The Rise and Fall(?) of the Islamic State

Abstract

The study seeks to shed light on the principal factors of the success of the Islamic State. How could the terrorist organisation risen from the ruins of Al-Qaida in Iraq become the most feared – from a different point of view, the most attractive – Jihadist organisation in a few years? Beside describing its main characteristics, the study shows who the fighters of the Islamic State were, where they were from and what motivations they had. I examine what threat the fighters surviving in Iraq and Syria, or throughout the world, mean, after the fall of the never recognised ’caliphate’ proclaimed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I discuss the flexible adaptability that made possible to transform the Islamic State from a terrorist group to a proto-state within a few years and made it possible to redefine its position after the fall. Despite its total defeat in territorial terms, the ideology and the ’virtual caliphate’ has not been defeated at all. First of all, the network still existing in the Levante and the continuing propaganda are the reasons why the fighters who survived, the relatives of the former fighters, or those who become attracted to the ideology afterwards, pose a serious security challenge from Western Europe through North and Sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia.