ABSTRACT

The Islamic State—also called the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham (Da'esh)—is the latest of such threats to international security. The rise of the Islamic State is tied to the political collapse of Iraq, and subsequently a popular uprising that became a civil war in Syria. Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator who came to power in 1979. In 2013 al-Baghdadi broke with the al-Qaeda leadership to create the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State also demonstrated its global reach through a series of terrorist attacks outside Iraq and Syria in 2015 and 2016. The power of the Islamic State ideology is demonstrated by two particular phenomena: the decision by Western Muslims to join the organization, and the growth of Islamic State-inspired terrorism in North American and European countries.