Lecture on ‘The Rise of ISIS: Origin & Reality’
The SOAS Muslim Students’ Association in partnership with the SOAS Middle East & North Africa Society hosted the event at the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS] on 16th January 2015.
The event highlighted the origins of the ISIS crisis, and the follow on, with an insight and critique of ISIS and a look into the current reality and the reaction of the Muslim world.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you and good evening to you all. As we all know, I'm sure the Arab Spring has taken a drastic turn in the past two years with the emergence of what is known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
There has been quite an interesting reaction from Muslims or non Muslims alike and is with this in mind that the MSA and Middle East North Africa society have convened the following panel to discuss issues surrounding the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and also questions about Islam in general. Talk one will be delivered by Abdullah andalusi, who is a prominent Muslim debater media personality and senior researcher with the Muslim debate initiative and talk to surrounding the current reality will be delivered by Mohammed Abdullah Hussain, who is a prominent Muslim journalist, deputy editor of five pillars, and frequent contributor to the Huffington Post. Each
speaker will speak for about 30 to 40 minutes each, and we'll follow up with an in depth q&a. Can you please remind the audience to keep questions around the topic please, and not to interrupt the speaker while they do respond? I do recognize that this this is a very, you know, heated and emotionally charged topic. But I do request the audience keep their emotions at bay and anyone who does, you know, get a little bit leery, you will be asked to leave by security at both entrances. So I'll just call up. Abdullah andalusi speak regarding the origins. Thank you.
Rahim. I'd like to thank your students of sauce for attending externals, and
just journalists and media representatives who will be misquoting me after this talk.
Now,
ISIS, it's a it was seemingly unknown amongst, you know, the great world until its declaration of caliphate. And it took Mosul last year, in June, late late June.
And history never never begins with just a sudden event there is a there are precursors, there is a context to their rise. And it's quite surprising that obviously, there are some misconceptions out there. Now, in order to investigate any phenomenon, you have to investigate it objectively. Just because people do bad things, and there are some very bad groups and Bible organizations doesn't mean that they just spontaneously arose out of nowhere. And there wasn't any other actors involved, or the people involved or the countries in the states involved, which didn't affect or cause or perhaps even do worse things which which led to their rise. And we want to really investigate that.
Now,
I'm going to start with a bit of a history lesson in the Algerian Civil War. We know that at the beginning of the 90s, the German government during Algeria had elections, and in the elections the FiOS party, the Islamic party was going to win by a landslide taking the majority of the votes. How did the Algerian government react? They announced the elections, the military stepped in. And this was supported by France, UK, America, with the excuse saying that sometimes you must be undemocratic to protect democracy.
Now, predictably, what happened was that, with all the avenues blocked for the Samak political groups, and they were being banned, their members were being arrested, there were a portion of them resorted to insurgency and violence against the Algerian government. And the Algerian government was deeply hating the Algerian society because they had just not popular elections. Now, out of this mania of rebel groups that were which were rising, which we're now fighting against the Algerian government, many of these groups were popular amongst the Germans. there arose a group well known as the GAA now. And this group, initially was again was one of the many of the rebel groups fighting
against the old
in government, but then something changed with it with the GI a. They began a faction of them began to
declare themselves a Calif and a caliphate. They had taken a few towns, they declared some of the caliphate. And they said that any other Islamic group that doesn't recognize their Caliphate, or their preeminence, will be our pa states, and our rebels and must be fought. And then this expanded to if the people that Algerian people don't recognize their Caliphate, then they too are apostates and must be fought and are rebels.
And this is despite the meant the majority of Islamic groups obviously,
being shocked and surprised by this. But what happened the effect which happened was that the population was sympathetic to the rebel groups, and the rebel groups themselves being attacked by God having their leaders assassinated, and having attacks on civilians. predictably, the rebel groups either disassociate themselves from CGA, a lot of them disbanded. A lot of them accepted the government amnesty, and most of the people resorted back to being to loyalty to the government. It then turned out later that this faction of the GA had been
infiltrated or working with Algerian intelligence agency agencies. And this came out from food effectors. And it also came out that the British government actually knew of this, that the Algerian government had been complicit and actually directing attacks against their own civilians, with fighters that appeared to be islamically. attired. And this brought disrepute onto the Islamic cause and subverted the entire insurgency or rebellion against the civil war against the Algerian government.
Now, a lot of the actions we see in that is very familiar, where we heard this before, where have we seen this before? And there's a lot of parallels, but I will get to that a bit later.
Now,
a history lesson on Iraq. Again, Iraq didn't didn't begin in July 2014. It had a long history. But I'd like to go back to the time when it was under the Ottoman caliphate. It was It consisted of free administrative zones, the relay of Mosul, the wilaya of Baghdad and will I have a bustling Villa, you could say it's like a county or district in Arabic, the Arabic word for it.
And during World War One, the ultimate Caliphate was fighting the British and the British decided to attack the Ottomans and
break the the power of the Ottoman Empire and then divide it into pieces. Now, sir, Mark Sykes, British MP in 1915. He discussed the objective of what Britain will do towards the Ottoman Empire and why and he said this, he said, The malignant he said that, in order to reduce the malignant power of political pan Islam, to defeat the enemy, it is essential to destroy the Ottoman Empire. He also said in 1917, that I want to see a permanent Anglo French and taunt allied to the Jews, Arabs and Armenians, which will render pan Islamism innocuous, and protect India and Africa from the Terkel, German combine just a little
bit of detail about that. Germany had allied itself with the Ottomans and Germany was actually strangely advocating jihad, global jihad through many of the British colonies and getting the Muslims to try to rise up against the British colonialists. There's actually quite a European power supporting advocating global jihad using the Ottomans in that capacity. It was it was part of that chess game against Britain. But of course, in order to
destroy that, the Ottoman Empire was was beat was to be destroyed and for the Express purposes of getting rid of pan Islamism, or a repair in Islam. We were we heard that before. Now, what happened after the ultimate, ultimate words what this established was the protector it was set set set up in Iraq by an American puppet Hussein, and as je shugborough said in his 1990 missive to the Foreign Office in Tehran, he said, it is officially agreed that we must go through the official pantomime known as declaring a protectorate, but it is not clear this disability need to limit to any appreciable extent the practical control, we can exercise over Mesopotamian affairs. So basically,
the Iraqi state was a puppet state for a a facade of a protectorate. The Iraqi oil was exploited and its foreign and internal affairs were firmly under control Britain, but they used the figurehead of a puppet to give
The natives the impression that Iraq was under their own control.
Now, there were some rebellions against British control and Britain put them down by
aerial bombardment of towns and cities. As the infamous offer. Harris known later as Bhama. Harris for his destruction in Dresden in World War Two. He said, The Arab and the Kurd now know what real bombing means and characters and damage, within 45 minutes, a full size village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured. And he was talking about how effective British bombing was to reduce and destroy the morale of rebels who are rebelling against British control of Iraq. And we've also seen World War Two iraq again, was invaded again, by Britain militarily when it had a coup and wanted to deflect out of British control. So Iraq has had a bit of
a long history with foreign control, with insurgency, and unfortunately with aerial bombardment, but like to kind of fast forward it until when
the US kind of took interest in Iraq. We see that with the the US initially supported the buffest coup, which, which came to power and overthrew the regime of general Qasim. And, and initially was supported by the CIA. But later on, when Saddam Hussein took control of the buffest party, and tried to implement an Iraq which was
under Arab nationalism, independent, strong, and tried to dominate the other Arab countries in the region, which threaten us interests. The US change its policy towards Iraq. We see that iran iraq, there were many, many intelligence sources and politicians now and historians will affirm that the iran iraq war was incited by the USA and weapons were supplied to both sides to fight each other, and thereby reduce collectively, the the power of, of these two states. And including in this in what was supplied to Saddam Hussein was the tools used to make biological and chemical weapons. He deployed them, he deployed not only against Kurds, also against some Iranian border towns, Iran sued
for peace when Saddam Hussein, which was under pressure from from Iran in the war, they were losing a threatened to bomb to Iran with chemical weapons, and sit on Iran saying that the great world doesn't really care about Iranian casualties, tried to sue for peace.
We see that.
And again, that wasn't brought up in in terms of any
sanctions against against iraq at the time, because they work was
discharging certain policies which America wanted to see happen, which was the deduction of the power of Iran. Now, interesting enough, just a fun little quirk of history. We hear that Iran and Israel are not the best friends today. But Iran has has a lot to thank Israel, because during the time of the iran iraq war, Israel helps apply weapons to Iran to fight against Iraq. It's quite funny, but it's actually true.
Now, fast forwarding, we see that there again, there was this there is good evidence to suggest that in the wake of the iran iraq war when Iraq was suffering crippling debts, Kuwait was incited by the US to reduce oil prices and damaged the economy of Iraq and the rebuilding of Iraq, and prompting Iraq to go to war with Kuwait. So what I'm saying is permission infamously from April Gillespie's when she said she didn't have any he didn't care about internal Arab affairs. But then she did care about internal affairs after the invasion of Kuwait. Now, when Kuwait was
liberated of Iraq of Iraqi presence, there was a number of sanctions and a number of military operations imposed against Iraq, including sanctions on medicine and food, which caused close to half a million young children to die from the effects of that.
Now, now, again, now fast forwarding to the most recent invasion of Iraq, which would probably be the fourth or fifth invasion it's received in the last 100 years from from the west.
We see that the pretext of chemical weapons and biological weapons in Iraq rendering iraq somehow dangerous country was used to for its invasion, but no one really cared when Iraq was deploying these weapons against Iran or against Kurds. In fact, the USA actually blocked any attempt to put sanctions on iraq during the time
The Rodney Walker while he was using chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction. But after the invasion of Iraq, we see that the US moved to set up an Iraqi interim government. Again, I'm not going to bore you too much with details of the process of how it controlled the structure of the government. It had massive influence in the nature of the Constitution, including putting in clauses which effectively would render Iraq, three semi autonomous areas, some political analysis have
have said that this could possibly be to weaken Iraq and the future rocky state from ever being a powerful unitary state from being a divided state into three parts. Many people have also observed that the Iraqi policy towards the Saudi US policy towards the Rockies was also sectarian, they would treat the rocky shares differently than the curd differently and the rocky Sunni's differently, and it caused exacerbated and caused a sectarian divide, which wasn't as pronounced as it as it was before. In fact, when people want to portray the saddam regime as being a sectarian regime, they forget the point that the Iraqi army was three quarters Shia. The top generals and members of the
Baathist party were Shia. And the Saddam's only concern as a secular dictator was the rise of religious fundamentalism amongst Shias, which will be explored from Iran. That was his only concern, a typical Arab secular dictator ruler, being concerned about religious fundamentalism, but he didn't care about the sectarian divide. He said he was a, he was a typical authoritarian ruler. So he did very nasty things to his people suppressed, obviously, free expression, arrested political dissidents, but it is no different to every other Arab dictator and authoritarian ruler supported by the US and the UK.
Now, there was, and I know people also say that the war was, was perpetrated for Iraqi oil. I don't want to entertain too much because we're gonna keep on subject but I have to give you as much context as possible. Well, all I would like to maybe to research is a very kind of lesser, well known issue of the Iraqi hydrocarbon law. I suggest you research that many of you maybe who started that know that already. from the get go, there was huge us pressure on the in on this nascent Iraqi government to pass the Iraqi hydrocarbon law, which will allow foreign corporations to buy the rights to the development of fields which are currently undeveloped and are extremely lucrative,
this current issue is still ongoing. And there was a lot of pressure on the on the government, that the higher tier were willing to oblige. Unfortunately, all the elected representatives of the Iraqi people, there was there was a rightful concern of a conspiracy of America to use that iraq hydrocarbon carbon law to basically set up the assets of Iraq and control them. So there was a lot of resistance from that. And there's been a current sticking point, and I'll get back to that in a bit.
Now, predictably, of course, with every invasion of any country, there was an insurgency that arose from it, and that insurgency was actually a mixed, although mostly the, the Kurdish regions were suddenly suddenly autonomous. And America suddenly respected that, for the most part, there was an insurgency from the Shia sources and Sunni sources from within Iraq.
Now, the deepest, deepest vacation process, and the firing of the Iraqi army was considered to be the one of the primary you could say radicalizing factors, which have put a trained group of people who are trained in in military means into the insurgency and were able to fight against the American regime and launch insurgent attacks.
But also, it wasn't, but that's not just the only explanation in general speaking, it is just natural and we see it as naturally observing from any any invasion that there will be an insurgency arise. What that what that did was and what America that the strategy behind the pacification was a typical American practice, which they learn from World War Two, certainly how they dealt with Japan and how they dealt with post World War Two Germany was that you could you could facilitate a regime change and to do so you have to eliminate all the previous political structure that was there before the intelligentsia that the people who are who were believed in a particular sectarian or political
idea, you get rid of them and you replace them with a brand new set of people, people that you can
decide who they are, and you can put them into power.
Of course, it didn't work very well, in Iraq's case. Now what this led to have to happening was people who knew the lay of the land in Iraq who, especially former bosses, intelligence agencies, which were able to fundraise, make weapons and deploy against the US Army. Now, now I can begin, I suppose with al Qaeda, NASA Now I've set the scene for Iraq in this very brief and condensed history lecture.
It al Qaeda, people misunderstand the structure of al Qaeda generally, our cutter isn't some massive, rigidly hierarchical organization, it's impossible for it to be a rigidly hierarchical organization because the US intelligence services and military security operations, so secure operations from many different countries, would arrest the leaders and would dismantle the network. So what they the model that it that kind of usually runs by is to set up semi autonomous groups, or perhaps even fully autonomous groups as a franchise in different areas, or with a nominal allegiance of the leader of this particular regional group to the head of al Qaeda. Now, there wasn't an
organization in Iraq and Jordan, prior to the Iraq War, which was called Jamaat tauheed wat jihad, which was roughly started in 1999. And disbanded in 2004.
It was change and it was led by
Zarqawi, the infamous Jokowi of almost as a curry. He then changed this organization, to tanzeem Khalid Jihad fibula thereafter, then
double barreled name. But basically, it means the, the base of jihad in the land of the two rivers, I'll just call it TJ for now, because it's a bit of a double parenting. So he sets up this organization, and he pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and watery and and in some ways, it was actually called al Qaeda in Iraq was nicknamed al Qaeda in Iraq. That's pretty much what it was. It was an Al Qaeda al Qaeda franchise in Iraq. Now from 2004 to 2006. It waged, it was part of
a larger insurgency against the American forces, but it's soon distinguish itself from the wider insurgency in a number of ways.
In order Zarqawi, he went against a parent's on bananas orders, and which was, he started to target. And she has so Iraqi she is he started to target any Iraqi Sunni group, which disagreed with him, certain leaders and so on, so forth. And he started to alienate a lot of the groups, he started to do bombing attacks against shears in civilian areas
configured for mass casualties and imams what we sent him a rather, you know, strong worded letter, telling him to stop attacking shears and to stop killing civilians. You know, how they, it's quite interesting, is watery and somebody's not disapproving of the killing of shears and telling people to stop killing shears? It's not that's not the narrative, generally that we we hear, but that's actually absolutely true. And they were saying it was counterproductive. It didn't make any sense. Why are you doing this? It's going to undermine the entire insurgency against the Americans, while others focus on the Americans don't focus on on the Shias. And there are many amongst us who are
also fighting against the Americans. Now, out the al Qaeda is general ideology was that it was initially fighting against the Muslim regimes were viewed as puppet leaders and puppet rulers. But then it had an idea to expand its jihad, its declaration of jihad, to the puppet master, so to speak, what I consider to be the puppet master behind these puppet rulers, which was the US and certain Western powers, but primarily it was the US and in that they justified a methodology which is an Islamic and is completely modern. And that is this this idea of total war, war against civilians war against the entire nation, and Osama bin Laden, he was asked by an interviewer of Al
Jazeera, where did you you know, how do you justify this? I have, you know, in Islam, it forbids killing women and children. So how do you justify this? And he said something very fascinating. He goes, yes, it's true. The Prophet Mohammed forbade the killing of women and children, someone else. However, that was not set in stone.
That's what he said the sama bin Laden is a modernist. He's a reformist or whatever you want to call it. He is basically very modern. And a such as an example, the US, he said, when the US bond, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, they didn't care about civilians.
You know, when the basically the UK bombed Germany bombs, citizens to civilians, they didn't care about about about innocence. So he cites as his model, not an interpretation of Islamic text, not some argument from the time that Prophet Mohammed, he cites as his model, the West, he's copying the West, he wants to be the mirror image of the way of the Western methodology of war, obviously, from Islamic jurisprudence, you can't we don't we're not modernist, we don't believe in reform or reforming Islam. The whole point of why Islam should not be reformed, is because it lets very crazy things like this happen if you if you say, we don't need to follow the rules of war, or the the
rules of the system. I personally believe in. And obviously, most Muslims believe thank God, that the law is set in stone. And you can't change that law because we believe that by following God's commandments, God will give us
success and victory in this life in the next and you shouldn't break those commands is because it's a modern concern, or it's just the modern fashion of doing warfare. But anyway, that's a that's a side issue. But just an interesting point about the ideology of al Qaeda is actually modern, and actually Western, not actually based on an Islamic concept or jurisprudence.
Now, in 2006,
the after the death of cowi, the group which is known as Al Qaeda in Iraq with TJ, they formed them they formed together with a few other groups, the Mujahideen Shura Council, and that lasted a few months, until it was changed to the Islamic State in Iraq with the blessings of watery and it was led by Abu Omar al Baghdadi, not Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was the predecessor. Now, it's a very interesting thing about how our bucket Baghdadi came to power is very interesting because the story he wasn't he was arrested and detained in camp Booker in in Iraq on the US controlling it was some very interesting statements we have from people who will with him about how he was treated by the
Americans. They actually gave him quite a lot of respect. He was viewed as someone that was, what would sort of problems between the prison inmates apparently consumerreports the Americans let him visit all the prisons for some strange reason why would he probably do that I don't stand and he was he would network and he would gather about him
a coterie of individuals. After he was released. He sets up a group called Jason after sonowal Jamaat, and it only lasted one week. And then on the pretext of being the leader of this group, he was allowed to join the Mujahideen Shura Council as one of the the council members. As a meteoric rise to power and unsubstantiated white rice. The powerhouse is only groups is currently set for one week. And he joins this giant Shura Council in a meeting he put him on to the highest
tier of that Council. But that's, that's just interesting point.
So then we see the Islamic State in Iraq on the Big Daddy. And in 2006, then, as the as the result of the Islamic State of Iraq's strategy, which was that it declared itself an Islamic State, any one of the group who didn't recognize them as being the Islamic State were apostates rebels that need to be fought. They focused on attacking Shia, and they basically alienated
the insurgency that was against the Americans. And they caused the Sunni to face a lot of backlash from the Shia dominated Iraqi government.
Then we see what we call the Southwell, the awakening councils that arise, the people are or the Sunni civilians are armed, liking what happened in Algeria, very simply, this the civilians were armed in forming these protective patriotic groups of civilian Protection Units, and are kind of become crippled. They actually report that in 2008, they were in a state of crisis. And they didn't know you know, they didn't know they were on the backfoot. Then we see that in in 2009, they had changed their composition. Mostly they had been known Iraqis in Al Qaeda. Some people say that because they were not Iraqis. They didn't they didn't they lacked the tact of dealing with the
people that lived in Iraq and didn't know how to relate to Iraqis and would ride roughshod over the culture and social structures that were in Iraq. But in 2009, they had changed the structure or that or that membership, and they they consisted of majority Iraqis. Now, why how did they get to that point? It was widely perceived that the oppression of the of the Iraqi Sunni after the the Iraqi government was was was populated with basically sector of a lot of sectarian claims of sectarian Shia politicians. And this, this, the oppression
In the rain people's houses the detaining torture killing. I think it's been understated just how pre nasty the Iraqi government was to the Iraqi people during this time. We're not just talking about just arresting people and putting them into jails. We're talking about torture with power drills, beatings, x summary executions, people would be cigarette butts would be extinguished on them. We'd see that they'd be that boys would be found gagged and shot through the head and dumped on the streets. And it's actually still it's still happening. Unfortunately, we've in Iraq. And so under this pressure, a lot of the the Iraqi Sudanese then started to fill up the ranks of out of
this Islamic State in Iraq.
Then in in in May 2010, Abu Omar al Baghdadi is reported to be killed and abubaker a big daddy takes over overpower.
Now,
this is a bit of a summary of obviously the how how he came to power and and what happened but again, they didn't control any towns and cities. Islamic State in Iraq didn't. They were everywhere in all the Sunni areas. They were in Mosul in 2008. We hear a report that the US Army and the Iraq government were clearing out al Qaeda from Mosul, pretty much they've been in most of the towns as they are now they've always been there actually. It's just that now they can operate more openly before they've always been infiltrated into Samarra and to create into Fallujah. They've always actually been there.
Now, what's happened between 2010 to 2014, that saw their rise to power?
Well, as the US we're, we're leaving Iraq, because they couldn't agree a Status of Forces Agreement. The Iraq is one going to renew it. So they had to leave. But they left some forces there, they made an agreement, which allows them to basically get military assistance to Iraq at any time, and and have access to their military bases, but they couldn't leave 1000s of troops, as some of them. Some of the US politicians wanted.
However, there were 5000 military contractors, which were left in Iraq after the withdrawal. I liked how they call it military contractors. It's just a euphemism for mercenaries, basically. But anyway.
So then what happened was, after the US Army had withdrawn from Iraq, we saw a rise in bombings and attacks and kidnappings, and killings by the Islamic State of Iraq, this was their time to expand. Now, the Iraq the US Army were gone. They were facing an inexperienced, and ill equipped Iraqi army. And for them, their main strategy was was this they would disable the Iraqi government so much so they could begin to take over towns and places now, why did they call themselves the Islamic State. And there was a reason apparently, is why it was actually his brainchild. And what he thought was, was that as the Iraqi Government destabilizes and areas of Iraq, fall out of government security,
they would use their name to establish a parallel state, which would then take over these areas and provide security and infrastructure to the Iraqi people and thereby, overturn ultimately overturn the, the Iraqi regime, which was installed by the US and put their regime, which which is, which is which is Iraqi and openness of a claimed Islamic character.
But there was something else to happen, which, as worry and doubt he didn't see happen. And what most people didn't see happening was you had the Arab Spring, and you had Syria fall to the Arab Spring. And what we see what happened in Syria was that long story short, they were defections from the youth from the Syrian army people equipped themselves, and they started to fight a insurgency and warfare against the Syrian government. Now, the Syrian government was on the backfoot. For a lot of the initial stages, certainly in 2012, you saw the rise of various Islamic groups. One of them was Java nostra, which apparently it was set up by a person known as Giuliani who was affiliated
somewhat with Islamic State of Iraq. He was a Syrian that had fought in Iraq against the Americans. He was released. According to one report, he was released from a Syrian jail as the as the Civil War, the Civil War started to begin in Syria. A lot of people have said a lot of reports have said that Bashar Al Asad, who was concerned about revolution did what many of the authoritarian regimes have done? Certainly what Mubarak did suddenly what he said and Sony bought Kodak, he said, which is, if you don't, if the west or the people do not support me that an Islamic regime will come into power, and that's what you don't want bad
You stick with the secular devil, you know, then the Islamic regime that you don't and won't be so compliant with US foreign policy or Western foreign policy. And some people say that he cynically released a lot of Islamic individuals from the jails in order to defuse the insurgency against him with an Islamic character, and then claim that they were terrorists. And they were going to set a Sharia state and thereby get support from the west back on his side and sympathy back on his side. But the problem was, was that these Islamic groups initially were actually very popular with the Syrian people. Now a wild west, divided on supplying weapons to the rebels, because very much
because of the worry that they don't want to see in a Sharia states that they prefer a secular state in a Sharia state.
While that his plan worked, when it when it came to the west, when it came to certain people, it didn't work, the same people actually started to support a lot of these, these groups.
Now, Java nostra towards the end of 2012, after it started to grow in prominence in Iraq, in Syria, and was very popular, was declared by the US to be a terrorist organization, that they hadn't declared themselves al Qaeda at this point. And at this point in time, they were just another one of the many Islamic opposition groups many people questioned, including Turkey and many other countries that are Why Why are you doing this is counterproductive if you if we if you really want to get rid of Bashar Al Asad is counterproductive to start declaring some of the rebel groups to be a terrorist groups. Some people have said, but some of their tactics involve bombing and killing
pro regime journalists or pro regime, politicians or civil civil service members. But the FSA, we're doing exactly the same thing. There are reports that show the FSA, but we're targeting pro asset journalists, pro asset civil service members pro asset
in the individuals and spokesmen, just the same. So why is it that the FSA haven't been made terrorists, but jabot anusara have been made terrorists why this this double standard when it comes to this? Now, I mean, one of the arguments I've said is that we'll jump and the members have had dealings with al Qaeda in the past, so that makes them al Qaeda. But the problem with this argument is that then you'd also have to say that the Syrian fighters, Syrian Kurdish fighters are also terrorist because they certainly have had dealings and are having dealings with the PKK, who are also a proscribed terrorist organization. So the arguments the justifications didn't really make
sense we're very selective by by the US. But something interesting happened in the in early 2013.
Bashar Al Asad withdrew a lot of his army from eastern Syria, and bolstered his Western flanks, and also some withdrew some of his army from Southern Syria and bought them or central Russia was very almost virtually surrendered, to to the uncontested almost to the summit groups, Jonathan aucilla, as well as many other summit groups took over. But the interesting is this, at the same time as bush acid withdrawing his army from eastern Syria, we see Islamic State of Iraq sending Iraqi fighters into Syria, a lot of them under the pretext they were joining Jonathan nostra, and they were they were taking over the the second line areas that the red areas jumped and lucilla put Syrian members
and forces to the west flank to find where the regime was. And just like that, we hear that our backup daddy Institute's a coup from within a job with a nosler of all the Iraqi
new volunteers and the job uttanasana as another iraq infiltrators all suddenly declare allegiance to the static State of Iraq. And apocalyptic die then declares a systemic State of Iraq and Syria. And this took apparently, no surprise, surprise. And they they said that they were unaware that this declaration of a merger was happening between the two because but daddy said it was a merger was happening. And he said that, oh yes, Casa de pavo Qaeda. I sent them over to Syria, and we now having a full merger and the jilani denied it and was apparently shocked by this. So I have no knowledge of this. Then, with the red areas of Japan also being taken over by ISIS, unexpectedly.
Jupiter nostra, then appeared and then made an allegiance to the declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
To get a summary of ironmans worry, and try to get Amazon to intervene and to condemn
ISIS and tell them to go back into the state of state back into Iraq. Now the thing is this.
ISIS who I assigned prior to this had been nominally given allegiance, it was given his allegiance to al Qaeda. That was it had normally given us allegiance to al Qaeda. And people have said that, that Jelani had reaffirmed his allegiance to al Qaeda during into in early 2013. But it's not actually true. It was actually the first time he declared his allegiance, he actually opened his arm. He declares liens right now to al Qaeda. So prior, he wasn't al Qaeda. But then he
put his allegiance to al Qaeda. And what he did was he tried to get al Qaeda to
intervene and to mediate, in order to force the Iraqi group back into Iraq that didn't work out backup, Daddy said, I reject, I reject the commodity the sayings of man over this over commands of God got a base, he was saying that unity is banned in Division. So he will now take control of Syria. And that was basically what happens is how he took over the eastern parts of Syria, he didn't conquer Russia, he never actually completely hidden. You know, ISIS never actually came in and conquered Russia, it was actually by an internal coup, and it was actually quite shocking, this would happen. But even more strangely, is that Bashar Al Asad, army refused or was not refused, but
just didn't attack ISIS. It was more we hear reports of them doing oil deals and trade with vices supplying them with weapons supplying them with so sighing with resources money, and and and exchange in exchange for oil. And instead, Bosch acid would focus his army only on the other Syrian groups, including japonesa, and Islamic Front, Sharman and many of the other Islamic groups, he focused on them, and he would leave ISIS and ISIS would focus on only attacking the rebel, the Syrian rebel groups. Now, as I say, I'm not one for conspiracy theories, because I tried to base my observations on on evidence. But Wikileaks reported in I think it was 2008, the series assuming
intelligence approaching the US, saying that they had infiltrated many of the Iraqi insurgents, which is why the incident Iraq was going on that infiltrate Iraqi surgeons in exchange for some kind of peace in negotiation with Syria, the Syrian intelligence could report and and surrender to the to the US the Iraqi insurgents in our AP US request. So the Syrian intelligence services had infiltrated
the long history of infiltrating the Iraqi insurgency and directing them or having some agreements with them and on working and working side by side in indeed, Syria was a patron of the Iraqi insurgency in the Iraqi groups.
So is it too far fetched? That maybe Bashar Al Asad tried the Algerian option
to undermine the rebellion against him?
Possibly, we know, maybe, the future will tell us more of this. Okay, so then what now 2013 occurred, the beginning of infighting between the the insert of rebel groups in Syria. And what we see is that Jonathan OSA and many of the other summit groups start fighting against ISIS, and they take back America in January, and then it just takes it back from from them after a few weeks. But something very fascinating happened in January 2014. Mosul wasn't was not the time wasn't the first time when ISIS had actually taken over an entire city. They had taken over Fallujah, in 2014. And areas of Samarra as well, at that time, but we didn't hear any any big news story about this. Many,
many us journalists. They went and they lobbied Obama and said, Look what's happening that you know, Al Qaeda is back in there, they took it over talent, do something about this, we see that the president of Iraq, moody Maliki besiegers, abominable weapons and to fight back literally taken over over a town or small city, we have to go and take it back. And again, we hear no response from Obama, no response from the US instead, what was reiterated them was deal with well deal with your sectarian issues and pass the Iraqi hydrocarbon law, then we talk.
That's what we hear. And it happened throughout
spring of 2014, a desperate Iraqi government and again with the same response from the the US, US government.
Of course,
in Iraq, there isn't only ISIS, there is also many other
renewed Sunni insurgency groups, which are, which were upset at, of course, the group had grievances are how they were being treated by the Iraqi government, how Sudanese were being treated by the very sectarian and very, very nasty government and their policies.
Many rocky poles, Sunni politicians had to had to leave Iraq because they were basically accused of supporting insurgency and then sentenced to execution and they had to leave Iraq, like I think Takahashi may have to do former vice president vice president. So the Welsh Government wasn't a nice, friendly, pluralistic government open to everyone has some very strong sectarian groups, and not all the groups were sectarian. And certainly, there were many, many, many and most, most of the Shia populace are not sectarian. It was just in the nature of the government was sectarian, though.
So then what we see then is we see
formable fists in Iraq, especially this Sabbath movement called the Naqshbandi Order. Naqshbandi the Sufi is a Sufi tariqa Sufi, a kind of a group. And it's a Sufi group which does which does jihad. If anyone knows the history about super duper, there's many prominent supers in her for history who've done Jihad soup either not to pacifists in the history of Islam. But anyway, this group which were full of our fists,
suddenly with with ally themselves with other viruses, and they helped facilitate the takeover of muscle. So the Nexia Bondi army helped facilitate the takeover of muscle but it's something very interesting though. You see, Mosul was was garrison by 30,000 Iraqi Army troops, and yet we saw a combined force Naqshbandi and ISIS and various others about 900 and just that the mere approach, they withdrew. Now the ISIS propagandists like to say it's because of our power of jihad as we won and we scared our enemies are really but you want and you want attacking Kirkuk, yet somehow they they withdrew from cake because well, yeah, all the Iraqi army withdrew from Kirkuk as well. There
was no ISIS attack on Kirkuk, what's called 30,000 Iraqi Army soldiers to suddenly withdraw from their posts and and withdraw from Kirkuk giving it to the Kurds with no opposition at all against a small force of 900.
Now, Nouri Maliki claimed there was a conspiracy against against him. And the sum of the two leading generals, which were meant to be in command of this have never been indicted. But one of the the the next level subordinate is currently being indicted in Iraq for a desert his posts and cowardice and so on and so on, so forth. And he claimed that he was actually left left to dry by these these two up to a high level generals. But that's a different discussion. And again, I'm not into conspiracy theory, however, it's just extremely strange how that occurred. And then suddenly, with ISIS and Naqshbandi takeover of Mosul, bang, ISIS come onto the media spotlight, and they come into the
global
mindset of they exist, that is powerful group who just suddenly swept swept to power. It wasn't sudden, it was known at a later US intelligence services. Sorry, politicians will say how will the intelligence service so blindsided has not seen them coming? They weren't they had been reporting it to Obama since January 2014. But no one but Obama and the administration didn't seem to listen didn't seem to do anything about it. Now, prior to the declaration of Caliphate, the media very strange. I noticed I noticed at first when I saw on Channel Four channel for program, a news program, where they talked about the coming Caliphate or they talked about Sunni versus Shia rise,
the new caliphate. This was before ISIS had declared Caliphate, the channel for the johnsnow no saying that we didn't know Could he be a member of ISIS? We don't know. However, however, much of the Western media were talking about a caliphate before the declaration of caliphate. And if you think oh, but that's because we when we studied ISIS, we know that they've always wanted to Caliphate, but they've been or they've been, they've been publicly declaring they wanted the caliphate since 2010. So and they took over Fallujah. And there was no declaration because of why everyone says and suddenly we have all this media hype about coming Caliphate, ISIS, who've been
very desperate to win people over to their side, then declare, at the end of June, June 29th, a caliphate almost a self fulfilling prophecy by Western media. In fact, I would dare pause and I will leave it to my colleagues to take over but they posit that the the the biggest propaganda arm
ISIS have been Western newspapers, Western TV channels and media outlets. They have hype ISIS, they have done so much service to ISIS to make them so much more bigger than what they have been before they've taken towns before. No one said anything about it. They've been everywhere they are now they will. They've been there for years since 2008. Even. Yeah, there was clearing operations of Mosul in 2008. No one says, Oh, look at that. They have a caliphate, gnosis yet they take over Mosul, and suddenly they become this big existential threat to the world. I leave it, leave that there and I'll leave it to my colleagues to take over to discuss issues. Thank
you. Thank you very much to Abdullah for that in depth and informative critique of ISIS. Now just as call Mohammed Sawa Hussain, journalists, deputy editor, five pillars and regular contribution to the Huffington Post.
Humana shaytani, r rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim, I want to begin by greeting you all with the best of Greetings, the greetings of Islam, the greetings of peace. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
As a journalist, you know, I try to keep the subjects that I write about quite very quite diverse. And I happen to bump into Abdullah yesterday, on the weeks of train station, we were talking the same thing a bit bogged down, you know, constantly talking about ISIS writing about ISIS debating about ISIS, who become ISIS experts overnight doing and you know, it can get quite frustrating sometimes because I want to write about other things. I want to talk about the things but find myself constantly writing or talking about ISIS. So principally as a journalist, I can't drop it. I have to keep on top of what's relevant. What's recent, what's hot in the news. So
the reason why I asked Abdullah yesterday that look, when you give your talk tomorrow, just end at the declaration of a caliphate. And there's an important reason why I've sent in my talk around that date, the 29th, the 30th of June, which also happened to be the first of Ramadan. And the reason why I'm going to center my talk around this declaration, is that majority of Sunni Muslims, regardless of the theological or juristic differences, tend to agree that a caliphate or the concept of a caliphate is at the heart and the center point of the religion, whether they differ in its Reestablishment. So my talk is going to center around three elements, the reaction of the Muslim
world, and Muslim groups, to the declaration of a caliphate, the response of Western government, to the declaration of a caliphate. And lastly, how the Western media has responded to this call. Now, many of you may be wondering, well, you're here to give a talk about the reality of ISIS. We live in here in the West we live in in the UK. So the reality I'm going to highlight towards the end of my talk affects us very much so. So let's start with the Muslim world response, and how the Syrian rebels responded to this call that was made, or this announcement of a caliphate. And so I'm going to touch upon Syria and Iraq first, because these are the two countries which the self professed
Islamic State has carved itself some land out the rebels, a group which had formed called the Middle East al Shula and Mujahideen Al sharqiyah, which was a wide group of alliance of numerous Islamist rebels, which included jabatan Muslim, they rejected this claim of ISIS, the Association of Syrian scholars and hired and Sherm and Islamia, which is also another council consisting of over 300, Syrian scholars and activists rejected this claim.
And in fact, ISIS, as Abdullah mentioned, became a thorn in the Syrian revolution, they became a source of disunity amongst the rebels. And in fact, in 2012, the Syrian rebels were knocking on the doors of Damascus, very close in imminent to victory. But ISIS had changed all that. And as Abdullah mentioned, it's well documented from the Syrian regime and ISIS senior generals that they sell oil to the regime.
And acid also really attacks ISIS positions. Again, I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but this is the observations from on the ground.
Moving on to Iraq.
I feel the ISIS reality in Iraq is somewhat different to that of Syria. And the reason why that is because that's where the organization began. It began in Iraq, and he had previously been defeated by numerous Sunni tribes, the Sahel lat Council.
So they had learned the mistakes from the previous encounters with the Sunni population. And in fact as a result of a sectarian us on
Iranian backed Shia led sectarian government, ISIS all of a sudden became a lesser of two evils. And that's quite a bold statement. But that should give you some idea of how brutal the Iraqi government must have been. And in fact, their crimes is significantly underreported in the media.
ISIS is more successful in Iraq. Now. This is fighting a battle of hearts and minds. Islam is mistakes from the past. Many ISIS many senior ISIS leaders, a form of Office of the saddam regime, very well trained.
And it was the US led invasion. Then the subsequent Shia led government of Nuri al Maliki, which facilitated ISIS to come back into the arena.
Just to touch upon the situation in Iraq. If you have any Iraqis in the audience, I'm sure they'll agree. Saddam was a brutal,
brutal secular dictator. He killed as many colors as he did share that he did. Soon as he killed people and tribes and family members. This is well documented. He was just a brutal dictator. There was no such thing as sectarian violence in Iraq prior to the US dead invasion. sectarianism between Shia and Sunni occurred because we predominantly as soon as anyway, all this began post us led invasion.
Moving on to Lebanon, a small country which has faced the brunt of what's happening in Syria, the two big Salafist organizations, the Islamic movement, and the Brotherhood Association rejected ISIS has claimed his Buta he, a global Islamic political party, which has been working for the establishment of the caliphate since 1953 also rejected this claim. The Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest most veteran, the grandfather, Islam is moving out of the Muslim world. They too rejected this claim
of university, the most pristine prominent academic institution in the Muslim world rejected this claim, but I wouldn't take the rejection too seriously. After all, this was an institution who supported General Sisi when he massacred 2000 Egyptians in Rabat adobea. The Saudi police establishment, the hub, the heartland of the so called Wahhabi ideology, they conveniently rejected this claim as well.
So what you actually find is that Islamic groups, or political Islamic parties, or the jihadist factions, have unanimously categorically rejected this announcement of a caliphate not because they disbelieve the actual concept, or the obligation to establish such a state, rather, the conditions that were not met and find juristic differences, which are very much valid.
Now looking into some of the Muslim majority states, how did they respond? Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, felt threatened by ISIS, and conveniently without hesitation, join the US led airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Now, there seems to be a level of hypocrisy and double standards. I mean, where was this hesitance when 200,000 Syrians were being killed for four years? Where was this hope when Egyptians were massacred by General Sisi in Nepal, or when Israel massacred 1200 guns, predominantly women and children who left limbless and headless Saudi had absolutely no problem going into trying to call the Shia uprising there. So what we can see is there's a level of double
standards here.
But there's one country in particular, which I focus on, and I will just keep a tab on this country. Because while I'm not a believer of conspiracy theories,
Turkey is one that always raises interest.
It is well documented, confirmed by Turkish officials, that they buy cheap oil from ISIS in the black market. They allow fighters from the west to across the borders. They treat ISIS fighters in their hospitals.
Turkey is a NATO member. And it's a key us ally, and always has been. So one must raise the question. How does turkey get away with doing all that? Being a NATO member a key us ally, buying cheap oil, allowing fighters to cross the border. This is something that everyone should take note of if you ever want to follow or you hear conspiracy theories always keep an eye on Turkey because in fact, Turkey as a nation, it has a very interesting relationship with ISIS. And just to note before I move on to the Western States response or reaction to this announcement, on groups, generally speaking, when they when they rely on external funding or external weapons are vulnerable
to infiltration. This is this is well documented throughout the whole of history, not just ISIS.
While Qaeda, we know very well that South American groups on groups were infiltrated by the CIA, to name just a few, not just ISIS.
Moving on to the west.
In Europe, we've seen widespread anti terror arrests in Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Holland, Germany, and the UK.
And it's not necessarily been because they've been a part of ISIS, or they've returned to their countries after fighting for ISIS, or actually even intending to go and fight with ISIS. In some cases, it was just the mere case of possessing a black flag with the Muslim declaration of faith, which has not been criminalized and become synonymous to ISIS. In other cases, it was just a case of having jihadi audio tapes, not even necessarily belonging to ISIS or ISIS scholar.
Similarly, in Australia, we've seen a wave of anti terror raids and arrests, we have the very recent Lindner cafe hostage situation. And all of this has facilitated to legislation which will ban Quranic verses pertaining to Jihad and governance because it's interpreted as propagation of terrorism.
The US, the spearhead the leader of the military campaign against ISIS. In reality, it was just a continuation of their middle east foreign policy.
In fact, as Abdullah explained, it was the US led invasion which in fact, facilitated in sparked the reality of ISIS to emerge as a group.
And let's not forget, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi amongst other senior leaders spent many years in a US prison camp Booker, and they allowed ISIS to recover for many years until they approach Advil. Advil is the capital of the Kurdish north and in Elbel their six oil companies, American oil companies, and that is when the US airstrikes began, not because Yazidi were pushed to the mountains, none of this humanitarian help. The first airstrikes began when ISIS approached Erbil, where there were six oil companies. So as you can see, the only reason why the airstrikes began was not for humanitarian cause or for a greater good, it was to protect their self economic interests.
And let's take you back a few years. For those of you who followed the Iraq, the Iraq invasion under Bush,
one of his exit strategies, which is published by CIA officials, was that when he realized that look, you know, what, perhaps iraq can't be a beacon of democracy clearly. What can we do? How can we leave Iraq, as champions, and one of the plans Bush had was to split iraq into three autonomous states to an a predominantly Sunni state, in the center, a Shia led state in the south and an autonomous Kurdish North? Perhaps, Obama? Again, I'm not saying this as a conspiracy theory. We're just judging from what is apparent. Maybe he allowed ISIS to wreak havoc to fulfill his predecessors wishes.
According to our country, our homeland, where we were all born or reside the UK, how is the UK responded to the whole ISIS cega. Home Secretary Theresa May announced in August that the terror threat level had increased from substantial to severe. But wait a minute, she went on to say this means a terrorist attack is highly likely, although there is no intelligence to suggest that one is imminent. I mean,
I was the only one I was baffled when I read it. I mean, how do you judge or how do you measure when a terrorist threat level comes substantiated? If there's no intelligence to suggest that one is imminent? Strange.
ISIS is in fact being used to justify draconian policies. Muslim charities and activists linked to Syria have been either being shut down, targeted or arrested, most notably Muslim Baig, a former detainee of Guantanamo Bay, he was arrested and put in prison for several months for apparently being linked to terrorist organizations in Syria. He was released, the charges were dropped. But it just gives you an idea of what's actually going on in the UK, harsh sentences are being passed under the banner of Syria related terrorism. And what you'll actually find when you scratch beneath the surface, that these arrests and these punishments are being handed down, not necessarily because of
actual, physical or tangible actions. It's rather on fourth and intention.
The counterterrorism and security bill very recently received his third hearing this bill, if it gets passed as legislation, which I strongly feel it will, this could be one of the most damaging piece of legislation for the British Muslim community. It involves draconian Orwellian measures such as spying on toddlers as young as three
forum five to report them to the authorities. If the government's counterterrorism prevent strategy becomes statutory, this will allow prevent, to take children away from their parents if they deem them, the parents to be extreme or radical.
confiscate impossibles revoking citizenship, reintroducing the snoopers charter, the government will be able to access your emails, your text messages and your social media accounts. Clearly this is a curtailment of the most basic of civil liberties for the sake of national security. I mean, what's happened to all those prior liberal democratic values that the West champions itself in
ISIS is in fact being used
to push these policies.
And what they've actually done is that they've linked what's happening in Iraq to an alleged fear or threat of an attack that may take place in the UK.
And it seems to be again, a double standard here.
The British fighters mercenaries former SS soldiers, agents and former British soldiers are fighting alongside the PKK, a terrorist organization under the EU and NATO.
There was no issues with British Jews joining the IDF. British cause joined the PKK some shears leaving the UK to join the Shia militias, there was no issue with Muslims leaving to join the Libyan revolution to fight against to fight alongside the Libyan Islam is against the Gaddafi regime. And if you take it back a few more years, then absolutely no problem with Muslims leaving the UK to fight the Afghan war against the Russians or in Bosnia
which and claims to care about, about its citizens, as does the US. But they refuse to pay ransom for James Foley for Steven sotloff, for David Haines, for Alan Henning. Because apparently they don't negotiate with terrorists. for France, Italy, Germany and Turkey paid ransoms and their citizens were released safely under the point of not negotiating with terrorists that absolutely no problem releasing the Lockerbie bomber when they made negotiation with the Daffy or when they contemplate dialogue with the Taliban
now saved the most important tool the last. And that's the role of the Western media.
There seems to be a calculated strategy between the government's domestic security policies and his foreign policy and the way the media has pushed and facilitated these policies to be accepted, at the very least, kept silent amongst the general public.
And it seems to be two elements to this media campaign in light of ISIS his claim to a caliphate. Firstly, to criminalize the concept of the caliphate, the concept of a caliphate, a mainstream normative orthodox concept within Sunni Islam has been used as a yardstick because a lot ISIS has done to basically hit the Muslim to keep them in line to basically distance themselves from not ISIS per se, but to distance himself from this concept of a caliphate.
Secondly, the whole ISIS Sega has been conveniently used to create a secular liberal, European British version of Islam. I'm not sure if many of you watch Monday's episode of panorama, the fight for British Islam, you get an idea of what I'm saying. And I just want to mention three campaigns that were spearheaded by the British press. Firstly, the not in my name campaign went viral hashtag not in my name. So whenever ISIS is doing every Muslim to hold up a call and saying no in my name, then there was the sons united against ISIS campaign, which was apparently for people of all faith, and no faith. But again, on the front page, there was a woman donning a union jack he job, but of
course it was it was only for eight for people of all faiths or no fish. And then there was the whole puppy hijab campaign, which a religious government was nationalized, and used to basically fold a certain agenda to basically make Muslims prove their allegiance to the UK.
Why should Wilson's apologize Why should Muslims apologize for the actions of a militia is doing is every Catholic expects to apologize for the * ring at the heart of the Vatican? Is every white Britain expected to apologize for the crimes of Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and a million dead Iraqis? Is everybody expected to apologize for the crimes of the Burmese monks against Muslims? Is every Hindu expected to apologize for the crimes of the BJP party in India is absolutely disgraceful. And of course it should not be tolerated. Muslims as a global population, 1.6 billion should not be guilty by association of faith and made to apologize.
There's been there's been
More than 5000 articles on ISIS in the last seven months in the British press in print, and online, I did a bit of masters here and now works out to be 25 articles a day, for the last seven months 25 articles a day on ISIS or a subject concerning ISIS Caliphate, or something along those lines. So on the one hand, the British media is asking British Muslims to apologize to condemn, not in my name, and so forth. But on the other hand, it continues to refer to this militia as an Islamic State and a strong one for that matter. And what it's actually doing is creating an environment and a narrative of fear and hate towards Muslims, which will, at the end justify anti terror laws, foreign policy
and state expenditure on national security.
To conclude that our world is in a mess. It has been in a mess for the last eight years. The Arab Spring, which began as a promising chapter for that region has was in fact, became just a chapter of cosmetic changes. The faces of these regimes change, but the regimes and the systems, the oppressive systems remained in place.
ISIS is fighting battles on every front. Well, he appears soul. And to be honest with that Western airstrikes are not I feel that in the coming years, they'll self implode themselves. In the West, how is ISIS affected?
The rise of Islamophobia in Europe has become mainstream. In Sweden, in a week alone, there was four attacks in a mosque. There's 20,000 right wing racist protesters in the streets of Dresden and the name of the poquito movement. In France, the Charlie Hebdo incident, again, brings into light the role of Muslims living in the West. I
mean, Abdullah, we attended a report launch a fortnight ago by a think tank called claystone. And this report was entitled A decade last rethinking radicalization extremism, it was offered by a gentleman called Professor Arun kanani.
a wicked report, fantastic report, for those of you who are studying extremism, or political ideologies, or the war on terror should take note of this report. So basically, what he said in this report was that foreign policy is solely to blame for terrorism, not ideology, or extreme or radical views. And what he actually said, was that the neoconservative think tanks in the US and some within even in UK, but advocated this, this theory of retracted and taking that back. And the reason why that is, because as the war on terror developed, they realize that you know, what,
extreme or radical views does not actually lead to violence. What actually leads to violence is the role of America and the UK, amongst other Western States on what they are doing in the Muslim world is a case of tit for tat, you cause trouble in our lands, we will come across and troubling your lens explicitly as that and I found that quite profound, because even now, we're still hearing the whole conveyor belt theory that all of a sudden, having a politicized version of Islam, or having extreme radical views will somehow eventually lead to terrorism. This is from a scholastic and academically perspective is unsubstantiated.
And I'm here to make a few bold statements.
I don't blame ISIS for what's happening in the Middle East. I begin with some foreign policy, because at the end of the day, it was the US led invasion that created ISIS, or at least at the very least, facilitated that environment. After two failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, the best thing that could have ever happened to the UK in the US is ISIS. What better way to justify the last 13 or 14 years of military escapades in that region, by the creation of ISIS, to quote general Richard donot, the head of the British Armed Forces, he said a few years back, we are here in Afghanistan to prevent an eighth century Caliphate and the Avi he's got your eight century Caliphate, or for that
13 years that you're fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, all that bloodshed, all that money, taxpayer money, has now we've got it. We've got ISIS now. We've got that Caliphate that we want to fight and portray as the boogeyman.
I'm going to conclude by saying that ISIS was basically the West doctor signal to continue his foreign policy in the Muslim world.