Have The Islamist Militants Overreached In Iraq And Syria?
Have The Islamist Militants Overreached In Iraq And Syria? By Deborah Amos, NPR
The Islamist radicals who have declared an Islamic caliphate on land they control straddling Iraq and Syria are waging an audacious publicity stunt, according to some analysts.
While it may bring them even greater attention, it's also likely to be an overreach that will open riffs with its current partners, the Sunni Muslims in Iraq who welcomed the militant group in early June. They all share the goal of overthrowing Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his sectarian rule, but the more secular parts of the Sunni coalition didn't sign up for an Islamic state.
"By announcing the caliphate, they are picking a fight with everybody," says David Kilcullen, a guerrilla warfare expert and former chief counter-terrorism strategist for the U.S. State Department.
The militants were known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. But in announcing a caliphate, which is a single, unified Islamic state, they are now simply calling themselves the Islamic State…
