By Vestnik Kavkaza
Recently the terrorist organization al-Qaeda criticized the activities of the terrorist organization Islamic State. According to Associated Press, one of leaders of al-Qaeda, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, commented on the executions of hostages and posted on Twitter: “It is a big mistake to record videos and spread them for the sake of Islam and jihad. It is barbarity.”
“Islamic State is a new phenomenon; and in history such phenomena appear ahead of great geopolitical changes,” Shamil Sultanov, the head of the Center for Strategic Studies “Russia – Islamic World,” believes. “We don’t know who the leaders of the Islamic State are, as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a nominee figure, I think. The fathers of Islamic State are experts of the Iraqi Intelligence Directorate Mukhabarat. Under Saddam Hussein the Intelligence Directorate of Iraq was one of the most powerful in the world. Mukhabarat consisted of nine special services; and Saddam built the structure in such a way that they were balanced, due to some experts from KGB. Over the course of 20 years an experienced staff skeleton had been formed; while the balancer was party intelligence.”
Sultanov says that in 2003 the Americans entered Iraq without striking a blow; 80-90 thousand officers of the Iraqi army were out of work. The head of the American occupation administration in Iraq in 2003-2004, Lewis Paul Bremer, didn’t know Arabic, or Iraq, but one of his initial decisions was lustration, so that Ba'ath members and the special services’ staff were not employed in state positions. “Where did 80-90 thousand officers of the best corps of the world disappear?” Sultanov asks. “Islamic State is a very professional structure. And the fact that there are no planted agents, information about the developments inside the organization or the dynamic of military tactics and strategy, confirm their high professionalism. The IS propaganda is also a sign of a good staff job.”
According to Sultanov, young people from 87 countries are fighting for IS: “Sometimes it is ridiculous when Kurds fight for Islamic State against [Kurdish armed groups] Peshmerga; when Jews come from Europe, convert to Islam and fight for IS. Islamic State has something that attracts attention. There is objective radicalization in the world. It concerns not only the Muslim world, but in the Muslim world the radicalization is the greatest. From this point of view, probably discussion centers were effective yesterday, the day before yesterday; but today, when it is one of the components of the ideological struggle, there is a question: what is justice? Can a Muslim live in an unjust society and follow, develop his faith?
… If he has a choice – whether to live in a non-Muslim but just state, or in an unjust Muslim state – the Muslim should choose justice. Why? In a just state he has an opportunity to develop his faith; and he cannot do it in a quasi-Muslim state where there is no justice, only empty words.”
Sultanov is sure that the problem of justice, the meaning of life, is becoming urgent today: “People arrive because they think that the undertaking is worth giving their lives for. The history of human civilization has showed that, in the end, the winners were the ideologies and political movements for which the supporters were ready to die. And when you meet people who are ready to give their lives for a complex of ideas in which they believe, which they defend, simple discussions and fatwas are not effective anymore. The time has come.”
