The Centrality of Iraq and Syria to the Islamic State’s Caliphate

Despite reports of the Islamic State’s growing threat in the Horn of Africa and the leadership’s alleged relocation to the Puntland region in Somalia, the central lands of Iraq and Syria, the original area of the group’s territorial caliphate announced in June 2014, continue to occupy a key place in the group’s propaganda and ideology. However important it maybe be, the Islamic State’s control over large areas of the Horn of Africa does not do for propaganda and recruitment what the narrative of the return of Islamic rule in the lands of Iraq and Syria has long done. Indeed, it would be unreasonable for the organization to suddenly abandon a geographical area that has achieved much for it and which was witnessing an increase in terrorist activity until the fall of Assad regime in early December, especially in what is known as the Syrian Badiya. Organizational culture and the transition