How al-Qa`ida Lost Control of its Syrian Affiliate: The Inside Story

The Syrian jihad presented invaluable opportunities for
al-Qa`ida to establish what it had always sought: a popular,
broadly representative jihadi resistance movement
that could support the creation of an Islamic government
presiding over an expanse of important territory. Jabhat
al-Nusra assumed the mantle of responsibility in seeking
to achieve this grand goal. And it did remarkably well, up
to a point. As conflict dynamics evolved, however, the goal
of transforming into a mass movement with social and political
popularity became an increasingly distant objective.
In its determination to aggressively achieve its grand goals,
Jabhat al-Nusra prioritized localism over globalism, which
as time passed, pushed its relationship with al-Qa`ida to
the breaking point.
To confront … blatant aggression and brutal occupation,
it is absolutely vital to unite on the basis of Tawhid,
[to] organize our ranks to fight in the way of Allah,
and [to] transcend our disagreements and disputes …
We must understand that we are in for a long war, a
battle of creed and awareness before weapons and combat; a battle
for the sake of upright conduct, inculcating ethics and abstinence
from this world … So let us cooperate, come closer, join ranks, correct
mistakes and fill the gaps.
This is a clear-cut order from me to our brotherly soldiers of
Al-Qaeda in the Levant, to cooperate with your sincere Mujahid
brothers—those who agree with you as well as those who disagree
with you—for the sake of Jihad and fighting the Baathists, Safavid
Rawafidh, Crusaders and the Khawarij.1
Those were the words of al-Qa`ida’s General Leadership, issued
within a stern directive on January 7, 2018, and intended for
a jihadi audience in Syria. There, al-Qa`ida’s prospects for success
have faced existential challenges in recent years. Now, al-Qa`ida’s
claim to command any Syrian affiliate stands on the thinnest of
foundations, if any at all. Instead, the once-dominant al-Qa`ida
affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra embarked on a series of rebrands through
2016-2017 that although intended to further its long-term objectives,
served only to engender crippling internal divisions and a de
facto break from al-Qa`ida. After a months-long public feud pitting
Jabhat al-Nusra’s successor, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), on the
one side against al-Qa`ida and its loyalists in Syria on the other,
mediation efforts energized by prominent al-Qa`ida ideologues and
Shura Council members managed to secure three days of détente in
January 2018—though that soon crumbled.
In fact, the al-Qa`ida statement’s clear acknowledgement of two
distinct factions of fighters—the soldiers of al-Qa`ida in the Levant
(junud qa’edat al-jihad fi’l Sham) and the sincere mujahid brothers
(al-mujahideen al-sadiqin)—was the group’s first public admission
that al-Qa`ida and HTS had become two separate entities.a That
admission underlined how divisive Jabhat al-Nusra’s recent evolution
had been, significant enough to catalyze the formation of an
entirely separate al-Qa`ida loyalist entity.
It is undoubtedly true that al-Qa`ida’s reversal of fortunes in
Syria was, in part, a consequence of shifting conflict dynamics, as
Russia’s September 2015 intervention turned the tide of regime
losses and secured a series of consequential military victories, including
in Aleppo. That reality, coupled with the West’s tunnel-like
fixation on combating the Islamic State and increasing political
fatigue with backing the anti-Assad effort, had combined through
2016-2017 to create conditions in which al-Qa`ida could no longer
benefit from intense levels of conflict (which had given it its
best chance to acquire credibility) and a viable, potent revolutionary
opposition (which it had embedded into and partnered with to
consolidate its credibility).
It was facing these far less favorable conditions that had prompted
an internal discussion around a need to use additional methods
to secure popular acceptance and support. After all, as Jabhat
al-Nusra had repeatedly explained,2 achieving its ultimate objective
of establishing an Islamic state in Syria would only ever be feasible
if it could acquire a sufficiently large and broad spread of support
from those living in its midst. The primacy of military conflict
through 2012-2015 may have allowed for Jabhat al-Nusra’s rise to
prominence and acquisition of some popularity, but shifting dynamics
in 2016 meant additional methods were needed to sustain
and grow existing support.
Central within this challenge was one issue: could a self-identified
al-Qa`ida affiliate broaden its support base to the extent necessary
not only to negotiate a broad-spectrum merger (not alliance)
with Syria’s armed opposition but to secure widespread support for
a jihadi government? Making use of information released publicly
by involved jihadis as well as deeper insight provided to this author
by individuals directly and indirectly involved in Jabhat al-Nusra’s evolution since 2016,b this article seeks to tell the story of how and
why al-Qa`ida has seen its Syrian affiliate slowly drift out of its
control and what that means for its project in Syria.
From Jabhat al-Nusra to JFS
As international diplomacy intensified in early 2016 toward the first
of several nationwide ‘cessations of hostility,’ Jabhat al-Nusra convened
unity talks with opposition factions based in northern Syria.3
Pressure was rising inside Syria’s revolution to adapt to changing
circumstances. Politics were beginning to trump military affairs,
and the Syrian opposition’s external backers were coercing their
proxies to play along. For Jabhat al-Nusra, an avowed al-Qa`ida
affiliate opposed to any foreign manipulation of events inside Syria,
this state of affairs represented a potentially existential threat. The
unity negotiations that began in January 2016 were Jabhat al-Nusra’s
way of preempting any foreign attempt to co-opt its military
partners into acting against its interests. After all, the United States
and Russia were also intensively negotiating to establish a joint intelligence
cell in Jordan to deal specifically with Jabhat al-Nusra’s
‘marbled’ presence within opposition areas.4
As it happened, Jabhat al-Nusra’s best attempts to convince opposition
groups that a full organizational merger was in their best
interests resolutely failed. One reason for rejection hovered above
others: Jabhat al-Nusra’s affiliation and loyalty to al-Qa`ida. As far
as Syria’s mainstream opposition was concerned, their revolution
was under increasing pressure both from within and outside Syria;
now was not the time to risk further alienating the cause by uniting
with a terrorist group, no matter how valuable a military partner
it might be.
This was not the first time that Jabhat al-Nusra’s attempt to encourage
a broad inter-factional merger had failed, but the circumstances
surrounding the collapse of this round catalyzed something
new. Concerned about recent developments, a number of senior
Jabhat al-Nusra commanders coalesced in secret in June 2016 in
a series of meetings organized in part by former senior member
Saleh al-Hamawi. Originally one of Jabhat al-Nusra’s seven founding
members, al-Hamawi had been expelled from the group in July
2015 for his overly ‘progressive’ views.5 Al-Hamawi and his secret
cohort, which included Jabhat al-Nusra’s military chief in Aleppo,
Abdullah al-Sanadi, believed the time had come to sever ties with
al-Qa`ida in order to broaden the appeal of Jabhat al-Nusra’s jihadi
project so as to better secure the kind of unity that might save
their armed struggle from being slowly strangled from the outside.
Al-Hamawi confirmed his role in the process to this author in July
2016, explaining that it would amount to an ultimatum to Jabhat
al-Nusra leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani:
Soon, there will be an ultimatum made to al-Nusra: either disengage
[from al-Qa`ida] and merge with major Islamic factions, or face
isolation socially, politically and militarily.6
Were al-Julani to refuse to consider breaking ties, up to a third
of Jabhat al-Nusra’s fighting force were loyal to the reformist wing,
one informed source also told the author at the time. A name had
even been selected for the potential defecting faction: the Syrian Islamic Movement (al-harakat al-souriya al-islamiyya).7
The interlinked issues of al-Qa`ida affiliation, inter-factional
unity in Syria, and Jabhat al-Nusra’s goal of establishing an Islamic
state had been discussed within jihadi circles in Syria since
at least 2014. Despite their geographic and communications distance,
al-Qa`ida’s central leadership had also begun to weigh in. In
a speech released in May 2016 but likely recorded early that year,
Ayman al-Zawahiri had urged jihadis in Syria to unite, stressing
the objective of establishing a “Muslim government” and indicating
that formal affiliations (to al-Qa`ida) would no longer apply only
if and when such a goal could be achieved.8 Preemptively breaking
ties, however, would not protect jihadis from international counterterrorism
scrutiny, and if they were to break ties early, further
attacks would be inevitable. Though some of the wording may have
appeared ambiguous to some, the logic was clear: do not break your
bay`a (oath of allegiance); your goals have not been met.
Events in Syria were moving rapidly, and al-Zawahiri was too
far away to influence directly what was, for Jabhat al-Nusra and its
leadership, an issue needing urgent attention. According to multiple
senior Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamist sources inside Syria who
spoke to this author both at the time and since, al-Julani convened
an initial, urgent meeting of his Shura Council in mid-July 2016
to discuss the issue of al-Qa`ida ties and how best to continue to
pursue Jabhat al-Nusra’s objectives in Syria. That meeting ended
in discord when it became clear that the Shura Council was divided
on the issue.
As the Shura members dispersed and retreated to their respective
hideouts, the debate continued behind multiple closed doors
and attracted a broader circle of people, these sources told the author.
A number of different camps emerged. Some determined that
protecting Jabhat al-Nusra’s achievements in Syria and proceeding
further toward a united Islamic government made a major break
and rebrand from al-Qa`ida necessary. Some insisted that any
breaking of ties would be wholly illegitimate without the permission
of al-Qa`ida leader al-Zawahiri, his deputies, and the broader
Shura Council. And others proposed a middle-way, in which Jabhat
al-Nusra would sever its ties of allegiance to al-Qa`ida outside Syria,
while retaining close, consultative contact with al-Qa`ida leadership
figures inside Syria. The latter option, its proponents insisted,
would be presented to the world as a full breaking of ties in the
hopes of justifying or legitimizing whatever united body might then
result.
As pressure mounted and details of the controversy were leaked
(including to this author), al-Julani reconvened a significantly expanded
Shura Council, which now included two further levels of
the group’s religious and military commands. According to the author’s
Islamist and al-Nusra sources in Syria, as that larger Shura
met several times through mid- and into late July 2016, al-Julani’s
hyper-loyal deputy, Abdulrahim Atoun (aka Abu Abdullah al-Shami),
began consulting with prominent al-Qa`ida ideologues outside
Syria (including Issam Mohammed Tahir al-Barqawi, aka Abu Mohammed
al-Maqdisi, in Jordan) and with senior al-Qa`ida figures
in Syria. The latter included global deputy leader, Abdullah Mohammed
Rajab Abdulrahman, aka Abu al-Khayr al-Masri (a veteran
Egyptian jihadi with longstanding close ties to al-Zawahiri);9
Khaled Mustafa Khalifa al-Aruri, aka Abu al-Qassam al-Urduni (a
former deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi),10 and Ahmed Salameh
Mabruk, aka Abu al-Faraj al-Masri (a veteran Egyptian jihadi also
previously close to al-Zawahiri)11 on the feasibility of pursuing the middle-way option.
What appears to have resulted from these consultations was a
general permission for Jabhat al-Nusra to pursue the middle-way—
that is, breaking external ties—to protect its project in Syria and
to improve the chances of achieving the Islamic government that
al-Qa`ida had so long sought. Abu al-Khayr, Abu al-Qassam, and
Abu al-Faraj all qualified their permission by insisting that if al-Zawahiri—
who was out of contact—later rejected the move, they too
would retrospectively oppose it, and Jabhat al-Nusra would have to
reverse its decision. Al-Julani, Atoun, and others reportedly agreed
to these terms, and the proposal was made to a final meeting of
the expanded Shura on July 23, 2016. The debate that followed
was tense, and a number of Jabhat al-Nusra’s most senior leaders
balked at the proposal. At least one, Iyad al-Tubasi (aka Abu Julaybib),
stormed out of the meeting. Nevertheless, a slim majority
ultimately voted in agreement.12 Jabhat al-Nusra began preparing
a major announcement.
Five days later, on July 28, 2016, in a brief audio statement, Abu
al-Khayr al-Masri gave al-Qa`ida’s blessing for Jabhat al-Nusra’s
breaking of ties. At the end of his message, he included a previously
unreleased audio clip from al-Zawahiri stressing that organizational
links should be sacrificed if necessary for unity, creating the
impression that al-Qa`ida’s leader had also sanctioned the move
himself.c
Shortly thereafter, al-Julani, Atoun, and Abu al-Faraj appeared
on video—al-Julani revealing his face for the first time—and announced
the dissolution of Jabhat al-Nusra and the establishment
of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), a jihadi movement devoid of “external
ties” and dedicated to forming “a unified body” in Syria to
“protect” and “serve” its people.13 In the days that followed, JFS’
eloquent, English-speaking spokesman Mostafa Mahamed (Abu
Sulayman al-Muhajir) sold the move to the Western media as a
complete break from al-Qa`ida driven by a determination to focus
solely on Syrian issues and to secure broader unity with opposition
factions:
[Before this change, Jabhat al-Nusra] was an official branch of
al-Qaeda. We reported to their central command and we worked
within their framework; we adhered to their policies. With the formation
of JFS, we are completely independent. That means we don’t
report to anyone, we don’t receive directives from any external entity.
If dissolving external organizational affiliations or ties will
remove the obstacles in the way of unity, then this must be done.
When we were part of al-Qaeda … our core policy was to focus all of
our efforts on the Syrian issue. That was our policy before and it will
be our policy today and tomorrow.14
This was al-Julani’s gamble.15 Faced with severe internal pressure
to consider a move that he personally had repeatedly refused, al-Julani had now decided to take a leap into the unknown in hopes
that doing so would be enough to overcome the trust gap with Syria’s
opposition and secure its willingness to merge and then its backing
to establish a unified Islamic political project.

JFS: Rising Tensions
Despite the grand nature of JFS’ emergence, the movement’s birth
was not altogether smooth. In fact, several of Jabhat al-Nusra’s
most senior figures were furious. Abu Julaybib—a former close
aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi16—publicly quit JFS in August 2016
in protest at the “disengagement” from al-Qa`ida.17 He was later
followed by two other senior leaders, Abu Khadija al-Urduni and
Abu Hammam al-Shami, who opposed what they saw as the ‘dilution’
of jihadi purity.18 Jabhat al-Nusra’s former deputy leader Sami
al-Oraydi chose not to quit JFS altogether, but he refused to take
any position of responsibility. At least 11 other senior Jabhat al-Nusra
figures adopted similar positions.19
Almost as soon as JFS came into existence, this band of detractors
emerged as a thorn in al-Julani’s side. Their mere existence
was compounded by a private letter that arrived in late September
2016 from al-Zawahiri in which he angrily chastised al-Julani and
called the rebrand to JFS an “act of disobedience.”20 Al-Zawahiri
explained that such a move could only occur after an Islamic state
was established, and even then, it would need the approval of al-Qa-
`ida’s entire Shura Council.21 In a separate message that came with
the secret letter, al-Zawahiri also admonished his global deputy Abu
al-Khayr for giving his permission to al-Julani.22 Shortly thereafter,
as he had warned he might, Abu al-Khayr reversed his support for
JFS’ creation, leaving the ball in al-Julani’s court. Al-Julani was now
expected to dissolve JFS, reassert his allegiance to al-Qa`ida, and
reestablish Jabhat al-Nusra.23
Notwithstanding the Syrian opposition’s continued skepticism
that JFS was anything different to Jabhat al-Nusra, the arrival of
al-Zawahiri’s letter caused shockwaves. Al-Julani’s gamble was already
facing serious challenges, and its internal detractors now had
the greatest piece of ammunition possible. By this time, it had also
become clear, after communications had been established to Iran,
that two other veteran al-Qa`ida senior leaders living there—Mohammed
Salah al-Din Zaidan (Saif al-`Adl) and Abdullah Ahmed
Abdullah (Abu Mohammed al-Masri)—had also rejected the rebrand.
d
Rather than abiding by his initial assurances to al-Qa`ida’s
senior representatives, however, al-Julani refused to reverse JFS’
formation and external break from al-Qa`ida. Instead, he hurriedly
convened a meeting of JFS and al-Qa`ida leaders in the Idlib
town of Jisr al-Shughour on October 3, 2016, in which he and his
loyal comrade Atoun sought to convince those in attendance of the
importance of standing firm and correcting al-Zawahiri’s ‘misundderstanding.’24 According to Atoun, the al-Qa`ida figures jumped
to al-Julani’s defense, claiming that al-Zawahiri must have misunderstood
JFS’ nature and the circumstances surrounding its creation.
25 Other than Atoun’s biased claims, though, no other evidence
has emerged proving that al-Julani was so strongly defended. Abu
al-Faraj’s death in a drone strike an hour after the meeting further
added to tensions, according to one HTS-linked source who met
some of the attendees afterward.26
Throughout the remainder of 2016, pressure continued to
mount on JFS and al-Julani. The first attempt to negotiate a merger
with opposition factions since JFS’ formation precipitously broke
down in mid-August, due to continued concerns about the group’s
al-Qa`ida connections and objectives. After only six weeks, the rebrand
was not going to plan. Moreover, by late September 2016,
JFS had grudgingly evacuated all its positions in northern Aleppo
in protest to Turkey’s “Euphrates Shield” intervention against the
Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG. Al-Julani was then forced to
watch almost all Syrian opposition groups sign on to a major ceasefire
on September 13 enforced by the international community that
provided for possible U.S. or Russian strikes on JFS.
In a series of undisclosed meetings in September 2016 with
Turkish security officials in Ankara, an armed opposition delegation
then considered lending intelligence support to U.S. drone
strikes on al-Qa`ida figures in exchange for Turkish oversight on
the targeting process, two attendees told the author.27 Though the
outcome of those meetings was left ambiguous, U.S. strikes against
veteran al-Qa`ida members as well as leading JFS figures steadily
increased in northwestern Syria from September into the winter
of 2016-2017.e
Having embraced the role as JFS’ public defender-in-chief,
Mostafa Mahamed’s October 17, 2016, ‘resignation’ from JFSf was
the first sign of discontent within the group’s ‘dovish’ wing. Protest
was now coming from both ends of the spectrum. To make matters
worse, al-Julani was then forced in October 2016 to come to the
defense of a particularly troublesome front group, Jund al-Aqsa,28
which a recent opposition investigation had accused of working
for the Islamic State.g That opened up an uncontrollable can of
worms in which Ahrar al-Sham, which had repeatedly dissolved
recent merger talks with Jabhat al-Nusra and JFS, and others led
a military campaign to eradicate Jund al-Aqsa. Having secretly established
Jund al-Aqsa in early 2013 as a front to take in Jabhat
al-Nusra’s foreign fighters and shield them from recruitment attempts
by the emerging Islamic State group, al-Julani’s sense ofloyalty saw him subsume and protect a force otherwise viewed almost
universally with hostility. Even when Jund al-Aqsa suicide car
bombs targeted Ahrar al-Sham bases, as in Saraqeb on October 10,
2016, JFS took to misinformation, claiming instead that airstrikes
were the culprit.29

From JFS to HTS: Aggressive Expansion
As 2016 drew to a close, rumors abounded that al-Qa`ida had
lost patience with al-Julani and that Abu Julaybib was laying the
groundwork for a new loyalist al-Qa`ida faction known as “Taliban
al-Sham.”30 Leading jihadi ideologue Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi
also launched a public critique of JFS, questioning the “diluters’”
(al-mumayi’a) motives in degrading the purity of Jabhat al-Nusra’s
methodology (manhaj).31
Having pushed through the rebrand based on the gamble that it
would secure a mass merger in Syria, al-Julani began preparing for
a final try in November 2016. According to three members of Ahrar
al-Sham and an Islamic cleric close to HTS, those preparations
included a lobbying effort within Ahrar al-Sham to undermine the
group’s most nationalistic wing, which had consistently vetoed a
merger.32 Eventually, Ahrar al-Sham’s internal divisions on the issue
erupted when an extremist wing favoring closer ties with JFS and
calling itself Jaish al-Ahrar announced itself as a “sub-faction.”33 In
effect, Jaish al-Ahrar and its leadership—including Ahrar’s former
leader Abu Jaber al-Sheikh, military leader Abu Saleh Tahhan, and
Kurdish Islamic advisor Abu Mohammed al-Sadeq—were positioning
themselves as an ‘almost-splinter group,’ in case unity talks with
JFS again failed.
The merger talks began in December 2016, and although an
initial agreement was signed by Ahrar al-Sham’s then-leader Ali
al-Omar,34 it later fell apart when a majority of Ahrar’s leadership
again refused.35 They were especially concerned about JFS’ lack of
ideological change; recent death threats made in the event of ‘no’
votes; and a fear of losing external support, particularly from Turkey.
36 The failure of the talks was the straw that broke the camel’s
back. By January 2017, JFS and Ahrar al-Sham were engaged in
violent conflict in northwestern Syria.37 Although Ahrar refused to
attend the first round of the controversial Astana talks co-hosted by
Russia, Iran, and Turkey, it expressed support for those who did.38
The January 2017 JFS-Ahrar conflict had been preceded by coordinated
JFS attacks on several Free Syrian Army (FSA)-branded
groups in Idlib and western Aleppo,39 which severely damaged its
reputation within the broader opposition. The Turkey-based, mainstream
Syrian Islamic Council (SIC), which retains close relations
with almost all northern Syria’s opposition, even called for fullscale
mobilization against JFS, labeling al-Julani’s group “khawarij”
40—the same term commonly used to refer to the Islamic State’s
ultra-extremist breakaway tendencies. Throughout the fighting,
which was clearly designed to undercut allies and neutralize future
threats, JFS sought to defeat some of the most popular FSA factions

Image captured from an HTS video entitled “The Battle to Liberate al-Mushirfa and Abu Dali Villages,”
which was produced by “Amjad Foundation for Video Production” and released in December 2017

 

within the CIA-led assistance program,h claiming it was preempting
a foreign “conspiracy” against its forces.41 JFS also aggressively
sought control of important areas along the Turkish border, including
the Bab al-Hawa crossing—an invaluable source of income and
a potent source of control over the fate of rivals in Syria’s northwest.i
The key consequence of this unprecedented spate of inter-factional
fighting was a clarification of the line distinguishing Ahrar
al-Sham and JFS, with a series of substantive defections and
mergers taking place between sub-factions of the two groups. On
the one hand, Ahrar al-Sham lost approximately 800-1,000 defectors
to JFS, but gained at least 6,000-8,000 more42 from the
integration into its ranks of Suqor al-Sham, Jaish al-Mujahideen,
Tajamu Fastaqim Kama Umrit and the western Aleppo units of
Al-Jabhat al-Shamiya, and the Idlib-based units of Jaish al-Islam.
On the other hand, JFS lost at least several hundred fighters to
Ahrar al-Sham, while securing 3,000-5,000 additional fighters43
from a merger with Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haq,
Jaish al-Sunna, and Jabhat Ansar al-Din. With this expansion, JFS
announced a second rebrand on January 28, 2017, to Hayat Tahrir
al-Sham (HTS).44

HTS Comes Under Fire
This ‘great sorting out’ was the consequence of al-Julani’s aggressive
determination to neutralize potential threats within northern Syria’s
opposition; to deter or preempt externally driven ‘conspiracies’ against his forces; and to catalyze the necessary conditions for an
absorbing of other groups. Although al-Julani arguably succeeded
in achieving all three objectives, the methods used irreversibly damaged
his movement’s standing in the broader rebel movement and
the feasibility of ever transitioning into a truly representative, mass
movement. Consequently, Syria’s opposition communities began
referring to the group as “Hitish”—a use of the “HTS” acronym in
Arabic and purposefully denigratory given its audible similarity to
the Islamic State’s pejorative acronym-based nickname, Daesh. Sizable
protests against the jihadi group also became the norm.
This second rebrand in six months also proved to be the final
nail in the coffin in al-Julani’s relationship with al-Qa`ida. Whether
al-Julani had intended for JFS’ creation to represent a total break
from al-Qa`ida or not had now become a largely academic debate,
as al-Qa`ida and its loyalists began to view HTS as an independent
jihadi outfit—and one that had become so by illegitimately breaking
its strict oath of bay`a.
Al-Maqdisi was again the first to weigh in following HTS’ creation,
warning on January 30, 2017, that “the influence of the diluters
… is now growing greater!”45 Three days later, al-Maqdisi called
on HTS’ leadership to clarify its manhaj, and two days after that,
he called on HTS to urgently clarify “your disavowal of wicked coalitions
such as Euphrates Shield … your disavowal of conferences
and conspiracies like Astana … your views on … secular regimes
[and] foreign backing.”46 Amidst this intensifying public controversy,
Sami al-Oraydi and a close aide, Abu Hajar al-Shami, both
quit HTS on February 8, 2017, citing the second rebrand as the final
straw. Hours later, al-Oraydi proclaimed that “among the greatest
forms of disobedience is disobedience to the mother organization.”
As Cole Bunzel has pointed out, al-Oraydi had used that line before,
in September 2015 in reference to the Islamic State’s criminal
behavior and break from al-Qa`ida.47 Al-Julani and HTS were now
being openly compared to the Islamic State by al-Qa`ida loyalists.
Al-Oraydi’s public exit from HTS and al-Maqdisi’s escalating
criticism sparked a defensive retort by al-Julani’s loyal defender
Atoun on February 10, 2017. In a 20-page screed posted on Telegram,
Atoun accused al-Maqdisi of spouting inaccuracies based on
a lack of information and of failing to make use of JFS’ attempts to consult him on issues related to rebranding. Atoun also explained
that some of the strategic issues internally considered by JFS and
HTS necessitated nuance, rather than a black-and-white lens. For
example, Atoun implied that different opinions existed on issues
like the legitimacy of Turkey’s President Erdogan and relationships
with foreign governments. Atoun strongly rejected al-Maqdisi’s
claim that “diluters” had weakened HTS’ manhaj. HTS was loyal
to “the same principles as before,” Atoun insisted.48
Having been publicly critiqued by his junior, al-Maqdisi responded
boldly on February 14, 2017, charging Atoun with skirting
around important issues and, more seriously, having deceived him
and others about the nature of Jabhat al-Nusra’s rebrand to JFS. According
to al-Maqdisi and despite claims otherwise, Jabhat al-Nusra
had failed to secure permission for JFS’ creation from al-Qa`ida’s
leadership, and in initial consultations he had with Atoun in July
2016, the latter had personally described the potential rebrand as
“superficial” and something that would be reversed should al-Zawahiri
turn out to oppose it. Al-Maqdisi was now implying that the rebrand
to JFS had been conducted with a genuine intention to break
ties, especially given the nature of the second transition to HTS—a
group he claimed had eroded its manhaj, given its emphasis on “liberation”
(tahrir), instead of the more religious “conquest” (fath).49
Although Jordanian jihadi ideologue Abu Qatada al-Filistini
hurriedly stepped in and mediated a détente between al-Maqdisi
and Atoun, the issue had now become very public. Moreover, despite
remaining loyal to al-Qa`ida’s side of the debate, Abu Qatada
grudgingly admitted several weeks later that one needed to celebrate
the fact that a new “jihadi current” was emerging that prioritized
“a project of the Islamic community” over and above a more
exclusivist “ideological group” project. This was a clear reference to
efforts by groups like HTS to broaden their appeal by focusing on
the local and thus, being more willing to make ideological concessions
for the sake of securing mass appeal.50
In mid-February 2017, amidst the al-Maqdisi-Atoun spat, a
meeting of senior al-Qa`ida figures was convened in Idlib to discuss
HTS’ formation and how to deal with the fallout. Al-Qa`ida deputy
leader Abu al-Khayr attended, as did al-Oraydi, Abu Julaybib,
Abu al-Qassam, and Abu Hammam. According to two individuals
attuned to the meeting’s attendees and its outcome,51 those in the
room unanimously opposed HTS’ creation but disagreed on the
path forward. Alarmingly for many in attendance, Abu al-Khayr
admitted that he was never consulted about JFS’ evolution into
HTS, and in fact, he had not met with any JFS or HTS leader for
six weeks.52 That revelation strongly suggested that JFS no longer
considered itself bound by al-Qa`ida’s constraints—again, whether
the Jabhat al-Nusra-to-JFS rebrand was intended to fully break
ties or not.
Abu al-Khayr’s death in a drone strike on February 26, 2017,
served to remove another possible obstacle from under HTS’ feet,
but also emboldened al-Qa`ida’s loyalists further. Al-Oraydi, the
onetime deputy leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, led the charge this time
with a series of public postings through March and April accusing
HTS of sowing division (fitna) within the Syrian jihad by embracing
nationalism over Islam, breaking its bay`a to al-Qa`ida through
the use of “legal trickery,” and insisting that al-Julani’s behavior was
no different to the Islamic State’s betrayal. In what was then unlikely
to be coincidental timing, al-Zawahiri released a statement on
April 23, 2017, (three days after al-Oraydi’s final message) in which
he warned his followers to remain loyal to the global jihad, to resist
attempts to prioritize “nationalist” war, and to engage in guerilla warfare rather than territorial control. Though he made no direct
reference to HTS, al-Zawahiri’s intention was clear. After all, everything
he warned against defined HTS’ strategy. Unsurprisingly,
al-Oraydi responded to al-Zawahiri by describing his message as
being “as clear as the sun.”53

The Great Syrian Jihadi Breakup
Al-Zawahiri’s April 23, 2017, statement appeared to temper tensions,
or at least stop disagreements from being aired publicly.
Al-Oraydi and fellow al-Qa`ida loyalist Abu al-Qassam both pivoted
toward offering constructive advice for Syria’s ‘mujahideen,’
including how to face the challenges posed by the emerging triumvirate
of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, as well as by emphasizing the
strategic importance of fighting an underground guerrilla war as
the next stage in Syrian jihad.54 As al-Qassam wrote in June 2017,
external pressure on the Syrian jihad was so significant that the
ongoing fitna between HTS and al-Qa`ida needed to end. Notwithstanding
various accusations made, most al-Qa`ida figures who had
spoken on the subject—including al-Zawahiri—had focused and
continued to focus on prioritizing “unity” and “cooperation.”55
The one key and consistent exception to that rule was the diehard
al-Qa`ida loyalist Abu Julaybib who, since his resignation
from HTS in August 2016, had been driving tensions on the ground
by undermining al-Julani’s authority and repeatedly pitching the
formation of a new, al-Qa`ida loyalist faction to rival HTS.56 According
to three well-connected sources, Abu Julaybib had also
repeatedly tried to move back to southern Syria to pursue this separate
goal with the aim of coordinating the transfer of al-Qa`ida
loyalists from the south to Idlib to stand in opposition to HTS and
al-Julani.57 Abu Julaybib was a serious thorn in al-Julani’s side.
By the summer of 2017, another increasingly difficult issue
was HTS’ relationship with Ahrar al-Sham, once Jabhat al-Nusra’s
closest military ally but now increasingly distant from HTS.
Though Ahrar had always held politically and ideologically different
positions to Jabhat al-Nusra, evolving geopolitical dynamics,
the increasingly assertive role of Turkey, and Jabhat al-Nusra’s own
evolution all had a part to play in encouraging Ahrar’s own identity
rebrand, which eventually included an embrace of the green FSA
revolutionary flag and increasingly nationalist-focused rhetoric.58
The repeated breakdown of merger talks; Ahrar al-Sham’s role
in Euphrates Shield, close relations to Turkey, and support for Astana;
and the actual intra-rebel hostilities that preceded HTS’ formation
all prepared the ground for the most significant battle to take
place between the two groups. Between July 18 and July 24, 2017,
HTS launched a series of coordinated assaults on Ahrar’s network
of headquarters across Idlib, western Aleppo, and northern Hama.
What followed was a limp response by Ahrar’s fighters, who suffered
catastrophic defeat in a week.59
The fighting’s death toll, though, was very low—two or three dozen
from both groups combined, according to commanders from
both groups speaking to this author.60 Rather than fight back in
force, Ahrar personnel largely retreated, withdrew, or surrendered,
in part due to their long history of cooperation with Jabhat al-Nusra;
the localism that defined much of the two group’s micro-level
relations; and the shock and awe nature of HTS’ campaign. There
was also a question of poor resolve within Ahrar’s ranks. The group’s
especially broad spectrum of political and religious/ideological
thought had gradually eroded a shared sense of internal identity,
putting it at a significant disadvantage when faced with a more
ideologically unified adversary.

Aware that some fighters within its own ranks might balk at
fighting against fellow Islamist rebels, HTS had prepared its fighters
to turn on their long-time partners. For weeks beforehand, “Julani
dispatched his most important [Sharia figures] to talk to the
fighters,” one Islamist figure close to HTS’ Shura Council claimed,
“first to question the purity of Ahrar al-Sham’s political positions
and to suggest it had become a foreign puppet that would be used
to attack the mujahideen, and then to explain why it had become a
legitimate target.”61
By late July 2017, HTS had cemented itself as the dominant
armed actor in opposition-held areas of northwestern Syria. Its
main rival, Ahrar al-Sham, retreated back to its bases, hoping to
fight another day. Three months later, Ahrar elected an entirely new
leadership headed up by Hassan Soufan, a long-time former regime
prisoner who, as he told this author in person in October 2017, came
into the job determined to distinguish his movement from “criminal”
and “corrupt” projects, such as “Hitish and Daesh.”62

The Break Becomes Official
In a speech released on October 4, 2017, al-Zawahiri publicly admonished
HTS—again, without referencing the group by name—by
chastising those who try to “escape from facing reality and seek to
repeat the same failed experiment … [of trying to] deceive America,”
a reference to the argument that by breaking ties to al-Qa`ida,
jihadis could protect themselves from counterterrorism scrutiny.
Al-Zawahiri then went on to censure those who find false, legalistic
excuses to avoid or to dissolve one’s bay`a—an oath which he
describes as “binding,” any “violation” of which is strictly “forbidden.”
63 Five days later, a new jihadi group called Ansar al-Furqan
announced itself in Idlib as a movement that would remain loyal to
Islam where others were becoming “distant.”
[Ansar al-Furqan] are Sunni jihadist Muslims, consisting of [foreign
fighters] and [local fighters] who have attended most of the
Syrian events since their beginning and witnessed most of what has
become of the groups. Thus, they have discovered that the secret of
the issue and the reason behind deficiencies was the [new distance]
from the evident verses [of the Qur’an] and not adhering to them or
abiding by them and using the brain superficially and not giving
in to following the [Qur’an] in many issues.64
Multiple informed sources65 assured this author at the time that
Ansar al-Furqan was Abu Julaybib’s initiative and had gathered no
more than 300 al-Qa`ida loyalists in northwestern Syria. Several
days after Ansar al-Furqan’s emergence, HTS launched a low-level
security campaign across Idlib in which suspected al-Qa`ida loyalists
with positions critical of HTS were questioned by the group’s
internal security service. In a few cases, questioning led to detention,
but most were released.66
This attempt to reassert HTS authority and to intimidate potential
competition, paired with leaked comments by Atoun criticizing
al-Zawahiri’s October 4 speech, sparked fury within al-Qa`ida
circles.j Beginning on October 15, 2017, and ending six days later,
al-Oraydi published five “testimonies” in which he laid out al-Qa-
`ida’s various protests against the Jabhat al-Nusra-JFS rebrand and then HTS’ formation, which he explained had resulted in a
full break from al-Qa`ida. Al-Oraydi repeatedly labeled al-Julani’s
actions as acts of “rebellion”—similar to those of the Islamic State,
while explaining that al-Julani and Atoun had sold the JFS rebrand
to its early opponents as a move that would have had more of an
effect in the media than in reality. In other words, it had been suggested
that JFS would quietly retain its al-Qa`ida ties, presumably
given the presence inside Syria of senior al-Qa`ida figures like Abu
al-Khayr. Even this, al-Oraydi insisted, had proven to be deception,
as had al-Julani and Atoun’s repeated promise to abide by any future
decision by al-Zawahiri to reject the rebrand.
Predictably, al-Oraydi’s powerful critiques drew a strong response
from Atoun, who defended the methods and logic behind the
rebrand to JFS, while stretching the truth by describing the move
as something overwhelmingly supported within Jabhat al-Nusra’s
Shura Council and al-Qa`ida’s central circles. Atoun’s excuse for
refusing to reverse the JFS rebrand was to claim that al-Zawahiri
had been misinformed about its nature and that senior al-Qa`ida
figures like Abu al-Khayr and Abuj al-Faraj had consistently been
on al-Julani’s side. Conveniently, both were now dead and unable to
confirm Atoun’s claim, which has not been supported by any other
source before or since. Atoun also claimed that communications
with al-Zawahiri had been nonexistent for security reasons for nearly
three years (from November 2013 to September 2016)67—something
rejected by a senior al-Qa`ida “external communications”
official known as Abu Abdullah, who claimed in response that it
had long been possible to send messages to al-Zawahiri through one
of his colleagues, “almost on a daily basis.”68 In an apparent recognition
of al-Oraydi’s declaration that HTS’ creation represented a
full break from al-Qa`ida, Atoun suggested that although this had
not been the intention, JFS’ achievement of a broad merger (i.e.,
HTS) had met the necessary conditions to separate from external
ties of allegiance.
This tit-for-tat series of testimonies continued through late October
and into November 2017. Al-Qassam jumped to al-Oraydi’s
defense, and senior HTS figure Abu al-Harith al-Masri publicly
criticized al-Zawahiri, saying he was so distant from Syria’s realities
he had ceded his position of authority. Later in November, HTS
fighters arrested Abu Julaybib and his family at a checkpoint in
western Aleppo as they reportedly sought to escape Idlib toward
southern Syria. Hours later, al-Julani dispatched security units to
arrest al-Oraydi and several other al-Qa`ida loyalists—including
a member of al-Qa`ida’s central Shura Council, Abu Abdul Karim
al-Khorasani, and a close aide to al-Qassam known as Abu Khallad—
in a move later justified as preventing further “harm and evil”
espoused by those who advocated takfir (excommunication) upon
HTS and its leaders.69
HTS’ arrest of prominent al-Qa`ida figures drew ire both
amongst its own members and the al-Qa`ida loyalist community
inside and outside of Syria. Demands flooded in for the prisoners
to be released. Within that tense environment, al-Qa`ida-linked
calls for a loyalist mobilization in northwestern Syria also became
public. In his condemnation of the arrests, for example, Abu Hammam
al-Shami explained how an effort was underway to collect and
organize personnel.70 Upon his release from HTS detention, Abu
Julaybib immediately re-pledged his bay`a to al-Qa`ida and defiantly
asserted that “if you think by jailing us the idea of Al-Qaeda is
over, then you are delusional.”71
Clearly, neither side planned to back down, and whatever account
of events held more truth, the consequence was clear: HTS had severed itself and/or been severed from al-Qa`ida. With his
loyalists in HTS prisons, al-Zawahiri released another message on
November 28, 2017, in which he directly denounced HTS’ “violation
of the covenant,” accusing al-Julani of creating more unnecessary
complexity as well as “killing, fighting, accusations, fatwas and
counter-fatwas.”
We gave opportunity after opportunity and deadline after deadline
for more than a year, but all we saw was increasing aggravation,
inflammation and disputes … Verily, the jihad in al-Sham is a jihad
of the entire Ummah; it is not a jihad of the people of Syria; and it is
not a jihad of the people of Idlib, or Deraa or Damascus … The bay’at
between us … is a binding contract which prohibits [you] from being
able to breach it … I remind my brothers in al-Sham, that the
al-Qaeda organization repeated many times that it is willing to give
up its organizational ties with Jabhat al-Nusra if two matters were
achieved: the first is a union of the mujahideen in al-Sham; and the
second matter is an Islamic government is established in al-Sham,
and the people of al-Sham choose an Imam, and then at that time
and that time only – and not before then – we give up our organizational
ties and we would congratulate our people in al-Sham for
what they achieved … As for the creation of new entities without unity,
in which absurd schisms are repeated … this is what we refused.72
Al-Zawahiri’s interjection was a watershed moment, making
clear to the wider global jihadi movement that a real split had taken
place between al-Qa`ida and its Syrian affiliate. That clarified
break has not appeared to benefit al-Julani, however, as his broader
position in northwestern Syria looks to have become more precarious.
Having sought out negotiations with Ankara in October 2017
to ensure a Turkish incursion into Idlib was done without the threat
of violence by Turkish forces against his group (and the resulting
threat of a broader anti-HTS front emerging), al-Julani has since invited FSA groups in Idlib to consider a merger “for the sake of defending
Syria’s revolution.”73 Sending such an “invitation” to groups
that did not share his hardline Islamist ideology would have been
considered outrageous by al-Julani a year prior, but its use in early
2018 spoke volumes about his sense of being surrounded by hostile
actors. That would also explain HTS’ repeated military withdrawals
along the periphery of Idlib’s core central, more defensible areas,
and online discussion of strategically shifting to guerrilla tactics.74
Notwithstanding a determined mediation effort that lasted
through December 2017 into early January 2018, which resulted
in a short-lived agreement to coexist in peace, the relationship between
HTS and al-Qa`ida loyalists in northwestern Syria remains
tense. The two remain decidedly separate, as officially established
by al-Qa`ida’s January 7, 2018, statement quoted at the beginning
of this article. For reasons of Islamist brotherhood and the prohibition
of shedding blood, as well as continued, shared, long-term
objectives, it is very unlikely both sides will fall into a state of all-out
conflict. However, were HTS to successfully position itself as an actor
tolerated by some regional and international players in at least
part of Idlib, al-Julani’s willingness to allow a faction of committed
global jihadis with overt allegiance to al-Qa`ida may become an
overly inconvenient fact needing to be dealt with. Unless that happens,
however, the two movements are likely to continue existing
uncomfortably together in Idlib.
That produces a complex counterterrorism threat, in which a
locally focused jihadi outfit with a sizable 12,000 fighters continues
to control territory, govern people, and maintain sources of local
finance, while accepting—even grudgingly—a deeply dangerous,
small, tight-knit clique of al-Qa`ida terrorists committed to attacking
the West. That image looks eerily similar to the Taliban-al-Qa-
`ida relationship in Afghanistan in 2000-2001, the consequences
of which are well known to all. HTS may not be al-Qa`ida anymore,
but that does not make its existence any less dangerous.

Can the UAE and its Security Forces Avoid a Wrong Turn in Yemen?

The complex war in Yemen and the ensuing collapse of a
unified Yemeni government has provided al-Qa`ida in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) with opportunities to develop
and test new strategies and tactics. While AQAP has been
weakened by Emirati-led efforts in southern Yemen and
recent U.S. strikes, it remains a formidable foe whose more
subtle approach to insurgent warfare will pay dividends if
there is a failure to restore predictable levels of security,
sound governance, and lawful policing in the country. Three years of war in Yemen have laid waste to the country’s
infrastructure, killed at least 10,000 people, impoverished
millions, and empowered insurgent groups
like al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).1 The
war, or more accurately wars, in Yemen are layered and
complex with a growing number of factions, all with their attendant
militias. Before the launch of “Operation Decisive Storm” by Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their allies in March
2015, Yemen was already a country riven with divisions.2 The internationally
recognized government—in exile in Saudi Arabia since
March 2015—of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi exercised
little control over Yemen. This was made clear when Yemen’s Zaidi
Shi`a Houthi rebels seized the capital of Sana’a in September 2014
with the acquiescence of parts of the Yemeni Army.3 In the south,
separatist movements calling for the recreation of an independent
south Yemen have gained influence and power.4 The increase in
factionalism and the hollowing out of an already weak national
government has provided AQAP with an abundance of new opportunities
to grow its organization and its influence. Opportunities
that it has, over the last three years, exploited with notable success.
In April 2016, Yemeni troops—nominally allied with the Hadi
government—backed by Emirati units retook the port city of Mukalla,
which AQAP had held and governed for the previous year.
Despite initial claims by the Saudi and Emirati coalition, the retaking
of Mukalla was largely bloodless.5 AQAP chose a strategic
retreat rather than to fight a superior force. As it has done in the
past, AQAP sought and found shelter in Yemen’s vast hinterlands.6 Since retaking Mukalla, Emirati-backed forces such as the Hadrami
Elite Force and its Security Belt Forces have used Mukalla as a
central base for operations aimed at degrading AQAP.7 This ground
war is being aided by the United States, namely through the use of
UAVs that have successfully targeted a number of AQAP’s leaders.8
While there is some evidence that AQAP has been weakened by the
ground campaign and the targeting of its operatives by UAVs, as it
has demonstrated in the past, it is resilient, adaptive, and—most
critically—expert at exploiting local and even national grievances.
AQAP is not the organization it was three or even two years ago.
Just like most of Yemen’s political, social, and insurgent groups, it
has been changed by the country’s multifaceted conflict. AQAP’s
focus has shifted from the “far enemy”—though, this is not to say it
does not continue to pose a threat to the West—to an array of “near
enemies.”9 Its concerns, both political and martial, are local and
national rather than international. Its de-prioritization of ideology
reflects this shift. In many respects, AQAP has adopted and is
guided by a more subtle and indigenized strategy with two primary
aims: organizational survival and long-term growth. To achieve
these aims, it remains intent on building alliances where it can by
leveraging its fighting capabilities and by exploiting local and national
grievances.10
Emirati-led efforts to combat AQAP in southern Yemen—largely
limited to the governorates of the Hadramawt and Shabwa—could
succeed where others have failed, or they could result in an abundance
of new opportunities for AQAP to exploit. The Emirati-led effort
to combat AQAP is another test for counterinsurgency warfare.
While the Emiratis and the security forces that they are backing are
making gains against AQAP in some parts of southern Yemen, these
could be compromised by missteps that allow AQAP to apply the
lessons that it has learned over the last three years.

Overcoming the Friction of Factions
The idea of friction in war was first introduced by Carl von Clausewitz
in his book, On War. Clausewitz describes friction as a force
that arises from the many unpredictable variables that materialize
during war that can lay waste to the best-planned campaigns and
the most efficient military forces.11 It is friction that distinguishes
real war from war on paper.12 There are few theaters of war that are
as capable of generating as much friction as a war in Yemen. As is
evidenced by Yemen’s history, the country, its people, and its terrain
are not kind to outside powers.
In 25 BC, a Roman expeditionary force led by Aelius Gallus was
forced to retreat from what is now the governorate of Marib. The
Ottoman Turks tried to subdue Yemen twice and failed both times
despite expending vast sums of blood and treasure on the effort.
Most recently, from 1962 to 1967, Egypt, under President Nasser,
intervened in what was then north Yemen on the side of Republican
forces who were fighting the Royalist supporters of Imam
Muhammad al-Badr. Despite deploying more than 70,000 soldiers who enjoyed extensive air support, the Egyptian campaign in

north Yemen failed.13 The Egyptians lost at least 10,000 soldiers.14
Their rivals, the Royalists, were armed with light weapons and had
no air support. However, they leveraged Yemen’s rugged terrain,
superior human intelligence, and, most critically, the factionalism
that predominated in much of Yemen. Egyptian officers often complained
about their “allies” who fought with them during the day
and against them at night. These shifting alliances were reflective
of the pragmatic and often quite democratic nature of the plurality
of tribal relationships, structures, and allegiances that predominate
in much of Yemen.
A counterinsurgent war in Yemen—which is what the Egyptians
were fighting from 1962 to 1967—is replete with challenges
for counterinsurgent forces and abounds with opportunities for the
insurgent. This was the case before the collapse of the central Yemeni
state and fragmentation of the Yemeni Army in 2014. Now that
the country has largely been divided into a multiplicity of fiefdoms
governed to varying degrees by numerous factions and militias, the
challenges for conducting counterinsurgent warfare are even more
pronounced.
Chief among these challenges is the factionalism that predominates
across almost all of Yemen. In the south, where Emirati-
backed forces are primarily conducting their campaign, there
are multiple insurgencies underway. Various southern separatist
groups are fighting to recreate an independent south Yemen, salafi
militias are fighting to advance their own conservative religious
agendas, displaced elites are fighting to retain and/or recover their
power and influence, and both AQAP and, to a far lesser degree,
the Islamic State are active across southern Yemen.15 These factions
and their competing agendas produce high levels of Clausewitzian
friction for the Emiratis and the security forces that they are supporting.
To combat factionalism, the Emiratis have tried to forge three security forces: the Security Belt Forces (also referred to as al-Hizam
Brigades) largely deployed in southwest Yemen; the Hadrami
Elite Forces deployed in the governorate of the Hadramawt; and
the Shabwani Elite Forces deployed to southern Shabwa.16 a The
three forces are primarily composed of Yemeni soldiers drawn from
the southern governorates. These soldiers often have Emirati and
foreign advisors. In the case of the Hadrami Elite Forces, the men
are almost all from the Hadramawt, the rationale being that this
incorporation of men drawn from the areas they will be deployed
to will enhance the forces’ HUMINT capability while at the same
time ensure some local support.17 The leadership of the three forces
is largely drawn from tribal elites, some of whom formerly served as
officers in the Yemeni Army, and ranking members of al-Hirak (the
Southern Movement).18
The mission of the Emirati-backed forces—at least in theory—is
twofold: first, restore a measure of security in those cities under
their control, namely Aden and Mukalla, and the areas around
them. Second, plan and launch security sweeps and clearing operations
aimed at combating AQAP and what is left of the Islamic
State. By using Mukalla in particular as a key staging point, the
sweeps and clearing operations are designed to gradually widen
the area controlled by the Emirati-backed forces.19 Following the
ink spot theory, Mukalla and Aden will be held and secured as the
security forces move into and clear the surrounding areas—many
of which have been dominated by AQAP for the last three years.20
Due to the topography north of Mukalla—which is riven with deep wadis, box canyons, caves, and mountains—the ink spot looks more
like an ink blot as security forces struggle to clear and hold broken
terrain that is ideal for ambushes and raids. Hadrami Elite Forces
have repeatedly been targeted in the southern reaches of the Hadramawt.
21 There, the roads are few and almost always overlooked by
high ground. AQAP has engaged in numerous hit-and-run attacks
on the elite forces.22
Despite the treacherous terrain, the Hadrami Elite Forces have
made some progress in clearing AQAP from the southern half
of Wadi Huwayrah, Wadi Hajr, and the areas surrounding Ash
Shihr.23 However, these gains are frequently reversed due to poor
coordination between individual units within the security forces,
which—as has often been the case with the Yemeni Army—do not
adhere to chains of command. This lack of coordination is especially
pronounced between the largely independent Security Belt Forces,
Shabwani Elite Forces, and the Hadrami Elite Forces. The three
forces do not have a unified chain of command and their commanders
are often at cross-purposes.24
While the Emirati effort in southern Yemen is currently benefiting
from the surge in southern nationalism, this nationalism
is itself factional and subject to intense internal fighting. In the
Hadramawt, groups calling for the independence of the governorate—
which has a history of self-governance—have been active for
years.25 Many who serve within the Hadrami Elite Forces are more
dedicated to an independent Hadramawt than to other iterations
of an independent south Yemen. Those who serve in the Security
Belt Forces differ from those serving—especially at the command
level—in the Hadrami Elite Forces in that most either support or
are fighting for a wholly independent and unified south Yemen
along the lines of the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen
(PDRY). In addition to groups that are either advocating or
fighting for different visions of an independent south Yemen, there
are elites who have been displaced by those who have been more
successful at cultivating their relationship with the United Arab
Emirates. They, too, will fight to recover what they feel they have
lost in terms of influence, wealth, and power.26
There is a lot at stake in south Yemen. It is home to most of the
country’s natural resources, and its most important oil handling
facilities are located there. The creation of a new country or, at a
minimum, new autonomous regions such as the Hadramawt is possible.
Such high stakes all militate against the formation of cohesive
security forces capable of engaging in the kind of sustained operations
that counterinsurgency warfare demands. Adding to what is
a long list of circumstances that will produce high-levels of friction
is AQAP’s subtle approach to achieving its aims.

A More Subtle Foe
AQAP is intently focused on fighting what it views as a long war
for the hearts and minds of the people it seeks to govern. As with
any organization, there are those who believe the rhetoric produced
by the leadership and those who—usually the leadership itself—
recognize the rhetoric as an expedient reference point—possibly
another political tool—rather than as a binding ideology. While
AQAP’s leadership and media wing continue to produce (though
media releases have decreased) the kind of extremist religious propaganda
that jihadi groups have become known for, this is not necessarily
reflective of the strategy and tactics employed by AQAP on
the ground. This has been the case for much of the last three years.
AQAP’s April 2015 takeover of Mukalla was a watershed moment
for the group. The takeover, which was largely bloodless, allowed
them to seize large amounts of cash, weapons, and materiel,
but most importantly, it provided the leadership with an opportunity
to try out new strategies and tactics.27 The last time AQAP
held and attempted to govern a significant swath of territory was
in 2011-2012 when it took over a large part of the governorate of
Abyan in the wake of the uprising against Yemeni president Ali
Abdullah Saleh.28 AQAP learned a great deal from its failures in
2011-2012. Namely, it learned that its radical interpretation of sharia
is not acceptable to a majority of Yemenis. It also learned that
the utilization of a punishment strategy is not suitable for a country
where many people identify with various tribes that are often wellarmed.
In 2011-2012, AQAP attempted and failed to impose its will
on those it wanted to govern by force.29 It did not make this mistake
in Mukalla in 2015.
Rather than relying on a punishment strategy when it took over
Mukalla in April 2015, AQAP adopted a far more subtle and pragmatic
strategy that combined ruling covertly through proxies with
a continued focus on guerrilla and hybrid operations against its
rivals outside the city. During its yearlong occupation of Mukalla,
AQAP largely refrained from imposing its interpretation of sharia.
Instead, it allied itself with select local elites and focused much of
its effort, with some success, on improving living conditions in the
city and providing predictable levels of security.30 AQAP’s efforts to
improve living conditions, operate charities, and provide security
during its occupation of Mukalla are now being contrasted with
current Emirati-led efforts to govern the city. The result, according
to some, is that AQAP did a better job.31 While this is to a large degree
subjective, it is reflective of a widespread sentiment.32 And it
is a view that will be used by AQAP’s leadership to critique the new
government in Mukalla.
AQAP’s strategic retreat from Mukalla in April 2016 also reflects
the fact that the leadership learned many lessons in 2011-2012. The
leadership had clearly planned and prepared for the retreat. They
had no intention of taking on a superior force aided by air support.33
This was a mistake they made in trying to defend and hold parts of
Abyan in 2012. AQAP’s leadership recognized that preserving what
they viewed as good relations with the people of Mukalla and the
alliances they made with some members of the Hadrami elite was
critical to their ability to continue fighting.
Since its strategic retreat from Mukalla, AQAP has continued to
pursue its more subtle strategy and has successfully enmeshed its
operatives—both covertly and overtly—within many of the militias,
both salafi and tribal, that are fighting the Houthis, their allies, and
in some cases Emirati-backed forces.34 AQAP remains one of the
best organized and motivated insurgent forces in Yemen, and this
has allowed it to build relationships with numerous militias.35 Most
of these relationships will not abide and are merely based on the
fact that AQAP and the militias share a common enemy, whether
that be the Houthis or the Emirati-backed forces.36 For AQAP,
the fact that the relationships and alliances are only nominal is of
little consequence. What is important is that enmeshment within
anti-Houthi forces allows for concealment, a chance to demonstrate
their superior fighting abilities, and, in some cases, income
for AQAP. In some areas, just as it has in the past, AQAP acts as a
mercenary force for elites whose interests happen to align with its
own, even if this alignment is only temporary.37
AQAP’s focus on enmeshment, covert governance where possible,
and jettisoning of a punishment strategy will make it more difficult to combat. This, combined with the fact that Yemen is mired
in multiple wars being fought by multiple insurgent groups, means
that discerning who is and who is not a member or ally of AQAP
will be all the more difficult. Yet, AQAP’s adoption of a more subtle
strategy makes discernment, security, and good governance all the
more important.

Challenges and Opportunities
While the Emirati-led effort to combat AQAP is heavily reliant on
indigenous fighters, the country’s efforts have led to the perception
that the UAE is a colonizing force. The growing influence of the
UAE and those elites that it has either chosen to empower or that
have sided with it are already fueling debate and rhetoric on all sides
of the conflict. While the UAE has been careful to minimize the
outward signs of the presence of its forces and advisors in southern
Yemen, there is the growing sense among many Yemenis that the
Emiratis are in southern Yemen to stay.38 Stories about the UAE’s
occupation of the Yemeni island of Socotra and its plans to build
a military base there have provoked angry responses from many
sectors of Yemeni society.39 AQAP will be quick to take advantage
of and foster the perception that the UAE is intent on occupying
Yemen for its own purposes. The veracity of the claim matters little.
While Muslim and Arab, the Emiratis, which also employ many
foreigners as advisers and mercenaries, are foreigners, and few actions
empower an insurgency like foreign occupation—perceived
or otherwise.40
Concurrent with what could be a growing perception by many of
the UAE as an occupying force in Yemen is the problematic tactics
used by some of the UAE-backed security forces. These security
forces are conducting sweeps that often result in the detention of
large numbers of men with no or only a minimal relationship with
AQAP.41 AQAP controlled Mukalla and many of the surrounding areas
for more than a year. Many residents in these areas were forced
to interact with AQAP on some level. At the same time, AQAP recruited
many men as foot soldiers. For the most part, these recruits
did not share the group’s ideology or aims. Most joined to collect
salaries, receive food aid, and, in some cases, protect their families
from retribution by AQAP. Still others—a minority—joined to help
AQAP fight the Islamic State whose ideology and tactics are viewed
by most as far more virulent and alien to Yemen.42 There is also the
very real danger that, as happened in Afghanistan in the early years
of the U.S. war there, informants label rivals as AQAP for security
forces as a way of settling scores, making money, removing rivals,
and enhancing their own power.43 Given the prevalence of factions
and competing agendas in Yemen as well the informal nature of
many of the security units, the danger of this is especially high.
In addition to the possibility that many of those rounded up in
the sweeps are not members of AQAP, there are credible allegations
of security forces abusing detainees. In June 2017, Human Rights
Watch released a report that cited numerous cases of torture, abuse,
unlawful detention, and disappearances purportedly carried out by
Security Belt and Hadrami Elite forces.44 Additional reports have
appeared in the international media about Emirati-run detention
centers where Yemenis held for alleged ties to AQAP have been
tortured, including reports that some detainees were roasted on a
spit.45 Reports of these kinds of actions—regardless of whether or not they are true—will be seized upon by AQAP. It is worth remembering
that the first issue of AQAP’s English language publication,
Inspire, featured an article written by Usama bin Ladin in which
he referenced the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
as evidence of the United States’ malicious intent.46 Similarly, the
alleged abuses committed at Emirati-run detention facilities will
fuel resentment that AQAP will exploit.
AQAP and other insurgent groups operating in Yemen will seize
on any and all missteps by the Emirati-backed forces and the Emiratis
themselves. Having largely abandoned the punishment strategy
in favor of one that is better adapted to the socio-cultural terrain
it operates in, AQAP’s leadership likely understands the benefit of
drawing the UAE and its forces into a war where they employ a
punishment strategy of their own. Such a strategy, especially when
employed by a foreign power, will alienate the populace and in turn
drive recruitment for AQAP and other groups.
Conclusion
In his article, “Evolution of a Revolt,” T.E. Lawrence, speaking
about the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916-1918,
argued that insurgents would be victorious if they understood and
applied certain “algebraical factors.” These factors included mobility,
force security, time, and respect for the populace.47 AQAP has
adopted and is, to varying degrees, employing Lawrence’s algebra
for a successful insurgency. It has retained its mobility. Its enmeshment
within anti-Houthi forces is—to some extent—contributing to
force security and drawing its enemies into a punishment strategy.
AQAP is also patient and committed to the long war and is intent
on working within the Yemeni socio-cultural context in a way that
allows subjects to remain, at a minimum, neutral. This is not to say
that AQAP will be victorious. However, its ability to adapt, learn,
and employ strategies that are increasingly well adapted to the areas
in which it operates, does mean that it will survive and will, given
the opportunity, go on the offensive yet again.
As Colonel Gian Gentile argues in his book Wrong Turn: America’s
Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency, “hearts-and-minds
counterinsurgency carried out by an occupying power in a foreign
land doesn’t work, unless it is a multigenerational effort.”48 While
the Emiratis do not seem intent on occupation and its counterinsurgency
efforts are heavily reliant on Yemenis, it is a foreign-led
effort in a country that has, throughout its history, violently and
successfully resisted incursions by outside powers. While it is extremely
unlikely that AQAP could ever take over southern Yemen,
short of the kind of highly problematic, multigenerational effort
described by Gentile, it will remain a persistent and potent threat
over the long term.
The short-term success of Emirati-led efforts in Yemen are predicated
on their ability to compete with AQAP in regard to the levels
of security and efficacy of governance that they can provide. This
success is also predicated on the Emiratis’ ability to avoid being
seen as occupiers acting through militias motivated by their own
factional interests. A failure to restore governance, predictable levels
of security, and “clean” policing will be exploited by an enemy
that—while weakened—remains capable, resilient, and perhaps
most importantly, patient.

Letters from Home: Hezbollah Mothers and the Culture of Martyrdom

Hezbollah’s culture of martyrdom has helped sustain the
organization’s manpower needs since the organization’s
founding. A critical question, however, is how the group
communicates this narrative to its base, especially given
recent challenges to the group’s legitimacy as a result of
its intervention in Syria. The ‘Party of God’s’ online content
reveals that it does so in part by using the mothers of
martyred fighters to promote the culture of martyrdom.
Mothers possess unique access in society due to their ability
to shape the minds of the next generation. As a result,
Hezbollah uses their voices to amplify its propaganda in a
way that resonates with the group’s following. Signs of tension
between the party and these women, however, could
pose challenges to this strategy in the future.
In March 2017, an article on Hezbollah’s online media outlet
Arabipress featured a poem by the Egyptian poet Hafez
Ibrahim (b. 1872) that opens with the line, “Our mothers
are like our schools; pampering them means securing our
future.”1 Seven months earlier, the same website posted a
music video in which a young man crooned, “For you, my mother,”
sentimentally dramatizing their close relationship and her reaction
to his eventual martyrdom.2 Frequently, Hezbollah’s media also
quotes a song by the renowned Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife
to honor the mothers of its martyrs: “ajmal al omahat” (the most
beautiful mother).3 These items are not simply rhetorical devices;
they also serve a strategic purpose. Hezbollah uses the mothers of
its fallen fighters to sustain a culture of martyrdom that provides it
with a self-replenishing pool of fighters, a critical function throughout
the group’s history but especially today.
Since late 2012, Hezbollah’s founding principle of resistance
to Israel has been eclipsed by its intervention in Syria on behalf
of the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Mounting casualties
and increasing resentment4 among the group’s base in
Lebanon have, to some extent, challenged the pervasive culture of
martyrdom that sustains its manpower. This is where the mothers
of martyrs come in. In order to retain control over the martyrdom narrative, Hezbollah uses these mothers to relay stories that promote
both self-sacrifice and the sacrificing of one’s children to the
resistance. As the opening examples illustrate, the cooptation of
popular refrains are meant to capitalize on a deeply held local value:
the importance of mothers in building a society. Mothers, therefore,
represent a crucial demographic for Hezbollah, serving as a bridge
between the party leadership and the community from which it
draws its fighters. In order to convince these women to sacrifice
their sons, the party shrewdly uses the voices of those who have already
done so. Signs of tension between the group and the mothers
of its martyrs, however, could call into question the viability of this
strategy in the long term.

The Culture of Martyrdom
Throughout the first three decades of Hezbollah’s existence, its role
in the “axis of resistance” against Israel imbued it with legitimacy,
attracting ideologically motivated fighters to its cause. Equally important
in this respect, however, was the group’s culture of self-sacrifice
that regarded martyrdom as a blessing. Whereas the resistance
and self-sacrifice narratives no doubt became intertwined and fed
off of each other, Hezbollah’s concept of martyrdom also took on a
life of its own, independent of political slogans against Israel. Martyrdom
has always occupied a sacred space in the Shi`a religious
tradition, dating back to the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson
Husayn in the seventh-century Battle of Karbala. But the Shi`a cleric
Imam Musa al-Sadr, the founder of Lebanon’s Amal movement,
helped transform it into a tool of recruitment. Throughout the
1970s, al-Sadr encouraged his followers to draw inspiration from
martyrdom, in the hope that each instance would unleash a flood
of revolutionary zeal and thereby strengthen his forces.5 Hezbollah,
founded by a stream of Amal defectors with Iranian assistance
in the early 1980s, capitalized upon this culture—holding public
funerals and plastering images of its martyrs across towns to reap
the highest possible reward from each casualty incurred in its resistance
to Israel. The strategy resonated among the group’s base.
“Nobody here wants war,” said one Lebanese man at a Hezbollah
funeral in the town of Barachit in 2006. “[But] for each martyr that
[has died], there will be a thousand more like them.”6
The culture of martyrdom persists, but contemporary developments
threaten its potency. First, despite Hezbollah’s public branding
as the defender of Lebanon’s Shi`a community, the group’s de
facto prioritization of the Syria fight over that against Israel has evidently
cheapened the cause for which martyrs are dying.7 Second,
payments to martyrs’ families have reportedly been cut due to rising
war budgets, a step that threatens to provoke discontent.8 Third,
Hezbollah’s combat fatalities over almost five years in Syria exceed
those sustained over the 18 years from its founding in 1982 until
Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.9 The group is suffering
significant casualties, and for a cause that many are questioning. Indeed,
the party seems to be concerned that as martyrs accumulate, they may begin to alienate more followers than they galvanize. Public
funerals have become less frequent in the present day, for example,
suggesting that party leadership no longer views celebrations of
martyrdom to be as useful as they once were. Experts also estimate
that the group has only acknowledged about half of its actual combat
deaths in Syria—even actively covering up the causes of death
in some cases, according to some reports.10 Against this backdrop,
Hezbollah’s ability to control the narrative surrounding martyrdom
is more critical—and maybe more vulnerable—than ever.

The Martyr’s Mother as Spokeswoman
Perhaps the most compelling way to promote the culture of martyrdom
is through an endorsement by the martyr himself. Indeed,
this happens to an extent in ‘last will’ videos recorded by fighters
and released after their death in battle. But the martyr, of course,
can no longer speak, so his family—and his mother in particular—
represents his next-best spokesperson.
The benefit of using mothers as a mouthpiece is both spiritual
and practical. On a spiritual level, a mother thanking God for her
son’s martyrdom constitutes a powerful image, given the universal
nature of maternal love and the instinct to protect one’s children
from danger. Accordingly, Hezbollah uses mothers to propagate
the martyrdom narrative in an emotionally resonant fashion. On a
practical level, the martyr’s mother serves as a crucial intermediary
between party officials and other women who might be willing to
sacrifice sons to the cause. Hezbollah’s ability to reach out to these
other women is critical because they will educate the next generation
of fighters, hopefully (from Hezbollah’s point of view) instilling
within them the values of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.
Mothers are also important players when their sons reach military
age. Some stories11 on Hezbollah websites have made mention
of young men requesting their mother’s written permission before
leaving to wage jihad in Syria—suggesting that the mother often
has at least some say in the matter, even if in practice the party may
not require parental consent (or heed parental objections) before
sending fighters to Syria. A mother’s blessing may also help relieve
a son’s guilt at leaving his family, a critical element of strategic messaging
given that many of these young men repeatedly ask their
families to forgive them in ‘last will’ videos.12 Moreover, given the
new trend of recruiting young and unmarried fighters, the mother’s
opinion likely weighs particularly heavily in the minds of these
younger recruits.13
Endorsement in written form is useful to Hezbollah not only to
persuade potential fighters, but also as an insurance policy in case
of martyrdom. A mother who has willingly surrendered her child
is less likely to publicly blame the party for his death, as has happened
in cases in which permission was allegedly not granted.14 It
is for these reasons that Hezbollah’s propaganda has in recent years
targeted women as much as the fighters themselves, if not more.
Hezbollah circulates a variety of materials, including purported
letters from mothers to their martyred sons, personal narratives,
voice recordings, and even documentaries featuring interviews with
martyr families with a special focus on the mother. Virtually all of
these mothers relay similar narratives. For them, the martyrdom
of a son is a blessing that brings the entire family closer to God and
Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet Muhammad’s family), strengthening their resolve to sacrifice more to the resistance.a
Crafting the Martyrdom Narrative
The process of celebrating martyrdom begins before death, with
Hezbollah online content depicting women encouraging their sons
to sacrifice themselves in battle. Arabipress, for example, published
a news item in 2014 under the title “Mother of a Hezbollah Fighter
in Syria: ‘God, Please Grant My Son Martyrdom, Please God!’”15
Another article, written in Hezbollah’s Arabipress in 2015, contains
screenshots (see photos) of a conversation between a woman and
her son who was at the time deployed to Syria by Hezbollah, in
shock that he remains alive while his comrade has just been killed
next to him in Syria. “Maybe Mahdi was ready for martyrdom before
you … my dear, remain on your path, and stay strong like I
taught you … May God not deny you martyrdom,” she wrote.16
After death, the mothers of dead fighters may express grief but
ultimately treat martyrdom as a happy occasion, according to the
script set by Hezbollah. Pro-Hezbollah press frequently publishes
articles and videos that portray women thanking God for their son’s
martyrdom—including one in October 2017 in which the mother
of the martyr Ali Zaitar appears to kneel over her son’s burial site:
“God has given me more than I deserve,” she repeats.17
Another important element of the mother’s narrative is the idea
that sacrificing children brings one closer to God and Ahl al-Bayt.
One mother in 2014 described feeling as though she had finally
answered Imam Husayn’s call when she sent her son to Syria.b After
his martyrdom, she went even further, announcing, “I feel as though
I have passed God’s test.”18 Here, the historical Shi`a narrative is
also key. The mothers frequently conflate current wars with early
Islamic history, particularly the seventh-century Battle of Karbala.
“Listen to me: you are in Karbala, with the Imam Husayn,” said
one mother to her jihadi son in a voice recording published in April
2016. “Forget this world; everything will be gone one day. Just focus
on Husayn, Karbala, and what happened there!”19 For these mothers,
their sons who wage jihad very literally walk in the footsteps
of the men killed in Karbala—and they themselves in the paths of
Husayn’s mother, Fatima, and his sister Zainab (often referred to
as Sayyida Zainab), women of Ahl al-Bayt who both sacrificed sons
in the battle.
After a fighter’s martyrdom, the Hezbollah narrative emphasizes
his enduring presence in his family’s life and beyond. In one interview,
a woman claims of her martyred son, “He didn’t leave me …
He is still among us. I smell his scent, I feel his presence, and he
talks to me and makes me laugh.”20 Another example is found in
a letter written in 1995 from the mother of a Bosnian ‘martyr’ to
the mother of a Lebanese Hezbollah ‘martyr’ killed in Bosnia. Hezbollah’s
Arabipress published an Arabic translation of the letter in
March 2016: “These martyrs are the candles of our youth, the price
of our freedom and resolve as Muslims … We all remember [your
son] with great joy, and we can never forget him.”21 Given mounting
Hezbollah casualties in Syria, the letter’s implication seemed timely
and deliberate—that even those martyrs who die far from their

An article, written in Hezbollah’s Arabipress in 2015, contains
screenshots of a conversation between a woman and her son fighting
with Hezbollah in Syria, in shock that he remains alive while his
comrade has just been killed next to him in Syria. “Maybe Mahdi
was ready for martyrdom before you … my dear, remain on your
path, and stay strong like I taught you … May God not deny you
martyrdom,” she wrote.

homeland live on for years after their death.
Perhaps the most critical part of the narrative involves the notion
that martyrdom should strengthen the resolve of others to sacrifice
even more to the cause. After all, Hezbollah’s ability to replenish its
ranks depends largely upon the degree to which one man’s sacrifice
inspires others to follow in his path. Pledges to do so are common in
the mothers’ narratives. One woman, in a short documentary film,
claimed that after the martyrdom of her first son, Mahdi Yaghi, she
hoped her other son, Ali, would also die a martyr’s death.22 Her wish
was granted when Ali was killed in Syria in June 2017.23 In another
conversation around the same time with the mother of Mustafa
Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah official killed in 2016, the interviewer
asks what she would tell her son a year after his martyrdom.
“Your siblings, your grandchildren … all of us remain steadfast on your path,” she responds, “and we will not leave it until every last
one of us is martyred, with God’s permission.”24
In these ways, the mother’s words are used to motivate young
men and other mothers to make sacrifices for Hezbollah’s cause.
The message resonates. In one particularly powerful and inflammatory
video posted in August 2017, the mother of Hezbollah ‘martyr’
Mahdi Khadr bellows into a megaphone before a large crowd
of men: “Raise your heads!” she orders, a phrase often invoked by
Arab leaders to garner support and boost morale among the marginalized.
She then directs them to repeat after her, with pride and
honor: “At your service, Zainab!” The crowd obeys her command,
erupting with boisterous chants in response.25

Promoting the Narrative: Carrots and Sticks
While these narratives are likely authentic to a decent extent, Hezbollah
appears to stage-manage them to ensure both uniformity
and conformity. The group seems to rely upon an inner circle of
families it trusts to toe the party line. In many cases, the same families
appear repeatedly in Hezbollah’s media—in letters, interviews,
and documentaries—whereas other families are not even granted
the “privilege” of a published martyrdom announcement. The group
also regularly features the families of its most prominent martyrs—
including Badreddine and Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah commander
assassinated in 2008. The latter serves the extra purpose of
demonstrating that if families of such stature have sacrificed their
sons, anyone should be willing to do so.c The ‘martyrdom’ of Hassan
Nasrallah’s son Hadi in 1997 has, in itself, become a talking point.
“O, Sayyid [Hassan], you sacrificed a martyr as well, my brother,”
wailed one mother as she addressed Nasrallah from beside her son’s
coffin in early 2017.26 Another, in September 2016, proclaimed in
an article, “I am the mother of a martyr … our sacrifices pale in
comparison to [Hassan’s]!”27
This is not the only method Hezbollah employs to ensure adherence
to the party line. Reports28 have emerged of party officials
planted at public funerals to ensure proper comportment and to
boost morale, as well as repeated visits by party members to the
families of its martyrs.29 Hezbollah’s web content, moreover, shames
those who react with excessive grief to a loved one’s martyrdom—as
always, using the mother as an example. “Mohammad shouldn’t
be cried over … no, no, no … Mohammad deserves for people to
be happy for him because he reached heaven!” yells one woman
in response to mourners weeping over her son’s coffin.30 Another
mother, shown hugging her son’s corpse, holds back tears while
repeating to herself that she won’t cry to avoid him seeing her upset.
31 An additional way Hezbollah pressures mothers is by using the
voices of their martyred sons. In a ‘last will’ video, the martyr Mahdi
Yaghi tells his mother—in an obviously scripted segment—not to
be sad when he is martyred and to try to behave in the way Fatima
and Zainab once did.32 The speech is likely canned, as martyrs
reading from scripts in other videos express the same sentiments
toward their own mothers—including the martyr Hassan Ahmad
Kanaan in a video published in 2014. “Do not be sad when you hear
the news of my martyrdom, but rather hold on to the patience of
Sayyida Zainab, peace be upon her.”33 These videos are also used
to court mothers emotionally through what appear to be spontacneous words, such as a segment of Yaghi’s video when he is quietly
prompted twice by the cameraman to speak to his mother.
In addition to emotional pressure and financial inducements,
Hezbollah encourages sacrifice by granting the mothers of martyrs
a unique symbolic status within the party. As mentioned previously,
Hezbollah’s media draws frequent parallels between the mothers of
martyrs and Sayyida Zainab, the sister of Imam Husayn revered by
Shi`a Muslims for her bravery and sacrifices in the Battle of Karbala.
Zainab’s rising status in Hezbollah doctrine—protecting her
shrine in Damascus has served as a central justification for involvement
in Syria34—has only rendered these comparisons more poignant
and effective. Such parallels therefore lionize the sacrifices of
Hezbollah women, signaling that a son’s martyrdom will earn them
eternal glory in the eyes of God. Hierarchies of sacrifice are also
present within the party’s propaganda, with the mothers of martyrs
at the top. A Mother’s Dayd special from Hezbollah’s media outlet
al-Manar, for example, featured the mother of a wounded fighter
who offered her own disclaimer at the end, arguing that Mother’s
Day should be dedicated fully to the mothers of martyrs for they are
the ones who have sacrificed the most.35

Signs of Trouble
Outside Hezbollah’s own carefully curated media, some mothers
have begun to question the group’s justification for the Syria intervention
and its narrative of martyrdom. These accounts have appeared
in both traditional and social media. In May 2015, a Twitter
user under the handle “Um al Hasan” (mother of Hasan) tweeted,
“Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, I want my son back from Qalamoun. It
is enough that one already died.”36 Fourteen minutes later, the same
user tweeted again under the Arabic hashtag “we want our sons.”37
Although the hashtag has also been used frequently as a rallying
cry for Palestinian martyr families against Israel, a number of other
users followed Um al Hasan’s example, tweeting the hashtag to
protest Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria.e
Rumors of discontentment among mothers have also appeared
in Lebanese traditional media, despite Hezbollah’s known efforts to
intimidate reporters. For instance, the news outlet Al Mustaqbal reported
in the spring of 2016 that a number of mothers of Hezbollah
fighters killed in Syria had refused to welcome delegations of party members on Mother’s Day.38 In June 2016, the website quoted the
mother of a martyred fighter addressing Hassan Nasrallah: “Why,
Sayyid [Hassan]? This was not what we agreed to. We agreed that
my son would learn religion and fight Israel … What is there for
us in Syria? My son’s blood is on your hands.”39 In another article
published by Al Joumhouria, the mother of a Syria casualty dared
to ask the ultimate question more explicitly: “Did my son truly die
a martyr’s death?”40
Admittedly, these reports appear largely in anti-Hezbollah Lebanese
media, but even if they are not reliable across the board, their
very existence may threaten the party’s legitimacy by raising doubts
in its followers’ minds. Hezbollah’s culture of martyrdom relies on
the mothers of martyrs to promote martyrdom wholeheartedly as
the ultimate form of religious devotion; it does not allow for debate
over what constitutes a martyr’s death. The breaking of taboos on
these questions therefore elevates concern among party leaders
about growing disillusionment among its rank and file. If this discontentment
further takes hold and affects actual decision-making,
it would not be the first time a group of mothers in the region had
influenced military decisions through grassroots activity. Perhaps
ironically, Israel’s “Four Mothers” movement, which decried what
many Israeli soldiers’ mothers saw as the squandering of young lives
in an unnecessary war in Lebanon, helped prompt the IDF’s withdrawal
from the country in 2000.41

Conclusion
While signs of tension between Hezbollah and its community of
mothers is undoubtedly a source of anxiety among its leadership,
the severity of these concerns will depend largely upon the trajectory
of the Syrian war and the party’s role in it. If combat fatalities
continue unabated, the internal challenges described here could
grow in importance and eventually overshadow the additional
problem of Hezbollah’s loss of legitimacy in the eyes of many Arabs
across the region. However, reports of discontent have been appearing
on an occasional basis for several years and without much
apparent change to Hezbollah’s ability to carry on the fight in Syria.
For now, the party seems to be managing this trend. Hezbollah
also holds a subtler psychological advantage. For many of these
families, blindly accepting the narrative of martyrdom may be less
emotionally wrenching than questioning whether a child’s death
was worth the pain. Until more families are ready to face such difficult
questions, Hezbollah may continue to capitalize on the cult of
martyrdom to the detriment of Lebanon’s Shi`a community.

 

Beyond the Conflict Zone: U.S. HSI Cooperation with Europol

With the fall of Raqqa, many foreign fighters from
the Islamic State have since fled territory previously
controlled by the group—some returning to their countries
of origin within Europe. United States law enforcement
entities, with assistance from the U.S. Department of
Defense, are leveraging partnerships within Europol to
identify returning foreign terrorist fighters and prevent
attacks on both U.S. and European soil. This article
focuses specifically on Homeland Security Investigations’
(HSI) role in this effort. International and interagency
counterterrorism cooperation benefits from Europol’s
unique multilateral coordination tools to deter and defeat
both terrorist and criminal threats.
As Islamic State fighters flee Iraq and Syria for their
countries of origin,1 law enforcement, not the military,
is the entity best positioned to curtail the terrorist
threats they pose.a For the United States, much of
the international counterterrorism fight carried out
within conflict zones, such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, is primarily
military in nature. External to these areas, the U.S. military,
whose authorities are especially limited in Europe, has sought to
enable law enforcement to provide the “finish” option: arrests and
prosecutions. This mission, Operation Gallant Phoenix (OGP), was
originally focused on tracking foreign fighter flows into Syria and
Iraq, but its charter has been expanded to address these individuals
returning to areas throughout Europe. The United States’ European
Command (EUCOM), seeking to leverage its partnerships with law
enforcement, funds several U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)b special agents who work at Europol but also assist EUCOM
in identifying transnational European-based criminal and terror
threats. This effort supplements an already large U.S. interagency
presence at Europol, which provides both opportunities and challenges
as a medium for coordination. Despite the growing pains
associated with the recent expansion, law enforcement enablement
against foreign terrorist fighters is resulting in increasing numbers
of investigations and arrests throughout Europe due to the rapid
flow of information and tremendous resources available within Europol,
the newest member of OGP.2
This article draws on insights the author gained during the approximately
three months he spent as an HSI embed at Europol
headquarters during the summer of 2017. This article focuses on the
contributions of HSI to Europol’s work. It is not intended to capture
the totality of partnership activity between U.S. law enforcement
agencies and Europol and should not be read as a comprehensive
assessment of all cooperation between these entities. Unless otherwise
specified, the information contained in this article is based on
interactions with U.S. and European officials working there during
this period.

European CT Cooperation Mechanisms
Located in The Hague, Europol maintains a staff consisting of
over 1,000 people representing all 28 E.U. member nations and an
assortment of 33 operational and strategic partners.3 The United
States is an operational partner, enabling cooperation similar to a
member nation but without direct access to the Europol criminal
database. The database, called the Europol Information System
(EIS), is one of the most unique capabilities of Europol, hosting
records from almost 300,000 cases across member nations and operational
partners. The EIS enables cross matching and multilateral
cooperation across the millions of investigatory subjects entered in
the database, which represents a multinational capability not found
elsewhere in the law enforcement realm.c Europol also utilizes a secure
messaging system that enables rapid multilateral information
sharing across all of its partners. As the Deputy Director of Europol
Wil van Gemert previously told this publication, Europol “moved
from not only collecting information but to connecting information.”
4 Using assets like EIS and experienced counterterrorism
professionals from multiple countries, the new European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) contains a growing U.S. presence that
helps combat the foreign terrorist fighter threat.
The ECTC, established in 2016, has only recently featured a
semi-permanent U.S. presence. In the aftermath of the Paris terror
attacks in November 2015, subsequent U.S.-enabled investigations
illuminated an Islamic State-affiliated network that funded the perpetrators’
travel and daily expenses.5 This support network utilized a
system of Money Service Businesses (MSBs) and criminal networks
to fund illicit activity, allegedly to include the purchase of false official
documents and weapons once the Paris attack perpetrators
reached continental Europe from Syria.6 Europol and U.S. officials
have pointed out that the increased interweaving of criminal and
terrorist networks can provide an advantage for investigators.7
Much of the specifics of the Paris investigation remain publicly
unavailable as there are still ongoing trials for the support network
in Belgium, France, and other countries. However, HSI and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were integral members of
the ECTC that helped identify these financial links.d Though not
well known among the general public, HSI—as the investigative
arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—has broad
statutory and legal authority to investigate illicit trade, travel, and
financial activities as well as a number of other threats. Due to its
unique border authorities, HSI is positioned to acquire, analyze,
and share U.S.-based MSB data.e HSI agents provided a quick turnaround
on the Paris attack investigations, resulting in an increased
demand from Europol member nations for investigative assistance.
HSI is the largest investigative body within the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), with over 6,700 special agents. Currently,
HSI agents and analysts are working alongside Europol partners
in the ECTC, with additional HSI agents working in the European
Migrant Smuggling Centre (EMSC). The HSI agents within the
EMSC fulfill a critical function as they collect information and
provide analysis on criminal smuggling and Special Interest Alienf
illicit travel, which helps further protect U.S. borders. The nature
of unclassified financial information provides HSI a distinct advantage:
they can openly share financial information with European
partners, which expands a quid pro quo relationship with Europol
members.
HSI and the U.S. government in general benefit from increased
awareness regarding terrorists and illicit travel facilitators operating
in Europe that could also threaten U.S. national security, public
safety, and border security. From January 2016 through July 2017,
HSI agents identified 1,843 known or suspected terrorists and 9,774
illicit Special Interest Alien travel facilitators by answering 984 requests
for information from European partners.8 With HSI’s cooperation with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other law
enforcement partners, these investigatory subjects can be added to
watchlists and prevented from entering the United States, further
protecting the homeland. The role of law enforcement agents at
Europol is not without challenges, however.

The Challenges of Cooperation
An exponential growth in both Europol’s role and the number of
requests for assistance from European partners constantly strain
the capacity of the HSI agents at Europol. Although HSI shares
information acquired from U.S.-based MSBs with European partners,
the financial transaction data requires additional analysis by
all-source intelligence analysts to identify potential links to any
U.S.-based entities. The rapid growth of requests from European
partners for this financial information has also caused procedural
challenges, resulting in a duplication of analysis effort as both CBP
and the FBI, along with seven other U.S. agencies, receive the same
requests within the counterterrorism space. Recent changes have
streamlined the process, with OGP requests being handled specifically
through the FBI. The addition of a Europol representative at
OGP in August of 2017 is also a new factor in communication, and
could potentially streamline the process for sharing information
originating from the small amount of contested space still controlled
or influenced by the Islamic State.
HSI, FBI, and CBP assign the ECTC and EMSC portfolio to
their permanent agents as an additional duty, but it might not replicate
the benefits of an agent working full-time inside the ECTC or
EMSC. Although EUCOM guaranteed funding through FY18 for
additional HSI agents, there are inherent challenges with the current
90-day rotations such as case continuity, rapport with partners,
and domain knowledge.
Another undermentioned aspect of potential conflict for Europol
and interagency cooperation rests in a differing view of the role bilateral
cooperation plays in defeating terrorist threats. Certain U.S.
agencies have a propensity for protecting what they consider proprietary
information. At times, information may be over-classified.
Agencies are then constricted to a formal sharing process based on
classification, but some also prefer to share information bilaterally
due to historic relationships.9 Some E.U. member states also prefer
to work counterterrorism investigations bilaterally with U.S. law enforcement, potentially degrading opportunities to share information
more broadly through Europol. This latter process is cumbersome,
and with the geographic proximity of so many countries
on the European continent, bilateral sharing alone could prevent a
member state from quickly receiving pertinent information about
credible threats. Europol as an entity has become more operational
in the aftermath of the migrant crisis and the renewed terrorist
threat of the last few years. Europol’s secure messaging system, SIENA,
combined with the robustness of its criminal database, EIS,
provides an invaluable resource in both rapid information sharing
and cross matching, as highlighted through the effective cooperation
that led to rapid arrests in three countries in the aftermath of
the Paris attacks.10 This burgeoning capacity is a source of disquiet
for those who believe that the best way to share information still
rests more in traditional bilateral exchanges.
Despite those challenges, the HSI attachments to Europol have
been successful in a variety of ways. Although details on most of
the ongoing investigations remain limited due to ongoing legal
proceedings, a recent prominent case provides a positive example
of the burgeoning cooperation between elements of the U.S.
government and Europol. This named operation started after an
eminent Islamic State financier was detained by the U.S. military
within a conflict zone. Based on evidence recovered from sensitive
site exploitation, HSI began analysis of his financial links and conveyed
a number of critical leads to European nations through the
use of both SIENA and Europol relationships. Cooperation between
HSI, the U.S. Department of Defense, and Europol on this specific
case thus far has contributed to over 130 open investigations and
15 arrests in France, Belgium, Germany, and other European countries.
11 Another significant operation includes Operation ERMIS,
where HSI in The Hague provided over 2,000 financial leads on
document forgers, which led to 19 separate arrests in Greece and
the Czech Republic in 2016.12 Further investigation into these illicit
travel rings indicated ties to both transnational criminal organizations
and possible foreign terrorist fighter movements. This type
of coordination benefits from the unique authorities HSI agents
possess, their relationship with European and U.S. partners, and
their understanding of transnational threat networks.

Improving the Process
A few critical changes could streamline the processes at Europol.
There is an intrinsic benefit in the current configuration with agents
collocated inside the EMSC and ECTC: they develop relationships,
share information, and engage in the daily operations that improve any multilateral collaborative effort. However, with FBI, CBP, HSI,
and seven other U.S. agencies working within the same Europol
organization, the U.S. agencies lack a cohesive leadership structure,
which creates some confusion among European partners. The disparate
U.S. elements inside the ECTC all work under different legal
authorities as well. For example, the FBI has statutory lead for U.S.
counterterrorism investigations. However, there is only a known or
suspected U.S. nexus or involvement in approximately five percent
of counterterrorism labeled requests to U.S. agencies for information
by European partners via their secure messaging system, SIENA.
g The other 95 percent of requests by European partners may
not meet the threshold for FBI involvement, which is why HSI has
an advantageous role in providing financial information and in turn
receiving information that identifies these subjects of investigations
and potentially prevents them from entering the United States.
The growing capability of Europol might justify the addition
of more permanent U.S. law enforcement liaison positions within
Europol. Additional analytical support could also help with faster
processing of requests, enabling agents to be more proactive as with
the case of the aforementioned Islamic State financier. That analytical
support could be collocated at Europol or staged within the
U.S. National Targeting Center or another D.C.-based center with
a focus on allowing reach-back analysis for the forward-deployed
agents. U.S. agents assigned to Europol across all law enforcement
agencies would benefit from more continuity and a better system
of internal information sharing that fully captures the intricacies of
the work being done at Europol.
Despite the potential challenges that exist at Europol and with
the various agencies assigned, the overall benefit of the program is
significant. Through collaborative efforts with European partners,
U.S. law enforcement is addressing the challenges of combating
terrorism in an area where their legal authorities are limited. As
foreign terrorist fighters return to their countries of origin or travel
through the porous borders of Europe, the increased efforts of
the law enforcement entities throughout Europol will help to pursue
and hopefully defeat the terrorist threat outside of the conflict
zones.