The Al-Qaida & ISIS Philosophy of Unrestricted Warfare

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Abu Bakr an-Naji might not even be one person, but a committee.  That name is attached to a book, Idarah at-Tawahhush, “Management of Desolation”.  This book sets out the political and military policy of Al-Qaida and its affiliates, such as Jabhat an-Nusrah, and splinter groups such as ISIS. 

It states explicitly that the “Salafi Way” is the only and essential way, and expands on what Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and later, people like Sayyid Quthb Ibrahim Husayn, wrote, dividing the post-caliphate ummah into the “colonised” and the “free”.  Only “true Muslims”, people with their Wahhabi ideology, are free. 

Besides indicting foreign powers, extra-national agencies and corrupt civil administrations throughout the Muslim world, blame is given to the Muslims, and especially the scholars of Islam, who “lead people astray”.  It is written, “Notice we say that the masses are the difficult factor.  We know that they are not generally dependable on account of the situation; there no improvement for the general public until there is victory.  We are to gain their sympathy, or at the very least neutralise them.”  And “neutralising” here means acts of terror to cow the population into acquiescence.  The only strategy is violence, so that they can cleanse Islamic society. 

They misuse Revelation to justify this kufr: “Since war is thus justified, it must be carefully planned and executed. It has several stages.  The first stage is vexation of the enemy aimed at creating chaos in which the forces of the foreign powers and their local proxies are distracted and exhausted and the Muslims learn that they have power and learn how to use it.  Operations are of diverse kinds but should be dramatic.  Thus, they should be on a small scale, carried out independently by autonomous groups - not like the elaborate attack on the World Trade Center, which was premature.  What needs to take place at this stage is advancement of groups made capable of vexation through drilling and operational practice so that they will be prepared psychologically and practically for the stage of the management of savagery. 

The second stage is the spread of savagery.  Note here that we said that the goal is to dislodge these regions from the control of the regimes of apostasy.  It is the goal we are publicly proclaiming and are determined to carry out, not the outbreak of chaos.” 

The third stage is the administration of savagery.  And that is what ISIS had done.  They took a step that even Al-Qaida were not able to.  It notes that neither the great powers nor the rest of the Muslims would allow this, so the goal would be to spread attacks of terror beyond the theatre of conflict by sending militants home to start new cells, and to encourage lone wolf attacks by influencing vulnerable people through social media and other platforms.  This is that devil we are facing, the true epitome of Wahhabism.