Road To The End of ISIS |Abu Bakr al Baghdadi |Daesh |ISIL
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a militant group officially known as the Islamic State (IS) and also known by its Arabic acronym, Daesh and ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) follows a fundamentalist, Salafi jihadist doctrine of Sunni Islam. The end of ISIS caliphate began in February 2017, when they lost 95 percent of its territory, including two of its biggest properties, Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city; and the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.
ISIS is known for their extremist terror activities which they have been broadcasting via their videos of beheading victims captured. They have carried out the executions of both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and the destruction of cultural heritage sites. The United Nations holds ISIS responsible for committing human rights abuses, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The militia group is also committed to ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale in northern Iraq.
In 2014, ISIS took control of Fallujah and Ramadi, inciting conflict with the Iraqi Army. After this, ISIL insurgents began their efforts to capture Mosul and defeated the Iraqi Army, led by Lieutenant General Mahdi Al-Gharrawi. The city, Mosul International Airport, and the helicopters located there all fell under ISIL’s control. An estimated 500,000 civilians fled from the city, due to the conflict. On June 29, 2014, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi declared the formation of a caliphate stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq.
As the power of Daesh rose in Iraq, the US-led coalition began airstrikes to initiate “the end of ISIS”. On August 7, 2014, the US administration expanded the campaign named “Operation Inherent Resolve” in Syria the following month.
In 2015, the United States of America conducted more than 8,000 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria towards the end of ISIS. IS suffered from huge loss along Syria’s border with Turkey. By the end of 2015, Iraqi forces gained ground in recapturing Ramadi, but in Syria, ISIS made gains to capture Aleppo, and still solidly held Raqqa and other strongholds.
To enhanced its terror in the world and prevent the end of ISIS, ISIL expanded its facilitation network in at least eight other countries. Its branches and affiliates increasingly carried out attacks beyond the borders of its so-called caliphate. In October, ISIS’s Egypt affiliate bombed a Russian flight, killing 224 people onboard. On November 13, 130 people were killed and more than 300 were injured in a series of coordinated attacks that began over about 35 minutes at six locations in central Paris.
In August 2016, according to Western intelligence agencies, ISIL had a multilevel secret service known as Emni in Arabic. It was established in 2014 and became the coordinator between an internal police force and external operations directorate to compete with other regional branches. The unit was believed to be under the command of ISIL’s most senior Syrian operative, spokesman, and propaganda chief, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, until he died in an airstrike in late August 2016 — considered a big step towards the end of ISIS network.
In 2017, the end of ISIS reflected as ISIL caliphate lost 95 percent of its territory, including two of its biggest properties, northern Syrian city of Raqqa, and Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city. The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi declared triumph over the Islamic State in Iraq on December 9, 2017. However, ISIS was all the while motivated to carry out attacks everywhere around the world, including the New York City.
In 2018, the focal point of the crusade against ISIS moved to eastern Syria, where a US-upheld alliance of Syrian Kurds and Arabs known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gradually captured key ISIS positions. The SDF briefly suspended its offensive in November 2018 after Turkish attacks on Kurdish positions diverted. On December 14, the SDF captured Hajin town. Hajin’s fall reduced the ISIS-captured regions to a couple of towns along the Euphrates River, close to the Iraqi fringe.
In late December 2018, Trump declared that ISIS was defeated and it sounds like the end of ISIS, but actually he signaled his intention towards withdrawing all of U.S. military’s 2,000 troops who fought alongside the SDF in Syria. But after this, the SDF continued its offensive and launched the final siege on ISIS forces in Baghuz, the last holdout in February 2019.
In the final battle in 2019, the SDF alliance began its final assault on IS at the start of March, with the remaining militants holed up in the village of Baghuz in eastern Syria. The alliance was instructed to slow its offensive and bring the end of ISIS after it was discovered that many civilians were also there, sheltering in buildings and tunnels. Thousands of women, children, and foreign nationals were among them, who fled the fighting and severe shortages to make their way to SDF-run camps for displaced persons. Later on, on 23 March 2019, Baghuz fell, formally ending the caliphate’s claim of any territory.
On 27 October 2019, the era of “the end of ISIS” began when Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was targeted in a US Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs raid. He died after he detonated a suicide vest in Barisha, Idlib, Syria. The raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was launched using the same old-fashioned tool that led to Osama bin Laden: human intelligence. U.S. President Donald Trump stated in a televised announcement that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from 2014 died during the operation and that American special forces used support from helicopters, jets, and drones through airspace controlled by Russia and Turkey. Trump thanked Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and the Syrian Kurdish forces for their support.
The aftermath of conflict, USCENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie and other experts observed that ISIS remains a threat to regional and global security despite its territorial defeat in March 2019. To ensure the end of ISIS completely, more work is required towards rebuilding the region’s social fabric, enabling people to move forward sustainably and peacefully.
