ISIS Is Developing Bureauocracy

Seized Documents Reveal ISIS' Department of 'War Spoils'

Monday, 28 Dec 2015 10:15 AM

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ISIS has set up departments to handle "war spoils," including slaves, and the exploitation of natural resources such as oil, creating the trappings of government that enable it to manage large swaths of Syria and Iraq and other areas.

The hierarchical bureaucracy, including petty rivalries between officials, and legal codes in the form of religious fatwas are detailed in a cache of documents seized by U.S. Special Operations Forces in a May raid in Syria that killed top IS financial official Abu Sayyaf. Reuters has reviewed some of the documents.

U.S. officials say the documents have helped deepen their understanding of a militant group whose skill in controlling the territory it has seized has surprised many. They provide insight into how a once small insurgent group has developed a complex bureaucracy to manage revenue streams - from pillaged oil to stolen antiquities - and oversee subjugated populations.

"This really kind of brings it out. The level of bureaucratization, organization, the diwans, the committees," Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama's special envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, told Reuters.

For example, one diwan, roughly equivalent to a government ministry, handles natural resources, including the exploitation of antiquities from ancient empires. Another processes "war spoils," including slaves.

"Islamic State is invested in the statehood and Caliphate image more so than any other jihadist enterprise. So a formal organization, besides being practical when you control so much contiguous territory and major cities, also reinforces the statehood image," said Aymenn al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum think tank and an expert on ISIS' structure.

The documents also show how "meticulous and data-oriented" IS is in managing the oil and gas sector, although it is not a sophisticated operation, said Amos Hochstein, the State Department's top official for energy affairs.

U.S. officials said the documents have helped the anti-IS coalition to pinpoint vulnerabilities. The United States and its allies have been using air strikes to degrade the group's oil infrastructure and target key officials.

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Diwan

The documents show the Islamic State is not immune to the rivalries and personality clashes that typify bureaucracies everywhere. A Nov. 21, 2014 letter from the Diwan of Natural Resources emphasizes that Abu Sayyaf is in charge of handling antiquities.

"The reason being is that he is very knowledgeable in this field and that Abu Jihad al-Tunisi is a simpleton who can't manage the division," it says.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents it obtained, which represent a fraction of the material seized in the Syria raid. U.S. forces captured a huge amount of data in the form of computer hard drives, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs and papers.

Many of the seized documents are fatwas, or religious rulings, covering issues from rape of female prisoners and the treatment of slaves with minor children to when it is permissible for a son to steal from his father to fund travel to fight jihad, or holy war.

Reuters reported last week on a previously undisclosed ruling by the Islamic State's Research and Fatwa Committee that sanctions the harvesting of human organs. The fatwa raises concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.

A booklet entitled "From Creator's Rulings on Capturing Prisoners and Enslavement," lays out rules on enslaving women seized from vanquished "infidels." The October 2014 document, reviewed by Reuters, attempts to ground the rules in Islamic law.

Citing sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, the booklet calls for both kindness and cruelty to captives by Islamic State fighters. Enslaved women should not be separated from their children, it says, but elsewhere the rules allow Islamic State fighters to have sex with female slaves.

Middle East Forum's Tamimi said the fatwas are intended to bolster Islamic State's claim that it is a legitimate state.

The rules not only apply to captured territory in Iraq and Syria but also its self-declared provinces in Africa, the Sinai and South Asia. They cover even mundane issues.

In the documents, there is a ruling on proper procedure for filling out the personal details of prospective fighters: name, gender, and communications method - telephone, telegram, Skype or the mobile messaging service WhatsApp.

© 2015 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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We Have Muslim Brotherhood Moles Within The US State Department, One Is An Ambassador Now Running The Anti-ISIS Program

Ambassador Accused of Siding with Islamists in Egypt Now a Leader of ISIS Coalition Strategy

Twenty days before the caliphate was created, Anne Patterson said "we can do much" to "contain and roll back the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant."

by
BRIDGET JOHNSON

Bio

September 18, 2014 - 5:57 pm

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WASHINGTON — One of the point people at the helm of the State Department’s strategy against the Islamic State and coalition-building effort is the U.S. ambassador reviled in Egypt for cozying with the Muslim Brotherhood during the summer 2013 Tamarod protests.

Both President Obama and Anne Patterson were lambasted by protesters as propping up the Muslim Brotherhood and sanctioning the Islamists’ abuses against the Egyptian people. As the U.S. envoy in Cairo, Patterson discouraged the epic protests against Islamist rule and reportedly tried to dissuade Coptic Christians from taking part.

Egyptian protesters were not shy about expressing their feelings of betrayal, hoisting banners that accused Obama of supporting terrorism in backing the Morsi government and holding photos of Patterson smiling and laughing at a meeting with Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie. “We know what you did last summer,” read one banner, while another said, “Anne Patterson, leave Egypt now and go to hell!!!”

“Wake up America, Obama backs up a fascist regime in Egypt,” said one banner, while another placed an international “no” symbol over Obama’s face and read, “Obama, you can’t fool your people and the world any more. You finance & back terrorism.”

Al-Ahram newspaper ran a piece accusing Patterson of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to smuggle fighters in from Gaza to “spread chaos” in the country.

“Your article’s claim that I personally am involved in a conspiracy to divide and destabilise Egypt is absolutely absurd and dangerous,” she wrote in a letter slamming the article as “outrageous, fictitious, and thoroughly unprofessional.”

When she left the ambassador post at the end of August, Egyptians partied outside the U.S. Embassy in a “good riddance” celebration.

Patterson was promoted to assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs at the end of last year.

Secretary of State John Kerry stressed to both the House and Senate foreign affairs committees this week that Patterson is one of the team leaders in building and executing the anti-ISIS coalition strategy.

Kerry recently brought on board retired Gen. John Allen, who led coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013, to act as “Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.”

“Ambassador Brett McGurk as well as Assistant Secretary Anne Patterson, who was so much a part of the effort against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, are also leading the team,” Kerry told House lawmakers.

After telling much the same to the Senate committee, Kerry added, “The fact is if we do this right, then this effort could actually become a model for what we can do with respect to the individual terrorist groups in other places that continue to wreak havoc on the efforts of governments to build their states and provide for their people.”

McGurk is a deputy assistant secretary of State now serving as Allen’s senior envoy with the rank of ambassador. Earlier this month, McGurk said that an ISIS strategy included the hope that Sunni tribal leaders will get “sick and tired” of the terror group and kick them out of territory.

Patterson accompanied Kerry on his travels, last week into this week, to Jeddah, Ankara, Cairo and Paris to build the coalition-in-the-works much touted by the administration.

In Ankara, Kerry called Patterson “not just a three-time ambassador and an ambassador of recent time to both Pakistan and to Egypt, but also one of our nation’s top diplomats deeply respected in the region, and she will continue to lead our diplomacy throughout the Middle East.”

At a May hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) noted that Patterson previously “came in here and wanted to talk about a strategy on Syria and talked about the fact that they had one.”

“…So you know, Anne said she had a strategy and they wanted to share with us this strategy. It’s been 41 days. I haven’t gotten a phone call. Mr. Chairman, have you gotten a phone call regarding a Syria strategy? I don’t think so.”

In June, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said members emerged from a classified briefing delivered by Patterson skeptical about how much of a handle the Obama administration had on the Iraq crisis.

“During today’s briefing, members of the committee expressed grave concern over the threat posed to Iraqis, the region, and the national security interests of the United States, by this al-Qaeda off-shoot,” Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said in regard to the seizure of Iraqi cities, including Mosul, by ISIS.

“Having failed to act months ago with drone strikes – as repeatedly requested by the Iraqi government – it is clear that the Obama administration is struggling to respond to this urgent situation,” Royce said. “Members of the committee pressed back on the notion that Iran could be a ‘constructive’ partner. While the administration continues to ‘review its options’ the threat from this al-Qaeda group grows greater and greater.”

That month, Patterson told the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, that “we see important diplomatic and security challenges that will require more tailored strategies if we are to succeed.”

“I believe we can do much together to contain and roll back the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s aspirations to create a terrorist state in western Iraq and eastern Syria. ISIL draws on the widespread anger in the region and beyond over the Assad regime’s brutal repression of its people — repression supported by Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. To defeat ISIL, the United States and the countries of the region need to work in concert — and overcome some differences — to develop effective policies and durable solutions to this dangerous threat,” Patterson said.

The caliphate was declared by ISIS 20 days later.

“Counter-terrorism strategies sometimes require the use of military power, but we must also use other tools, including diplomacy and development to take on the appeal that terrorists still can have for angry, disenfranchised and unemployed young people,” Patterson also said. “And as allies, we need to strengthen our business and people-to-people ties.”

Last week, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) recalled in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that in June Patterson told lawmakers she was “optimistic that the elections in Libya, which were the third in less than two years, would be an important step forward toward Libya’s stability.”

“Now we see that that was misplaced optimism as the situation is worse than ever,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “…In our sub hearing Assistant Secretary Patterson said ‘the most urgent objective we have is for counterterrorism.’ Yet three years after Gadhafi and over a year after the U.S. committed to train the General Purpose Force, GPF, not a single one of the 5,000 to 8,000 planned forces has in fact been trained.”