Documente Academic
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War On
Terror
- Omkar H. Thakur
Roll. No. 99
The Early Days (1989-1999):The group began more than two decades ago as a fervid
fantasy in the mind of a Jordanian named Abu Musab alZarqawi. A onetime street thug, he arrived in Afghanistan as a
mujahideen wannabe in 1989, too late to fight the Soviet Union.
He went back home to Jordan, and remained a fringe figure in
the international violent jihad for much of the following
decade. He returned to Afghanistan to set up a training camp
for terrorists, and met Osama bin Laden in 1999, but chose not
to join al-Qaeda.
The fall of the Taliban in 2001 forced Zarqawi to flee to Iraq.
There his presence went largely unnoticed until the Bush
AQI The rise and fall (2003-2009):By 2004, Zarqawis campaign of suicide bombings across Iraq
had made him a superstar of the international jihadi
movement, and won the endorsement of bin Laden himself.
al-
July 2012: The great ISIS prison break begins:There's one chapter of the story of ISIS's rise that very rarely
gets mentioned: its spectacular series of attacks on Iraqi
prisons in 2012 and 2013. These prison breaks supplied it with
a huge infusion of recruits, and also illustrates how effectively
ISIS took advantage of the Iraqi government's weakness.
In July 2012, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released a statement to his
loyalists. "We remind you of your top priority, which is to
release the Muslim prisoners everywhere," he said, "and
making the pursuit, chase, and killing of their butchers from
amongst the judges, detectives, and guards to be on top of the
list."
This was, unambiguously, a call to break former Iraqi insurgents
out of jail and ISIS followed their leader's order. Over the
next year, they attacked a number of prisons across Iraq,
freeing somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,000 inmates.
People incarcerated for common crimes were also recruited.
Prisoners convicted of criminal charges provide advantages to
the terrorist group, because they could have been recruited
during their incarceration. Even if common criminals were able
April 2013: ISIS officially becomes ISIS:As all this was happening, Baghdadi's organization was still
named al-Qaeda in Iraq. But Baghdadi worried that Joulani
Condition in Syria:-
Bashar Assad has been president since June 2000 when his
father, the former president, died. He led the Baathist party in
Syria, an ostensibly secular/communist party allied with
Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In fact, this party had become
dominated over the years by the Alawite minority group in
Syria (an extreme wing of Shi'a Islam), while Hussein and his
relatives were Sunni. In both nations, the minority groups ruled
the larger majority (of Sunnis in Syria, and Shi'a in Iraq).
In Feb 2011, the first protest was held in the capital asking for
reforms was inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and
Egypt. Further protests against the government spread from
Damascus to Homs and the southern city of Deraa, often after
Friday prayers. These were entirely peaceful marches, but they
were mainly by people from the Sunni majority in Syria. They
were also led by people who supported a secular regime, with
no intent to establish a Sunni religious government.
By mid-March, the regime started responding with violence,
shooting a few protesters, and their funerals became new
protest marches. The protesters started increasingly calling for
democracy in Syria and an end to four decades of "emergency
rule" by decree.
More people were killed at massive protests near the Omari
Mosque. The regime released 260 political prisoners in late
March in attempt to appease the protests, but the protests
continued into April with more police shootings and arrests of
protesters ramping up, including hundreds of arrests in Baida.
After the alleged end to emergency rule on April 21, enormous
protests across 20 towns led to further crackdown.
People were infuriated by continued police killing of protesters,
called more and more for an end to the Assad regime rather
than merely political reforms towards democratic rights.
NAME CHANGES:2002: Jama'at Tawhid wal Jihad (JTJ). Zarqawis most prominent
force in Iraq, which the U.S. State Department used to refer to
Zarqawis network of militants.
October 2004: Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI; Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi
Bilad al-Rafidayn in Arabic). Zarqawi formally joined Al Qaeda
and remained in command of the group.
October 2006: Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). The name change was
a rebranding attempt, intended to consolidate existing support,
indicate an increase in groups focus on its governmental
infrastructure, and gain a wider base of local followers. In this
period, it also commonly continued to be known as AQI.
April 2013: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State
in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The groups cooperation with AQ
Central and al-Nusra broke down, while its operations expanded
into Syria. The variation in the name in translation stems from
the word al-Sham, which refers to an area spanning Southern
Turkey through Syria to Egypt, which can be translated as
Greater Syria or the Levant.
June 29, 2014: Islamic State (IS). The group declared the
foundation of a Caliphate, with its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
as Caliph. Many media sources continue to refer to the group as
ISIS/ISIL.
War on Terror:In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, President Barack Obama
took some very intense questions about whether the United
States is hitting ISIS hard enough. Was it time to change
strategy? He said no, that the answer was to ramp it up.
A variety of military powers are engaged against ISIS -- the
United States, France, Russia, the United Kingdom -- along with
several Arab nations and the Kurds, who are fighting them in
northern Iraq and Syria.
The United States:The US air force has carried out the majority of air strikes
against IS targets since forming a coalition of Western and
regional powers in August 2014.
President Barack Obama is extremely reluctant to send ground
troops to fight IS after protracted and unpopular wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, but the US does have about 3,500 troops in
Iraq to train the country's armed forces.
The US has also provided weapons and training to "moderate"
Syrian rebel groups, and unconfirmed reports suggest US
special forces have been fighting alongside anti-IS forces in
both Iraq and Syria.
In October US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter signalled a
possible shift in the US campaign against IS, telling reporters
that US forces were prepared to engage in "direct action on the
ground".
Mr Carter did not go into detail about the circumstances under
which the US might carry out ground operations against IS, but
said: "Once we locate them, no target is beyond our reach."
The United States and its coalition partners have targeted ISIS
with 8,216 airstrikes -- 5,383 in Iraq and 2,833 in Syria, through
November 16, the Pentagon says.
Through the end of October, the United States struck ISIS 5,473
times, compared with 1,574 strikes by other countries in the
coalition, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark,
France, Jordan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Bahrain,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
France:France was part of the US-led coalition targeting IS in Iraq from
September 2014. In September 2015 it carried out its first raids
on targets in Syria.
President Francois Hollande vowed to intensify strikes against IS
after the group said it was behind the deadly attacks in Paris of
13 November 2015.
When France hit ISIS after ISIS claimed credit for a terrorist
attack that killed 130 in Paris, it made sure news reports had
detailed information about French jets bombing Raqqa. France
also had bombed ISIS targets even before the Paris attacks.
United Kingdom:The UK parliament voted in December 2015 to extend its
bombing campaign against IS in Iraq to targets in Syria. The
motion to strike targets in Syria was put forward by the
Conservative government and opposed by the Labour leader,
Jeremy Corbyn.
Mr Corbyn urged Labour MPs to vote against the strikes but
allowed them a free vote, and 67 MPs voted in favour. UK
strikes began the night of the vote, with RAF Tornados bombing
an IS-controlled Omar oil fields in eastern Syria.
The UK parliament had in 2013 voted against strikes in Syria. It
approved British air strikes against IS targets in Iraq in
September 2014.