Collaboration with the Islamic State refers to the cooperation and assistance given by governments, non-state actors, and private individuals to the Islamic State (IS) during the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi Civil War, and Libyan Civil War.
The Syrian government and Iranian officials have accused Israel and the United States government of supporting ISIS by attacking Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army as well as arming and giving medical attention to the Islamic State. Israel has strenuously denied accusations of providing arms and medical support to Islamic State fighters. [1] [2] [3] However, Moshe Ya’alon, former defense minister of Israel, has stated that IS "apologized" for a clash in November 2016. Communication with IS is illegal under Israeli law, and is considered to be contact with an enemy agent. [4] IDF refused to comment further on the issue [4] Further, according to Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth , Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman made the assertion - which, she said, were based on UN documents - that Israel purchased oil for IS: “These links have been well documented, with reports surfacing of oil purchases from the Islamic State [i.e., Daesh], which the Israeli government headed by [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu has done”. [5]
During the ongoing Syrian civil war, the Syrian opposition and some analysts have accused President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian government of strategically releasing Islamist prisoners during the start of the Syrian crisis in an attempt to strengthen jihadist factions over other rebels. [7] [8] [9] The Syrian opposition have also accused Assad of having intelligence operatives within the ranks of ISIS, [10] and even directing ISIS attacks. [11] [12] However, "despite repeated announcements by opposition figures", there exists "no solid evidence ... that the jihadists as a whole are controlled by the [Syrian] regime. [8]
The Assad government has also been accused of funding ISIL through oil purchases. Western officials stated in 2015 that the Syrian government and ISIS jointly ran a gas plant in Tabqah using intermediates to supply electricity to both government and ISIS-held areas. [13] A report in 2015 suggested that ISIL kept gas flowing to Assad regime-controlled power stations. Furthermore, ISIL allowed grain to pass from Rojava to government-controlled areas at the cost of a 25% levy. [14] ISIL defectors interviewed by academics in 2015 and 2016 reported being "disillusioned by... upsetting alliances that included the sale of wheat stores and oil to Assad, oil some of which later found its way into barrel bombs raining down on Syrian civilians." [15] [16] This was confirmed in 2016 in Wall Street Journal reporting of documents extracted by US Special Forces in raids on ISIS operatives. [17] [16] In 2017, US and European officials said that oil sales to the Syrian government were ISIL's largest source of revenue. [18] [19]
An unpublished IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center database analysis showed that only 6% of Syrian government forces attacks were targeted at ISIL from January to November 2014, while in the same period only 13% of all ISIL attacks targeted government forces. [20] Academics who interviewed ISIL defectors in 2015-16 said their interviewees "observed regime forces strangely giving up territory to ISIS without much of a fight, and even leaving their weapons for ISIS rather than destroying them." [15] Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi had disputed such assertions in 2014, arguing that "ISIS has a record of fighting the regime on multiple fronts", many rebel factions have engaged in oil sales to the Syrian regime because it is "now largely dependent on Iraqi oil imports via Lebanese and Egyptian third-party intermediaries", and while "the regime is focusing its airstrikes [on areas] where it has some real expectations of advancing" claims that it "has not hit ISIS strongholds" are "untrue". He concluded: "Attempting to prove an ISIS-regime conspiracy without any conclusive evidence is unhelpful, because it draws attention away from the real reasons why ISIS grew and gained such prominence: namely, rebel groups tolerated ISIS." [21] Similarly, Max Abrahms and John Glaser stated in the Los Angeles Times in December 2017 that "The evidence of Assad sponsoring Islamic State... was about as strong as for Saddam Hussein sponsoring Al Qaeda." [22] According to an April 2017 IHS Markit report, ISIS fought Syrian government forces more than any other opponent between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017: "43 percent of all Islamic State fighting in Syria was directed against President Assad's forces, 17 against the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the remaining 40 percent involved fighting rival Sunni opposition groups". [6]
The Turkish government has been criticised for allowing ISIL to use Turkish territory for logistics and channelling recruits. [23] [24] [25] It has also been accused of selling arms and intelligence to ISIL, as part of its campaign against the People's Protection Units (YPG). [26] [27] [28] [29] That ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Syrian hideout was found just a few kilometers away from Turkey also raised suspicions whether Turkey was doing enough against ISIL. [30] Iraqi intelligence officers also claimed that they have observed several journeys by relatives of Al Baghdadi between Syria and Turkey. [31] [32] Turkey denies the allegations of assisting ISIL, pointing to multiple terrorist attacks ISIL has committed against civilians in Turkey, as well as multiple military confrontations between ISIL and the Turkish government. [27] The Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq similarly deny the claim that Turkey is providing aid to ISIL. [26] According to an intelligence adviser quoted by Seymour Hersh, a "highly classified assessment" carried out by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2013 concluded that Turkey had effectively transformed the secret U.S. arms program in support of moderate rebels, who no longer existed, into an indiscriminate program to provide technical and logistical support for al-Nusra Front and ISIL. [33]
In June 2014, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused the government of Saudi Arabia of funding ISIL. [34] The Saudi Arabian government rejected the claims. [35]
Some media outlets, such as NBC, the BBC, The New York Times , and the US-based think tank Washington Institute for Near East Policy have written about individual Saudi donations to the group and the Saudi state's decade-long sponsorship of Salafism and Wahhabism around the world, but concluded in 2014 that there was no evidence of direct Saudi state support for ISIL. [36] [37]
In an August 2014 email leaked in the Podesta emails, apparently from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to then counselor John Podesta, a memo states that the governments of both Saudi Arabia and Qatar "are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region." [38] [39] [40]
Lebanese former minister Charbel Wehbe also accused Saudi Arabia of supporting ISIL. [41]
Qatar has long been accused of acting as a conduit for the flow of funds to ISIL. While there is no proof that the Qatari government is involved in this movement of funds, it has been criticised for not doing enough to stem money sent by private donors in the country. [42] [43] According to some reports, US officials believe that the largest portion of private donations supporting ISIS and al Qaeda-linked groups now comes from Qatar rather than Saudi Arabia. [44]
In August 2014, German minister Gerd Müller accused Qatar of having links to ISIL, stating: "You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops. The keyword there is Qatar." Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah rejected this statement, saying: "Qatar does not support extremist groups, including [ISIL], in any way. We are repelled by their views, their violent methods and their ambitions." [45] [46] [47] [48]
Rand Paul, junior U.S. Senator from Kentucky, has accused the U.S. government of indirectly supporting ISIL in the Syrian Civil War, by arming their allies and fighting their enemies in that country. [49] After the September 2016 Deir ez-Zor air raid in which U.S led coalition air strikes reportedly killed at least 62 Syrian Arab army soldiers fighting against ISIS, Russia and Syria accused the U.S government of intentionally providing ISIS with air support. The U.S government denied the accusations and called the air strikes an accident caused by misidentification of SAA ground forces as ISIL fighters. [50] [51] Donald Trump has claimed that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton "[were] the founder[s] of ISIS". [52] Hamid Karzai former president of Afghanistan also claimed ISIS is a tool of the United States. He also asserted he can't differentiate US and ISIS. [53] [54]
A United Nations report from May 2015 [update] showed that 25,000 "foreign terrorist fighters" from 100 countries had joined "Islamist" groups, many of them working for ISIL or al-Qaeda. [55] The US-trained commander of Tajikistan's Interior Ministry OMON police special forces, Gulmurod Khalimov, has been raised to the rank of "Minister of War" within the Islamic State. [56] [57]
One of the most prominent commanders of ISIL in Syria, Abu Omar al-Shishani, served previously as a sergeant in the Georgian Army before being medically discharged, later imprisoned, becoming radicalized, then fleeing the country. [58]
A 2015 report by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University found 71 individuals charged in the United States with supporting ISIL, 250 travelling or attempting to travel to Syria or Iraq from the United States to join ISIL, and about 900 active domestic ISIL-related investigations. [59]
An October 2016 World Bank study found that "ISIL's foreign fighters are surprisingly well-educated." [60] Using the fighters' self-reported educational levels, the study concluded that "69% of recruits reported at least a secondary-level education" [60] of which "a large fraction have gone on to study at university" [61] and also that "only 15% of recruits left school before high school; less than 2% are illiterate." [60] [61] The study also found that foreign fighters are often more educated than their countrymen where those "from Europe and in Central Asia have similar levels of education to their countrymen" while those "from the Middle East, North Africa, and South and East Asia are significantly more educated than what is typical in their home nations." [60] The report notes that its conclusions that terrorism is not driven by poverty and low levels of education which conforms with previous research. [60] However, the report did find a strong correlation "between a country's male unemployment rate and the propensity of the country to supply foreign fighters". [60] Many European countries have allowed their citizens that joined ISIL to be prosecuted by Iraq. [62]
Former President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai accused Pakistan for supporting ISIS during interview with ANI that Afghanistan has evidence of Pakistan's support to ISIS. He added that there is no doubt to the above statement. [63] Pakistan has strenuously denied accusations of providing arms and medical support to Islamic State fighters.
In August 2018, Australia stripped the Australian citizenship from five terrorists who had travelled to fight with the Islamic State and barred them from entering Australia again. [64] This was only possible because they had double citizenships because international law stops the measure from being used on individuals with only one citizenship. The five brought the total to six. [65]
Up to 2018, an estimated 450 individuals had travelled from Belgium to join the civil war in Syria and Iraq. [66] Of those, 75 were linked to the Sharia4Belgium network. [67] In July 2018, courts announced that Belgium had no obligation to bring children of Islamic State members to Belgium. [68]
In November 2017, Denmark stripped a Turkish man of his Danish citizenship after having been sentenced for terror offenses related to the Islamic State, which left him with a citizenship of Turkey. [69]
Up to 2018, an estimated 1700 individuals had travelled from France to join the civil war in Syria and Iraq. [66]
Up to 2018, an estimated 940 individuals had travelled from Germany to join the civil war in Syria and Iraq. [66]
Up to 2019, about a 100 Indian nationals had joined the IS in Syria and Afghanistan while 155 individuals had been arrested for IS-related connections. Many of these came from the southern Indian state of Kerala and also from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. These numbers are considered relatively low despite India having the third-largest population of Muslims [as of 2020]. The limited involvement of Indian Muslim fighters in calls for global jihad was also observed during the Soviet–Afghan War, and various reasons have been given for this. These include the limited influence of Salafi-Wahabbism in India, inability of IS sympathizers in India to travel to IS controlled territories due to logistical factors and poverty among Indian Muslims, the existing presence of Pakistani militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad with which the IS is in open strife, and the opposition of Indian Islamic leadership to such groups (with 70,000 Barelvi clerics issuing a fatwa condemning IS and similar organisations in 2015). [70] [71]
The Parliament of Netherlands voted in 2016 for legislation to strip Dutch citizens who join ISIL or al Qaeda abroad of their citizenship, also if they have not been convicted of any crime. [72] The law can only be applied to individuals with double citizenship. Justice Minister Ard Van der Steur stated the legal changes were necessary to stop jihadists from returning to the Netherlands. [73] In September 2017, four jihadists were stripped of their citizenship. [74]
In the 2012 to November 2018 period, more than 310 individuals had travelled from the Netherlands to the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Of those 85 had been killed and 55 returned to the Netherlands. Of the surviving Dutch foreign fighters in the region, 135 are fighters in the conflict zone and three quarters are members of ISIL. The remaining quarter have joined Al-Qaeda affiliated groups such as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham or Tanzim Hurras al-Deen. [75]
Up to 2018, an estimated 300 individuals had travelled from Sweden to join the civil war in Syria. [66] In March 2018 Kurdish authorities reported they had captured 41 IS supporters with either Swedish citizenship or residence permit in Sweden, of which 5 had key positions in the organisation and one was the head of the ISIL propaganda efforts. [76]
Cabinet minister William Hague stated in 2014 that up to 400 British citizens had joined ISIL. [77] The government instituted a practice where if those who had joined had double citizenships were stripped of their British citizenship to prevent them from arriving back in the UK. By 2017, 150 individuals had been stripped of citizenship and were thus unable to enter the United Kingdom again. [78] Some relevant cells from UK were The Beatles cell known for having carried out beheadings of journalists and aid workers in Iraq and Syria. The "Britani Brigade Bangladeshi Bad Boys" were a group of five British Bangladeshis from Portsmouth, who moved to Syria in September 2013. The CCTV of the Gatwick airport watched the five men walking towards their flight. [79] The cell was led by Ifthekar Jaman, (a.k.a Abu Abdurrahman al-Britani) who was killed in December 2013 in an encounter against loyalist forces to the Syrian government. [79] [80] [81] With the pass of the war the other members were dying in combat, and it was not until 26 July of 2015 the last member of the cell (Azzam Uzzaman) were killed in action confirmed by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, [79] [82] [83]
The Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC) has identified 60 jihadist groups in 30 countries that have pledged allegiance to or support for ISIL as of mid-November 2014. That many of these groups were previously affiliated with al-Qaeda suggests a shift in global jihadist leadership towards ISIL. [84]
Members of the following groups have declared support for ISIL, either fully or in part:
In response to the effort to take Raqqa by the Syrian Democratic Forces, whose main component is the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), some Syrian Arabs in Raqqa sided with the Islamic State. [104]
"Do I regret it? I don't know if I'd use that word. They had become the government and we now worked for them. We wanted to work so we could get paid."
Suleiman al-Afari, Iraqi scientist who helped ISIL in producing chemical weapons (sentenced to death at the time of the interview) [105]
Sunni Arabs in Iraq have been accused of collaborating with ISIL against Assyrians, and Yazidis, and Shias. ISIL marked Christian homes with the letter nūn for Naṣārā [106] [107] and Shia homes with the letter rāʾ for Rāfiḍa , derogatory terms used to describe Christians and Shias by some Sunni Muslims. Properties were confiscated and given to local ISIL supporters or foreign fighters. [108] Local Sunnis were reported to have betrayed Yazidis once ISIL arrived, or colluded in advance to lure them into staying put until the ISIL invaded. [109]
57 members of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region participated in the massacre of at least 1,566 Shia cadets from the Iraqi Air Force on 12 June 2014. [110] [111]
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist group and a former unrecognised quasi-state. Its origins were in the Jai'sh al-Taifa al-Mansurah organization founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004, which fought alongside al-Qaeda during the Iraqi insurgency. The group gained global prominence in 2014, when its militants successfully captured large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, taking advantage of the ongoing Syrian civil war. By the end of 2015, it ruled an area with an estimated population of twelve million people, where it enforced its extremist interpretation of Islamic law, managed an annual budget exceeding US$1 billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters.
Al-Nusra Front, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, was a Salafi jihadist organization fighting against Syrian Ba'athist government forces in the Syrian Civil War. Its aim was to overthrow president Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic state in Syria.
Foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war refers to political, military and operational support to parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Syria that began in March 2011, as well as active foreign involvement. Most parties involved in the war in Syria receive various types of support from foreign countries and entities based outside Syria. The ongoing conflict in Syria is widely described as a series of overlapping proxy wars between the regional and world powers, primarily between the United States and Russia as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Foreign fighters have fought on all four sides of the Syrian Civil War, as well both sides of the War in Iraq. In addition to Sunni foreign fighters, Shia fighters from several countries have joined pro-government militias in Syria, leftist militants have joined Kurdish forces, and other foreign fighters have joined jihadist organizations and private military contractors recruit globally. Estimates of the total number of foreign Sunnis who have fought for the Syrian rebels over the course of the conflict range from 5,000 to over 10,000, while foreign Shia fighters numbered around 10,000 or less in 2013 rising to between 15,000 and 25,000 in 2017.
A number of states and armed groups have involved themselves in the Syrian civil war (2011-present) as belligerents. The main groups are the Syrian Arab Republic and allies, the Syrian opposition and allies, Al-Qaeda and affiliates, Islamic State, and the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces.
Following the outbreak of the protests of Syrian revolution during the Arab Spring in 2011 and the escalation of the ensuing conflict into a full-scale civil war by mid-2012, the Syrian Civil War became a theatre of proxy warfare between various regional powers such as Turkey and Iran. Spillover of the Syrian civil war into the wider region began when the Iraqi insurgent group known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) started intervening in the conflict from 2012.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian civil war from August to December 2014. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the United Kingdom. British citizens have fought as members of the group, and there has been political debate on how to punish them. On 26 September 2014, Parliament voted to begin Royal Air Force airstrikes against ISIL in northern Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government, which began four days later, using Tornado GR4 jets. On 2 December 2015, the UK Parliament authorised an extension to the Royal Air Force airstrike campaign, joining the US-led international coalition against ISIL in Syria. Hours after the vote, Royal Air Force Tornado jets began bombing ISIL-controlled oilfields.
On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the terrorist organization ISIS in support of the international war against it, code named Operation Inherent Resolve. The US currently continues to support the Syrian rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to both the Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey's involvement in the Syrian Civil War began diplomatically and later escalated militarily. Initially, Turkey condemned the Syrian government at the outbreak of civil unrest in Syria during the spring of 2011; the Turkish government's involvement gradually evolved into military assistance for the Free Syrian Army in July 2011, border clashes in 2012, and direct military interventions in 2016–17, in 2018, in 2019, 2020, and in 2022. The military operations have resulted in the Turkish occupation of northern Syria since August 2016.
The Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, also known as Islamic State in Gaza, is an Islamist militant group affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant that was reportedly active in the Gaza Strip around 2015. Its goals have consistently matched those of the Islamic State, in that it seeks to establish the al-Sham caliphate. As such, it opposes all forms of Palestinian nationalism while also supporting the elimination of all Jews and other ethno-religious 'infidels' from the region.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from January to July 2014. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Syrian Civil War involved the large-scale supply of weapons and ammunition to various rebel groups in Syria during the Syrian Civil War.
Since 2012, the Islamic State (IS) has produced annual reports giving numerical information on its operations, somewhat in the style of corporate reports, seemingly in a bid to encourage potential donors.
In early 2014, the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured extensive territory in Western Iraq in the Anbar campaign, while counter-offensives against it were mounted in Syria. Raqqa in Syria became its headquarters. The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived under its control in the two countries.
Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and training program run by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supported by some Arab intelligence services, including Saudi intelligence. The aim of the programme was to remove Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power. Launched in 2012 or 2013, it supplied money, weaponry and training to Syrian opposition militias fighting al-Assad's forces in the Syrian civil war. According to US officials, the program was run by the CIA's Special Activities Division and has trained thousands of rebels. President Barack Obama secretly authorized the CIA to begin arming Syria's embattled rebels in 2013. The program became public knowledge in mid-2016.
Opposition–ISIL conflict during the Syrian Civil War started after fighting erupted between Syrian opposition groups and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In early January 2014, serious clashes between the groups erupted in the north of the country. Opposition groups near Aleppo attacked ISIL in two areas, Atarib and Anadan, which were both strongholds of the fundamentalist Sunni organization. Despite the conflict between ISIL and other rebels, one faction of ISIL has cooperated with the al-Nusra Front and the Green Battalion to combat Hezbollah in the Battle of Qalamoun. By 2018.
The origins of the Islamic State group can be traced back to three main organizations. Earliest of these was the "Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād" organization, founded by the Jihadist leader Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi in Jordan in 1999. The other two predecessor organizations emerged during the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation forces. These included the "Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansurah" group founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004 and the "Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah" group founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his associates in the same year.
Foreign fighters in the Syrian civil war have come to Syria and joined all four sides in the war. In addition to Sunni foreign fighters arriving to defend the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or join the Syrian rebels, Shia fighters from several countries have joined pro-government militias in Syria, and leftists have become foreign fighters in the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Syrian foreign policy during the presidency of Bashar al-Assad is based on continuity from the Cold War-era policies of his father and predecessor, Hafiz al-Assad. Hafiz al-Assad was a strong supporter of Soviet Union and aligned Ba'athist Syria closely with the Eastern Bloc. During this period, Syria adopted a strong anti-Zionist posture in the region, based on its military doctrine of gaining "strategic parity" and forming joint Arab initiatives.
Salim Idris, defense minister in the rebels' provisional government, said approximately 180 Syrian Army officers are currently serving with ISIS and coordinating the group's military operations with the army.
'Hereby, on behalf of all members of our movement, in line with our sacred duties, I declare that we are in the same ranks with the Islamic State in this continued war between Islam and [non-Muslims],' Usman Gazi wrote in an online statement on Sept 26.