Islamic State (ISIS)

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Hub: 60.13 Wars · War context: Iraq War · Books: Black Flags - Joby Warrick · The ISIS Reader - Ingram, Whiteside and Winter
Ideological context: Islamism · Salafi movement · Atrocity case: Yazidi Genocide

Bottom line

The Islamic State was not invented, founded, commanded, or deliberately financed by the United States. Its ideological and organizational nucleus grew out of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Jordanian and Afghan jihadist network in the 1990s, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the invasion and occupation were also major enabling causes of the organization that became ISIS: they destroyed the Iraqi state and security order, opened a vast battlefield, generated recruits, and—through de-Ba’athification, dissolution of the armed forces, detention practices, and a poorly designed political transition—helped create the personnel and grievances the movement exploited. Nouri al-Maliki’s authoritarian and sectarian governance and the Syrian civil war were later indispensable accelerants. The most accurate formula is therefore pre-existing jihadist design plus contingent wars, state failures, political choices, and ISIS’s own strategic agency.

Scope, names, and evidence standard

“ISIS,” “ISIL,” “Daesh,” and “Islamic State” refer to successive forms or names of the same organizational lineage. “ISIS” is used here for readability, while the timeline preserves the historically correct names. The group proclaimed an “Islamic State” in Iraq in 2006, expanded its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in 2013, and declared a universal caliphate in June 2014. The territorial caliphate was destroyed in March 2019, but the organization and its regional affiliates did not disappear.

The proper name should not be confused with the generic question of whether a modern state can coherently enforce “Islamic law.” That separate philosophical and institutional problem is developed in 21 - An-Naim Hallaq and the Islamic State Problem.

Claims about who “created” ISIS often confuse four different kinds of responsibility:

1. Intentional creation or control: founding, directing, or sponsoring ISIS as a proxy.
2. Direct material support: knowingly transferring money, weapons, intelligence, or personnel to ISIS.
3. Enabling causation: policies that predictably or negligently created conditions ISIS exploited.
4. Counterfactual causation: asking whether ISIS, in its actual form, would probably have emerged without a particular war or decision.

Evidence for one category does not prove another. Capturing American-made rifles does not show that Washington intended ISIS to receive them; proving that the invasion enabled ISIS does not show that the invasion’s purpose was to create ISIS. Conversely, disproving a conspiracy does not absolve policymakers of responsibility for foreseeable consequences.

Findings at a glance

Organizational genealogy

flowchart LR
    A["Zarqawi–Maqdisi network<br/>Jordan, early 1990s"] --> B["Independent camp and network<br/>Afghanistan, 1999–2001"]
    B --> C["Jama'at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad<br/>Iraq, 2003–2004"]
    C --> D["Al-Qaeda in Iraq<br/>October 2004"]
    D --> E["Mujahideen Shura Council<br/>January 2006"]
    E --> F["Islamic State of Iraq<br/>October 2006"]
    F --> G["ISIS / ISIL<br/>April 2013"]
    G --> H["Islamic State and caliphate claim<br/>June 2014"]
    H --> I["Territorial defeat and decentralized<br/>global insurgent network, 2019–"]

The names assigned to Zarqawi’s earliest circle vary across sources, and some later labels were applied retrospectively. What is not seriously in doubt is the continuity of people, doctrine, and ambition from his Jordanian network and independent Afghan camp to the post-invasion group usually called Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad.¹² The genealogy is therefore real, but it should not be mistaken for an unchanging organization: each war and merger altered its personnel, priorities, capabilities, and constituency.

Causal model: how a marginal network became a proto-state

ISIS had no single creator. Its rise required the interaction of causes operating at different levels:

Best causal judgment

Without the 2003 invasion, ISIS in its actual Iraqi-Syrian form, at that time and scale, probably would not have emerged. That is a defensible counterfactual inference, not something historical evidence can prove like a dated event. It does not imply that jihadism would have disappeared, that another organization could not have emerged, or that American officials intended the result.

In-depth timeline

Before the 2003 invasion: the ideological and organizational nucleus

• Early 1990s — Jordan: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the cleric Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi form a militant circle usually associated with Bay’at al-Imam. They reject the Jordanian monarchy and secular government. Zarqawi is already committed to violent jihad; the movement that becomes ISIS does not begin as a reaction to the Iraq invasion.¹²
• 1994 — Zarqawi’s courtroom speech: Before the Iraq invasion, he publicly rejects democracy and secular monarchical law in a militant religious argument. The speech establishes ideological continuity, not the existence of a fully formed ISIS organization or a detailed future Iraq plan.²³
• 1994–1999 — Prison: Jordan imprisons Zarqawi and Maqdisi. Zarqawi acquires status, imposes discipline on followers, and develops a network inside prison. His later break with Maqdisi reflects both personality and doctrine, especially Zarqawi’s extreme violence and expansive takfir.
• 1999 — Release and Afghanistan: Zarqawi returns to Afghanistan and runs a camp near Herat with al-Qaeda assistance but maintains organizational independence. Contemporary and later internal documents show an ambition to build a distinct movement and eventually an Islamic polity.¹
• 2001–2002 — Dispersal: The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan dislodges the network. Zarqawi moves through Iran and into the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq, where he works with or alongside Ansar al-Islam. This territory was outside Saddam Hussein’s effective control.
• October 2002 — Lawrence Foley assassination: A Zarqawi-linked cell murders U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman. The case is direct evidence that Zarqawi’s network was organizing terrorism before the invasion of Iraq.³
• Before March 2003 — Attack preparations: Evidence places Zarqawi’s network in northern Iraq and planning attacks against Western and regional targets. This establishes prewar intent and capability, but not an operational alliance with Saddam. The Iraq Inquiry concluded that practical cooperation between al-Qaeda and Saddam’s regime was unlikely and unproven.⁶

2003–2010: invasion, AQI, civil war, and near defeat

• March–April 2003 — Invasion and regime collapse: The U.S.-led coalition overthrows Saddam. Looting, institutional collapse, porous borders, unsecured weapons, and the lack of a workable postwar security plan create an unusually permissive insurgent environment.
• May 2003 — De-Ba’athification and dissolution: CPA Order No. 1 removes senior Ba’athists from public institutions; Order No. 2 dissolves the army and other security and state bodies. Applied broadly and without a credible reintegration program, the policies deepen unemployment, humiliation, institutional loss, and armed opposition.⁶¹⁹
• 2003–2004 — Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad: Zarqawi’s network carries out spectacular bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and beheadings. It attacks coalition forces, the emerging Iraqi state, international organizations, and Shia religious and civilian targets.
• August 2003 — Strategic bombing campaign: Attacks on the Jordanian embassy, UN headquarters in Baghdad, and the Imam Ali Mosque demonstrate a strategy of destroying international support, paralyzing reconstruction, and inflaming sectarian conflict.
• January–February 2004 — Sectarian strategy made explicit: Coalition forces intercepted a Zarqawi letter on 23 January; it was publicized in February. He proposed attacking Shia targets to provoke retaliation, awaken Sunni identity, and force Sunnis to rely on the jihadists. The letter also identifies emerging Iraqi security forces and other Sunni groups as political competitors. Subsequent operations followed much of this logic.³²³
• October 2004 — Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI): Zarqawi pledges allegiance to Osama bin Laden. His organization becomes Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, commonly called AQI. The alliance gives Zarqawi prestige and al-Qaeda a franchise in Iraq, but disputes over indiscriminate brutality and targeting continue.
• 2004–2007 — Coalition detention system: Facilities including Camp Bucca bring ideologues, insurgents, former officers, and uncommitted detainees into sustained contact. Overcrowding, weak classification, and inmate self-rule facilitate recruitment, indoctrination, and networking—the “incubator” thesis—although individual radicalization paths differ.⁷⁸
• January 2006 — Mujahideen Shura Council: AQI joins other insurgent groups under an Iraqi-facing umbrella, partly to reduce the costs of Zarqawi’s foreign identity and brutality.
• February 2006 — Samarra shrine bombing: AQI destroys the al-Askari shrine, one of Shia Islam’s most sacred sites. Retaliatory killings accelerate Iraq’s descent into sectarian civil war.
• 7 June 2006 — Zarqawi killed: A U.S. airstrike kills Zarqawi. Egyptian jihadist Abu Ayyub al-Masri succeeds him as AQI’s operational leader.
• October 2006 — Islamic State of Iraq (ISI): The coalition announces an “Islamic State” under Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. The state is initially more aspiration than functioning sovereignty, but it shows that territorial rule was not suddenly invented in 2014.¹¹⁷
• 2007 — State-building under local revolt: ISI leadership advice stresses discipline, leadership succession, local perception, and coercive authority, while an internal judge condemns leaders for accommodating tribes. Together, the texts expose the tension between controlling Sunni communities and alienating them.²⁴
• 2006–2008 — Sunni Awakening and surge: Sunni tribes and former insurgents turn against AQI’s coercion and foreign leadership. The Sahwa/Awakening, U.S. troop surge and intelligence, and Iraqi operations strip the organization of sanctuary and personnel.
• 2008–2010 — Near defeat: ISI survives underground but is badly degraded. This interval is crucial: the 2003 invasion created enabling conditions, but the 2014 outcome was not predetermined.
• December 2009–January 2010 — Fallujah Memorandum: An ISI-associated strategic text, written during severe weakness, plans for the coming U.S. withdrawal and contests control over Sunni Iraq. It prioritizes political unification under ISI, weakening Iraqi security institutions, and overcoming the Sahwa. Its attempt to blame some of its own violence on Americans is contradicted by its public attack claims.²⁴
• 18 April 2010 — Leadership decapitation: Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri are killed. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes ISI’s leader in May.

2010–2014: political exclusion, Syrian war, and the return of the “state”

• March–December 2010 — Iraqi election crisis: Ayad Allawi’s cross-sectarian but heavily Sunni-supported Iraqiyya list wins 91 seats to Maliki’s State of Law’s 89. Maliki retains the premiership after months of bargaining, presents rivals as possible Ba’athist restorationists, and does not implement major promised power-sharing mechanisms.¹⁰
• 2009–2012 — Awakening bargain erodes: Baghdad only partially integrates Sahwa fighters into durable security or civilian employment. Arrests, dismissal, delayed pay, and distrust expose former anti-AQI partners and make renewed insurgent claims more plausible.¹⁰¹¹
• December 2011 — U.S. military withdrawal: American forces leave under the timetable established by the 2008 U.S.–Iraq security agreement. The Obama administration fails to reach a follow-on agreement with legal immunity for remaining troops. Withdrawal reduces U.S. leverage and some counterterrorism capacity, but the deadline was not created in 2011 and withdrawal alone did not produce ISIS.²⁵
• December 2011–2013 — Political confrontation: An arrest warrant targets Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi shortly after the withdrawal; Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi’s guards are later detained. Sunni leaders and protesters see selective prosecution and consolidation of coercive institutions.
• 2011 onward — Syrian civil war: State breakdown next door gives ISI strategic depth, recruiting routes, resources, and a less constrained theater. Baghdadi dispatches cadres that announce Jabhat al-Nusra in January 2012.
• 2012–2013 — “Breaking the Walls”: ISI attacks prisons and frees experienced militants. The July 2013 Abu Ghraib assault releases hundreds and restores human capital.
• 2012–2013 — Sunni protest movement: Demonstrations demand due process, reform of de-Ba’athification, release of detainees, and an end to discriminatory security practices. The government’s failure to distinguish peaceful opposition from insurgency narrows nonviolent options.
• 23 April 2013 — Hawija: Security forces raid a protest camp near Hawija, killing dozens. The event becomes a major radicalizing symbol and helps armed groups recruit from anger at the state.¹¹
• April 2013 — ISIS announced: Baghdadi declares that ISI and Jabhat al-Nusra are merged into the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. Nusra leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani rejects the order and appeals to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
• April 2013 — Baghdadi’s contested lineage claim: In the declaration, he claims ISI founded and financed Jabhat al-Nusra’s Syrian venture. That is evidence of his claim and of organizational involvement, but not proof that Nusra accepted his authority or of every amount and transfer he asserted.²⁶
• January 2014 — Fallujah and Ramadi: ISIS and allied or parallel Sunni armed groups exploit unrest in Anbar. Their relationships are tactical and unstable, not evidence that all Sunnis share ISIS ideology.
• 2013–2 February 2014 — Jihadist rupture: ISIS rejects Zawahiri’s arbitration and fights Nusra and other Syrian rebels. On 2 February 2014, al-Qaeda formally disowns ISIS.¹⁴
• 10 June 2014 — Mosul falls: Iraqi forces collapse and ISIS captures Iraq’s second-largest city, large weapons stocks, money, prisoners, and a vast propaganda victory. Former regime networks and local insurgent partners assist, but ISIS soon subordinates or eliminates competitors.
• 29 June 2014 — Caliphate declaration: ISIS renames itself the “Islamic State” and declares Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi caliph. He appears publicly in Mosul in early July.

2014–2019: territorial caliphate, genocide, and military destruction

• August 2014 — Sinjar and the Yazidi genocide: ISIS kills Yazidi men and older boys, abducts women and children, imposes forced conversion, and creates a bureaucratized system of sexual slavery. UN investigators and UNITAD concluded that the crimes constitute genocide.²⁷ See Yazidi Genocide.
• 2014–2015 — Peak territorial rule: ISIS controls major population centers and routes across Iraq and Syria. It combines ministries, courts, taxation, oil extraction, rationing, propaganda, and policing with terror, enslavement, execution, and dispossession.
• 2014 onward — International coalition: A U.S.-led coalition supports Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, and the Syrian Democratic Forces with airpower, intelligence, training, and matériel.
• 2015–2017 — External attacks and provinces: ISIS directs, enables, or inspires attacks abroad while accepting pledges from regional organizations. “Province” branding does not always mean tight operational control; relationships range from central direction to ideological affiliation.
• 2016 — Preparing for loss: Al-Adnani publicly argues that losing cities and leaders would not end the movement; a contemporaneous official video advertises the caliphate’s departments and provinces. The first shows an effort to retain commitment despite losses, while the second shows the institutional structure that was being destroyed.²⁶
• 10 July 2017 — Mosul recaptured: Iraqi forces announce victory after a destructive nine-month battle.
• October 2017 — Raqqa lost: The Syrian Democratic Forces capture ISIS’s Syrian capital.
• 23 March 2019 — Baghuz falls: The Syrian Democratic Forces seize ISIS’s last territorial enclave. This ends its openly governed caliphate, not its clandestine insurgency.¹⁵
• April 2019 — “Guerrilla caliph” video: Baghdadi reappears to claim continuing authority over a decentralized insurgency and its affiliates. The performance shows intended continuity, not independent proof that headquarters controlled every attack or affiliate.²⁶
• 26–27 October 2019 — Baghdadi killed: U.S. forces raid his compound in northwestern Syria. ISIS begins a succession of less publicly visible leaders.²⁸

2019–2026: clandestine core and global network

• 2019 onward — Insurgent reversion: Cells conduct ambushes, assassinations, extortion, bombings, prison attacks, and rural intimidation. The organization increasingly depends on branches in Africa and South Asia for momentum and publicity.
• 2022–2023 — Leadership attrition: Successive overall leaders are killed. In August 2023, ISIS announces Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi; his identity and biography remain publicly uncertain.
• 10 August 2026 — Latest UN-wide assessment used here: Based on member-state reporting through 9 June 2026, the UN monitoring team judges the overall threat broadly unchanged but increasingly concentrated in Africa and South Asia. It describes the central organization as being at a relatively low ebb and facing leadership problems, while warning that propaganda, incitement, affiliates, detainee insecurity, and regional sanctuaries sustain the threat.¹⁶
• Iraq and Syria in 2026: The same report estimates up to 3,000 fighters across Iraq and Syria, predominantly in Syria, while Iraq’s contingent is in the low hundreds. It reports roughly 20–40 generally unsophisticated attacks per month in Syria and a much weaker Iraqi organization reliant on extortion and illegal taxation. Such estimates are intelligence-based ranges, not a census.¹⁶

The vault’s Hunting for ISIS: A Warning from Africa record points to field reporting on the movement’s expanding African center of gravity. It is useful for qualitative context; the quantitative claims here rely on the dated UN assessment.

Foundational goals and ideology

ISIS’s goals evolved in geographic reach and practical feasibility, but its core project showed considerable continuity:

1. Replace human legislation with claimed divine sovereignty. Democracy, secular nationalism, pluralism, and man-made law are treated as illegitimate usurpations of God’s authority.
2. Purify the Muslim community through expansive takfir. ISIS declares selected Muslims apostates and therefore legitimate targets. Shia Muslims, state employees, rival Islamists, tribal opponents, and Sunni dissenters have all been subjected to this logic.
3. Wage offensive and defensive jihad. The enemy includes occupying powers, regional governments, religious minorities, rival jihadists, and Muslims who reject ISIS’s rule.
4. Provoke sectarian polarization. Zarqawi’s Iraqi strategy deliberately attacked Shia communities to induce reprisals, destroy mixed political identities, and force Sunnis into a protection relationship with his movement.
5. Create and expand a territorial state. Governance was not merely a propaganda afterthought. The lineage claimed a state in 2006 and treated control of land, courts, taxation, security, and public ritual as evidence of legitimacy.¹¹⁷
6. Restore a universal caliphate and erase modern borders. The 2014 declaration rejected the Iraqi-Syrian border and demanded allegiance from Muslims globally.
7. Monopolize jihadist authority. ISIS does not accept a plural marketplace of militant groups. It coerces pledges, absorbs useful rivals, and brands resistant jihadists illegitimate.
8. Use exemplary violence as governance and communication. Spectacular cruelty intimidates populations, provokes enemies, recruits a subset of admirers, and makes the group appear more powerful and uncompromising than competitors.

ISIS belongs analytically within Salafi-jihadism, an extremist revolutionary subset of the broader Salafi movement. This does not make Salafis generally members or supporters of ISIS. Nor does the existence of Islamic references settle whether ISIS’s readings are faithful, representative, or legitimate. The group selects sources, precedents, and juristic positions to authorize an unusually expansive program of takfir, enslavement, rebellion, and mass violence; Muslim scholars and publics overwhelmingly reject its authority and conclusions.¹⁷¹⁸

Internal Islamic-law critique

The Fanatical ISIS through the Lens of Islamic Law argues from within an Islamic juristic framework that ISIS distorts jihad, Sharia, minority protections, and the sanctity of civilian life. This is useful evidence of a reasoned Muslim rebuttal, but it is a normative theological argument, not neutral proof that ISIS has no Islamic intellectual genealogy. ISIS and the Sectarian Political Ontology similarly emphasizes the contradiction between ISIS’s universal ummah rhetoric and its exclusionary, violent sectarian project.

Primary-text audit: what The ISIS Reader adds

The ISIS Reader - Ingram, Whiteside and Winter is the companion, chapter-by-chapter guide to the 2020 anthology of dated speeches and documents. Its most useful contribution is the ability to test claims about what the movement said it wanted at different moments. The book’s primary texts are selected and often abridged; the editors’ analysis and the movement’s self-presentation are separate evidentiary layers. Printed page references and matching PDF-page locators appear in the companion note.²³²⁴²⁶

1. Before 2003, there was a revolutionary nucleus—not yet “ISIS.” Zarqawi’s 1994 courtroom speech repudiates democracy and secular Arab rule, while the editors trace his Jordanian and independent Afghan networks. These records make an invasion-origin story untenable. They do not show that the later Syrian-Iraqi organization, its mass recruitment, or its 2014 governing apparatus already existed (pp. 15–21; Introduction pp. 3–4).²³
2. The invasion transformed the project, not merely its location. His January 2004 letter adapts to Iraq’s sectarian demography, new police and army, Sunni insurgent competitors, and expected eventual American withdrawal. It makes the planned provocation of Shia retaliation explicit. This is contemporaneous evidence of deliberate agency within conditions created by war; neither the ideology-only nor the invasion-only explanation suffices (pp. 37–55).²³
3. An Iraqi state claim and governing ambition preceded 2014. The 2006 ISI announcement, 2007 leadership guidance, and later captured administrative records show efforts to monopolize authority, discipline members, manage money, and rule. The 2006 “state” was much less sovereign than the later caliphate, and its coercion helped prompt Sunni tribal revolt (pp. 57–106, 235–45).²⁴²⁶
4. Near defeat was not extinction. The December 2009–January 2010 Fallujah Memorandum plans to outlast U.S. withdrawal, absorb or eclipse other Sunni armed groups, and dismantle the Sahwa’s protective position. Its priority is political control of Sunni Iraq, with violence serving that end. The memo is a plan, not proof it was wholly implemented or that ISI had recovered popular support (pp. 107–48).²⁴
5. Self-serving movement documents require adversarial reading. The same memorandum blames some civilian bombings on American frame-ups. The editors reject the accusation because ISI had claimed relevant attacks. The document also downplays the role of ISI coercion in the Awakening. It is valuable evidence of what the organization wanted to deny and how it explained failure to its followers, not evidence that Americans committed those bombings (pp. 107–17, 137–39).²⁴
6. The 2013–14 “caliphate” was both a continuation and an escalation. Baghdadi’s 2013 speech claims ISI had created and financed Nusra’s Syrian branch, then purports to merge it into ISIS; Nusra and al-Qaeda disputed his authority. The 2014 declaration makes a further claim of universal religious allegiance, now supported by real territorial gains and a broad propaganda campaign. The lineage is older; the scale and asserted scope of rule are new (pp. 149–76).²⁶
7. ISIS planned to survive the loss of territory. Its 2016, 2018, and 2019 messages redefined success as fidelity and continued struggle, framed defeat as a “purification,” and portrayed Baghdadi as a leader of global insurgency. These texts help explain survival after Baghuz without making material losses unreal or predicting inevitable resurgence (pp. 249–301).²⁶

What this book cannot settle: It does not independently audit weapon transfers, funding flows, U.S. or Israeli covert decisions, the preferences of ordinary Sunni Iraqis, or the precise weight of Maliki’s policies. Its evidence of an independent anti-U.S. agenda and self-financing ambition makes the “U.S. proxy” story less plausible, but a claim of deliberate sponsorship must still be assessed through independent command, transfer, and financial records. Conversely, the anthology does nothing to erase the invasion’s and occupation’s enabling effects.

Did the founders already intend to build a terrorist organization before the Iraq invasion?

For Zarqawi and the original ideological-organizational nucleus, yes. For every later founder or senior cadre, no.

Calling the invasion “just an opportunity” therefore gets one important point right and another wrong:

• Right: it did not originate Zarqawi’s ideology, his embrace of terrorism, or his basic state-building ambition.
• Wrong: it suggests only a change of venue. The invasion fundamentally changed the network’s scale, social base, tactical repertoire, enemies, alliances, personnel, legitimacy claims, and capacity to govern. The doctrine retained a core continuity; the organization underwent a profound mutation.

Why did Nouri al-Maliki marginalize Sunni political power?

No single motive explains Maliki, and “Sunni exclusion” should not imply that no Sunni held office. The more precise claim is that his governments selectively but systematically weakened independent Sunni political, tribal, and security power centers, while centralizing coercive authority around the premiership. Several motives reinforced one another:

1. Personal and party history

Maliki’s Shia Islamist Dawa Party had been outlawed and violently persecuted under Saddam. Maliki spent decades in exile and lived with a genuine fear that Ba’athist networks could return through the army, bureaucracy, or electoral coalitions. That history helps explain suspicion; it does not justify collective punishment or the instrumental use of de-Ba’athification.

2. Real security threats

Iraq was experiencing terrorism, insurgency, attempted coups, and sectarian civil war. Some former regime personnel did join armed organizations. Maliki could plausibly regard independent armed formations and opaque patronage networks as dangers. The central failure was treating broad political constituencies, peaceful protest, and rivals as extensions of the security threat.

3. Fear of the Awakening as an autonomous armed constituency

The Sahwa had defeated AQI locally but depended first on U.S. pay and protection. From Baghdad’s perspective, tens of thousands of recently insurgent, predominantly Sunni armed men could become a rival force. Maliki promised integration but absorbed only a portion, delayed salaries, arrested some leaders, and allowed the network to decay. This removed one of the strongest local barriers to ISI’s return.¹⁰

4. Regime survival and authoritarian centralization

Maliki sought control of the military, intelligence bodies, judiciary, appointments, and nominally independent institutions. He also used force against Shia rivals, most notably the Mahdi Army in 2008. That is evidence that authoritarian consolidation—not sectarian identity alone—was a governing logic. Yet because state institutions and de-Ba’athification were already sectarianized, centralization imposed especially severe costs on Sunni communities.

5. Electoral competition

The 2010 election was pivotal. Iraqiyya’s narrow plurality threatened Maliki’s premiership and offered a cross-sectarian vehicle heavily supported by Sunni voters. He portrayed parts of it as a route for Ba’athist return, retained power through post-election bargaining, and failed to deliver key power-sharing commitments. Later moves against Tariq al-Hashimi and Rafi al-Issawi reinforced the lesson that winning votes did not guarantee meaningful access to power.¹⁰

6. Patronage, sectarian mobilization, and external backing

Control over state jobs, security appointments, contracts, and legal enforcement sustained Maliki’s coalition. Sectarian fear helped mobilize voters and divide challengers. Iran supported Shia coalition arrangements and Maliki’s position, while the United States also accepted and worked with the resulting government. Calling Maliki merely an Iranian puppet erases his own interests and the role of Iraqi and American choices.

7. Protest repression and the closing of peaceful alternatives

When Sunni protesters demanded legal reform and an end to abusive detention and exclusion, the government frequently framed them as terrorists or Ba’athists. The lethal Hawija raid in April 2013 became especially damaging. Repression did not turn all protesters into ISIS supporters, but it made the jihadists’ claim—that participation in Baghdad’s system was futile—more persuasive to a vulnerable minority.¹¹

Causal limit

Maliki did not “invite” ISIS in the intentional sense. His policies weakened the coalition that had suppressed AQI and created political demand for armed protection or revolt. ISIS then exploited, deceived, coerced, and ultimately betrayed many of the Sunni actors with whom it temporarily aligned.

How ISIS financed and governed itself

At its territorial peak, ISIS was unusually self-financing for a terrorist organization. Its most important revenues came from the population and assets it controlled:

• taxes, tolls, extortion, confiscation, and “protection” payments;
• oil and petroleum products sold through local and regional smuggling networks;
• seizure of cash and property from banks, government offices, minorities, and displaced people;
• ransom kidnapping;
• agriculture, real estate, utilities, businesses, and other captured economic assets;
• trafficking and the organized dispossession and enslavement of targeted populations.

Private foreign donations and externally supplied resources mattered, especially to the broader Syrian insurgent ecosystem and at earlier phases, but official financial assessments found that ISIS’s territorial model depended primarily on internal predation and captured assets.²¹²² This is another reason the statement “America funded ISIS” is analytically poor: it ignores the organization’s principal revenue system while confusing weapons leakage and broader regional assistance with intentional financing.

Governance was not the opposite of terror; terror was one of its administrative tools. ISIS issued identity and travel rules, ran courts and police, regulated commerce and education, distributed selected services, and produced meticulous records. It simultaneously executed opponents, enslaved women and girls, destroyed religious sites, conscripted children, seized property, and criminalized ordinary plural life. Administrative capacity does not imply public legitimacy.

Fact-check ledger for recurring claims

Did the United States deliberately create ISIS?

Verdict: No. There is no credible evidence of a U.S. decision, command relationship, founding operation, or sponsorship program whose beneficiary was ISIS. The organization’s documented lineage runs through Zarqawi’s pre-2003 network. Claims that President Obama or the CIA “founded” ISIS usually turn a criticism of policy consequences into an allegation of intentional treason without supplying the necessary evidence.

That allegation also appears as a speaker’s claim in Debate - Joe Rogan & Dave Smith vs. Douglas Murray Transcript. A transcript establishes that the argument was made; it does not independently corroborate the argument.

What is true: The United States bears substantial causal responsibility for creating the environment in which Zarqawi’s network became a mass Iraqi insurgency and later a state. The Iraq Inquiry recorded prewar warnings that invasion could heighten the al-Qaeda threat and concluded that postwar preparation was inadequate; de-Ba’athification and demobilization aggravated division and instability.⁶ “Not deliberately created” is not the same as “had no causal responsibility.”

Did the United States fund or arm ISIS?

Verdict: Deliberate funding or arming is unsupported; indirect acquisition is documented.

ISIS captured large quantities of U.S.-origin matériel from collapsing Iraqi units in 2014. Weapons supplied by the United States, regional states, and other governments to Syrian opposition forces also entered ISIS stocks through capture, defeat, sale, diversion, or unauthorized retransfer. Conflict Armament Research traced such chains and explicitly warned that a weapon’s manufacturer or country of origin does not establish complicity in its later possession.⁴ A U.S. Defense Department audit separately found major accountability weaknesses in equipment supplied to forces fighting ISIS, making some matériel vulnerable to loss or diversion.⁵

The responsible criticism is that poorly controlled proxy warfare, weak end-use monitoring, and the collapse of partner forces produced foreseeable leakage and capture. The evidence does not justify changing that into “Washington knowingly armed ISIS.”

Did President Obama’s 2011 withdrawal create ISIS?

Verdict: It contributed to the permissive environment but is not an adequate stand-alone explanation.

The withdrawal date came from the 2008 security agreement negotiated under President George W. Bush, which required U.S. forces to leave by 31 December 2011.²⁵ The Obama administration did not secure a follow-on agreement that protected remaining troops from Iraqi prosecution. Withdrawal reduced American intelligence, military capacity, and leverage over Maliki, but ISI already existed; Maliki’s politics, the Syrian war, ISIS strategy, and Iraqi security failure were independently essential.

Did Camp Bucca create Baghdadi and ISIS?

Verdict: Incubator, not immaculate conception.

Camp Bucca and related facilities allowed militants to meet, classify one another, teach doctrine, recruit, and connect ideological leaders with men possessing military and administrative skills. U.S. military writing at the time acknowledged that overcrowding and poor separation could turn detention into a “jihadi university.”⁷ But evidence also suggests Baghdadi was radicalized before detention, and Zarqawi’s network plainly predated the prison system.⁸ Bucca accelerated social and organizational formation; it did not invent the worldview.

Did Saddam Hussein sponsor the organization that became ISIS?

Verdict: No credible evidence.

Zarqawi operated in Kurdish northern Iraq, an area outside Saddam’s effective authority, and his presence was repeatedly used in prewar rhetoric as if geographic presence proved regime control. The Iraq Inquiry concluded that practical cooperation between Saddam’s government and al-Qaeda was unlikely and unsupported.⁶ Some former regime officers later joined ISIS after the state collapsed; their post-2003 choices cannot retroactively establish a prewar alliance.

Did former Saddam officers secretly run ISIS?

Verdict: They were important, but the “Ba’athists in Islamic costume” theory is too simple.

Former officers contributed military planning, intelligence tradecraft, surveillance, logistics, local networks, and administrative competence. Some joined for ideological reasons; others for revenge, status, protection, or opportunity. Research on ISIS military doctrine finds a hybrid organization that borrowed and adapted skills without simply reproducing Ba’athist doctrine or command.⁹ Jihadist clerics and commanders determined the movement’s claimed religious legitimacy, enemies, laws, and ultimate political project.

Did Assad create or sponsor ISIS?

Verdict: Founding and control are unsupported; facilitation and exploitation are credible.

The Assad regime released Islamist prisoners, concentrated much early firepower on non-ISIS rebels in some theaters, used the jihadist threat to discredit the uprising, and engaged in pragmatic economic or battlefield transactions with armed enemies. These choices helped ISIS and strengthened the regime’s “Assad or terrorists” narrative. Analysts caution, however, that no definitive evidence proves a master plan to found and control ISIS; the group originated independently and repeatedly fought regime forces.¹²

Did Israel create or fund ISIS?

Verdict: Unsupported.

The claim lacks the kinds of evidence required for sponsorship: authenticated orders, financial trails, weapons transfers to ISIS as the intended recipient, credible insider testimony corroborated by records, or a command relationship. UNDOF documented Israeli interactions with unidentified armed opposition members, transfers of wounded people for treatment, and one observed transfer of two boxes; the report did not identify those recipients as ISIS or describe a sponsorship relationship. Israel later publicly described Operation Good Neighbor as a humanitarian-aid program—an official self-description that should be weighed as such.¹³ Credible evidence of contact or assistance to a non-ISIS faction still would not establish that Israel founded or financed ISIS. The organization’s prehistory and command succession are independently documented from Jordan and Afghanistan through AQI and ISI.¹²

This conclusion is evidence-specific, not a claim that every Israeli covert activity in Syria is publicly known. Classified uncertainty cannot be used as positive proof of a conspiracy. See also Jewish Conspiracy Theories and the existing claim audit in Israel - United States Relations.

Did Gulf states or private Gulf donors create ISIS?

Verdict: State creation is unsupported; permissive private financing and regional proxy-war flows are legitimate subjects of criticism.

Private donors from Gulf countries funded militant causes, and state support to poorly screened or shifting Syrian opposition coalitions helped create an ecosystem in which matériel could move to jihadists. That does not prove a Gulf government founded or commanded ISIS. Moreover, ISIS’s mature finances relied more on extortion, oil, confiscation, ransom, and captured territory than on outside donations.²¹²²

Did Turkey create ISIS?

Verdict: No evidence of creation or control; serious enabling-policy questions remain.

Turkey became the principal transit route for many foreign fighters entering Syria, aided by its geography, transport hubs, long border, and—in the U.S. State Department’s 2014 assessment—remaining screening and visa gaps. Ankara also expanded entry bans and interdiction in 2014, joined the anti-ISIS coalition, and later fought ISIS directly.²⁹ Its early priorities, border failures, and regional trade and smuggling networks benefited ISIS; that is materially different from evidence that Turkey authored or controlled the Zarqawi–AQI–ISI lineage.

Did Iraqi Sunnis welcome or invite ISIS?

Verdict: Some did tactically; the generalization is false.

After years of exclusion and repression, some Sunni tribes, former officers, Ba’athist insurgents, and local communities viewed ISIS as a temporary weapon against Maliki. Others remained neutral from fear, calculated that Baghdad’s army would return, or had no ability to resist. Still others had already fought AQI during the Awakening and again opposed ISIS. In Mosul and elsewhere, ISIS used a broader insurgent coalition and then monopolized power through assassination, hostage-taking, tribal punishment, and surveillance. Tactical alliance, passive acquiescence, and ideological support are different variables.¹²

Is ISIS an authentic expression of Islam?

Verdict: The historical classification is clear; the theological judgment is contested.

ISIS is an Islamic movement in the descriptive sense that its members understand themselves through Islamic scripture, law, history, and eschatology. It belongs to a recognizable Salafi-jihadist intellectual lineage.¹⁷ It is not representative of Muslims or Islam as a whole, and its authority, takfir, methods, and legal conclusions are rejected by mainstream Muslim institutions and the overwhelming majority of surveyed Muslim publics.¹⁸ Saying “nothing to do with Islam” obscures intellectual history; saying “this is true Islam” converts a partisan theological claim into a neutral fact.

Was ISIS defeated in 2019?

Verdict: Its territorial state was defeated; its organization was not eradicated.

The fall of Baghuz on 23 March 2019 destroyed its last openly governed enclave.¹⁵ Cells, money, detainee networks, media operations, and regional affiliates survived. The 2026 UN assessment portrays an organization weaker in its Iraqi birthplace but more geographically diffuse, with serious branches or partner organizations in parts of West Africa, the Sahel, Central Africa, Somalia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.¹⁶

Atrocities, targets, and legal findings

ISIS violence was not indiscriminate chaos alone; it categorized populations and administered different forms of persecution:

• Yazidis: mass killing, forced conversion, child transfer, captivity, and organized sexual slavery. UN investigators and UNITAD found genocidal intent.²⁷ See the fuller evidence record in Yazidi Genocide.
• Shia Muslims: mosque bombings, market attacks, executions, and mass killings—including captured security personnel—under an expansive doctrine of apostasy.
• Christians and other minorities: murder, expulsion, property seizure, tribute, forced displacement, and destruction of religious heritage.
• Sunni opponents: assassination of clerics and officials, punishment of tribes, execution of defectors and rival rebels, and collective terror against communities that resisted.
• Women and children: enslavement, forced marriage, sexual violence, indoctrination, military training, and separation from families.
• Distant civilians: directed, enabled, and inspired attacks sought to polarize Western societies, demonstrate reach, and provoke reactions useful to recruitment.

The exact legal classification varies by incident and tribunal. Genocide is established most clearly for the campaign against the Yazidis; crimes against humanity and war crimes encompass a wider range of systematic conduct. The label “terrorism” is accurate but insufficient to describe territorial governance, insurgency, conventional warfare, enslavement, and atrocity crimes.

What the evidence can and cannot establish

High confidence

• Zarqawi’s violent network and major ideological commitments predated the Iraq invasion.
• The invasion, occupation breakdown, and several occupation policies greatly enabled the network’s expansion.
• Maliki-era governance and the Syrian civil war were central to ISI’s resurgence.
• ISIS deliberately pursued sectarian war and territorial state-building.
• Captured and diverted foreign weapons, including U.S.-origin weapons, entered ISIS arsenals.
• No credible public evidence shows that the United States or Israel founded or commanded ISIS.
• The territorial caliphate ended in 2019, while a decentralized organization survived.

Moderate or case-dependent confidence

• The exact weight of former Ba’athist officers relative to long-term jihadists at different organizational levels.
• How much any individual was radicalized in prison rather than before detention.
• The balance between central command and local initiative for a particular affiliate or overseas attack.
• The degree to which particular Syrian and regional intelligence policies intentionally tolerated ISIS rather than merely prioritizing other threats.

Inherently difficult to prove

• A precise counterfactual world without the 2003 invasion.
• The private motive behind every Maliki, Assad, Iranian, Turkish, Gulf, or American decision.
• A universal negative about all covert contacts. The proper rule is proportional evidence: extraordinary sponsorship claims require a documented chain, not gaps, suggestive photographs, weapon markings, or policy outcomes alone.

Vault synthesis and further reading

• Blowback — policy comparisons — distinguishes the 2003 invasion from later choices against ISIS; weighs territorial defeat, civilian harm, continuing insurgency, and the costs of action or restraint without erasing jihadist agency.

The most detailed narrative already in the vault is Black Flags - Joby Warrick. The ISIS Reader - Ingram, Whiteside and Winter now supplies a close-reading guide to the movement’s dated speeches and documents. This central note integrates both with independent records: it separates genealogy from enabling causes, explains Maliki’s incentives, distinguishes capture and diversion from sponsorship, and evaluates rival “creator” claims under a consistent evidence standard.

Related notes:

• Iraq War — invasion rationale, occupation policy, insurgency, and consequences
• Black Flags - Joby Warrick — narrative history of Zarqawi, Baghdadi, Jordanian intelligence, Iraq, and Syria
• The ISIS Reader - Ingram, Whiteside and Winter — fifteen-chapter guide to primary texts, editors’ analysis, page locators, and source limitations
• Interventionism — ISIS as a case of blowback and second-order consequences
• Islamism — political-Islam taxonomy
• Salafi movement — distinction between Salafism generally and Salafi-jihadism
• Yazidi Genocide — detailed atrocity record and demographic evidence
• Jewish Conspiracy Theories — recurring unsupported “Israel created ISIS” allegation
• Israel - United States Relations — fact-check of the “Obama founded ISIS” and allied conspiracy claims
• 21 - An-Naim Hallaq and the Islamic State Problem — why the generic ideal of a modern “Islamic state” raises a different problem from the history of ISIS
• The Fanatical ISIS through the Lens of Islamic Law — an internal Islamic-law rebuttal to ISIS’s claims
• ISIS and the Sectarian Political Ontology — source-library record on universal caliphate rhetoric and sectarian exclusion
• Hunting for ISIS: A Warning from Africa — source-library record on the African threat

Thin source captures not used as evidence

(381) Confronting ISIS currently contains only generic YouTube metadata, and (1125) What ISIS Really Wants contains only its title as a highlight. They are linked here for retrieval but were not treated as substantive sources.

Books that would deepen a future revision

No additional book is required to support the conclusions above. The ISIS Reader is now incorporated. For further comparison, useful additions would be:

1. William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse — ideology, apocalyptic thought, and the caliphate claim.
2. Fawaz A. Gerges, ISIS: A History — political and social setting, with a different weighting of local causes.
3. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan — Zarqawi’s network and long-run strategy.
4. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror — interviews, Syrian and Iraqi networks, and operational development.
5. Charles R. Lister, The Syrian Jihad — ISIS within the wider Syrian insurgent ecosystem.

Comparing these works would be especially valuable where scholars differ over Ba’athist influence, detention, Assad’s strategy, and the relative importance of ideology versus state collapse.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Nelly Lahoud et al., “The Group That Calls Itself a State: Understanding the Evolution and Challenges of the Islamic State,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, December 2014, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/CTC-The-Group-That-Calls-Itself-A-State-December20141.pdf. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Tore Refslund Hamming, “The Hardline Stream of Global Jihad: Revisiting the Ideological Origin of the Islamic State,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, January 2019, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/hardline-stream-global-jihad-revisiting-ideological-origin-islamic-state/. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter, “Lessons from the Islamic State’s Milestone Texts and Speeches,” CTC Sentinel, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 2020, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/?p=47231; U.S. Department of State, “Designation of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s Group,” 15 October 2004, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/37130.htm. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Conflict Armament Research, Weapons of the Islamic State: A Three-Year Investigation in Iraq and Syria, December 2017, https://www.conflictarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Weapons-of-the-Islamic-State.pdf. ↩ ↩²

5. U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, “Audit of the DoD’s Accountability of Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund Equipment Designated for Syria,” 13 February 2020, https://www.dodig.mil/Reports/Audits-and-Evaluations/Article/2085916/audit-of-the-dods-accountability-of-counter-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-syria-tra/. ↩ ↩²

6. Sir John Chilcot et al., The Report of the Iraq Inquiry: Executive Summary, UK Iraq Inquiry, 6 July 2016, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80f42ced915d74e6231626/The_Report_of_the_Iraq_Inquiry_-_Executive_Summary.pdf. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

7. James Skylar Gerrond, “Reintegration in Iraq: Practicing What We Preach,” Military Review, November–December 2009, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091031_art011.pdf. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. William McCants, “Don’t Completely Blame America for Baghdadi,” Brookings Institution, 13 May 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/dont-completely-blame-america-for-baghdadi/. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. Craig Whiteside, “The Military Doctrine of the Islamic State and the Limits of Ba’athist Influence,” CTC Sentinel, February 2017, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-military-doctrine-of-the-islamic-state-and-the-limits-of-baathist-influence/. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. Marisa Cochrane Sullivan, Maliki’s Authoritarian Regime, Institute for the Study of War, April 2013, https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/wps/isw/0030983/f_0030983_25076.pdf; Harith Hasan al-Qarawee, Iraq’s Sectarian Crisis: A Legacy of Exclusion, Carnegie Middle East Center, April 2014, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/iraq_sectarian_crisis.pdf. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

11. Human Rights Watch, “How Baghdad Fuels Iraq’s Sectarian Fire,” 15 May 2013, https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/15/how-baghdad-fuels-iraqs-sectarian-fire. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

12. Kheder Khaddour, “The Assad Regime’s Hold on the Syrian State,” Carnegie Middle East Center, 8 July 2015, https://carnegieendowment.org/middle-east/research/2015/07/the-assad-regimes-hold-on-the-syrian-state; Lina Khatib, The Islamic State’s Strategy: Lasting and Expanding, Carnegie Middle East Center, 29 June 2015, https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2015/06/the-islamic-states-strategy-lasting-and-expanding. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

13. UN Secretary-General, Report on the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force for the period from 11 March to 28 May 2014, S/2014/401, paras. 9 and 13, https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?l=en&s=S/2014/401&t=pdf; Israel Defense Forces, “Operation Good Neighbor: IDF Aid to Syrians,” official program description, https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/wars-and-operations/operation-good-neighbor-idf-aid-to-syrians/. ↩ ↩²

14. Aaron Y. Zelin, “The War between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, June 2014, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-war-of-jihadists-against-jihadists-in-syria/. ↩ ↩²

15. U.S. Central Command, “Statement from Gen. Joseph Votel on Liberating the Last Territory Held by Daesh,” 23 March 2019, https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PUBLIC-RELEASES/Article/1760415/statement-from-gen-joseph-votel-on-liberating-the-last-territory-held-by-daesh/. ↩ ↩² ↩³

16. UN Security Council, Thirty-eighth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities, S/2026/651, 10 August 2026 (information through 9 June 2026), https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2143431/n2617100.pdf; official report index, https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/sanctions/1267/monitoring-team/reports. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

17. Cole Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, Brookings Institution, March 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/the-ideology-of-the-islamic-state.pdf. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

18. Jacob Poushter, “In Nations with Significant Muslim Populations, Much Disdain for ISIS,” Pew Research Center, 17 November 2015, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/11/17/in-nations-with-significant-muslim-populations-much-disdain-for-isis/. ↩ ↩² ↩³

19. Coalition Provisional Authority, Order No. 1, “De-Ba’athification of Iraqi Society,” 16 May 2003, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-S-PURL-LPS44094/pdf/GOVPUB-S-PURL-LPS44094.pdf; Coalition Provisional Authority, Order No. 2, “Dissolution of Entities,” 23 May 2003, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-S-PURL-LPS45365/pdf/GOVPUB-S-PURL-LPS45365.pdf. ↩ ↩²

20. Daniel Byman, “The Resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq,” Brookings Institution, 31 July 2013, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-resurgence-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq/. ↩

21. U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Remarks of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,” 23 October 2014, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jl2672. ↩ ↩² ↩³

22. Financial Action Task Force, Financing of the Terrorist Organisation Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), February 2015, https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf/documents/reports/Financing-of-the-terrorist-organisation-ISIL.pdf. ↩ ↩² ↩³

23. Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter, The ISIS Reader: Milestone Texts of the Islamic State Movement (London: Hurst & Company, 2020), Introduction pp. 1–11 and chs. 1–2, pp. 15–56. See The ISIS Reader - Ingram, Whiteside and Winter for chapter notes and PDF-page locators. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

24. Ingram, Whiteside, and Winter, The ISIS Reader, chs. 3–5, pp. 57–148. The editors identify the Fallujah Memorandum’s author as unknown and reject its denial of ISI responsibility for attacks (pp. 107–17). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

25. White House, “Fact Sheet: The Strategic Framework Agreement and the Security Agreement with Iraq,” 4 December 2008, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081204-6.html. ↩ ↩²

26. Ingram, Whiteside, and Winter, The ISIS Reader, chs. 6–15, pp. 149–301. Separate primary claims, editorial analysis, and corroborated outcomes; the anthology’s documentary coverage ends in 2019. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

27. UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, “They Came to Destroy”: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis, A/HRC/32/CRP.2, 15 June 2016, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/843515; UNITAD, Seventh Report to the UN Security Council, S/2021/460, 17 May 2021, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3928978/files/S_2021_460-EN.pdf. ↩ ↩²

28. U.S. Department of Defense, “U.S. Forces Kill ISIS Founder, Leader Baghdadi in Syria,” 27 October 2019, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/1999751/us-forces-kill-isis-founder-leader-baghdadi-in-syria/. ↩

29. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2014: Europe Overview — Turkey, June 2015, https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2014/239406.htm. ↩