The menace of the IS

Letter May 03, 2015
We are living in a volatile region; adding a sectarian dimension to create new realities is not in favour of anyone

JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Apparently no one learned any lesson from the emergence and strengthening of al Qaeda in Iraq in the aftermath of the American invasion. Similarly, the Syrian civil war and Iraqi leaders’ myopic polices gave birth to another terror monster — the Islamic State (IS) — which is now controlling large swathes of land in these countries. Now we can see the IS emerging victorious from the present conflict in Yemen wherein allied forces have concentrated on demolishing and dismantling the infrastructure set up by the Houthis. The IS has availed this opportunity to not only expand its presence in Syria and Iraq but has also strengthened its foothold in Yemen. With the Gulf Cooperation Council’s present focus on checking the advance of the Houthis in Yemen, the IS and other terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda’s affiliated al Nusra front, are finding this diversion helpful in expanding their influence without attracting a lot of attention.

The aim of the IS is to divide the region along sectarian lines while doing away with the present borders to establish a ‘caliphate’. We are already living in a volatile region; adding a sectarian dimension to create new realities is not in favour of anyone, whether it is a regional power or a superpower.

Masood Khan

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4th,  2015.

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