Recent attacks on Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait suggest the Islamic State strategy in the Gulf is to provoke and exploit sectarian strife. The group’s actions are causing concerns about governments’ ability to respond without further inflaming sectarian tensions.
Four experts weigh in on the recent bombings in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and each country’s ability to address sectarian strife. Please join our debate and contribute your own thoughts.
The Islamic State Exploits Entrenched Anti-Shia Incitement
Toby Matthiesen
Toby Matthiesen, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and the author of The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism. Follow him on Twitter @TobyMatthiesen.
The Islamic State in Najd declared that the recent deadly attacks on Shia mosques in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are the start of a campaign to rid the Arabian Peninsula of all the “polytheists” and “rejectionists.” Further attacks are possible across the Gulf, for example in Bahrain or Oman. The Shia of the Gulf have thus emerged as a key target of IS as the group tries to expand there and destabilize Gulf governments.
The Islamic State seeks to export a tactic that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and IS’s predecessor organizations had successfully employed in Iraq: target Shia civilians in order to fuel sectarian strife, which will militarize some Shia and push them towards Iran, in turn driving some Sunnis to support IS. In the Gulf and particularly in Saudi Arabia, IS aims to cause a rise in Shia militancy (there has been a largely peaceful protest movement since 2011) and increase distrust between the Shia and the state and between the Shia and the rest of society. In many ways, the Shia are an easier target for the Islamic State than foreigners holed up in their fortified compounds, and attacks on them are less controversial within mainstream Saudi society than attacks on Sunni Saudi soldiers and policemen are.
In Saudi Arabia, IS can feed on decades of anti-Shia incitement in schools, Islamic universities, and the media. Indeed, many of the Gulf militants that join the jihad in Syria and Iraq are driven by a desire to counter Iranian and Shia influence—foreign policy goals that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are also working toward.
The attacks on Gulf Shia have thus highlighted the religious policies of the Gulf countries, in particular Saudi Arabia’s discrimination against its own Shia minority. The Saudi government has stepped up security and claims to have foiled even larger bombings of Shia mosques. But there are no indications that any of the religious policies will be changed. But without a reversal of the anti-Shiism that underpins Saudi domestic and foreign policies, IS will be able to further exploit one of the Gulf state’s main contradictions: that there are Shia in all the Gulf states who are the “other” of the religious nationalism propagated by some Gulf states. The killing of dozens of Gulf Shia at the hands of (Saudi) bombers loyal to IS has thus highlighted a problem that many Gulf governments would rather remain silent about—but this is no longer possible.
Iran’s Sectarian Policies in the Region Benefit the Islamic State
Mansour Almarzoqi
Mansour Almarzoqi, an academic and researcher on Saudi politics at Sciences-Po Lyon, France. Follow him on Twitter @0Albogami.
Iran’s sphere of influence in the region is built on two factors: a regional atmosphere of sectarian conflict and weak central governments. This is also exactly the same environment where the Islamic State (IS) can operate most effectively. In the end, by expanding its influence, Iran paves the way for the expansion of IS, and vice-versa.
Because of isolation and economic sanctions, Iran has not been able to rely on the usual tools of the nation-state to influence players in the international arena. Consequently, Tehran resorted to non-state actors, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. To build alliances with these non-state actors and influence their behavior, Iran has relied on sectarianism as a tool. Hence, it is no coincidence that all these groups are affiliated to Shia Islam. Nonetheless, in order for these non-state actors to be effective in recruitment and mobilization, there must be a heightened sense of sectarian identity, which they can seek through sectarian conflict. In addition, central governments must be weak, or else non-state actors would not be effective. But these factors, which favor Iran, also pave the way for the expansion of IS.
Moreover, IS maintains that Iran and the West seek to establish a new Sykes-Picot agreement, negotiating the division of the region once again. In that regard, IS insists that Saudi Arabia is too weak to become independent of Western influence or confront Iranian expansionism. So the group asserts it is the sole actor capable of countering Iranian and Western influence in the region, and therefore everyone must join it.
But when Saudi Arabia started the “Decisive Storm” campaign in Yemen to restore the legitimate government and stop the Houthi invasion of Yemeni cities, the kingdom demonstrated its ability to act independently of the West and its determination to confront Iranian expansionism. Thus IS and Saudi Arabia are engaging in one-upmanship. The Islamic State is now forced to show that it is the only defender of Sunni Islam, hence its attacks on Shia in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And building on this argument, Iran has been able to claim to Arab Shia that their sole choice is between submitting to IS or to Iran.
Kuwait is Shielded From Sectarian Strife
Suliman Al-Atiqi
Suliman Al-Atiqi, a PhD candidate at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and a regular contributor to Sada.
On June 26, 2015, a suicide bomber wreaked havoc on the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan. The perpetrator targeted a Shia mosque in the heart of Kuwait City during prayers, killing 27 and wounding over 200, mimicking two consecutive Friday attacks in Saudi Arabia. The attack—claimed by the Islamic State as targeting a “temple of the apostates”—was clearly an attempt to sow Sunni-Shia strife in Kuwait. However, unlike elsewhere in the region, Kuwait remains among the least susceptible to this vulnerability, as has been demonstrated in the aftermath of the attack.
The historical roots of Kuwaiti nationalism are deeply rooted in a shared extremist threat in the first third of the twentieth century. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, the radical Wahhabi Ikhwan movement committed atrocities against the Shia in al-Hasa, located in modern-day Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Back then, the Riyadh-based militia had deemed that not only were the Shia infidels, but also the entire people of Kuwait, using this as a pretext for territorial expansion. The Kuwaiti ruler Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah encouraged building a Husseiniya (Shia congregation hall) in Kuwait, which attracted Shia fleeing persecution. Ever since, the Sunni ruling family has cultivated close ties with the Shia, who currently enjoy proportional representation in government, the private sector, and the parliament. Kuwait’s Shia have become socially and economically diffused throughout the tight-knit city state and have historically contributed to all sectors of life—from business to politics and the arts.
Therefore, within moments after the bombing, Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah visited the site, against security protocols, claiming “these are my children.” The country rallied around these symbolic words and did not interpret the attacks as an act of aggression against the Shia minority, but an act of aggression against the state and society at large. Hence in funeral proceedings in Kuwait’s Grand Mosque the next evening—attended by the Emir, the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister, ministers, and members of parliament—the state received condolences for the “martyrs,” symbolically signaling that the condolences are to the state in its entirety and not to a sect in the country.
In the country’s greatest security breach since the Iraqi invasion, Kuwaitis—under the leadership of the ruling family—showed unity and solidarity in rejection of extremist ideology, as they did a century ago. In fact, at a time of increasing tensions, the attack reversed this trend and strengthened inter-sect relations, invoking Kuwait’s historically exceptional interfaith unity.
The Danger to Kuwait is Authoritarianism
Madeleine Wells Goldburt
Madeleine Wells Goldburt, a PhD candidate at George Washington University. Follow her on Twitter @Swellwells.
The bombing of a Shia mosque in Kuwait by the Islamic State (IS) raised questions about the past and future of Sunni-Shia relations in the country. The bombing had the unintended effect of reinvigorating social unity and strengthening government protection of Shia citizens, who comprise roughly 30 percent of the population. Kuwait is an outlier in the Gulf in many ways, including the comparatively open nature of its institutions, its historically less confrontational relations with Iran, and the history of its own Shia minority population. And, for very practical reasons, Kuwaiti rulers absolutely cannot let sectarianism get out of hand. They need the historically coopted Shia to balance out the reformist opposition in the National Assembly.
While Gulf regimes like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have used the specter of Iran and its alleged influence on local Shia populations to justify draconian sectarian policies that stave off meaningful reform, Kuwait’s government policies toward its Shia population have less to do with their historical links to Iran, and more to do with domestic concerns about the shape of the opposition. The Shia currently hold 10 out of 50 seats in the National Assembly and have generally served as a bulwark against the opposition since 2008. If the Shia are marginalized, they could rejoin the opposition coalition—making it more heterogeneous and even more threatening than the tribal-Islamist-youth reformist coalition that crystallized during the Arab Spring.
But while IS’s bottom-up strategy of intensifying sectarianism in Kuwait is likely to fail, there are risks the group’s appeal could grow among disenfranchised segments of the population, like Kuwait’s stateless residents. The Islamic State is not likely to succeed in mobilizing them on specifically sectarian grounds, since the group itself is comprised of both Sunni and Shia and has long been united on the sole issue of achieving nationality. However, it may succeed by presenting an alternative to the government’s marginalization and crackdown.
Known as the bedoon (from the Arabic bedoon jinsiyya, or “without citizenship”), most of this group of over 100,000 lost their access to Kuwaiti nationality when they failed to register in the initial pre-independence census of 1958. The state denies them essential legal documents such as birth and death certificates or access to public healthcare, schooling, and equal employment opportunities. The bedoon have been progressively cut out of most state benefits since the mid-1980s, despite the fact that they once formed the backbone of Kuwait’s defense forces; the government increasingly depicts today’s bedoon as foreigners without legitimate claim to citizenship or welfare benefits. Due to their increasing economic marginalization and the foot-dragging of successive Kuwaiti bodies dedicated to solving the stateless situation, the bedoon now have serious grievances against the government. Not surprisingly, the government has responded with violence to the bedoon’s efforts to force the government to consider their claims to citizenship.
The bedoon could be ripe for IS-style radicalization if IS can offer them what the Kuwaiti state will not: economic security, employment, and belonging to a community. Indeed, one stateless man played a key role in driving the suicide bomber to the attack; of the 29 conspirators arrested thus far, most were residents of Kuwait, including thirteen stateless and seven citizens. The government has responded by disproportionately scapegoating and cracking down on the bedoon and pursuing draconian policies, such as suspending the issuance of Article 17 passports, collectively punishing the group for the crimes of a few. This will only exacerbate the potential for radicalization and foreign influence.
The bigger concern for Kuwait is not sectarian strife, but its government tendencies to crackdown on dissent, particularly during times when security threats are high and may be used to justify limiting the political sphere.
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