Thread by @hxhassan

Interesting two-page article in ISIS’s weekly al-Naba on Mohammed bin Salman’s religious policies in Saudi Arabia. The conclusion especially.. 1/2

ISIS says MBS knows that he’ll benefit from some chaos as the West will come to his help if there is any extremist move there, so it warns its followers not to fall into the trap: “don’t be the fodder of a battle not yours. The [nature of] our fight is clear.” 2/

ISIS is essentially advising its cells in Saudi Arabia not to make uncalculated moves there and instead “to learn the lessons of their brethren in Syria, Iraq and other wilayat of the Islamic State.”

Why interesting? ISIS, since late 2016, started to be more realistic about its attacks against the West but *more* ambitious about attacking major countries in the region. Saudi Arabia will be a big focus, as will Egypt, Turkey and Afghanistan. A couple of predicted scenarios:

In practice, being more ambitious about these countries means evolving from sporadic terror attacks in countries like Saudi Arabia & Turkey to building cells for sustained insurgency. A pattern it followed in Iraq & then in Syria.

I bet ISIS will turn a lot of its energy & focus to boost its presence in Afghanistan, a massive opportunity for it. The Taliban talks is an opening, but not just that. ISIS will benefit less from disillusioned Taliban members than from the Taliban’s likely expansion there...

If we know one thing about ISIS, it’s its ability to organize & grow when it’s fighting against a fellow jihadi group. ISIS is the ideology most equipped to organize against fellow jihadis than those jihadis could organize is against it.

Since 2016, ironically, ISIS foreign affiliates started to look more like ISIS than move away from it. The reason is that ISIS anticipated how important it was to streamline their operations & tighten its control over them. Sinai, Yemen & Khorassan were noticeably changing in ‘16

After ISIS’s loss of its core caliphate in Iraq & Syria, my best guess about its future is a “happy medium” between ISIS in 2014 (conquering Rome etc) & ISIS before 2011 (Iraq-focused). In other words, it‘ll be less global but more focused on building & growing regional reach..

That’ll be a strategic & long-term change, and future ISIS will stabilize along those lines. That won’t be temporary and post-defeat interim change.

So the trends I explain in my new article will apply to ISIS too, but much less than they apply to others: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Historians will look at this period in time as the end of bin Ladenism, turning away from transnational jihad into a local context. Indeed, even as ISIS was ‘global’, the group’s strategy/operations have always been localized. It won’t need to re-learn it. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

A major challenge for jihadi groups linked to al-Qaeda is they haven’t yet developed their independent brands to operate as separate/independent jihadi groups. They still need to revolve in al-Qaeda’s orbit in a way, or at least not to go against it full on. Nusra is an example..

.. this is especially the case in light of rivalry with ISIS. They need al-Qaeda (more the ideology, less the organization) as a jihadi reference & guiding principle. That’ll change with time; ISIS had developed such a separate brand by the time it declared war on AQ in 2014.

This is in fact an interesting factor in determining & predicting which groups are likely to do away with al-Qaeda bin Ladenism. If the group in question had old local roots in the environment it’s operating, it’s likely to do its own thing. 1/2

I mean: a jihadi group that was once involved in an insurgency that preceded al-Qaeda of the 1990s, then that group is more likely to revert to those roots. Nusra is an example of the trend above, because it with other groups are direct heirs of the 70s-80s Syrian insurgency.

.. their ideology is shaped by their memory of the Syrian insurgency (many of the commanders, members or ideologues were active in 70s or are relatives of those who were, and their memory is shaped by the events & the environment, not by the time they spent elsewhere in between.)

With such dynamics in mind, it’s fairly easy to foresee what’s coming. This next phase of Sunni jihadism requires deeper engagement, but happens to come at a time when the US is leaving & allies are adding to the mess. So the future is bright for jihadis: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…