The UN estimates that more than 300,000 have been killed during the 13-year genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan and more than 2.5 million have been displaced. The notorious Janjaweed Islamist militia and National Army of the Arab Republic of the Sudan have conducted a deliberate program of “ethnic cleansing.” They have been recruiting terrorists and Arab settlers from surrounding states to conduct rampages against indigenous African tribes and occupy the region. That record of crimes against humanity does not include the toll from rampages in other conflict areas of the Blue Nile, Nuba Hills and Kordofan.

Opening session of the first roundtable on Sudan’s National Dialogue in Khartoum on April 6 2014 (SUNA)

Two attempts at resolving the internal resistance by subjugated African tribal regions through reconciliation conferences have failed. The Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) ending an effort to achieve a peace accord that began in 2005 under UN auspices, was signed by the Government of  Sudan and the Liberation and Justice Movement in the capital of Qatar in July 2011. The DDPD had expired without implementation of the accord. More recently a two year National Dialogue in Khartoum that began in April 2014 between the National Congress Party regime of President Bashir and alleged Darfurian and other African tribal resistance groups ended on October 10, 2016 with another signed declaration. The National Dialogue document called for constitutional amendments and creation of a full parliamentary democracy. It also provided for a transitional government to facilitate movement from the current “National Unity” to a “National Reconciliation Government.” President Bashir had not attended the final session, feigning an illness, preparing for a meeting in Riyadh with Saudi King Salman. Moreover, President Bashir gave instructions to his Armed forces to end operations against the rebellion in Darfur by December 2016. That was in the face of an Amnesty International investigative report, issued on September 30, 2016, accusing the Bashir regime of using prohibited chemical weapons by the Janjaweed militias and Sudan National Army in the Jebel Marra region of Darfur and in other conflict areas.

Her Excellency Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Chair of African Union Commission

The 124 member nation International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague in the Netherlands was founded under the provisions of the Statute of The Treaty of Rome signed on July 17, 1998 which began activities in 2002. The ICC investigated President Bashir on charges of committing genocide in Darfur in violation of crimes against humanity, issuing a warrant for his arrest in 2009. However, no state has yet to arrest him. In June 2015 President Bashir paid a two day state visit to Johannesburg. Republic of South Africa (RSA), one of the ICC treaty members, failed to arrest him under the outstanding ICC warrant. It is alleged by sources close to President Bashir that Dubai made a grant of financial support to the RSA of $250 million that might have forestalled any possible arrest under the ICC warrant. On October 22, 2016, Justice Minister Michael Masutha of the RSA announced the country was leaving the ICC. Earlier in the same week, Burundi also announced that it was leaving the ICC. The RSA statement pointed to the decision not to arrest President Bashir of Sudan during the state visit in June 2015 as it violated the guest country’s sovereign immunity. That was followed by a statement on October 24, 2016 at a Pretoria conference by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Her Excellency Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa. While not commenting on the RSA ICC withdrawal announcement by Justice Minister Masutha, Dlamini-Zuma said:

Former Chad president Hissen Habre’s trial was an example that the continent could prosecute its leaders. He was charged with human rights violations, including rape and sexual slavery, and ordering the killings of thousands of people. In May this year, he became the first African president to be found guilty in an African court. He was sentenced to life in jail.

At a continental level, the former president of Chad has been tried in an African court, in an African country, agreed by the AU, funded by the AU, with the judges coming from Africa. He was tried for atrocities and was found guilty by an African court. Of course now he is appealing.

The Rome treaty governing the ICC while signed by 124 nations has not been ratified by the US. Russia, China and Israel have not joined the ICC. There are six African country leaders currently under investigation by the ICC. Leaders in Colombia and Afghanistan are also currently under investigation by the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity. Thus, it would appear that more African members of the AUC may follow the examples of both Burundi and the RSA opting to try in African courts  any of  the group’s member heads of state who are charged with alleged crimes against humanity.

An October 2016 New English Review report by Lt. Gen. Abakar Mahamat Abdallah of the Sudan United Movement (SUM) presented evidence of the Bashir regime and its genocide in Darfur. He reported The Bashir regime using Islamist mercenaries recruits from other African states for the Janjaweed militia conducting “ethnic cleansing” in the Jebel Marra region, “Sudan’s Extremist Islamist Regime Uses Chemical Weapons in Darfur Genocide.”

What was particularly concerning in General Abdallah ‘s report were: (1) The Sudan regime indiscriminate use of prohibited chemical weapons across several conflict areas in the Sudan based on the well documented incident investigation by Eric Reeves of Amnesty International in Jebel Marra in January 2016 published on September 30, 2016; (2) the destruction of villages in the Jebel Marra region of Darfur by Janjaweed militia involving slaughter of men and boys, rape of women and girls and the expropriation of property; 3) the recruitment of Jihadist mercenaries for the Janjaweed militias from “veterans” of Mali Islamists, Boko Haram and the Lord’s Resistance Army; 4) training and equipping of hundreds of Libyan ISIS fighters; 5) continuing bi-lateral discussions by the Obama Administration with the Bashir regime in Khartoum regarding international counterterrorism intelligence, despite an outstanding ICC indictment and warrant for his arrest for committing crimes against humanity; 6) payment by major EU countries to the Bashir regime to intercept illegal immigrants from transiting to the Mediterranean coast using the Islamist Janjaweed mercenaries.

Resistance fighters planning for an ambush of Janjaweed Militia in Darfur

Lt. Gen Abdallah is a native of North Darfur who joined the Sudan Liberation People’s Army (SPLA) in 1984 and became active in the Nuba Hills and Darfurian resistance. In 1989 he joined the Patriotic Salvation Movement in neighboring Chad based in Darfur. He served as an officer in the Chadian army for 23 years. He held senior intelligence and counterterrorism posts including as Coordinator of the Multi-National Joint Task Force of Nigeria, Chad and Niger. He is a December 2002 graduate of the Intelligence Officers’ Advanced and Combating Terrorism Courses, US Army Intelligence Center and Schools, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He was a Graduate Terrorism Fellow and is a Graduate of the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, Washington, DC, 2005. He was an International Fellow and Graduate of the US Army War College, Class of 2008.

Against this background we conducted this interview with General Abdallah.

Jerry Gordon:  General Abdallah thank you for consenting to this interview.

General Abdallah:  Thank you for the opportunity to present my views in the situation in the Sudan.

Gordon:  What is your assessment of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur and National Dialogue?

Abdallah:  Chad and Uganda are pursuing their national or personal interests. Therefore, they are not supporting Sudan peace, even though they are supporting President Bashir to remain in power. Their support is not based on fair peace negotiations but simply executing what Bashir dictates. They want the Darfurian resistance movements to sign a peace deal with President Bashir based on the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) in 2011 that expired and the National Dialogue document that Bashir and his collaborators produced on October 10, 2016. The Documents do not bring a peaceful resolution as the regime is not ready to implement them. What was achieved from the DDPD process during the past five years? The answer is thousands of people were killed, thousands of women were raped, over 600,000 people were displaced, and millions of animals and properties have been lost. More than half of Darfur’s land is occupied by new settlers the regime brought in from Chad, Niger, and Central African Republic. Despite continuous acts of genocide, President Bashir and his allies are celebrating what they have achieved as peace in Darfur.

Gordon:  How is President Bashir manipulating the National Dialogue peace process?

Abdallah:  President Bashir and his supporters created their own political parties and armed rebel groups. His regime negotiates with these groups and then signed peace deals in the name of Darfur with support of the international community. For example, during the closing ceremony of the so called National Dialogue President Bashir said, there were 36 Darfur rebel groups present. Imagine 36 Darfur rebel leaders in Khartoum. The question is who are these people? Are they really Darfurian rebels? This is how Bashir falsely declares that the Sudan government had signed peace deals with alleged rebel groups. President Bashir repeats the same scenario over and over and the international community keeps on listening and believing him. He continues committing atrocities because the international community supports him based on these false peace documents.

Gordon:  What is the extent of financial assistance that President Bashir has received from Arab governments?

Abdallah:  President Bashir receives financial assistance not only from Saudi Arabia and Qatar but from a number of other Arab countries, members of the Arab League, to support Janjaweed militias and other terrorist groups operating from Sudan. This financial assistance comes in the form of aid or investments. Saudi Arabia gave Sudan 4 billion dollars following Sudan’s support for the Gulf emirate and Saudi led coalition fighting against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Gordon:  What is the evidence of Bashir’s “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur?

Abdallah:  The evidence of ethnic cleansing in Darfur is clear. The regime armed Arab tribes and brought them in as settlers from neighboring countries. It gave them Sudanese nationality upon their arrival and promised they could occupy land if they liberated it from their owners. The government also provided these Arab tribes with arms, training, logistic support and grants and family allowances for their women and children. The regime reinforces these Arab settlers with Sudanese Armed Forces and air support. The regime unleashed these barbaric people and told them to burn villages, kill men, rape women including young girls and elders, seize everything from the Darfurian civilian population including their land. Over 4 million Darfurian people are now displaced and live in about 65 IDP camps. About 500,000 are refugees who live in 12 Camps in Chad, with 2,000 in the Central African Republic. This ethnic cleansing is committed by some Arab tribes against the Darfurian tribes of African origin.

Gordon:  The Republic of South Africa announced in late October 2016 that it was joining several other African nations and leaving the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague saying African Union (AU) nations can try their own. Neither the US nor Israel have either joined or ratified the Treaty of Rome.  What prompted that action and how does it impact on President Bashir’s outstanding ICC arrest warrant?

Abdallah:  If the AU member states rejected ratification of the Treaty of Rome and the ICC it does not mean that they have any intention of committing crimes under the treaty or violating Geneva Conventions. Those countries that refused to become members of ICC are not immune if they committed genocide, war crimes, and human rights abuses similar to what is occurring in the Sudan. Compared to Darfur, I do not see the Israelis have intention to commit genocide against Palestinian people contrary to what President Bashir is doing in Darfur.

AU members cannot try African leaders because they are the ones who commit crimes and do not recognize the crimes they have committed. A good example is Darfur, when the AU collectively failed to recognize that genocide had been committed in Darfur and must be stopped. Instead, they all supported Bashir, a man who committed genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. They do not want the ICC to persecute leaders like Bashir because they consider it an external intervention in African affairs. Instead, they would set up their own court and prosecute Bashir.

The AU should tell the world what are its capabilities and what type of crimes they are going to try. They watched 800,000 people killed in just 4 days in Rwanda. The AU failed to address the Darfur genocide that has been going on for more than 13 years. Let me illustrate that AU behavior from my own experience. I was among the Chadian officers that supported Idriss Deby Hitno to expel dictator Hussein Habre in 1990. Look how long it took to bring him to justice? What can you say if the international community, including African countries, allows dictators to kill people while they are in power and then it takes them 20 to 30 years to bring a criminal to justice? This is unfair and unacceptable because the process in the Chad illustration did not render swift justice. Unlike the AU prosecution of the former Chadian dictator, the ICC conducted reasonably prompt investigations and prosecuted those who committed crimes in Darfur. The ICC Darfur prosecution of Sudan’s President Bashir resulted in his indictment and issuance of an arrest warrant. That taught us we need a system in this world to stop rogue governments and their leaders continuously committing genocide and crimes against humanity. However, what should be a more important priority is stopping dictators from committing such heinous crimes and saving lives.

Gordon:  What should the US, UN and international community do to protect the people of Sudan from genocide?

Abdallah:  The US, UN and international community should stop cooperation with the genocidal Sudan regime in Khartoum. The Rapid Support Forces and Janjaweed militias should be designated as terrorists. Use of prohibited chemical weapons used in Jebel Marra, the Blue Nile, Nuba Hills and Kordofan regions against Darfurian and other groups in the Sudan should be stopped and the stocks destroyed. These have been manufactured in the Yarmouk military industrial complex established by Iran. The Sudan government must be forced to allow international community access to provide humanitarian aid to the displaced and beleaguered people in Jebel Marra, South Kordofan, Darfur, the Nuba Hills and the Blue Nile. One means of enabling that is the establishment of no-fly zones patrolled by US and coalition air units enforced by AU ground forces.

The Sudan United Movement (SUM) does not oppose peace while at the same time opposes plans that do not bring peace to the marginalized people of the Sudan. The Abuja peace plan was signed, but displacement of people didn’t stop. The Doha Peace Document for Darfur was signed, but the killing has not stopped. While Bashir and his collaborators were working on their National Dialogue Conference document, weapons of mass destruction were used on the people of Darfur and other conflict regions in the Sudan. Where is the peace that Sudan and the international community are talking about? SUM will not be part of such fraudulent peace plans. SUM believes peace cannot come in Sudan without regime change. Marginalization for more than 60 years in a failed state is enough.

Gordon:  Why has the Darfurian resistance movement failed and what does SUM need to carry out its mission?

Abdallah:  The resistance movement in Darfur failed because of the lack of sound leadership and international assistance. Some were only involved for either their own personal rather than national interests. We were abandoned to face the regime supported by the oil rich Middle East Arab states with nothing but empty hands. With SUM leadership we have begun to make that change. SUM has the capabilities to disarm Janjaweed militia terrorist groups and oppose the Sudan National Army. This will facilitate real peace and regime change discussions and bring democracy to the Sudan.

To achieve an effective resistance in Darfur and other conflict zones, SUM requires weapons including anti-tank and anti-aircraft such as MANPADs. With MANPADS we will be able to prevent Antonov planes from dropping barrel bombs on defenseless women and children. SUM also needs logistic supplies, communication equipment, and vehicles suitable for use in desert operations. We also require training on specialized equipment, civil administration and use of social media for information coverage and documentation.

Gordon:  Thank you for this compelling interview.

Abdallah:  You’re welcome.

The US–led coalition launched a major campaign to reclaim Mosul on October 17, 2016 with 30,000 Iraqi national troops, Shi’ite militias and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, assisted by 5,000 US and foreign advisers with air and heavy artillery support. Mosul was conquered by rampaging fighters of the Islamic State in June 2014, when Iraqi national army forces fled, abandoning weapons, vehicles and equipment. The Islamic State enriched itself with hundreds of millions of dollars in plundered gold, foreign currency and property abandoned by nearly a million Sunni, Christian and Kurdish residents of this second largest and predominately Sunni city with a previous population of over 2 million. On June 29, 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the charismatic self-styled leader ascended the rostrum of the central mosque in Mosul to declare an Islamic State or Caliphate under Shari’a Islamic Holy Law and himself as Caliph. The announcement was conveyed around the globe via social media websites and YouTube video encouraging the faithful to join in the Jihad extolled as a virtue of the Prophet Mohammed and his companions. Baghdadi implored the Muslim faithful to recognize the imperative “to rescue the caliphate from oblivion.” Through the various media both al-Baghdadi and his spokespersons extolled this message:

Hold your heads straight! Now you have a state and a caliphate which return to you, your dignity, your power, your rights and your sovereignty. The Islamic State created a link of fraternity between Arabs and non-Arabs, black and white. It unites the Caucasian, the Indian and Chinese, the Syrian, the Iraqi, the Yemenite, the Egyptian, the North African, the American, the French, the German and the Australian. They are all in the same trench, defending each other, watching others and sacrificing for each other. Their blood mixes under the same banner, for the same goal and within one same camp.

The ability to come to territory ruled under the example of the “Ancients,” the Salafi, Mohammed and his companions, in accordance with Shari’a attracted tens of thousands of young Muslim men and women to leave homes in the West and across the Muslim Ummah to join in fighting, dying and practicing pure Islam. The West and Sunni Muslim countries were stunned. They were enmeshed in the upheavals in the Middle East caused by the Arab Spring. Uprisings triggered in Tunisia in December 2010, the Syrian civil war in March 2011, the brief Muslim Brotherhood elected regime in Egypt (2012-2013) and overthrown by “reformist” President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The pure Islam of the Islamic State devolved into the butchery of  Christians, non-Muslim minorities like the Kurdish speaking Yazidis, beheading American and British captives, mass shootings and burnings of Iraqi Shi’ite prisoners, the burning alive of a Jordanian Muslim pilot, deemed an apostate, under the takfirism doctrine of the Islamic State. The threat posed by the Islamic State was a convenience for the nominally Shi’ite Alawite regime of Syrian Ba’athist President Assad in the more than five-year civil war that has produced nearly 500,000 dead. It enabled him to release radical Sunni prisoners to join the newly declared caliphate that facilitated the entry of Shi’ite Iran, proxy Hezbollah and ally Russia to turn their guns, bombs and attention on defeating the rebel opposition and Al -Qa’ida affiliate, the Jabhat Al-Nusra front. It also allowed Assad to use international prohibited chemical weapons against civilians and hold off Western involvement overturning his regime. Instead, led by President Obama, the US coalition chose to hit back at the Islamic State with the only boots available on the ground, the Syrian Kurdish PYD/YPG forces. That is until Islamist Turkish President unleashed an incursion in mid August 2016 following a staged coup aimed at purging both secularists and tens of thousands of adherents of the Hizmat cult of former Islamist ally, Sheik Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan has been rebuffed by Iraqi Shi’ite Premier Haider al-Abadi on his request to have contingents trained at a base in northern Iraq enter the fray in Mosul.

The question given the US-led coalition joint Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga force engaged in a grueling battle with Islamikazes of the Islamic State in Mosul is will the self-declared caliphate be destroyed or will it self destruct? The disturbing answers can be found in a new book by Dr. Raphael Israeli, former Professor of Islamic and East Asian studies and author of over 46 scholarly works, The Internationalization of ISIS: The Muslim State in Iraq and Syria.  Noteworthy is his 2003 book entitled, Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology. He presciently forecast the rise of a caliphate driven by suicidal Islamic fanatics, Islamikaze.

The Internationalization of ISIS: The Muslim State in Iraq and Syria by Raphael Israeli

As an historian of Islamic movements, Israeli addresses the grand sweep of the Islamic State rise in the vacuum created in both Syria and Iraq. It is based on the fatal attraction of the pure Salafism practiced under Shari’a by Islam’s founder and successors. Israeli delves into the strategic difference with al-Qa’ida from whence it originally emerged in Iraq. He separately treats the metastasizing terror affiliates in Egypt’s Sinai and Libya, as well as former Al Qa’ida affiliates in Africa, the AQIM and Boko Haram, who have sworn fealty to the self-declared Islamic State. Unlike al-Qa’ida that sprang from the success of Afghan rout of the Russians in 1989 backed by Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, Deobandi Pakistan with US CIA aid, the Islamic State holds land in which pure Islam can be practiced. Moreover, unlike al-Qa’ida it has wealth, admittedly stolen, to bolster its attraction across the globe. Israeli notes:

Despite all this and the odds against which ISIS is operating, it continues to attract Mujahedeen, defy the Americans and their coalition, and inspire other areas to follow their model. Establishing an Islamic World Government has been encrusted in the DNA of Muslim radicals since its beginnings. [That is reinforced in the case of the Islamic State by the prominence of former Iraqi Ba’athist Sunni officers and officials creating its oppressive structure under the control of the Shura governing all aspects of life in the Islamic State.]

Even when there is no caliphate, the tradition of authoritarian rule has been rooted in both Arab and Muslim lore which facilitated its revival.

The authoritarian rule in Islam naturally followed the footsteps of the Prophet, who was, and still is, considered infallible and the most perfect of men. Therefore he can commit no fault in government or in anything else. Through his campaigns in Arabia he ensured the title of Amir al – Mu’minim Commander of the Faithful, a title favored by caliphs and Sultans throughout the generations.

Salafis, like the Taliban, or ISIS, profess the creation of a caliphate first in order to impose Shari’a on all Muslims. The Brothers in Egypt embraced a more cautious approach to adoption of Shari’a that might frighten hesitant Muslims exposed to what he calls “westoxication.” The new wave of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra in Iraq and Syria, emphasized Islamization by force and terror as their agenda.

Thus, the Islamic State opposes democracy as a man made system that can’t compete with the divinely inspired Shari’a. Despite its problems and anachronisms, and a caliphate after a millennium and a half, it still looks to Muslims believers as the most trusted, known and promising avenue. The only system that could still lend legitimacy to the rulers based on Islamic tradition.

The reaction by the West against the rise of the Islamic State has been fractious and in the view of some a failure to date. He quotes Israeli analyst Reuven Paz observing:

The struggle led by the US and its allies appears thus far to be something of a Sisyphean war: ineffective, limited to scratches on the surface of the jihadi pyramid, does not touch the roots of the phenomenon, unable to end civil wars in Syria and Iraq, and relegated to serve as another layer in the continuing chaos there. For Paz, the destruction and devastation plaguing the Middle East is accompanied by a frightening thought in the Western World of Islamic State alumni returning to their native countries to undertake terror attacks.

Israeli posits what he considers as the Islamic radical “blueprint”:

1. The West must be defeated and put on the defensive.
2. A first step is to cultivate the rift between pro-Arab and pro-Muslim Europe and “Zionist controlled America.”
3. Europe’s turn will come after America is driven out of its hegemonic status in the world and Israel is defeated.
4. The US, by military and economic power, dominated the West, battled Islam, until the Obama Administration.
5. Pending anticipated victory, Islamic radicals must push Muslim governments and individuals to fund new recruits to Islam in the West. They raise money to support families of martyred Islamikaze through bogus zakat, Muslim charities. They erect mosques, Islamic centers and madrassas in world capitals to promote recruitment of Islamikaze for martyrdom operations.
6. Al-Qa’ida, Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS have vowed to eliminate Israel, Jews and Zionism.

In answer to the question of what to do about the Islamic State, Israeli offers two scenarios:

As things stand, the Islamic State will probably grow larger over the next few months – or years- and become more dangerous and influential in the Middle East and the World. ISIS can be made to disappear in one of two ways. First, a battle to the death that the world declares against it, putting “boots on the ground” to destroy or imprison the jihadists, down to the last man. The problem with that scenario is the high price for human life and resources the world will have to pay in order to bring it about. The second scenario is what has always happened in Islamic history: once a group begins to rule, internal feuds appear on ideology, religion, funds, personal differences, tribal and organizational animosities leading to eventual disintegration and its fall from power. The problem with this scenario is that it takes a long time and can span decades during which the organizations continue shedding blood and turning its subjects’ lives into hell.

From his analysis, Israeli drew these conclusions:

1. The advance of Islamic radicals like al-Qa’ida, the Islamic State and affiliates announces to the world the resurrection of Islam, despite centuries of defeat, humiliation and weakness.
2. The ease of the Islamic State and al-Qa’ida affiliates to vault unenforceable borders by Muslim regimes bodes ill for the future of Islamic territorial states.
3. The retreat of the West from the Islamic world, despite domestic civil wars, is likely to result in rapid Islamization and takeover of Muslim countries by radicals.
4. The Islamization of Muslim countries will encourage Islamic radical demands in the West for recognition of Shari’a, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist opinions publicly voiced and in foreign affairs.
5. Rapid succession of successful Islamic radical movements may likely spillover into adjacent Muslim states.
6. Extreme cruelty towards non-Muslim minorities under the tyranny of Islamic radicals enforces Shari’a law on all subjugated through demands for conversion, payment of Jizya taxes and the threat of extra-judicial death.
7. The Iranian Revolution and changes in Sunni Muslim countries under autocratic regimes signify that radical Islam can be exported anywhere it penetrates.
8. Successes of Muslim radicals, while temporary and fleeting, may encourage Islamization in non-radical Islamic states. [One compelling example is NATO member Turkey undergoing a purge of secular republican traditions replaced by Shari’a under Sunni Islamist President Erdogan.]
9. Given the abdication of an active role in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf under the waning Obama Administration, the dangers of a nuclear and missile equipped Iran might produce an ad hoc coalition among the Monarchies and Emirates of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Israel.
10. The hostility and enmity between Sunni Monarchies, Emirates and States versus countries of the hegemonic Shi’ite Crescent sought by Iran will escalate pitting Russia against US interests in the Middle East.
11. If the Radical Islamic movements are unchecked they will export their their struggle abroad. [The thousands of returning ISIS foreign fighters can and have wreaked terrorist havoc in home countries as exemplified by Islamikaze attacks in Paris, Brussels, Nice and Rouen. American sympathizers pledging fealty to the Islamic State have committed Jihad attacks in Chattanooga, San Bernardino, Ottawa and Orlando.
12. Muslim and Western leaders who distance themselves from Islamic terror attacks as “un-Islamic” or “anti-Islamic” deflect and deceive public attention from the Jihad imperative of doctrinal Islam.

As Israeli’s book ended in late 2015, we interviewed him regarding whether the conclusions he reached in The Internationalization of ISIS still held given recent developments. The following are his responses to our questions.

Jerry Gordon:  Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and ideologues like Egyptian Sayyid Qtub provided the ideological underpinnings of Sunni global terrorism that give rise to Al Qa’ida. Has that been eclipsed by the Salafism of the Islamic State?

Raphael Israeli:  No, on the contrary, the many international Islamic movements that emanated from the Muslim Brotherhood only proved over the years its validity and attractiveness to generations of young Muslims, both in Islam and the West.

Gordon:  What are the Qur’anic and Islamic doctrinal origins behind the Jihadist goals of the Islamic State?

Israeli:  The Qur’an is replete with references to the Infidels and the need to eliminate them in order to bring about the world Caliphate which should subjugate all the Infidels. ISIS does that efficiently by eliminating its enemies domestically in Syria and Iraq, and terrorizing the non-Muslims on their own turf.

Gordon:  Why is Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, killed by the US in Iraq in 2006, considered the “Godfather of ISIS?”

Israeli:  Because he started the idea, contrary to al-Qa’ida which was spread worldwide but had no territory, that in order to succeed the movement must be based somewhere. He started with the Sunni Anbar district in Iraq, but when he was killed, Baghdadi picked up the idea and enlarged it to Syria and Iraq, hence ISIS.

Gordon:  What created the sectarian ferment in 2011 that fostered the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq?

Israeli:  It was more a geo-political opportunity than a sectarian ferment. The idea was there, and the civil war and chaos in Syria provided the opportunity to seize territory. They started with remote northern Syria and expanded into the lawless areas of Northern Iraq, especially Mosul.

Gordon:  How were former Iraqi Ba’athist regime officers instrumental in creating the terrorist structure of the Islamic State?

Israeli:  Very much so. Contrary to conventional wisdom which regards their joining ISIS as a sort of vengeance for their dismissal from the military during the American de-Ba’athization process and the loss of their livelihoods and careers, the main factor here is that they are part of the Sunni minority which ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein. They lost their clout after his removal. ISIS retook the Sunni hegemony over the hated Shi’ites and their American rescuers.

Gordon:  What are global terrorist strategies of the Islamic State and how do they differ from those of Al Qa’ida from whence it was spawned?

Israeli:  al-Qa’ida spread the idea of fighting American arrogance and Jewish influence in the world everywhere they could, despite the fact that paradoxically they were the Qa’ida (Base). But that base was more metaphorical than physical and went nowhere. ISIS, by creating a real base showed that it can start from a certain territory and expand. From Syria and Iraq they indeed received the allegiance of the Sinai Peninsula, Libya and northern Nigeria (Boko Haram).

Gordon:  Why have tens of thousands of young Muslim men and women from the West, Russia, China and the Muslim Ummah been attracted to the Islamic State declared by self- styled Caliph, al-Baghdadi?

Israeli:  Because the idea looked to them much more practical than previous ones, which floated an ideology (like the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qa’ida) but had no means of implementing it. They are impressed by the purity, determination and readiness of ISIS; therefore they flock to its ranks. They saw a real Islamic state in the making and were captivated by the seriousness of its endeavor.

Gordon:  In your book, The Internationalization of ISIS, you discuss the expansion of the Islamic State with pledges of fealty by former Al Qa’ida affiliates across the Muslim Ummah. Who are among the more problematic groups who have switched allegiances?

Israeli:  The Sinai Peninsula where Egyptian rule is very shaky; the Libyan coast around Sirte, the native town of Qaddafi; and Northern Nigeria where the Boko Haram launched its ravages. Other territories, like Somalia, Yemen, were next in line. However, if ISIS loses in Iraq due to the unexpected Great Powers’ intervention, those expectations were somewhat dimmed.

Gordon:  How did the rise of the Islamic State assist the Islamic Republic of Iran in its goal of establishing a “Shia crescent” from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean?

Israeli:  Iran, which has repeatedly stated that Muslims should not fight other Muslims, is precisely acting in the reverse, realizing the rise of Sunni radical Islam like ISIS and al-Qa’ida is gnawing at its own ability to promote Shi’ite hegemony. Hence its support to the Shi’ites of Iraq and Yemen in their fight against the Sunnis, and their active support in Syria for Assad and the Hezbollah.

Gordon:  Why has the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State failed to identify the ideological threat espoused by the self-styled Caliphate?

Israeli:  Due to Obama’s determination to “engage” Islamic countries rather than fight them. Remember the Cairo speech when he took over. This has caused America to abandon the Middle East, to let down its most solid allies there and the Russians to rush in to fill the vacuum. This was a real political blunder. It was crowned by the deal with Iran and the support of the Shi’ite government in Iraq. America had engineered that deal in the first place, to the detriment of its Sunni allies and Israel, which as Romney had predicted “was thrown under the bus” by Obama.

Gordon:  Why did you conclude in your book, The Internationalization of ISIS, that the Islamic State’s Caliphate objective may persist for decades to come?

Israeli:  Because the idea of it is so strong and captivating among Muslim youth worldwide. Therefore, even if due to world powers’ intervention ISIS loses Iraq, and perhaps Syria thereafter, the idea, the aspiration, the ambition, will linger on for years, perhaps generations.

Gordon:  Given developments since the publication of The Internationalization of ISISwould you change any of the principal conclusions?

Israeli:  The book was based on the assumption, which still holds true, that if left to themselves, ISIS versus Iraq and Syria, nothing could stop the progress of the former. But when both great powers gang up against them, contrary to Obama’s reluctance to put boots on the ground, no one can resist them. This thinking was sound and remains sound. International intervention was a pragmatic and unexpected added factor.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. Also see Jerry Gordon’s collection of interviews, The West Speaks. To help New English Review continue to publish timely and interesting articles like this one, please click here.