The spectre of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria casts a long shadow. It’s clearly not just the Middle East that is in trouble; both Britain and the United States have been worried enough to dispatch fighter jets to try and contain the Islamist rebels who have carved out huge chunks of territory as 
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Tag | Islamic State
Too late to start worrying about the Islamic State in Africa
By: Simon Allison | Thursday, October 9th, 2014Countering ISIS: A Special Kind of Insurgency
By: Zenonas Tziarras | Wednesday, September 10th, 2014It is commonplace these days to refer to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shām (i.e. Greater Syria) – henceforth, ISIS – as the greatest threat to regional, international, and for some countries, even national security. As a product of mergers between smaller Islamist groups (e.g. an al-Qaeda affiliated Iraqi group) in the aftermath of
Backgrounder – The Emergence of the Islamic State
By: Matthew Morgan | Friday, August 22nd, 2014The rapid advance in June of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Shām (ISIS) across northern Iraq, capturing its second largest city, Mosul and threatening to advance on Baghdad, stunned global security experts and policy makers alike. The collapse and retreat of the Iraqi army demonstrates, more than anything, the abject failure of American policy
Against the Odds: The Case for Greater Western Intervention in Syria and Iraq
By: Erwin van Veen | Thursday, August 21st, 2014The Syrian civil war is now in its third year and continues unabated. A battlefield resolution remains unlikely: the imminent capture of Aleppo by the regime is being offset by rapid advances of the Islamic State in eastern Syria – taking in the city of Deir-ez-Zour, major oilfields, and nearly all strongpoints on the Euphrates
The Lesser Evil: When Does it Make Sense to Intervene on Behalf of Incumbents?
By: Danny Hirschel-Burns | Thursday, August 14th, 2014A few weeks ago, Edward H. Carpenter came out with two compelling posts (here and here) in the Duck of Minerva. In his first article, he notes that the Islamic State’s (IS) advance in Syria and Iraq is only one example of recent victories by mobile, non-state Islamic fundamentalist groups organized as networks. In his
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