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How much territory does IS control?
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How much territory does IS control?
In September 2014 IS controlled much of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin - an area similar in size to the United Kingdom, or about 210, 000 sq km.
A year later IS frontlines in northern and central Iraq and northern Syria had been pushed back significantly by US-led coalition air strikes and ground operations.
In reality, IS militants exercise complete control over only a small part of that territory, which includes cities and towns, main roads, oil fields and military facilities.
They enjoy freedom of movement in the largely uninhabited areas outside " control zones", but they would struggle to defend them.
Similarly, it is not entirely clear how many people are living under full or partial IS control across Syria and Iraq. In March 2015, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross put the figure at more than 10 million.
How many fighters does it have?
In February 2015, US Director for National Intelligence said IS could muster " somewhere in the range between 20, 000 and 32, 000 fighters" in Iraq and Syria. In June 2015, US Deputy Secretary of State said more than 10, 000 IS fighters had been killed.
A significant number of IS fighters are neither Iraqi nor Syrian as the group had attracted more than 28, 000 foreign fighters. They included at least 5, 000 Westerners, while the majority are from nearby Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Morocco.
What about its targets outside Iraq and Syria?
In late 2015, IS began to lay claim to attacks outside its territory. It downed a Russian passenger plane in the Sinai peninsula, killing all 228 on board. IS also claimed twin blasts in the Lebanese capital Beirut which killed at least 41 people. Militants from the Lebanese movement Hezbollah have been fighting in neighbouring Syria on the side of IS' enemy, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. At least 128 people were killed in a wave of attacks around Paris. IS said it was behind the violence.
What weapons does IS have?
IS fighters have access to, and are capable of using, a wide variety of small arms and heavy weapons, including truck-mounted machine-guns, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and portable surface-to-air missile systems.
Some have been packed with explosives and used to devastating effect in suicide bomb attacks.
The group is believed to have a flexible supply chain that ensures a constant supply of ammunition and small arms for its fighters.
Where does IS get its money from?
The militant group is believed to be the world's wealthiest. It initially relied on wealthy private donors and Islamic charities in the Middle East keen to oust Syria's President Assad. Although such funding is still being used, the group is now largely self-funding.
The US Treasury estimates that in 2014 IS may have earned as much as several million dollars per week, or $100m in total, from the sale of crude oil and refined products to local middlemen, who in turn smuggled them in Turkey and Iran, or sold them to the Syrian government.
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Kidnapping also generated at least $20m in ransom payments in 2014, while IS raises several million dollars per month through extorting the millions of people living in areas under its full or partial control.
Religious minorities are forced to pay a special tax. IS profits from raiding banks, selling antiquities, and stealing or controlling sales of livestock and crops. Abducted girls and women have meanwhile been sold as sex slaves.
Why are their tactics so brutal?
IS members are jihadists who adhere to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and consider themselves the only true believers. They hold that the rest of the world is made up of unbelievers who seek to destroy Islam, justifying attacks against other Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Beheadings, crucifixions and mass shootings have been used to terrorise their enemies. IS members have justified such atrocities by citing the Koran and Hadith, but Muslims have denounced them.
Is Islamic State invincible?
" They think they're winners regardless of whether they kill you or they get killed". " If they kill you, they win a battle. If they get killed, they go to heaven. With people like this, it's very difficult to deter them from coming at you. So really the only way to defeat them is to eliminate them. "
Probably for the first time in military history since the Japanese kamikaze squadrons of World War Two, suicide bombers are used by IS not only for occasional terrorist spectaculars, but as a standard and common battlefield tactic.
Virtually all IS attacks begin with one or several suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged cars or trucks at the target. These " martyrdom-seekers" have been called the organisation's " air force", since they serve a similar purpose.
IS as a fighting force is much more than a bunch of wild-eyed fanatics eager to blow themselves up. For that, they have Saddam Hussein to thank.
" The core of IS are former Saddam-era army and intelligence officers, " said an international intelligence official. " They are very good at moving their people around, resupply and so on. They know their business. "
" They are very professional". " They use artillery, armoured vehicles, heavy machinery etc, and they are using it very well. They have officers who know conventional war and how to plan, how to attack, how to defend. They really are operating on the level of a very organised c force. Otherwise they'd be no more than a terrorist organisation. "
But that does not mean its fighters are invincible on the battlefield. The Kurds in north-east Syria were fighting IS off with no outside help for a year before anybody noticed.
Life under 'Islamic State'
Inside areas where IS has implemented its strict interpretation of Sharia, women are forced to wear full veils, public beheadings are common and non-Muslims are forced to choose between paying a special tax, converting or death.
They changed the preachers in the mosques to people with their own views.
Men have to grow beards and wear short-legged trousers. Cigarettes, hubble-bubble, music and cafes were banned, then satellite TV and mobile phones. Morals police [hisba] vehicles would cruise round, looking for offenders.
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They have courts with judges, officials, records and files, and there are fixed penalties for each crime, it's not random. Adulterers are stoned to death. Thieves have their hands cut off. Gays are executed by being thrown off high buildings. Informers are shot dead. Shia militia prisoners are beheaded.
There are IS departments that carry the organisation's grip into every corner of life, including finance, agriculture, education, transport, health, welfare and utilities.
School curricula were overhauled in line with IS precepts, with history rewritten, all images being removed from schoolbooks and English taken off the menu.
SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS
THE STATE AND TERRORIST VIOLENCE
Governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens from violent attacks. They respond to the terrorist challenge in a number of ways. Many states have passed laws allowing police to detain suspected terrorists without trial. They have also set up special anti-terrorist commando squads, heightened security at public gatherings, and increased protection of prominent individuals.
Many terrorists have been tried and convicted. Long prison sentences - at least 15-20 years, sometimes life - have been passed on terrorists in Holland, Canada, Spain, West Germany, Britain, and Italy. In June 1978, the Japanese government introduced new measures, including the death penalty, for terrorist offences. The Israeli cabinet also voted in April 1979 in favour of executions of those convicted of 'inhuman terrorist crimes'.
Another way of dealing with terrorism is for the state to go over to the attack. In Nicaragua, President Somoza ordered the bombing of towns held by San-dinistas opposed to his regime, killing thousands of ordinary citizens as well as guerrillas. Rhodesian planes have raided guerrilla camps in Zambia and Mozambique, with heavy loss of life. Israeli air strikes against P. L. O. camps in Lebanon have caused many deaths. In the five months following the Black September raid during the Munich Olympics in 1972, Israel made 33 attacks on Palestinian camps in Syria and Lebanon, killing 1, 000 people.
Terrorists often operate across national boundaries, but it is difficult for governments to do the same thing. An international court to try terrorists was first suggested after the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in 1934, but both the inter-war League of Nations and the United Nations have been unable or unwilling to take decisive action in this area. This has left states with the choice of breaking international law by acting alone. The Entebbe operation in the summer of 1976, when Israeli commandos freed hijack victims held by German and Palestinian terrorists in Uganda, took place without the consent of the Ugandan government.
Hijacking agreements, like the one made in 1973 between the U. S. A. and Cuba, have been successful But uneasy or hostile relations between states hinder the fight against terrorism. Despite a treaty signed in 1975, West Germany and Yugoslavia have wrangled over the expulsion of refugee terrorists. In return for the murderers of Schleyer and Ponto, captured in Zagreb, Yugoslavia demanded that. Croat terrorists living in Germany be returned including their leader, Stjepan Bilandzic. Both sides are concerned to defeat ‘their own’ terrorists, showing little concern for the problems of other states.
The Prime Minister of Turkey, Bulent Ecevit, has said that 'the improvement of social and economic conditions is essential before we can adequately deal with terrorism'. Similarly, the Dutch government in a report on the South Moluccan people in Holland, proposed improvements in their conditions - job subsidies, more language teachers, better housing - as a way of integrating the Moluccans into Dutch life, thus reducing the bitterness which can lead to acts of terrorism.
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There is little evidence to suggest that terrorism will cease to be a problem in the future. Terrorism can be traced back to specific causes - national divisions, frustrated minority groups, racial and social tensions - and it seems likely that, far from decreasing, these tensions may well increase in the future.
Terrorism will continue to plague the world so long as it is an effective means of drawing public attention to a cause. The capacity to terrorize may well increase as more sophisticated weapons become available to terrorists. The provision of arms, money and shelter by pro-terrorist states will continue to be an invaluable support to terrorists. As news and pictures of terrorist attacks reach the mass of the population, the terrorist will become an increasingly powerful figure. However, the media does have an important role in ensuring that terrorism does not become an accepted fact of life. So long as the public is repulsed by the terrorists' callous indifference to loss of life, there is likely to be public support for government measures taken to combat terrorism.
The attitude of governments to terrorist attacks will be a determining factor in the continuing survival of terrorism. There is no easy solution to the dilemma of whether to give in to terrorists' demands in return for hostages, or whether individuals should be sacrificed in the hope that terrorism will cease to be an effective means of coercing governments.
What will be the attitude of future generations to terrorism? Today's terrorist can become tomorrow's hero. A leader of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, Menachim Begin, became Prime Minister of Israel. An ex-Chief of Staff of the I. R. A., Sean MacBride, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Leon Trotsky wrote that 'what distinguishes a revolutionary is not so much his capacity to kill as his willingness to die. ’ The terrorists’ readiness to die is perhaps their greatest strength. Koso Okamoto made a full confession at his trial on condition that he be given a pistol to shoot himself (the promise was later broken). Abu Yusuf, the chief of Intelligence of Al Fatah killed by an Israeli bomb, had previously said,:
'We plant the seeds, and the others will reap the harvest. Most probably we'll all die.. . But the youth will replace us. ' The 'defiant hopelessness' of the terrorists guarantees their survival.
In the late twentieth century terrorist actions will continue to have a dramatic impact. The number of people who have suffered from terrorist attacks is small in comparison with the victims of war, and the reaction evoked by the violence of terrorist groups may be out of proportion to the scale of rations. But terrorism, like war, does not affect only the immediate victims: the terrorists' challenge to social peace and legal order is the concern of everyone.
[10, p81-84]
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