Divided Not Conquered

The chapter presents the inability of the UN Security Council to maintain peace and security in Syria. The P-5 consensus reached in Libya disappeared in a few months. The Syrian government attacked its own citizens and the United States promoted the opposition, and adopted a jus ad Bellum decision in Syria supporting proxy forces. Russia supported President Assad and condemned foreign armies’ interventions in a sovereign country to produce a regime change. However, in September 2013, President Putin facilitated an agreement to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. For a few months, the council dynamic changed, and it adopted resolutions by consensus on Syria demanding justice and access to humanitarian assistance. But the conflict in Ukraine created a political confrontation between Western countries and Russia affecting the council dynamics. On January 2013, Switzerland took the lead and sent a letter to the UN Security Council on behalf of fifty-seven states calling for referring Syria to the ICC. The United States requested informally to Switzerland to suspend the request. In 2014, after the Ukraine conflict started, France tabled a referral to the ICC. This time, the US supported the referral forcing Russia and China to use their veto power to stop the initiative. Meanwhile, the Islamic State was taking control of parts of Syria. The US Congress adopted a jus ad Bellum decision to use armed forces against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria without the Assad government’s consent. President Obama consolidated a new blueprint: a combination of high-tech attacks and proxy forces in the ground as a new permanent state of war in some nations. Syria became a contained global war by proxy. In 2015, after a brutal terrorist attack in Paris, the UN Security Council overcame the divisions and by consensus adopted Resolution 2249, authorizing “all necessary means” against the Islamic State in Syria. The War on Terror became a council policy.

This paper discusses the inability of the US-led coalition to eradicate the existence of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). Even after ISIS’s territorial defeat in 2019, the group still poses a significant threat to this region. The success of the US strategy to defeat ISIS is called into doubt in light of the group’s apparent resurgence. The first section of this paper is focused on a review of the related literature. Whether or not the United States’ allegations regarding ISIS are accurate, and what the regional and global ramifications of a resurgence of the organization would be, are questioned in the existing literature. From a constructivist vantage point, the second chapter discusses how the Islamic State came to be as well as the difficulties it faces now. In addition, it clarifies the motivations and behaviors of terrorists. It also demonstrates the limitations of current strategies for eliminating ISIS. The United States-led coalition’s participation in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and Syria is laid out at the outset of the third chapter. Following its territorial defeat in 2019, the Islamic State has shown signs of resurgence. Furthermore, it details the current US strategy for countering the resurgence of the Islamic State. The final one evaluates potential counter-ISIS strategies. The difficulties of destroying ISIS are discussed. Moreover, it provides a potential strategy for eradicating the Islamic State and explores other aspects of the issues inherent with doing so. Final thoughts and suggestions are provided as the paper winds down.

Greed-based theories of civil war predict that rebel groups will only engage in taxation and other state-building activities in areas where they lack exploitable resources. However, this prediction is contradicted by the Islamic State’s pattern of taxation across time and space. A new data set mapping seven types of revenue-extracting policies imposed by the Islamic State, a jihadist rebel group, in the 19 Syrian districts that it governed between 2013 and 2017 indicates that these policies were just as prevalent in resource-rich as in resource-poor districts. I propose a new theory that better explains this pattern—a rebel group’s pattern of taxation is codetermined by (1) ideology and (2) the costs of warfare—and establish the plausibility of this theory through a case study of al-Mayadin, the most oil-rich district governed by the Islamic State and therefore an ideal site in which to investigate the puzzle of taxation by resource-rich rebels.

The Non-Economic Functions of Rebel Taxation: New Data from the Islamic State in Syria

Since 2013, a major event occurred in the Middle East. A jihadi group founded a new state in June 2014 with a territory that was, at its heights, as vast as the United Kingdom under the name of the Islamic State in Syria and Sham (ISIS), and later on, simply the Islamic State (IS). Chapter 1 reveals how this event was a sea change in jihadism, not only in the Middle East but also in Europe and, more generally, worldwide. IS brought about a great transformation in the minds of European jihadis. European societies had not undergone major ruptures between the years 2000 and 2014, but the number of young people who became jihadi warriors, either internally (the so-called homegrown terrorists) or externally (the so-called Foreign Fighters) grew disproportionately between 2013 and 2016 in comparison to the pre-IS period. A key element was holding a territory as a state. It fundamentally changed the capacity of this jihadi organization. One essential characteristic of IS was its apocalyptic nature. The creation of the new caliphate in 2014 after a ninety-year interruption aroused new hopes in many parts of the Sunni world, traumatized by the failure of nationalism and pan-Arabism and eager to rekindle its lost glory. The attraction of radical Islamic utopias promising revenge against inhospitable European societies pushed a tiny minority of them toward violent action in the name of Allah, in particular after the creation of IS that galvanized them in that sense.

This commentary evaluates the use of beheadings by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. We place beheadings in a broader historical context and draw from academic research in terrorism studies and the social sciences to explain why the Islamic State has adopted such brutal tactics. We outline the strategic logic of beheading and evaluate explanations related to symbolic politics, culture, and organizational dynamics. We conclude with a discussion about the future of Islamic State violence.

UK parliament votes to bomb Islamic State in Syria – so, what will that mean internationally?

The Temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra was excavated by a Swiss team (1954–1956, 1966) led by the Swiss archaeologist Paul Collart. All of the field notes and other data are at the University of Lausanne. Today, these archives are the best existing source to study the temple, which was destroyed by ISIS (Islamic State in Syria) in 2015. Switzerland was not a colonial power, but, from a postcolonial perspective, it is interesting to study the dismantling process of the Byzantine structures as an assumption that the Roman-era Temple was more important. Based on a study of the historical archives, this article explores the question of whether this action can be seen as favoring a hegemonic narrative that the classical period supersedes all other periods represented by the site.

This article discusses how Armenians have collected, displayed and exchanged the bones of their murdered ancestors in formal and informal ceremonies of remembrance in Dayr al-Zur, Syria – the final destination for hundreds of thousands of Armenians during the deportations of 1915. These pilgrimages – replete with overlapping secular and nationalist motifs – are a modern variant of historical pilgrimage practices; yet these bones are more than relics. Bone rituals, displays and vernacular memorials are enacted in spaces of memory that lie outside of official state memorials, making unmarked sites of atrocity more legible. Vernacular memorial practices are of particular interest as we consider new archives for the history of the Armenian Genocide. The rehabilitation of this historical site into public consciousness is particularly urgent, since the Armenian Genocide Memorial Museum and Martyr’s Church at the centre of the pilgrimage site were both destroyed by ISIS (Islamic State in Syria) in 2014.

A comparative analysis of Islamist groups’ ideological positioning toward nation-state, secularism, and democracy across different countries in the MENA region. Authoritarian reassertion following the Arab uprisings in the Middle East has restrained Islamists’ political participation and challenged their survival as both opposition groups and rulers. In light of national sociopolitical variations across the region, this book explores Islamists’ means of adaptation and resilience in the face of this political exclusion, unpacking Islamists’ sociopolitical persistence and ideological sustainability. In doing so this book sheds light on the following questions: How did Islamists adapt to contextual restrictions in terms of repression and stigmatization? How did the Arab uprisings impact their internal debates, ideological revisions, and reconsideration of tools of action? Individual chapters explore similarities and divergences among Islamist groups and parties in terms of ideological affiliations, means of survival and political participation strategies, drawing on comparative cases from across the MENA region. Examples include the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Al-Nahda in Tunisia, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) in Turkey, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. These studies engage critically with conceptual debates related to Islamism, post-Islamism, Jihadist Islam, and the Islamic nation/community (ummah) to determine the trajectory of political Islam in the MENA.

What is ISIS? Farthest expansion of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (2014) ISIS—also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, and Daesh—is a group committed to salafi principles and jihadi tactics. It is extremely brutal. The group has regularly beheaded...

The thesis looks at the US-led airstrikes in September 2014 against the Islamic State in Syria from an international law perspective. It focusses on the prohibition of the use of force by states, which is contained in Article 2 (4) of the Charter of the United Nations and also part of customary international law, as well as exceptions to it. The author finds that the airstrikes constituted a use of force by states. They were not authorised by the United Nations Security Council. The respective states could not invoke the right of individual or collective self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. As regards the concept of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect, the author identifies a number of problems with respect to the airstrikes in Syria. Thus, the author concludes that the airstrikes constituted a violation of the prohibition of the use of force.

O terrorismo, os ataques violentos e o islamismo político têm afetado o Norte do Cáucaso desde a desintegração da União Soviética. Se no passado o Emirado do Cáucaso era a principal organização terrorista da região desde 2014, o Estado islâmico ganhou popularidade e estabeleceu o Vilayat Kavkaz (província do Cáucaso) como parte do Califado, explorando a condição socioeconómica crítica local e promovendo a propaganda jihadista em língua russa (ou seja, a revista 'Istok') também graças à presença considerável de combatentes estrangeiros do Cáucaso do Norte entre as fileiras de Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Embora atualmente as forças da coligação internacional tenham derrotado principalmente o Estado islâmico na Síria e no Iraque, esta organização ainda compromete o Norte do Cáucaso, frequentemente identificado como a zona mais volátil e empobrecida da Federação Russa, caracterizada por conflitos étnicos, o aumento do salafismo, a estagnação e a corrupção. Este estudo visa salientar que o governo russo elaborou uma estratégia baseada principalmente em operações militares especiais e investimentos maciços no turismo e na logística que podem exacerbar ainda mais o precário status quo da região, favorecendo a difusão da propaganda jihadista porque não considera o contexto histórico, sociocultural, étnico e religioso. A região não está isenta da propaganda jihadista e do terrorismo e, se o governo russo não puder apoiar financeira e economicamente os líderes regionais ou não quiser mudar a sua abordagem, o terrorismo e o islamismo político poderiam influenciar de forma crítica o Cáucaso do Norte, colocando uma perigosa ameaça à estabilidade e segurança da Federação Russa e de toda a Eurásia.

The Syrian civil war has generated international media attention and interest since it broke out in 2011 as an Arab Spring uprising. The local conflict quickly became internationalized with two major coalitions at odds with each other—one supported by the United States and the other by Russia. The Russian coalition has included and backed the Assad regime in Syria, while the American coalition has supported several opposition groups and conducted air strikes against the Syrian government. However, the United States and Russia have managed to work together against a common enemy—the Islamic State. Cooperation is difficult to achieve, even between allies; oftentimes individuals defect in favor of their self-interests instead. Then how have the US and Russia managed to overcome their differences and incentives to defect and cooperate (avoiding war with each other) against the Islamic State? The answer rests in a thorough understanding of game theory and the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the two coalitions find themselves trapped.

Iran’s relations with surrounding states exhibit a shift from unremitting radicalism to pervasive moderation, a transformation that is usually explained in terms of changes in the Islamic Republic’s domestic affairs. Yet the marked turn toward moderation may equally result from the dynamics of entrapment and pre-emptive realignment, which are inherent in alliance politics under conditions of anarchy. Attempts by Syria to strengthen ties to Iran set the stage for the 2006 Hizbullah–Israel war in Lebanon. Policy makers in Tehran recoiled from the fighting, opening the door to rapprochement with Ankara. Improved relations between Iran and Turkey both distanced the Islamic Republic from Iraq and prompted Iranian leaders to make unprecedented overtures to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Iran’s moves to conciliate Turkey and the KRG gained momentum as the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant seized territory across northern Syria and western Iraq. Nevertheless, ongoing Turkish initiatives in the Caucasus have created unpalatable strategic choices for the Islamic Republic, which put Tehran’s continued commitment to external moderation in jeopardy.