Patrick Cockburn · Why join Islamic State ? · LRB 2 July 2015

/patrick-cockburn

  • Patrick Cockburn · Why join Islamic State ? · LRB 2 July 2015
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n13/patrick-cockburn/why-join-islamic-state?hq_e=el&hq_m=3818645&hq_l=9&hq_v=61a0624cf7

    La #corruption et l’#arbitraire de l’""""#élite"""" moyen-orientale parmi les garants de la pérennité de l’#ISIS,

    He told the story of his former leader or emir, an Iraqi Kurd with the nom de guerre Abu Abbas al-Kurdistani, who had recently been killed in battle. Faraj asked him why he had joined Islamic State and Abu Abbas replied that he had been imprisoned by the Kurdistan Regional Government for four years without a fair trial. ‘Corruption and torture,’ Faraj said, ‘had pushed him to find any organisation that gives him the opportunity for taking revenge. Our emir’s pain was similar to ours. We all fight as a reaction to the tyranny and injustice we had known before. Islamic State is the best option for oppressed people in the Middle East.’

    The capture of Tal Abyad by the Kurds may well lead to a fresh wave of speculation that Islamic State is going into decline. But, like most of the other participants in the civil wars in Iraq and Syria, the self-declared caliphate is too well rooted to disappear.