarchist slogan is: ‘No Gods, No Masters!’ It remains to be seen if Muslim society—especially in Jihadi and takfiri circles—can absorb the tools of anarchist thinkers. Is it possible that leaderless anarchy can bend their opposing worldview of “Only One God and his appointed leaders”? Or is this polar opposite?
On the other hand, famous leaders who are lauded in anarchist circles have expressed potential hybrid arguments. For example, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon recognize how individuals and groups can autonomously take temporary leadership of the wider collective without assuming a formal position of power or authority. There are, then, theoretical ways Islamists can apply anarchist theories about leaderless movements to Islamic ideals, and use them to advance their cause.
The Challenge for Anti-Terrorism
For decades, Western political, military, and intelligence officials have subscribed to a counter-terrorism approach that I would call “Strike the Shepherd”. In biblical terms, the principle is found in Zechariah 13:7, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” Applied as a core operating assumption to battle terrorism, it presumes that if the primary leader is removed, the group that follows that leader loses direction, passion, and commitment to the group’s cause. It has often worked, and Muslim Jihadis have become aware of this weakness. This is why they are moving toward the anarchist leaderless model.
A terrorist group that seems to be moving to a leaderless structure is Ansar al-Beit al-Maqdis (ABM) now using the name Wilayat Sinai (WS). ABM emerged in 2011 when it claimed responsibility for an attack into southern Israel from the Sinai.
Since then, ABM (and now is called WS) has carried out other cross-border attacks, launching rockets against Israel and repeatedly bombing the natural gas pipeline in the Sinai that supplies both Israel and Jordan.
Much of their violent Jihadi action is also aimed at Egypt. In late 2013, it expanded into the Nile Valley.
In November of 2014, they pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and considered themselves ISIS’ branch in the Sinai Province. They seek, from the peninsula, to destroy Israel, establish an Islamic emirate, and implement sharia in the Sinai Peninsula.
In a defiant move just six months after officially declaring allegiance to ISIS, ABM launched rocket and mortar attacks against the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) base in the Sinai.
On July 1, 2015, Egypt’s North Sinai endured the most violent terrorist attack in years. Wilayat Sinai (WS) claimed attacks on 21 security facilities and checkpoints using a variety of weapons, including suicide bombings. They briefly gained control of the city of Sheikh Zuweid.
The number of casualties remains unclear. The Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces stated that 17 members of the armed forces were killed, while militants reported it to be over 100. Egyptian military launched airstrikes drove militants out of the city, and claimed to have killed at least 100 terrorists.
And the attacks continue. May 31, 2020, the Egyptian military raided terrorist hideouts in the northern Sinai Peninsula, killing 19 and labeling some as “extremely dangerous” fighters. The army reported discovering caches of automatic rifles, hand grenades, and rocket-propelled grenades.
Other Egyptian Takfiri organizations also target the Egyptian state. To mention some: Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt), Jund al Islam (Soldiers of Islam), al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula (AQSP), Ansar al Jihad, the Muhammad Jamal Network (MJN), the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC), Al Salafiya Al Jihadiya in Sinai (Salafi Jihadist Movement in the Sinai), and al Tawhid wal Jihad. The extremist organization called al-Furqan fired on ships in the Suez Canal to great international concern.
All of those groups are moving toward leaderless organizations. They are not inclined to join an umbrella organization with a declared leader. But when they see tactical advantages in cooperating, they do join forces.
How to Combat Leaderless Terrorists
This trend toward anarchist-type non-leadership implies that we must now view social media as part of the war zone. Governments need to track and trace social media to curtail Jihadi action. Private actors need to flood social media where Jihadi groups are spreading their message. Confront them with humor, parody, mockery, documentaries, fiction, drama scholarship—anything that discredits the jihadi/takfiri message. A targeted effort needs qualified, proficient practitioners of social media, traditional, writers, scholars, and advocates to confront the Jihadi message. We must evolve tactics to match the threat.
Honest Ali says
You don’t know Islam. Muslims have a leader. The Qur’an and the Sunnah. When there is no Caliph Muslims are not required to ask permission before waging Jihad, they are simply supposed to wage Jihad as they see fit.
“Authorities” keep failing against Jihad because they keep laboring under the false impression that Jihadists have a “leader”. The “leaders” of Al Qaeda and ISIS were killed, and they are now larger and stronger than ever.
The root cause of the problem is Islam… the Qur’an and the Sunnah.
CogitoErgoSum says
Yes, yes, YES. The Muslims’ leader is Allah and Allah’s orders are clearly set forth in the Koran — particularly in Surah 9 and especially verse 9:29. Muslims are to fight until the entire world submits, in one way or another, to Islam. When Muhammad was near death he worried over what Muslims would do without him to lead them in the fight – but then he took comfort in knowing that the Koran would survive him and Muslims would always have Allah’s words to tell them what they must do.
Lilith Wept says
YES! And either Trump doesn’t realize this or he’s ignoring it. I believe Trump and his advisors are still stuck at least partially believeing the propaganda of moslems , that there is a moderate, peaceful safe Moslem and a extreme, radical unsafe jihad Moslem that has hijacked what is basically a peaceful ideology.
This approach hasn’t worked in the past and won’t work now because it’s based on a fallacy…that islam is a basically peaceful ideology and that the radical moslems are somehow dis obeying what the mainstream core doctrine teaches.
When the truth and reality are just the opposite ….., that any Moslem who,is not actively doing some kind of jihad, or supporting some kind of jihad is the one that is disobeying the core mainstream doctrine of Islam.
And it supposes that if we can (somehow) identify those radical Moslem , and then prevent him from carrying out their jihad, and re educate them in the proper kind of Islam, the “Islam means peace” kind of Islam, then all our problems with Islam will disappear!
Violent jihad is the tip,of the iceberg of the problems with Islam , ISLAM is the problem , all of it .
And until our politicians realize this and begin to publicly speak out about it and start taking actions against it, then we are loosing. We haven’t even begin to fight against Islam.
Trump just too friendly with the Saudi. and too complementary of islam in general , even though he’s said “ I think they hate us” ….he shouodnt be saying “think” it should be “ I know they hate us and he’s why…..and hold up,a Koran!
And I oppose selling them any military equipment and allowing them to train in our military schools , or have acess to our military bases. We have see how well the so called “vetting process “ works! . So a Moslem can lie and
It all centers around what we as Americans believe about “religions”. And the problem is that Islam is not like other religions! We have never come across a “religion” like Islam , with both religion and laws and instructions governance of a State both intertwined.
If we can get past this idea of “tolerance for all religions” . And I believe the tolerance for all religions is imbedded in the National psyche, because of how America was founded by people fleeing religious persecution.
But we started a war against the superpower of the time because we were being politically oppressed so you would think we would be fighting any system that is as oppressive and intolerant as Islam.
But we need to examine Islam not as a religion but as a religo-political system. Where religion and the State are so intertwined that they can not be separated, and religion is the justification for everything.
You can not have a practicing Moslem who doesn’t believe in all of the Islamic doctrine. And the islamic doctrine includes religious teaching as well as political instruction and law.
And the different doctrines of Islam ( jihad, taqyyia, Islamic supremacy, islamic expansion) all mean Islam can not be trusted, moslems can not be trusted…..and Islam can not be allowed to continue to exist in the free west.
If we do surgery to remove a cancer , we try and get it all, even taking healthy tissue if we think there’s a possibility that the cancer has spread there……we don’t deliberately leave bits of the cancer saying “ they aren’t a threat” or “they are too small to do any harm right now” ……cancer, like islam grows fast. And if we do t do surgery soon to remove this cancer from the body of America, it will be too late and it will have killed us.
James Lincoln says
Lilith Wept,
Yes, islam is analogous to cancer.
That being said, the spread of islam to the West should be considered to be a cancer – and approached as such:
The best approach is, of course, primary prevention. Prevent essentially all muslim migration like Poland and Hungary.
The second best approach would be early detection. Being very vigilant regarding muslim migration, and deporting people who have infiltrated.
Further down the line, we look at treatment. If islam is localized in a Western country, it needs to be contained and subject to all of the laws of the host country in order to prevent metastasis. Also, muslims who break significant laws of the host country should be prosecuted and eventually deported.
Once metastasis occurs in a Western country and it becomes islamized with strict sharia law, it’s game over unless the host country decides to take military action.
Darrell Pack says
i know whatyou mean when you say ztrump is too friendly with Saudis. but the whole washington and wall street system is too beholden to them.
darrellpackglobal says
The long term effort to stop Islamism by looking for the “head of the snake” is misguided.
Darrell Pack says
honest ali you apparently did not read my article
darrellpackglobal says
Honest Ali, it seems you did not actually read my article or at least not at all carefully.
gravenimage says
Leaderless Islamic Terrorism: A Dangerous Evolution
……………
As they see it, all Muslims have the right to “enjoin the right and forbid the wrong”–violently if need be. They also all have the right to compel all Infidels to submit to Islam.
darrellpackglobal says
graven image yes, Allah has made the Muslims community to be the moral law enforcement for the world. So they can force the world to behave as Allah demands.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Darrell–exactly.
Kepha says
So? I strongly suspect that had a stray cannon shell taken out Mao Zedong and a few others in the fighting in Jiangxi during the 1930’s, a lot of the Communists troops probably would’ve degenerated into bandit gangs.
gravenimage says
I doubt that they could have caused more trouble if this had happened, Kepha.
But pious Muslims are always motivated by Islam, whether they are “lone wolves” or not.
mortimer says
SELF-DIRECTED JIHAD … how Islamic!
Mohammed encouraged it.
darrellpackglobal says
so true, mortimer.
Ra dy McDaniels says
WHAT EVOLUTION? Individual jihad is doctrine. Both communal and individual jihad are waged in conformance with and thru a common understanding of SHARIAH aka Islamic law
Undaunted says
Here you go; tactics to match the threat …
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B075Z4PLKC/?coliid=I1TC5WJF76EW0P&colid=356Q5MZA1TQS0&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
gravenimage says
Thanks for linking to your book again, Undaunted.
SAFI says
Sounds like radical Islam is finally being “reformed”… into something even deadlier.
gravenimage says
It’s always been like this, SAFI.