Who are Isis? The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
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Who are Isis? The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
The group, led since 2010 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, now controls vast swathes of land across Iraq and Syria
Monday 16 June
An image posted on a militant website appears to show Isis fighters leading away captured Iraqi soldiers for execution in Tikrit
With its multi-pronged assault across central and northern Iraq in the past one and a half weeks, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has taken over from the al-Qa’ida organisation founded by Osama bin Laden as the most powerful and effective extreme jihadi group in the world.Isis now controls or can operate with impunity in a great stretch of territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria, making it militarily the most successful jihadi movement ever.While its exact size is unclear, the group is thought to include thousands of fighters. The last "s" of "Isis" comes from the Arabic word "al-Sham", meaning Levant, Syria or occasionally Damascus, depending on the circumstances.Led since 2010 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Dua (see below), it has proved itself even more violent and sectarian than what US officials call the “core” al-Qa’ida, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is based in Pakistan.Isis is highly fanatical, killing Shia Muslims and Christians whenever possible, as well as militarily efficient and under tight direction by top leaders.The creation of a sort of proto-Caliphate by extreme jihadis in northern Syria and Iraq is provoking fears in surrounding countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey that they will become targets of battle-hardened Sunni fighters.
In pictures: Iraq crisis
In pictures: Iraq crisis
Mourners burying 15 bodies in the village of Taza Khormato, near the northern city of Kirkuk
A Shiite Turkman fighter from the so-called Sahwa or "Awakening" force, manning a position on the front line with insurgents led by the Isis group which has overran swathes of five provinces north and west of Baghdad
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters on their military vehicles drive towards the front lines of Mosul villages where they fight against Isis, in the Khazer area between the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Kurdish city of Irbil
Fighters of the Isis group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul
Shi'ite volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the Isis, take part in a military-style training in Basra, southeast of Baghdad
A Kurdish peshmerga fighter takes his position behind a wall on the front line with militants from the Isis group, in Tuz Khormato, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the oil rich province of Kirkuk
Iraqis who fled with families the violence in their home towns walk at a refugee camp near the city of Mosul
A member of the Jordanian Bedouin forces stands guard in front of the Jordanian Karameh border crossing at the Jordanian-Iraqi border, near Ruweished city
Iraqis gather at the site of a car bomb explosion in a Kurdish-majority neighbourhood of the ethnically mixed northern city of Kirkuk. The blast killed at least three people and also wounded 15 others in the northern part of the tinderbox oil hub, which lies at the centre of territory Iraq's Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region over the objections of Baghdad
Iraqi Kurdish forces take position near Taza Khormato
AFP/Getty Images
Kurdistan regional government president Massud Barzani greets US Secretary of State John Kerry at the presidential palace in Arbil
Getty Images
Iraqi men queue to for a medical check up as they volunteer to join the security forces at a recruitment centre in Baghdad
Getty Images
Kurdish fighters believe they are ‘facing a new reality and a new Iraq’
Militants of the Isis group stand next to captured vehicles left behind by Iraqi security forces at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province. For militant groups, the fight over public perception can be even more important than actual combat, turning military losses into propaganda victories and battlefield successes into powerful tools to build support for the cause
A member of the Kurdish security forces takes up position with his weapon while guarding an oil refinery, on the outskirts of Mosul
Iraqi Turkmen stand with their weapons as they ready to fight against militants led by the jihadist, in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk
Volunteers of the newly formed "Peace Brigades" participate in a parade in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, Baghdad. Thousands of Shiite militiamen have paraded in Baghdad and several other cities in southern Iraq with heavy weaponry, signaling their readiness to take on Sunni militants who control a large chunk of the country's north
Iraqi security forces, loyal to Muslim Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take part in a military parade in the shrine city of Najaf, in central Iraq. International leaders and Iraq's Shiite religious elite have called on the country to unite to face off the insurgent threat, with US Secretary of State John Kerry this weekend heading to the Middle East and Europe in a diplomatic push to bring political stability to the country
Iraqi Shiite mourners carry the coffin of a Shiite militiaman killed in Muqdadiyah during his funeral procession, in the shrine city of Najaf. Militants attacked the town of Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad and a key approach to Diyala provincial capital Baquba, sparking clashes that killed 30 Shiite militiamen
An Islamist fighter, identified as Abu Muthanna al-Yemeni from Britain (R), speaks in this still image taken undated video shot at an unknown location and uploaded to a social media website. Five Islamist fighters identified as Australian and British nationals have called on Muslims to join the wars in Syria and Iraq, in the new video released by the Isis
Al-Qa’ida inspired militants stand with captured Iraqi Army Humvee at a checkpoint belonging to Iraqi Army outside Beiji refinery some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad. The fighting at Beiji comes as Iraq has asked the U.S. for airstrikes targeting the militants from the Isis group. While U.S. President Barack Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said
Members of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces take their positions during clashes with the Isis group in the city of Ramadi
Members of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces shoot during the clashes with the Isis gruop in the city of Ramadi
A Peshmerga unit is ready and armed on the front lines outside Kirkuk
A U.S. Geological Survey satellite image shows smoke rising from the Baiji refinery near Tikrit
A column of smoke rises from an oil refinery in Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad
Iraqi men line up at the main army recruiting center to volunteer for military service in Baghdad, after authorities urged Iraqis to help battle insurgents
Iraqi Shiite women hold their weapons as they gather to show their willingness to join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Jihadist militants who have taken over several northern Iraqi cities in the southern Shiite Muslim shrine city of Najaf
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters stand next to the bed of a comrade wounded in clashes with jihadists in Kirkuk at the emergency ward of a hospital in Arbil
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter wounded in the legs in clashes with Isis in Kirkuk is watched by a family member as he lies on a bed in the emergency ward of a hospital in Arbil
Relatives stand vigil for a Kurdish peshmerga fighter wounded in fighting as he is treated in a hospital in Irbil. Kurdish security and hospital officials said that fighting has been raging since morning between Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga and militants who are trying to take the town of Jalula, in the restive Diyala province some 80 miles (125 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. Ethnic Kurds now control the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk, moving to fill a vacuum after the flight of Iraqi soldiers. They too are battling the Sunni extremist militants
Militants attacked Iraq's main oil refinein Baiji as they pressed an offensive that has seen them capture swathes of territory, a manager and a refinery employee said
Militants from the Isis group parading with their weapons in the northern city of Baiji in the in Salaheddin province
A smoke rises after an attack by Isis militants on the country's largest oil refinery in Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad. Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country's main oil refinery and said they regained partial control of a city near the Syrian border, trying to blunt an offensive by Sunni militants who diplomats fear may have also seized some 100 foreign workers
Major General Jamil al-Shammari (C), police chief of Iraq's Diyala province north of Baghdad, inspects the Mafraq police station which includes a prison where the bodies of 44 prisoners were found. An attack by militants was pushed back by Iraqi security forces in Baquba, Diyala's provincial capital within only 60 kilometres (37 miles) of Baghdad,
leaving 44 prisoners dead at the Mafraq police station. Accounts differed as to who was responsible for the prisoner killings, with the security spokesman of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki saying the prisoners were killed by insurgents carrying out the attack, and other officials saying they were killed by security forces as they tried to escape
Iraqi men mourn over the coffin of an Iraqi soldier who was killed in the clashes with militants in northern Iraq, during the funeral procession in Najaf. More than two million Iraqis have volunteered to fight against militants from the Isis group, Iraqi Energy Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said. The government had no capacity to process any more volunteers, he adds. Isis and other Sunni fighters, including groups linked to the former ruling Baath Party, were reported that they now control swathes of northern Iraq after a lightning advance recently
Iraqi displaced people, who have fled violence in Iraq's northern Nineveh province, walk past the wreckage of military vehicles upon their arrival in al-Hamdaniyah, 76 kms west of the Kurdish autonomous region's capital Arbil
Demonstrators chant slogans as they carry al-Qa’ida flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. In the week since it captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, a Muslim extremist group has tried to win over residents and has stopped short of widely enforcing its strict brand of Islamic law, residents say. Churches remain unharmed and street cleaners are back at work
Personnel from the Kurdish security forces detain a man suspected of being a militant belonging to the Isis group, in the outskirts of Kirkuk
Iraqi women walk at the site of a car bomb explosion in the mainly Shiite Sadr City district in Baghdad, which killed at least seven people and wounded 20. The blast came amid a week-long militant offensive in which insurgents have seized vast swathes of territory in northern Iraq
A member of the oil police force stands guard at Zubair oil field in Basra
An Iraqi man with a boy inspects the scene of a car bomb attack in Sadr city
Iraqi Shiite tribesmen parade with their weapons in central Baghdad's Palestine Street as they show their willingness to join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Jihadist militants who have taken over several northern Iraqi cities. Faced with a militant offensive sweeping south toward Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced the Iraqi government would arm and equip civilians who volunteer to fight, and thousands have signed up
Iraqi men queue at the entrance of a volunteer centre in Karbala city
Members of the Shiite Muslim Mehdi Army militia, take part in training in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Iraqi Shiite volunteers, who had been fighting in neighbouring Syria, have been heading home to battle an offensive that has brought militants to near Baghdad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
An injured fighter (C) from the Isis group after a battle with Iraqi soldiers at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq
Fighters from the Isis aiming at advancing Iraqi troops at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq
Fighters from the Isis group taking position at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq
Fighters from the Isis group inspecting vehicles of the Iraqi army after they were seized at an undisclosed location near the border between Syria and Iraq
Iraqi men flash victory signs as they leave the main recruiting center to join the Iraqi army in Baghdad
Refugees queue to register at a temporary camp in northern Iraq
Getty Images
Newly-recruited Iraqi volunteers, wearing police forces uniforms, take part in a briefing at a training centre in Karbala
Getty Images
Kurdish peshmerga forces keep guard around Tal Afar of Mosul
Getty Images
One Iraqi captive, a corporal, is reluctant to say the slogan, and has to be shouted at repeatedly before he obeys
Iraqi captives held by the extremists
Iraqi captives held by the extremists
Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against the Isis group in the northwest Baghdad's Shula neighborhood
Tribal fighters carry their weapons as they take part in an intensive security deployment in Dujail, north of Baghdad
Iraqi soldiers watch as armed tribesmen gather to show their willingness to join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Jihadist militants who have taken over several northern Iraqi cities in the southern city of Basra
Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against the Isis group in the northwest Baghdad's Shula neighborhood
Mehdi Army fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr march during a military-style training in the holy city of Najaf. The United States said it could launch air strikes and act jointly with its arch-enemy Iran to support the Iraqi government, after a rampage by Sunni Islamist insurgents across Iraq that has scrambled alliances in the Middle East
Volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi Army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Isis group, gather with their weapons during a parade on the streets in Basra, southeast of Baghdad
An Iraqi young boy holds a weapon from the window of a car as people gather to show their readiness to join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Jihadist militants who have taken over several northern Iraqi cities in the capital Baghdad
Tribal fighters from Ramadi hold up their weapons as they shout slogans in support of Iraqi security forces in Kerbala
Iraqi security forces fire artillery during clashes with Sunni militant group Isis in Jurf al-Sakhar
Iraqi security forces fire artillery during clashes with Sunni militant group Isis in Jurf al-Sakhar
Ammar al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, exercises a shooting drill in the main army recruiting center in Baghdad. Thousands of Shiites from Baghdad and across southern Iraq answered an urgent call to arms, joining security forces to fight the Islamic militants who have captured large swaths of territory north of the capital and now imperil a city with a much-revered religious shrine
An Iraqi security officer stands guard outside the Church of the Virgin Mary in the northern town of Bartala, east of the northern city of Mosul as some Iraqi security stayed in the town to protect the local churches and community
The insurgent offensive that has threatened to dismember Iraq spread to the northwest of the country, when Sunni militants launched a dawn raid on a town close to the Syrian border, clashing with police and government forces
Volunteers walk with their weapons during a parade in the streets in Al-Fdhiliya district, eastern Baghdad
A volunteer, who has joined the Iraqi Army to fight against predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Isis group, holds a weapon during a parade in the streets in Al-Fdhiliya district, eastern Baghdad
Militants of the Isis group force captured Iraqi security forces members to the transport
Militants of the Isis group transporting dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members to an unknown location in the Salaheddin province ahead of executing them
A major offensive spearheaded by Isis but also involving supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein has overrun all of one province and chunks of three others
Militants of the Isis group executing dozens of captured Iraqi security forces members at an unknown location in the Salaheddin province
A women and a girl wash at a tap at a temporary displacement camp set up next to a Kurdish checkpoint
in Kalak. Thousands of people have fled Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by Isis (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) militants. Many have been temporarily housed at various IDP (internally displaced persons) camps around the region including the area close to Erbil, as they hope to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region
Families arrive at a Kurdish checkpoint next to a temporary displacement camp in Kalak
An Iraqi refugee girl from Mosul stands outside her family's tent at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Days after Iraq's second-largest city fell to Isis fighters, some Iraqis are already returning to Mosul, lured back by insurgents offering cheap gas and food, restoring power and water and removing traffic barricades
Civilians escape from Mosul and come to a region that close to Erbil city and are placed to camp by United Nations and Kurd government in Iraq
Young men in Baghdad chant slogans against Isis outside the main army recruiting
centre yesterday, where they are volunteering to fight the extremist group
Karin Kadim/AP
Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi Army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants, who have taken over Mosul and other Northern provinces, board an army truck in Baghdad
Isis militants taking position at a Iraqi border post on the Syrian-Iraqi border between the Iraqi Nineveh province and the Syrian town of Al-Hasakah
Isis rebels show their flag after seizing an army post
AFP/Getty Images
Isis militants waving an Islamist flag after the seizure of an Iraqi army checkpoint in Salahuddin
Getty Images
A girl, who fled from the violence in Mosul, carries a case of water at a camp on the outskirts of Arbil in Iraq's Kurdistan region
A displaced Iraqi woman washes her family's laundry as the children shower outside their tent at a temporary camp set up to shelter civilians fleeing violence in Iraq's northern Nineveh province in Aski kalak, 40 kms west of the Kurdish autonomous region's capital Arbil
Iraqi refugees from Mosul arrive at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad
Refugees flee Mosul
Iraqi families fleeing violence in the northern Nineveh province gather at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski kalak, 40 kms West of Arbil, in the autonomous Kurdistan region
Refugees fleeing from Mosul head to the self-ruled northern Kurdish region in Irbil, Iraq, 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Baghdad
An Iraqi woman carries her property while fleeing from Mosul to Arbil and Duhok due to the clashes between security forces and militants of Isis in Arbil
Iraqi people receive water as they flee from Mosul to Arbil and Duhok
A woman carries a child as families fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul wait at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Radical Sunni Muslim insurgents seized control of most of Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, overrunning a military base and freeing hundreds of prisoners in a spectacular strike against the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government
An Iraqi man and his wife flee from Mosul to Arbil and Duhok
The residents gather at a security checkpoint between the provinces of Irbil and Duhok which is controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga troops
Uniforms reportedly belonging to Iraqi security forces scattered on the road
An armoured vehicle belonging to Iraqi security forces in flames,
after hundreds of militants from the Isis group launched a major assault on the security forces in Mosul, some 370 km north from the Iraqi capital Baghdad
Civilian children stand next to a burnt vehicle during clashes between Iraqi security forces and Isis group in the northern Iraq city of Mosul
The Isis tactic is to make a surprise attack, inflict maximum casualties and spread fear before withdrawing without suffering heavy losses. Last Friday they attacked Mosul, where their power is already strong enough to tax local businesses, from family groceries to mobile phone and construction companies. Some 200 people were killed in the fighting, according to local hospitals, though the government gives a figure of 59 dead, 21 of them policemen and 38 insurgents.Isis specialises in using militarily untrained foreign volunteers as suicide bombers either moving on foot wearing suicide vests, or driving vehicles packed with explosives. Often more than one suicide bomber is used, as happened when a vehicle exploded at the headquarters of a Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the town of Jalawla in the divided and much fought-over province of Diyala, north-east of Baghdad. In the confusion caused by the blast, a second bomber on foot slipped into the office and blew himself up, killing some 18 people, including a senior police officer.The swift rise of Isis since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became its leader has come because the uprising of the Sunni in Syria in 2011 led the Iraqi Sunni to protest about their political and economic marginalisation since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Peaceful demonstrations from the end of 2012 won few concessions, with Iraq’s Shia-dominated government convinced that the protesters wanted not reform but a revolution returning their community to power. The five or six million Iraqi Sunni became more alienated and sympathetic towards armed action by Isis.An undated picture released by Iraq’s Interior Ministry claiming to show Isis leader Abu Bakr al-BaghdadiIsis launched a well-planned campaign last year including a successful assault on Abu Ghraib prison last summer to free leaders and experienced fighters. This January, they took over Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, and have held it ever since in the face of artillery and air attack. The military sophistication of Isis in Iraq is much greater than al-Qa’ida, the organisation out of which it grew, which reached the peak of its success in 2006-07 before the Americans turned many of the Sunni tribes against it.Isis has the great advantage of being able to operate on both sides of the Syrian-Iraq border, though in Syria it is engaged in an intra-jihadi civil war with Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other groups. But Isis controls Raqqa, the only provincial capital taken by the opposition, and much of eastern Syria outside enclaves held by the Kurds close to the Turkish border.Isis is today a little more circumspect in killing all who work for the government including rubbish collectors, something that alienated the Sunni population previously. But horrifically violent, though professionally made propaganda videos show Isis forcing families with sons in the Iraqi army to dig their own graves before they are shot. The message is that their enemies can expect no mercy.Who is Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?In the space of a year he has become the most powerful jihadi leader in the world, and last week his forces captured Mosul, the northern capital of Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Dua, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has suddenly emerged as a figure who is shaping the future of Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East.He began to appear from the shadows in the summer of 2010 when he became leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) after its former leaders were killed in an attack by US and Iraqi troops. AQI was at a low point in its fortunes, as the Sunni rebellion, in which it had once played a leading role, was collapsing. It was revived by the revolt of the Sunni in Syria in 2011 and, over the next three years by a series of carefully planned campaigns in both Iraq and Syria. How far al-Baghdadi is directly responsible for the military strategy and tactics of Isis, once called AQI, is uncertain: former Iraqi army and intelligence officers from the Saddam era are said to play a crucial role, but are under al-Baghdadi’s overall leadership.There are disputes over his career depending on whether the source is Isis itself, US or Iraqi intelligence but the overall picture appears fairly clear. He was born in Samarra, a largely Sunni city north of Baghdad, in 1971 and is well educated. With black hair and brown eyes, a picture of al-Baghdadi taken when he was a prisoner of the Americans in Bocca Camp in southern Iraq between 2005 and 2009, makes him look like any Iraqi man in his thirties.His real name is believed to be Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, who has degrees in Islamic Studies, including poetry, history and genealogy, from the Islamic University of Baghdad. He may have been an Islamic militant under Saddam as a preacher in Diyala province, to the north east of Baghdad, where, after the US invasion of 2003, he had his own armed group. Insurgent movements have a strong motive for giving out misleading information about their command structure and leadership, but it appears al-Baghdadi spent five years as prisoner of the Americans.After the old AQI leadership was killed in April 2010, al-Baghdadi took over and AQI became increasingly well organised, even issuing detailed annual reports over the last two years, itemising its operations in each Iraqi province. Recalling the fate of his predecessors as AQI leader, he insisted on extreme secrecy, so few people knew where he was. AQI prisoners either say they have never met him or, when they did, that he was wearing a mask.Taking advantage of the Syrian civil war, al-Baghdadi sent experienced fighters and funds to Syria to set up Jabhat al-Nusra as al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria. He split from it last year, but remains in control of a great swathe of territory in northern Syria and Iraq. Against fragmented and dysfunctional opposition, he is moving fast towards establishing himself as Emir of a new Islamic state.
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