Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Introduction

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or simply the Islamic State, is a terrorist organization that, at the height of its powers, from about 2014 to 2017, controlled large swaths of territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria. A US-led international coalition beat the group back until, by the end of 2017, it no longer controlled any significant amount of territory; however, it continued to claim organized affiliates in numerous other countries, from Algeria to Afghanistan, and sought to continue inspiring attacks around the world in the service of its radical, anti-Western brand of fundamentalist Sunni Islam. By March 2019, ISIS had lost control of most of its core territory in Syria and Iraq and was reduced to insurgent cells and a small desert pocket. However, ISIS and its regional affiliates, particularly Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISIS–K), which was most active in southern and central Asia, continued carrying out violent terror attacks throughout the early 2020s.

Overview

In 2011, the official departure of most American combat troops from Iraq opened a new chapter in that nation's history following the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein. The first few years of that new era, however, were tumultuous and violent. In Baghdad, Iraq, charges of political corruption and ineffectiveness continued, along with widespread complaints about the alienation of non-Shiite groups by the Shiite-dominated government. Meanwhile, the Iraqi military continued an extremely slow development and lacked the technology, infrastructure, and training to ensure national security. 


In the absence of a strong Iraqi government and military, the country suffered extensive sectarian violence and terrorism. In particular, one Sunni extremist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), took root in northwestern Iraq and expanded into northeastern Syria during that country's civil war. ISIS, which claimed itself to be a caliphate, or a state based upon Islamic law, became known for its extreme brutality against other ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, and both the Iraqi and Syrian governments were unable to quell the rapidly expanding ISIS insurgency.


In light of Iraq's struggles to defeat ISIS and the threat to regional security ISIS posed as it pressed its campaign, Iraq's government looked to the United States and its allies for assistance. Beginning in the late summer of 2014, that assistance included air strikes against ISIS targets in northern Iraq, the return of a small number of military advisers to Iraq to help train the military, and humanitarian assistance for affected Iraqis. Beginning in September 2014, the United States and a handful of Arab countries also launched air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria, with whose government the United States had suspended diplomatic relations in 2012.

As ISIS continued to exert power in Iraq and Syria, it also became involved in terrorism in other countries. The group distinguished itself from many terrorist organizations through its command of social media, using various online channels to spread its message and recruit new members. The threat of ISIS-linked terrorists committing attacks abroad or of home-grown terrorists inspired by the group led many countries to review their counterterrorism and homeland security policies. Some nations also became actively involved in the military campaign against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, or both, including France and Russia.

History


The group widely known as ISIS owes its history to two conflicts in neighboring nations, Iraq and Syria. The older of those conflicts is the struggle for power in Iraq. Jordanian-born radical Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, while training in Afghanistan with the infamous Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, made a pivotal decision to leave during the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and relocate to Iraq. There, in light of his relationship with bin Laden, Zarqawi became a focal point of American intelligence. US president George W. Bush and his advisers concluded that Zarqawi was an agent of al-Qaeda, a presumption that was among the factors that convinced Congress to authorize Bush to send troops into Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.


However, Zarqawi, who followed a radical brand of Sunni Islam, intended to create a new organization, separate from al-Qaeda. His Party of Monotheism and Jihad (in Arabic, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or JTJ) would focus on opposing Shiite Muslims, historical adversaries of Sunnis. JTJ bombed Shiite mosques and attacked unarmed Iraqis. Those attacks worsened when the United States toppled Hussein and had him replaced with a Shiite-led government. With Sunni ire focused on the new government, Zarqawi's popularity grew considerably, even earning the approval of bin Laden, and around 2004 his group became known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Two years later, however, he was killed by a US air strike. 


Zarqawi was dead, but his movement—which became known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)—continued, along with its campaign of violence against Iraqi Shiites. However, even al-Qaeda leaders (themselves no strangers to mass killings) grew concerned about the group's brutality; before his death, Zarqawi was cautioned by bin Laden lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri about his tactics against fellow Muslims. That and similar warnings were ignored, and al-Qaeda and Zarqawi's group eventually parted ways. 


Meanwhile, beginning in 2011, unrest in Syria and a popular uprising against the government in Damascus opened another battlefront for the radical Sunni group. The increasingly violent measures utilized by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad against insurgents helped fuel the activity of antigovernment groups throughout Syria. ISI became active in the eastern regions of the country, soon changing its name yet again, to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and became dominant among Syrian rebel groups by 2014. 


In June 2014, ISIS took another bold step: the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria to be a single Islamic state (or caliphate), with himself as caliph, or supreme political and religious leader. Once declaring the caliphate, ISIS changed its name simply to the Islamic State (IS), claiming that all other Muslim communities should pay homage to IS as the one true Islamic state.
 The group's ability to exert considerable control over all aspects of life in the areas it claimed set it apart from other terrorist organizations, which typically operate as stateless entities.

Another notable tactic employed by ISIS was the destruction of non-Sunni cultural heritage, including ancient historic sites. The group actively destroyed any evidence of what it considers idol worship, whether in the form of modern shrines of other Muslim groups or archaeological sites from early Christian, Muslim, or other traditions. Observers considered this to be a form of propaganda to demonstrate power as well as an active part of ISIS's ideology. Sites known to have been destroyed or damaged in Syria include the ancient city of Palmyra, the Mar Elian monastery, and the Roman city of Apamea, while those in Iraq include the cities of Hatra and Nineveh, the Mosul Museum, and the Mosque of the Prophet Yunus. ISIS is also believed to have participated in the looting of these and other cultural sites, using the proceeds from black-market sales to fund their other activities. ISIS also drew attention for its financial strategy, which combined oil sales, stolen antiquities, ransom, and taxes on local business, generating millions of dollars per day.

The territorial spread of ISIS stalled after international forces began opposing the group, though its political influence remained strong for some time. In March 2015, the leader of the almost equally dangerous Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, responsible for militant atrocities committed throughout Nigeria, reportedly swore allegiance to ISIS. Boko Haram's actions and philosophy increasingly paralleled those of ISIS. although Boko Haram struggled throughout the early 2020s as the group suffered from infighting and mounting losses against the Nigerian military.

Meanwhile, ISIS itself steadily lost territory as opposition efforts continued. By the end of 2017 the group had lost full control of most of its former holdings, with mopping-up operations continuing into 2019. In March 2019 the very last Syrian town said to be controlled by ISIS, in Deir ez-Zor province, was liberated, leading some to declare the group defeated, though many experts warned that it remained a dangerous organization capable of significant terrorist violence. In October 2019, al-Baghdadi was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria's Idlib province, and he was replaced a few days later by a little-known figure named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.

Other regional developments, including the end of the US-led War in Afghanistan (2001–21), changed the power dynamic in the Middle East and gave ISIS new opportunities to carry out attacks. In August 2021, as the evacuation effort was underway following the end removal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent retaking of the country's capital by the Taliban, it was reported that an ISIS fighter affiliated with ISIS–K had conducted a bombing attack of Kabul's airport that had led to the deaths of almost two hundred civilians and thirteen US soldiers.

In February 2022, US president Joe Biden announced that a counterterrorism operation in Syria carried out by US special forces had resulted in the death of al-Qurayshi. It was reported that as US soldiers came closer to capturing al-Qurayshi, he had detonated explosives, killing himself as well as others. The previous month, US forces were involved in aiding Kurdish forces in al-Hasakah, Syria, to fight back against ISIS fighters who had laid siege to the town's prison, which held several ISIS detainees. The battle, through which the US and Kurdish forces were able to regain control, was considered one of the largest to involve US soldiers since 2019. Later that year, it was reported that yet another new person had stepped in to the head position after ISIS's most recent leader had been killed.

Because ISIS continued to be considered a threat to both worldwide safety and regional stability, further operations were conducted against the organization by US and other forces. By early 2023, two such operations had targeted influential ISIS figures who remained active. In Syria in April of that year, a drone strike resulted in the death of a high-ranking official suspected of orchestrating European attacks while another ISIS operative described as an "attack facilitator" was captured through a raid.

Still, ISIS remained active and capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks on civilians. Of particular concern by that time was ISIS-K, a regional branch of the terrorist group based primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan and also active in Iran. This affiliate of ISIS, which also carried out the 2021 Kabul airport attack, was responsible for a number of terror attacks throughout the early 2020s, including a pair of suicide bombings in Kerman, Iran, in January 2024 that killed ninety-four people.

ISIS also claimed responsibility for the March 2024 terror attacks in Krasnogorsk, Russia, located near Moscow. The four gunmen arrested and accused of carrying out this attack, which killed 139 people, were members of the Tajik ethnic group with roots in central Asia, leading some observers to conclude that the accused attackers were more likely affiliated with ISIS–K rather than the mainstream branch of ISIS. At that time ISIS–K had a significant area of influence in eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan. This attack also highlighted ISIS's lingering resentment toward Russia, due to the country's bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria, as well as its ability to carry out attacks outside of its usual areas of influence. Later, in August, authorities alleged that the Syrian man who confessed to a knife attack in Germany that resulted in the deaths of three people had ideological ties to ISIS; at the same time, the media reported that ISIS, citing vengeance for Muslim Palestinians amid the Israeli war in Gaza, claimed responsibility for the assault.

Recruitment

In the age of the internet, ISIS has been able to spread propaganda to people around the world, prompting thousands to immigrate to Iraq and Syria for training and take part in ISIS's cause. It is thought that recruiters are in place to help such individuals make their way to ISIS strongholds. Notably, the group has also used social media, including X (formerly known as Twitter) and other services, to distribute information, and efforts to block such use have had mixed results. Many women worldwide have also been recruited, particularly through the community that they share with others of similar devotion on social media. Footage of ISIS beheadings of prisoners and destruction of cultural sites has been used to demonstrate the group's power, strike fear into various populations, and convince others to join. ISIS is also thought to use more positive recruiting methods, such as promising members better social conditions or a sense of belonging or purpose.

While some countries, such as Australia, have made attempts to make joining ISIS a criminal act, confiscating passports of those who attempt it, the task of isolating and preventing such activity has proven difficult and worrisome to agencies such as the US Department of Homeland Security. In 2015, a suspected ISIS supporter who had reportedly planned an attack on the US Capitol building was arrested. Although ISIS recruits have come from countries across the world, according to a 2016 study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, and Jordan represented the largest sources of foreign ISIS recruits. According to the International Centre by the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), western European countries with large populations, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, had citizens fighting for ISIS while countries such as Belgium had produced some of the most ISIS recruits per capita.

While reliable numbers have been difficult to obtain, US intelligence estimates indicate that in 2015, at the height of its power, ISIS had roughly 40,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq. About half were foreign fighters, mostly from North Africa, but more than three thousand Europeans and perhaps around one hundred or two hundred Americans had also joined its ranks. A US-led coalition of European and Arab nations, organized in September 2014, carried out air strikes against ISIS while Iraqi security forces began a ground offensive, with support from Shia militias armed and trained by Iran. By late 2016, US government estimates of the size of the ISIS fighting force had fallen to between 15,000 and 20,000.

As ISIS's military campaign began to struggle, concerns grew over the group's increased focus on recruiting and extorting children to serve their cause. Unlike in the case of other terrorist regimes or organizations, the children who have become involved with ISIS seem to do so of their own volition, adopting the cause to the same extent as their adult counterparts. In much of their propaganda, ISIS has encouraged parents to sacrifice their children for the sake of the Islamic State. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS recruited approximately 1,100 children under the age of sixteen between January and August 2015. Reports indicated that these children had been taking part in a range of activities for the organization, including carrying weapons and even becoming suicide bombers. In early 2019 the first instance of an American minor found to be fighting for ISIS was reported after a Syrian militia group claimed it had captured the sixteen-year-old individual.

Action against ISIS


The declaration by ISIS of a caliphate had major implications, both in terms of regional security and the global Islamic community. With regard to the former issue, a stable Middle East has been a top goal of the international community. Key to the pursuit of that goal, from the Western perspective, is encouraging stable, prodemocratic governments. Also essential to that effort is ensuring that those governments have the infrastructure to maintain their respective countries' internal security (a pursuit that includes both social services and military or law enforcement capability). 


In both Iraq and Syria, the accomplishments of ISIS in 2014 underscored the lack of viable government and security infrastructures in those countries. In Syria, for example, experts believe that ISIS and other groups took hold as a result of the Assad regime's heavy hand against opposition groups as well an inability to engage militant terrorist groups far outside of Damascus and Aleppo, that country's two largest cities. In the absence of an engaged government, those regions fell victim to competing rebel groups, some of them moderate, but some of them extremists like ISIS. In Iraq, ISIS succeeded where Baghdad simply could not reach. During the US-led effort in Iraq that ended in 2011, Iraqi and US forces engaged in an intensive struggle to oust insurgents from key cities in the north—including that region's largest city, Mosul—only to see them fall to ISIS when the US departure left a weak and poorly equipped Iraqi military to battle insurgents throughout that large country.
 In June 2014, ISIS captured the city of Mosul and began expanding its control southward toward Baghdad. By the end of the summer of 2014, the group had taken control of more than a dozen cities and towns in Iraq, which prompted the group to declare itself a caliphate and rebrand as the Islamic State due to its territorial holdings.

The documented brutality of ISIS against both Muslims and non-Muslims in the region (among them two American journalists and a British aid worker who were executed by ISIS in August and September 2014) prompted the international community to call for action against ISIS. In November 2014, twenty-six-year-old American humanitarian worker Peter Kassig was beheaded, and the video revealing this fact also displayed the graphic beheadings of more than twenty Syrian soldiers. The first two Japanese nationals known to be captured by the group were beheaded in early 2015; the video of Kenji Goto's execution proclaimed ISIS's war against Japan as well.

The United States—which helped train the Iraqi military and build the new government in Baghdad—initiated military action to roll back the ISIS movement and prevent further humanitarian catastrophe and political chaos. President Barack Obama authorized US air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq in August 2014 and in Syria in September, and official government reports suggest such actions were successful in reducing ISIS's fighting force and controlled territory. Obama also deployed a small group of US advisers to aid in the training of Iraqi forces committed to combating ISIS in June 2015, despite controversy within the United States regarding the level of US reinvolvement in the region. Several top commanders within ISIS were reportedly killed, including the group's main leader in Libya and the infamous British-raised fighter known as Jihadi John, who had been featured in several ISIS videos, in November 2015.

By early 2016, due to efforts made by Iraqi troops, ISIS had lost a large percentage of its territory, including some major strategic cities. By March of that year, the crucial cities of Tikrit and Ramadi had been reclaimed from the terrorist organization. That same month, the Iraqi government announced that it had launched a campaign to retake the large city of Mosul. ISIS maintained control over portions of Mosul until the end of July 2017, when Iraqi forces finally declared the city liberated. Meanwhile, Turkish troops and Syrian rebels managed to force ISIS out of several towns and villages on the border between Syria and Turkey, taking yet more territory away from the group. Major advances in the offensive against ISIS were made throughout 2016 and 2017, such as the expulsion of ISIS fighters from Palmyra by the Syrian Army and Russian reinforcements in March 2017 and the retaking of the Tabqa Dam from ISIS fighters by the SDF in May 2017.

From 2016, coalition troops and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) focused on expelling ISIS from the Syrian city of Raqqa, which remained one of the final ISIS strongholds and which ISIS declared the capital city of its caliphate. Finally, in October 2017, it was announced that Syrian defense forces had retaken control of the city from ISIS. While this represented a major victory over ISIS, Syrian military officials also warned that there was still an ISIS presence in some small areas of the city and that the group had planted improvised explosive devices throughout the city that could take some time to clear. Additionally, the city had been extensively destroyed by air strikes during the long conflict with ISIS, making the process of rebuilding daunting for Syrian groups. As part of a similar effort, US-backed Iraqi forces reported that they had retaken the town of Rawa, which had been one of the group's last real footholds in the country, in November of that year.

ISIS continued to lose territory in Syria throughout 2018. In response, the group increased its terrorist activities, notably including major suicide bombings and other attacks in southern Syria. ISIS forces elsewhere also suffered losses, and the group's leaders in Afghanistan were reportedly killed in an August 2018 airstrike. With ISIS's traditional military capabilities far weakened from its 2014–15 heyday, some international observers began to consider the group essentially destroyed or at least near total defeat. The Syrian government declared its victory over ISIS in 2018, and in December of that year US president Donald Trump also abruptly announced the group's defeat and said the United States would withdraw forces from Syria. Critics noted that at the time of Trump's announcement, ISIS in fact still controlled a small area of territory in Syria, and more importantly remained a serious terrorist threat in that country and abroad.

By March 2019 ISIS was said to have lost virtually all its former territory in Iraq and Syria. Many security experts suggested that a US withdrawal would potentially allow ISIS to rebuild its strength, and called announcements of victory premature. The US withdrawal, in fact, proceeded slowly, with small numbers of troops remaining in Syria into 2024. Meanwhile, ISIS–K remained active in Central Asia, although Taliban military opposition prevented the group from controlling any significant territory in Afghanistan by mid-2024.

Terrorist Activities Abroad


As ISIS's expansion in Syria and Iraq slowed down, it increasingly began claiming responsibility for various terrorist attacks around the world. Many bombings, shootings, kidnappings, and other violent acts were carried out either directly by ISIS members or those inspired by the group. While most of these took place around the Middle East, several high-profile attacks targeting citizens of other countries brought heavy media coverage and raised public awareness in the West of both border security issues and the risk of home-grown terrorists inspired by ISIS. In October 2015, Metrojet Flight 9268, a Russian airliner, exploded in Egyptian airspace over the Sinai Peninsula, and it was eventually determined that an ISIS bombing was responsible. The incident prompted increased Russian involvement in the Syrian Civil War, although some Western observers argued that Russia targeted non-ISIS rebel forces.

Other notable attacks occurred within Western countries. On November 13, 2015, a series of attacks in Paris, France, including suicide bombings and shootings, killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more in ISIS's largest and most coordinated attack on the West to that date. In response, France initiated various security measures and increased its bombing campaign against ISIS targets. On December 2, 2015, a married couple (a US-born husband and Pakistani-born wife) who had allegedly pledged themselves to ISIS shot and killed fourteen people and wounded twenty-one others in San Bernardino, California, although most reports suggested they acted on their own accord rather than under the direct command of ISIS. Yet another European attack occurred on March 22, 2016, when two Belgian brothers and a Moroccan-born Belgian citizen detonated suicide bombs inside of the airport and a busy metro station in Brussels, Belgium. Two of the men suspected of being involved in planning and perpetrating the incident, which resulted in the deaths of thirty-two individuals, were believed to have also had ties to the Paris attacks; shortly after the attacks, ISIS released a statement once again claiming responsibility.

On June 29, 2016, more suicide bombings occurred at yet another airport, this time in Ataturk, Turkey, leaving forty-four more people dead. Due to the method and date of the attack, along with other circumstantial evidence, the Turkish government labeled ISIS as the most likely culprit; however, no group officially claimed responsibility. With terrorist activity also increasing in the United Kingdom, ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena following a concert performed by American pop star Ariana Grande in May 2017 that left twenty-two people dead.

Despite being severely weakened by that point, ISIS also claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in Sri Lanka in April 2019, which killed at least 257 people and injured about 500 more. In 2020, ISIS claimed responsibility for a lone gunman's attack on a popular nightlife area in Vienna, Austria, that led to the deaths of four people. When two terrorist attacks occurred in Israel within days of one another in late March 2022, leaving six Israelis dead, authorities became concerned as the perpetrators were suspected of links to ISIS and/or sympathetic views. At a time when a summit was set to take place in the country between foreign ministers representing Israel, four Arab nations, and the US, two gunmen believed to be ISIS supporters shot and killed two border police officers on March 27 in the city of Hadera; ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after. A late 2022 attack in Iran, in which at least fifteen were killed while attending a shrine, was also claimed by ISIS, as were the March 2024 terror attack in Krasnogorsk, Russia, and the August 2024 knife attack in Solingen, Germany.

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