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[ISIL] : Know Thy Enemy
The Ender
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Light purple shows the territory held by ISIL organized pseudo-government forces as of this post.
What is ISIL / ISIS / IS / Daesh?
ISIL is an acronym for 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant'. It is the physical nucleus of an ideological movement intent on annexing former Iraq and some of the surrounding territory (effectively most of what was the former Ottoman Empire), creating a theocratic state known as a 'Caliphate'. The prime movers of ISIL are Sunni Wahhabi Jihadists, whom hold a very literalist interpretation of the Koran and all associated teachings of Prophet Mohammed.
It is important to note that many Sunni supporters of the ISIL end goal (the creation of a Caliphate state) are not Jihadists & explicitly condemn the violence even though they find romantic appeal in the idea of a religious state just for them. This may or may not still sound repellent to you, but these people are not dangerous adversaries and should not be treated as such (even though our media is doing a great job of lumping all supporters of ISIL together. It's very reminiscent of what happened to anyone who identified as Communist way back when).
Also, and my experience is that it doesn't need to be said here, but I'll say it anyway: most Sunnis have no interest in ISIL or a Caliphate state at all, violence or no violence. They want to move forward with the rest of the world.
What's with all of the genocide and violence and blowing-up cultural heritage sites?
Wahhabi Jihadists believe that the means of violence will justify the end result of their theocratic empire, that they can demonstrate strength & capability through violent action, that their actions are sanctioned & approved through specific literalist interpretations of the Koran and that they can force an 'us vs them' mentality between Muslims and the rest of the world by committing heinous acts that encourage hatred and spark reactive violence in turn. Thus far, unfortunately, this strategy has worked rather well for them (in fairness, it's pretty damn easy to provoke hatred by doing hateful things. They picked a rather simple mission).
The destruction of cultural heritage sites specifically is due to an interpretation of one of Mohammed's core messages: that people should not erect idols of him to worship (this same message also calls for followers not to depict images of him). Ironically, this passage was almost certainly intended to prevent fanatical devotion to Mohammed; he did not want to be worshipped or deified himself, he wanted the message he was preaching to be the item of importance. Needless to say, the spirit of these passages is largely ignored by fanatics in favor of their very narrow word-for-word interpretation.
How are there all of these ISIL cells everywhere OMG is everybody a secret terrorist?
Like it's predecessor al-Qaeda, ISIL's international efforts are basically crowd-sourced. The organized group that is attempting to annex former Iraq right now does not organize or even advise most overseas Jihadists that decide to act in it's name; such people simply reach out to ISIL's media & networking people, get 'approval' (it's largely a rubber stamp process) for their actions and then ISIL gets to take credit for the actions after they're made. It's a great system if you really don't give a shit how craven or even how 'successful' a given act is, because each event done in your name makes you look bigger and more capable than you actually are.
So, when people talk about an attack being 'ISIL related', unless it's happening right in the middle of former Iraq, think of it more like 'ISIL crowd-sourced'.
EDIT: An excellent, in depth summary of how different branches of IS that operate in a much more organized top-down fashion has been provided by @Kaputa , and is included in the spoiler below:
IS in Libya - IS technically divides its Libyan branches into three different "provinces," but in reality they are essentially based in the coastal city of Sirte (population ~80k). After taking control of Sirte, they spread along the coast in both directions, taking over various small towns and villages. Now they control about 150 miles of Libya's Mediterranean coastline, and have lately been fighting the Tobruk government for control of the oil hub of Ajdabiya. This mirrors their strategy in Syria, which initially focused on taking over Syrian oil fields and establishing a supply line to Turkey. IS is fighting both the Tobruk government and rival jihadists in Benghazi, and previously had partial control of the coastal town of Derna as well, but a rival jihadist faction defeated them there earlier this year. IS's Libyan branch is perhaps their most dangerous outside of their main base in Iraq/Syria, and seems to be under fairly direct control of the leadership, with military commanders from Iraq reportedly being at the top of their Libyan power structure. The NYT recently published an article arguing that IS might use its Libyan branch as its main fallback if they suffer grievous enough losses in Iraq/Syria. Foreign fighters, predominantly from Muslim parts of Africa but also from the Middle East, make up much of IS's Libyan fighters.
IS in Egypt - "Wilayat Sinai," previously a jihadist group called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, is their main branch in Egypt. They've been waging an insurgency against the Egyptian military government since the coup against Mohammed Morsi, the Brotherhood-aligned president, in 2013. In late 2014 they pledged allegiance to IS. Aside from a steady stream of assassinations, ambushes, IEDs, and other small scale attacks, Wilayat Sinai made headlines when they heavily damaged an Egyptian warship with an anti-armor missile system, launched a major assault on the city of Sheik Zuweid in a failed attempt to take control of it, and most recently downed a Russian civilian airliner by sneaking a small IED aboard the plane. I'm not sure how much Wilayat Sinai relies on foreign fighters vs. Egyptian jihadists, but at this point I'd be surprised if they weren't fairly directly controlled by IS's central leadership. Unlike some branches of IS, Wilayat Sinai has focused its attacks on state officials and security services, rather than civilians (with the prominent exception of the Russian jet).
IS in Afghanistan - "Wilayat Khorasan" is IS's branch in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. They're primarily composed of former TTP (Pakistani Taliban) fighters, though since the news of Mullah Omar's death they've rallied some disaffected Afghan Taliban leaders to their cause as well. They're at war with both the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government, and have attempted to form bases in a few provinces. The Taliban have mostly crushed these attempts, but this year Wilayat Khorasan succeeded in taking over parts of eastern Nangarhar province. My impression is that Wilayat Khorasan has slightly weaker connections to IS's central leadership than their Libyan branch, due to linguistic, ethnic, and geographical barriers, and if they are prevented from expanding they may eventually be defeated by/fold back into the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, although I could be wrong about this. They're noted for being noticeably more brutal than either the Taliban or the Afghan government, neither of which are known for their kindness toward the Afghan population. PBS Frontline recently ran an excellent documentary on IS's Afghan branch, where a reporter with a video camera somehow gains permission to film a village under their control.
IS in Yemen - Like in Libya, IS divides its Yemen branch into a few "provinces," but they don't actually control any territory there as far as I know, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which does control a fair amount of southern/eastern Yemeni territory, is far stronger there. Nonetheless, IS in Yemen has launched many attacks on the southern Yemeni security forces, some brutal mass-casualty bombings on Shia mosques in the north, and a continuing assassination campaign against southern government officials, most prominently in the major port city of Aden. Just today they claimed responsibility for killing Aden's governor with a car bomb. I think their Yemeni branch is fairly closely linked to their central leadership, but so far they are weak compared to other southern Yemeni factions.
IS in West Africa - "Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyyah" was previously known as "Boko Haram," which is a name most of you are probably familiar with. Boko Haram has waged a shockingly violent insurgency in northeast Nigeria since the Nigerian state launched an unwise, brutal crackdown on the movement several years ago. They pledged allegiance to IS earlier this year, and have since spread their attacks to neighboring countries including Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. Boko Haram rivals or possibly even outdoes IS in Iraq and Syria in terms of indiscriminate brutality; they are known for using 12 year old girls as suicide bombers and slaughtering Sunni Muslims (ostensibly their coreligionists) in mosques, even in their home territory. Their leader, Abubakar Shekau, seems completely unhinged, and I've been unable to discern anything resembling a coherent strategy from them. The Nigerian government under Goodluck Jonathan was too incompetent and corrupt to do much against Wilayat West Africa, but since they pissed off neighboring states, a coalition of regional armies has invaded parts of northeast Nigeria and severely weakened the group. I think this group is less closely tied to IS's central leadership than their other major branches; Shekau probably just pledged allegiance in the hopes of gaining some foreign fighters and material support for his relatively weak insurgency. I'm not sure how much IS's leadership has since affected their strategy, but their media output, which was previously laughably half-assed, has become much more professional since. Some analysts have expressed concerns that IS in Libya could join forces with Wilayat West Africa and further destabilize the region, but unless one or both groups become significantly stronger I think this fear is premature.
Other splinter groups of existing jihadist factions have pledged allegiance to IS elsewhere, but so far none appear to be very significant outside of the branches listed above. An astute observer will note that IS thrives when countries are torn apart by war between other factions - the Syrian government vs Syrian rebels, Iraqi Sunnis vs Iraqi Shia, the rival Libyan governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, Egyptian Islamists vs Egyptian military government, northern vs southern Yemeni factions, and the Afghan government vs the Taliban. If political solutions to these primary conflicts were found, I think most branches of IS would quickly suffocate.
IS in Egypt - "Wilayat Sinai," previously a jihadist group called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, is their main branch in Egypt. They've been waging an insurgency against the Egyptian military government since the coup against Mohammed Morsi, the Brotherhood-aligned president, in 2013. In late 2014 they pledged allegiance to IS. Aside from a steady stream of assassinations, ambushes, IEDs, and other small scale attacks, Wilayat Sinai made headlines when they heavily damaged an Egyptian warship with an anti-armor missile system, launched a major assault on the city of Sheik Zuweid in a failed attempt to take control of it, and most recently downed a Russian civilian airliner by sneaking a small IED aboard the plane. I'm not sure how much Wilayat Sinai relies on foreign fighters vs. Egyptian jihadists, but at this point I'd be surprised if they weren't fairly directly controlled by IS's central leadership. Unlike some branches of IS, Wilayat Sinai has focused its attacks on state officials and security services, rather than civilians (with the prominent exception of the Russian jet).
IS in Afghanistan - "Wilayat Khorasan" is IS's branch in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. They're primarily composed of former TTP (Pakistani Taliban) fighters, though since the news of Mullah Omar's death they've rallied some disaffected Afghan Taliban leaders to their cause as well. They're at war with both the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government, and have attempted to form bases in a few provinces. The Taliban have mostly crushed these attempts, but this year Wilayat Khorasan succeeded in taking over parts of eastern Nangarhar province. My impression is that Wilayat Khorasan has slightly weaker connections to IS's central leadership than their Libyan branch, due to linguistic, ethnic, and geographical barriers, and if they are prevented from expanding they may eventually be defeated by/fold back into the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, although I could be wrong about this. They're noted for being noticeably more brutal than either the Taliban or the Afghan government, neither of which are known for their kindness toward the Afghan population. PBS Frontline recently ran an excellent documentary on IS's Afghan branch, where a reporter with a video camera somehow gains permission to film a village under their control.
IS in Yemen - Like in Libya, IS divides its Yemen branch into a few "provinces," but they don't actually control any territory there as far as I know, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which does control a fair amount of southern/eastern Yemeni territory, is far stronger there. Nonetheless, IS in Yemen has launched many attacks on the southern Yemeni security forces, some brutal mass-casualty bombings on Shia mosques in the north, and a continuing assassination campaign against southern government officials, most prominently in the major port city of Aden. Just today they claimed responsibility for killing Aden's governor with a car bomb. I think their Yemeni branch is fairly closely linked to their central leadership, but so far they are weak compared to other southern Yemeni factions.
IS in West Africa - "Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyyah" was previously known as "Boko Haram," which is a name most of you are probably familiar with. Boko Haram has waged a shockingly violent insurgency in northeast Nigeria since the Nigerian state launched an unwise, brutal crackdown on the movement several years ago. They pledged allegiance to IS earlier this year, and have since spread their attacks to neighboring countries including Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. Boko Haram rivals or possibly even outdoes IS in Iraq and Syria in terms of indiscriminate brutality; they are known for using 12 year old girls as suicide bombers and slaughtering Sunni Muslims (ostensibly their coreligionists) in mosques, even in their home territory. Their leader, Abubakar Shekau, seems completely unhinged, and I've been unable to discern anything resembling a coherent strategy from them. The Nigerian government under Goodluck Jonathan was too incompetent and corrupt to do much against Wilayat West Africa, but since they pissed off neighboring states, a coalition of regional armies has invaded parts of northeast Nigeria and severely weakened the group. I think this group is less closely tied to IS's central leadership than their other major branches; Shekau probably just pledged allegiance in the hopes of gaining some foreign fighters and material support for his relatively weak insurgency. I'm not sure how much IS's leadership has since affected their strategy, but their media output, which was previously laughably half-assed, has become much more professional since. Some analysts have expressed concerns that IS in Libya could join forces with Wilayat West Africa and further destabilize the region, but unless one or both groups become significantly stronger I think this fear is premature.
Other splinter groups of existing jihadist factions have pledged allegiance to IS elsewhere, but so far none appear to be very significant outside of the branches listed above. An astute observer will note that IS thrives when countries are torn apart by war between other factions - the Syrian government vs Syrian rebels, Iraqi Sunnis vs Iraqi Shia, the rival Libyan governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, Egyptian Islamists vs Egyptian military government, northern vs southern Yemeni factions, and the Afghan government vs the Taliban. If political solutions to these primary conflicts were found, I think most branches of IS would quickly suffocate.
Why are people willing to get involved with this and even throw away their lives for this? Hell, why are people even willing to support this at all if they don't like the violent parts?
Okay: if you are a socialist, suppose that someone convinced you that a worker's state was being established. It was working! The means of production finally in the hands of the proletariat, for real, and the class struggle utterly washed away.
If you are a libertarian, suppose that someone convinced you that the Gulch was really happening, right now. It was working! Everyone owning what they made with their own hands, no government coercion, no limitations on what a man or woman could achieve.
If your politics aren't so polar... well, I dunno. But image your idealist state. Your most far reaching fantasy for what humanity could achieve. Imagine that I not only told you it was happening, but I convinced you it was happening. I could literally point it out to you on TV.
That is what is happening for a lot of people right now. And some of those people, too romantically attached to this fantasy that they believe is unfolding, want to become a part of it in a significant way - even if it means taking violent actions and / or ending their own lives. I could draw parallels with any revolutionary movement, to the American revolution to the Bolsheviks.
I heard [misconception] about ISIL...
Okay; so there are some pretty common misconceptions about ISIL. Many of them I haven't heard here, but some of them I have, so I thought it might be good to just deal with them up front:
Jihadist martyrs want to go to paradise! It's lustful and brimming with virgins to have sex with!
No. This is a western myth, brought overseas by a couple of idiots (namely Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) who cannot apparently actually read the materials they claim to have studied. The posited Islamic afterlife, even by really absurd literalist interpretation, does not offer the Afterlife Brothel Service, and even if it did, no surviving martyr (and we have plenty to talk with) has cited this as a cause for their actions. They are motivated by things common to devotees of any militant / radicalizing force.
The crushing poverty of the Middle East has caused this!
No. While the crushing poverty in the Middle East is terrible problem in and of itself, and while there is doubtlessly some overlap in terms of how failed states can create vacuums from which radical movements like ISIL can spring, radicalized martyrs are not overwhelmingly poor. Rich & middle income folks appear to be just as susceptible to romantic notions of revolution as the poor.
Sunnis are the bad Muslims! Shi'a Muslims are good!
No. The Imam dictatorship in Iran would be an example of militant, radical Shi'a Islam. The two sects have had violent (and peaceful! That these two sects have mostly co-existed without sectarian war seems to be glossed-over quite often) relations since their respective inceptions, and the west has alternated on deciding that one sect is 'good' or 'bad' depending on the decade & the prospective proxy they wish to use. Again, this doesn't seem to need to be said here, but I'll go ahead and repeat it anyway since the opposite message seems to be on infinite repeat 24/7 via the television & radio.
So, there you go. ISIL / ISIS / IS / Daesh. This thread created so that hopefully recent tragedies can have their own space for discussion, and we can talk about the perpetrators of these crimes here.
With Love and Courage
The Ender on
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The Daeshbags (thank you @Rhesus Positive ) remind me of the Munster Rebellion.
and assume that there will be some plots that fall through the cracks; it's almost impossible to stop someone who is simply inspired/frustrated/insane who has the desire to shoot up a bunch of people
I think America's best bet is to freak out about ISIS shooting us up as much as it has about random non-ISIS people shooting us up, which is to say not much at all
like I think America's cavalierness toward huge massacres is perhaps the ideal position to have toward terrorism
what was it Jeb! said?
“It’s very sad to see, but I resist the notion, and I did, I had this challenge as governor, ‘cause, we had, look, stuff happens. There’s always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something, and it’s not necessarily the right thing to do.”
It's important to understand that ISIS isn't really backing many of the things they take credit for. In my opinion, the best way to counter this would be to provide more and better information regarding ISIS to the public. The problem with this is that the US learned during the cold war to use bogeymen as a way to control the population, and since 9/11 those bogeymen have been terrorists. So the system is set up to escalate intervention if a terrorist organization is invoked, rather than if it's treated like being a couple of loonies. It incentivizes calling these acts as terrorism.
One way that ISIS does back international terrorism that can be countered is through better finance controls. It's very difficult for an organization like ISIS to provide arms to someone for a terrorist act in the West, but it's relatively easy to provide them the funds to purchase necessary items locally. For example, BNP was fined to the tune of 8,900,000,000 US dollars for violations related to banking with Iran. Deutsche Bank was recently fined 258,000,000 USD for Iranian violations, for transactions that totalled 10,860,000,000 from 1999 to 2006. No executives were implicated in the wrongdoings, of course. Until fines become more than just a cost of doing business, and until financial executives are held responsible for the actions of their organizations, such actions will continue. It's too profitable not to money launder for rogue nations and terrorist groups.
One common thread that seems to unite a lot of these people is feeling disenfranchised and unwelcome in western countries. There's a distressing number that are educated middle class citizens that have been convinced they will never be accepted and the country they live in is at war with their religion/culture/heritage.
So, maybe try to reach out to people that would fall into the "at risk of radicalization" category.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Hang 'em. Or life in prison, no appeal. I can't think of a more morally abhorrent white-collar crime than letting your bank fund terrorist groups.
No one's going to do that.
Were that the standard option then the US would have put a bullet in the heads of the house of Saud a billion times over.
There's an Australian comedy news show that is rather shit, but it did have this very well done piece after the Paris attack regarding the weakness of ISIS and the reliance on perpetuating of hate between Muslims and Westerners as a means to an end - in an effort to raise awareness so that people don't do what ISIS wants, and actually come together against ISIS, not Muslims.
It actually went internationally viral for a bit, which is good to see.
Please shoot me a PM if you add me so I know to add you back.
In the long term: creating an environment where people from developing countries have a wider selection of greater causes to aspire to, so the options are more interesting than, 'join [radical cause]' or 'become cog in machine as part of uncaring universe'. Making it known that they are welcome to join in the big things we have going on, and making sure they know that these big things may be of interest to them.
In the short term... we've kind of already knocked the mug off of the counter top, as it were.
I don't know of anyone whose made a realistic, educated proposed solution to the problem of people whom have already chosen to identify ISIL as their cause and act accordingly. It's hardly out of the question that, in fact, no realistic solution even exists, and we simply have to wait until ISIL inevitably loses it's relevancy.
The most frustrating part of being that organization's enemy is no doubt the fact our job is an order of magnitude harder than theirs. We have to try and bridge cultural gaps, encourage acceptance and cultivate kinship between people - all very hard, thankless work. All they have to do is give a thumbs up to anyone who's drank the kool aid give people who want to pretend that the barbarians are always at the gate exactly the kind of demonstrations they're looking for, keeping the cycle locked in place.
Conversely, if some radical . . . I dunno . . . Baptists started a militia and tried to invade and occupy, like, South Dakota, people nearby wouldn't be like, "Welp, that's South Dakota's problem, fuck those dudes." We'd send in the Nation Guard and the Reserves, people local and from afar, of all religions and backgrounds, to stop that shit.
So yeah, it bothers me that [Shi'a Tribe A] and [Yazidi Tribe B] don't seem to feel any sense of communal obligation to team up against ISIS. It bothers me that this tiny section of the world is so impossibly fucked and contentious that a jillion individual groups are so wrapped up in their own shit they can't fight a common enemy together.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/john-joe-grays-militant-group-texas-compound/story?id=9819578
I realize this isn't exactly what you're talking about but the guy is still in the compound to this day.
Especially when it keeps leading to bombs getting indecrimanantly dropped on their heads from the other people these assholes keep pissing off. ISIS is trying to force an "us versus them" mentality, but I don't understand why the people who keep getting caught in the middle don't just join the "them" side since the "us" side is the one instigating it (Currently. I know that if ISIS wasn't instigating it there'd be a pretty good chance another county would be bombing the Middle East for other reasons).
And he's definitely breaking the law, but he's also not commanding thousands of people to carry out terror attacks.
Because he's in Texas, and that would work for approximately five seconds before his compound became a glass folk art exhibit.
I'm having trouble coming up with a decent Christian analogue, the only one that really springs to mind is the missionary imperative (Spread the gospel) but most western Christians pretty much ignore that one.
and "spreading the gospel" is a long way from "re-establishing the holy roman empire"
Yup. The initial part, live in a Caliphate, isn't incredibly objectionable though difficult to see how it would work in a modern context. When you start looking at the duties of a Caliph, like waging Jihad so often or else they cease to be Caliph, is when the problems start.
The Holy Roman empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, so not the best analogue. I say re-establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem would be slightly closer.
It is downright amazing that the shitshow that was the First Crusade actually led to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
And even more amazing that all other crusades were even greater shitshows. (With 4 probably being the lowpoint)
I do! I even referenced that in my original post.
I'm not really even wanting "nationhood" to bring these folks together, just a general sense of, "hey, maybe we all just stop fighting each other for five seconds so we can focus on the obvious problem, okay?"
I've said it before and I'll say it again. We should have never dismantled the Ottoman Empire like we did after WW1
That's not even the real important point imo. The thing is that nationhood is an idea. And not one that just comes out of nowhere. It's part of an intellectual and cultural and political tradition and it doesn't just spring up from nothing. Because without these kind of ideas, people generally have little reason to give a shit about those people all the way over there who are different from me.
For many of these places there is no sense of large-scale identity. You can see it in stuff like the sectarian issues in the Iraqi government.
And really, just generally most of the region from nationstates on down is more concerned with old school arguments then ISIS.
IS in Libya - IS technically divides its Libyan branches into three different "provinces," but in reality they are essentially based in the coastal city of Sirte (population ~80k). After taking control of Sirte, they spread along the coast in both directions, taking over various small towns and villages. Now they control about 150 miles of Libya's Mediterranean coastline, and have lately been fighting the Tobruk government for control of the oil hub of Ajdabiya. This mirrors their strategy in Syria, which initially focused on taking over Syrian oil fields and establishing a supply line to Turkey. IS is fighting both the Tobruk government and rival jihadists in Benghazi, and previously had partial control of the coastal town of Derna as well, but a rival jihadist faction defeated them there earlier this year. IS's Libyan branch is perhaps their most dangerous outside of their main base in Iraq/Syria, and seems to be under fairly direct control of the leadership, with military commanders from Iraq reportedly being at the top of their Libyan power structure. The NYT recently published an article arguing that IS might use its Libyan branch as its main fallback if they suffer grievous enough losses in Iraq/Syria. Foreign fighters, predominantly from Muslim parts of Africa but also from the Middle East, make up much of IS's Libyan fighters.
IS in Egypt - "Wilayat Sinai," previously a jihadist group called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, is their main branch in Egypt. They've been waging an insurgency against the Egyptian military government since the coup against Mohammed Morsi, the Brotherhood-aligned president, in 2013. In late 2014 they pledged allegiance to IS. Aside from a steady stream of assassinations, ambushes, IEDs, and other small scale attacks, Wilayat Sinai made headlines when they heavily damaged an Egyptian warship with an anti-armor missile system, launched a major assault on the city of Sheik Zuweid in a failed attempt to take control of it, and most recently downed a Russian civilian airliner by sneaking a small IED aboard the plane. I'm not sure how much Wilayat Sinai relies on foreign fighters vs. Egyptian jihadists, but at this point I'd be surprised if they weren't fairly directly controlled by IS's central leadership. Unlike some branches of IS, Wilayat Sinai has focused its attacks on state officials and security services, rather than civilians (with the prominent exception of the Russian jet).
IS in Afghanistan - "Wilayat Khorasan" is IS's branch in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. They're primarily composed of former TTP (Pakistani Taliban) fighters, though since the news of Mullah Omar's death they've rallied some disaffected Afghan Taliban leaders to their cause as well. They're at war with both the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan government, and have attempted to form bases in a few provinces. The Taliban have mostly crushed these attempts, but this year Wilayat Khorasan succeeded in taking over parts of eastern Nangarhar province. My impression is that Wilayat Khorasan has slightly weaker connections to IS's central leadership than their Libyan branch, due to linguistic, ethnic, and geographical barriers, and if they are prevented from expanding they may eventually be defeated by/fold back into the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, although I could be wrong about this. They're noted for being noticeably more brutal than either the Taliban or the Afghan government, neither of which are known for their kindness toward the Afghan population. PBS Frontline recently ran an excellent documentary on IS's Afghan branch, where a reporter with a video camera somehow gains permission to film a village under their control.
IS in Yemen - Like in Libya, IS divides its Yemen branch into a few "provinces," but they don't actually control any territory there as far as I know, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which does control a fair amount of southern/eastern Yemeni territory, is far stronger there. Nonetheless, IS in Yemen has launched many attacks on the southern Yemeni security forces, some brutal mass-casualty bombings on Shia mosques in the north, and a continuing assassination campaign against southern government officials, most prominently in the major port city of Aden. Just today they claimed responsibility for killing Aden's governor with a car bomb. I think their Yemeni branch is fairly closely linked to their central leadership, but so far they are weak compared to other southern Yemeni factions.
IS in West Africa - "Wilayat Gharb Ifriqiyyah" was previously known as "Boko Haram," which is a name most of you are probably familiar with. Boko Haram has waged a shockingly violent insurgency in northeast Nigeria since the Nigerian state launched an unwise, brutal crackdown on the movement several years ago. They pledged allegiance to IS earlier this year, and have since spread their attacks to neighboring countries including Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. Boko Haram rivals or possibly even outdoes IS in Iraq and Syria in terms of indiscriminate brutality; they are known for using 12 year old girls as suicide bombers and slaughtering Sunni Muslims (ostensibly their coreligionists) in mosques, even in their home territory. Their leader, Abubakar Shekau, seems completely unhinged, and I've been unable to discern anything resembling a coherent strategy from them. The Nigerian government under Goodluck Jonathan was too incompetent and corrupt to do much against Wilayat West Africa, but since they pissed off neighboring states, a coalition of regional armies has invaded parts of northeast Nigeria and severely weakened the group. I think this group is less closely tied to IS's central leadership than their other major branches; Shekau probably just pledged allegiance in the hopes of gaining some foreign fighters and material support for his relatively weak insurgency. I'm not sure how much IS's leadership has since affected their strategy, but their media output, which was previously laughably half-assed, has become much more professional since. Some analysts have expressed concerns that IS in Libya could join forces with Wilayat West Africa and further destabilize the region, but unless one or both groups become significantly stronger I think this fear is premature.
Other splinter groups of existing jihadist factions have pledged allegiance to IS elsewhere, but so far none appear to be very significant outside of the branches listed above. An astute observer will note that IS thrives when countries are torn apart by war between other factions - the Syrian government vs Syrian rebels, Iraqi Sunnis vs Iraqi Shia, the rival Libyan governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, Egyptian Islamists vs Egyptian military government, northern vs southern Yemeni factions, and the Afghan government vs the Taliban. If political solutions to these primary conflicts were found, I think most branches of IS would quickly suffocate.
edit- added a section on Yemen, which I somehow forgot at first
And that's the thing though. It's really fucking frustrating to watch for decades and decades of a thousand tiny groups playing "fuck you, got mine."
When people talk about peace in the Middle East, this is why I call bullshit. "It's complicated," people will say. Nope, it's not. It's just fucked up and selfish and short-sighted.
We still do plenty of it in the West, mind you, but it's within the confines of post-conquest nations.
The Europeans already completely conquered the North America, for example (and then irony happened, but still).
Yes, but that is complicated. That's what that means. These groups don't share the same desires, goals or allegiances. Understanding what all those different groups are and how those desires/goals/allegiances/etc align and don't align is, well, complicated. Doing anything with that situation even more so.
Well, a huge underlying factor throughout the entire region is a huge disparity in educational level compared to Western or Far Eastern nations. Honestly, that may be the biggest contributor to discord, combined with the levels of religious fundamentalism. The general literacy levels in the ME are appalling.
Eh, it ain't like nation states created previously were known for their solid universal education schemes when they were formed.
Maybe, but we're talking about a bunch of people fighting to bring about the apocalypse
Some of them, sure. But there's people just like that in the good old US of A.
Meanwhile most of the Middle East is not trying to bring about the apocalypse and is still in just as fucked up a position.
Putting this in perspective a bit:
My father is Iranian. My grandmother grew up in a tiny village, has a third grade education, and was married at the age of 14. My grandfather only had an 8th or 9th grade education.
Now, these were people in a country that had relatively solid infrastructure, and over the years were able to move to Tehran, build a better life, and ultimately send their kids to college (and my dad to the US.) But they also believe in some wacky witch doctor shit because they never learned about concepts like the scientific method.
Take that and expand it to the millions upon millions of people who still live in tiny little villages scattered across the region, many without electricity and running water, and whose countries get bombed back to the stone age every time they manage to stack 3 bricks on top of each other. It's a perfect vortex of ignorance, resentment, and opportunistic assholes out to build themselves a little empire.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Sorry, but that's bull.
I can appreciate the argument that seeking paradise is not the primary motivation for suicide bombers, but many say that entrance to paradise will be their reward for their actions. There is no sugar coating this.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/jihad-paradise-72-virgins-16721446