ISIS Declared to Be Islamist Caliphate
Sunni Islamist militant group announced to change its name from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, to Islamist “caliphate” on Sunday, 29 June, and appointed Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi as the new Islamic State’s Caliph, who empowered as a supreme religious and political leader. Yet, the declaration was unilateral without allegiance from other Islamist groups.
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The announcement was delivered by ISIS spokesman, Abu Mohammed Al Adnani, in an audio file that posted on the group’s expansive social media presence.
“We have had all the requirements of the Islamic state like fundraising, almsgiving, penalties, and prayers and still have only one thing which is the caliphate,” Mr. Adnani said in the recording, “the legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and arrival of its troops to their areas.” At the end, he announced that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi as the new Islamic State’s Caliph.
Caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader known as a Caliph. Its territories area covered from Aleppo, North Syria to Diyala, Iraq. The title, Caliphate, has not been used for 90 years since the Istanbul-based Ottoman Empire collapsed. Ottoman Empire was abolished in 1923 by the first president of modern Turkey, Atatürk, meanwhile The Republic of Turkey established. The announcement is not significant until Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the global al Qaeda responds to it. Before Baghdadi’s ISIS appeared, al Qaeda was the foremost Islamist militant group and Mr. Zawahiri inherited leadership of the group from Osama bin Laden after the latter was killed by U.S. in Pakistan in 2011. |
BBC reports on ISIS Militants declare New Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
What is a caliphate? isis declaration raises questionsThe militant group Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has declared that it is restoring the Islamic Caliphate more...
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ISIS pursues a state-like emirate and unified Islamic nation, to use all means to achieve their goal, however cruel it is. |
However, the Mr Baghdadi's ISIS is believed to attract more young recruits and wealthy donors with his more practical and less theoretical approach. This entirely difference gives their supporters a hope that could turn their Islamic State from dream to reality.
Mr. Zelin comments on the recording announcement as more about inter-Islamic matter, not about the West. He refers to Mr. Adnani, spokesman of ISIS statement in the recording, taunted unnamed skeptics who had doubted the establishment of a caliphate are probably followers of al Qaeda. |
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Jihadists Step Up Recruitment DriveThe Sunni jihadist groups’ recruitment drive is attracting more fighters to join ISIS. more...
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