1. Making sense of ISIS David Siddhartha Patel Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University March 19, 2015

3. Outline Origins of ISIS ISIS/ISIL/DAESH/IS ?!? Goals Intentions and philosophy Why has it been successful? Who is fighting ISIS and where?

4. 2003-2011 – Part of the Iraqi insurgency -Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -1999-2004: Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad -Oct 2004: Pledges allegiance to OBL; becomes al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) -Highly sectarian – targets Shi’ite mosques and civilians, Iraqi govt, U.S. -Feb 2006: bombing of al-Askariyya shrine in Samaraa -June 2006: Zarqawi killed -Oct 2006: Declares Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) -Largely defeated by the U.S. from June 2007 to 2010; reduced to sporadic bombing -May 2010: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi takes over 2011-present – Expansion into Syria fuels revival in Iraq -March 2011: Syrian civil war begins -Aug 2011: ISI sends cadres to Syria, who work with al-Nusra Front as al-Qaeda’s franchise. ISI becomes ISIS; renames itself in April 2013. -March 2013: ISIS and allies take Raqqa -By Feb 2014: ISI/ISIS falls out with al-Nusra and al-Qaeda. All ties severed. Fights al-Nusra and FSA. Takes Fallujah in Jan 2014. Prison breaks in Iraq swell its ranks. -Early June 2014: ISIS takes Mosul, Tikrit, oil refinery in Baiji, Mosul dam -Late June 2014: ISIS proclaims itself a worldwide caliphate, The Islamic State. -Aug 2014: Attacks on Yazidis in Sinjar -Aug 2014: Obama authorizes airstrikes against ISIS

5. ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!? الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām

6. ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!? الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām داعش – Da‘ish, DAESH

7. ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!? الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām ISIS – The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIL – The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant

8. ISIS/ISIL/IS/Da‘ish?!? الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām The Islamic State The so-called Islamic State Islamic State (BBC’s preferred term)

9. Area controlled by ISIS (1 November 2014) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

11. Area controlled by ISIS (1 November 2014) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

12. Area controlled by ISIS (3 February 2015) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

14. The Golden Age of the ‘Rightly-Guided’ Caliphs, 632-661 a.k.a. – the Rashidun Abu Bakr632-634 Umar634-644 Uthman644-656 Ali656-661 From Marshall G.S. Hodgson. 1977. The Venture of Islam, Volume I. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 14

15. The spread of Islam, 622-750 The Rightly-Guided Caliphs followed by: Umayyad Caliphate 661-750, based in Damascus Abbasid Caliphate 750-1258, based in Baghdad Others… Ottoman Caliphate c. 1517-1924, based in Istanbul 15

16. The early Islamic empire… 16

17. …is now divided into nation-states 17

19. Source: Thorp, Gene, and Swati Sharma. 2015. “Fighters to Syria.” The Washington Post January 27.

21. The anti-ISIS coalition

22. The fight in Iraq General Qasem Soleimani