Dabiq # 1: Khilafa Declared

Michael L.
Dabiq is the official recruiting magazine of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
In order to understand this group, we need to understand how they see themselves.  The first thing to know is that the Islamic State is an apocalyptic death cult whose behavior is designed specifically to cause a war with the West in order to bring about the end of the world.  They honestly believe that on that day Jesus will return, break the cross and affirm Islam at the End of Days.
Despite the brutality of the Islamic State, Dabiq is enthusiastic and upbeat.

On the first of Ramadan 1435H, the revival of the Khilafah was announcedby the spokesman for the Islamic State, Shaykh Abu Muhammad al- ‘Adnani ash-Shami (hafidhahullah).
The good news was followed by the first official speech of Amirul-Mu’minin Abu Bakr al-Husayni al-Qurashi al-Baghdadi (nasarahullah).
The announcements filled the streets of the Islamic State with faithful joy.

On June 29th of last year, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the Caliph, thereby demanding the loyalty and cooperation of the entire Muslim world.
Glad tidings for the Muslim Ummah

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “O Muslims everywhere, glad tidings to you and expect good. Raise yourhead high, for today – by Allah’s grace – you have a state and Khilafah, which will return your dignity, might, rights, and leadership.
It is a state where the Arab and non-Arab, the white man and black man, the easterner and westerner are all brothers.

One thing to note about the Islamic State is that in certain areas it is actually quite liberal.  They see all Muslims as brothers, so long as they maintain the Islamic State's ultra-fundamentalist view of Islam.  They do not care where you come form or about the color of your skin.  The only thing that matters is that you be a good member of the Ummah as they understand it.
The Islamic State also makes a point of clothing, feeding, and housing those within the Ummah without resources, when they are able to do so.
Of course, in other ways, obviously, the very last thing that the Islamic State can be called is liberal.
A new era has arrivedof might and dignity for the Muslims

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “Soon, by Allah’s permission, a day will come when the Muslim will walk everywhere as a master, having honor, being revered, with his head raised high and his dignity preserved.
Anyone who dares to offend him will be disciplined, and any hand that reaches out to harm him will be cut off.

It is often suggested that the Arabs have an honor-shame culture and certainly the segment above seems to affirm this.
The world has divided into two camps

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “O Ummah of Islam, indeed the world today has been divided into two camps and two trenches, with no third camp present:
The camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy – the camp of the Muslims and the mujahidin everywhere, and the camp of the jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the jews.”

When Barack Obama insists that we are not at war with Islam, he is countering the opposite claims of the Islamic State, whose sole purpose is to bring about the final confrontation with the West, which it refers to as "Rome."  Obama's reluctance to put boots on the ground is, in part, a desire to not give the Islamic State what it craves and what it craves is Western soldiers on Islamic State land for the purposes of Jihad, the Holy War.
A Call to Hijrah

Amirul-Mu’minin said: “Therefore, rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis...
The State is a state for all Muslims. The land is for the Muslims, all the Muslims. O Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah (emigration) to the Islamic State, then let him do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory.”

The announcement of the arrival of the Caliphate changes the nature of the relationship between the Ummah and Islam.  Now that Abu Bakr has revealed himself, it is obligatory for all Muslims who are capable of doing so to join their brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria.  No longer is it sufficient to be a good Muslim elsewhere.  All able Muslims must move to the Islamic State.
At this point the magazine goes forward to announce and celebrate a number of recent military victories, complete with gruesome photos of dead babies.

On Monday, the 25th of Sha'ban, the mujahidin of the Islamic State succeeded in liberating the strategic town of Tal Afar in Wilayat Ninawa.

The Islamic State is, of course, expansionist.  The Caliphate, for it to maintain respect and allegiances, must conquer almost perpetually.  So far, of course, they have done a pretty amazing job and now control a mass of land larger than Great Britain.
Among the things that the group is very open about are their methods of conquest:

Because there were almost no safe havens on the earth left for the mujahidin, the ideal land for hijrah was a place where they could operate without the threat of a powerful police state. In the case of Abu Mus’ab, he chose Afghanistan and later Kurdistan as a base to form Jama’atutTawhidi wal-Jihad.
Al-hamdu lillah, there are now more lands with conditions that support jihad, such as Yemen, Mali, Somalia, the Sinai Peninsula, Waziristan, Libya, Chechnya, and Nigeria, as well as parts of Tunis, Algeria, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Shaykh Abu Mus’ab (rahimahullah) implemented the strategy and required tactics to achieve the goal of Khilafah without hesitation.  

In short, he strived to create as much chaos as possible with the means permitted by the Shari’ah using attacks sometimes referred to as operations of “nikayah” (injury) that focus on causing the enemy death, injury, and damage.

So, there Modus Operandi is to establish themselves in areas with week central governments that can be made weaker through spreading blood and chaos and, thus, to expand from there.  Both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama hold some of the responsibility for the rise of this group.  Bush for destabilizing Iraq and Obama for providing a power vacuum for the Islamic State to fill.

Sadly, they are now opposed by the present leadership of famous jihad groups who have become frozen in the phase of nikayah attacks, almost considering the attainment of power to be taboo or destructive. And rather than entrusting the affairs of the Ummah to the pious mujahidin, the present heads of these groups insist upon leaving the matter out for grabs so that any munafiq can stretch out his arm and reach for the leadership of the Ummah only to destroy it.

This is a reference to the split between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.  If the Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda is the parent organization of the Islamic State, but doctrinal differences have divided the organizations.  Qaeda has refused to accept the authority of the Caliph and, therefore, remains largely underground.  If they had fully accepted the authority of Abu Bakr they would have folded their organization into the larger one, but they have refused to do so.
The entire point of the organization can be summed up in the final page of Dabiq # 1:

Abu Hurayrah reported that Allah’s Messenger (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said, “The Hour will not be established until the Romans land at al-A’maq or Dabiq (two places near each other in the northern countryside of Halab).
Then an army from al-Madinah of the best people on the earth at that time will leave for them. When they line up in ranks, the Romans will say, ‘Leave us and those who were taken as prisoners from amongst us so we can fight them.
The Muslims will say, ‘Nay, by Allah, we will not abandon our brothers to you.’ So they will fight them. Then one third of them will flee; Allah will never forgive them. One third will be killed; they will be the best martyrs with Allah. And one third will conquer them; they will never be afflicted with fitnah.
Then they will conquer Constantinople.

People often claim that Islam is in need of reformation.
That may very well be the case, but these guys would argue that they are the reformation.
Finally, it is more than a little imperative that we keep a very sharp eye on these people because they are exceedingly dangerous, control the better part of two countries, are gaining thousands of recruits on a regular basis from around the world, have considerable military hardware, and have proven themselves to be the single most unbelievably vicious political movement in the world today.
They must be stopped and for some reason I do not think that community organizing is going to do the trick.