The Emergence of ISIS in Iraq and Syria

Ayoub Laissouf

Research Methods

11 September 2014

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Abstract

Unpleasant incidents are happening in Iraq on those days: mass killing, genocide, and displacement of thousands of Iraqis from their homes by a terrorist group calls itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham or ISIS. The latter emerged as the most radical group that shows no mercy to anyone who stands in its way. The strong impact of its crimes has pushed people from around the globe to search from more information about this group and not rely only on what the media is portraying. This paper will help people who are interested in enriching their knowledge about ISIS to know more about it. It will shed the light on the origin and the root of ISIS; besides, it will incorporate the main causes that helped ISIS to rise and triumph in a very short time. Moreover, it will discuss the ideology and the goals of this group, and if they are distinct from the other Jihadist movements, and finally, it will demonstrate the elements of its power and the impact of its emergence on minorities in Iraq.

Keywords: ISIS, Genocide, Propaganda, caliphate, Yazidis, infidles, Peshmorga.

Introduction

In the recent months, all the media around the globe has concentrated its reports on the emergence of a radical Islamic group that has gone rampage in Syria and currently in Iraq. The latter group which is called ISIS has recently established a caliphate and becomes known as the Islamic State. Peoples worldwide are increasingly terrorized by the brutalities and the vicious atrocities that ISIS perpetrated, and many of them are urgently calling the International Community to act swiftly in order to rein in and put an end to that radical Sunni group. This group is known by different names; the President Obama has referred to it by the name ISIL in all his speeches; that abbreviation stands for the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant. According to CNN, “Al-Sham is reference to a region that stretches from Turkey through Syria to Egypt and includes the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Lebanon” (“ISIS, ISIL or the Islamic State?”). Besides, English correspondents, most the time, use the acronym ISIS, while Arab ones use the name DAIISH which both stand for “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil-Iraq wa al-Sham.” However, ISIS Jihadists prefer to call their organization the Islamic State because it displays and reflects their group’s inspiration of founding a caliphate that stretch across national borders.

Research Question: What are the major causes behind the rise of ISIS?

Hypothesis: the retreat of the US forces from Iraq and the civil war in Syria facilitated the emergence of ISIS.

Method

In this research, I will use statistics, maps, and strong evidence to support my claims.

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I. The Islamic State

1. The Roots

The roots of ISIS could be traced back to 2003 when Abu Mosab Zarqawi went from Afghanistan to Iraq and founded a group called Tawhid and Jihad to confront the US forces in Iraq. Acun states that, in 2004, Mosab Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama ban Laden and changed the name of his group to Al Qaeda in Iraq or AQI. This group was at its peak during this time, for it launched several successful attacks on the coalition forces and pushed the US forces and Iraq’s to retreat from Anbar province, a Sunni region. However, in 2006, Zarqawi was killed by an airstrike. He was succeeded by Hamza al Muhajir who merged his forces with “Jaish al Fatiheen, Jaich a taifa mansura, and Jund a sahaba” to form the “Mujahideen Shura Council” which was led by Abu Omar al Baghdadi. Then, in late 2006, the Islamic State in Iraq or ISI was declared. Besides, as the attacks on the US forces, and the sectarian fights started to escalated, The US followed a new strategy to halt the insurgency. The US swayed the leaders of the Sunni tribes to lay down their weapons and join “the Councils for the Awakening” which was created to stop ISI. Because ISI was very strict with the locals and demanded utter obedience, and because Sunni leaders were promised to receive payments for their services against ISI, those leaders succumbed to the US offer, The Awaking Council and the US forces fought together against ISI and almost brought it to its knees between 2007 and 2009 (1-2).

After that ISI rebuilt itself through bringing new fighters to the group; many soldiers from the former regime, Baath Army, who weren’t allowed to join the new Iraqi army were admitted into ISI. A former general of Baath army, Haji Bakr, was one of those who were admitted; he became a member of the Mujahedeen Shura Council after the assassination of its two leaders, Abu Omar al Baghdadi and Muhajir in 2010 by the hand of the Iraqi and the US forces. After that, the name of Abu Bakr al Bagdadi was presented to the Shura council by Bakr to be chosen the new leader. AL Baghdadi was accepted by the Shura council and by Al Qaida Center which has become under the leadership of Ayman al Zawahiri who succeeded bin Laden after the latter was assassinated by the US Special Forces (Acun 3).

Two significant events took place in 2011 affected ISI: the Arab Spring in Syria that sparked the civil war in 2012 and the withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq. ISI began to retaliate against Iraqi security forces and the Awaking Councils’ members through assassinations and booming governmental buildings. Moreover, al Baghdadi promoted Syria fighters in Iraq to go to Syria and form a new branch to fight Bashar al Assad; that branch is called today Nusra Front and led by Al Jawlani (Barrett 12). Nevertheless, ACUN states that “ISI was disturbed by the flock of foreign fighters to Syria, voluminous financial support, weapons and munitions confiscated from the Assad regime as well as countrywide and worldwide fame of the Nusra Front” (3). As a result, Al Baghdadi tried to take over the Nusra Front, but because AL Jawlani refused to relinquish his power as the leader of the strongest fighting group in Syria, and because he stated that his loyalty is to AL Qaeda and Zawahiri not to ISI or al Baghdadi. Then, the latter went to Syria and announced the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham or ISIS. Al Qaeda wasn’t happy about this development because from the start, it stressed that ISIS would stay in Iraq and Nusra Front in Syria, but ISIS turned a blind eye to the orders of Zawahri. Then, ISIS took over all Nusra Front’s financial and military sources, and asked the other fighting groups in Syria to join it and pledge allegiance to its leader; several fighting groups responded positively to that request such as “Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar” which was led by Omar al Shishani (Barrett 13).

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Between 2013 and early 2014, ISIS strengthened and consolidated its power in Syria, constructing its stronghold and headquarter in Raqqa which it seized it after defeating opposing groups. After securing its power in Syria, ISIS came back to Iraq; According to Friedland, “In January 2014, they took parts of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province. In early June, ISIS shocked the world, storming across northern Iraq and capturing Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, with the help of an uneasy alliance of ex-Baathists, tribesmen and other Sunni rebel forces” (Friedland 8). Furthermore, on June 29, 2014, ISIS declared itself a caliphate and Al Bagdadi a caliph and called all Muslims around the world to pledge their allegiance to their caliph.

2) The Causes of the Rise

Many powers, individuals, and governments attributed even partly to the quick rise of ISIS. The responsibility of its emergence could be blamed on the former Prime Minster of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Gulf States, and Al Assad.

First cause is al Malik’s wrong policy towards the Sunni minority. After the withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq, al Maliki started to resort to more authoritarian leadership than before. He excluded Sunnis from power and favored Shias. He began to get rid of any opposing voices, particularly Sunnis, in the government, starting by arresting his Sunni vice president Hashimi. According to Khedery, “Maliki's forces closed in on Hashimi, only to see him flee to Kurdistan. Dozens of his guards were imprisoned on terrorism charges. At least one of them died under interrogation” (“How ISIS Came to Be”). Moreover, he also purged his government from another Sunni rival, al-Essawi who was the finance minister. Khedery states that at this tense time, the Iraqi’s Sunni Council called for an autonomous rule as the Kurds’, but that demand was rejected. Then, thousands of Sunni demonstrators went to the streets and built several camps at Sunni provinces protesting against al Malik’s policy of persecution; however, instead of responding to the protesters’ demands, his army crushed the camps on the pretext of that members of al Qaeda infiltrated the camps, and killed several dozen of Sunnis (“How ISIS Came to Be”). All that helped ISIS to capture easily several cities in Iraq such Fallujah and Mosul because the locals, Sunnis, didn’t fight them, but instead teamed up with them and fought the Maliki’s army.

Second Cause is the US invasion of Iraq. It is prominently linked to the rise of ISIS in the region. According to Beauchamp, “The United States invaded Iraq, accidentally sparked a sectarian civil war, and generally created the conditions for what was then al-Qaeda in Iraq to flourish. Without the American invasion, al-Qaeda in Iraq never would have been so strong, and ISIS never would have grown out of it” (“How the US Made ISIS”). Some people also hold the US responsible because it didn’t intervene earlier when ISIS was still weak and on its way of development.

Third cause is the Gulf States’ funding which came precisely from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar; it helped ISIS to stand on its feet and consolidate its power in Syria. That donation from those countries wasn’t because those states encourage extremism, but because they hate Assad and they wish his downfall. Beauchamp says that, funding the opposing groups of Assad from the Gulf countries is a similar case to what the US did in the Cold War when it supported financially and militarily the militias that opposed the Soviet Union (“How the US made ISIS”). According to Rogin, “Gulf donors support ISIS, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda called the al Nusrah Front, and other Islamic groups fighting on the ground in Syria because they feel an obligation to protect Sunnis suffering under the atrocities of the Assad regime” (“Allies Are Funding ISIS”).

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Fourth cause that is attributed to the strong rise of ISIS is the President Assad policy towards it. He deliberately let ISIS to grow and thrive without fighting it or colliding with it. He has followed that plan so that ISIS will fight the Free Army, which is supported by the US and other countries, and weaken it. Hassan writes that, “When Islamic radicals took over Raqqah, the first province to fall under rebels’ control in its entirety, it was remarkable that the regime did not follow the same policy it had consistently employed elsewhere, which is to shower liberated territories with bombs, day and night” (“Assad Has Never Fought ISIS Before”). Surprisingly, Raqqah wasn’t approached; it was saved from bombardments that engulfed Homs, Deir Ezzor, Deraa, and Aleppo even though ISIS painted its administrative buildings in black and become an easy target for the Syrian Air Forces. Hassan says that, “For about a year and a half, Assad allowed ISIS to grow and fester. The regime has been buying oil from it and other extremist groups after it lost control of most of the country’s oilfields and gas plants” (“Assad Has Never Fought ISIS Before”). The explanation that could be given to what Assad has done is that he wants the US and the world to choose between him and ISIS.

3) The Ideology

ISIS’s ideology is the same as the ideology of the Salafi jihadism. For ISIS, there is no difference between state and religion because all its decisions are based on an extreme understanding and interpretation of the sharia which is forcibly implemented on the areas that are under its control. Al-Tamimi states that ISIS and other Jihadist movements such as AL Qaeda and Taliban share a common ideology that aims to reestablish a Caliphate. The latter could be described as an Islamic government that was founded firstly by Abu Bark after the death of the prophet Muhammad. The last manifestation of that caliphate was the Ottomans Empire which was disintegrated in 1924 (19). However, even though those groups share the same ideology, their approaches regarding the proper timing of the establishment of the caliphate is different. For instance, Al Qaeda and Nusra Front see the necessary conditions and the proper timing for the establishment of a caliphate haven’t appeared yet.

ISIS ideology is fundamentally based on the Salafis premise of returning to the pure era of Islam, and following the practices of the ancestors. Salafis consider any additional practice as bidha or innovation; they regard anyone who deviate from their understanding and interpretation of religious texts as heretic whose penalty is death. Moreover, Salafism flourished and developed in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Hussain “Al-Qaida and ISIS emerged from the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many Islamist and jihadist groups that emerged as offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood since the late-1920s have all been engaged in a struggle to overthrow Muslim-majority governments in order to establish the caliphate, ruled by a single divinely appointed leader” (“Iraq Crisis”). Friedland articulates that, the Brotherhood’s ideology is inspired by the writings of Islamic jurist Ibn Taymiya and the writings of Sayyid Qutb, a member of Muslim Brotherhood, who was executed by the Egyptian President Nasser. Syyid Qutb’s ideas have an influence on all Jihadist groups, including ISIS. He wrote that Arabs used to live in ignorance before the arrival of Islam; he regarded living under the governance of the contemporary regimes as living in jahiliyya. For that, he advocated people to revolt against those regimes and found an Islamic State (10).

II. The Elements of Its Power:

1) Funding

ISIS funds itself from various sources. Islamic State’s economy counts on its funding on the production and selling of energy assets seized in Iraq and Syria, the extortion of money

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and taxation from the people who are living in its captured territories, private donors, ransoms from kidnappings, seizing banks’ money from the occupied lands, and selling antiquities.

ISIS used to receive money from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Ragin states that, they were funding the Jihadist groups which are fighting the Assad regime, including ISIS. The given money is esteemed to be more than $40 million over the past two years. However, after being criticized by the US and several other countries, Saudi Arabia enacted a legislation that criminalizes financial donations to terrorist groups such ISIS, Nusra Front, and AL Qaeda (“How the US made ISIS”). Besides, ISIS has seized the money of several banks. Giovanni wrote that, “Along with cash kept in bank vaults in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, an estimated total of $1.5 billion has been seized from banks by ISIS” (“Reign of Terror?”). Moreover, in Raqqah, ISIS takes taxes on exported and imported goods. In addition, ISIS sells antiquities which are extracted from ancient sites such as palaces, shrines, churches, and tombs. Giovanni states that, “More than a third of Iraq’s 12,000 important archaeological sites are now under ISIS control and it has hastily begun excavating and selling artifacts dating from 9,000 B.C. to A.D. 1,000 through intermediaries to collectors and dealers” (“Reign of Terror?”). Furthermore, as a result of occupying some parts of northern Iraq, ISIS has controlled a large space of fields and farms which produce a large amount of grain and silos. According to Newsweek, “ISIS now controls nine grain silos in Nineveh, which spans the Tigris, and seven more elsewhere. It owns hundreds of thousands of tons of wheat representing 40 percent of Iraq’s annual wheat production, according to U.N. estimates” (“Reign of Terror?”). Another source of money is the selling of oil which yields a huge sum of money for ISIS. According to Lock, “The price of Islamic State smuggled oil is discounted —$25 to $60 for a barrel of oil that normally sells for more than $100.But its total profits from oil are exceeding $3 million a day” (“the wealthiest terror group”). Finally, the last source of income is the exploiting of people’s lives. ISIS kidnaps foreigners and ask their relatives to pay ransoms if they wish their beloved ones to be released. According to Giovanni, “Ransoms from kidnappings make up about 20 percent of ISIS’s revenue. The U.S. Treasury estimates ISIS has received $20 million in ransoms so far this year” (“Reign of Terror?”).

2) Propaganda

Through watching several videos of ISIS, I came to a conclusion that ISIS’s goals for sharing those videos is to terrorize their enemies and attract more recruits, particularly youths who are still young and long to live such an adventure of getting rid of democracy, breaking boundaries, and bringing all Muslims under one caliphate. According to ADL, ISIS is not only using social media to instill fear or to recruit new fighters, but it also uses it to support and empower its fighters to carry on their mentions (“Hashtag Terror”). ISIS propaganda has drawn hundreds of westerners from their homelands to Syria. According to Breslow, “More than 12,000 foreign fighters from at least 81 countries stationed in Syria alone. Of that number, approximately 2,500 are from Western nations, including the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany and Great Britain” (“Many Westerners”).

It seems that ISIS’s effort of downloading videos and posting photos in the internet has successfully paid off. Besides, ISIS has shared videos on YouTube of beheading, crucifixion, and whipping. Still, some videos portray Iraqi soldiers digging their own graves or heads on spikes; the aim for those terrifying videos is to shaken the belief of the opposing forces and weaken their courage; It is like there are sending a message that states, if you defy us, your destiny will be the same as those in the video. Those videos have surprisingly yielded results. For instance, When ISIS went to capture Mosul city, 60,000 of Iraqi soldiers who were supposed to force ISIS to retreat, fled and left all their military equipment. That

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demonstrates the effectiveness of ISIS use of social media, and displays it as an effective offensive tool

Figure 1: on December, 15, 2013, ISIS controlled Raqqah and Al Bab in Syria.

Spatial Destination of ISIS

Source:http://www.polgeonow.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00%2B08:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00%2B08:00&max-results=48

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Figure 2: on January, 12, 2014, ISIS controlled Fallujah and part of Ramadi in Iraq.

Source: http://www.polgeonow.com/2014/01/iraq-map-of-al-qaeda-control.html

Figure 3: on June, 22, 2014. ISIS has completely controlled the city of Ramadi, Tikrit, and Mosul in Iraq.

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Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10906350/Iraq-crisis-map-how-the-Isis-front-line-has-shifted.html

III. The Impact of the Emergence of ISIS

1) On Shia

ISIS has committed crimes against Humanity. It has executed anyone who stands in its way, whether they are Sunnis, Shiites, or Christians. ISIS’s reputation of brutality has been confirmed through its mass killing, torture, beadings, and other inhuman actions. According to Salahoden, “Militants from the Islamic State carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi prison inmates when they seized the city of Mosul in June. Some 600 male Shiite inmates from Badoosh prison outside Mosul were shot with automatic weapons” (“Survivors”). In addition, RT states that, ISIS claimed that it has executed 1700 Iraqi Shiites air force cadets, but it is believed that the authentic number is 175 which was announced by the human rights minister in Iraq. (“Mass Murder”). However, I think even if that claim isn’t true, its impact on the Iraqi forces on the battlefield is very strong.

On Christians and Yazidis

Friedland states that, when ISIS captured the Mosul city, 200, 00 of Christians who have inhibited Iraq for 3,000 years fled their homes. The ones who stayed, their homes were marked with the Arabic word Nazarene; ISIS fighters drove their cars on the Mosul’s streets and used loudspeakers to announce that Christians have three choices, either pay jizya, convert to Islam, or die (19). Furthermore, when ISIS closed in the city of Sinjar, thousands of Yazidis, they believe in an ancient religion prior to Islam, fled their homes and took refuge at a mountain. Dozens of children, elders, and women died from dehydration and hunger. According to Zahriyah, “At least 500 Yazidi men were reportedly killed by IS and dozens of women taken into captivity. Tens of thousands of Yazidis, fled Sinjar to the mountain areas without access to food and water” (“Yazidi Community”). That demonstrates clearly the vicious crimes that ISIS is committing against all ethnic groups in Iraq, and shows how brutal it is.

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Conclusion

To sum up, the major causes that helped in the rise of ISIS are the Malik’s discriminatory policy towards the Sunnis, the financial donations from the Gulf States, the civil war in Syria, and the US invasion to Iraq. Besides, the ideology of ISIS is identical to the other Jihadist groups which is based on the idea of returning to the pure era of Islam and which aims to the reestablishment of a caliphate that resembles the one that was in the heydays of Islam. In addition, the power of ISIS could be attributed to two elements: the unlimited sources of money that it control which fund its army and operations and its propaganda system that works for the purpose of terrorizing its enemy and strengthening its army with new recruits.

Even though ISIS claims to represent Islam, it isn’t for its crimes have nothing to do with Islam which is a religion of peace. What ISIS is doing now is only tarnishing the picture of Islam and Muslims and providing concrete evidence to the enemies of the Islam who argue that the latter is a religion of violence. ISIS’s goal may seem more religious than political one because I don’t think someone will wear a bomb vest and blow himself up for a mere reason such a political one. Its fighters believe their deeds are right and for the sake of Muslims. Besides, ISIS believes that Muslims become weak nowadays because they deviated from the straight path of Islam and their place on the top has been taken by the west. It believes what it is doing now is restoring Muslims to their appropriate place. However, I don’t think the ways that it chooses to attain that is the right ones, compulsion and violence, for you cannot coerce people to either convert to Islam or die. I believe its interpretation of the sacred texts are extreme and wrong, and that could be proved by the large number of Islamic scholars who condemn the group’s terrorist actions and urge them to stop.

To stop ISIS advance in Iraq, the coalition forces have supplied the Kurdish fighters or the Peshmorga with advanced weapons to fight ISIS on the ground, whereas the US and its allies conduct airstrikes to clear the way for them to advance. The Kurdish forces has retained some part of the city of Kirkuk and Ramadi. However, the results haven’t yet been significant. My opinion about this is that, the US has not yet taken the threat of ISIS seriously because if it is really willing to stop ISIS, it should send its well-trained troops on the ground. Relying solely on the Kurds on the ground and airstrikes may push ISIS to withdraw from some places, but that will not stop it from coming again. I think that if ISIS isn’t dealt with quickly, it may control Iraq and Syria utterly because ISIS is a well-organized Jihadist group that the world hasn’t seen such before, its army is getting stronger day after day through receiving new recruits and weapons. ISIS is like a killing disease that if you let it grows, it will spread and kill you. Therefore, the world should approach this threat now when it is still in its first stage. Otherwise, it may go out of control.

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