Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Following years of unrest in Iraq and Syria, the rise of the Islamic State (IS) posed a grave threat to international security. Syria and Iraq are still home to the group's primary leadership and affiliates. IS’s apocalyptic philosophy and its extremist goal are nevertheless a concern. Based on current terrorism and security issues, this article investigates IS’s roots and how it has spread Islamic extremism in order to develop and expand its territory. A descriptive research design based on secondary and primary data sources was used to conduct a qualitative study. Sectarianism may have been prevented with a coherent post-Iraq war peacebuilding policy. Aside from military action, IS’s activities must be curtailed through the closure of financial and economic channels.

Keywords

international security Iraq War ISIL ISIS Islamic State sectarianism Syria and Iraq terrorism

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

New York Times(2018) Why a ‘Dramatic Dip’ in ISIS Attacks in the West Is Scant Comfort.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/world/middleeast/isis-attacks.html 12 September. (accessed 01 Sept 2021

al-Shami

AM-A

(2014) Indeed, your lord is ever watchful. Al-Furqan Media, 9 September. Available at: https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/bitstream/handle/10066/16495/ADN20140922.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed 11 December 2021).

Anonymous (2015) The mystery of ISIS. New York Review of Books. Retrieved July 3, 2021, from https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/08/13/mystery-isis/

BBC News (2015) What is ‘Islamic State’? 2 December. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29052144 (accessed July 3, 2021).

Blair

(2009) Annual threat assessment of the intelligence community for the Senate Armed Services Committee. Available at: http://www.dni.gov/ªles/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/20090310_testimony.pdf (accessed 10 March 2020).

Blanchard

C.M

Humud

C.E

(2018) The Islamic state and us policy (updated). Current Politics and Economics of the Middle East 9(2/3): 533–569.

Borger

Mahmood

(2013) EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions boosts jihadist groups. The Guardian, 19 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/19/eu-syria-oil-jihadist-al-qaida (accessed 11 March 2020).

Burke

(2015) The New Threat. London: Penguin.

Byman

(2016) Understanding the Islamic State—A review essay. International Security 40(4): 127–165.

10.

Chilcot Report (n.d.) Section 3.5 Development of UK Strategy and Options, September to November 2002 – The Negotiation of Resolution 1441. Available at: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/248176/the-report-of-the-iraq-inquiry_section-35.pdf (accessed 10 March 2020).

11.

Cockburn

(2014) Isis consolidates. London Review of Books 36(16), 21 August.

12.

Crooke

(2009) Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution. New York: Pluto Press.

13.

Fisher

Beauchamp

(2014) 14 maps that explain ISIS. Vox, 25 September. Available at: https://www.vox.com/2014/9/25/6843611/14-maps-that-explain-isis (accessed 18 Oct, 2021).

14.

Fromson

Simon

(2015) ISIS: The dubious paradise of apocalypse now. Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 57(3): 7–56.

15.

Gambhir

(2016) The virtual caliphate: ISIS’s information warfare. Institute for the Study of War. Available at: http://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/virtual-caliphate-isiss-information-warfare (accessed 10 Oct 2021).

16.

Gerges

(2014) ISIS and the third wave of Jihadism. Current History 113(767): 339–343.

17.

Gomes

Mikhael

(2018) Terror or terrorism? Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in comparative perspective. Brazillian Political Science Review 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-3821201800010002

18.

Gulmohamad

(2014) The rise and fall of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (Levant) ISIS. Global Security Studies 5(2): 1–11.

19.

Hadra

(2015) ISIS: Past, Present and Future? Pro-ISIS Media and State Formation. Boston, MA: The College of Arts and Sciences, Boston College.

20.

Hassan

(2015) ISIS has reached new depths of depravity: But there is a brutal logic to it. Guardian, 7 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/isis-islamic-state-ideology-sharia-syria-iraq-jordan-pilot (accessed 10 March 2020).

21.

Hourani

(1962) Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939. London: Cambridge University Press.

22.

Hove

(2018) Middle East: The origins of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS). Conflict Studies Quarterly 23: 3–22.

23.

Hugh

(2015) The hijackers. London Review of Books 37(14), 16 July.

24.

Jackson

(2015) 70,000 Indian clerics issue fatwa against terrorists. Christian Science Monitor, 10 December. Available at: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/1210/70-000-Indian-clerics-issue-fatwaagainst-terrorists (accessed 11 March 2020).

25.

Jones

Smith

(2015) The strategy of savagery: Explaining the Islamic State. War on the Rocks, 24 February. Available at: https://warontherocks.com/2015/02/the-strategy-of-savagery-explaining-the-Islamic-State (accessed 10 March 2020).

26.

Khalaf

Jones

(2014) Selling terror: How ISIS details its brutality. Financial Times, p. 17. 17 June, 2014

27.

Khatib

(2015) The Islamic State’s strategy: Lasting and expanding. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 29 June. Available at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/06/29/islamic-state-s-strategy-lasting-and-expanding-pub-60511 (accessed 11 March 2020).

28.

Lewis

(2016) ISIS forecast: Ramadan 2016. Middle East Security Report (Institute of War). Available at: http://www.rightsidenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ISW-ISIS-RAMADAN-FORECAST-2016.pdf (accessed 13 March 2020).

29.

Lister

(2014) Profiling the Islamic State. Brookings Institution, 12 January. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/research/profiling-the-islamic-state/ (accessed 13 March 2020).

30.

Lister

(2016) Profiling Jabhat al-Nusra. Brookings Center for Middle East Policy. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/iwr_20160728_profiling_nusra.pdf (accessed 03 August 2021)

31.

McCants

(2015) The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St Martin’s Press.

32.

Napoleoni

(2016) A fênix islamista: O ISIS e a reconfiguração do Oriente Médio. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.

33.

Oosterveld

Bloem

(2017) The rise and fall of ISIS: From evitability to inevitability. Volatility and friction in the age of disintermediation: HCSS StratMon annual report 2016/2017. The Hague: The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.

34.

Reardon

(2015) ISIL and the management of savagery. Al Jazeera, 6 July. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/07/isil-management-savagery-150705060914471.html (accessed 10 March 2020).

35.

Reuter

(2015) The terror strategist: Secret files reveal the structure of Islamic State. Spiegel, 18 April https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html (accessed 7 June, 2021).

36.

Rey

Al Rachid

(2016) Les racines de l’État Islamique, interview by Marieke Louis. 9 February. Available at: http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Les-racines-de-l-Etat-islamique.html (accessed 10 March 2020).

37.

Seldin

(2018) Islamic State ‘well-positioned’ to rebuild caliphate. Voice of America. https://www.voanews.com/a/islamic-state-well-positioned-to-rebuild-caliphate/4530937.html (accessed 12 Sept 2021)

38.

Smith

(2015) ISIS and the Sectarian Conflict in the Middle East. London: House of Commons.

39.

Stansfield

(2016) Book reviews: Explaining the aims, rise and impact of the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham. Middle East Journal 70(1): 146–151.

40.

Sterm

Bergen

(2015) ISIS: The State of Terror. New York: Harper Collins.

41.

UN (2018) U.N. Document S/2018/705. 27 July. U.N. Monitoring Team for Resolutions.

42.

UNSC (2015) Security Council ‘unequivocally’ condemns ISIL terrorist attacks, unanimously adopting text that determines extremist group poses ‘unprecedented’ threat. The United Nations Security Council, 20 November. Available at: http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12132.doc.htm (accessed 11 March 2020).

43.

Votel

Bembenek

Hans

, et al. (2017). #Virtual caliphate: Defeating ISIL on the physical battlefield is not enough. Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security. Available at: https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/virtual-caliphate (accessed 10 March 2020).

44.

Warrick

(2015) Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

45.

Winter

(2015) Documenting the virtual caliphate. Quilliam Foundation. Available at: http://www.quilliaminternational.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/10/FINAL-documenting-the-virtual-caliphate.pdf (accessed 11 March 2020).

46.

Wright

(2016) How the curse of Sykes-Picot still haunts the Middle East. 30 April. Available at: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-curse-of-sykes-picot-still-haunts-the-middle-east (accessed 10 March 2020).

The Islamic State (IS): Threat of terrorism and policy issues in relation to sectarianism

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References