ISIS summary

What exactly are the goals of ISIS? What are these fanatics fighting for?

ISIS has stated that it wants to abolish the concept of nation-states. In its early days, the group sought only to gain territory within Iraq and Syria, but quickly revised its goals to building a caliphate, or an Islamic state. This is why the group now self-identifies as the Islamic State, or IS.

ISIS began with a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Zarqawi was born in a small town in northern Jordan, and had a troubled childhood. Lacking an education and being only semi-literate in Arabic, he was often violent and unruly. His mother enrolled him in religious courses, with the hope that this would give his life structure.

Even though al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, his name still inspires terror.

This famous jihadi was the financial muscle behind a number of terrorist groups and training camps. But how did he and al-Zarqawi form their deadly partnership?

The US invasion of Iraq pushed many former Baathist party members into the hands of the Salafists and even al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Yet before the war, Saddam Hussein had feared tensions between the country’s Shia majority and its ruling Sunni minority could ignite a civil war. He began a campaign to educate state workers about Islam, and had political allies infiltrate mosques.

Al-Zarqawi organized election boycotts, pursued the death of leading Shia Muslims and orchestrated beheadings as well as terror attacks, all with the goal of uniting Sunni Muslims under his banner of jihad. But some of his tactics backfired.

Concerned about the ongoing violence, local tribes soon began to withdraw their commitment to al-Zarqawi’s cause. During a boycott of the 2005 election, al-Zarqawi’s tactics seemed successful, as attacks on Shias intensified and few Sunnis went to the polls.

As ISIS grew, the group decided to base its operations in Iraq, where it could continue to recruit and build toward a grander strategy.  

But ISIS miscalculated the amount of support it had from the Sons of Iraq, a coalition of tribes in the country. As a result, Iraqis began to revolt against many jihadist groups, ISIS included.

Once al-Qaeda was out of Iraq, ISIS reorganized and turned the growing hatred against American soldiers and the Iraqi government to its favor.

Beginning in 2011, ISIS began to show the full extent of its power, starting in Syria.

Public beheadings. A sinister black flag, flying over scenes of destruction. Much of ISIS’s power has come from its imagery and the effectiveness of those images to recruit others to its cause.

ISIS’s propaganda campaign clearly has a particular appeal for men (and women) who decide to give their lives to the goals of the Islamic State.

Recruiting foreign fighters is just one element of ISIS’s strategy. Tactics on the ground in particular have made this jihadist organization unusually effective.

Crucially, ISIS leaders understood the tribal structure of Syria and used it to their advantage.

Over a decade ago, the United States invaded Iraq, igniting the fires of a regional religious and social conflict that had been smoldering for decades.

The events and the “end” of the war created ever more enemies for the United States, yet it is now clear that the US government had no idea what it was getting into when it invaded.