BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS
sula (AQAP)—dwarfs that of IS. Much of IS’s propaganda and social media
output has focused on convincing observers it could challenge and eclipse
AQAP. On April 24, 2015, for example, the group announced the creation of
Wilayat Sana, releasing a nine-minute video entitled “Soldiers of the Caliphate
in the Land of Yemen.” 16 The polished video portrayed IS in Yemen as
a cohesive military organization, with some twenty members in matching
camouflage conducting training exercises in synchrony.
But despite a handful of high-profile defections from AQAP to IS, there
is no sign that the Islamic State is eclipsing AQAP’s strength in Yemen, and,
in fact, al-Qaeda has been able to help publicly air much of IS’s dirty laundry
in the country. The most prominent defector to IS was Mamun Hatim,
who held a leadership position in Ibb province and served on AQAP’s shura
council and sharia committee. Unfortunately for IS, Hatim—who became a
significant figure in IS’s Yemen propaganda—was killed in a May 2015 U.S.
drone strike. 17 Another heavily publicized defection came in October 2014,
when Supporters of the Caliphate in the Arabian Peninsula, believed to be
composed of AQAP defectors, announced their shift in loyalty from AQAP
to IS. 18 Immediately after the group pledged to Baghdadi, hundreds of journalists
based in Yemen received an email from an unknown sender informing
them of the IS group’s existence. The email featured AQAP’s logo, along with
the name of the new group, in an apparent attempt to foster the perception
that a significant portion of AQAP had defected to IS. 19
But the roster of defectors to IS was relatively thin, something that was
readily discernible to analysts who looked beyond IS’s claims and examined
the local history (see metric number 7) showing who the biggest regional
jihadist players are. IS’s problems became apparent in December 2015, when
seventy members and several senior leaders released a statement on Twitter
announcing they were defecting from the group’s local governorate. 20
The statement did not renounce IS as an organization, but the defectors
explained that their former governor (wali) had committed sharia violations
and accused the wali of committing “injustice against the weak” and expelling
foreign fighters.
This statement opened the floodgates and revealed the extent of discontent
in IS’s Yemen ranks. Immediately after the statement came out, another
defector released an article on Twitter outlining his reasons for leaving the
group and calling on the seventy defectors to renounce their pledge of allegiance
to Baghdadi entirely. IS adopted a pugnacious response, with IS sharia
council member Abu Ubaydah Abdul Hakim al-Iraqi condemning the defec-
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