Category: The Islamic State

Jihadology Podcast: Americans in the Islamic State

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes come on the show to talk about their new report ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa. Some of the topics covered include:

  • Background on the American jihadi scene
  • The demographics of Americans who’ve traveled to join the Islamic State
  • The three roles American Islamic State supporters play on social media


Links:

Thanks to Haakon Jahr, Praecast, Raihan Kadir, and Kaspars Gasuns for supporting the show. You can support the podcast, and get some great rewards, by checking out the show’s Patreon page!
The podcast is produced by Karl Morand. If you have feedback you can email [email protected], or find us on Twitter: @JihadPod.
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Download this episode (18MB mp3)

The Clairvoyant: A Simple Reason Why I Call It 'The Islamic State'

Posted on by Aaron Y. Zelin

For other short posts I’ve done, see The Clairvoyant archive here.
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There are a number of arguments that can be made for calling The Islamic State ‘The Islamic State’ instead of the outdated acronyms that many still use. Below are two reasons that make most sense to me.

  1. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham)/ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)/Da’ish (al-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah fi al-Iraq wa-l-Sham) are all analytically inaccurate. It does not call itself that. 

2. Individuals are making the same mistakes made when people still called its prior incarnation al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) up until 2014, even though it had changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in 2006. By calling it AQI instead of ISI, it not only concealed its interest in state building, but also that there were real issues with al-Qaeda’s senior leadership. By only calling it ISIS/ISIL/Da’ish, it would suggest the it is only interested in aims in Iraq and Syria, which is far from the truth. It’s an expansionist state that has aims to create provinces all over, which go way beyond Iraq and Syria. This is no conjecture, IS has had operations in multiple locations outside Iraq and Syria for 13 months overtly and likely longer covertly. Not saying IS just obscures reality.