Islamic State

Name

The Islamic State, abbreviated IS, is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL EYE-sil), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS EYE-siss), and by its Arabic acronym Daesh (داعش, Dāʿish, IPA: [ˈdaːʕɪʃ]), and also as Dawlat al-Islām (دولة الإسلام). In April 2013, having expanded into Syria, the group adopted the name ad-Dawla al-Islāmiyya fī l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām (الدَّولةُ الإِسْلَامِيَّة فِي ٱلْعِرَاق وَٱلشَّام). As al-Shām is a region often compared with the Levant or the region of Syria, the group's name has been variously translated as "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham", "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (both abbreviated as ISIS), or "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (abbreviated as ISIL). In 2014, Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah dubbed ISIS as "QSIS" for "al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria", arguing that the group does not represent the vast majority of Muslims.

While the use of either one or the other acronym has been the subject of debate, the distinction between the two and its relevance has been considered less important. Of greater relevance is the name Daesh, which is an acronym of ISIL's Arabic name ad-Dawla al-Islamiyya fī l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām, or Daesh. This name is widely used among the Muslim world, as well as ISIL's Arabic-speaking detractors, for example when referring to the group whilst speaking amongst themselves, although—and to a certain extent because⁠—it is considered derogatory, as it resembles the Arabic words Daes ("one who crushes, or tramples down, something underfoot") and Dāhis (loosely translated as "one who sows discord"). Within areas under its control, ISIL considers use of the name Daesh punishable by flogging.

In late June 2014, the group renamed itself ad-Dawla al-Islāmiyya (lit. 'Islamic State' or IS), declaring itself a worldwide caliphate. The name "Islamic State" and the group's claim to be a caliphate have been widely rejected, with the UN, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups refusing to use the new name. The group's declaration of a new caliphate in June 2014 and its adoption of the name "Islamic State" have been criticised and ridiculed by Muslim scholars and rival Islamists both inside and outside the territory it controls.

In a speech in September 2014, United States president Barack Obama said that ISIL was neither Islamic (on the basis that no religion condones the killing of innocents) nor a state (in that no government recognises the group as a state), while many object to using the name Islamic State owing to the far-reaching religious and political claims to authority which that name implies. The United Nations Security Council, the United States, Canada, Turkey, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries generally call the group ISIL, while much of the Arab world uses the Arabic acronym Dāʻish or Daesh. France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: "This is a terrorist group and not a state. I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists. The Arabs call it 'Daesh' and I will be calling them the 'Daesh cutthroats'." Retired general John Allen, the U.S. envoy appointed to co-ordinate the coalition; U.S. Army Lieutenant General James Terry, head of operations against the group; and Secretary of State John Kerry had all shifted towards use of the term Daesh by December 2014, which nonetheless remained a pejorative in 2021.

Purpose and strategy

Ideology

The ideology of the Islamic State has been described as being a hybrid of Salafism, Salafi jihadism, Islamic fundamentalism, Wahhabism, and Qutbism, as well as other doctrines.

According to Robert Manne, there is a "general consensus" that the ideology of the Islamic State is "primarily based upon the writings of the radical Egyptian theoretician Sayyid Qutb". The Muslim Brotherhood began the trend of political Islamism in the 20th century, seeking gradual establishment of a new Caliphate, a comprehensive Islamic society ruled by sharia law. Qutb's doctrines of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance), hakimiyya (divine sovereignty), and takfir of entire societies formed a radicalised vision of the Muslim Brotherhood's political Islam project. Qutbism became the precursor to all jihadist thought, from Abdullah Azzam to Zawahiri and to Daesh. Alongside Sayyid Qutb, the most invoked ideological figures of IS include Ibn Taymiyya, Abdullah Azzam, and Abu Bakr Naji.

Although IS claims to adhere to the Salafi theology of Ibn Taymiyyah, it rejects traditional Salafi interpretations as well as the four Sunni schools of law, and anathematises the majority of Salafis as heretics. IS ideologues rarely uphold adherence to Islamic scholarship and law manuals for reference, mostly preferring to derive rulings based on self-interpretation of the Qur'an and Muslim traditions.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the first Emir of the Islamic State of Iraq, was radicalised as a Muslim Brotherhood member during his youth. Motaz Al-Khateeb states that religious texts and Islamic jurisprudence "alone cannot explain the emergence" of Daesh since the Muslim Brotherhood and Daesh "draw on the same Islamic jurisprudence" but "are diametrically opposite" in strategy and behaviour. Through the official statement of beliefs originally released by al-Baghdadi in 2007 and subsequently updated since June 2014, ISIL defined its creed as "a middle way between the extremist Kharijites and the lax Murji'ites". ISIL's ideology represents radical Jihadi-Salafi Islam, a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam. Muslim organisations like Islamic Networks Group (ING) in America have argued against this interpretation of Islam. ISIL promotes religious violence, and regards Muslims who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates.

According to Hayder al Khoei, IS's philosophy is represented by the symbolism in the Black Standard variant of the legendary battle flag of Muhammad that it has adopted: flag of IS shows the Seal of Muhammad within a white circle, with the phrase above it, "There is no god but Allah". This symbolism is said to symbolise IS's belief that it represents the restoration of the caliphate of early Islam, with all the political, religious, and eschatological ramifications that this would imply.

Islamic eschatology

One difference between IS and other Islamist and jihadist movements, including al-Qaeda, is the group's emphasis on eschatology and apocalypticism—that is, a belief in a final Day of Judgment by God. IS believes that it will defeat the army of "Rome" at the town of Dabiq.

The noted scholar of militant Islamism Will McCants writes:

References to the End Times fill Islamic State propaganda. It's a big selling point with foreign fighters, who want to travel to the lands where the final battles of the apocalypse will take place. The civil wars raging in those countries today [Iraq and Syria] lend credibility to the prophecies. The Islamic State has stoked the apocalyptic fire. ... For Bin Laden's generation, the apocalypse wasn't a great recruiting pitch. Governments in the Middle East two decades ago were more stable, and sectarianism was more subdued. It was better to recruit by calling to arms against corruption and tyranny than against the Antichrist. Today, though, the apocalyptic recruiting pitch makes more sense than before.

Goals

Since at latest 2004, a significant goal of the group has been the foundation of a Sunni Islamic state. Specifically, ISIL has sought to establish itself as a caliphate, an Islamic state led by a group of religious authorities under a supreme leader—the caliph—who is believed to be the successor to Muhammad. In June 2014, ISIL published a document in which it claimed to have traced the lineage of its leader al-Baghdadi back to Muhammad, and upon proclaiming a new caliphate on 29 June, the group appointed al-Baghdadi as its caliph. As caliph, he demanded the allegiance of all devout Muslims worldwide according to Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh).

ISIL has detailed its goals in its Dabiq magazine, saying it will continue to seize land and take over the entire Earth until its:

Blessed flag...covers all eastern and western extents of the Earth, filling the world with the truth and justice of Islam and putting an end to the falsehood and tyranny of jahiliyyah [state of ignorance], even if America and its coalition despise such.

According to German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer, who spent ten days embedded with ISIL in Mosul, the view he kept hearing was that ISIL wants to "conquer the world", and that all who do not believe in the group's interpretation of the Quran will be killed. Todenhöfer was struck by the ISIL fighters' belief that "all religions who agree with democracy have to die", and by their "incredible enthusiasm"—including enthusiasm for killing "hundreds of millions" of people.

When the caliphate was proclaimed, ISIL stated: "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organisations becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah's [caliphate's] authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas." This was a rejection of the political divisions in Southwestern Asia that were established by the UK and France during World War I in the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

All non-Muslim areas would be targeted for conquest after the Muslim lands were dealt with, according to the Islamist manual Management of Savagery.

Strategy

Documents found after the death of Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, a former colonel in the intelligence service of the Iraqi Air Force before the US invasion who had been described as "the strategic head" of ISIL, detailed planning for the ISIL takeover of northern Syria, which made possible "the group's later advances into Iraq". Al-Khlifawi called for the infiltration of areas to be conquered with spies who would find out "as much as possible about the target towns: Who lived there, who was in charge, which families were religious, which Islamic school of religious jurisprudence they belonged to, how many mosques there were, who the imam was, how many wives and children he had and how old they were". Following this surveillance and espionage would come murder and kidnapping—"the elimination of every person who might have been a potential leader or opponent". In Raqqa, after rebel forces drove out the Assad regime and ISIL infiltrated the town, "first dozens and then hundreds of people disappeared".

Security and intelligence expert Martin Reardon has described IS's purpose as being to psychologically "break" those under its control, "so as to ensure their absolute allegiance through fear and intimidation", while generating "outright hate and vengeance" among its enemies. Jason Burke, a journalist writing on Salafi jihadism, has written that IS's goal is to "terrorize, mobilize [and] polarize". Its efforts to terrorise are intended to intimidate civilian populations and force governments of the target enemy "to make rash decisions that they otherwise would not choose". It aims to mobilise its supporters by motivating them with, for example, spectacular deadly attacks deep in Western territory (such as the November 2015 Paris attacks), to polarise by driving Muslim populations—particularly in the West—away from their governments, thus increasing the appeal of IS's self-proclaimed caliphate among them, and to: "Eliminate neutral parties through either absorption or elimination". Journalist Rukmini Maria Callimachi also emphasises IS's interest in polarisation or in eliminating what it calls the "grey zone" between the black (non-Muslims) and white (IS). "The gray is moderate Muslims who are living in the West and are happy and feel engaged in the society here."

A work published online in 2004 entitled Management of Savagery (Idarat at Tawahoush), described by several media outlets as influential on IS and intended to provide a strategy to create a new Islamic caliphate, recommended a strategy of attack outside its territory in which fighters would "Diversify and widen the vexation strikes against the Crusader-Zionist enemy in every place in the Islamic world, and even outside of it if possible, so as to disperse the efforts of the alliance of the enemy and thus drain it to the greatest extent possible."

Organisation

IS has been described as a militant group adhering to Salafi jihadism. Raqqa in Syria was under IS control from 2013 and in 2014 it became the group's de facto capital city. On 17 October 2017, following a lengthy battle that saw massive destruction to the city, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the full capture of Raqqa from IS.

Leadership and governance

From 2013 to 2019, IS was headed and run by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State's self-styled Caliph. Before their deaths, he had two deputy leaders, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani for Iraq and Abu Ali al-Anbari (also known as Abu Ala al-Afri) for Syria, both ethnic Turkmen. Advising al-Baghdadi were a cabinet of senior leaders, while its operations in Iraq and Syria are controlled by local 'emirs,' who head semi-autonomous groups that the Islamic State refers to as its provinces. Beneath the leaders are councils on finance, leadership, military matters, legal matters (including decisions on executions) foreign fighters' assistance, security, intelligence and media. In addition, a shura council has the task of ensuring that all decisions made by the governors and councils comply with the group's interpretation of sharia. While al-Baghdadi had told followers to "advise me when I err" in sermons, according to observers "any threat, opposition, or even contradiction is instantly eradicated".

According to Iraqis, Syrians, and analysts who study the group, almost all of IS's leaders—including the members of its military and security committees and the majority of its emirs and princes—are former Iraqi military and intelligence officers, specifically former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath government who lost their jobs and pensions in the de-Ba'athification process after that regime was overthrown. The former Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism of the US State Department, David Kilcullen, has said, "There undeniably would be no Isis if we had not invaded Iraq." It has been reported that Iraqis and Syrians have been given greater precedence over other nationalities within IS because the group needs the loyalties of the local Sunni populations in both Syria and Iraq in order to be sustainable. Other reports, however, have indicated that Syrians are at a disadvantage to foreign members, with some native Syrian fighters resenting "favouritism" allegedly shown towards foreigners over pay and accommodation.

In August 2016, media reports based on briefings by Western intelligence agencies suggested that IS had a multilevel secret service known in Arabic as Emni, established in 2014, that has become a combination of an internal police force and an external operations directorate complete with regional branches. The unit was believed to be under the overall command of IS's most senior Syrian operative, spokesman and propaganda chief Abu Mohammad al-Adnani until his death by airstrike in late August 2016.

Civilians in Islamic State-controlled areas

In 2014, The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived in the Islamic State. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has stated that IS "seeks to subjugate civilians under its control and dominate every aspect of their lives through terror, indoctrination, and the provision of services to those who obey". Civilians, as well as the Islamic State itself, have released footage of some of the human rights abuses.

Social control of civilians was imposed with IS's strict interpretation of sharia law, enforced by morality police forces known as Al-Hisbah and the all-women Al-Khanssaa Brigade, a general police force, courts, and other entities managing recruitment, tribal relations, and education. Al-Hisbah was led by Abu Muhammad al-Jazrawi.

In 2015, IS published a penal code including floggings, amputations, crucifixions, etc.

Military

Estimates of the size of IS's military have varied widely, from tens of thousands up to 200,000.

In early 2015, journalist Mary Anne Weaver estimated that half of IS fighters were foreigners. A UN report estimated a total of 15,000 fighters from over 80 countries were in IS's ranks in November 2014. US intelligence estimated an increase to around 20,000 foreign fighters in February 2015, including 3,400 from the Western world. In September 2015, the CIA estimated that 30,000 foreign fighters had joined IS.

According to Abu Hajjar, a former senior leader of IS, foreign fighters receive food, petrol and housing, but unlike native Iraqi or Syrian fighters, they do not receive payment in wages. Since 2012, more than 3,000 people from the central Asian countries have gone to Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan to join the Islamic State or Jabhat al Nusra.

IS relies mostly on captured weapons with major sources including Saddam Hussein's Iraqi stockpiles from the 2003–11 Iraq insurgency and weapons from government and opposition forces fighting in the Syrian Civil War and during the post-US withdrawal Iraqi insurgency. The captured weapons, including armour, guns, surface-to-air missiles, and even some aircraft, enabled rapid territorial growth and facilitated the capture of additional equipment. For example, IS captured US-made TOW anti-tank missiles supplied by the United States and Saudi Arabia to the Free Syrian Army in Syria. Ninety per cent of the group's weapons ultimately originated in China, Russia or Eastern Europe according to Conflict Armament Research.

The group uses truck and car bombs, suicide bombers and IEDs, and has used chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria. IS captured nuclear materials from Mosul University in July 2014, but is unlikely to be able to convert them into weapons. In September 2015 a US official stated that IS was manufacturing and using mustard agent in Syria and Iraq, and had an active chemical weapons research team. IS has also used water as a weapon of war. The group closed the gates of the smaller Nuaimiyah dam in Fallujah in April 2014, flooding the surrounding regions, while cutting the water supply to the Shia-dominated south. Around 12,000 families lost their homes and 200 square kilometres (77 mi2) of villages and fields were either flooded or dried up. The economy of the region also suffered with destruction of cropland and electricity shortages.

Women

IS publishes material directed at women, with media groups encouraging them to play supportive roles within IS, such as providing first aid, cooking, nursing and sewing skills, in order to become "good wives of jihad". In 2015, it was estimated that western women made up over 550, or 10%, of IS's western foreign fighters.

Until 2016, women were generally confined to a "women's house" upon arrival, which they were forbidden to leave. These houses were often small, dirty and infested with vermin and food supply was scarce. There they remained until they either had found a husband, or the husband they arrived with had completed his training. After being allowed to leave the confinement, women still generally spent most of their days indoors, where their lives are devoted to caring for their husbands and the vast majority of women in the conflict area have children. Mothers play an important role passing on IS ideology to their children. Widows are encouraged to remarry.

In a document entitled Women in the Islamic State: Manifesto and Case Study released by the media wing of IS's all-female Al-Khansaa Brigade, emphasis is given to the paramount importance of marriage and motherhood (as early as nine years old). Women should live a life of "sedentariness", fulfilling her "divine duty of motherhood" at home, with a few exceptions like teachers and doctors. Equality for women is opposed, as is education on non-religious subjects, the "worthless worldly sciences".

Finances

According to a 2015 study by the Financial Action Task Force, IS's five primary sources of revenue are as follows (listed in order of significance):

proceeds from the occupation of territory (including control of banks, petroleum reservoirs, taxation, extortion, and robbery of economic assets)

kidnapping for ransom

donations from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and other Gulf states, often disguised as meant for "humanitarian charity"

material support provided by foreign fighters

fundraising through modern communication networks

Since 2012, IS has produced annual reports giving numerical information on its operations, somewhat in the style of corporate reports, seemingly in a bid to encourage potential donors.

In 2014, the RAND Corporation analysed IS's funding sources from documents captured between 2005 and 2010. It found that outside donations amounted to only 5% of the group's operating budgets, and that cells inside Iraq were required to send up to 20% of the income generated from kidnapping, extortion rackets and other activities to the next level of the group's leadership, which would then redistribute the funds to provincial or local cells that were in difficulties or needed money to conduct attacks. In 2016, RAND estimated that IS finances from its largest source of income—oil revenues and the taxes it extracts from people under its control—had fallen from about US$1.9 billion in 2014 to US$870 million in 2016.

In mid-2014, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service obtained information that IS had assets worth US$2 billion, making it the richest jihadist group in the world. About three-quarters of this sum was said to looted from Mosul's central bank and commercial banks in the city. However, doubt was later cast on whether IS was able to retrieve anywhere near that sum from the central bank, and even on whether the looting had actually occurred.

Origins

The group was founded in 1999 by Jordanian Salafi jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād (lit. 'The Organisation of Monotheism and Jihad'). In a letter published by the Coalition Provisional Authority in February 2004, Zarqawi wrote that jihadis should use bombings to start an open sectarian war so that Sunnis from the Islamic world would mobilise against assassinations carried out by Shia, specifically the Badr Brigade, against Ba'athists and Sunnis.

It is possible that Zarqawi used some "small seed money" of $200,000 obtained from Al Qaeda to set up a training camp for the JTJ. The financial support from Al Qaeda came after Zarqawi was reluctant to be recruited by bin Laden. Following the 11 September Attacks and the decision to invade Iraq, the U.S. Secretary of State's presentation to the United Nations Security Council aimed to establish Zarqawi as the definitive link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. These claims were later disproven.

Powell's presentation was nevertheless instrumental in elevating Zarqawi's status and laying the groundwork for part of the foreign fighter faction of the Iraqi insurgency.

The JTJ officially pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in a letter in October 2004, which drew more recruits, as well as financial and logistical support.

Territorial control and claims

As a self-proclaimed worldwide caliphate, IS claims religious, political and military authority over all Muslims worldwide, and that "the legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organisations, becomes null by the expansion of the khilāfah's [caliphate's] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas".

In Iraq and Syria, IS used many of those countries' existing governorate boundaries to subdivide territory it conquered and claimed; it called these divisions wilayah or provinces. By June 2015, IS had also established official "provinces" in Libya, Egypt (Sinai Peninsula), Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and the North Caucasus. IS received pledges of allegiance and published media releases via groups in Somalia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines, but it has not announced any further official branches, instead identifying new affiliates as simply "soldiers of the caliphate".

At its peak, IS was sometimes described as a quasi-state. By March 2019, IS had lost most of its territory in its former core areas in Syria and Iraq, and was reduced to a desert pocket as well as insurgent cells. Through late 2020 and early 2021, IS African affiliates had once again seized territory and settlements in conflicts such as the Boko Haram insurgency, in Nigeria and the Insurgency in Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique. Notable takeovers by IS include Mocímboa da Praia and the Sambisa Forest. On 17 November 2021, IS supporters urged establishment of "New Provinces" in Indonesia. In October 2022, IS's Sahel province captured the rural committee and town of Ansongo in Mali. In 2023–2024, IS still held a large territory in Africa.

IS affiliates

In Africa

Islamic State – Central Africa Province (IS-CAP) first appeared in 2018 and operates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda since 2020. It emerged from the Ugandan Islamist group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). As of 2024, it is estimated to number 1,500-2,000 fighters.

Islamic State – Mozambique Province (ISMP), formerly part of Islamic State – Central Africa Province (IS-CAP), was formed in 2022. It is primarily active in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province. It emerged from the Mozambican Islamist group Al-Shabaab. Its current size is unknown.

Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP), formerly known as Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS), operates mainly in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. IS-GS was formed in 2015. From March 2019 to 2022, IS-GS was formally part of the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP); when it was also called "ISWAP-Greater Sahara". As of 2025, ISSP is estimated to have 2,000-3,000 fighters.

Islamic State – Somalia Province (ISSP) operates primarily in Puntland in northern Somalia. The group first appeared in 2015 when elements within the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab defected and pledged allegiance to IS. Its size is estimated to be 100-200 fighters as of 2025.

Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) is primarily active in the Chad Basin of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. It emerged in 2015 after a split from Boko Haram. As of 2025, ISWAP is estimated to have 8,000-12,000 fighters.

In Asia

Islamic State – Azerbaijan Province (IS-AP) emerged in 2019 and operates in Azerbaijan. Its adeherents were previously recruited by both the Islamic State – Caucasus Province (IS-CP) and Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). Its current size is unknown.

Islamic State – Bengal Province (IS-BP) is active in Bangladesh. The group is an offshoot of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). It emerged in 2015 and was claimed by IS in 2016. Its current size is unknown.

Islamic State – Hind Province (ISHP) is the Indian branch of IS and operates in Indian Jammu and Kashmir. Its formation was announced in 2019. Its current size is unknown.

Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) emerged in 2015 and operates in Central and South Asia, primarily Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. As of 2025, ISIS-K is estimated to have 2,000 fighters.

Islamic State – Pakistan Province (ISPP) was formed in 2019 as a split from Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). It is active in the Pakistani provinces of Punjab, Balochistan and Azad Kashmir, as well as Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province. Its current size is unknown.

Islamic State – Philippines Province (ISPP) operates in the Philippines, primarily in Mindanao. It emerged in 2016 from local jihadist groups Maute Group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), and Ansar Khalifa Philippines (AKP).

Islamic State – Turkey Province (IS-TP) was formed in 2019 and is active in Turkey. It is less active than other IS affiliates. Its current size is unknown.

In Europe

Islamic State – Caucasus Province (IS-CP) is active in the North Caucasus region of Russia. IS announced the group's formation in 2015. Its current size is unknown.

International reaction

International criticism

The group has attracted widespread criticism internationally for its extremism, from governments and international bodies such as the United Nations and Amnesty International. On 24 September 2014, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated: "As Muslim leaders around the world have said, groups like ISIL—or Da'ish—have nothing to do with Islam, and they certainly do not represent a state. They should more fittingly be called the 'Un-Islamic Non-State'." ISIL has been classified a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, the European Union and its member states, the United States, Russia, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many other countries. Over 60 countries are directly or indirectly waging war against ISIL (see § Countries and groups at war with IS). The group was described as a cult in a Huffington Post column by notable cult authority Steven Hassan.

Twitter has removed many accounts used to spread IS propaganda, and Google developed a "Redirect Method" that identifies individuals searching for IS-related material and redirects them to content that challenges IS narratives.

Islamic criticism

The group's declaration of a caliphate has been criticised and its legitimacy has been disputed by Middle Eastern governments, by Sunni Muslim theologians and historians as well as other jihadist groups.

Around the world, Islamic religious leaders have overwhelmingly condemned ISIL's ideology and actions, arguing that the group has strayed from the path of true Islam and that its actions do not reflect the religion's real teachings or virtues.

Extremism within Islam goes back to the seventh century, to the Kharijites. From their essentially political position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims. They were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to takfir, whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed worthy of death. Other scholars have also described the group not as Sunnis, but as Khawarij. Sunni critics, including Salafi and jihadist muftis such as Adnan al-Aroor and Abu Basir al-Tartusi, say that ISIL and related terrorist groups are not Sunnis, but are instead modern-day Kharijites (Muslims who have stepped outside the mainstream of Islam) serving an imperial anti-Islamic agenda.

ISIS has been excommunicated from Islam by a number of scholars. Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi enumerated in his book, Refuting ISIS, that their form of Kharijism has removed them from Islam and fighting them is a religious duty, stating: "ISIS' leaders are people of unbelief and misguidance, and Muslims should not be lured by their jihad or deceived by their propaganda, as their actions speak louder than their words." Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, also stated that Kharijites are not Muslims, saying: "the majority are of the opinion that they are disobedient and misguided innovators, though they do not deem them unbelievers. However, the correct opinion is that they are unbelievers."

In late August 2014, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, condemned ISIL and al-Qaeda saying, "Extremist and militant ideas and terrorism which spread decay on Earth, destroying human civilisation, are not in any way part of Islam, but are enemy number one of Islam, and Muslims are their first victims". In late September 2014, 126 Sunni imams and Islamic scholars—primarily Sufi—from around the Muslim world signed an open letter to the Islamic State's leader al-Baghdadi, explicitly rejecting and refuting his group's interpretations of Islamic scriptures, the Quran and hadith, which it used in order to justify its actions. "[You] have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder ... this is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world", the letter states. It rebukes the Islamic State for its killing of prisoners, describing the killings as "heinous war crimes" and its persecution of the Yazidis of Iraq as "abominable". Referring to the "self-described 'Islamic State'", the letter censures the group for carrying out killings and acts of brutality under the guise of jihad—holy struggle—saying that its "sacrifice" without legitimate cause, goals and intention "is not jihad at all, but rather, warmongering and criminality". It also accuses the group of instigating fitna—sedition—by instituting slavery under its rule in contravention of the anti-slavery consensus of the Islamic scholarly community. The group's persecution of Shia Muslims has also been condemned.

Other commentaries

Literature scholar Ian Almond criticised the media commentators, the lack of balance in reporting, and the "way we are learning to talk about ISIS". While there was talk about 'radical evil' and 'radical Islam', Almond found it striking because "some of the most revered and oft-quoted figures in our Western political tradition have been capable of the most vicious acts of savagery—and yet all we ever hear about is how much the Middle East has to learn from us." Almond goes on to argue that Winston Churchill "wanted to gas women and children", that Ronald Reagan's Central American policies "disembowelled more children than ISIS", that President Barack Obama's "planes and drones have dropped bombs on as many schoolchildren as ISIS", that former secretary of state Madeleine Albright commented on the deaths of Iraqi children killed by sanctions, that Henry Kissinger and Margaret Thatcher "assisted in the torture and disappearance of thousands of Chilean students and labour activists... For anyone familiar with the history of both U.S. and European torture and murder over the past 150 years, it might not be all that hyperbolic to say that in ISIS, what we see more than anything else is a more expansive, explicit version of our own cruelties. In bombing ISIS and its would-be imperialism, we are really bombing a version of ourselves."

Commentator Tom Engelhardt attributed the rise of ISIL and the destruction that followed to what he dubbed as America's drive to establish its own caliphate in the region.

A leader article in the New Scientist magazine contextualised ISIL within the nation state construct. Although the group is described as medieval in the pejorative sense, "it is also hyper-modern, interested in few of the trappings of a conventional state apart from its own brutal brand of law enforcement. In fact, it is more of a network than a nation, having made canny use of social media to exert influence far beyond its geographical base."

The United Nations Security Council in its Resolution 1267 (1999) described Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda associates as operators of a network of terrorist training camps. The UN's Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee first listed ISIL in its Sanctions List under the name "Al-Qaida in Iraq" on 18 October 2004, as an entity/group associated with al-Qaeda. On 2 June 2014, the group was added to its listing under the name "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant". The European Union adopted the UN Sanctions List in 2002.

Supporters

A United Nations report from May 2015 showed that 25,000 "foreign terrorist fighters" from 100 countries had joined "Islamist" groups, many of them working for IS or al-Qaeda.

According to a June 2015 Reuters report that cited "jihadist ideologues" as a source, 90% of IS's fighters in Iraq were Iraqi, and 70% of its fighters in Syria were Syrian. The article stated that the group had 40,000 fighters and 60,000 supporters across its two primary strongholds in Iraq and Syria. According to scholar Fawaz Gerges writing in ISIS: A History, some "30 percent of the senior figures" in IS's military command were former army and police officers from the disbanded Iraqi security forces, turned towards Sunni Islamism and drawn to IS by the US de-Ba'athification policy following the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

A 2014 analysis of 2,195,000 Arabic-language social media posts cited by The Guardian had 47% of the postings from Qatar, 35% from Pakistan, 31% from Belgium and almost 24% from the UK classified as supportive of IS. According to a 2015 poll by Pew Research Center, Muslim populations of various Muslim-majority countries have overwhelmingly negative views of IS, with the highest percentage of those expressing favourable views not exceeding 14%. In most of these countries, concerns about Islamic extremism have been growing.

There is a large amount of IS supporters online (On apps such as Discord, Telegram, among several other online forums). In 2024, at least 10,000 IS fighters were still active in Syria, according to estimates by the Kurdish-led SDF. As of 2025, approximately 10,000 suspected IS fighters and their supporters were being held in Syrian detention centres, and tens of thousands of their wives and children were living in secure camps.

In January 2026, a northeastern Syria offensive conducted by the Syrian transitional government against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led to a significant security vacuum, resulting in the escape and mass transfer of thousands of Islamic State detainees. Following the SDF's withdrawal from key facilities such as the al-Hawl and al-Shaddadi prisons, the U.S. military began relocating up to 9,000 detainees to Iraq to prevent a resurgence of IS, while Syrian government forces assumed control of several major detention centres, including al-Aqtan prison in Raqqa.

Countries and groups at war with IS

IS's claims to territory have brought it into armed conflict with many governments, militias and other armed groups. International rejection of IS as a terrorist entity and rejection of its claim to even exist have placed it in conflict with countries around the world.

Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also referred to as the Counter-ISIL Coalition or Counter-DAESH Coalition, is a US-led group of nations and non-state actors that have committed to "work together under a common, multifaceted, and long-term strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL/Daesh". According to a joint statement issued by 59 national governments and the European Union on 3 December 2014, participants in the Counter-ISIL Coalition are focused on multiple lines of effort:

Supporting military operations, capacity building, and training;

Stopping the flow of foreign terrorist fighters;

Cutting off ISIL/Daesh's access to financing and funding;

Addressing associated humanitarian relief and crises; and

Exposing ISIL/Daesh's true nature (ideological delegitimisation).

Operation Inherent Resolve is the operational name given by the US to military operations against ISIL and Syrian al-Qaeda affiliates. Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR) is co-ordinating the military portion of the response. The Arab League, European Union, NATO, and GCC are part of the Counter-ISIL Coalition: According to the Pentagon, by December 2017 over 80,000 ISIL fighters had been killed in Iraq and Syria by CJTF-OIR airstrikes. By then the coalition had flown over 170,000 sorties, 75–80% of combat sorties were conducted by the military of the United States, with the other 20–25% by Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. According to the UK-based monitoring group Airwars, the air strikes and artillery of US-led coalition killed as many as 6,000 civilians in Iraq and Syria by the end of 2017.

Lebanon, which the U.S. considers part of the Global Coalition, fought off several incursions by ISIL, with the largest engagements taking place from June 2014 to August 2017, when several thousand ISIL fighters invaded from Syria and occupied Lebanese territory. The U.S. and UK-backed Lebanese Army succeeded in repulsing this invasion, killing or capturing over 1,200 ISIL fighters in the process.

Human rights abuse and war crime findings

The Islamic State has committed or been widely accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and of human rights abuses, including systematic rape and other forms of sexual violence against both males and females, mass killing of prisoners of war, summary executions including the Camp Speicher massacre, public floggings, beheadings, politically motivated assassinations of judges; public officials; members of the security forces and others, and terrorising residents of Derna, Libya among others. ISIL members were also reported to perform human sacrifices, despite the act being forbidden in Islam. Sarah Leah Watson, Director of HRW Middle East and North Africa, said: "Commanders should understand that they may face domestic or international prosecution for the grave rights abuses their forces are committing."

In July 2014, the BBC reported the United Nations' chief investigator as stating: "Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) may be added to a list of war crimes suspects in Syria."

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has stated that the group "seeks to subjugate civilians under its control and dominate every aspect of their lives through terror, indoctrination, and the provision of services to those who obey".

According to the Iraq Body Count project, the Islamic State's fighters killed a minimum of 25,645 Iraqi civilians from 2014 to 2016.