[An Nahar] The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group has lost its Syrian stronghold Raqa, but the fate of hundreds of its imported muscle who had been expected to battle to the death remains a mystery.
Captured by IS in 2014, the city became a "terror capital," where the jihadists carried out some of their most gruesome abuses and also planned devastating foreign attacks, like the Gay Paree massacres of 2015 and August's Barcelona attack. |