ISIS Meaning, Territory and Relations with india

ISIS full form

ISIS/ ISIL logo 

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has the black flag with the words La ‘ilaha ‘illa-llah means “There is no God but God” . Underneath is a white circle emblazoned with black writing reading "Mohammed is the messenger of God".

ISIS and India relations

The latest challenge that has emerged in the Middle East is of the Islamic State (henceforth referred to of the Gulf War-I. as the ISIS). To understand the origin of the ISIS, we need to trace back to the period of the Gulf In 1990, when the Gulf War-I began, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein used chemical and biological weapons against his adversaries. The US supported Kuwait in the war but as the war ended, it failed to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. As the UN imposed sanctions against Iraq and isolated it, it was believed that a weak Iraq under Saddam Hussein would lead to a palace coup against Saddam and the would be a subsequent regime change.                            

In 1998, the US passed a law signed by Clinton authorising 97 billion US dollars to replace the regime of Saddam with a democratic regime in Iraq. The task was entrusted to the CIA. However, the 9/11 attacks changed all equations. In 2001, the US President was empowered with the Authorized use of Military Force (AVMF) to declare a war on Afghanistan and Iraq for which the US President would not require authorisation from the UN Security Council. This led to the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001and of Iraq in 2003. After the end of Gulf War, the UN had instructed Iraq to remove and dismantle all its chemical and biological weapons. Iraq had not complied with the directions of the UN. In November 2001, the UN Weapon Inspector Hans Blix informed the Security Council that Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction. On 20 March 2003, after the failure of Iraq to dismantle the weapons of weapons mass destruction, the US invaded Iraq and launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Saddam was captured in December 2003 and hanged subsequently after court's verdicts. After Saddam's capture, the ground was prepared in Iraq for democratic elections. Before we move further, we have to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, the Muslims living in Iraq are Shia and are in majority.

Secondly, Saddam was a Sunni Muslim. The situation in Iraq under Saddam was that Shia-majority nation was controlled by Sunni minority and a Sunni leader. When the US invaded Iraq, the US was determined to side with the Shias as they constituted the majority. This created an inherent sense of betrayal and a rising number of Sunni extremist groups who unleashed violence and chaos in Iraq. One such prominent group was Jamaat al Tawhid Wa-i-Jihad (JTD). It was founded in 1999 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Jordan. Al-Zarqawi developed proximity to Al-Qaeda's Osama Bin Laden in due course of time. In 2004, the JTWJ performed bay'ah and joined the Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The commonality of Al-Qaeda and JWT in Iraq was the deep anti-Shia sentiment

In 2006, Al-Zarqawi took steps to bring other pro-Sunni, anti-Shia groups fighting in Iraq under a uniform banner and succeeded in knitting the organisations under Majlis Shura-al-Mujahideen (MSM).

Al-Zarqawi was killed in the same year in a US air strike. He was succeeded by Al-Masri, with the Al- Qaeda in Iraq now transformed into Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Abu Ayyub al-Masri announced that the new goal of ISI was to capture the territory of Iraq which had passed into the hands of Nour Al Maliki (the Shia ruler who assumed power after elections in 2005 in Iraq). Al-Masri clarified that the goal of ISI is to establish Sharia in Iraq.

The ISI began to capture the lands of the Anbar province in Iraq where Sunni disenchantment with Shias was very high. The US forces in Iraq in 2007 began to take help of Shawat al-Anbar to tackle ISI.

As the US used Shawat al-Anbar, they began to successfully wipe out ISI. In 2010, al-Masri died and was succeeded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al-Baghdadi began to rework the structure of Islamic state of Iraq. He decided that the group needs to broaden its thinking and reach. Al-Baghdadi repositioned the group, shifted base to Syria and renamed the group as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). The shifting of ISIL in Syria upset the Al-Qaeda in Syria fighting against the Assad government and they decided to split from ISIL. Al-Baghdadi, on 21 June 2014, announced a new goal of ISIS or ISIL that is the establishment of a Caliphate once again in the Islamic world, followed by its establishment in rest of the world later. Al-Baghdadi, on 29 June 2014, designated himself as the Caliph Ibrahim. The ISIS has vowed affiliation to the Salafi-Jihadi ideology.