INTERNATIONAL

ISIS

Things
to Know
About

This Islamist army has seized much of Iraq and Syria.

What does it want and what can be done about it?

JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC / APRIL 20, 2015

What Is ISIS?

ISIS is short for the Islamic State

of Iraq and Syria. The groups
radical aim is to set up a massive
state ruled by strict Islamic law.
ISIS is a product of years of
chaos in the Middle East. Its forerunner was an army called Al-Qaeda
in Iraq. Al-Qaeda in Iraq fought the
U.S. after American forces toppled
Saddam Hussein, Iraqs dictator, in
2003. In time, that group evolved
into ISIS, led by an ambitious jihadi
named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Then in 2011, neighboring Syria
exploded into civil war. At first,

AP IMAGES (ISIS); POLARIS IMAGES (MUSEUM)

t swept into the news last year, spreading

horrors like an invading horde from the Dark
Ages. In just weeks, the insurgent Islamist
army called ISIS* conquered a huge part of Syria
and Iraq. It threatened Iraqs capital, Baghdad.
ISIS imposed its harsh rule in towns under
its control. It held public executions. It even
stoned people accused of violating Islamic law.
It massacred captured soldiers by the hundreds. The world was shocked by
a series of ISIS-made videos of Western captives being beheaded. Recently,
ISIS recorded its fighters destroying centuries-old artifacts of Mesopotamian
civilization.
Since last August, bombing raids by a U.S.-led group of allied countries
and attacks by armies from Iraq and Iran have managed to halt its
progress. But experts agree that defeating ISIS will not be easy. Here are
five important things to know about what one journalist calls the most
powerful and effective [extremist] group in the world.

ISIS fighters march

through Raqqa, Syria,
destroy ancient artifacts
(below, left), and blow up
Shia mosques (above,
right).

IMAGECAPTURE/YOUTUBE (MOSQUE); METROPOLITAN POLICE/PA WIRE/AP IMAGES (TEENS)

AP IMAGES (ISIS); POLARIS IMAGES (MUSEUM)

Right: A composite photo

of three London teens
passing through airport
security on their way to
join ISIS in Syria.

ISIS was just one of the groups

fighting Syrias president. But, says
Karl Kaltenthaler of the University
of Akron in Ohio, it developed into
a powerful army.
As ISIS won victory after
victory and took more and more
territory, it attracted fighters from
all over the world, Kaltenthaler
says. Officers and soldiers from
Husseins army also gave ISIS years
of invaluable battlefield experience.
In December 2013, ISIS began
its attack on western Iraq. As ISIS
approached, whole towns cleared
out. That created about 1 million
refugees. ISIS terrorized places

under its control. ISIS fighters

forced Christians and other religious
minorities to convert or be killed.
They even sold some into slavery.
ISIS seized oil refineries, raised
taxes, and stole about $425 million
from Iraqs central bank.

What Does
ISIS Want?

ISIS is dedicated to re-establishing a caliphate. That is an Islamic

state led by a caliph, or successor
to Muhammad, Islams founder.
The most powerful caliphate
existed during the 9th century. It
reached from modern-day Pakistan,

*Some authorities, including the U.S. government, call it ISILthe Islamic

State of Iraq and the Levant. (Levant is a historical term for the lands along the
eastern Mediterranean Sea.) The group now calls itself the Islamic State.

across the Middle East and North

Africa, and into Spain.
Last June, ISIS formally declared
itself the Islamic State, led by Baghdadi as caliph. All of the Muslim
countries [are expected] to become
part of this mega-state and pledge
their loyalty to the new caliph,
Kaltenthaler tells JS.
The people of the Islamic State
are Sunni Muslims. Experts say that
their struggle is mainly a sectarian
war against Shia Muslims. The bitter rivalry between Sunni and Shia
goes back to the argument over
continued on p. 10

APRIL 20, 2015 / JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC

One of the few

photos of Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi,
leader of ISIS,
whom the group
has declared caliph
of the worlds
Muslims

showed up in Syria posing for an

online photo with an assault rifle.
An estimated 20,000 foreigners
from 80 countries have made similar journeys. About 4,000 of them
came from the West. As many as
How Strong
130 were from the U.S.
Is ISIS?
News stories show ISISs cruel
ISIS now has an army of up to
treatment of women,
35,000 fighters. It
such as forcing them
has made billions of
to marry fighters.
dollars from donaWomen are also
tions, taxes, and
beaten for not wearselling oil. Foreign
ing strict Muslim
extremist armies like
dress. Yet about
Boko Haram in Nige10 percent of ISIS
ria have pledged
recruits from the
allegiance. This is
West are young
not just a [terrorist]
women. Aqsa Mahgroup, says Taylor.
mood, a popular,
Its a worldwide
KARL KALTENTHALER
Harry Potter-loving
movement.
20-year-old from
However, ISIS is
Scotland, shocked her family by
starting to show some cracks. Air
going to Syria. She convinced three
strikes and ground-force attacks
teen girls from London to join her.
have reduced its territory by about
Airport security cameras captured
25 percent, the U.S. Department of
the girls leaving England (see p. 9).
Defense says. The bombing has tar-

Why Does ISIS Attract

Young Westerners?

10

JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC / APRIL 20, 2015

Lately, the news has been full

of stories of young Muslims from
the U.S. and Europe joining ISIS.
In New York, police arrested two
young men suspected of traveling
to Syria to become fighters. In Minnesota, a 20-year-old planning to
become a lawyer left home, then

ISIS does a very

good job of creating
slick messages that
play on the emotions
of young Muslims to
get them to come
and join their cause,

AP IMAGES

who would succeed Muhammad

after the Prophets death in 632 A.D.
The governments of Iraq, Syria,
and Iran are ISISs foes. All three
are dominated by Shia Muslims.
ISIS also sees the U.S. and other
Western countries as enemies of
Islam, according to Robert Taylor
of the University of Texas at Dallas.
[To them,] the West is corrupt,
Taylor says. Its a colonizer. [It
has taken over] much of the Arab
power in the Middle East. ISISs
beheading videos are meant to
upset the West, Taylor says. This
is an act of defiance.

Some [young people] are

drawn to ISIS out of a belief that
it is creating what God intended
for Muslims, Kaltenthaler tells JS.
Female recruits may also imagine
they will find an ideal community
of faithful Muslim women caring
for jihadi men. This is especially
the case if the women come from
countries where they feel out of
place as Muslims.
The Islamic State offers a
positive image and says: Youre
welcome here. Come join us in the
formation of an ideal state, one
expert told The New York Times.
Many recruits are bedroom radicals. They were quietly converted
in their own homes through social
media and a professional Internet
campaign. ISIS does a very good
job of creating slick messages that
play on the emotions of young
Muslims to get them to come and
join their cause, says Kaltenthaler.

TURKEY
IR

(as of 3/13/15)

I
U
IS

Homs

Mediterranean
Sea

SYRIA

Tikrit

LEBANON

Baghdad
Tig
ris

JORDAN

Eup

Area of map

0
0

JIM MCMAHON/MAPMAN (MAP); KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS (BARACK OBAMA)

h r ate
s

SAUDI ARABIA

U.S.
EQUATOR

IRAQ

Falluja

Damascus

ISRAEL

IRAN

Kirkuk

CYPRUS

TA

Erbil

RD

MT. SINJAR

AQ

Raqqa

Aleppo

Mosul

ISIS control
or influence

50 MI
100 KM

geted ISIS oil facilities. That makes

it harder for the group to fund its
operations. ISIS wants to keep an
actual state together. But doing that
is proving more and more difficult.
For instance, its hard to provide
medicine and drinking water for so
many people.
ISISs success in attracting
fighters from many countries has
brought its own problems. They
cant talk to each other because
they dont share a common
language, Kaltenthaler says.
Veteran fighters also resent the
privileges given to foreign recruits.
Another source of ISISs strength
has been support from Sunnis
who resent their countries Shia
governments. But some of those
people are now tired of the groups
brutality. They resist being made
to fight. People supported [ISIS]
because they were scared or
they needed money, one Syrian
opposition leader told a reporter.
Now people want nothing to
do with them, and if [ISIS] puts
pressure on them, they just flee.

KUWAIT
SOURCE: Institute for the Study of War

Persian
Gulf

Can ISIS
Be Stopped?

Are the U.S. and its allies strong

enough to defeat ISIS? That is a
tough question.
For Kaltenthaler, part of the
answer is in convincing people
in the Middle
East to put
aside the
1,300-yearold conflict
between Sunni

and Shia Islam and work together.

Both sects must also believe they
have a stake in their countries.
Sunnis and Shias in Iraq and Syria
must look at ISIS as the common
enemy rather than each other as
the bigger enemy, he says.
Taylor thinks that the West
will have to deal directly with the
Islamic State in the end. Were
just not going to be able to deal
with this militarily, he says.
So far, U.S. President Barack
Obama has refused to send combat
troops. But the U.S.-led bombing
campaign has played a major part
in containing ISIS. Last month, the
U.S. also began contributing air
power to the Iraqi army, to help its
weeks-old campaign to take back
the important city of Tikrit.
Make no mistake, this is a difficult mission, Obama has said.
But, he added, our coalition is on
the offensive, [ISIS] is on the defensive, and [ISIS] is going to lose.
Taylor is more cautious. He says
that Americans who see ISIS as a
temporary problem to be solved
need to consider the attitude of
people in the Middle East. They
think in hundreds of years instead
of decades, he says. ISIS is
prepared to accept any defeats as
temporary setbacks and wait for
history to go its way.
This isnt going to
be a quickie, Taylor
says. Its going to be
tough. Bryan Brown

YOUR TURN
What could convince
a young person to join
ISIS? What illusions
might he or she have?
How could that life
seem more fulfilling?

JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC

11