Doubtless," al-Binali wrote in 2013, "the caliphate requires some measure of power, might, and political capability, and this is present in the Islamic State."
So ISIS' first goal is to consolidate control over its holdings in Iraq and Syria, to demonstrate it can run a state with large towns and cities -- not just occupy desert or mountain holdouts. But at the same time it is probing elsewhere in the region for more real estate.
Baghdadi chose Syria as ISIS' next target after unrest erupted there in the spring of 2011. He sent a group of fighters to Syria later that year.
ISIS followers -- and Dabiq -- are fond of quoting the words of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the "spiritual" father of the movement and leader of al Qaeda in Iraq until he was killed in 2006.
"The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify — by Allah's permission — until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq," Zarqawi said in 2004.
ISIS has been, if nothing else, transparent about this strategy. Every edition of the online magazine Dabiq has carried the banner "Remaining and Expanding."