As it seems The West is losing its 'war on terror' [2], with jihadi recruitment accelerating dramatically in the last few years, we thought the following timeline of how ISIS got here may be a useful reminder for when Washington once again reinserts itself 'on the ground' in the Middle-East...
As BloombergBriefs notes, [3] groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State call their violent campaigns jihad — holy war waged on behalf of Islam. Mainstream Muslims argue that jihad is mostly a spiritual obligation involving internal struggle. In this view, violent jihad is permissible only in extreme cases when sanctioned by legitimate authorities. Nevertheless, the militant jihadists are winning recruits.
The number of groups engaged in violent jihad with the goal of creating their idea of purified Islamic societies grew to 49 in 2013 from three in 1988, a Rand Corp. study says. Their stated aim is to emulate Islam as practiced by the Prophet Muhammad’s early followers, known as the Salaf.
The biggest jump in recruitment started in 2010 and corresponds with the Arab uprisings, which weakened government control in parts of North Africa and the Mideast. That gave jihadist groups opportunities to expand that trumped the power of any theological position.
But ISIS had been growing long before that...
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