Brian M Downing
Backed by western advisors, the Syrian Democratic Forces, an amalgamation of Kurdish-Arab militias, has launched an offensive on a remaining ISIL position in eastern Syria. Reports indicate that, despite ISIL’s heavy losses and string of defeats over the last 4 years, resistance is fierce.
The position here has been that ISIL has put together one of the most formidable regular armies the region has seen. Below is an unedited essay written in 2014 on the bases of ISIL’s cohesion.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has demonstrated remarkable fighting ability in both Syria and Iraq. Despite its small size – no more than 18,000 – it put the better equipped and much larger Iraqi military into flight in the north and took several cities, including Mosul. Though its individual soldiers are zealous and its leaders’ goals are quixotic, they nonetheless operate as a disciplined force, not as dervishes or berserkers. What accounts for ISIS’s remarkable success? The answer lies in its ideological devotion which transcends many of the problems noted to plague the Iraqi army.
Salafism, the core of ISIS’s religious and political beliefs, is an austere sect of Islam that has significant affinities with, and ties to, Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia – itself the creed of a warrior cult in years past. Salafism calls for strict discipline, a return to the uncontaminated beliefs of early Islam, resistance to westernization, and a struggle for personal purity. Many adherents are “lost souls” who come to the sect in search of discipline and commitment in their lives.
Acceptance of the sect’s creed entails a break with mundane concerns and personal vanities and the adoption of a commitment to ascetic discipline. Though most Salafis devote themselves to a personal struggle for purity, many seek to prove their faith through warfare. In recent years events in the Middle East have understandably cast considerably more light on the warrior side of Salafism than on the side devoted to personal virtue.
A disciplined and dedicated recruitment base augurs well for military efficacy and confers critical advantages over less motivated rivals. In many respects, Salafism’s discipline and commitment parallel what military societies and organizations have long instilled – in Sparta, Prussia, Cromwell’s Puritan army, Cheyenne Dog Men, and the austere communist insurgents in the previous century. Such people are more willing to accept the privations of military life, the authority of commanders, and the hardships of war. They are also more likely to accept the prospect of death in battle as the supreme act of faith and purification.
Members of the sect share a sense of community based on common beliefs, outlooks, lifestyles, attire, and appearance. This breaks down or overrides familial and tribal and ethnic antagonisms which have long weakened militaries and political systems in the Islamic world and which plagues, say, the Afghan army today, where Pashtun officers and Tajik enlisted personnel serve together uneasily. A Salafi fighter may be from the Otaibah of Saudi Arabia or the Murabtin of Libya, but parochial identities recede in significance while among the brethren, especially while in battle. To fight is to take part in a martial hajj – akin to that of the Prophet’s bands as they stormed out of Mecca and Medina and conquered a vast empire.
As a revivalist group, calling upon people to return to ways of the original believers of centuries past, Salafist fighters see themselves as akin to warriors of epochs past who have returned to austere religion then gone on to win great victories. The medieval Almoravids blamed past defeats on impiety and with their new austere beliefs, conquered an empire in North Africa and Spain. The Wahhabi religion inspired Saudi princes to arise, gather the Ikhwan bands, and conquer the Arabian peninsula. The Taliban began in the mid-90s as an austere religious sect devoted to suppressing banditry and warlordism before sweeping across much of Afghanistan.
Salafi fighters of ISIS, then, enjoy far greater unit cohesion than do their rivals in the Iraqi, Syrian, or Free Syrian Army. This makes for greater trust, higher morale, and more endurance in the face of the hardships that protracted fighting heaps upon them.
© 2014 and 2019 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.