Today's headlines are filled with so many acronyms that sometimes it can get a little confusing. Who is ISIS and what does this have to do with the war in Iraq? Didn't we just get out of there? What is going on?
Who?
ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They are a extremist rebel group operating in territories of Iraq and Syria as well as Libya, Egypt, and other countries on the Arabian Peninsula. It is important to understand that ISIS does not represent the Islamic faith. The addition of the word extremist or fundamentalist to any organization denotes a strong dissonance with the original doctrine of the organization or religion.
When?
In the past, the group has had various associations with other fundamentalist rebel groups from the area, but recently declared itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in June of 2014. It has since been using the Internet to promote itself through social media forums, such as Twitter.
What?
The group has been posting videos and images of killing their hostages from various countries allied against the group, and they have been carrying out mass murder of innocents in Christian countries in the area. Supporters of ISIS are fleeing their native countries to join the fundamentalist group in the Middle East.
Why?
And what does this have to do with the war in Iraq? The United States officially ended its multinational occupation of Iraq in 2010. The 2003 occupation was in response to Saddam Hussein's twenty-four year dictatorship. Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, was of the minority ethnic group in Iraq and ruled over and oppressed the majority Shi'a and Kurdish populations. Following the occupation, Iraq has experienced Shi'a and Kurdish presidents. ISIS is made up of Sunni fundamentalists from Iraq, as well as Syria, which has been experiencing its own bloody civil war for the past few years.
The recent emergence of ISIS is not a direct effect of the war in Iraq. The group has been in action for a while and its longtime horrific and atrocious acts of violence are components of psychological warfare aimed at attracting fundamentalists worldwide . They are also inciting jihad, a war to return to what the group and other fundamentalists believe should be an Islamic king, or caliphate in their words, as dictated by their interpretation by the Quran.
