The so-called Islamic State claims to be the defender of the Muslim world, but the Islamic State is a far greater menace to Muslims than to any other group. That’s the conclusion of a new report by the University of Maryland finding that the Islamic State and its allies have killed some 33,000 people and wounded or captured tens of thousands more around the world since 2002, the vast majority of them fellow Muslims. The findings underscore everything we know about the Islamic State’ brutal methods and harsh governance in the areas of Syria and Iraq it controls. But it also suggests the group might be sowing the seeds of its own destruction by its reckless misrule.
The so-called Islamic State claims to be the defender of the Muslim world, but the Islamic State is a far greater menace to Muslims than to any other group. That’s the conclusion of a new report by the University of Maryland finding that the Islamic State and its allies have killed some 33,000 people and wounded or captured tens of thousands more around the world since 2002, the vast majority of them fellow Muslims. The findings underscore everything we know about the Islamic State’ brutal methods and harsh governance in the areas of Syria and Iraq it controls. But it also suggests the group might be sowing the seeds of its own destruction by its reckless misrule.
While Western officials are on high alert to prevent Islamic State fighters from infiltrating Europe and the U.S., Westerners so far have accounted for only a tiny sliver of the group’s victims, most of whom have been Muslims living in the conflict zones of the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia, where the collapse of weak national governments created a power vacuum allowing radical groups to operate. Such failed states are fertile breeding grounds for terrorists, and their first targets invariably are anyone who opposes or even questions their rule.
Currently, the Islamic State is thought to have a significant military presence in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Yemen. In addition, Islamic State-linked groups are said to operate in Algeria, Pakistan and the Philippines. Estimates of the Islamic State’s strength vary wildly, ranging from fewer than 10,000 fighters to more than 100,000. The group’s leadership includes many former Iraqi military officers loyal to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and much of the group’s weaponry was seized from Iraqi army arsenals in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Most Islamic State fighters are thought to be based in Syria and Iraq to defend the group’s self-styled Islamic “caliphate,” but the group also boasts legions of sympathizers worldwide poised to carry out attacks. Those fighters are said to include armed cells directly controlled by Islamic State headquarters as well as imitators and “lone wolf” operatives recruited by the group’s online propaganda who are inspired to carry out terrorist attacks on their own. These are the people of greatest concern to Western security officials.
In an increasingly interconnected world, the Islamic State has shown that even a relatively small but well-organized group can create havoc on a global scale. That’s why fighting terrorism can’t be the job of just one or two countries alone. Terrorism is a global threat that demands a global response, and combating it successfully requires a concerted diplomatic effort to engage the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East, North Africa and Western Asia in the fight as well as the U.S. and its European allies. Now is not the time to push away the Muslim world with bigotry and fear but to recognize that we have a common enemy.
Even if the Islamic State’s ability to stage attacks is limited to sporadic and geographically scattered acts of terror, the effects can demoralize whole populations and terrorize vulnerable communities. Indeed, their very unpredictability — coupled with people’s awareness that they can happen any time and anywhere — destabilizes and disrupts normal life, leaving people to live in constant fear. Whenever that happens, the terrorists win.
— The Baltimore Sun