The Islamic State’s Western Terrorist Campaign “Under the Microscope”: Terrorism as a Strategy of “Glocal” Insurgency

The increasing territorial losses of the Islamic State group (IS) in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds have led numerous commentators to predict a surge in IS-related terrorist attacks in the West. While the media was quick to report “related” terrorist attacks and IS claims of responsibility, few have actually attempted to assess the groups’ actual involvement in these attacks. Moreover, it was taken for granted that the prime objective of IS’s Western terrorist campaign was to obtain the withdrawal of the coalition from its core terrain. But why continue waging a terrorist campaign against the West while it gives no results? Given the starting assumptions that IS is a rational, unitary actor, this thesis aims to uncover the “whys” of IS’s Western terrorist strategy and its imbrication with an insurgent strategy by empirically investigating whether the loss of territorial control in Iraq and Syria corresponds to changes in IS’s degree of involvement in “related” terrorist attacks in...Show moreThe increasing territorial losses of the Islamic State group (IS) in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds have led numerous commentators to predict a surge in IS-related terrorist attacks in the West. While the media was quick to report “related” terrorist attacks and IS claims of responsibility, few have actually attempted to assess the groups’ actual involvement in these attacks. Moreover, it was taken for granted that the prime objective of IS’s Western terrorist campaign was to obtain the withdrawal of the coalition from its core terrain. But why continue waging a terrorist campaign against the West while it gives no results? Given the starting assumptions that IS is a rational, unitary actor, this thesis aims to uncover the “whys” of IS’s Western terrorist strategy and its imbrication with an insurgent strategy by empirically investigating whether the loss of territorial control in Iraq and Syria corresponds to changes in IS’s degree of involvement in “related” terrorist attacks in the West and in its claiming strategy. While the data does not support the above-mentioned hypothesis, it indicates a clear change in the group’s claiming strategy. This article concludes that IS’s Western terrorist strategy allows it to showcase its politico-military supremacy to attract die-hard sympathisers and that the interlacing of IS’s strategy of terrorism with its main strategy of “glocal” insurgency points to IS being a product of glocalisation processes of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation.Show less

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The Islamic State’s Western Terrorist Campaign “Under the Microscope”: Terrorism as a Strategy of “Glocal” Insurgency