The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (better known as ISIS) is a Sunni Muslim group who have been in the news for months because of their radical goals and their brutality and violence towards those who they think stand in their way of accomplishing them. They, currently, have occupied a significant chunk of north-western Iraq and northern Syria. Their plans for this land is to create an Islamic State governed by extremely strict Islamic laws, which typically include harsh punishments for even minor crimes. Some examples of their mindless violence include beheading prisoners, one recently being a perfectly innocent American Journalist James Foley, cutting off hands of minor criminals, and torturing and killing Shia Muslims simply because of their Islamic ideals differ from Sunni Muslims. They are focusing so much on the killing of Shia muslims that they are having allegations of committing an “ethnic cleansing” against them.

There are two main groups of Muslims, the Shias and the Sunnis. They both consider the Qur’an (Koran) their holy book and agree that Muhammad was the prophet of Islam. They disagree, and have since Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D., on who should have taken power after their prophet, and leader, died. The Sunni’s believe Muhammad’s predecessor should have been his closest advisor and friend, and Shiites believe the rightful leader was Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. Syria’s country has been in a civil war since 2011, and the feuding government has provided basically a lawless land for ISIS to grow.

Syria’s controversial leader, Bashar Al- Assad, has his hands full trying to stop rebels from his country from overthrowing him. In the summer of 2013, he was accused of gassing some of the insurgents who were asking for democratic reforms in the government. He has been accused of killing many of those who opposed his leadership. There is a civil war in Syria, those who support Assad, and those who don’t. ISIS took advantage of the unrest in Syria by capturing regions throughout Syria.

ISIS uses many strategies, one of their strategeies being utilizing social media. intelligent in all of it’s strategies, one of their strategies being social media. The US government has posted about the violence of ISIS on YouTube and Twitter, but ISIS got their group to report the posts as spam so many times that they were deleted. The tweets were lost, but the YouTube video was reposted and is on the website currently. Not only is ISIS intelligent, but they are also violent.

Even though they are stationed thousands of miles away, ISIS poses a threat to our country both directly through violence and indirectly by hurting our allies and economy. Both Iraq and Syria are major oil suppliers for the US, ISIS continues as it conquers land, is also conquering oil rigs That would disrupt our trade, and furthermore, ISIS could also just decide to no longer trade with us. would make oil more rare and make the price of gas absolutely skyrocket. Even worse than us losing oil, if ISIS overtook Iraq or Syria or ,horrifically, both, they would have access to all of the country’s resources and furthermore, if either of those countries house weapons or military equipment, ISIS would also get their hands on those materials as well. So basically it would be “The Purge” for terrorists who now has their eye on the US because we are beginning airstrikes there. ISIS is growing in size rapidly, one of the main reasons being is when the overtake a certain city or piece of land, the people living there still have their basic needs met. They have water, enough food to survive, and they feel safe under the strong militia of ISIS.

Obama said in a presidential speech on Sept. 10 that the US will be sending in air strikes towards the areas ISIS has conquered with the hopes that the land will be reclaimed by their rightful countries. He urged the importance of counterterrorism and securing the safety of our nation. ISIS is growing by the minute, the sooner our country and our allies band as one to defeat these terrorists, the better.