The Explainer: The Rise of the Islamic State
The Islamic State started off as a local offshoot of Al-Qaeda under the
leadership of a Jordanian terrorist named Abu Musa Al-Zarqawi (who was later
killed by American forces operating in Iraq). It was originally called Al-Qaeda
in Iraq (AQIQ). However, a faction broke away from the parent organisation and
called itself the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI).
After the Syrian civil war broke out in the first half of 2011, it
expanded its theatre of operations to that country. In the following months,
the ISI was engaged in a bitter battle with Jabhat Al-Nusra, a successor
organisation to AQIQ which had declared its affiliation to Al-Qaeda.
In 2013, in a unilateral decision, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of
ISI,
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| Source: bbcnews.com |
announced the merger of ISI with Jabhat Al-Nusra; the new merged entity,
he said, would be called the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS). (In the Arab
world, Al-Sham is synonymously used for Levant, a name used to describe Syria
and adjoining areas in the eastern Mediterranean territory. In that sense, ISIS
is also called ISIL.) However, Al-Nusra repudiated
the merger, calling the ISI devious and anti-Islam. Al-Nusra asked the ISIS to focus on Iraq and
leave Syria to it (Al-Nusra) but the ISIS leader disregarded the advice.
In 2013, the ISIS launched a series of attacks in several Iraqi cities;
it did not help that the ISIS, a Sunni group which had openly declared war on
Shia Muslims, was supported by the substantially large Sunni population in
Iraq, which faced severe discrimination at the hands of the Shia-dominant Iraqi
Government.
Soon after running over large parts of Iraq, including wresting control
of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the ISIS changed its name to the Islamic
State and declared the Caliphate in the occupied territories while it named its
leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as the new Caliph.
Several Muslim nations and organisations, including radical terror
outfits like Jubhat Al-Nusra (and its parent organisation, Al-Qaeda) found it
particularly galling that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi could declare himself a caliph
(leader of Ummah or the global Muslim community) and ask Muslims worldwide to
follow his dictate.
Muslim nations and
organisations, which despise this radical terror group, refer to the IS as
Daesh (Arabic for ‘Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant’ – Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya
Al-Iraq Al-Sham). However, IS
hates this name as it carries a lot of negative connotations (for want of
space, we will not go into the details).
Today, the Islamic State controls large swathes of both Iraq
and Syria where it has declared a Caliphate. In Syria, the IS controls nearly
50 per cent of the country’s area. In areas under its control, the IS has
imposed a strict version of Islam which it enforces through a network of
fighters and mercenaries. The IS draws its cadre from mainly Syria and Iraq;
however, it has attracted fighters not just from several Muslim nations, like
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, and Turkey but from European nations as well. Tens
of hundreds of Muslims from Britain, France and other EU nations have joined
the Islamic State. It is believed that the IS has a cadre base of around 40,000
fighters.
