S.W.E.T. and BLOOD: essential services in the battle between insurgents and counterinsurgents

Military Review,  Nov-Dec, 2007  by Erik A. Claessen

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IN DECEMBER 2006, the U.S. Army published a new field manual, FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency (COIN). This FM identifies "the ability to generate and sustain popular support" as an insurgency's center of gravity. (1) Consequently, the FM emphasizes the importance of providing essential services (ES) to the population as a way to attack this center of gravity. To focus efforts concerning ES, the operational design for COIN includes a logical line of operation (LLO) dedicated entirely to the provision of ES (hereafter called LLO ES).

This article researches the characteristics of activities along LLO ES in the case of a particular type of insurgency that involves the Islamic religious duties of zakat and jihad. It defines what has been called zakat-jihad activism; analyzes it by using recent examples from Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, and Iraq; and derives the most important implications for COIN operations along LLO ES. Finally, this article lists a number of precautions to take when conducting COIN operations along LLO ES against zakat-jihad activists.

LLO ES

By using zakat-jihad activism, Islamist insurgencies have seized the initiative along LLO ES and occupy a position of advantage that they defend against counterinsurgents. Hence, one must plan and execute COIN activities along this line as deliberate military operations against a capable and determined foe, not as unopposed activities.

The assumption that "people support the source that meets their needs" is the basis of LLO ES. (2) A good illustration of the validity of this assumption in Western culture is the change in attitude of the German population toward American and British occupation forces after the Berlin Airlift in 1948. Even though the U.S. Air Force had carpet-bombed Berlin and destroyed it only three years earlier, the service had to task an officer to handle grateful Berliners who wanted to give the pilots gifts. (3)

The best example of the assumption's validity in Muslim culture is the success of militant movements like Palestine's Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah. These movements spend a large part of their resources on creating and maintaining infrastructure that provides ES to the populace. It is no wonder, therefore, that both organizations enjoy great support among the Palestinian people in particular, and Muslims in general.

That both movements originated under Israeli occupation is no coincidence. As a Western-style, technologically developed democracy, Israel combines conventional military strength with a political system subject to public scrutiny and the rule of law. On the one hand, the strength of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) precludes any attempt to challenge Israel symmetrically. The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War proved this convincingly. (4) On the other hand, public scrutiny and Israeli adherence to the rule of (international) law ensure that Israel will not, for example, bomb Hezbollah aid convoys or reconstruction projects, services that could be broadly construed as threats to Israel's future security. The Israeli withdrawals from South Lebanon in May 2000 and from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, forced in part because the people had been won over to the insurgent organizations' side by LLO ES, point to the success of Hamas's and Hezbollah's overall strategy. (5) This particular approach is zakat-jihad activism.

Zakat-Jihad Activism

According to Jonathan Benthall and Jerome Bellion-Jourdan, "zakat derives from the verb zaka which means to purify ... The meaning is usually taken to be that by giving up a portion of one's wealth, one purifies that portion which remains, and also oneself, through a restraint on one's selfishness, greed and imperviousness to other's sufferings. The recipient, likewise, is purified from jealousy and hatred of the well-off." (6)

In the Sunni interpretation of the Qur 'an, every Muslim should allocate 2.5 percent of his wealth to zakat per lunar year. In the Shi'a interpretation, this religious duty is more often referred to as khums ("one-fifth") because Shi'as calculate the sum to be paid as one-fifth of the increase of one's possession per lunar year. Eight classes of people benefit from zakat. They include primarily the poor, but also "those in the way of God, that is to say in jihad, teaching or fighting or in other duties assigned to them in God's cause." (7) Thus, activist Islamic organizations that provide ES and fight under the banner of jihad qualify to receive zakat.

All over the Islamic world, organizations collect Muslim donations and transfer them to other organizations that qualify to receive zakat. The strengths of the zakat concept are that those who receive money know they can always count on it, and the money comes with no strings attached. Moreover, there is nothing humiliating in accepting zakat because, by accepting it, one purifies another Muslim's money and soul. In all this, funds generated via zakat strongly differ from Western humanitarian aid. It is as if money from zakat has a cleaner color and odor. Additionally, organizations that qualify to receive zakat receive more than just a steady flow of clean money. Zakat is also a kind of quality label that gives the organization legitimacy.