An action-adventure script about a hard-driving journalist named Jen who teams up with a talented but fainthearted Iraqi archaeologist and a cynical renegade soldier turned smuggler to track down antiquities looted by ISIS after the death of her war correspondent fiancé.

Analysis of ISIS's Insurgency through the theory of Revolutionary Warfare, by Amerigo Piunti. Ever since the collapse of the brutal Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein, the Sunnis of Iraq were struggling as a minority in a nation governed by Shia. The government of Baghdad was constantly ignoring Sunni's grievances, and for many experts, this aspect was a driving point that led to the establishment of the IS Caliphate. Contrary to popular belief, the so-called Islamic State appeared only for the first time in October 2006. Abū Musʿab al-Zarqāwī was the founder and first tenacious leader of the special detachment called "Al-Qaeda in Iraq." This group later on mutated itself into the notorious Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and it obtained support from international sympathizers and local citizens. The terror group successfully recruited local tribes, experienced fighters and leaders, previous members of the Baathist regime, and it even cooperated with other Jihadists groups. The terror group itself also heavily relied on the spread of Jihadist-Salafist propaganda and eventually created an urgent need for a drastic change in society. The group then expanded its insurgency activities towards Syria, and after only eight years of fighting, it successfully covered each of the necessary stages to...

This master’s thesis is a comparative propaganda analysis that studies the use of history with a religion dimension, similarities and framing of propaganda messages in the Islamic States propaganda magazine Dabiq and Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto The Great Replacement. The propaganda has been analysed with Jowett and O’Donnell’s propaganda model, combined with Jan Assmann’s theories about cultural memory, historia sacra and cultural semantics. The results show that both actors use history with a religious dimension to frame their messages, but that Tarrant uses more cultural aspects than religious. Both actors also project similar messages such as referring to supranational communities, the sacred history of ancestors, ancient enemies, new foundational history and a call for organisation by their target audience.

The Master Thesis Engagement of Obama's Administration in the Syrian Civil War is dealing with the role of the United States in the conflict. This work studies the approach of Obama's administration toward the situation in country from the beginning of the revolution until the end of president's second tenure. It analyzes the development of this approach and key events that influenced its shape. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first is dealing with the background of the crisis, historical development of relations between the US and Syria and the broader context of Obama's Middle East policy. The second part analyzes specific period of time between the start of the revolution until 2014. It follows key events that had profound effect on the inner dynamics of the conflict and phenomenon that were shaping the situation in Syria, like the rising influence of the radicals among the opposition. It also analyzes in detail the chemical attack in Ghouta from 2013, which almost led Washington to direct intervention and is regarded as one of the most important events in Obama's foreign policy. The third part is dealing with the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and American-led intervention against this terrorist organization. The thesis was written with the help of different sources such as...

Since the cold war, contemporary warfare is more frequently fought between state and non-state actors. The Islamic State is a non-state actor who in a short period of time reached major achievements. Some scientists consider the Islamic State’s warfare as a developing trend of irregular warfare. Despite the Islamic State’s big achievements, it seems the organisation have not been sufficiently studied from a military science perspective. There is an obvious ambiguity in how the Islamic State should be defined. One side in the debate consider the Islamic State a revolutionary actor, the other side consider them as a hybrid one. By examining witch of McCullohs theory of hybrid warfare and Guevaras theory of revolutionary warfare most adequate can describe the Islamic State; this case study aims to increase the current understanding of the Islamic State and its warfare. The analytical result shows that the Islamic State is more adequate described as a hybrid actor. There are many similarities between the two theories, however there are some essential differences that supports the result of this paper. The use of terrorism, the relationship with the population and the use of urban terrain proves that the Islamic State is more adequate described as a hybrid actor.

In the aftermath of operation iraqi freedom, the world has seen the rise and fall of an entirely new kind of enemy, the islamic state. The field of research can be viewed as divided and a discrepancy can be seen upon whether to face this threat with counterinsurgency-campaigns or conventional means depending on if the islamic state is to be considered a proto-state or not.   This thesis aims at establishing a profound understanding on how the fall of this organization could be understood in accordance with the coalition and U.S foreign policy including its decisionmaking. This has been achived by examining the U.S strategy towards ISIS in order to gain understanding on wheter David Galulas theory on COIN or David J. Lonsdales theory on conventional strategy is the preferred means to an end on such organizations.     The result of the analysis shows that the coalition was successful fighting ISIS with conventional means and not due to well conducted COIN. Although it could be argued that the coalition reached the first step of a COIN-campaign, the U.S has declined a long-term commitment in the middle-east. The contributions made with this study lays mainly in the understanding of strategic concepts and assessing the opponent.

Since the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) declared its caliphate in June 2014, there has been an unprecedented amount of terrorist attacks conducted in the West by individuals either inspired by jihadist ideology or linked to ISIS. As evidenced by the number of ISIS-related attacks throughout Europe and North America, the West faces an ongoing and persistent transnational threat from Islamic terrorism. There is an extensive amount of literature on terrorism and ISIS. However, there is a gap in literature on the potential impact of ISIS on the future of Islamic terrorism. This qualitative case study explored how ISIS potentially shaped the future of Islamic transnational terrorism. Stepanova'€™s asymmetric conflict theory served as the framework for this study. Interviews and one open-ended questionnaire on Islamic transnational terrorism were collected from 15 individuals within the defense enterprise, academia, and individuals working in private defense organizations, using purposive sampling. Analysis occurred by using Braum and Clarke'€™s six phases of coding. The results of this study indicated ISIS has shaped the future of transnational terrorism by demonstrating likeminded extremists no longer have to travel to conflict zones in order to plan or receive guidance on attack targets while using simple attack methods and weapons. Additionally, ISIS empowered and encouraged its members to interact with potential recruits or supporters through social media and open forums, which may possibly be emulated in the future by likeminded groups. The results contribute to positive social change by providing decision makers information on the future of Islamic transnational terrorism, thus allowing for appropriate countermeasures that mitigate terror activities.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the central pillars of Salafi-Jihadism are discussed in ISIS’s own magazines and how the pillars are related to Juergensmeyer’s concepts of cosmic war, satanization, and theater of terror. The material in this thesis has been sourced from the magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah, which were published by ISIS in the period 2014-2017. The magazines are initially aimed at an English-speaking audience, and it is intended for ISIS’ followers, but also for their enemies. A thematic analysis approach with a deductive orientation was employed and preconceived themes from what Shiraz Maher describes as the five pillars of Salafi-Jihadism, tawḥīd, jihad, takfīr, al-walā’ wa-l-barā’, and ḥākimiyya were used. The analysis shows that the magazines place a strong emphasize on the Salafi-jihadist pillars, and ISIS can therefore be placed within the Salafi-Jihadi tradition.

Since the classical work of Samuel Huntington tilted the Third Wave of Democratisation, the question of how a country becomes a democracy and why others do not have been of interest to social scientists, notably political scientists. With more than three decades since the publication of this seminal work, empirical research has focused on several regions in the world and have provided various explanation for why some countries transition to democracy and why other fail. Along these lines, this thesis attempt to study the future of democracy by focusing on an intriguing case (e.g., Iraq), a country known to have a diverse ethnic and sectarian composition, conflict-ridden but also vital to the global war against terrorism. Thus, the thesis is guided by the question, "How have foreign state actors and domestic factors affected the democratic process in Iraq, 2014-2023?" The thesis uses qualitative research methods such as process tracing and semi-structured interviews to answer this question.

In 2014 when the international terrorist group the Islamic State (IS) declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, more than 40,000 people travelled to join the terrorist group. According to the available data between 10-13% were women but the real number is assumed to be substantially higher. Among them were around 300 Swedish citizens who by the end of 2015 had travelled to Iraq and Syria to join IS. A significant number of these were women; in a 2017 study including 267 Swedish travellers, 24% were women. Researchers are puzzled by the phenomenon of female travellers joining IS. Because they are women specifically there are certain gendered assumptions attached which shape the discussion; women have long been assumed to be too peaceful to be involved with terrorism. While none of the Swedish women travellers have been reported to have become active terrorists, they still made headlines in the Swedish media. Despite this, there is almost no research on violent women and the narratives used by Swedish media and newspapers to describe them.