We talk about Islamic State (ISIS) for a simple reason: it is a lethal terrorist group.
IRAQ/SYRIA – If you have been following this series for a while you will have seen that I am trying to accomplish a few things. I want to highlight a particularly large or significant act of terrorism on a specific day in history. I try to find less than well-known ones that I find, and I hope you find, interesting. I do want to demonstrate that there are more terrorist groups out there than Islamic State (ISIS), Al Qaeda (AQ) and other Islamist extremists organisations.
You see, it would be too simple to settle on the easy pickings each day. For on a given day there is always, at least over the past four decades, an attack or two executed by groups along these lines. After all, these two generations happen to coincide with David Rapoport’s ‘religious wave’ of terrorism. And by far the best representatives of this wave are the jihadis.
Today is a little different
As I looked over all the attacks that transpired on June 13 no one jumped out at me. But one precise June 13 did. That one would be that date in 2016. On that one day ISIS was behind, or believed to be behind, SEVEN separate attacks in Iraq and Syria, to wit:
- The execution of 19 of its own in Fallujah for ‘fleeing a battle’;
- The killing of an Iraqi army officer near Baqubah;
- A foiled attack in which several ISIS terrorists were killed north of Ramadi;
- One dead and two wounded when ISIS snipers fired on a checkpoint in Baghdad;
- The death of six ISIS suicide bombers in central Fallujah;
- The execution of a man and his brother suspected of ‘spying’; and
- Five dead and 11 injured in a suicide attack on an army base in Ramadi.
That makes seven dead and 13 wounded in addition to the murder of 21 ‘insiders’ and the loss of at least six ISIS terrorists. In one day. I am not sure if that is a record but it is a remarkable total.
The sad part is that this is not likely to have been the only such cluster. It is also unlikely to be the last. ISIS is not ‘dead’ as some have claimed (on June 5th the ‘Defeat ISIS coalition’ affirmed their “shared determination to continue the fight against Daesh/ISIS in Iraq and Syria and to create conditions for an enduring defeat of the terrorist group.”). ‘Enduring defeat’?? That does not sound good.
