News Release
Declassified Documents Provide Insight into Origins of the Islamic State and How to Defeat the Group
May 19, 2016
Drawing from 140 recently declassified documents, this report comprehensively examines the organization, territorial designs, management, personnel policies, and finances of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Analysis of the Islamic State predecessor groups is more than a historical recounting. It provides significant understanding of how ISI evolved into the present-day Islamic State and how to combat the group.
Management, Money, and Terror in Iraq, 2005–2010
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Foundations of the Islamic State: Management, Money, and Terror in Iraq, 2005–2010 draws from more than 140 recently declassified documents to present a comprehensive examination of the organization, territorial designs, management, personnel policies, and finances of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI), both predecessors of the Islamic State. These records paint a clear picture of ISI practices and standard operating procedures. Leadership consciously designed the organization not just to fight but also to build an Islamic state governed by the laws dictated by its strict Islamist ideology. ISI was a vertically integrated organization with a central management structure and functional bureaus. It sought to replicate these structures at multiple lower geographic levels across territory. Each geographic unit had substantial autonomy to pursue the group's strategic objectives but was required to send frequent reports to the group's leadership; the central organization used these reports to inform decisions and provide strategic guidance. ISI paid its personnel a wage that would draw true believers rather than opportunists; trained and allocated its membership with an eye toward group effectiveness; raised revenues locally through diversified sources; and was able to maintain itself, albeit at much reduced strength, in the face of a withering counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategy put in place by its opponents, starting in late 2006.
An analysis of the Islamic State predecessor groups is more than a historical recounting. The lessons from examining the group's history are useful for setting expectations about the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Islamic State and its ability to combat its opponents, designing a coordinated and effective campaign against it, and understanding why it might be able to survive such an effort and sustain itself in the future, albeit perhaps at a lower level of threat. Defeating the Islamic State will require persistence. The record of counter-ISI operations from 2006 through 2010 shows that military action and political accommodation can work together to degrade the group substantially, if not defeat it.
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Iraq War
Chapter Three
The Organizational Economics of Insurgency and Terrorism
Chapter Four
Organizing Insurgency and Terrorism in Iraq
Chapter Five
Foreign Fighters, Human Capital, and Terrorism in Iraq
Chapter Six
Islamic State of Iraq Compensation
Chapter Seven
The Fates of Terrorists: Tracking Militants' "Career Paths"
Chapter Eight
Assessing the Islamic State of Iraq's Finances: The Governorate Dimension
Chapter Nine
Assessing the Islamic State of Iraq's Finances: Central Activities and Financial Control
Chapter Ten
Conclusions and Implications
Appendix A
Captured Documents: Description, Methodology, and Analysis
Appendix B
Research on Covert and Clandestine Organizations
Appendix C
Compensation Documents List
This research was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. Additional partners and funders are listed in the acknowledgments.
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