BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

GOVERNANCE
at least on paper. The first incarnation of IS’s predecessors who claimed to
be a state—the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), declared in October 2006—had
two cabinets of government ministries, the first announced in 2007 and the
second in 2009. These cabinets included some ministries overlapping with
the present-day diwans, such as ministries for oil, health, and public security.
In practice, however, these ISI ministries amounted to little in terms of
governance, even though documentary evidence emerging from the period
shows a developed internal bureaucracy and criminal organization adept at
generating revenue within areas of operation, as well as limited dependence
on foreign donors. Indeed, the limitations in governance were acknowledged
by ISI itself, in a treatise the group published by Sharia Committees head
Abu Othman al-Tamimi, titled “Informing the People about the Birth of the
Islamic State of Iraq,” which invoked the precedent of the Prophet, whose
enemies far exceeded him in knowledge and capabilities when he set up his
first state entity following the hijra to Medina.
As part of its claim to be the Caliphate, demanding the allegiance of the
world’s Muslims and desiring the conquest of the entire world, IS has sought
to expand beyond Iraq and Syria, giving an impression of territorial control.
This impression is most apparent in the declaration of official affiliates in the
form of new wilayat, deriving from declarations of allegiance to IS from the
areas in question. The Middle East and North Africa region was the target
of the first major wave of IS expansion announced in November 2014, with
wilayat declared in Sinai, Libya, Algeria, Bilad al-Haramayn (Saudi Arabia),
and Yemen. As the sites of official provinces of IS, one might expect these
areas to display signs of IS governance, mimicking the system in Iraq and
Syria. In fact, the picture suggests realization of IS governance in these provinces
is limited; the most successful initiative so far has been in Libya, but,
even there, IS’s fortunes have varied over time.
Generally speaking, a significant obstacle to the realization of IS governance
in the provinces beyond Iraq and Syria has been the lack of real and
contiguous territorial control. For comparison, note that IS governance in
Iraq and Syria gradually became more complex. With the development in
Syria of a network of strongholds and contiguous territory over the first half
of 2014, centered on the city of Raqqa, and then with the seizure of Mosul
and other cities in Iraq in June 2014, the territory came to span the borders
and served as an important basis for the caliphate declaration. In at least
two of the IS provinces, however—the Algeria province (Wilayat al-Jazair)
and Bilad al-Haramayn (Wilayat Nejd, Wilayat al-Hejaz, and Wilayat al-
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