Contemporary Persian Gulf: Essays in Honour of Gulshan Dietl, Prakash Chandra Jain and Grijesh Pant by P. R. Kumaraswamy & Md Muddassir Quamar

Author:P. R. Kumaraswamy & Md Muddassir Quamar [Kumaraswamy, P. R. & Quamar, Md Muddassir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789383649709
Google: 4GOgjwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 29067727
Publisher: KW Publishers Pvt. Limited
Published: 2015-12-15T07:43:46+00:00

The Rise of ISIS

Whether its Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, extremists love chaos. The Islamic State’s leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was among the first jihadists who found an opportunity in the Syrian crisis, in which a majority of Sunnis were fighting against a regime dominated by the minority Alawites (Birke 2013). Baghdadi was the leader of Iraq’s al-Qaeda, an outfit which suffered a setback in 2010-11 after the US stepped up counter-insurgency measures with an increased number of troops and started recruiting Sunnis to take on the Islamists. However, the crisis in Syria opened the doors for the Sunni extremist outfits in the region for a greater role in the regional strife. The external backers of the Syrian rebels were pumping money and weapons into the battlefield. Baghdadi sent his men across the border to fight along with the al-Nusra Front (which al-Qaeda calls its branch in Syria), against President Bashar al-Assad’s troops. Turkey’s decision to open its border with Syria for anti-Assad militants offered Baghdadi’s men a hassle-free transit route.9

The deteriorating security situation in Iraq, following the withdrawal of the US troops and growing Sunni resentment in the country against the sectarian policies of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, helped Baghdadi consolidate his base in Iraq (Filkins 2014). He now wanted to create a sphere of influence straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border. In April 2013, Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq formally announced the expansion of its operations from Iraq to Syria by changing its name to Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham, or ISIS (al Sham is translated as “the Levant” or Greater Syria). Later, they changed the organisation’s name to Islamic State.

The Islamic State joined hands with the Nusra Front and unleashed a violent campaign against both the Syrian troops and civilians, especially minorities, in eastern Syria. They captured the oil fields in areas they took control of, and raised money by holding to ransom foreign hostages.10 They have also imposed local taxes and set up training facilities in eastern Syria. Unlike al-Qaeda’s hit-and-run tactics, there is a well-planned pattern in Islamic States’ military advances. They hold the areas they seize and make them the bases for further military movement. The Islamic State first took the eastern Syrian city of Raqa in December 2012, and then expelled other rebel groups, including the Nusra Front; Raqa became their base for further advances into Iraq. A month later, their forces seized the Iraqi city of Fallujah; six months later, they ran through Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq and in May 2015 run over Ramadi not far from Baghdad.

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