The Threat of the “Salafi Crescent”
by Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay
January 21, 2014
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 235
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: While Israel and the West are focused on the Iranian
threat, another dangerous entity is emerging in the Middle East. Attempts by
al-Qaeda and other radical Sunni Islamist groups to challenge the Shia
Crescent (Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon) must be viewed as a serious security
threat.
There is a notion that a hegemonic Iran is attempting to dominate the
crescent-shaped part of the Middle East where the majority population is
Shiite or contains a strong Shiite minority, through an array of Shiite
proxies: Iraq, Alawite-dominated Syria, and the powerful Shiite militia
Hizballah in Lebanon.
Yet, the growing involvement of Sunni Salafi jihadis in Iraq (since 2003),
among the rebels in Syria (since 2011), and in Lebanon has created a “Salafi
Crescent.” This reflects a Sunni ambition to establish a caliphate
controlling much of the Middle East and form the Islamic State “from Diyala
[in eastern Iraq] to Beirut.” Al-Qaeda’s hatred of the Shiites was expressed
by its founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who called them “the insurmountable
obstacle, the prowling serpent…the enemy lying in wait” and ordered his
followers to “fight them.”
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a jihadist group of predominantly Sunni fighters,
rose to prominence after the US-led invasion of Iraq. The ensuing insurgency
provided the group with fertile ground to wage a guerrilla war against
coalition forces and their domestic supporters. In the face of successful US
counterterrorism efforts and the Sunni tribal awakening, AQI’s violent
campaign has diminished since the peak years of 2006-2007, though the group
remains a threat to stability in Iraq and the broader Levant. Since the
withdrawal of US forces in late 2011, AQI has accelerated the pace of
attacks on predominantly Shiite targets in an attempt to reignite conflict
between Iraq’s Sunni minority and the Shiite-led government of Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Meanwhile, AQI has expanded its reach into neighboring Syria. In April 2013,
AQI announced that it was changing its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS), and that the Syrian group Jabhat Nusra would join it. Jabhat
Nusra’s leaders objected, however, and the two groups have remained
independent.
Much of the violence in Iraq is blamed on ISIS, which has launched a vicious
bombing campaign in Iraq as part of an anti-Shiite insurgency that claimed
more than 8,000 lives in 2013. On January 3, ISIS asserted control over the
western Iraqi city of Fallujah, declaring it an Islamic state. The capture
of Fallujah came amid a campaign of violence across the western desert
province of Anbar, in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces, and
al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been locked in fighting. The ISIS
fighters have steadily asserted their control over Anbar’s desert regions
for months, and resisted assaults by both Iraqi government forces and local
tribal leaders to maintain control of all of Fallujah, and perhaps as much
as half of Ramadi, Anbar’s capital.
The sectarian tensions between Iraq’s Sunnis and the Shiite-led government
have been further inflamed by the war in Syria. Al-Qaeda’s growing influence
in Syria has given terrorists control over the desert territories spanning
both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, enabling them to readily transfer
weapons and fighters between the two arenas.
Al-Qaeda in Syria
Syria has become a magnet for al-Qaeda and other jihadi recruits, as the
Assad regime has been an ally of Iran since the 1980s. Al-Qaeda’s direct
involvement in Syria includes ISIS, Abdullah Azzam Brigades,
al-Qaeda-affiliated Fatah al-Islam, and Jordanian Salafi jihadists.
Highlighting the widening regional Sunni-Shiite schism, influential Sunni
Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi called on all those who can perform jihad to head
to Syria to fight the Alawites and Shi’ites, who are “worse than Christians
and Jews.”
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s leader, called upon Syrians to “rise against
the criminal Alawite regime” of Bashar Assad. In June 2013, between 30 and
60 Shiite civilians were killed by rebel forces in Hatla, a village near
Iraq that was invaded by thousands of foreign-backed jihadists this week.
Rebel fighters denounced the “pug-nosed” Shiite “dogs” and burned dozens of
homes.
ISIS has been active in Syria since 2012, fighting to control major outposts
and the provincial capital of al-Raqqa in northern Syria. The group is
fighting both Assad’s forces and the secular Syrian rebels who once had
viewed the group as an ally in the fight to topple the embattled leader.
Fierce fighting between ISIS and Syrian rebel groups was reported in
December 2013 in a dozen locations, with ISIS taking control of the
strategic Idlib province town of Saraqeb, which sits on the Aleppo-Damascus
highway.
Jabhat Nusra, Syria’s homegrown Salafi-jihadist group, has important links
to al-Qaeda affiliates and demonstrates a higher level of effectiveness than
many other rebel groups. The group has shown sensitivity to popular
perception and is gaining support within Syria. The emergence of indigenous
Salafi jihadist groups such as Jabhat Nusra is far more dangerous to the
long-term stability of the Syrian state than foreign jihadist groups, as
they represent a metamorphosis of a Salafi-jihadist ideology into a domestic
platform that can achieve popular resonance.
Al-Qaeda in Lebanon
Lebanon has been roiled by tensions and clashes over both Hizballah’s strong
military support for Assad and a number of rebel-supporting Sunni
communities. Car bombings, rocket attacks, and kidnappings have targeted
both parties, and armed clashes have been frequent. Hizballah leader Hassan
Nasrallah has publicly justified Hizballah’s involvement in Syria to stop
al-Qaeda-style Sunni radicals, or takfiri, in their tracks. He sees Lebanon,
Syria, and Iraq as part of the same battlefield.
On January 4, ISIS claimed credit for a suicide car bombing that took at
least four lives and wounded dozens in a Hizballah-controlled suburb of
Beirut, marking the first attack by the group in Lebanon. The group warned
that the bombing was the start of a campaign against the “wicked criminals”
of Hizballah for its role in helping the Syrian regime.”
Another al-Qaeda affiliate, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, claimed
responsibility for November’s suicide bombing of the Iranian Embassy in
Beirut. Group leader Majid al-Majid blasted Nasrallah’s characterization of
killed Syrian regime members as martyrs as “an insult to millions of
Muslims.” He didn’t hesitate to threaten all of Lebanon should Hizballah
continue to support the Assad regime, and hinted that his organization would
plan an attack on Lebanese tourists, should the state continue to strengthen
Hizballah and its leaders. Al-Majid was captured by the Lebanese security
service, and on January 4 died in custody.
Conclusion
In the last decades an Iran-dominated Shia Crescent was considered the main
threat to Israeli and regional security. The growing involvement of Salafi
jihad in the region has produced a new threat. The latest operations of
al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the three countries of the Shia Crescent –
Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – highlight the group’s growing regional influence
and ambitions.
The Sunni jihadist groups might destabilize the whole area and transform it
into an unstable, ungovernable conflict zone. Such an uncontrolled region
would become a safe haven for Islamic terror groups and training center for
militants from the Sinai, Arabian Peninsula, and elsewhere, and a platform
to launch jihad against Israel and moderate Arab countries in the region. A
positive outcome of this scenario, however, will be the decline in Iranian
influence in the region.
==================
Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Shay, a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center
for Strategic Studies, is a former Deputy Head of the Israel National
Security Council. He lectures at Bar-Ilan University and the Herzliya
Interdisciplinary Center.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the
Greg Rosshandler Family
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