ISIS: an acronym that incites fear whenever uttered. Even though it has not been been as prominent in the news lately, they remain a terror to many around the globe. To truly understand ISIS’ future of fright, one must look at how they started and what they have already accomplished.

 ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and was formerly named ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It was started in 2004 by Abu Musab al Zarqawi as a branch of al Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11. Although, al Qaeda later cut off all ties with ISIS. ISIS’ goal is to create a new Islamic caliphate, or state, that spans across the Middle East to eventually rule the world.

 ISIS was relatively silent until 2011 when the extremist group began to carry out attacks and increase members. ISIS membership surged due to the unrest in Syria and Iraq, as well as ISIS reaching out to people via the Internet and winning them over with promises of family and belonging. Currently, ISIS has an estimated 100,000 members, of which about 29,000 are foreigners to the Middle East.

 One of the reasons ISIS is infamous is because they are very public in their killings, even sometimes publishing videos of their beheadings. ISIS also influences their supporters to do the carry out assaults, like the murders at the nightclub in Florida in 2014 and the attack in San Bernardino, California, in 2015. ISIS also kills their fellow Muslims, not just non-Muslims. In fact, one of ISIS’ most deadly attacks occurred during the month of Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims. Freshman Lauren McShea feels that “ISIS goes against the morals and beliefs of the religion they claim to follow.”.

 To combat ISIS, the U.S. began a campaign called “Operation Inherent Resolve” in June of 2014 to militarily defeat ISIS and to enable the governments to take action and increase regional stability. So far, there have been around 24,556 air strikes in total in Syria and Iraq, spending a total of $14.3 billion.

 ISIS is scaring off the occupants of the areas they control, increasing the refugee crisis. However, Iraq and Syria have finally regained their strategic cities of Fallujah, Raqqa, and Kobani. Reclaiming Raqqa in October of 2017 was a significant victory for Syria because Raqqa was ISIS’ capital.

 ISIS has continued to terrorize the world in 2017, and some of their attacks took place at events where people believed they were safe, like the attack at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena. The extremist group carried out other crimes all over the globe, including Barcelona, Spain, and New York City.

  While they are still feared around the world, there has been significant progress made to halt ISIS. There have been many cities that ISIS had previously controlled that have been recovered by their former governments. However, this does not  mean that ISIS is not a problem nor should it be thought that they are no longer important. It still remains a deadly issue for those living in the Middle East and around the world.