Who Created ISIS?

The founding of a terrorist state.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a terrorist who instigated a holy war between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. He originally came from Jordan, and started out as a petty criminal. He did drugs, got tattoos, and allegedly worked as a pimp. After guns and explosives were found in his house, he was thrown in jail. There, he gained a reputation as a cellblock enforcer. He also grew more fanatical in his Islamic theology. Using a blade, the zealot shaved off his own skin, believing that tattoos were sinful. After five years, he was released from prison. By that time, he was a relentless jihadist holy warrior, with grandiose ambitions to establish an Islamic empire. After leaving Jordan, he went to Kandahar, Afghanistan. There, he attempted to meet with bin Laden. Neither Osama nor his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were impressed. They regarded him as an unsophisticated thug unworthy of al-Qaeda. 

Invasion of Iraq

In 2002, President Bush indicated his intentions to depose Saddam Hussein. Seizing an opportunity, Zarqawi moved to a terrorist camp in northern Iraq. The CIA was alarmed. Sam Faddis, who ran a kill-or-capture team, received the case. It did not take long for Faddis to figure out what was going on with Zarqawi and the terrorist camp. They were working on chemical and biological weapons, such as weaponized cyanide. It was an opportune time to kill Zarqawi and his conspirators. But the Bush administration was distracted with overthrowing Saddam, so the mission was not followed through. The CIA erupted in frustration. Vice President Cheney saw Zarqawi as evidence of Saddam’s sponsorship of terrorism. However, CIA officials made it clear that Saddam had no connection to this rogue actor. In fact, Saddam would have likely killed the terrorist without hesitation. But the Bush administration perceived Saddam to be the dominant threat. Colin Powell prepared a speech to the United Nations, making the case for invading Iraq. It was vetted by senior analysts at the CIA. Powell delivered his speech on February 5, 2003. He invoked Zarqawi to draw a connection between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda. In the days following the speech, Zarqawi disappeared. 

Insurgency

By May of 2003, American soldiers had successfully invaded Iraq. Paul Bremer promised to purge the Ba’athist government, and disband the army. 250,000 soldiers were fired. These disaffected troops formed the basis of an insurgency against the American occupation. Suicide bombers detonated trucks across the country. Zarqawi was behind it. One of the targets was the UN headquarters. He was determined to turn the conflict into a one-on-one confrontation between the terrorists and the United States. NGOs fled the country in panic. Baghdad degenerated into an eerie militarized zone. The Bush administration refused to acknowledge the existence of an organized resistance to the American occupation. But the insurgency was frightening real, and it was being orchestrated by Zarqawi. Zarqawi asserted himself even more aggressively, when he personally beheaded an 26-year-old American radio repairman named Nick Berg. This horrific act of brutality was filmed on video, and released publicly after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Overnight, Zarqawi became an idol among disaffected Sunni youth across the world. Finally, the terrorist had caught the attention of the Bush administration. The US government placed a 25 million bounty on his head. With Zarqawi’s newfound notoriety, it was impossible for Osama to ignore him any longer. Bin Laden was eager to lend him the al-Qaeda brand. Zarqawi told Osama of his plans to foment a sectarian civil war in Iraq. The goal was to agitate the Shiites, who would then lash out at the Sunnis. As a result, the Sunnis would be forced to ask the jihadists for protection. Zarqawi’s incitement was successful. Iraq erupted into a faith-based war. Car bombs blew up everywhere. There were targeted mass killings. Assassinations were a daily occurrence. He became known as the Sheik of the Slaughters. From his torture cells he filmed gruesome beheading videos. But even Osama was sickened by the violence against other Muslims. Al-Qaeda ordered him to stop, but Zarqawi insisted it was the only way to incite a Sunni insurgency against the American occupation. In February of 2006, Zarqawi blew up the golden dome of the Al-Askari Mosque, a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Within hours, Iraq fell into uncontrollable chaos. Tens of thousands died. Zarqawi grew even bolder. This time, he showed his face on camera. He filmed himself firing an American-made machine gun, albeit incorrectly. He proclaimed his intentions to create an Islamic state, the first step toward a global caliphate. His vision was one of religious apocalypticism, in which the creation of a worldwide caliphate would usher in the End Times. Receiving a tip, the US military located and bombed Zarqawi’s hideout. The dangerous terrorist was finally dead. With Zarqawi gone, the Bush administration took the initiative to quell Iraq’s sectarian violence. A surge of American troops were sent in to keep the peace. It was commanded by General David Petraeus, who implemented a new counter-insurgency strategy. Using millions of dollars, Petraeus paid off Sunni tribes  who had once worked with Zarqawi. They defected from al-Qaeda, and cooperated with the US military to destroy it. One by one, US special forces and former Sunni militants hunted down Zarqawi’s followers. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was systematically eviscerated. Only about 37 al-Qaeda individuals were left. They were driven underground for the next three years. The war seemed won. 

Syrian caliphate

By 2009, the newly elected president inherited the Iraq War. Obama publicly announced his intention to withdraw from Iraq by 2011. Meanwhile, Zarqawi’s remaining followers began to rebuild in northwestern Iraq. They coalesced around a new leader, named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A religious scholar with a PhD, Baghdadi grew increasingly jihadist while in American custody during the Iraq War. He claimed to be a direct successor of the Prophet Muhammad, in order to gain political legitimacy. A ruthless leader, he managed to eliminate rivals and claw his way to power. In the process, he attracted flocks of new supporters. Using Zarqawi’s playbook, he looked for a weak government to exploit. He found one in neighboring Syria, where a civil war was breaking out. Protests against Assad had gained sway, but were met with bloody crackdowns. As unrest grew, Baghdadi secretly sent his agents to provoke strife in Syria. This was done to erode the borders between Iraq and Syria, out of which a global caliphate could grow. In Damascus, Baghdadi and his terrorists announced their presence through car bombs. Those tactics were all too familiar from al-Qaeda’s insurgency in Iraq. As Syria grew increasingly unstable, the Pentagon feared that moderate secular reformers would be overtaken by the new resurgent al-Qaeda. Against the hawkish voices in his administration, President Obama refused to get bogged down in another Middle Eastern war. Assad continued to crack down on the rebels. His aircraft rained down barrel bombs on Syria’s neighborhoods. After a year of this, Obama changed his mind. He authorized the sale of light weapons to the moderate Syrian rebels. But it was too late. By that time, Baghdadi’s forces had already outgrown the moderates. It was exactly what the State Department had feared. Without American involvement, the anti-Assad resistance was hijacked by Sunni extremists. By 2013, Baghdadi’s army had conquered vast swathes of Syria. With these victories, Baghdadi attracted flocks of foreign fighters from around the globe. Thousands came from Western Europe, Tunisia, and the former Soviet Union. Now the leader of a political state, Baghdadi proclaimed a new caliphate based on Raqqa, Syria. It was called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS for short. ISIS had now gained its own unique identity, distinct from that of al-Qaeda. Within the borders of the caliphate, ISIS ruled through barbarism and brutality. Much of it was caught on camera, and released for propaganda purposes. Men suspected of homosexuality were stoned to death, in truly Old Testament fashion. Women were stoned to death. Some victims were blown up in cars. Others were skinned alive. Still others were beheaded or even crucified. Despite the growth of the Caliphate, Obama resisted the use of military force. “The notion that the way to solve every one of these problems is to deploy our military, that hasn’t been true in the past, and it won’t be true now,” the president argued. The threat of ISIS still seemed distant. 

Expansion into Iraq

In the years since American withdrawal, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, had cracked down on the country’s Sunni population. The Sunni tribes were growing restless against Maliki’s government in Baghdad. Protests broke out against the regime. When Maliki crushed the riots, ISIS seized the chance to intervene on behalf of the Sunnis. The Caliphate rolled into Fallujah, Ramadi, and then Mosul. On July 4, 2014, Baghdadi entered Mosul’s Great Mosque. It was the only time he showed his face publicly, after the capture of Mosul. From the pulpit, he declared himself the ruler of an Islamic caliphate. Under Baghdadi, the Caliphate had grown to levels unseen before. Over the previous two years, the nascent terrorist organization had been assaulted by the US, Iraq, Russia, Iran, and many others. Despite losing some territory, the group had already ballooned into a global threat. Terrorist attacks were being perpetrated across Western countries, such as Canada and Denmark. Over 90 attacks occurred globally. Over 40 affiliates existed in 16 countries. By 2019, the Caliphate had lost all of its Middle Eastern territory, reduced to its former status of an insurgency. Baghdadi was assassinated on October 27, 2019. Since then, four of its caliphs were successively eliminated. Although largely crushed, the terrorist caliphate continues to exist. A fifth caliph, Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, was named on August 3, 2023.

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