October 19, 2017

As Islamic State terrorist forces lost ground in Iraq in 2017, the terror group was also losing ground in neighboring Syria, a country torn apart by civil war since 2011. At times, the Islamic State has controlled large parts of Syria, but its grip has recently shrunk to areas along the Euphrates River in the nation’s sparsely populated east. In 2014, the terror group took control of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa (also spelled Ar Raqqah), proclaiming it a regional capital within its so-called caliphate. The group’s main capital was Mosul, Iraq, which fell in July. Other names for the Islamic State have included the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Raqqa, Syria, lies in ruins on Aug. 1, 2017. Fighting to oust Islamic State militants destroyed much of the city in 2017. Credit: Mahmoud Bali, Voice of America

The Islamic State staged euphoric parades—as well as numerous atrocities—in Raqqa, a city that once numbered 300,000 people. Most of Raqqa’s residents fled, but those who could not were forced to watch as Islamic State executioners murdered dozens of people daily. Mass executions took place regularly at the city’s main Clock Tower Square, grisly killings of people who stepped out of line with the terror group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.

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Raqqa (here spelled Ar Raqqah) lies on the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Al Mayadin is down river in eastern Syria. Both cities were liberated from Islamic State control in October 2017. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

In 2017, however, the suffering people of Raqqa witnessed a turnaround. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish and Arab militia group,
chased Islamic State fighters away from areas surrounding Raqqa, leaving the city an isolated Islamic State stronghold. On June 6, SDF troops—supplied and supported by the United States-led coalition also fighting the Islamic State—entered Raqqa. Heavy fighting erupted as Islamic State militants battled invading SDF troops. Throughout June, July, and August, the SDF advanced street-by-street against stiff Islamic State resistance.

By September 1, Islamic State control was reduced to several neighborhoods in the city’s north and in the central area around the killing ground of Clock Tower Square. By early October, the battered ruins of Raqqa were firmly in SDF hands, and only scattered pockets of the most fanatic Islamic State fighters remained (thousands of fighters had fled or surrendered). At last, on October 17, the SDF declared Raqqa secured: the last Islamic State fighters in the city had fled or been killed or captured.

Like the fall of Mosul in July, the fall of Raqqa was a significant moment in the fight against the Islamic State, but the fight continues. Also in October, Syrian government forces—who are at war with rebels as well as the Islamic State (but not the SDF)—took control of the eastern town of al Mayadin in Deir al-Zor province, the Islamic State’s last Syrian stronghold.

October 23, 2015

Early yesterday, October 22, U.S. Special Forces and allied Kurdish troops rescued 69 captives from an Islamic State (also known as ISIS) compound in the northern Iraqi town of Hawija. The prisoners, like so many others in the hands of the Islamic State terrorist group, were about to be killed in a mass execution. Kurdish security forces—known as peshmerga (Kurdish for those who confront death)—asked for help to rescue the prisoners, and the Special Forces responded.

Five U.S. helicopters—similar to the Marine helicopter pictured here—flew U.S. and Kurdish forces to and from the raid in Hawija. On the return trip, the helicopters also carried 69 freed prisoners and 5 Islamic State captives. © Summer Dowding, Department Of Defense

To aid in the fight against the Islamic State, a small number of U.S. troops deployed (were sent) to Iraq in an advisory role last year. Anticipating the need to expand that role, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq has since steadily increased to some 3,500. Thursday’s raid marked the first official time that American troops had fought alongside local forces against the Islamic State. The rescue mission was an overwhelming success, but it cost the life of one American, a 39-year-old Army master sergeant from Oklahoma. The U.S. soldier’s death in action was the first in Iraq since the Iraq War ended in 2011, and the first U.S. combat fatality in the fight against the Islamic State. More than 20 Islamic State militants died in the raid, and 5 others were captured. American officials were quick to point out that the raid was an isolated rescue mission, a “unique circumstance,” and not a change in tactics.

Hawija lies in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, some 30 miles south of the city of Kirkuk. Kurdish and Iraqi forces have been battling Islamic State militants in the area since 2014. Many thousands of people have died in the area’s fighting, and many others have become prisoners of the Islamic State. As is well known by now, people captured by the Islamic State are often massacred.

July 29, 2015

A map showing the traditional homeland of the Kurds, extending mainly over parts of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. This area is historically called Kurdistan, a Persian word meaning the Land of the Kurds. World Book map

September 23, 2014

Military forces from the United States and five Arab countries widened the war on the Islamic State (of Iraq and Syria)  (ISIS) by launching overnight the first air attacks on the jihadist group in Syria. American military officials said 14 strikes had destroyed or damaged ISIS training compounds, command and control facilities, vehicles, and storage sites in four Syrian provinces. Aircraft from Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia participated in the attacks, while Qatar and the United Arab Emirates assisted in the operation. United States General Martin Dempsey, America’s highest-ranking uniformed military officer, said the strikes were conducted to show ISIS militants they had no safe haven. “We certainly achieved that,” he told reporters. The United States has already launched more than 190 air strikes against IS extremists in Iraq and has armed Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting IS militants on the ground.

In recent months, the ISIS has taken control over great swaths of northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria. ISIS is a Sunni Muslim group known for its severe interpretation of the Shari`ah, the legal and moral code of Islam. The group specifically targets rival Shi`ite Muslims, Christians, and anyone else it deems an “enemy of Islam.” The group has become notorious for its extreme violence, including the mass executions of civilians and the barbarous beheading of enemy soldiers and Western journalists. Foreign affairs specialists noted the significance of such countries with a Sunni majority, like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, participating in the campaign against the ISIS.

A refugee camp in Jordan is one of many housing the millions of Syrians who have fled civil war and the advance of IS forces in their country. (AP)

The Syrian air strikes are aimed at halting IS advances in the eastern part of that country. On September 19, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS extremists had seized 60 Syrian Kurdish villages near the Turkish border in a two-day campaign. The fighting sent some 130,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing into Turkey last weekend. Most of the refugees were from Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town near the Turkish border. Syrian Kurdish forces reportedly halted the jihadists’ advance amid fierce fighting. In response to the flood of refugees, Turkey closed some border crossings with Syria. Before this latest migration, there were already more than 1 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, people displaced by the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011. International affairs experts noted that the Turkish government is apprehensive about allowing large numbers of Kurds to enter the country. For 30 years, Turkish forces fought Kurdish separatists in a rebellion that left 40,000 people dead. Turkey also apparently wished to prevent Kurdish refugees from returning to Syria to fight the ISIS.

Additional World Book articles:

• Kurdistan
• Umayyad caliphate
• Iraq War
• Iraq 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Iraq 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Syria 2013 (a Back in Time article)
• Syria: The Roots of a Rebellion (a special report)

August 19, 2014

Yesterday, United States President Barack Obama announced that military operations begun on August 16th in northern Iraq had recaptured a strategically important dam. The dam, located near the city of Mosul, was captured several weeks ago by armed Sunni extremists with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The extremist group ISIS has seized a large amount of territory in northern Iraq and Syria. (World Book map.)

ISIS has come to the fore in 2014, seizing major swaths of land in Syria and Iraq, in their attempt to create a new Islamic empire. Isis seized Mosul in early June. This major city is strategically placed on routes linking Iraq to Turkey and Syria.

Both the U.S. and Iraqi governments were unwilling to allow the dam to stay in the hands of such extremists. The Mosul dam supplies electric power to northern Iraq and water to cities as far south as Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. The dam is also the water source for much of Iraq’s agricultural land. With ISIS in control of the dam, Iraq’s water and power supplies were suddenly in the hands of hostile extremists. In addition, if ISIS had decided to destroy the dam, it would have sent a 60-foot (18-meter) wave of water down the Tigris River that would have inundated the city of Mosul and flooded Baghdad.

President Obama ordered air strikes, coordinated with strikes by the Iraqi air force, on ISIS forces that began on the 16th. These air strikes were in support of Kurdish military, known as peshmerga, fighting on the ground. By the morning of the 18th, the peshmerga had retaken the Mosul dam from ISIS. On the 19th, Isis posted a video online with the statement to the United States, “We will drown all of you in blood.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Islamic empire
• Kurdistan