Since the beginning of this century (21st), the attention of political authorities, journalists and scholars have turned to the phenomenon of terrorism based on “Islamic radicalism”; especially after the attack launched against the United States on September 11, 2001, by the al-Qaeda terrorist network – then led by the Saudi Osama Bin Laden – and the subsequent war against Saddan Hussein's regime in Iraq, started in 2003 by the United States, under the then president George W. Bush.
Terrorism is characterized by violent action against the defenseless civilian population as a means of claim of political concerns, generally based on territorial dispute, and ethnic and religious. Throughout history, this phenomenon has been present in various regions of the world. Among the most notable cases, we can mention, on the European continent, the IRA and ETA groups, which operate in Ireland and Spain, respectively. In the specific case of the Middle East, the terrorist practice is used by different groups and in different countries. One of these groups has currently received special attention; it's about the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (EIIS). In English – as it is better known –, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).What is the Islamic State?
Like other terrorist groups, the EIIS, generally known only as Islamic state, bases its ideology, projects and actions on radical interpretations of the principles of the holy book of Islam, the Al Koran. THE jihad, “holy war” for Muslims, underlies these radical interpretations. Under the pretext of expanding the Islamic faith and fighting against the distortion of the traditional values of Islam, the Islamic State has been carrying out attacks in the northern region of Iraq, border with Syria, since the fall of the authoritarian government of Saddan Hussein in 2003 and the recent attempts to overthrow the government of Bashar Al Assad, president of Syria, since 2012.
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Excerpt from the Al Koran in English referring to the holy war of the Muslims, or Jihad.
The formation of this group is linked to the fate that the al-Qaeda network took after the September 11 attacks and the American retaliations. The Islamic State, initially, was a derivative arm of the Bin Landen organization, which worked in Iraq, against the Americans, and in Syria, against Bashar Al Assad. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghadi, proclaimed himself caliph (title traditionally given to a Muslim ruler) in June 2014, effectively separating from Al Qaeda.
Goals
Therefore, the main objective of the group is to consolidate in the referred region an Islamic regime in the mold of a caliphate, that is, a political regime that refers to the successors of the prophet Mohammed and that follows political-religious precepts derived from Islamic law, or Sharia. Among these precepts, the following stand out:
- deprivation of freedom of expression;
- rejection of behaviors such as homosexuality;
- the institution of strict rules of conduct for women, such as wearing the burka – traditional clothing that completely hides the female body.
The main cities dominated by the Islamic State are Mosul, Tal Afar, Kirkuk and Tikrit, located on the border between Iraq and Syria. Large numbers of Christians who, given the rise of this radical Islamic group, also coexisted with the Iraqi Islamic population in these cities. they had to migrate to neighboring cities for reasons of religious intolerance on the part of the terrorist group that, not infrequently, promotes massacres against the population Christian.
Despite being a terrorist group characterized by localized actions and with no apparent connections outside the Middle East, the Islamic State is considered a latent threat to the West and neighboring countries that do not profess the Islamic faith, such as Israel.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes