Territoriality of Radical Islamist Groups

Security, Economy, and Identity

Bohumil Doboš, Martin Riegl, Jakub Landovský

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000383591
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Terrorism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the issue of territorial control by violent jihadist groups, using a comparative perspective.

The book argues that in many parts of the world the connection between a state and the control over territory is not as close as presented by conventional political maps, and therefore it is necessary to analyse the territoriality of non-state actors as well. Based on a variety of case studies, the work looks at different levels of connection between the violent Islamist groups and territory, dividing them into non-territorial, semi-territorial and territorial groups. While the majority of the cases are located in the Middle East (Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda at the Arabian Peninsula, Ha´yat Tahrir al-Sham, Hamas and Hezbollah), the book also draws cases from Africa (groups in the western Sahel, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram), South Asia (Taliban), and East Asia (Abu Sayyaf). By providing in-depth understanding of their respective approaches to territory, the book identifies the specifics of each group's territoriality, while also drawing more general conclusions.

This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, radical Islam, Middle Eastern studies, and International Relations in general.

1 Introduction

On 29 June 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former leader of the Islamic State (who was killed on 26 October 2019 in Idlib province in Syria), speaking inside the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, proclaimed refoundation of the Islamic Caliphate – a territorial entity that did not exist since the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. He, additionally, proclaimed himself as the new Caliph – leader of all Muslims. This move presented the world with another shock from this “JV Team” as infamously called by the former US president Barack Obama. The newly reestablished Islamic Caliphate became the most visible manifestation of the territorial ambitions of different violent Islamist groups around the world and the global jihadist movement in general that attempted to some degree to replicate the idealized original Islamic political community or simply rule over territory in accordance to their rigid interpretation of the Islamic law and Qur’anic commandments.

The topic of violent jihadism, Islamic insurgency, or any other mutation of the term that appeared in the information space, is one of the most discussed security problems in contemporary political science, in the broadest meaning of the term. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different publications from short blogs to extensive monographs covering topics connected to the subject, coupled with an increasing number of case studies dedicated to varying actors inside this stream. The aim of this book is to provide an additional perspective on the issue. The point of view taken in the following work is based on the territorial understanding of the political processes that lie in the heart of political geography and geopolitics as a specific brand of political science. Led by the work of authors from Soja, Gottmann, and Sack to Paasi, Elden, and Vollaard, this book tries to clarify the relationship of violent non-state actors connected to the radical and violent promotion of the political Islam to territory.

We challenge a notion of the violent non-state actors as fundamentally non-territorial entities following the important publications demystifying the nature of alternatively governed spaces by authors like Clunan and Trinkunas (2010), Mampilly (2011), or Arjona (2016). Despite the crucial efforts of the scholars mentioned here, and many more, violent Islamism and its propagators are still usually perceived as being de-territorialized in nature. This perception was not true prior to the territorial spread of Islamic State, and this misperception was in no small degree challenged by the progress of the Islamic State¹ that took control of large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria, challenging the widely held notion of violent Islamism being, by definition, a non-territorial networking process. This notion of a networking basis for such groups was brought to the fore due to the application of the modus operandi of Al-Qaeda. It was, nevertheless, never widely applied by other groups, and a connection of violent Islamism to territory is much more challenging, varied, and complicated than this simplistic picture. Just as the spread of the ideal Westphalian nation-state is by no means universal, there are many regions where alternative territorial actors take hold with different levels of efficiency. Sometimes, their territorial activity replicates the proto-state creation. This book aims to present the first comprehensive overview of the different combinations of territorial activity and the nature of the different groups propagating violent Islamism as spread around the globe. We aim to offer a wide-scale account of the variations in these different groups’ territorial behavior, the reasons for these variations, and the effects these variations have on the actions undertaken by the different actors.

A study of the relation of the violent non-state actors to the different aspects of territoriality is important from several perspectives. The first is academic. The rise of violent groups promoting political Islam is indeed one of the manifestations of the developments and shifts inside the post-Cold War international system – specifically a power diffusion (Nye Jr. 2011, 113). Understanding the territoriality of this specific type of violent non-state actor is an essential piece of the puzzle in the attempt to understand the effects of this diffusion on the international system and security environment. This is especially true in connection to understanding the development of governance and administrative structures inside alternatively governed regions.

As evident from the history of development of state institutions as presented by authors like Tilly (1975) or Spruyt (1994), the evolution of this specific type of political institution is very much connected to the particular context on the European continent, which is by far not the only possible political setting imaginable. Due to the colonial stretch of the European empires and the post-1945 development of the political map, it is, however, widely accepted that the only legitimate territorial political entity is a modern state. This is, nevertheless, empirically unjustifiable. Not only that we cannot find a single unit that could be defined as a universal state and states can be empirically divided into several categories (Sørensen 2005, 100–107; Cooper 2000), but there are many possible alternatives to the state-centered territorial political frameworks that appear throughout the world. These alternatives do not match the territorial administration of Westphalian states and must be analyzed as autonomous units located in a specific historical, geographic, and demographic environment affected by the impact of external interests. Understanding the territoriality of the Islamist insurgencies helps us present one of these alternatives.

Another reason for studying the territoriality of the violent Islamist movements is the security provision both in the affected regions and widely in the countries affected by the jihadist and Islamist violence. Analyzing the reasons supporting the territorial spread of these groups and the impact such a spread holds for the strategy and capability of the violent non-state actors will help both academics and practitioners relate this specific factor with a broader set of security implications connected to the activities of this set of actors. Understanding of territoriality is also one of the aspects necessary for crafting an effective counter-extremist strategy. A different approach is essential to counter territorial groups as compared to semi-territorial or networked organizations. The ability and willingness to control territory significantly shift the nature of these actors’ operations, and so should a type of counter-reaction. Also, the factors that lay at the foundations of the capability of an actor to control territory need to be tackled to prevent their reappearance in the future if necessary.

By meeting these aforementioned goals, this monograph aims to present a missing analysis of the territorial behavior of violent Islamist groups. It works with the evolutionary approach to political institutions, thus not disqualifying alternative actors and taking into account local specifics. It challenges the notion of non-territorial networks that cannot be understood from the territorial perspective and points to the fact that the territorial entities ideologically based in political Islam appeared even outside of the context of Islamic State activities in Iraq and Syria. It also aids with the understanding of the internal dynamics of internal conflicts in places with limited ability of states to project power inside their own judicial territory.

The book thus presents political territoriality of a relatively small number of actors but looks at the issue in a broad sense of understanding of the concept. Chapter 2 introduces the development of the political map in the 21st century, together with a conceptualization of the essential terms, with an extra focus on territoriality and territory. The development of the global political system underwent significant transitions in the post-Second World War era. The dominance of the modern territorial nation-state as set up by the UN Charter and the process of decolonization was somehow stopped in many parts of the world following the end of the Cold War. As the newly emerging weak states lost their external support, alternative forms of organization of the political space began to appear. This process is key to the understanding of the openings that allow the Islamist radicals to control territory in many parts of the world. Additionally, the presentation of the dynamic development of political maps allows us to root our consequent analysis into historical development better. Chapter 3 looks at three main aspects related to the study of territoriality – security, economy, and identity. Theoretical understanding of territoriality as being composed of several interconnected issues allows us for a more in-depth analysis of the issue. The following chapters are dedicated to the analysis of the empirical cases of 11 violent Islamist groups – Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Sahelian groups (due to the complex nature of the jihad in the region, it is impractical to restrict the chapter to one group only), Abu Sayyaf, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram (including the splinter groups affiliated to Islamic State following the internal breakup of the group in 2016), and Afghan Taliban. The detailed analysis of different cases will help us establish a solid empirical ground for the understanding of the issue. Finally, the book concludes by an application of the research on our understanding of the role of territoriality in the contemporary world and to the possibilities to counter such actors. The final analytical chapter also presents the impacts of deterritorialization on the activities of the selected actors.

Lastly, we must provide one conceptual note critical for this book. The cases include a wider variety of actors that are promoting the application of political Islam inside differently defined communities through the utilization of violent means. While this selection allows us to delimit a somewhat coherent set of actors, these are by no means uniform. Their goals and the vision of the nature of the social order they propagate might differ, as is the scope of their operations. Nonetheless, we see the unifying basis of a specific religion (with the exception of Hezbollah a Sunni version of Islam) as strong enough to allow us for generalizations regarding their territorial behavior without claiming that these groups establish a uniform set of actors in other domains like religious views, approach to the Muslim community, or their position in the far/near enemy debate that is inherent to the jihadist movement. Readers should not expect an in-depth analysis of the ideology of these groups and the differences between them if this is not relevant for the studied phenomenon and are encouraged to consult the work of the many scholars covering the topic of the ideological background of the violent manifestations of the political Islam.

Note

1 Also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, or Daesh.

Bibliography

Arjona, A. Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Clunan, A. L., and H. A. Trinkunas. Ungoverned Spaces: Alternatives to State Authority in an Era of Softened Sovereignty. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.

Cooper, R. “The Postmodern State and the World Order.” 2000. Accessed January 19, 2013. www.demos.co.uk/files/postmodernstate.pdf.

Mampilly, Z. C. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Nye Jr., J. S. The Future of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2011.

Sørensen, G. Stát a mezinárodní vztahy. Praha: Portál, 2005.

Spruyt, H. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Tilly, C. “Reflections on the History of European State-Making.” In The Formation of National States in Western Europe, edited by C. Tilly, 3–83. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.

2 Territoriality and politics in the 21st century

Development of the political map

To fully appreciate the role and importance of the violent jihadists’ territoriality in the study of alternative organizations of political space, we first need to understand the development and outlook of the contemporary international system as a whole. The political map of the world, conventionally seen as being divided among sovereign state actors covering almost every piece of land (with the exception of Antarctica, Bir Tawil region, and some other minor territories), is to a certain extent a myth. The present composition of the political map is a temporary product of centrifugal and centripetal systemic forces appearing in the international system. Despite the fact that after 1989, following the admission of microstates and the related move to universality (Crawford 2006, 185) and the entrance of Switzerland to the United Nations (UN), the number of states with external legitimacy for the first time equaled the number of the UN members, this number is far from capped and does not reflect the division of power in the worl...