The organizations and the liquid recruitment … Al-Qaeda’s attraction to Daesh elements

Terrorist organizations are always recruiting more extremist elements to expand their activities on one hand and to strengthen their control on the other, this is preparing for establishing the “religious state” they seek.

For recruitment and polarization, organizations try to use all means and mechanisms available for recruitment, including: recruitment through funds, mosques, charities, relief organizations and using the social media sites, as well as debates between members of rival groups to attract the organization in its entirety .

The political and regional variables play the most important role in the liquidity situation within the Islamist organizations. Those variables are helpful factors both for organizational fragmentation and for creating more coalitions.

After 5 June 1967, and the defeat of the Arab states by Israelis, in addition to the internal conflict between the political currents Nasserites and the Sadat regime, all these variables factors played an important role in the rise of the Islamist current in Egypt.

The defeat of Daesh has been a catalyst for fragmentation of the organization and an attempt to find an alternative homeland on the one hand, especially in the security-stricken and geographically fractured countries such as Libya, Somalia and Afghanistan, on the other hand led to the rise of Al Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda have been kept trying to attract the members of Daesh as a fragmented organization.

In this context, the study seeks to address the ability of al-Qaeda to attract the fragmented religious factions, especially Daesh in the light of regional and international challenges. The study can be addressed through the following axes:

Frist: The concept of fragmented religious factions (characteristics, structures) and the difference between them and other solid organizations:

To define the meaning of fragmented religious factions or (liquid religious factions) we should back to Zygmunt Bauman, Polish sociologist and philosopher, who advocates for the idea of “liquid modernity”.

Bauman said that “Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change. To ‘be modern’ means to modernize – compulsively, obsessively; not so much just ‘to be’, let alone to keep its identity intact, but forever ‘becoming’, avoiding completion, staying under defined”.

• In the light of Bauman the concept of liquid religious factions and the difference between them and the solid religious factions:

Liquid religious factions are the religious currents that adopt different ways. Most of these currents agree with the terrorist organizations in the fundamentalist and jurisprudential reference and Islamic law in its broad sense as a frame of reference and jurisprudential, both of which seek to apply it, but differ in some branches, priorities and methods of application.

These liquid religious factions often do not form a strong organization, and become targets of recruitment and polarization of other powerful organizations.

In some cases, according to political, regional, geopolitical and demographic variables, when a strong organization consists of multiple currents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, some individuals (who express a liquid religious faction within the organization) are split into more radical organizations.

For example, The Brotherhood elements joint to Daesh organization before July 3, 2013, or the tactical separation after overthrowing the Brotherhood from power in Egypt, to practice violence freely without any suspicions to the mother organization.

• Characteristics of liquid religious currents

– Irregular Intellectual groups, or intracranial and partially differentiated in vision.

– Remnants of defeated organizations such as the remnants of Daesh in Syria and Iraq.

– socially marginalized groups that do not adopt a particular ideological vision, and which the various organizations seek to attract and assimilate, such as the Brotherhood’s attempts to attract many socially marginalized groups, especially in the mid-1970s.

– Extremists who sympathize with terrorist incidents and sympathize with terrorist organizations, especially in Europe, America and East Asia, and become an easy target for recruitment as “lonely wolves”.

Second: Joint links between liquid and solid organizations

1- The Ideological link

The ideological link and the unity of the intellectual and reference framework are among the most important links in the connections between individuals and organization on the one hand, and between liquid currents and solid organizations on the other.

2- Unity of the political objective

The unity of the political objective is the second link between these solid organizations and the liquid religious factions, which related to the establishment of the Caliphate.

Third: Motives for moving from one case to another

1- Ideological Motive

It concerns the doctrinal and methodological differences, mostly in the branches and priorities of the fighting, and not in the solid foundation of the Takfiri ideology of these groups.

2- Tactical Motive

Is the political harmonization at a certain moment imposed by political circumstances, such as the withdrawal of the movements of “Egypt’s arms…and the revolution brigade” from the Brotherhood, to practice violence and terrorism against the Egyptian state on one hand, and that the Muslim Brotherhood can deny this practices.

Forth: The rise of al-Qaeda and the attempts to attract Daesh elements

After the successive strikes from national governments in Syria and Iraq, Daesh is trying to survive through a strategy based on recruitment and attracting more elements. Specifically working to expand the traditional areas of influence of al-Qaeda, and in this way has taken several ways both to attract cadres belonging to al-Qaeda.

Daesh also seeks to attract the liquid mass in its areas of existence who adopt the same thought but they are not involved in the organization of a terrorist group, in addition to the criminal elements through funds and girls and the jihad of marriage.

According to Algerian security sources, al-Qaeda militants in Algeria succeeded in persuading 10 of Daesh’s fighters to al-Qaeda after engaging in debates with extremist loyal to al-Qaeda.  In August 2017, the same thing happened in Syria.

The cornerstone of al-Qaeda’s rise and its return to the leadership of jihadist organizations in the world is the fundamental difference in the structure of both organizations and their way of working on the ground.

1- Al Qaeda operates in a cluster manner, in a decentralized manner with freedom of movement that suits the conditions of time, area and the local environment.

2- Daesh operates in a central manner, it adopt the central planning of all major operations carried out by the branches affiliated to it in any place.

3- In the light of this difference between the ways of the two organizations operate, there is no future for Daesh on the ground, and that the organization’s survival in a timely manner will not last long.

Conclusion

In light of reviewing the collapse of Daesh, and in the light of the regional, international and tactical changes of all parties, several scenarios could be reviewed.

1- The first scenario: Successful negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. In this case this will have an impact on all jihadi organizations in the Central Asian region and the world. It is likely that if this scenario succeeds, it will lead to an open war between national governments and international alliances, and between terrorist organizations, leading to its confinement, and the increase in individual terrorist operations, “lonely wolves”.

2- The second scenario: Fail of the negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. In this case, Al-Qaeda’s position will not change, and it will seek to attract the remains of daesh. This scenario is strongly suggested to unite the banner of terrorist organizations under al-Qaeda, which will be in the center of events again.

3- The third scenario: The ability of Daesh to restore its numerical and logistical ability. This scenario will lead to the survival of Daesh, and then the possibility of repeating the fascist state again.

Finally, in the light of the regional and international changes and the rise of the national right in Europe and America, especially the American desire – under the administration of President Donald Trump – to eliminate terrorist organizations and end the direct American military presence in some states, we suggest the first scenario in the near and medium term.