The impact of the emergence of al-Qaeda and ISIS on the political and social reality of Iraq and the Sham

Abstract

The study has demonstrated that Al-Qaeda and ISIS are two terrorist organizations that aim to annihilate human race regardless of ethnicity, color, nationality and religion since they fight all except their allies. The war against ISIS has gone through many stages depending on the barbarity of this organization; they followed offensive military tactics on the Iraqi and Syrian cities which they did somehow successfully leading to taking over numerous cities until 2015. At the turn of 2016, however, their expansion shrank and they started to lose the large cities starting with the loss of Mosul in 2017. This caused the organization to plunge into some sort of disorder and disorganization after which they adopted an attrition strategy in the face of the armies and the security forces.

More importantly, ISIS continues to exist through its sleeping and covert cells in Iraq and Syria and other countries. Hence, efforts have to be exerted to limit or prevent their re-emergence to secure a peaceful life for our citizens.

In conclusion we have stated that the way to eradicating ISIS is not through air raids only; rather the two arteries of the terrorist organization have to be cut off: the injustices in Iraq and the conflict in Syria. These two can be achieved by handling and addressing the sectarian issues in Iraq and adopting a comprehensive roadmap for ending the Syrian conflict since such an organization cannot be eradicated easily. Moreover, the decision makers and the security officials have to be able to better predict how the ISIS terrorist threat can develop into violent suicidal manifestations and how to counter them effectively.