Militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) celebrate the group's declaration of an Islamic
state, in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq,
June 30, 2014
ISLAMABAD — Experts in Pakistan’s
insurgency say they expect hundreds of radical Islamists to join the
Islamic State as a result of the Pakistani military’s campaign in
the country’s North Waziristan region.
As the military takes control of what had been
insurgent-dominated areas of North Waziristan, the militants who’d
thrived in that area are searching for a new group with which to
affiliate. Many are expected to choose the Islamic State, driven in
part by a reluctance to accept al Qaida’s leader,
Ayman al Zawahiri.
Hard-line militants, in particular, are angry at the Egyptian
cleric’s preoccupation with consolidating his power since he
succeeded Osama bin Laden in May 2011, and they blame his political
ambitions for a significant drop since then in terrorist attacks
mounted by the group in Pakistan and, from there, against targets
overseas.
They view the Islamic State, with its deep pockets and its string
of military victories, as a chance to have their jihadist bona fides
restored after their recent losses to the Pakistani military. It
might give them access to money and networks they need to survive.
Still, few think the Pakistanis will relocate to Syria and Iraq
to fight with the Islamic State there. Instead, they’re hoping the
Islamic State will sponsor a sustained campaign of revenge attacks
against the Pakistani military.
The experts on Pakistan’s insurgency who spoke to McClatchy
included researchers and militants. The researchers spoke only on
the condition of anonymity, citing a blanket ban imposed by the
Pakistani military on independent news coverage of the air and land
operations in the North Waziristan tribal area. The militants asked
not to be named because disclosure of their identities would make
them liable to arrest by the Pakistani authorities and reprisals
from other militants.
Many militant groups in Pakistan’s tribal areas have
long-standing relations with militant commanders in Iraq and Syria
who’ve joined the Islamic State, having previously fought with Abu
Musab al Zarqawi, the Jordanian who founded al Qaida in Iraq after
the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
A former Zarqawi associate, Abu al Huda al Sudani, in April
became the first Afghanistan-based Arab militant to switch
allegiance to the Islamic State from al Qaida, accusing Zawahiri of
“deviating” from its mission – a complaint that echoes those
expressed privately by Pakistan-based militants who spoke to
McClatchy.
There have been two mass defections so far this month. The first
was announced Oct. 6 by the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a battalion of several hundred
militants notorious for their involvement in high-profile attacks on
Pakistani military installations. The defection followed reports
that 17 Uzbek militants had been killed in late September in Syria
during an international-coalition air raid against the Islamic
State. It’s likely the militants were part of a small group that had
been sent there by the Uzbek group’s chief, Usman Ghazi, to curry
favor with his new patrons.
Bases for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and other, smaller
Central Asian militant factions in North Waziristan were targeted at
the outset of the Pakistan military offensive there in June. The
bases reportedly were destroyed by airstrikes and artillery, and
many of the groups’ key commanders were killed. That left the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’s militants with nowhere to go, and
the researchers and militants think the other Central Asian factions
will follow the group into alliances with the Islamic State.
Former Zarqawi associate Sudani was instrumental in the second
mass defection, that of six faction leaders of the Pakistani
Taliban, led by their former spokesman, Sheikh Maqbool, according to
the audio-recording account of events they circulated last week in
Pakistan. They’d approached Sudani and asked him to put them in
contact with the Islamic State’s leadership. He arranged an
encrypted phone call with a Syria-based representative of the group,
during which the militants became the first Pakistanis to swear an
oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed
caliph of the Islamic State.
Under Islamic custom, a Muslim may seek to renew his faith by
swearing an oath of allegiance to a single religious guide. All
Afghan and Pakistani Taliban militants already have pledged their
allegiance to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in his
capacity as “leader of the faithful,” the title he adopted when the
Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1997 to 2001.
Maqbool was vilified for his betrayal in a statement issued Oct.
20 by the
Taliban Movement of Pakistan, or TTP. He was officially
expelled, but the TTP made no mention of the five other regional
faction leaders who’d also announced they’d joined the Islamic
State.
Those five other defections, however, have created a buzz of
expectancy within the militant community in Pakistan and Afghanistan
that small groups displaced from their havens in North Waziristan
will also align with the Islamic State.
Hussain is a McClatchy special correspondent
based in Islamabad. Twitter: @tomthehack.
http://www.macon.com/2014/10/27/3387575_pakistan-experts-expect-more-defections.html