ISIS, REVISITED

The rise and fall of the islamic caliphate

November 10, 2024

In 2001, al-Qaeda group carried out a terrorist attack on the United States killing 2,977 people, known as 9/11.

The US declared “war on terror”. The same year, it invaded Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, was hiding.

In March 2003, the US invaded Iraq, then ruled by the dictator Saddam Hussein.

The US gave two reasons:

  • Iraq was secretly developing weapons of mass destruction (such as nuclear and chemical weapons)

  • Saddam Hussein was helping al-Qaeda

However, both claims were later proven false:

  • No production facilities or stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found by the US military.

  • Saddam Hussein viewed Islamic extremism as a threat to his own power and had conflicts with al-Qaeda. Prior to the US occupation, al-Qaeda did not have a notable presence in Iraq.

At the time of the US invasion of Iraq, the Islamic State existed as a group within al-Qaeda.

The US occupation authorities in Iraq disbanded the Iraqi military and fired thousands of civil servants.

This resulted in:

  • Degradation of public order

  • Mass unemployment

  • Growing poverty

  • Anti-American attitudes

Groups like al-Qaeda found recruits in the recently disempowered Hussein supporters, including former soldiers, as well as the population resentful of the US. 

Terrorist groups carried out attacks both against the US-led occupation and fellow Iraqis. Their methods included suicide bombings, roadside improvised explosive devices, and other acts of mass atrocities.

Between 2003 and 2010, at least 1,779 suicide bombings were either attempted or successfully carried out. 13% of the targets were occupation forces and international civilians compared to 83% of targets who were Iraqis.

After al-Qaeda in Iraq's leader was killed in an American military operation, the sub-group would continue to operate and later be reorganised as the Islamic State of Iraq. 

In 2010 an Iraqi called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would assume command of the organisation.

In 2010-11, a series of popular revolts against several leaders in the Arab world occurred, which came to be known as the Arab Spring.

In Syria, the government of Bashar Assad tried to stop the mass uprising by any means, killing thousands of protesters by the end of 2011.

Syria descended into a civil war.

Western governments began imposing sanctions against the Syrian government while arming the opposition, while Russia and Iran were supplying the government’s forces.

Islamist forces came to dominate the Syrian opposition in the following years.

The Islamic State of Iraq began expanding its operations into neighbouring Syria, renaming itself by 2013 to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Its brutal and cruel methods, including public executions, caused some concern even within the broader al-Qaeda network. Al-Qaeda leadership worried that the level of violence used by ISIS was alienating potential supporters.

A growing power struggle resulted in ISIS splitting from al-Qaeda.

Al-Baghdadi first sent small numbers of fighters across the Iraqi-Syrian border, benefitting from the Syrian opposition breaking apart.

The exclusion of Iraq’s Sunnis from political power helped ISIS to steadily increase popular support in Iraq while growing in Syria.

Declaring a Caliphate

Success in the Syrian Civil War helped to strengthen ISIS, which in turn led to more success in Iraq, where bad relations between different ethnic and religious groups was weakening the state.

Rather than having a single strong military, Iraq had large numbers of militias, some with foreign support, as well as weak loyalty towards the central government, resulting in many Iraqi soldiers fleeing.

In June 2014 the group took control of the cities of Mosul (Iraq’s second biggest city) and Tikrit (the hometown of Saddam Hussein) and later even managed to reach the outskirts of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.

The successful advances enabled ISIS to appear more like a state. By the end of 2014, 8-12 million people lived in the areas that ISIS controlled.

It also began collecting tax revenue and sold oil from those areas, in addition to extortion and ransom demands.

Al-Baghdadi both shortened the group’s name (now simply to the Islamic State) and declared himself a caliph, a Muslim religious and civil ruler who was a successor to the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

In doing so the group was making a claim to global leadership over all Muslims, not simply limited to parts of the Middle East. Despite this effort, the group did not achieve actual recognition from any foreign government or any major religious body.

With greater success came more attention, which led to a large number of foreign fighters joining ISIS. By December 2015, around 30,000 fighters from 85 countries had joined.

Between 2013 and 2019, approximately 53,000 men, women, and minors had joined the terrorist organisation.

ISIS also made effective use of social media by highlighting, not hiding, their brutality.

Following their takeover of Tikrit ISIS carried out a massacre of over 1,700 cadets and afterwards released a 22-minute video that included footage of hundreds of executions from what is the biggest act of terrorism in Iraq’s history.

Their methods and publicity were not limited to Iraqis and Syrians but also foreign nationals.

US journalist James Foley was seen in a video released in August 2014 being beheaded by a jihadi with a British accent, which indicated that the intended target audience of the recording was a global one.

On the one hand it led to highly negative views towards ISIS in the Islamic world (as al-Qaeda had feared), while on the other hand it secured the group’s status as the world’s most infamous jihadist organisation.

Foreign organisations with similar beliefs as ISIS began pledging allegiance to the new “caliph”.

Wanting to be as successful as ISIS, groups copied their actions. For example, the ISIS affiliate in Libya kidnapped and beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian, an act that was also recorded and released.

Meanwhile, some individuals carried out terrorist attacks outside the Middle East in the name of ISIS, such as the November 2015 Paris terror attacks. Often, these were separate attacks in which perpetrators had pledged allegiance to ISIS or the group claimed credit in order to strengthen their own position in the world of jihadism but was not necessarily coordinated with ISIS.

The group succeeded in gaining international attention through their destruction of ancient heritage sites and relics, like the Roman ruins in the Syrian desert city of Palmyra.

ISIS claimed this was to clean their “caliphate” of non-Islamic influences, but in reality it aimed to gain free media coverage, while secretly selling artifacts on the black market.

The decline and fall of ISIS

Western governments had initially focused on supporting anti-government forces in Syria but with ISIS marginalising many of the rebels and becoming the leading anti-government force, overthrowing Assad had stopped being a priority.

Instead, governments like the United States began carrying out bombings against the group in both Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, both Russia and Iran intervened directly in support of the Syrian and Iraqi governments.

In 2014, the Combined Joint Task Force was formed by the US, teaming up over 30 countries in fighting ISIS. The group carried out thousands of airstrikes and extensive group operations.

Russia also conducted operations against ISIS, although was also using them to target the Syrian opposition, in support of the Assad’s government.

Additionally, Western governments continued to train, equip, and coordinate with Kurdish forces in both Iraq and Syria.

Kurds are an ethnic minority living in the Middle East, including in northern Iraq and Syria.

ISIS began losing territory as well as income, which weakened the organisation.

In 2019, ISIS’ leader, al-Baghdadi, was killed by the US military.

As countries around the world combined their efforts, the state-like aspects of ISIS began to disappear, and it reverted to an insurgency.

Long-term impact

Despite losing its territory and many of its leaders, the long-term consequences of ISIS operations remain: (1) destruction of communities, (2) large-scale displacement, and (3) thousands of ISIS prisoners are some of the challenges.

Foreign governments have been particularly worried about the possibility that some of their citizens who fought for or supported ISIS could return home and continue to engage in terrorism.

While numerous jihadi groups had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ISIS, they continued to operate as independent organisations while hoping to benefit from the ISIS brand. Because of their largely independent structures, the collapse of ISIS in the Levant and Mesopotamia had little influence elsewhere.

ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K), an affiliate in Afghanistan, continues to operate and has carried out terrorist attacks, such as the one in Moscow that killed 145 people and injured more than 500 others.

Elsewhere, such as in the Sahel and Mozambique, jihadi attacks have grown in frequency and intensity though these groups primarily have a local focus as opposed to the global ambitions that ISIS held.

Author Naman Habtom

Editor Anton Kutuzov

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