Making sense of ISIS
David Siddhartha Patel
Crown Center for Middle
East Studies, Brandeis
University
March 19, 2015
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
Origins of ISIS
ISIS/ISIL/DAESH/IS ?!?
Goals
Intentions and philosophy
Why has it been successful?
Who is fighting ISIS and where?
2003-2011 – Part of the Iraqi insurgency
- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
-
-
1999-2004: Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad
Oct 2004: Pledges allegiance to OBL; becomes al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)
Highly sectarian – targets Shi’ite mosques and civilians, Iraqi govt, U.S.
Feb 2006: bombing of al-Askariyya shrine in Samaraa
June 2006: Zarqawi killed
Oct 2006: Declares Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)
Largely defeated by the U.S. from June 2007 to 2010; reduced to sporadic bombing
May 2010: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi takes over
2011-present – Expansion into Syria fuels revival in Iraq
- March 2011: Syrian civil war begins
- Aug 2011: ISI sends cadres to Syria, who work with al-Nusra Front as al-Qaeda’s
franchise. ISI becomes ISIS; renames itself in April 2013.
- March 2013: ISIS and allies take Raqqa
- By Feb 2014: ISI/ISIS falls out with al-Nusra and al-Qaeda. All ties severed. Fights
al-Nusra and FSA. Takes Fallujah in Jan 2014. Prison breaks in Iraq swell its ranks.
- Early June 2014: ISIS takes Mosul, Tikrit, oil refinery in Baiji, Mosul dam
- Late June 2014: ISIS proclaims itself a worldwide caliphate, The Islamic State.
- Aug 2014: Attacks on Yazidis in Sinjar
- Aug 2014: Obama authorizes airstrikes against ISIS
ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!?
‫الدولة اإلسالمية في العراق والشام‬
ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām
ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!?
‫الدولة اإلسالمية في العراق والشام‬
ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām
‫ – داعش‬Da‘ish, DAESH
ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!?
‫الدولة اإلسالمية في العراق والشام‬
ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām
ISIS – The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
ISIL – The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!?
‫الدولة اإلسالمية في العراق والشام‬
ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām
The Islamic State
The so-called Islamic State
Islamic State (BBC’s preferred term)
Area controlled by ISIS (1 November 2014)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
Area controlled by ISIS (1 November 2014)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
Area controlled by ISIS (3 February 2015)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
The Golden Age of the
‘Rightly-Guided’ Caliphs, 632-661
a.k.a. – the Rashidun
Abu Bakr
Umar
Uthman
Ali
632-634
634-644
644-656
656-661
From Marshall G.S. Hodgson. 1977. The Venture of Islam,
Volume I. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
14
The spread of Islam, 622-750
The Rightly-Guided
Caliphs followed by:
Umayyad Caliphate
661-750, based in
Damascus
Abbasid Caliphate
750-1258, based in
Baghdad
Others…
Ottoman Caliphate
c. 1517-1924, based
in Istanbul
15
The early Islamic empire…
16
…is now divided into nation-states
17
Source: Thorp, Gene,
and Swati Sharma.
2015. “Fighters to
Syria.” The
Washington Post
January 27.
The anti-ISIS coalition
The fight in Iraq
General Qasem Soleimani