Islamic State in the context of "European migrant crisis"

Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) is the United States military's operational name for the international war against the Islamic State (IS)—a group also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or its Arab acronym "Daesh"—including both a campaign in Iraq and a campaign in Syria, with a closely related campaign in Libya. Through 18 September 2018, the U.S. Army's III Armored Corps was responsible for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF—OIR) and were replaced by the XVIII Airborne Corps. The campaign is primarily waged by American and British forces in support of local allies, most prominently the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Combat ground troops, mostly special forces, infantry, and artillery have also been deployed, especially in Iraq. Of the airstrikes, 70% have been conducted by the military of the United States, 20% by the United Kingdom, and the remaining 10% being carried out by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the Pentagon, by March 2019, the day of IS's territorial defeat in Syria, CJTF—OIR and its partner forces had liberated nearly 110,000 square kilometers (42,471 square miles) of land and 7.7 million people from IS, the vast majority of the self-proclaimed caliphate's territory and subjects. By October 2017, around the time of IS's territorial defeat in Iraq, CJTF—OIR claimed that around 80,000 IS militants had been killed by it and its allies (excluding those targeted by Russian and Syrian air strikes). By the end of August 2019, it had conducted 34,573 strikes. Tens of thousands more were killed by partner forces on the ground (the SDF alone claimed to have killed 25,336 IS fighters by the end of 2017).

The Sinai insurgency was an insurgency campaign in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt launched by Islamist militants against Egyptian security forces, which also included attacks on civilians. The insurgency began during the Egyptian Crisis, during which the longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

The campaign initially consisted of militants, mainly local Bedouin tribesmen, who exploited the chaotic situation in Egypt to launch a series of attacks on government forces in Sinai. In 2014, members of the Ansar Bait al-Maqdis group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) and proclaimed themselves Sinai Province, with some security officials stating that militants based in Libya established ties with the Sinai Province group and blaming the porous border and ongoing civil war for the increase in sophisticated weapons available to the Islamist groups.

The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي, romanized: ar-rabīʻ al-ʻarabī) was a series of pro-democracy anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to the death of Mohamed Bouazizi by self-immolation. From Tunisia, the protests initially spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, all in 2011; and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was deposed in 2019 after a coup d'état caused by a revolution. Bashar al-Assad of Syria was deposed in December 2024 after 13 years of civil war. Major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām! (Arabic: الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام, lit. 'the people want to bring down the regime').

The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid to late 2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities, pro-government militias, counterdemonstrators, and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protesters in some cases. Multiple large-scale conflicts followed: the Syrian civil war; the rise of ISIS, insurgency in Iraq and the following civil war; the Egyptian Crisis, election and removal from office of Mohamed Morsi, and subsequent unrest and insurgency; the Libyan Crisis; and the Yemeni crisis and subsequent civil war. Regimes that lacked major oil wealth and hereditary succession arrangements were more likely to undergo regime change.

The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global military campaign initiated by the United States in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001. A global conflict spanning multiple wars, some researchers and political scientists have argued that it replaced the Cold War.

The main targets of the campaign were militant Islamist movements such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies. Other major targets included the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed in an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency. Following its territorial expansion in 2014, the Islamic State also emerged as a key adversary of the United States.

Tikrit (Arabic: تِكْرِيت, romanized: Tikrīt [ˈtɪkriːt]) is a city in Iraq, located 140 kilometers (87 mi) northwest of Baghdad and 220 kilometers (140 mi) southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. In 2012, it had a population of approximately 160,000. Tikrit is widely regarded as the cultural capital of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, with control of the city carrying symbolic weight due to its former prestige.

Originally created as a fort during the Assyrian empire, Tikrit became the birthplace of Muslim military leader Saladin. Saddam Hussein's birthplace was in a modest village (13 km) south of Tikrit, which is called "Al-Awja"; for that, Saddam bore the surname al-Tikriti. The inhabitants of this village were farmers. Many individuals from Saladin Governorate, especially from Tikrit, were government officials during the Ba'athist period until the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Following the invasion, the city has been a site of insurgency by Sunni militants, including the Islamic State who captured the city in June 2014. During the Second Battle of Tikrit from March to April 2015, which resulted in the displacement of 28,000 civilians, Iraqi government forces regained control of the city, with the city at peace since then.

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (born 29 October 1982), also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian politician, revolutionary, and former rebel commander who has served as the president of Syria since 2025. He previously served as the emir of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from 2017 to 2025 and was Syria's de facto leader from December 2024 until his appointment as president.

Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian Sunni Muslim family from Daraa and the Golan Heights, he grew up in Syria's capital, Damascus. Al-Sharaa joined al-Qaeda in Iraq shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and fought for three years in the Iraqi insurgency. American forces captured and imprisoned him from 2006 to 2011. His release coincided with the Syrian Revolution against the Ba'athist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Al-Sharaa created the al-Nusra Front in 2012 with the support of al-Qaeda to topple the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. As emir of the al-Nusra Front, al-Sharaa built a stronghold in the northwestern Idlib Governorate. He resisted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's attempts to merge al-Nusra Front with the Islamic State, leading to armed conflict between the two groups. In 2016, al-Sharaa cut al-Nusra's ties with al-Qaeda and launched a crackdown on its loyalists. Since breaking with al-Qaeda, he has sought international legitimacy by presenting a more moderate view of himself, renouncing transnational jihadism against Western nations, and focusing on governance in Syria while vowing to protect Syria's minorities.

Christianity in Syria (Arabic: المسيحية في سوريا) has among the oldest Christian communities on Earth, dating back to the first century AD, and has been described as a "cradle of Christianity". With its roots in the traditions of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostle, Syria quickly became a major center of early Christianity and produced many significant theologians and church leaders. Of the 200 bishops who took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, twenty were from Syria. Over the centuries, Syrian Christians have played a vital role in shaping Christian thought and practice, contributing to the development of various liturgical traditions, monastic movements, and theological schools. St. Paul the Apostle famously converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, and Syria has produced seven Popes: Pope Anicetus (157–168 AD), Pope John V (685–686), Pope Sergius I (687–701), Pope Sisinnius (708), Pope Constantine (708–715), Pope Gregory III (731–741 AD), and the first pope, St. Peter, who was from Bethsaida. Their legacy includes the establishment of some of the most ancient churches, monasteries, and pilgrimage sites, such as the 5th century remains of the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites, Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery, and the Cathedral of Constantine and Helen.

However, in recent times, the Syrian Christian community has faced numerous challenges, including ongoing and severe persecution, displacement, and emigration. Christians in Syria made up about 10% of the pre-war Syrian population but now make up less than 2%, falling from 1.5 million in 2011 to just 300,000 in 2022 due to the impact of the Syrian Civil War. Christians in Syria have also been subjected to violence and discrimination by Islamic State fighters during their control of large areas of the country. Their churches have been converted into military headquarters, and their property confiscated. Persecution of Christians in Syria has further intensified since. In Aleppo, the country's second largest city, the proportion of Christian residents fell from 12% pre-war to 1.4% in 2023 with more than 20 churches damaged during the war. The city of Idlib has been almost entirely depopulated of its Christian population under Islamist rule. Some governments and organisations including the United States have claimed that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in Syria and Iraq, constitute an act of genocide.

Raqqa (Arabic: ٱلرَّقَّة, romanized: ar-Raqqah, also al-Raḳḳa), is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about 160 kilometres (99 miles) east of Aleppo. It is located 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and bishopric Callinicum (formerly a Latin and now a Maronite Catholic titular see) was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 796 and 809, under the reign of Harun al-Rashid. It was also the capital of the Islamic State from 2014 to 2017. With a population of 531,952 based on the 2021 official census, Raqqa is the sixth largest city in Syria.

During the Syrian Civil War, the city was captured in 2013 by the Syrian opposition and then by the Islamic State. ISIS made the city its capital in 2014. As a result, the city was hit by airstrikes from the Syrian government, Russia, the United States, and several other countries. Most non-Sunni religious structures in the city were destroyed by ISIS, most notably the Shia Uwais al-Qarni Mosque, while others were converted into Sunni mosques. On 17 October 2017, following a lengthy battle that saw massive destruction to the city, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared the liberation of Raqqa from the Islamic State to be complete.