Who is ISIS? (According to Wikipedia)
ISIS originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999 and pledged allegiance to al-Queda in
2004. The group participated in the Iraqi Insurgency that followed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by the USA and all other Western forces.
And according to The Guardian:
Isis is led by an Iraqi
called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Isis was originally an al-Qaida group in
Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq
(ISI). As the Syrian civil war intensified, its involvement in the
conflict was indirect at first. Abu Muhammad al-Joulani, an ISI
member, established Jabhat al-Jabhat al-Nusra in mid-2011, which
became the main jihadi group in the Syrian war.
Isis is claiming responsibility for a downed Jet and Paris. There was also terror attacks in Beirut as well as a suicide bombing at a funeral in Iraq.
In 2013, alone, (world wide) The U.S Dept. Of State says:
On average, there were 808.91 attacks,
1,490.92 deaths, and 2,714.75 injuries per month in 2013. There were
1.84 fatalities and 3.36 injuries per attack, including perpetrator
casualties.
- The high number of hostages in January (986) was primarily due to a single extended hostage/barricade attack near In Amenas, Algeria in which approximately 800 people were held hostage at a British Petroleum (BP) gas complex. Al-Muwaqqi'un bil-Dima (Those Who Sign with Blood), a sub-battalion of the al-Mulathamun Battalion, claimed responsibility for the attack, which lasted three days.
- Global patterns of terrorism throughout the year were particularly influenced by trends in several key locations. In particular, terrorist violence increased coinciding with the onset of spring “fighting season” in Afghanistan. Between February and July 2013, the number of attacks in Afghanistan increased 128% and the number killed increased 253%.
- Pakistan and Iraq experienced similar increases in attacks during this time period. Although the number of attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan subsequently declined, the number of attacks and fatalities reported in Iraq continued to increase throughout the rest of 2013.
The FBI defines terrorism (off US soil) as:
- Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
- Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
- Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the
U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by
which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to
intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators
operate or seek asylum.*
* FISA defines "international terrorism" in a nearly identical way, replacing "primarily" outside the U.S. with "totally" outside the U.S. 50 U.S.C. § 1801(c).