Introduction
Terrorism is one of the current global challenges that the world is currently facing. With the increasing role of religion across the world, numerous terrorist groups have emerged with an aim of establishing their missions and influences over the world. The National Counterterrorism Centre has labeled several organizations as terrorist, thereby constituting to some of the dangerous groups or organization in the world. The ISIS and Al-Shabab have been reported to be some of the most dangerous groups across the world. Broadly, the ISIS has claimed a number of responsibility of deaths over the years in many parts of the world including Syria, UK, Spain and France. Similarly, the Al-Shabab has claimed a number of violent attacks on various nations that neighbors Somalia such as Kenya, Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia. While the two groups have the same mission of establishing fundamentalist Islamic State in Syria and Somalia with the hope of expanding to other nations in the entire world, the former seems to have succeeded in many of its operations. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the two terrorist groups.
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It is a militant group of jihadists known for carrying out barbaric public executions on humanity, especially targeting the western countries and its allies. The militant group originally was part of the dreaded al-Qaeda, also a group of insurgency that became extinct before it split due to differences in ideologies and methods. Currently, ISIS is one of the most potent militant groups that has seized and controls larger areas of the Middle East (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017).
Notably, the ISIS has become infamous due to its brutal, murderous and violent assaults its targets as well as civilian. The self-described caliphate group has, in the recent past, claimed to be responsible for thousands of terrorists attack around the globe in addition to killing and maiming public members. Their ideology has been embedded in gaining the control of Syria, Iraq, and eats in totality (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017). The group is anchored by a belief that represents the restoration of the caliphate believing that all Muslims should pledge allegiance to it. Most notably, is their driving force that portrays the “near” judgment day by god will be followed by the defeat of the Roman army by ISIS.
History of ISIS
The roots of the insurgency group can be traced back to 2004, at the time when the organization al-Qaeda was formed. The original leader, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was part of the al-Qaeda networked, which was lead by Osama bin Laden until latter when the leaders differed in methods of employing their attack, subsequently leading to split (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017). The central ideology behind the formation of ISIS is mirrored and shared equally with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda and ISIS wanted to remove Western occupation in the Middle East and replace it with a Sunni Islam regime. Its leader Zarqawi was murdered in 2006 during a U.S. airstrike, and Ayyub al-Masri took the mantle to lead the group and renaming it “ISI,” which meant it stood for the Islamic State of Iraq. Masri died in 2010 as a result of the US-Iraqi operation, and later, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took over as the new leader (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017). The spontaneous war in Syria became the rebirth of the ISI group; the terrorist group staged a fight with Syrian forces and gained the ground in most parts of the country. In 1013, the group officially rebranded themselves as “ISIS,” Islamic State of Iraqi, and Syria because they had extended their territory to Syria.
Financial Support and Funding
Funding of the ISIS has been one of its motivations to expand into other territories or increase its territorial occupancy. Several pieces of research indicate that funding and its revenue are diverse, and most are located in its territories. The group diverges from multiple and comparable extensive sources of revenue. According to international IS documents, there are strong indications that the group is organized and hierarchical a part from having bureaucratic divisions of labor and close monitor on how economic assets generate and finances (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017).
According to international ISI documents, ISIS is one of the wealthiest terrorist organizations in the world. Although estimates vary depending on economic surges and peaks, the group is said to control the wealth of amounting to $2 billion in 2017 alone (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017). In comparison to other terror organizations, there exists empirically broad and well-founded literature for financing the ISIS. According to existing research, some of the primary sources of its funding include levied taxations on regions it controls, thefts and lootings from public and private property, natural gas smugglings, and oil refineries they control. To a lesser degree, the organization benefit from donations from sponsors and sympathizers, sales of looted properties, ransoms from hostages, and abuse of charitable organizations coupled with self-funding through loans (Almohammad & Speckhard, 2017).
How ISIS Recruits Its Members
The use of digital channels has been one of the many ways Isis recruits its members. The group engages its targeted recruits through the communication of its ideologies to people are around the world. The group has an active AL-Hayat media unit through which it feds its perceived enemies and members with both visual and textual information. The media is used to pass messages and announcements in its provinces (Darden, 2019). Notably, Al-Hayat media is actively used to target non-Arabic speaking members distributing materials in other languages, and lastly, the group’s members and supports who officially disseminate both official and unofficial materials through social media. One of the organization’s main objectives is to recruit foreign fighters. This resonates well with the organization’s global campaigns on the media to fulfill the goal through radicalization and identity information (Haines, 2017).
Currently, the organization employs the use media complain, creating a binary image which is both loved and hated. The use of violet and mass killings, torture are used as messages to frighten the enemies while on the other hand, to function as recruiting points from sympathizers across the globe (Darden, 2019). Besides, members of the group post pictures that depict the caliphate as an idealistic place and encouraging fighter from across the world to join.
Among other ways and means of recruiting members, the group uses goodies such as monies to lure young members to join the outfit. Terror groups tend to attract and recruit young members. Sometimes, they would want to recruit young females to perpetuate the group ideologies and inculcating them into their children. In 2015, two Spanish women exclave from North Africa were arrested for being an ISIS recruitment ring (Darden, 2019).
Source of Weapons for ISIS
According to amnesty international U.K., irresponsible transfer of arms by countries such as the USA, China, Russia, Germany, and France has been one of the great sources of arsenal to ISIS organization. For many years, such weapons have been flowing freely into Iraq. In addition to lapse ammunition transfer, there has been slack control over the Iraqi military, with members endemic to corruption (Darden, 2019). When ISIS took control of the areas, they inherited the weapons, too, letting the deadliest weapons in the hands of ISIS.
Some of the weapons used by ISIS are ones they have captured on the battlefield. For instance, in 2013, the organization expediently seized ammunition and arms, which were brought into Syria through their regional proxies. The proxies were turkey and Jordan, all of which were guilty of breaching transfer agreement (Darden, 2019). The supplies are typically from the governments and entities that lawfully acquire weapons but divert them to an unauthorized user. In Syria, the rapid take over to several states was attributed to the looting of U.S. weapons from the Iraqi government and from Syrian fighters who were absorbed by the militant group. It is believed that the terror group overtook the collapsing Iraqi army; it also took its vast weaponry. However, some weaponry hardware has been found to originate from the U.S. and other developed countries (Darden, 2019).
