Origins

ISIS first originated in Iraq. One individual inextricably linked with ISIS was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian born as Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh.[1] Just before the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989, Zarqawi had joined the Afghan mujahideen, who had enjoyed Saudi, Pakistani and US support throughout the Eighties as anti-communist fighters combatting the Soviet invasion of the country.[2]

After military training in Afghanistan, Zarqawi later returned to Jordan, where, in March 1994, he was arrested. Zarqawi was further radicalised in prison and following his release in 1999, he obtained funding from al-Qaida to set up a training camp in Herat, in western Afghanistan. The Salafi-jihadist militant group, headed by Osama bin Laden, had already bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and would soon gain global infamy for their role in the attacks in the United States of America on 11 September 2001.

After the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Zarqawi relocated his operations to northeast Iraq.[3] By the summer of 2004, Zarqawi was thought to be behind a series of terrorist attacks in Iraq, including car bombings targeting the Jordanian embassy, the UN’s Baghdad headquarters, as well as various Shi’a shrines.[4]

Zarqawi did not apply for official membership of al-Qaida until October 2004. In a letter to al-Qaida‘s leadership, the Jordanian outlined his eschatological interpretation of Islam and strategic objectives for al-Qaida in Iraq.[5] Zarqawi’s narrow definition of who constituted a Muslim and his concern with excommunication, or takfir, would later underpin ISIS’ ideology and extreme political violence. Mainstream takfir is the declaration that a Muslim has become an apostate or heretic (murtad) by practicing idolatry or polytheism (shirk), engaging in an act or belief that is either seen as disbelief (kafr) in Islam or that brands a person an infidel (kafir) who has only pretended to be a Muslim.^[6] Takfir is punishable by death in Islam and results in further punishment in the afterlife; however, traditionally, takfir has rarely been applied in Islamic history, as the practice can have grave consequences for both the accuser and the accused.^[7]

Zarqawi—and later ISIS—applied the term kufar broadly to include Muslims who committed sin, rulers who did not rule according to Islamic Shari’a, Muslims belonging to groups other than theirs, or Muslims who did not migrate from non-Muslim lands into the group’s self-proclaimed “caliphate.” This hardline interpretation, zealously pursued since the days of Zarqawi, sees Islam as plagued by disbelief, polytheism and heresy, and claims that Islam must be “cleansed” by recreating the world and customs of the earliest Muslims—the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and his companions—in the 7^th century AD. Zarqawi saw Shi’a Muslims as Islam’s “enemy within,” referring to them as “traitorous apostates” (al-murtadin al-kha’inin) who made up a so-called “community of renegade deviation” (ahl al-zigh al-mariqiin) and embraced idolatry and polytheism.^[8]

Although al-Qaida’s leaders were wary of this radically sectarian approach, they accepted Zarqawi’s pledge of allegiance and decided that he would lead a new affiliate, al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI).[9] AQI emerged as an important actor in the ensuing civil war in Iraq, conducting terror attacks during the 2005 elections and explicitly targeting Shi’a civilians and religious sites across the country that caused severe civilian casualties.[10] It did not take long for this to cause a serious disagreement between al-Qaida’s leadership and AQI. Al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, questioned AQI’s attacks on “ordinary Shi’a” and stressed the need to expel US forces from Iraq and secure the support of the Sunni community before establishing an Islamic emirate.[11] Zarqawi defied al-Qaida’s central leadership and, in April 2006, announced that an Islamic state would be established in three months.[12]

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