The Rise of Islamic State by Patrick Cockburn Read Free Book Online Page B

capture of US-made armored Humvees from the Iraqi army. It was a final humiliation for the US that al-Qaeda’s black flag should once again fly over a city that had been captured by US Marines in 2004 after a hard-fought victory accompanied by much self-congratulatory rhetoric. ISIS not only holds the city now, but also the nearby Fallujah dam, which allows them to regulate the flow of the Euphrates, either flooding or choking off the river for cities farther south. Unable to dislodge them by force, the Baghdad government diverted the water of the river into an old channel outside the control of the rebel fighters, which relieved the immediate crisis. But the fighting in Anbar showed how the military balance of power has changed in favor of ISIS. The Iraqi army,with five divisions stationed in the province, suffered a devastating defeat, reportedly losing 5,000 men dead and wounded and another 12,000 who deserted.
    Farther to the north in June 2014, ISIS, joining forces with local Sunnis, took control of Mosul (Iraq’s second-largest city with a population of over one million), swiftly ousting the Iraqi military from the city. But, as one Iraqi remarked, in some respects “Mosul had ceased to be under government authority long before.” Prior to the takeover, ISIS had been levying taxes on everybody from vegetable sellers in the market to mobile phone and construction companies. By one estimate its income from this alone was $8 million (£4.8 million) a month. The same sort of “taxation” was occurring in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, where a friend reported that people would not eat at any restaurant that wasn’t up to date with its tax payments to ISIS lest the place be bombed while they were dining.
    Turning now to Syria: today the armed opposition to the Assad government is dominated by jihadis who wish to establish an Islamic state. They accept foreign fighters and have a vicious record of massacring Syria’s minorities, notably the Alawites and the Christians. With the exception of those areas held by the Kurds, the wholeeastern side of the country, including many of the Syrian oil fields, is now under jihadi control. The government clings to a few outposts in this vast area but does not have the forces to recapture it.
    Different jihadi groups compete with each other in this region and, since early 2014, have been engaged in internecine combat. In 2012, ISIS founded JAN, sensing an opportunity during the rapidly escalating civil war in Syria and fearing that its own struggle might be marginalized. It sent the new group money, arms, and experienced fighters. A year later, it tried to reassert its authority over the fledgling group, which had become excessively independent in the eyes of ISIS leaders, attempting to fold it into a broader organization covering both Syria and Iraq. JAN resisted this effort, and the two groups became involved in a complicated intra-jihadi civil war. The Islamic Front, a newly established and powerful alliance of opposition brigades backed by Turkey and Qatar, is also fighting ISIS, despite sharing its aim of strict imposition of sharia. When it comes to social and religious mores, ISIS and JAN do not differ markedly, although the latter organization has a reputation for being less rigid. However, it was JAN fighters in Deir Ezzor on the Euphrates in eastern Syria who burst into a wedding party in a private house, beating andarresting women who were listening to loud music and not wearing Islamic dress.
    Despite this conflict, non-jihadi groups are today peripheral in the Syrian opposition. In particular the more secular Free Syrian Army (FSA), whose political wing was once designated by the West as the next rulers of Syria, has been marginalized. ISIS holds eastern Aleppo province while much of the recent fighting in Aleppo city itself has been led by JAN and Ahrar al-Sham, another al-Qaeda–type movement. A recent attack on Syrian government–held territory in Latakia, located on the