Introduction
The self-proclaimed Islamic State is a militant movement
that has conquered territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria, where it has
made a bid to establish a state in territories that encompass some six and a
half million residents. Though spawned by al-Qaeda’s Iraq franchise, it split
with Osama bin Laden’s organization and evolved to not just employ terrorist
and insurgent tactics, but the more conventional ones of an organized militia.
In June 2014, after seizing territories in Iraq’s Sunni
heartland, including the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, the Islamic State
proclaimed itself a caliphate, claiming exclusive political and theological
authority over the world’s Muslims. Its state-building project, however, has
been characterized more by extreme violence, justified by references to the
Prophet Mohammed’s early followers, than institution building. Widely
publicized battlefield successes have attracted thousands of foreign recruits,
a particular concern of Western intelligence.
