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Revolution Muslim, which emerged from a long tradition of Islamist organizing on the part of Omar Bakri and others, pioneered a method of “open-source jihad” that integrated outreach online to recruit, radicalize, promote and operationalize jihadist terrorism. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State adopted and adapted this method as well as the network that Revolution Muslim had formed around it, with deadly effect.

Today, ISIS is in retreat. The military campaign against the self-declared Islamic State has all but ended its control of territory.¹ Yet the history of Revolution Muslim warns against optimism regarding the threat from ISIS. Revolution Muslim itself emerged out of a splintered and diverse tradition of Islamist organizing, illustrating the limitations of focusing on a specific group’s fortunes rather than broader shifts in the jihadist ecosystem.

As ISIS loses control of its terrain in Syria and Iraq, it is likely to evolve into more of a transnational “virtual caliphate,” which is what one set of researchers has defined as “a radicalized community online—that empowers the global Salafi-jihadi movement.”² In doing so, it would revert to a small group of violent activists who seek to mobilize adherents through the multifaceted use of online media. In short, it would resemble Revolution Muslim.

If past is prologue to the future, there are valuable insights to be gleaned from the effort to combat Revolution Muslim. One lesson is that countering a fluid terrorist organization, like a virtual ISIS, will require the ability to predict and mimic the network’s rapid adaptations. One reason most of the plots linked to Revolution Muslim were thwarted was that the NYPD successfully integrated undercover officers into the heart of both the Islamic Thinkers Society and Revolution Muslim, providing critical human intelligence (HUMINT) about those individuals who planned to operationalize their ideology and the rapid shifts in the expression of that ideology.³

The increased use of digital HUMINT, comprising digital undercover officers and informants who can navigate the dark web and private communication channels of WhatsApp and Telegram, will be vital, particularly if a virtual ISIS relies more heavily upon encrypted operational instructions than Revolution Muslim did. This will require the sustained development and devotion of additional resources to this effort by federal and certain local law enforcement and intelligence organizations, as well as networked coordination with overseas partners.

A second key lesson of the effort against Revolution Muslim is that countering virtual jihadist recruitment will be an ongoing struggle, and law enforcement and intelligence agencies should not overemphasize the collapse of any particular group. Revolution Muslim emerged out of the collapse and re-forming of earlier groups that were part of a larger network. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS both expanded upon Revolution Muslim’s efforts even as RM itself fell apart.

With the 2017 arrest of Sheikh Abdullah Faisal in Jamaica (as a result of an NYPD investigation), the preachers around whom ALM, ITS and RM’s circles once revolved have been mostly removed from the playing field.⁴ Their removal is important, but the template that Revolution Muslim pioneered remains viable for other terrorist groups to adopt, use and weaponize to deadly effect despite the group’s disbandment in 2011.

Consequently, while the Islamic State appears to be defeated on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq and its appeal diminished, American policymakers and intelligence officials would be mistaken to underestimate the group’s continued threat. Relegated to primarily operating in the virtual realm, ISIS could morph into an almost completely virtual entity, with little need for a geographic footprint. This completely “virtual caliphate,” not unlike Revolution Muslim, “likely would manifest itself in the form of an expanded, transnational terrorist threat from dispersed but loyal operators,” as General Joseph Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, and colleagues have argued.⁵

As Revolution Muslim demonstrated, even a virtual organization with a dispersed network has the ability to inspire deadly attacks worldwide.