Reemergence of Islamic extremism

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The internet and its extensive use have made it possible for people with a strong view of the world to communicate with like-minded folks. Common philosophies are finding new followers while those who are "fence sitters" come down and become adherents of the views being advertised on the internet. Belonging to this category of believers are the Islamic extremists who are able to spread their word among those who are searching for new ways of ordering their lives. "Terrorism is essentially communications," said Hans-Jacob Schindler, a former United Nations diplomat who is a senior director of the Counter Extremist Project, a think-tank with offices in New York and Berlin. "It is not warfare because obviously ISIS cannot militarily defeat the West. They tried and it didn't exactly end well." It has gone on a different route, transforming the movement into a global franchise beyond the Middle East with active chapters in countries such as Afghanistan, Turkey and several sub-Saharan African states.

One recent example of this is the man who, after converting to Islam, used a hired truck to plough into the large crowd that was out on the street in New Orleans celebrating the arrival of the new year. With conversion came a change in name, Shamsud-Din Jabbar. He informed his family that he had become a Muslim. However, becoming a Muslim didn't mean becoming a terrorist which was what he became when he made the switch. After careful planning which included a couple of bicycle trips to New Orleans, he killed fourteen people and injured many more. He was shot to death by the police that arrived soon after he had killed the pedestrians.

The police went into the van he had used as the instrument of death and found an Islamic State flag. "By carrying a ISIS flag with him during the attack, the suspect wanted to show that he was a true believer, aligned with the ISIS cause, and perhaps hoping to trigger others into following suit," said Colin P Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York.

The New Orleans killing revived analytical interest in Islamic extremism and the possible rise of the ISIS. It was recalled that the Islamic State is a Sunni organisation that is not only critical of the Shiite sect but is working to weaken the states which had large number of followers of the rival sect. Iran is the most prominent Shiite state and its involvement in the crisis in the Middle East has revived interest in understanding how the clash between Islam's two sects are likely to affect world affairs. With this being the context, it would be useful to go into the history of ISIS.

The ISIS owes its origin to the ill-advised and ill-conceived invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003. The Americans sent their troops to rid the country of Saddam Hussein, a despotic ruler, intolerant of opposition. The government in Washington then headed by President George W Bush had concluded that the Iraqi regime was developing a nuclear bomb. It had to be prevented to acquire what was described as a weapon of mass destruction. The dictator was deposed and killed, and the army he had headed was disbanded. But no nuclear devise was found. In the vacuum thus created, Islamic groups got organised to oppose the Americans. They combined to form what became ISIS, an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Under the leadership of Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS took advantage of the raging civil war in Syria which was an offshoot of the Arab Spring of 2011 that had thrown out several dictators that dominated the political systems in parts of the Arab world.

In 2014, the ISIS seized Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and declared itself a caliphate – a state governed by Islamic principles. However, the leaders of the group did not define what were the Islamic principles of governance they were going to follow. While establishing itself in Iraq, it orchestrated and inspired a series of attacks across Europe. In October 2019, the United States intelligence services followed Baghdadi and killed him, an act announced to the world by President Donald Trump saying that the man killed was "the founder and leader of ISIS, the most ruthless and violent terror organization in the world". He added: "We obliterated his caliphate, 100 percent, in March of the year."

Baghdadi's removal did not minimise the attacks by ISIS. Of the several acts of violence, there were some exceptionally brutal including the one in New Orleans. In January 2024, the group's Afghan affiliate known as ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) carried out two bombings in Iran at a memorial procession for General Qasem Soleimani, a top military official who was killed in an American drone attack in 2020. In the ISIS attack, more than 80 people were killed and scores were injured, some seriously.

A few months after the Tehran operation, American officials blamed ISIS-K for a deadly concert hall attack near Moscow that killed at least 137 people. In June 2024, ISIS claimed responsibility for a shooting in Oman that killed six people and injured 30 more near a Shiite mosque.

Counterterrorism experts have divided ISIS operations into three broad categories. The first are those directed outright by ISIS and carried out by people trained in Iraq and Syria. These cases were the deadliest including the coordinated attacks in Paris and Brussels, the first in November 2015 and the second in March 2016 that took a total of 162 lives. The second category is what the experts called "enabled" when ISIS prompted violence by using the internet. The third category is labeled "inspired" which are mostly carried out be lone-wolf operators such as the one that took place in New Orleans in January 2025.

While the rebel groups that led to the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad was not inspired by ISIS, experts believe there are 9,000 Islamic State warriors housed in 20 facilities in Syria. Of special concern for Pakistan is the growing strength of ISIS-K which operates in the border areas the country shares with Afghanistan. It is fighting Afghanistan's Taliban government which it regards as insufficiently strict in enforcing the Islamic way of life on the country's citizens. An American official said that Kabul under Taliban has made some progress against ISIS-K but is struggling to prevent attacks and disband urban cells that operate under the direction of the main body.