{"id":750,"date":"2014-06-19T15:32:07","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T15:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=750"},"modified":"2014-06-19T15:32:08","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T15:32:08","slug":"the-rise-of-isis-threatens-europe-and-the-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/the-rise-of-isis-threatens-europe-and-the-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise of ISIS threatens Europe and the USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Islamists in Turkey are trying to make up their minds about whether the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is the creation and tool of the West or simply a catalyst for their long-hoped Sunni domination in the Middle East; the wider threat posed by the lethal jihadist group is becoming clearer in Europe and the USA.<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister David Cameron has told the Parliament that an “extreme Islamist regime” in central Iraq would pose a threat to the UK and could not be ignored.<\/p>\n

Government sources in London revealed that 65 people have been arrested in the past 18 months for Syria-related jihadist activities and up to 400 British nationals are fighting alongside militant groups in Syria.<\/p>\n

With sizeable Muslim populations and an estimated 2000 people with European passports fighting alongside ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the blow-back effect from fighters returning from the region has now become very real.<\/p>\n

A former security minister, Baroness Neville-Jones, told the BBC that ISIS has now emerged as a direct threat to the UK.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately the UK exports more young men to become jihadists in Europe than any other. The intelligence picture is clear. The numbers are there” she said.<\/p>\n

Lahoor Talabani, director of counter terrorism for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) confirmed it. Talking to Sky News<\/a>, he said up to 450 Britons were amongst the ISIS ranks and the West should not see the conflict as solely against the Iraqi government.<\/p>\n

It is not only the Western recruits that worry governments in Europe. ISIS’ military success in Iraq has enabled it to acquire not only territory but large amounts of cash, weapons and the control of vital supply lines. Isis is also using sophisticated technology to recruit new fighters and sympathizers to its cause.<\/p>\n

Violent and brutal they may be, ISIS may become a symbol of revenge against the USA-led operation that resulted with Saddam Hussein\u2019s downfall. Baathism evolving into jihadism in Iraq can end up being applauded by Sunni Islamists elsewhere as a people\u2019s revolution against oppression and tyranny of the Shia sectarian rule of Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki. \u00a0In Syria and Iraq, there are already thousands of foreign fighters from Europe, the US, the Balkans and the Caucasus, and the number of militants from Turkey, fighting alongside Islamist radicals in the region is believed to be in hundreds.<\/p>\n

With Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and in recent years Turkey either funding or supporting extremist groups in Syria; and Iran backing the Iraqi and Syrian regimes; a sectarian battle in the region has been a reality for some time. ISIS\u2019s advance\u00a0in Iraq\u00a0has now made it truly international.<\/p>\n

The wider security implications of this are in some ways more difficult to predict than the pre-9\/11 world. Because this time, with the experience of 9\/11 attacks in New York, 7\/7 2005 bombings in London and last year\u2019s beheading on a London street; the new threat by extreme Islamism is not just a cause for concern but a likely trigger for a backlash. There are signs of unease or even alarm among the general population in Britain over spread of fundamentalism in country\u2019s schools and universities.<\/p>\n

The worry in the Middle East may be a growing regional sectarian strife. On the streets of Europe and possibly the USA, the danger is further alienation of Muslims in societies they live and growing Islamaphobia.<\/p>\n

Unless the madness we have been witnessing in Iraq and Syria is stopped and its spillover elsewhere is avoided; we may soon be talking not of a \u201cClash of Civilizations\u201d any more but an outright \u201cIslam versus the rest\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Islamists in Turkey are trying to make up their minds about whether the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is the creation and tool of the West or simply a catalyst for their long-hoped Sunni domination in the Middle East; the wider threat posed by the lethal jihadist group is becoming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}