For Syrians under Islamic State (ISIS) rule, the jihadist group is an incidental disease, not an authentic part of the society in which it has appeared, and the peak of its growth bears the seeds of its disintegration and demise. A number of factors are contributing to the group’s disintegration:
Firstly, the significant drop in the number of foreign fighters has been boosted by the pledges of allegiance Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi attained in the Sinai Peninsula, Libya and Nigeria.
The damage these pledges have done to the group outweighs the publicity they have generated, as believers in ISIS’s extremist doctrine in the Arab Maghreb, Africa and perhaps even parts of Europe will join groups in their home countries. This will impact negatively on the group’s strength in Syria and Iraq.
“There are also signs of a big drop in the influx of people from the Arab Maghreb, mainly after the group’s battles against the rebels,” says Adnan, who is close to ISIS members in Aleppo Countryside. “It can even be said that emigration has stopped.”
Perhaps this is what made Baghdadi accept pledges of allegiance from outside of the Levant. Gaining such allegiances, even in faraway areas, was better than losing foreign fighters altogether.
The decrease in the number of foreign fighters, due to intensified international monitoring of their movement, has contributed to locals’ hesitation to join the group.
“All the biggest assaults have been attributed to foreign fighters, who have a highly-effective combat doctrine,” says Mustafa, a lawyer from eastern Aleppo Countryside. “The drop in their numbers has not only reduced the Islamic State’s combat readiness, it has caused a recession in the number of local entrants in to the group.”
Foreign fighters amazed young Syrians, their mad bravery attracting many local recruits. The drop in the number of foreign fighters has also weakened the identity ISIS is trying to force on the region.
Secondly, although the US-led international anti-ISIS campaign has increased the determination of believers in the group’s ideology to continue their project, it has also convinced others that the group will never run its own state. Baghdadi, his ministers, and his commanders cannot appear in public or interact with the people.
“In their closed, private meetings, people ridicule the Islamic State and its institution-building procedures,” says Mohammad Amin, a teacher from Aleppo Countryside. “They look at these procedures as a process of destruction.” ISIS members hear many of these whispers, and this creates psychological pressure. It also stops people from joining the group.
Third: the way ISIS exercises power and the way the population has shunned the group as a result. At first, ISIS attracted many ordinary people on the pretext that it was fighting corruption, injustice and authoritarianism, and putting God’s divine law in to practice.
However, the street was soon shocked by the magnitude of its injustices, its brutality, its disfigurement of Islam through apparent yet false application of Islamic laws and the absence of the core of true Islam from everything it does.
“It might seem strange that the areas under the group’s control are the ones that hate it the most intensely because they are the places that have sampled its criminality,” says Sheikh Abdul Kader, from eastern Aleppo Countryside. “They have seen its wrong concept of religion, and there is a very great difference between those who see and those who hear.”
The number of entrants into ISIS in the areas it controls is negligible when one considers the awful living conditions people endure there and the size of the material incentives the group offers to those willing to sign up.
Four, recent military gains made by the rebels with support from Jabhat al-Nusra are a fatal blow to both Bashar al-Assad and ISIS.
The Islamic State has long accused the rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra of betraying Islam and claimed that they could never defeat Assad. However, the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra reached an understanding with Syrian rebel factions and their subsequent achievements in Idlib are a big loss for the Islamic State.
“ISIS fears Nusra and the Salafist groups more than Assad and the international coalition — those groups have taken away its religious legitimacy,” says Sharia graduate Sheikh Qassem. “They have proved that there is another Islamist project that is not at odds with the goals of the Syrian revolution, or that it can achieve harmony with the revolution during the current period at least. In fact, they have proved that it is wrong to monopolize religion and use it for political reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion itself.”
This explains the reactions of ISIS and its members to the victory won by Nusra and the rebels in Idlib. Abu al-Harith, an ISIS member from eastern Aleppo Countryside, says that Nusra is “too weak to maintain their victory and will withdraw; the real test lies in enforcing Sharia law. They will definitely fail in this; the presence of the FSA and, behind it, those who control it, will prevent them from enforcing Sharia.”
But anyone who follows ISIS members can see the embarrassment on their faces. They have been forced to deny reality and find excuses to justify their stance — to themselves before the people — as they cannot retreat from the position they are in.
Fifth, ‘Decisive Storm,’ the Saudi-led operation against the Houthis, is one of the most prominent factors contributing to the disintegration of the Islamic State. According to locals’ understanding, Salafist jihadists from the Gulf have played an important role in supporting the group with money and fighters.
Most Sharia judges in ISIS are from the Gulf, and some of them adopted extremism on the pretext that the Gulf states had given in to Iranian/Shiite influence and given up on protecting the Sunni community. Now that reality has proven the opposite to be true — that states follow a different logic to militias and militant groups — Gulf Salafists will review their assessment of the situation.
“We will not talk about the return of those who have gone to Iraq and Syria,” says Qassem. “However, it is certain that Salafist jihadists will think carefully before joining the group or supporting it.”
Sixth, the time factor is also playing a role in the disintegration of ISIS. The initial goal of most Syrians who joined the group was to topple the Assad regime. The foreign fighters’ goal was to come to the aid of the oppressed in the Levant. The longer it takes to achieve these goals, the more uneasiness will spread in the Islamic State’s ranks, especially as ISIS still has no clear political outlook and has incurred consecutive painful blows. The harsh military nature of life under the group is also a significant factor.
ISIS has fought many other sectarian forces that, like ISIS, follow an extremist ideology. “Members of the Sunni community have found themselves caught between two fires: the extremism of these militias and the Islamic State,” says Mustafa. “They have chosen the one fire of ISIS over the many fires of those sectarian militias.”
The presence of a just political system would give young men a third choice. But this all depends on regional developments and whether the international community truly intends to help the people of the region realize their aspirations and stop protecting authoritarian regimes.
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