ISIS Is Spreading

In its war to create a caliphate across Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State is opening a front in North Africa, where affiliated militants are wreaking havoc in eastern Libya and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula — presenting a complex challenge for Washington and its allies in the region.

Through its savvy use of social media and slick production of recruitment videos, the Islamic State — also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL — is attracting a growing number of individual jihadis to its harsh interpretation of Islamic, or Shariah, law.

"ISIL's stated goal of expanding its caliphate and its adherence to a strict form of Shariah has definitely resonated with a collection of extremists across North Africa, who appear to be mimicking ISIL's rhetoric and brutality," said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss security issues freely.

What remains to be seen is whether the region will face a surge of unbridled Islamic State-style violence, including beheadings. Counterterrorism analysts say there is little doubt of that — especially in Libya, where the government is under threat of being overrun by militants, and in Egypt, where the military has struggled to contain Sinai extremists for years.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the Islamic State is going to commit and claim responsibility for an increasing number of attacks in North Africa, both in Libya and in the Sinai during the year ahead," said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

"But it's not yet clear how it's going to play out," Mr. Joscelyn said. "If they go in the direction of more horror killings the way the Islamic State is doing in Syria and Iraq, they may go after Christians and others, and that could end up triggering sectarian violence in Egypt. But that remains to be seen."

The U.S. intelligence community regards the Islamic State as the world's most violent terrorist organization, and officials say its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sees himself as a kind of Osama bin Laden figure.

But Mr. Joscelyn, who writes about the Islamic State for the Long War Journal, says al-Baghdadi has had limited success in persuading jihadi groups around the world to abandon bin Laden's core al Qaeda movement and join his caliphate.

"You have to understand the context here that al-Baghdadi and his minions have made a huge push over the last year to basically try and co-opt or win the allegiance of all these jihadi groups around the world — basically saying, 'Hey, everybody needs to sign on with us now because we're the strong horse,'" said Mr. Joscelyn. "But that effort was, for the most part, a total failure. The Islamic State was actually rejected far more than they were accepted."