![]() In 2014, Washington gathered a coalition of Western allies, regional states and local militias that steadily shrank the Islamic State’s territory by 2019, ISIS was forced underground. The Islamic State’s caliphate, however, proved short-lived. The Islamic State exploited social media, using Twitter and Facebook to reach millions of Muslims around the world. Syria’s chaos gave Islamist militants a potent recruiting call and a place to organize and regroup. Meanwhile, Syria collapsed into civil war - a war that began as an uprising against the authoritarian Bashar al-Assad regime but quickly became a sectarian conflict. Further, to fill its ranks, ISIS launched a series of prison breaks that freed hardened Islamist militants. This enabled the Islamic State to claim that it was the champion of Sunni Muslims in a sectarian struggle. ![]() Instead, Maliki’s regime began to arrest Sunnis who had fought the Islamist militants and began “attacking, intimidating, marginalizing” Sunni representatives, as one Iraqi former minister put it. So what happened? How, by 2014, were the Islamist militants able to return and proclaim a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, ruling over a territory the size of Britain?Ĭharles Lister Wednesday, January 8, 2014įirst, when the United States withdrew, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his predominantly Shiite government were supposedly committed to cooperation with the country’s Sunni Muslim community. By 2011, when the United States withdrew its forces, al-Qaeda in Iraq was on the ropes. The organization had lost its territory and was launching far fewer attacks its leadership was devastated and former supporters were criticizing it for its killing of Muslim civilians. But by 2008, Michael Hayden, then CIA director, declared that al-Qaeda in Iraq was “near strategic defeat.” The disastrous occupation led to a brutal civil war. invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein without planning for the aftermath. It’s important to remember how the Islamic State rose and fellĪl-Qaeda in Iraq, which went through a series of names before proclaiming itself the Islamic State, emerged to fill the void after the 2003 U.S. The Islamic State may make modest gains with the United States gone - but as the Baghdadi raid reveals, the U.S.-led counterterrorism campaign will not end and a full comeback is unlikely. Then the United States struck a blow against ISIS when Special Operations forces killed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - eliminating a key leader at a critical time. forces to remain in Syria, ostensibly to protect Kurdish-held oil. Trump tried to placate some critics by allowing a remnant of U.S. For instance, former secretary of defense Jim Mattis warned, “If we don’t keep the pressure on, then ISIS will resurge.” withdrawal would give the Islamic State a chance to rise again. US combat troops first withdrew in 2011 before returning three years later at Iraq's request when terrorist groups such as IS seized large swathes of the country, along with large areas of neighboring Syria.Many Americans, including leaders not normally critical of the president, worried that a U.S. The US first invaded Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein on the grounds that he possessed weapons of mass destruction. President Joe Biden said earlier this week that he would end their combat mission by the end of the year.īut the number of soldiers is expected to stay the same, as they will stay on to advise and train the Iraqi military. The United States currently has 2,500 troops in Iraq helping the government tackle the threat from IS. ![]() The number of terror strikeshas declined in recent years, but militants still try to target the Iraqi military with ambushes, raids and homemade explosives. Iraqi forces often carry out anti-terror operations in the region's nearby mountains and deserts where many IS operatives are believed to be hiding. Suicide bombings are still a regular occurence in Iraq, although the number of such attacks has dropped in recent years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |