The Syrian Civil War has continued throughout 2014,
devastating the country and spilling over into neighbouring Iraq.
The devastation and destruction of Syria by years of
Civil War left the country unable to defend itself from attack by a “new”
fundamentalist and Islamist terrorist group. The group is referred to by
several different titles; ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), ISIL (Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant), IS (Islamic State) and the Caliphate. I will be
referring to it as ISIS due to the fact that currently it controls vast swathes
of Iraq and Syria. Although ISIS actually formed in 1999, it was relatively
unknown in the West until 2014. The group had joined Al Qaeda in 2004, but it was
disavowed by Al Qaeda in February 2014 after a long power struggle between the
two groups. Throughout the Syrian Civil War ISIS had been seizing parts of
Syria and imposing Sharia law on the people it controlled. However in the chaos
of the Syrian Civil War, its actions went largely un-noted by the Western
media. That was until June when ISIS invaded neighbouring Iraq.
On the 5th of June ISIS forces stormed over
the Syria-Iraq border, intent on taking all of Iraq. By the middle of the month
they had taken vast swathes of north-western Iraq with relative ease, including
Iraq’s second city, Mosul. It was rather
amazing (in a horrible way) to watch as ISIS took so much territory from Iraq
without much fighting. This was despite the fact that the Iraqi army hugely
outnumbered the ISIS fighters. When ISIS marched on Mosul, they had less than
1,000 men whilst the Iraqi army had an impressive 60,000! The Iraqi army
basically ran away so fast that they left behind expensive military equipment,
including tanks and anti-aircraft weapons. I am sure ISIS was very glad of
getting hold of those weapons. The reason why this happened is because of the
sectarian divisions of Iraq. The northern part of Iraq follows Sunni Islam,
whilst the southern part is Shia Islam. To complicate matters even more there
are the Kurds in north-eastern Iraq. Although they are mostly Sunnis, their
different ethnicity makes them a separate group within Iraq. Since Nouri
Al-Maliki came to power in 2006 he has tried to purge Sunnis from the
government and the army. As a result, when ISIS invaded northern Iraq the army
defending the Sunni territory was mostly Shia. Rather than risk their lives
defending Sunni territory, the Shia soldiers simply fled. The rapid advance of
ISIS was somewhat halted when the group began attacking more mixed areas, as
the Shia dominated army began to actually defend the territory.
Despite ISIS’s success in taking control of much of
northern Iraq, they were unable to take control of Kurdistan. The military of
Iraqi Kurdistan, the Peshmerga, managed to hold their territory and even take
some back from ISIS. Since June Iraqi Kurdistan has been de facto independent.
On the 29th of June ISIS declared that it was now
a worldwide Caliphate and that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was its
first Caliph. By doing this they are claiming complete authority over all
Muslims throughout the world.
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| Control of Iraq and Syria at the end of 2014 Red: Assad regime Purple-red: Iraqi government Green: Syrian rebels Grey: ISIS Yellows: Syrian and Iraqi Kurds Source: wikipedia.org |
The barbarity of ISIS has been revealed over the past six
months. They have brutally murdered anyone who will not convert to their extremist
version of Sunni Islam. At one point they declared that the Yazidis, an ethnic
and religious minority in northern Iraq, were “devil worshippers” and that they
would be killed. After the Kurdish Peshmerga left the mostly Yazidi city of
Sinjar, many Yazidis fled with them to Kurdistan. Unfortunately the journey to
Peshmerga protected Kurdistan was several days walk away and many who would not
make it fled up Mount Sinjar. As ISIS forces moved to surround the mountain
there were fears of a genocide of the Yazidis who were now trapped. Thankfully
a combination of strategic bombing of ISIS forces, air-dropped aid packages and
the help of Peshmerga forces ensured that most Yazidis managed to escape.
With the realisation that ISIS poses a real threat to both
regional and international security, 28 countries have intervened in some
capacity to help combat ISIS’s rise.
As things stand going into 2015, ISIS’s advance has been
halted, but now the effort to push back against the organisation has to step
up. As bad as Iraq has been in recent years, ISIS control would be far worse.
My hope for 2015 is that ISIS gets pushed back and that countries begin to
recognise Kurdistan as an independent nation.
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| Red: Iraq and Syria Dark Orange: Military intervention in Iraq and Syria Light orange: Military intervention in Iraq only Yellow: Military intervention in Syria only Dark Blue: Humanitarian aid Light Blue: Military aid (no intervention) |
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