Skip navigation
Sidebar -

Advanced search options →

Welcome

Welcome to CEMB forum.
Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

Donations

Help keep the Forum going!
Click on Kitty to donate:

Kitty is lost

Recent Posts


Do humans have needed kno...
Today at 07:25 AM

New Britain
Today at 12:05 AM

Iran launches drones
April 13, 2024, 09:56 PM

عيد مبارك للجميع! ^_^
by akay
April 12, 2024, 04:01 PM

Eid-Al-Fitr
by akay
April 12, 2024, 12:06 PM

What's happened to the fo...
April 11, 2024, 01:00 AM

Lights on the way
by akay
February 01, 2024, 12:10 PM

Mock Them and Move on., ...
January 30, 2024, 10:44 AM

Pro Israel or Pro Palesti...
January 29, 2024, 01:53 PM

Pakistan: The Nation.....
January 28, 2024, 02:12 PM

Gaza assault
January 27, 2024, 01:08 PM

Nawal El Saadawi: Egypt's...
January 27, 2024, 12:24 PM

Theme Changer

 Topic: 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL

 (Read 420281 times)
  • Previous page 1 ... 75 76 7778 79 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2280 - December 27, 2015, 02:22 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRL-rpRXMmY

    Quote
    "We are getting closer to you day by day," said the message. "Do not think that we have forgotten about you."

    "God caused the Jews of the world to gather in Israel, and the war against them has become easy. It is the obligation of every Muslim to carry out Jihad,"

    "Jews, you will not enjoy in Palestine. God has gathered you in Palestine so that the Mujahadeen can reach you soon and you will hide by the rock and the tree. Palestine will be your graveyard,"



    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2281 - January 06, 2016, 12:56 AM

    Pope: misery of migrants makes us doubt God

    Quote
    The Pope has described the march of thousands of migrants and refugees into Europe as a “torrent of misery” that tested religious faith, as he challenged Europeans to give them shelter.
    In a stark New Year’s Day homily at St Peter’s Basilica, the Pope denounced the plight of the “hordes of men, women and children fleeing war, hunger and persecution, ready to risk their lives simply to encounter respect for their fundamental rights”.


    More in the link if you have a Times subscription.

    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2282 - January 08, 2016, 08:51 PM

    Islamic State Hero 'executes his own mother' in Raqqa  says BBC News

    Quote
    Quote
    An Islamic State militant carried out a public "execution" of his mother because she asked him to leave the group, activists say. Ali Saqr, 21, killed his mother, Lena al-Qasem, 45, outside the post office in Raqqa, Syria, eyewitnesses said[/b

    . Raqqa has served as IS' de facto capital since the group captured the city in August 2013. IS does not tolerate any dissent and imposes brutal punishments, often carried out in public.


    The UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS) reported the incident. RIBSS however said that the woman was killed for the crime of apostasy.
    Lena al-Qasem had reportedly told her son that the US-led military alliance fighting IS would "wipe out" the group, and tried to convince him to leave the city with her.

    Her son is then said to have informed the group of her comment. They then ordered that she be killed.  Ali Saqr is reported to have shot her outside the post office where she worked, in front of hundreds of people.

     

    well that is the news..

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2283 - January 10, 2016, 07:23 PM

    Isis 'ran sophisticated immigration operation' on Turkey-Syria border

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/10/isis-immigration-operation-turkey-syria-border-passenger-manifests-tel-abyad-islamic-state

    Quote
    The border crossing remained open until Kurdish forces took control of the town in June, at which point Turkey promptly sealed it. The crossing remains closed, a government official confirmed.

    David Phillips, an academic at Columbia University and author of two recent research papers into links between Turkey and Isis, alleges that the country “knows the movements of all persons and can control the flow across the border if it chooses”.

    He said there was “a steady stream of vehicles, individuals, weapons, financing, oil going back and forth”, adding: “It’s not like people are putting on their hiking boots and crossing over rough terrain. There’s an extensive surface transport network which is highly regulated and controlled ... on both sides of the border.”

  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2284 - March 09, 2016, 01:05 PM

    Good article by BBC.

    Islamic State group: The full story
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35695648

    Quote
    "We must accept the fact that Islam has a crisis," says a senior Sunni politician in Iraq.

    "IS is not a freak. Look at the roots, the people, the aims. If you don't deal with the roots, the situation will be much more dangerous. The world has to get rid of IS, but needs a new deal: reformation, in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, al-Azhar [the ancient seat of Sunni Islamic learning and authority in Cairo]."

    "You can't kill all the Muslims, you need an Islamic reformation. But Saudi and Qatari money is blotting out the voices so we can't get anywhere. It's the curse of the Arab world, too much oil, too much money."

  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2285 - March 23, 2016, 10:08 AM

    Defeating Isis means Western boots on the ground?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qck0d_zIPoc

    Some people never learn. No Mr. Douglas, not what the hell others are thinking, what the hell are you thinking Mr Douglas?
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2286 - March 23, 2016, 03:43 PM

    Islamic State Hero 'executes his own mother' in Raqqa  says BBC News
    . Raqqa has served as IS' de facto capital since the group captured the city in August 2013. IS does not tolerate any dissent and imposes brutal punishments, often carried out in public.


    The UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS) reported the incident. RIBSS however said that the woman was killed for the crime of apostasy.
    Lena al-Qasem had reportedly told her son that the US-led military alliance fighting IS would "wipe out" the group, and tried to convince him to leave the city with her.

    Her son is then said to have informed the group of her comment. They then ordered that she be killed.  Ali Saqr is reported to have shot her outside the post office where she worked, in front of hundreds of people.

    well that is the news..


    He must be sick in the head.

    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2287 - March 24, 2016, 04:46 PM

     'I made a bad decision'   joining ISIS says Mohamad Jamal Khweis of AMERIKA  published on 19 March 2016 in independent.co.uk


     .
    Quote
    Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 26, from Alexandria, Virginia detailed his weeks-long journey from the United States to London, Amsterdam, Turkey, through Syria and finally to the IS-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul, where he was moved into a house with dozens of other foreign fighters.

    Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 26, from Alexandria in the US state of Virginia, said that he became involved with Isis after meeting a young woman from Iraq while he was on holiday in Turkey. He says that he accepted her invitation to go to the Isis-held city of Mosul but regretted his decision once he arrived.

    Speaking in an interview with Kurdish television, he said: “I made a bad decision, to go with the girl and go to Mosul… At the time… I made the decision because I wasn’t thinking straight… and on the way there I regretted it.”

    Quote
    Life inside Mosul was difficult, Mr Khweis said: “I didn’t complete the whole sharia, I didn’t agree with their ideology, and uh, that’s when I wanted to escape. I found it very, very hard to live there. Our life was basically prayer, eating and learning the religion for about eight hours.

    “It was pretty hard to live in Mosul. It’s not like Western countries. It’s very strict there, no smoking and I just found it very hard there. The people who are controlling Mosul don’t represent the religion. Daesh, Isil, don’t represent the religion. I don’t see them as good Muslims”, he added.

     


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eg4CuNmPEw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbX-gjiX4c

    well that is what he says in those tubes .,   Hmm.. Jihad involves woman.??  off course Jihad  also involves Harem...

    Good....

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2288 - March 24, 2016, 04:54 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQq3dZdKbXg

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2289 - March 25, 2016, 06:14 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4VxFCXMZu0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2WfMPBQ85M


    Jesus and Muhammad.... Both may be stories., (clearly what is told in Quran, NT and other so called religious books are indeed stories)

    but those videos shows the difference between the mindset of people that follow those stories..

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2290 - March 26, 2016, 12:18 AM

    Football pitch suicide attack kills 30 south of Baghdad   says news

    Quote
    HILLA: A suicide bomber blew himself up on football pitch as trophies were being presented after a local tournament south of Baghdad Friday, killing at least 30 people.

    The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack that wreaked carnage on the field where supporters, officials and security forces were gathered after the game.

    “They were just handing the trophy to the winners, the suicide attacker blew himself up in the crowd,” a police captain from the village, Al-Asriya, told AFP.

    The village is near Iskandariyah, a town about 40 kilometres south of the capital. The police captain said more than 65 people were also wounded in the blast. “The mayor died in hospital as a result of the serious wounds he suffered in the blast,” the medic said, adding that one of his bodyguards and at least five members of the security forces were also among those killed.

    The IS group promptly released a statement on social media claiming responsibility for the attack and posting a picture of the purported bomber. “Our knight immersed into their crowds, until he detonated his belt, turning them into scattered parts,” the statement said, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.

    ...

      “Our knight immersed into their crowds, until he detonated his belt, turning them into scattered parts,” ......

    Knights... knights.. that is what all brutal rogues of Islam say......... and this is the tube..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7gNOw18nTs

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2291 - March 26, 2016, 01:10 AM

    Yeez is right. Baboons, nothing more.

    how fuck works without shit??


    Let's Play Chess!

    harakaat, friend, RIP
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2292 - April 14, 2016, 04:21 PM

    The reluctant jihadi: how one recruit lost faith in Isis
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2293 - June 06, 2016, 02:30 PM

    Gabriel Said Reynolds - Naming an enemy: Islamic State, IS, ISIL, ISIS, or Daesh?
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2294 - June 07, 2016, 01:47 AM



    Hello zeca sir.
    I would say,they should name whatever except Islamic state.
    As we know ISIS has nothing to do with Islam.

    Islam is the religion of peace.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYedKXpb5mo

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWxUfVMbNDM

    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2295 - June 07, 2016, 02:21 AM

    Islamic State Hero 'executes his own mother' in Raqqa  says BBC News
    . Raqqa has served as IS' de facto capital since the group captured the city in August 2013. IS does not tolerate any dissent and imposes brutal punishments, often carried out in public.


    The UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS) reported the incident. RIBSS however said that the woman was killed for the crime of apostasy.
    Lena al-Qasem had reportedly told her son that the US-led military alliance fighting IS would "wipe out" the group, and tried to convince him to leave the city with her.

    Her son is then said to have informed the group of her comment. They then ordered that she be killed.  Ali Saqr is reported to have shot her outside the post office where she worked, in front of hundreds of people.

    ISIS isn't islamic.


    "Worship God and join not any partners with Him; and be kind to your parents..." [Noble Quran 4:36]


    "Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him and that you be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility and say, "My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy even as they cherished me in childhood." [Noble Quran 17:23-24]

    "And We have enjoined on man [to be good] to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him and his weaning was over two years. Be thankful to Me and to your parents, unto Me is the final destination."[Noble Quran 31:14]

    "And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months. [He grows] until, when he reaches maturity and reaches [the age of] forty years, he says, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to work righteousness of which You will approve and make righteous for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am of the Muslims." [Noble Quran 46:15]

    'Paradise lies at the feet of your mother' [Musnad Ahmad, Sunan An-Nasâ’i, Sunan Ibn Mâjah]

    I know of no other deed that brings people closer to Allah than kind treatment and respect towards one's mother. [Al-Adab al-Mufrad Bukhârî 1/45]




    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2296 - June 08, 2016, 01:00 AM

    Unfortunately, you do not get to decide who is or is not Muslim, no matter how they do or do not practice the faith.

    Don't let Hitler have the street.
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2297 - June 08, 2016, 01:19 AM

    Yeah Exactly I agree. we can't decide about anyone or any organization.
    Islam is violent and reason is ISIS.

    Islam does have a potential of terrorism.

    Groups like ISIS are following Islamic laws.
     

    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2298 - June 08, 2016, 01:41 AM

    Dons/Fathers of ISIS

    1. Saddam Hussein
    Date of Birth   28 April 1937, al-Awja, Iraq
    Date of Death   30 December 2006, Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq (execution by hanging)
    Birth Name   Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti
    Nicknames   The Butcher of Bagdad. The Butcher of Baghdad.
    Height            6' 1¼" (1.86 m)
    Fame                 President Of Iraq for 24 years,
    Religion            Sunni islam


    2. Uday Hussein

    Born    18 June 1964 Tikrit, Iraq
    Died    22 July 2003 (aged 39) Mosul, Iraq
    Parents    Saddam Hussein (deceased) Sajida Talfah
    Relatives    Qusay Hussein (brother, deceased) Raghad Hussein (Sister)
    Religion    Sunni Islam
    Military service
    Allegiance    Baathist Iraq
    Service/branch    Fedayeen Saddam
    Height             6′ 6″
    Fame               Torture and Rape of Iraqi women, womanizer



    3, Qusay Hussein

    Born    Qusay Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti 17 May 1966 Baghdad, Iraq
    Died    22 July 2003 (aged 37)Mosul, Iraq
    Resting place    Al-Awja, Iraq
    Nationality    Iraqi
    Political party    Iraqi Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
    Spouse(s)    Sahar (m. 1988–2003; his death)
    Children    Mustapha Qusay Saddam al-Tikriti (1989–2003; deceased) Yahya Qusay Saddam al-Tikriti (born 1991) Yaqub Qusay Saddam al-Tikriti
    Parents    Saddam Hussein (father, 1937–2006; deceased) Sajida Talfah (mother, born 1937)
    Relatives    Uday Saddam Hussein (brother; deceased) Maher Abd al-Rashid (father in law)
    Religion    Sunni Islam
    Military service
    Allegiance    Baathist Iraq
    Service/branch    Iraqi Republican Guard
    Height              5′ 11″
    Fame                Appointed as his father's heir apparent in 2000



    4. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

    Born    Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh 20 October 1966 Zarqa, Jordan
    Died    7 June 2006 (aged 39) Hibhib, Iraq
    Nationality    Jordanian
    Children    5
    Religion    Sunni Islam (Jihadism)
    Height       Unknown
    Fame        1st Emir of Al-Qaeda in Iraq


    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2299 - June 08, 2016, 01:43 AM

    https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/saddam-hussein-the-father-of-isis-in-iraq/

    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2300 - June 08, 2016, 09:31 AM

    ISIS Executes spies within their ranks. CNN.
    Warning Graphic Content - CNN
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG9XtsgVLPg

    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2301 - June 08, 2016, 09:38 AM

    U.S. special operations forces arrive in Syria - CNN

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teO2xFrcwWo



    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2302 - June 08, 2016, 09:41 AM

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/americas/u-s-military-isis-mediterranean/

    I think you have some problem.
    Every thing I post, looks weird to you.


  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2303 - July 04, 2016, 01:41 AM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrEuRYw3Kf0
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2304 - August 01, 2016, 05:14 PM

    Quote
    Weird ISIS fantasy-imperialism in the latest Dabiq

    https://mobile.twitter.com/arisroussinos/status/760074837700251648
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2305 - August 11, 2016, 07:02 PM

    Rukmini Callamachi - Piecing together the complex structure of ISIS (npr broadcast)

    http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=489061729:489061730
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2306 - September 30, 2016, 07:47 AM

    Mizan, a new open access online journal on Islamic Studies, has an issue on 'The Islamic State in Historical and Comparative Perspective' with articles by Kecia Ali, Michael Pregill and others.

    http://www.mizanproject.org/journal/
  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2307 - October 16, 2016, 11:27 PM

    The fall of Dabiq: http://www.jihadica.com/apocalypse-delayed/
    Quote
    Today, Turkish-backed rebels took another small town in their relentless march to secure northern Syria from ISIS and the Kurds. The news of Dabiq’s fall would be unremarkable—the final battle lasted hours and the casualties were low—but for the fact that ISIS spent the last two years proclaiming the town to be the site of an End-of-Days showdown with the infidels. This isn’t quite what the group had in mind.

    Quote
    When the Turkish-held noose tightened around Dabiq over the past few weeks, ISIS’ followers began to frantically explain why the approaching showdown in Dabiq would not be THE showdown. Well, the expected Mahdi, a messiah figure, had not yet appeared to lead the battle. Or the required eighty nation coalition had not rolled into town. In the past few days, ISIS’ own newsletter tried to downplay the significance of the town’s coming fall. The “great battle” will come to pass because God has promised it would; but this isn’t that battle because all the other preceding prophecies haven’t come to pass. Never mind that ISIS neglected to mention those other prophecies in its earlier hyping of Dabiq. Days later, the town fell with little resistance.

    It’s easy to conclude that ISIS’ leaders cited the prophesy cynically. They played it up when it was to their advantaged and downplayed it when it was not. That may be the case, as I wrote in my book. But another theory I offered is that ISIS, like other apocalyptic groups, changes its understanding of prophecy’s fulfillment based on circumstances. We won’t know for sure which interpretation is right until we hear high-level defectors or discover internal documents bearing on the matter.

  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2308 - October 20, 2016, 07:26 PM

    Tom Holland - How Islamic is Islamic State? Shiraz Maher's new book investigates

    http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2016/06/how-islamic-islamic-state-shiraz-mahers-new-book-investigates
    Quote
    How Islamic is Islamic State? This question has prompted much agonised equivocation from politicians, broadcasters and pundits. Implicit in the BBC’s dogged insistence on referring to IS as “the so-called Islamic State” is a desperate yearning to believe that it has nothing to do with Islam at all. How much more reassuring it is to blame the ­organisation’s crimes – not to mention its appeal to Muslims who have travelled from across the world to join it – on Western ­foreign policy, or anomie, or perhaps a lack of sex. Anything, in short, rather than contemplate the possibility that the ­murderous savagery of the jihadis might indeed be fuelled by an authentically Islamic ideology.

    Such a conceit has become a good deal harder to sustain, however, with the publication of Shiraz Maher’s groundbreaking study of what he terms “Salafi-jihadism”. A senior research fellow at King’s College London and a contributing writer for the New Statesman, Maher combines scholarly objectivity with something no less valuable for someone trying to make sense of Islamism: personal experience of campaigning for a caliphate. Radicalised after the 11 September 2001 attacks, he spent four years rising through the ranks of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Sunni organisation committed to establishing a global Islamic state, but repudiated it on the day of the London Tube bombings. When Maher delivers an evaluation of Salafi-­jihadism, he does so with the confidence of a man who knows whereof he speaks.

    So, it is striking that he should open his book by slapping down his cards very firmly on the table. “Yes,” he ­acknowledges, “Islamic State is more brazen and ruthless than its predecessors but the ideas that guide it are well established in radical Sunni thought. Their roots are grounded in the experiences of Sunni Islam over the last century and beyond.” Maher’s ambition in his book is to justify this assertion, and to explicate the confluence of doctrines and ideals that, bred of old Islamic thinking, have combined over the past three decades to such novel and literally explosive effect. The result is a masterclass in how to do intellectual history, and one that nobody with an interest in radical Islam should miss.
    ....

  • 'Islamic State' a.k.a. ISIL
     Reply #2309 - October 21, 2016, 08:09 PM

    Interview with Will McCants - What Is the Islamic State Without a State?

    http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/islamic-state-mosul-territory/504665/
    Quote
    Territory is arguably both ISIS’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The land the group seized in Syria and Iraq, which at its peak was thought to be as large as the kingdom of Jordan, enabled the Islamic State to aspire to its grandiose name by declaring a caliphate, drawing recruits from around the globe, and distinguishing itself from the world’s stateless terrorist and insurgent groups.

    But that land has also served as a big, fat target for ISIS’s enemies, who have been pummeling the organization from the air and on the ground. By one estimate, ISIS has lost 16 percent of its territory so far in 2016, after losing 14 percent in 2015. It has recently retreated from the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, the Syrian-Turkish border, and the Syrian town of Dabiq, where ISIS members once prophesied a literally apocalyptic battle with infidel armies. This week, a motley crew of forces launched a massive assault on ISIS’s last Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

    Each square mile lost chips away at ISIS’s reason for being. As my colleague Graeme Wood wrote last year, “Caliphates cannot exist as underground movements, because territorial authority is a requirement.” What exactly is the Islamic State, if the “state” all but disappears?

    To answer that question, I turned to William McCants, a scholar of Islamic militancy at the Brookings Institution and the author of The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. We spoke about how territory factored into ISIS’s early ideology, how its leaders have explained their recent setbacks, how the group reconciles its dual goals of building a caliphate and bringing about the end of the world, and how the organization could change in the coming years.

    McCants argued that a stateless Islamic State could still carry out terrorist attacks abroad and exploit political dysfunction in Syria and Iraq, even as it struggles to attract foreign fighters and justify its claim to the caliphate. Most of all, I was struck by the timeline he offered for defeating the idea of ISIS as opposed to its physical footprint. The group, he emphasized, accomplished what other jihadist organizations had long dreamt of by controlling substantial territory. “ISIS’s own leaders have said it will take a generation of being denied territory for the effect of that to fade,” he told me. “I think that’s right.”

  • Previous page 1 ... 75 76 7778 79 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »