Territorial expansion

As it expanded the territory under its control, ISIS benefitted from an impasse in the Syrian conflict. With Iranian support, Assad had survived an initial opposition onslaught in 2012 and 2013. After the failure of the Geneva II talks in January 2014, it was clear both sides still believed in a military solution to the conflict. An investigation in 2014 found that Assad’s army had conducted 90% of its raids on opposition targets, largely abstaining from targeting ISIS.[1] ISIS’ presence served the government’s narrative well, but at that point, the Syrian opposition rebels were also a more immediate threat than ISIS to the power centres controlled by Assad.[2] As a result, ISIS was largely left alone—until much later, when it had grown too great a threat to ignore.

Meanwhile, ISIS forces increased attacks across the border in Iraq. This included a prison attack in Tikrit, which helped swell its ranks, followed by attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shi’a civilians.[3] The combination of ISIS’ terror attacks and a heavy-handed security response by Prime Minister Maliki’s Shi’a-dominated security forces opened Iraq’s deep sectarian wounds. Once again, ISIS was able to capitalise on Sunni discontent and it allied itself with Sunni militant groups it had previously been fighting.[4] In early 2014, ISIS took control of the city of Fallujah, which had been the epicentre of the insurgency against US forces a decade earlier.[5] ISIS then announced it had become an “Islamic emirate.”[6]

The late spring and summer of 2014 saw substantial ISIS gains on both sides of the border. In Syria, ISIS clashed with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and other Kurdish militia groups, taking control of Tal Abyad, and laying siege to Kobane; by late August, the group squeezed the Syrian army out of the Tabqa airbase, later executing at least 200 soldiers, which left it in complete control of Raqqa province.[7] Arguably more significant gains, though, were made in Iraq, where the group captured Samarra and Tikrit. Then, in late June, 1,300 ISIS fighters overran Iraqi security forces to capture Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities.[8] With Mosul under its control, ISIS now dominated territory between northern Iraq and the outskirts of Aleppo. On the back of their recent victory, ISIS declared that the “caliphate has returned.”[9] Baghdadi ascended the pulpit of the al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul and embraced his role as the “caliph”, whom all Muslims were to follow.[10]

Just as ISIS capitalised on domestic conditions in Syria and Iraq, it also benefitted from favourable geopolitical developments. US support for Iraqi security forces had resulted in copious amounts of heavy weaponry, including tanks and Humvees, being captured by ISIS in Mosul. There were similar instances in which Syrian opposition forces were forced out and overrun; others simply sold their weapons to ISIS.[11] ISIS allegedly also benefitted from the wider financial resources available to radical groups from private donors in the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, which were not restricted until well into 2013.[12]

Once ISIS had declared its caliphate, and in light of its extreme interpretation of takfir, it had a growing list of enemies in the Middle East and beyond. Many states saw ISIS as an immediate threat to their interests and security in a way that Syria, led by Assad, was not. Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but also Western states and Russia, feared the success of Islamist extremists that could threaten their regional interests but also feed the aspirations of domestic terrorists. ISIS’ brutality also played a large part in ensuring it would soon face a large coalition of international states and regional actors assembled to fight it. Its treatment of the Yazidi minority, which included mass killings, sexual slavery, torture, and forcible transfers, among other abuses, received widespread international attention. Many atrocities occurred across northeast Syria, some of which will be discussed in Part 2 of this report.

The US-led Global Coalition Against Da’esh began bombing ISIS positions in Iraq in August 2014. On 23 September that year, the campaign was extended to Syria, where Kurdish forces were struggling to face off an ISIS siege in Kobane along the Syrian-Turkish border.[13] The move brought US airpower into the Syrian war—not in the way that the armed opposition had long hoped for, against Assad, but instead to deal with the threat of an Islamist extremist group with more territorial control than any al-Qaida franchise ever had.

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