Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The so-called Islamic State (IS, Arabic الدولة الإسلامية, DMG ad-daula al-islāmīya) is a Salafist militia with thousands of members that has been terrorizing since 2003 and was a jihadist "state-building project" declared as a "caliphate". Due to its lack of recognition, however, the IS was at no time a state in the sense of international law.

The organization controlled parts of Iraq until December 2017 as well as parts of Syria until March 2019 and recruits members for civil wars as well as terrorist attacks. It is accused of genocide, destruction of human cultural heritage and other war crimes.

Organizational beginnings date back to the Iraqi resistance. In 2004, the grouping was under al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and from 2011 to June 2014 under Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Arabic الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام, DMG ad-daula al-islāmiyya fī l-ʿIrāq wa-š-Šām, respectively. the transcribed Arabic acronym Daesh or Daesh (داعش, DMG Dāʿiš), as well as under the name Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

After the military conquest of a contiguous area in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, the militia announced on June 29, 2014, the establishment of a caliphate with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "Caliph Ibrahim - Commander of the Faithful". This is associated with the claim to succeed the Prophet Mohammed as the political and religious leader of all Muslims.

Initially, IS professed allegiance to al-Qaeda, from whose leadership it broke away around mid-2013 and was expelled by Aiman az-Zawahiri in January 2014. The IS leadership is formed, among others, by a group of former intelligence officers of the Iraqi armed forces from the Saddam Hussein era, led by Haji Bakr until his death in January 2014.

In the Syrian civil war, IS fought against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, but also against the Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish minority in the north. Since August 2014, IS positions have been targets of airstrikes by an international alliance, in which several Western and Arab states have participated since September. Furthermore, the IS fought against the political camps of western and eastern Libya in the second Libyan civil war from 2014 onwards, but was driven out of its local stronghold of Sirte in August 2016 and forced underground.

The United Nations Security Council and the German government officially classify IS as a terrorist organization. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl ash-Shaykh, called IS together with al-Qaeda "enemies number one of Islam".

The last village under IS control inside Syria was al-Baghuz Fawqani, which was captured by SDF fighters on March 23, 2019. Since then, most coverage of IS activity has shifted to Afghanistan and the continent of Africa, although IS continued to carry out attacks in Syria and Iraq after the Battle of Baghuz.

Names

Since the end of June 2014, the organization has only called itself Islamic State. According to political scientist Volker Perthes, the organization, which he characterizes as a "jihadist state-building project," wants to emphasize that it wants to expand beyond Iraq and the Levant by abandoning former name components.

Until the end of 2014, the organization called itself "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria" (Arabic الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام, DMG ad-daula al-islāmiyya fī l-ʿIrāq wa-š-Šām; can also be translated as "... in the Levant" or "... in Greater Syria"), from which the common abbreviations ISIS, ISIL, and ISIG are also derived. A foreign term is the rather negative abbreviation Daesh (داعش, DMG dāʿiš, also spelled Daesh, Da'ish, or Daaish), coined in 2013 by the Syrian activist Khaled al-Haj Salih, which is derived from the initial Arabic letters and is widespread in the Arabic-speaking world.

The abbreviation داعش, DMG dā'iš 'ISIS' ("Islamic State in Iraq and Syria") looks similar in Arabic script to the term داعس, DMG dāʿis 'one who tramples something underfoot'. Therefore, this abbreviation is forbidden within IS-occupied territories, and there is a threat of punishment if it is used. In numerous Middle Eastern countries, however, this abbreviation has been adopted into the local vocabulary. This is intended to deliberately counter the organization's own name, which has positive connotations in the Islamic sense, and to avoid a direct association with Islam.

The IS does not speak of borders, but of "fronts", thus fulfilling an important characteristic of an openly aspired empire. Further, former names of the organization or its predecessors (JTJ, Az-Zarqawi network, TQJBR, AQI) are given in the History section.

Iraq and the countries of the Levant (in today's borders)

Funding

IS was considered the richest terrorist organization in the world with an estimated fortune of two billion US dollars (as of January 2015). During the conquest of Mosul and the looting of the central bank, 429 million US dollars alone ended up in the hands of the IS in June 2014. The IS "business model" was based on several pillars:

• Oil: IS was largely financed by the revenue from the sale of crude oil from captured oil fields. Until the first air strikes on oil fields in October 2014, oil was produced and sold daily for 3 million US dollars. By the end of 2014, the figures had dropped to around 360,000 US dollars per day.
• Looting: An additional source of income was the sale of antique finds from looted excavations at archaeological sites and the looting of museums. By the end of 2014, archaeological finds from Syria alone worth 30 million US dollars are said to have been smuggled into the West and brought here into the art trade with forged papers.
• Ransom and slavery: Claims from kidnappings as well as the "auctioning" of children and women (especially captured Yazidis and Christians) on slave markets represent another source of income. Girls and women between the ages of 10 and 20 were auctioned for the equivalent of 68 euros; children up to the age of 9 fetched prices as high as the equivalent of 135 euros. Abducted Western hostages were released for between 3 and 5 million US dollars.
• Donations: The IS is financed by donations from wealthy private individuals, religious foundations and mosque associations, especially from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
• Taxes: The IS collects taxes from traders, which are 10% each for sales and property taxes, as well as customs duties (between $200 and $500 per shipment). In addition, the IS received rental income for over 20,000 apartments and shops in Mosul amounting to 3 million US dollars per month. The IS kept detailed records of all transactions.

The Islamic State proclaims on its websites and social networks the introduction of a gold dinar, which is successively put into circulation.