Reconcile and expand

A series of attacks, including that on Paris, has got the world on its toes. The situation this time around is alarming to an extent where the whole world mourned this disaster. The past one year has been witness to an added dose of Islamic extremism. The exact numbers for deceased and injured has been over 1000’s and counting. Syria is still at war leading to the loss of thousands of lives on a daily basis. The Islamic state of Iraq and Syria, also known as the Islamic state of Levant or Daesh have been held responsible for the three major attacks between October and November this year, all within a span of two weeks. The first was that of the Russian jet heading towards St. Petersburg which was bombed over the Sinai region on October 31. This attack led to the loss of 224 lives. The second on November 12 in Beirut. Lebanon witnessed the worst incident of violence where 42 people, mostly Shia Muslims were swept off their lives on account of twin suicide bombings on the same day.

All the attacks in spite of retaliation from Russian forces point to the fact that the ISIS have now begun spreading their wings across countries. In the light of these events, the United Nations sanctioned a team last Tuesday to monitor the growth of terrorism in Libya. Libya, being very close to Europe remains sensitive where the growing roots of Islamic extremism act as an immediate threat. The hint towards this expansion came forth after the ISIS suffered setbacks in northeast Iraq and Syria but remained potent enough to hit back when required. There have been reports that the members of ISIS are receiving major flak within Iraq and Syria, and so are looking to operate out of Libya so that they can utilise the latter, in the event of a fall-back. The United Nations have further reported that about 3500 Libyans were rumoured to have left the country in order to join the Jihadi forces in Iraq and Syria. However, as many as 800 of those refugees are reported to have returned in order to build the ISIS  in Libya.

All these steps taken by the ISIS appear more like a publicity stunt in order to prove a point to  world leaders. The point being that the organisation is absolutely stable in spite of all the attacks made on them including the Russian air attacks which are rumoured to have destroyed a major chunk of ISIS forces. An ISIS defector spoke to the media last month stating that the situation within the organisation isn’t as poor as it appears to be. In fact, it is just improving. He further stated that the clash between the Iraqi forces and the ISIS has reasonably reduced which has helped the latter focus on expanding its networks all over the world. The bombings of the Russian airliner and the Paris attacks have been successful ventures for the body and it hence looks like the organisation is looking to only begin expanding its wings in order to come closer to Europe.