After the Islamic State
“The rival movements now compete for franchises. In two years, the Islamic State has won the allegiance of thirty-seven provinces, or wilayats, in eight countries. Pledging and gaining allegiance, or bayat, is a formal process in the world of jihadism. Some provinces—in Egypt’s Sinai and Libya’s Sirte—gained fame and controlled territory. The Sinai Province shot down a Russian Metrojet airliner in 2015. The Islamic State claimed its Libyan province as the caliphate’s first colony in 2014, although it recently lost most of its land there, too. Other cells, notably in Yemen, are weaker or dormant.
“Al Qaeda, for its part, has for more than a decade cultivated five transnational branches—in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, the horn of Africa, and the Levant. The struggle for the soul of Sunni jihadism is one of at least five different wars playing out in Syria, and it is there that Al Qaeda may prove its long game.”
As the caliphate crumbles, rival movements struggle for the soul of Sunni jihadism.
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