The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS
PRAISE FOR
The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS
“The first rule of warfare—indeed, of survival in a dangerous world—is to know your enemy. As always, Robert Spencer is scholarly, thorough, fearless, and insistent in making sure we know the Islamic State. The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS dispenses with the politically correct handwringing and connects the dots between jihadist ideology and savage action. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.”
—Andrew C. McCarthy, contributing editor of National Review and New York Times bestselling author of The Grand Jihad, Willful Blindness, and Islam and Free Speech
“Robert Spencer’s The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS contains everything the people of the free world need to know about the Islamic State. Islam is the foremost threat to freedom, and to every free person, in the world today. This book shows how ISIS plans to sow murder and mayhem in our countries, how it is setting out to realize those plans, why it is so appealing to Islamic youths in the West, and above all, how it can and must be stopped, namely by confronting its Islamic ideology. As Robert Spencer writes, we should challenge mosques and Islamic schools in the West and act upon the knowledge that our ideas, our way of life, and our civilization are better than the Islamic ideology of ISIS. Everyone should read this fantastic book by one of the most courageous Islam experts of our time.”
—Geert Wilders, member of parliament in the Netherlands and leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV)
“Robert Spencer has been telling, and warning, us of the activities of the jihadists since 2003. Every single day for twelve years he has kept a vigilant eye on all the barbarisms of the Islamic terrorists and is surely the best informed and almost the only truly qualified expert capable of analyzing the emergence, development, and ideology of the monstrous death cult known as ISIS. Spencer also offers ways to combat this group, a group that President Obama refuses to recognize as posing any threat to American security and interests. On so many sad occasions when he was not taken seriously enough, Spencer was forced to remind us, ‘I told you so.’ It is time to listen to Robert Spencer.”
—Ibn Warraq, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim and Defending the West
“Robert Spencer has given us a series of immensely informative and accurate books, enlarging our knowledge on vital current issues. This latest one adds a potent analysis of ISIS, the most pressing danger of our time, which Spencer knows to its core. This essential book provides us with the intellectual tools that are indispensable for successfully overcoming this threat to our civilization, and should be widely read. It is an urgent necessity.”
—Bat Ye’or, author of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis and Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide
“Here is everything you need to know about the gravest threat to the U.S. and the free world today. Spencer goes way beyond the superficial cable headlines and the misleading conventional news reports into the deepest levels of ISIS that no other analyst has ever gone before. It is an eye opening masterpiece that will leave you absolutely shocked. Robert Spencer is truly amazing in how he breaks through the fog of denial and peels away layer upon layer of misinformation surrounding ISIS; how he shows the unparalleled savagery of ISIS and why Western leaders are living in lala land when they ludicrously assert that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam; and discards and destroys the political correctness in Washington that has masked the existential danger to our society by the continued growth of ISIS and the continued charade that it is merely a ‘death cult.’ If you want to know the truth and full story, you have to read Spencer’s book. If you want to blind yourself to reality and the true danger to your family and friends, then ignore this book at your peril. I have been investigating Islamic terrorism for nearly twenty-five years and I can honestly state that this book is one of the most important books on terrorism I have ever read. Buy copies for your family members, for your friends, and last but not least for your elected political leaders.”
—Steven Emerson, author of American Jihad and Jihad Incorporated
“ISIS is here. The threat it poses is real. It means to bring blood and chaos to the US, while our leaders deny and dissemble about what the group is, why its appeal is so strong, and what can and should be done about it. Robert Spencer is a singular voice unafraid to tell these unwelcome truths. If sanity still prevailed in our government and media, this book would be required reading for all elected officials and journalists. Here at last are the truths they’re afraid to tell and abjectly ignorant of how to confront.”
—Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative
The COMPLETE INFIDEL’S GUIDE to ISIS
Copyright © 2015 by Robert Spencer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.
Regnery® is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation
First e-book edition 2015: 978-1-62157-464-4
Originially published in hardcover, 2015:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spencer, Robert, 1962- author.
The complete infidel’s guide to ISIS / Robert Spencer.
pages cm
Summary: “ISIS is on a campaign to destroy the Western world of “infidels.” Who is ISIS? What do its leaders believe? And why exactly do they hate us? New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer, author of The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, takes on the Islamic State in The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS”--Provided by publisher.
1. IS (Organization) 2. Terrorism--Religious aspects--Islam. 3. Religious fundamentalism. 4. Jihad. 5. Terrorism--Iraq. 6. Terrorism--Middle East.I. Title.
HV6433.I722S64 2015
363.32509567--dc23
2015026643
Published in the United States by
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For all the people around the world
whom the Islamic State is threatening to kill or enslave:
may you prevail and prosper
CONTENTS
An ISIS Timeline
Author’s Note
Introduction
CHAPTER ONEBorn of Blood and Slaughter
CHAPTER TWOISIS Comes to America
CHAPTER THREEIrresistible ISIS
CHAPTER FOURHow They Did It—and Who’s Trying to Stop Them
CHAPTER FIVEInside the Islamic State
CHAPTER SIXThe Caliphate: What It Means and Why It Matters
CHAPTER SEVENThe Caliphate’s Bloody History
CHAPTER EIGHTIs the Islamic State Islamic? (Is the Pope Catholic?)
CHAPTER NINEOn the Islamic State’s To-Do List (Rome, Non-Muslims, and the Final Showdown)
CHAPTER TENHow to Defeat ISIS—and Why We Must
Acknowledgments
Notes
AN ISIS TIMELINE
The Historical Antecedents and Meteoric Rise of the Islamic State
632
Death of Muhammad.
632–661
The Rightly Guided Caliphs.
661
The fourth caliph, Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali, is killed. Controversy over Ali will lead to the division of Muslims into Sunni and Shia (Sh‘atu ‘Al, the Party of Ali).
661–750
Umayyad Caliphate.
750–1258 and 1261–1517
Abbasid Caliphate (restored in the latter period under the Mamluk sultans).
909–1171
Rival Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa.
1147–1269
Rival Almohad Caliphate in North Africa and Spain (where the Umayyads also had a revived caliphate from 929 to 1031).
1517–1924
Ottoman Caliphate.
1744
Muhammad ibn Saud, whose family will one day rule Saudi Arabia, undertakes a mutual pact of allegiance with ‘Abd al-Wahhab, a reformist Sunni preacher leading an Islamic revival movement.
1924
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, abolishes the Ottoman Caliphate.
1928
Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna founds the Muslim Brotherhood, which aims to restore the caliphate and return “Andalusia [Spain], Sicily, the Balkans, the Italian coast, as well as the islands of the Mediterranean . . . all of them Muslim Mediterranean colonies . . . to the Islamic fold.”
1938
Oil, which will enrich the Saud family and finance their $100 billion worldwide campaign of Wahhabi propaganda instrumental in the resurgence of Islam in the late twentieth century, is discovered at Daharan, Saudi Arabia.
1966
Ahmed Fadhil Nazar al-Khalaylah, who will become internationally famous as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the precursor organization to ISIS, is born in Jordan.
1979
The Islamic Revolution in Iran and the seizure of the U.S. embassy there bring resurgent Islam to the attention of the West.
1989
In the first effective attempt to apply Islamic blasphemy law in the West, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the death of novelist Salman Rushdie; Rushdie goes into hiding. Zarqawi travels to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen fighting against the Soviets.
1992
Zarqawi, having returned to Jordan and founded the Jund-al-Sham (Soldiers of the Levant) jihadi group, is arrested when firearms and explosives are found in his house.
1999
Zarqawi is released from prison in a general amnesty. Upon the Jordanian authorities’ discovery of the “Millennium Plot” to bomb a luxury hotel and tourist attractions, he flees to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, where he runs a training camp funded by Osama bin Laden and founds Jama‘at al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad (the Party of Monotheism and Jihad), the forerunner organization to ISIS.
2001
Al-Qaeda strikes New York and the Pentagon, and the U.S. invades Afghanistan.
2002
Party of Monotheism and Jihad members are arrested for plotting to kill Jews in Germany, and Zarqawi goes to Iraq, where he expects a U.S. invasion.
2003
The U.S. invades Iraq, and Zarqawi takes a leading role in the bloody insurgency. His Party of Monotheism and Jihad serves as a hub for foreign jihadis flocking to Iraq.1 Their terror attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqis who cooperate with the Americans (or who have religious differences with Zarqawi’s brand of Sunni Islam) will kill thousands of people.2
2004
The First and Second Battles of Fallujah, after Blackwater contractors’ burnt bodies are hung from a Euphrates River bridge. The Nick Berg beheading video is released, bringing international attention to Zarqawi’s leadership in the insurgency in Iraq and to his gruesome tactics. Zarqawi formally aligns himself with Osama bin Laden and changes his group’s name to Tanzim Qai’dat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers, which will become infamous as al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI.
2005
The U.S. puts a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi.
2006
Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. airstrike, and al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers, better known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), renames itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). In what comes to be known as “the Anbar Awakening,” Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar Province turn against the brutal AQI/ISI jihadis and ally themselves with the U.S. and the Shia-led government of Iraq.
2007
“The Surge” of U.S. troops in Iraq.
2010
The self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable cart proprietor who has been abused by the police sparks the Arab Spring.
2011
Arab Spring protests spread to Syria, Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad attempts to suppress them with violence, and civil war breaks out. Jihadis associated with the Islamic State of Iraq travel from Iraq into Syria to take part in the fight.3 In December, the last U.S. troops leave Iraq. President Barack Obama, celebrating the withdrawal as a “moment of success,” claims that “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq.”
2012
Obama draws a “red line” but takes no effective action on the war in Syria, other than to arm anti-Assad “rebel” groups that are often aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq.
2013
Reports emerge of Islamic Sharia law being imposed in areas around Raqqa, Syria, held by rebels fighting against Assad’s government.4 The Islamic State of Iraq renames itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/al-Sham (ISIL or ISIS), signaling its claim to Syrian territory. In July, hundreds of jihadis escape from Abu Ghraib and another prison just outside Baghdad, and ISIS claims credit, boasting the long-planned prison break was effected using suicide bombers and a dozen car bombs.5
2014
JANUARY
Taking advantage of clashes between the Shia-controlled government of Iraq and Sunni tribes in Anbar Province, ISIS seizes control of Fallujah. Asked by an interviewer for the New Yorker about the jihadi flag flying over the city, where Americans had sacrificed so much in 2004, President Obama compares ISIS to “a jayvee team.”
FEBRUARY
ISIS and al-Qaeda officially split.
JUNE
ISIS begins a lightning offensive across northern Iraq with the bombing of a police station south of Samarra.6 The jihadis seize Iraqi population centers and gain control of territory on the border between Iraq and Syria. Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province and one of the largest cities in Iraq, falls to ISIS, demonstrating the weakness of the Iraqi armed forces (who are routed despite outnumbering the jihadis fifteen to one),7 leaving significant American military materiel and approximately half a billion dollars in ISIS hands, and creating as many as half a million refugees. The jihadi group bulldozes the border between Iraq and Syria and, on June 29, ISIS declares a new caliphate, renaming itself the Islamic State.
JULY
The new Caliph Ibrahim (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) gives his inaugural speech, rallying the worldwide Muslim ummah to fight “the camp of the Jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr [unbelievers], all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews.”The Islamic State attacks Kobani in the autonomous Rojava region of Syrian Kurdistan; in the next three months, three hundred thousand Kurds from this area will flee into Turkey.8
AUGUST
ISIS routs Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and perpetrates a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi religious minority, driving tens of thousands from their homes into the Sinjar Moutains—where hundreds of children die from thirst and exposure to the elements—carrying out forced conversions and massacres, and making thousands of women sex slaves. The U.S. begins bombing raids against ISIS; Peshmerga and Iraqi forces recapture the Mosul dam, but not the city of Mosul. On August 14, al-Qaeda in th
e Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen aligns itself with the Islamic State. On August 18, a video is posted to YouTube showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley—and threatening to kill Steven Sotloff (a threat that is carried out two weeks later).
SEPTEMBER
President Obama tells the American people, “We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.” Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad Adnani calls Muslims living in the West to mount jihad attacks in their home countries.
OCTOBER
The FBI detains three Denver teenagers on their way to the Islamic State, presumably to become jihadi brides.9 “Lone wolf” jihadi Zale Thompson, apparently inspired by the urgings of ISIS, attacks four police officers with a hatchet in Queens, New York.
2015
JANUARY
Said and Cherif Kouachi, affiliates of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, murder twelve people in Paris at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which has published cartoons of Muhammad. Two days later, in an attack coordinated with the Kouachis (who by this time are cornered with a hostage at a printing shop outside Paris), their associate Amedy Coulibaly, an Islamic State supporter, takes hostages at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris and murders four Jewish men there. On January 27, the ISIS siege of Kobani is broken by Kurdish forces and U.S. airstrikes.
MARCH
Boko Haram pledges allegiance to the Islamic State.