BAGHDAD – The al-Qaida breakaway group that has seized much of northeastern Syria and huge tracts of neighboring Iraq formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state Sunday and demanded allegiance from Muslims worldwide.
The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, made the announcement in an audio statement posted online on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Muslim extremists have long dreamed of recreating the Islamic state – or caliphate – that ruled over the Middle East, much of North Africa and beyond in various forms over the course of Islam’s 1,400-year history.
Al-Adnani declared the group’s chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the new leader – or caliph – and called on jihadi groups everywhere, not just those in areas under the organization’s control, to swear loyalty to al-Baghdadi and support him.
“The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas,” al-Adnani said. “Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.”
Al-Adnani loosely defined the Islamic state’s territory as running from northern Syria to the Iraqi province of Diyala – a vast stretch of land straddling the border that is already largely under the Islamic State’s control. He also said with the establishment of the caliphate, the group was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant.
It was unclear what immediate impact the declaration would have on the ground in Syria and Iraq, though experts predicted it could herald infighting among the Sunni militants who have formed an alliance with the Islamic State in its blitz across northern and western Iraq.
“Now the insurgents in Iraq have no excuse for working with ISIS if they were hoping to share power with ISIS,” said Aymenn al-Tamimi, an analyst who specializes in Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, using one of several acronyms for the Islamic State. “The prospect of infighting in Iraq is increased for sure.”
The greatest impact, however, could be on the broader international jihadist movement, in particular on the future of al-Qaida.
But the Islamic State has managed to do in Syria and Iraq what al-Qaida never has – carve out a large swath of territory in the heart of the Arab world and control it.
“This announcement poses a huge threat to al-Qaida and its longtime position of leadership of the international jihadist cause,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, in emailed comments. “Taken globally, the younger generation of the jihadist community is becoming more and more supportive of (the Islamic State), largely out of fealty to its slick and proven capacity for attaining rapid results through brutality.”
Al-Baghdadi, an ambitious Iraqi militant who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, took the reins of the Islamic State in 2010 when it was still an al-Qaida affiliate based in Iraq. Since then, he has transformed what had been an umbrella organization focused mainly on Iraq into a transnational military force.
Al-Baghdadi has long been at odds with al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, and the two had a very public falling out after al-Baghdadi ignored al-Zawahri’s demands that the Islamic State leave Syria. Fed up with al-Baghdadi and unable to control him, al-Zawahri formally disavowed the Islamic State in February.
But al-Baghdadi’s stature has only grown since then, as the Islamic State’s fighters have strengthened their grip on much of Syria and now overrun large swathes of Iraq.
The Islamic State’s declaration comes as the Iraqi government tries to wrest back some of the territory it has lost to the jihadi group and its Sunni militant allies in recent weeks.
