MOSCOW (Sputnik) – One of the 30 leaked documents includes a 24-page manual detailing the establishment of centralized control over the economy, foreign relations and a propaganda machine. It sketches out how to train "cadres of administrators" and organize government departments of education, natural resources, industry, foreign and public relations and military camps.
"[Daesh] is a project that strives to govern. It’s not just a case of their sole end being endless battle," researcher Aymenn Tamimi, who obtained the dossiers from an anonymous businessman working within the group, told The Guardian late Monday.
"In short, it is building a state," the publication observed.
The manual, titled "Principles in the Administration of the Islamic State" and reportedly written by an Egyptian named Abu Abdullah between July and October 2014, sets out rules of military training, including regular troops, veterans and child soldiers.
Daesh originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, and renamed itself al-Qaeda in Iraq after allying itself with Osama bin Laden in 2004. After a long power struggle, al-Qaeda cut all ties with the group in early 2014.
The jihadist group, which is outlawed in Russia and many other countries, has taken over large areas of Syria and Iraq, espousing views and maintaining practices seen as more fundamentalist than al-Qaeda. Its murders, beheadings, mistreatment of minorities and desecration of historic monuments over the past years have largely overshadowed al-Qaeda in the media landscape.
