Culled from The New York Times archives, this Tbook chronicles the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS or ISIL, a terrorist organization noted for its appalling savagery. In recent years, ISIS has skillfully used social media to spread its message of fear, with videos showing unspeakable cruelty toward those it considers “infidels” as well as the wanton destruction of ancient artworks.
ISIS’s harsh tactics were fostered by its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant and former convict, who established al Qaeda in Iraq amid the chaos of the U.S.-led invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government. Zarqawi mobilized Sunni insurgents to wage war against U.S. forces and Shiite Muslims. Wanted by U.S. authorities, Zarqawi was killed in an American airstrike in 2006. His terror network — renamed the Islamic State in Iraq and now led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — moved into Syria, taking advantage of the fall of Bashar Assad’s government. In 2013, the group joined forces with the Al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and reinvented itself as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. With a power vacuum in much of the Middle East, ISIS appears to be expanding to Libya and beyond.
