Attacks signal move toward a more global IS strategy

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

As the deadly attacks in Paris made horrifically clear, the Islamic State group is determined to establish itself as the dominant jihadist movement capable of operating far beyond the limits of its self-declared “caliphate.”

Doing so achieves numerous aims for the group, not least of which could be winning it clout to attract even more recruits. Others may include sharpening divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe – and forcing the West into a difficult choice of either backing off or being drawn into what IS would see as a holy war in Syria and Iraq.

Coming soon after the Islamic State group claimed the downing of the Russian plane in Egypt and deadly suicide bombings in Lebanon and Turkey, the Paris attacks appear to signal a fundamental shift in strategy toward a more global approach that experts suggest is likely to intensify.

“The message is that this is an open war, not restricted to the conflict zone in Iraq and Syria,” said Bilal Saab, a resident senior fellow for Middle East Security at Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. Until now, the militant Sunni group had mostly focused on its internal rivals – Bashar Assad’s regime and rival Muslim Shiites, which the group considers to be heretics.

The Islamic State group claimed that Friday night’s attacks, during which scores of innocent victims where methodically gunned down in the heart of Paris, was a response to France’s role in U.S.-led airstrikes against IS in both Iraq and Syria. The group also has said it was responsible for bringing down a Russian jetliner over Egypt’s Sinai region earlier this month, describing it as retaliation for Russian airstrikes in Syria.

On Thursday, twin powerful suicide bombings tore through a crowded Shiite neighborhood of Beirut, killing more than 40 people. That same day, a suicide bomber tore through a Shiite memorial service in Baghdad, killing 21 people.

IS activity outside its “caliphate” hub in Sunni areas of Syria and Iraq is in itself not new as a concept. The group’s affiliates have carried out attacks across the Middle East and north Africa, and there have been attacks beyond the region that were blamed on IS loyalists. But such high-profile successive cases of mass murder abroad – and now in the heart of Europe – do suggest the nature and scale is changing.

As the group is secretive and elusive, it remains unclear clear why IS chose this moment to go global.

One possibility is that they have identified an inflection point in the Russian decision to join the fray in Syria two months ago. Although most of the Russian airstrikes have targeted other militants and appeared designed mainly to bolster the beleaguered forces of President Bashar Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin says his fight also is with IS.

Attacks abroad help spread the message that IS is a serious and effective alternative to al-Qaida, the organization that claimed the leadership of a global jihadi movement but has seemed in eclipse in recent years.

Hassan Hassan, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London and co-author of “ ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,” said the Islamic State has a twin strategy of state-building within its self-declared caliphate and establishing itself as a “global leader of jihad” in place of al-Qaida. “They wanted to show they are the new al-Qaida.”

Hassan noted that until recently, many observers did not take IS seriously as a global threat.

Saab pointed to another possible goal: To encourage the deployment of Western ground troops. Although many in the West argue that this would be the only way to dislodge them, many would welcome such an apocalyptic, man-to-man scenario. “ISIS would cherish that because it’s the fight they’ve been seeking,” he said.

Experts said the group is learning how to bypass various international security measures and expect such attacks to increase dramatically.

“We will see their tactics improving and their targets getting bigger. They see 9/11 as the example,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based expert on IS.

“What we see in Paris is really a turning point,” Hassan said. “I think it’s just the beginning.”