ISIS: Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria
Once again Iraq is in complete
turmoil. This time, it all centers on a group called ISIS. But you’d have to be
a scholar on Iraq and Syria to fully understand this conflict. I’m not that, so
I can’t explain everything, but I will tell you enough to contextualize all
these news stories. One thing for sure, they are horrible terrorists.
Who is ISIS, and what do they want?
They are a Jihadist Militant group with strong holds in both Iraq and Syria,
but they’re not stopping there. Their goal is to obtain more land so they can
create their own nation. Their dream country would be called The Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria or ISIS. Who are the fighting members of ISIS? This is where
is gets more complicated. Iraq breaks down into three major groups: Sunni
Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds. ISIS members are Sunni Arabs, as was Saddam
Hussein, and his regime was Sunni backed. So, is this just the old guard taking
back the power? No. Saddam Hussein was a secularist. ISIS on the other hand is
a Militant Jihadists group that wants strict Sharia law; this was not the
desire of Hussein’s regime. Although there are signs that some of Saddam’s
former forces are currently working for ISIS.
It’s complicated. And in Syria it
gets a little messier. Syria’s war crime committing government is currently
fighting a civil war against various rebel groups. ISIS is not one of those
rebel groups, but ISIS does want to take over most of Syria, so they are in
some degree in armed conflict with both the Syrian government and the Rebels.
It is pure chaos. In short, ISIS has been committing acts of violence and
terrorism in both Syria and Iraq for a while, and they’re only now making the
news for one simple reason: They are winning.
The extremist group constantly
grabs headlines with its shocking horrendous brutality. The photo of the
3-year-old drowned Syrian child on a Turkish beach made headlines across the
globe. The boy’s death was a tragedy and the Islamic State has killed many more
Syrians. The media spotlight shifted to the ISIS’ grisly beheadings and mass
executions, while Syria’s president’s forces continued to ravage entire
neighborhoods and the lives of people who live in them. He is responsible for
killing far more people in Syria, according to the Syrian Network for Human
Rights.
The conflict began in 2011 as a
peaceful Arab Spring uprising that turned violent because of President Bashar
al-Assad’s brutal response to unarmed demonstrations against his rule. At least
4 million Syrians have fled their homeland since 2011 and have gone to
neighboring countries. More than 1.1 million Syrian refugees are living in
Lebanon, straining the resources of this country. The Ankara government
estimates that at least 1.9 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, Jordan hosts
2.6 million refugees and more than 400,00 have fled to Egypt or North Africa.
Recently, Russia began bombing
targets in Syria targeting ISIS. We have seen a substantial military buildup by
Russia in Syria, both in the air with combat planes and air defense systems,
but also an increasing number of ground troops. Russia is allied with Assad and
they have many financial ties to the regime, so they actually have an incentive
to take out ISIS. However, the strikes are not happening anywhere near ISIS
territory and are not actually hitting ISIS positions. In fact, Russia is
bombing ISIS’s enemies in the Syrian opposition, which makes a lot more sense
if you understand what Russia is really trying to accomplish. Russia is in
Syria to prop us Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s ally. The main threat
to Assad is not ISIS, which the Syrian leader has often tolerated, but rather
Syria’s non-ISIS rebels, including al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise as well as more
moderate rebel groups, which are also ISIS’s main enemies in Syria. ISIS never
fought the Assad regime.
The recent attacks in Syria were
condemned by the US military, who called the move ‘dangerous.’
And just when I think the situation
can’t possibly get any worse, a recent CNN article reports an extreme violent
act in the name of God: ISIS soldiers are being told to rape women to make them
Muslim. Journalist Atika Shubert sat with victims who described their
terrifying experience. The militants who picked them out and raped them tried
to justify themselves by showing them a letter that says: ‘This shows any
captured women will become Muslim if 10 ISIS fighters rape her.’ Sold, raped
and enslaved by ISIS, the girls are abused and then passed on to friends. These women can be bought and sold for money
and bartered for weapons as ISIS has made rape and slavery part of its brutal
theology.
Hundreds of these women and are
killing themselves in ISIS captivity while ISIS are justifying murder,
enslavement and rape on religious grounds, but ISIS’s actions have no basis in
Islam. They don’t represent Islam at all. If anything, they are anti-Islam:
They have hijacked and degraded Islam. They have insulted it. God says in the
Quran: ‘Those people who lose their capacity to use their brain, their
perceptive capacity to see and hear the truth, are worse than animals.’
Military speaking, ISIS is the most
successful Jihadist group the world has ever seen. They are collecting taxes
from businesses, setting up infrastructures, and releasing quarterly reports.
They are gaining strength so they could be around for a long time, and they may
be a bigger threat to the surrounding areas in the long run than Al Qaeda.
Where is the world? Who can save us
from this?
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/08/middleeast/isis-rape-theology-soldiers-rape-women-to-make-them-muslim/
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