This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Bucknell chapter.

In the past year and half, ISIS has solidified their presence in the world through horrible, unjust acts of violence. After being featured constantly on the news for these violent acts, most people can recognize the name ISIS and attribute it to a militant group located in the Middle East. But past that, most people don’t fully understand what ISIS is, why they exist, or what their aims and strategies are because they are such a complex and confusing group. In the last five months, four Americans have been killed by ISIS, making it even more pressing for us to try to understand who exactly ISIS is. HerCampus Bucknell has put together some fast facts to help you begin to understand.

ISIS stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It started as an al Qaeda splinter group with the aim to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria. ISIS technically originated in October 2006 when the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq announced the creation of an Islamic State in Iraq named ISI. Seven years later in April of 2013, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced that ISI had gained an al Qaeda-backed militant group in Syria and that ISI would now go by the current name, ISIS.

ISIS’s aim is to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria that will be led by a supreme religious leader called a caliph, which means successor in Arabic. Sunni’s believe that such caliph’s are chosen by Allah from the Family of the House and therefore are a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. On June 29, 2014, ISIS announced the creation of an Islamic State across regions of Iraq and Syria that erases all borders and makes ISIS leader al-Baghdadi the self-declared caliph over the world’s estimated 1.5 billion Muslims. At this time, the United Nations announces they believe an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes in the making of the ISIS state.

The majority of ISIS fighters are Iraqi Sunnis and it is estimated by the CIA that ISIS has between 20,000 and 31,5000 fighters across Iraq and Syria. An important factor in ISIS’s resurgence is the conflict between Iraqi Shias and Iraqi Sunnis. The conflict between Sunnis and Shias began in 632AD when the Prophet Muhammad died and both groups wanted to take power. So, ISIS uses the tensions between the two groups be as a recruiting tool for Sunnis. The majority of Iraqis are Shias but the ex-dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was a Sunni and his power gave the Sunnis the belief that they are the legitimate rulers and majority.

While US troops and allied Sunni militias were able to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, they did not destroy all of its fighters. General Ray Odierno, the US commander in Iraq, has been quoted as describing al-Qaeda and ISIS as “fundamentally the same.” In the past few years, ISIS members have begun to regroup following the freeing of many of their highest, senior members. When ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released from Camp Bucca, he told his captors “I’ll see you guys in New York.”

While we have yet to see ISIS in New York, he has made many attacks on Americans. On August 19, 2014 in a video posted on YouTube, ISIS militants decapitate US journalist James Foley. On September 2, 2014, ISIS released a video of the beheading of another US Journalist, Steven Sotloff. Just this month on February 6th, ISIS posted a message online that American hostage Kayla Jean Mueller had been killed. In the subsequent months since September ISIS has released messages and videos of American, British, Japanese and Jordan hostages being executed.

Since September, with the release of the first beheadings, the United States has carried out airstrikes against ISIS and other attacks with the help of other Western countries like Britain. The U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria concluded that ISIS has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity and leaders of the militant group should be held accountable.

On February 11, President Barack Obama formally asked Congress to authorize use of military force against ISIS. In addition to his proposal Obama wrote a letter to Congress explaining that ISIS poses a “grave threat” to U.S national security interests and regional stability. While Congress agrees that the U.S needs to adopt and pass some kind of legislation to authorize the ongoing war against ISIS, they did not accept Obama’s February 11th proposal. But, such legislation is extremely important and over the next few days and weeks a resolution is expected to occur in the authorization of the war against ISIS.

Works Consulted:

ISIS: What You Need to Know

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