Publications on Islamic State

Islamic fundamentalism is part of a worldwide phenomenon of an activist and often belligerent response to perceived threats from modernity and globalization – originating in the West – to the religious and cultural identity of various societies. In addition, the resort to religious activism was and remains a response to the severe socioeconomic upheavals these societies have experienced as a result of modernization, especially among those who were not fortunate enough to enjoy its benefits. The Islamic State is the most extreme and...

The Islamic State, whose establishment was announced over a year ago by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, started out as a quirky peculiarity, but has since turned into an influential element in the region as well as a challenge to the international community. The process of its establishment and expansion seems to have been facilitated by a convergence of four major trends: upheavals that led to the collapse of the region’s Arab nation states and their decline into a state failure process; an ideological vacuum initiated by...

The civil war that erupted in Syria in 2011 and the ongoing instability in Iraq have served as the backdrop for the growth of the ISIS organization and the ensuing establishment of the Islamic State, which contributed to the dissolution of the state structures in both Syria and Iraq. Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi’s appointment of himself as caliph and the establishment of the Islamic State as the basis of his caliphate have inspired and driven tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers from all over the world to join the ranks of the Islamic...

Five years of civil war and bloodshed have led to the collapse of the Syrian state and the shattering of its social mosaic. The Islamic State (ISIS) burst forth from the ruins – first of Iraq, then of Syria – to assume power and fill the vacuum left behind by crumbling states. In eastern Syria, which it occupied in the summer of 2014, the Islamic State serves as an effective alternative to the Syrian state institutions that have since disappeared. The entity aims to seize western areas of the country if and when the Syrian regime...

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Islamic State is its extensive use of social media and its presence on social media. The organization’s meteoric rise to global awareness in the summer of 2014 was accompanied not only by its conquest of vast territories in Iraq and Syria, but also by an impressive and well-planned, multilingual campaign on social media. Islamic State propaganda sells continual victory and never-ending warfare against a broad array of enemies to its supporters and the general public. Steady defeats on the...

Of the various video clips that the Islamic State regularly uploads on the internet provide insights about its force buildup while demonstrating the two major components of the training it seeks to instill in its fighters. The first shows children undergoing endurance training as their instructors beat them with various items. The second video shows a group of children dressed in camouflage battle fatigues being indoctrinated as jihadi fighters at the Farouk Institute training camp in the city of al-Raqqa. An analysis of a document...

The founding of the organization known as the Islamic State in the spring of 2013, and its June 2014 announcement of the establishment of the Islamic State under the leadership of the caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, caused a split among all organizations belonging to and identifying with the global jihad camp – a camp that until then had been led by al-Qaeda. The rivalry between al-Qaeda and its partners and the Islamic State and its supporters is caused by a dispute not about vision, but rather about the strategy and the most effective...

The terror attacks in Paris attributed to the Islamic State exposed severe intelligence failures and a lack of cooperation – or a willingness to cooperate – among European countries in the struggle against the Islamic State, and assigned the threat, yet once more, to a high position on the international agenda. It is almost certain that the Paris attacks will change, to some extent, the conduct of the European countries in their struggle against terror within their borders, especially against the backdrop of the intelligence-security...

The Islamic State burst onto the Middle East scene as an entity whose conduct and very essence challenge the existing regional order. With its military conquests in Iraq and Syria, its establishment of branches elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond, its state-like governance in the areas under its control, and the cruelty it typically exhibits, the Islamic State has become the focus of regional and international interest and concern. The articles compiled in this volume examine ways of dealing with one of the most salient military,...