The Expanding Caliphate
"ISIL is now in the state-building stage - it aims to show residents that life is continuing and that its presence has brought normalcy and stability."
"[ISIL has] shown off the city's [Sirte, in Libya] landscapes, port, bustling markets, and fully stocked grocery stores [in a public relations gambit appealing to new recruits]."
"[ISIS is likely to become a] far more formidable force [following its gains in north Africa]."
Aaron Zelin, a research fellow on the jihadist movement from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
"[Entering Europe by boat is] possible but not the most efficient [way of wreaking terror on the continent]."
"Pitching up in a boat in Lampedusa, for example, is a fairly crude way of infiltrating Europe."
Dr. Jonathan Hill, War Studies department, Kings College London
"North Africa as a region is unstable across the board - Libya, Tunisia, Egypt."
Hani Sabra, Middle East and North Africa head, risk consultancy Eurasia Group, New York
IGThe U.S.-led coalition of Western and Arab Middle-East countries which pledged to counter the advance of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant through airstrikes has certainly had its deterrence effect, but by and large, though ISIL jihadis have been targeted and killed, along with tanks and advanced munitions looted by those enterprising ISIL militias from the desperate flight of Iraq's military leaving military gifts supplied by the United States, ISIL is still advancing.
ISIL now controls fully half of Syria, and over a third of Iraq. It is known to have used chemical weapons on the one reliable source of military defensive opposition to its terroristic spread, the Kurdish militias who have benefited from those airstrikes. But it continues to attack towns, villages and cities with near-impunity, despite a coalition between Shiite militias, the Iraqi military and Lebanon's Hezbollah militias.
With much of Iraq and Syria continuing to fall into ISIL's hands, leaving it free to get on with its campaign to enslave Yazidi women and girls, and to butcher minority ethnic and religious groups, the Islamic State has widened its territorial claims for its Sharia-dominated caliphate. It sets down rules that Syrians and Iraqis must follow or face deadly consequences. Deadly consequences in any event, have met those tribal villages which have met the ISIL advance with determination to block its conquest.
IGNow Libya, split asunder by warring factions -- and two opposing 'governments' in place, along with tribal militias causing havoc -- has presented as an easy entry ripe for conquest. And ISIL has been swift to take advantage of the opportunities that no local authority nor organized military exists to challenge their presence. ISIL has announced its Libyan headquarters in Sirte, in an expansion of its caliphate. And its presence is growing in strength.
And Europe has reason to quake in anticipation both of ongoing migrants desperate to escape the dangers facing them by warring countries and the presence of a dynamic Islamist threat to stability and life itself increasing in numbers. And along with the continued washing ashore on European soil of North Africans and Middle Eastern Muslims, will be the increasing prospect of an Islamist infiltration. Europe is slowly being transformed into a continent transfused with Muslims from the ailing continent of Africa and the Middle East.
Labels: Conflict, Europe, Iraq, Islamic State, Libya, Migrants, Syria
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, August 16, 2015
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