Category: The Islamic State

NOTE: For prior parts in The Archivist series you can view an archive of it all here. And for his older series see: Musings of an Iraqi Brasenostril on Jihad.
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The Archivist: Unseen Islamic State Military Commanders Manual: Qualities and Manners of the Mujahid Commander
By Aymenn al-Tamimi

In keeping with its statehood image, the Islamic State (IS) seeks to present its fighting forces as akin to an organized military, with a bureaucratic department known as the Diwan al-Jund (Soldiers Department) as part of the system of Diwans to cover various aspects of state governance since the declaration of the Caliphate. To be sure, there is still a considerable degree of obscurity as to the nature of organization of the military. From the documentary evidence, names of various battalions have emerged such as the Yarmouk Battalion, the Furqan Brigade, the al-Qa’qaa’ battalion, the al-Sadiq Special Battalion. From the battalion names that are known, it would appear that they are wilaya [province] or region specific. For instance, the al-Qa’qaa’ battalion seems to be a specific product of the ‘Idad al-Fatiheen institute in the town of al-Bab.

In addition, there are also divisions of units explicitly defined according to capabilities such as sniper attacks and air defence, as well as operatives who may be defined as istishhadiyun [‘martyrdom operatives’- i.e. suicide bombers] and inghimasiyun [commandos]. Shari’i officials may also have a role to play in providing spiritual and moral direction before and after battles as well as during times when there are no battles. More broadly, a special-forces division exists by the name of Jaysh al-Khilafa/Jaysh Dabiq (the Caliphate Army/Dabiq Army) that operates across IS territory as circumstances require. It is also responsible for the dispatching of operatives abroad, undoubtedly to areas like Libya where IS has cultivated official wilayas and developed an administration resembling its bureaucratic model in Iraq and Syria.

More a relic of the past are foreign fighter battalions that had a high social media profile in the ISIS era (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham: April 2013-June 2014) such as the Katibat al-Battar al-Libi. These battalions notably dropped off the radar after the official Caliphate declaration, as the policy is to try to integrate muhajireen and ansar into the same fighting units, or failing that, at least integrate muhajireen of multiple nationalities rather than have foreign fighter battalions based around single nationalities or ethnicities.

Coming under the Diwan al-Jund is the Idarat al-Mu’askarat (Camps Administration), which, as its name suggests, is responsible for oversight of the military camps established by IS. For example, in coordination with the Diwan al-‘Eftaa wa al-Buhuth (Fatwa Issuing and Research Department), the Idarat al-Mu’askarat issues the basic theology manuals for training camp recruits, such as the Course in Tawheed (Muqarrar fi al-Tawheed) and Course in Fiqh (Muqarrar fi al-Fiqh).

This text in question, intended as a manual for military commanders, is also a product of the Idarat al-Mu’askarat. The majority of its contents is in the form of religious guidance with additional sections emphasizing bodily preparation and largely common sense advice for commanders, but a special appendix on the conduct of military missions is attached at the end. Considering that the latter sort of information is highly sensitive, it is hardly surprising that the cover of this text has been stamped with the label ‘not to be sold or distributed.’ Reference is also made in the text to an appendix on the security (amni) department of IS bureaucracy, but it is not included here.

Among the interesting pieces of information that emerge in the appendix set out here are the nature of relations between provincial governors [walis] and military commanders, the procedures for the arranging of a suicide bombing operation, the fact that the work of security officials should generally not be known by military officials, and the procedures regarding leave permits for soldiers. Furthermore, one should note that the positions of military amir and security amir in each wilaya defined in the appendix are separate. This is one line of evidence pointing to the forged nature of the purported IS document, marked as the wilaya of Ninawa, signed by the supposed ‘military and security official’ and promoted as genuine by the American anti-IS campaign spokesman Col. Steve Warren back in December 2015. The document in question is likely the work of Shi’a militia propagandists, as it portrayed all acts of destruction of property and abuses against civilians as IS-ordered atrocities designed to be blamed on Iraqi forces.

In terms of the religious guidance content of the book, it is generally unremarkable apart from the fact that it largely appears to have been plagiarised from an earlier work called “Jihad in the path of God,” of which the fourth subsection of the first chapter is entitled “Qualities of the mujahideen in the path of God” (also see here). Specifically, all the sections from pages 3-12 seem to have been lifted almost verbatim from this subsection, apart from some very minor modifications and abridgements (e.g. unlike the original, Sayyid Qutb, who is cited, is not mentioned by name in the text below but is rather just referred to as ‘one of the predecessors’). The work “Jihad in the path of God” was written by one Abdullah al-Ahdal, also known by his full name Abdullah Qadri al-Ahdal. Born in around 1356 AH [c. 1937-8] in the Abs district of northwest Yemen, he went to study at the Islamic University in Medina and graduated in 1385 AH [c. 1965-6], subsequently going on to obtain a doctorate at the Shari’a College in Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud Islamic University in Riyadh in 1402 CE [c. 1981-2]. His PhD thesis was the work “Jihad in the path of God,” which has gone through two printings.

As for the section on bodily preparation, this part too appears to have been plagiarised from elsewhere (cf. here).

Below is the text of the manual with translation in full.

Islamic State
Camps Administration