On 28 February, President Donald Trump declared: “We just took over 100 percent caliphate.” He was talking about the lands that ISIS controlled in Syria and Iraq, although he wasn’t exactly right. But now the Pentagon’s Africa Command (Africom) says that ISIS is already reconstituting itself in West Africa, even to the extent of setting up a new caliphate. So far it is much smaller than the former Middle Eastern territory – but there are some worrying comparisons to be drawn.
The original manifestation of ISIS came out of nowhere between 2011 and 2014, originating in the remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq and using the chaos in Syria and the despair of the Iraqi army to take control of a swathe of land from Raqqa in northern Syria to Mosul in Iraq. At its peak it controlled an area almost as large as the UK with a population of six million.
The brutality of the regime, not least against minorities such as the Yazidis, was apparent early on. However, it was also notable for its technocratic competence and maintenance of order. If people accepted the rigidity of the rule and did not step out of line, their lives were at least more ordered and predictable than the chaos of post-war Iraq.
