The Iraqi Jihadists, as big and notorious as they are, are a very mysterious militant group, but there are some important things to know about the previously al-Qaeda-linked forces.
- The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a group of Sunni jihadists led by 43-year-old Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
- ISIS seeks to create an Islamic state in eastern Syria and northern Iraq based on sharia law. Thus far, the group has captured territory from the fringes of Aleppo in eastern Syria to Falluja in southern Iraq to Mosul in the north.
- ISIS was thought to have around 6,000 members prior to seizing Mosul and Tikrit. But the conquest of key Iraqi cities has undoubtedly inspired many jihadis.
- ISIS ultimately split from al-Qaeda because Baghdadi’s group had a different goal in mind: capturing swaths of territory to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state.
- ISIS’s funding is a combination of outside private donations and domestically generated revenue in areas that they control.
- The failure of the Iraqi government has led to the ISIS gaining large support from the local communities.
