Taking a closer look at the notorious terrorist group
Islamic State (IS) – formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria(ISIS) – is an organization with a complicated political history. First established in 1999 as Jama’at al-Tawhid wal Jihad (Group of Monotheism and Jihad), the group was led by a Jordanian national by the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Under Zarqawi, the organization was originally designed to overthrow the Kingdom of Jordan, considered un-Islamic according to the four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence.
Once Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network on Oct. 17, 2004, the organization was renamed to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The name ISIS is the result of several name changes, as well as a series of organizational mergers with other similar groups.
Until February 2014, ISIS maintained close ties with Al-Qaeda, but these ties were severed by Al-Qaeda due to ISIS’s reported brutality and notorious organizational complexity.
However, ISIS would not become known to the larger western world until June 6, 2014, when they led a systematic and devastating raid into Northern Iraq against the Iraqi government. The Northern Iraq Offensive in June lasted 2 weeks and 6 days, at which point IS had managed to capture significant territory in Northern Iraq, from the city of Mosul to Tikrit.
The battle was between the Republic of Iraq and its allies and ISIS (colloquially referred to by the Arabic acronym of Da’esh), joined by the Islamic Army in Iraq, as well as the remnants of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party (led by former Iraqi leader and dictator Saddam Hussein) and their loyalists.
Though ISIS made significant headway towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, their forces have yet to capture the city. At the time of publication, the city of Baghdad stands resolute.
For citizens of Iraq, ISIS’s seemingly sudden and almost random appearance is not so confounding. The group has been active since 2004, using the various power vacuums left in the wake of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq to gain territory and support. With an estimated membership between 20,000 and 100,000 (according to conflicting numbers published by the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights), the group gains more notoriety on a daily basis.
Further continuing in their efforts to spread their beliefs, ISIS proclaimed itself the supreme Islamic governing body on June 29, 2014. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, now known as Amir Al-Mu’minin Caliph Ibrahim, was named the leader of this state.
In the Islamic legal system, a caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader known as a caliph. While the two branches of Islam (Sunni and Shia Islam) disagree on how an individual successfully becomes a caliph, the head of a caliphate has supreme control over all Muslims in his state. In effect, ISIS’s declaration of a supreme Islamic state means that it believes it has full control over all Muslims on the planet.
Since their Northern Iraqi offensives, ISIS has also begun systematic beheadings of abducted and illegally detained journalists and soldiers. James Foley, an American freelance journalist, was abducted in November of 2012. He was killed by ISIS on Aug. 19, 2014. Steven Sotloff, an American-Israeli journalist, was kidnapped in August of 2013, and killed by ISIS on Sept. 2, 2014.
In addition to journalists and soldiers, ISIS has also begun threatening to kill foreign aid workers. David Haines, a British Aid Worker captured by ISIS in early 2013, was confirmed to have been killed on Sept. 13, 2014. In the video of Haines’s murder, as in each video prior, ISIS announced its next victim – Alan Henning, also a British foreign aid worker.
The United States designated ISIS as a terrorist organization on Dec. 17, 2004. More recently, Canada designated ISIS as a terrorist organization on Aug. 20, 2012. In 2014, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia all denounced ISIS as a terrorist group. At present, the enemies of ISIS include 15 of the 28 members of NATO, in addition to al-Qaeda itself.