What is ISIS and why should you care about it?

By Neel Lakhanpal '16


If you’ve ever glanced at the newspapers sitting on the counter in the morning or watched the news for all of five minutes, chances are you have heard something or other about the terrorist state/organization called ISIS. Between all of the back and forth, the airstrikes, and the policy debates, many people probably aren’t fully sure what exactly ISIS is and what they are trying to do. So, here’s a little introduction to them.
ISIS is an abbreviated form of the name “the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” and that’s practically what they are, but more specifically, the Radical Islamic State. They are a self-proclaimed independent country, although no other country in the world recognizes them as one. The group, which has military control of significant chunks of both Syria and Iraq, is identified as a terrorist organization by many countries and has been accused of mass murder and human rights abuses. This may be happening thousands of miles away, but it does have some effect on us in the states. Obama has recently announced controversial (and costly) airstrikes against ISIS targets in the region. Additionally, there are concerns across the world as to how much power and backing the organization is slowly amassing, and if that power could be used in an attack against a country.