A huge terror attack in Iran on 3 January killed around 100 people at the site of the memorial to Qassim Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). At a time when Iran’s support to the radical Sunni Islamist group Hamas has come under intense scrutiny, questions have been asked over who could have perpetrated such a deed. On 4 January, the commander of the IRGC’s paramilitary force declared that the attack was the work of Mossad and the CIA, which I don’t credit as remotely likely.
The attack, hitting Shi’a Muslims in an act of worship, had all the hallmarks of a takfiri outrage of the kind associated with Islamic State. Sure enough, on 4 January, Islamic State took responsibility for the attack, releasing images and names of the attackers.
The simple reason
In the bewildering chaos of the modern Middle East, it may seem inexplicable that a Sunni Muslim terror group attacks a country that supports other Sunni Muslim terror groups. But this attack is a reminder of the differences between Hamas and Islamic State. Whilst Hamas’s ideology regarding Jews is at an extreme of hostility and violence, it is based in a political manifestation of violence against Jews in the context of its desire to destroy the State of Israel. Islamic State’s list of enemies is far longer: it encompasses Shi’a Muslims, which it regards as heretics deserving of death, Christians, Jews as well as some moderate Sunni Muslims. This extreme form of Islamist militancy, in which none but the narrowest interpretation of Islam as practiced by Islamic State members themselves can be regarded as true Muslims, is known as takfiri Islam. (The word comes from the Arabic term for excommunication and has the same root as kufar - meaning ‘unbelievers’.)
This is not to try to create some kind of hierarchy of evil. For Hamas’s victims, it will be of no consolation to learn that some Sunni terror groups also want to kill other Muslims as well as Jews, Christians and others. But the status of Shi’a Muslims, who are in the majority in Iran, in the mindset of some very orthodox Sunni Muslims has at times been a fraught question. In Saudi Arabia, its Sunni clerics promoted the idea for years that Shi’a aren’t ‘proper’ Muslims. The Iraqi branch of Al-Qa’ida (AQI) took this idea to the next sinister level. AQI leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi made a point of targeting Shi’a in a campaign of mass casualty attacks across Iraq, killing thousands and sparking a civil war. These attacks were so extreme that Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of Al-Qa’ida worldwide, famously pushed back saying that Zarqawi’s tactics risked alienating Muslims. Other senior Islamist militants, such as Zarqawi’s mentor Al-Maqdisi, also criticised the idea of regarding Shi’a as non-Muslims. But Zarqawi’s approach took hold within AQI and within its successor entity, Islamic State.
The more complex one
Attacks on Shi’a Muslims in Iran by Islamic State are not new, and in the twisted logic described above could be said to make sense from their perspective. However, I wonder if there is a more complicated reason. The perpetrators of the bombing come from the Islamic State Khorasan branch - effectively the Southwest Asia franchise of Islamic State, covering an area largely in Afghanistan and also spreading into Iran. ISIS-K, as this group is known, has been in a protracted and vicious battle with the Taliban which, I suspect improbably to most readers, it regards as a Western puppet regime. At the same time, there has been considerable tension between the Taliban and the Iranian government, not least because of the Taliban’s mistreatment of Shi’a Muslims in Afghanistan.
Things changed in November when a major Afghan delegation visited Iran and patched up relations with the Islamic Republic. This was in part a case study of Muslim solidarity in response to events in Gaza, but also a recognition on the part of the Taliban that it has few allies and needs more of them. So the ISIS-K attack on Iran and on the tomb of Qassim Soleimani may also be a warning to Iranians of the risks of being too close to the Taliban. Such is the complexity of the modern Middle East, riven with chaos, opposing factions, and bewildering violence.
As ever, a thorough explanation of a complex situation
Than you, a lucid analysis.