Specpol Study Guide - Dalmun III

8/10/2019 Specpol Study Guide - Dalmun III

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I AM WILLING TO CHANGE. ARE YOU?

STUDY GUIDESpecial Political & Decolonization


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INDEX:

1. Introduction to the Dias ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22. Topic A: Eradicating the threat of ISIS --------------------------------------------------- 4a.

The Early Days --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4b. The Rise and Fall ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5c. The Beginning of ISIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6d. The Final Battle --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6e.

Current Status ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7f. Currently Identified Personnel --------------------------------------------------------------- 8

g.

Finances ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9h. Equipment ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10i. Recent Timeline --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10j. World's Opinion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12k. Expectations of the Committee ---------------------------------------------------------------- 14l. QARMA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14


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I started off this little infatuation with stacks of research, ties and those unforgiving formal shoesback in the 11th grade at MUNIK III. After four years of experience, fortunately enough, I gotthe opportunity to take the next step of my MUN-ing career and to be on other side of the daislast year at MUNIK V, since then my addiction to MUN-ing has quadrupled. I am currentlypursuing my bachelors in Economics and Mathematics atInstitution of Business Administration and apart fromMUN-ing; watching repeated episodes of FRIENDS,cycling and meeting deadlines at IBA is what keeps mebusy.

Special Political and Decolonization committee, Id say is

one of the easiest yet the toughest committee of GeneralAssembly. Easy for those who wish not to be recognizedand sit silent until the end of conference. Tough for thosewho enter the very door of this committee to display theirdiplomatic instincts and negotiating skills, for those whostart off with the aim of being entitled as an OutstandingDiplomat by the end of this conference. If anything, I canpromise you that a plethora of great attributes among peopleyou've probably never met before will become evident, andthat you'll learn plenty from said attributes. Years fromnow, you'll probably meet those people and exchange the

words 'Mexico' and 'Russia' instead of your actual names. I can't wait to meet each and everyoneof you this winter.

Taha Abdul GhafoorCommittee Director

SPECPOL

Hello Delegates,Welcome to DALMUN 2015,My name is Saad Jabbar and I will be serving as the

Committee Director of SPECPOL along with my Co-Chair,Taha Abdul Ghafoor.I wish you all the best. Research well and I will see you inJanuary.

Saad Jabbar

Committee Director


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SPECPOL

Greetings Delegates,It is with great joy that I welcome you all to the thirdedition of Dawood A Levels Model United Nations. I amAbdullah Zahid and I am currently pursuing my A Levelsfrom The City School PAF Chapter.Committing to Publicspeaking was something I never imagined myself capableof, as the very idea of facing an audience would sendshivers down my spine. But fate works on mysteriousways. Now I cannot imagine life, without my new foundPublic Speaking family. I have been participating invarious MUNs as a delegate and now DAL MUN has

given me an oppurtunity to take my passion to greaterheights.

I, along with the rest of the dias, look forward to three days of intense debates, political bashing,diplomatic dialogue and innovative yet viable solutions and the best part of a Model UN-Entertainment sessions. Best of luck for DAL MUN and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Abdullah Zahid

ACD-SPECPOL

My name is Bilal Mansoor Kadwani. I feel privileged to

welcome you all to the third edition of DAL MUN 2015,where you'll find me as an Assistant Committee Directorfor one of the most interesting committees, which isSpecpol . I am an O levels student at St. Patrick's HighSchool. Apart from this, my interests in public speakingand discussion came way back in 2013. i started in myMunning career from Pafmun and ever since that awesomeexperience i find Muns as a platform for young men likeme to discuss politicsAs for the question, Why DALMUN?I think MUNs help build confidence in an individual and

that plays a vital role in a person's personality. Anindividual may face failures in the beginning but its not amatter of having that trophy but to learn somethingdifferent in life. Best of Luck everyone !

Bilal MansoorKadwani

ACD Specpol


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TOPIC A

Eradicating the constantly growingthreat of ISIS

The Sunni militants who now threaten totake over Iraq seemed to spring fromnowhere when they stormed Mosul in earlyJune. But the group

that recently renamed itself simply the

Islamic State has existed under various

names and in various shapes since the early1990s. And its story is the story of howmodern terrorism has evolved, from apolitical and religious ideal into a death cult.

The Early Days

The group began more than two decades agoas a fervid fantasy in the mind of aJordanian named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Aonetime street thug, he arrived inAfghanistan as a mujahideen wannabe in1989, too late to fight the Soviet Union. Hewent back home to Jordan, and remained afringe figure in the international violentjihad for much of the following decade.

He returned to Afghanistan to set up atraining camp for terrorists, and met Osamabin Laden in 1999, but chose not to join al-Qaeda.

The fall of the Taliban in 2001 forced

Zarqawi to flee to Iraq. There his presencewent largely unnoticed until the Bushadministration used it as evidence that al-Qaeda was in cahoots withSaddam Hussein. In reality, though, Zarqawiwas a free agent, looking to create his ownterror organization. Shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he set up the

forerunner to todays Islamic State: Jamaatal-Tawhidwal-Jihad (the Party ofMonotheism and Jihad), which was made upmostly of non-Iraqis.

Although Zarqawis rhetoric was similar tobin Ladens, his targets were quite different.From the start, Zarqawi directed hismalevolence at fellow Muslims, especiallyIraqs majority Shiite population. Bin Ladenand al-Qaeda regarded the Shiites asheretics, but rarely targeted them forslaughter.

From the start, Zarqawi directed hismalevolence at fellow Muslims.

Zarqawis intentions were underlined withthe bombing of the Imam Ali shrine inNajaf, the holiest place of Shiite worship inIraq. I was at the shrine when it happened,and remember many survivors asking, Why

us? Why, when there are so manyAmericans around, bomb us?

One reason: sheer convenience. The Shiiteswere easier targets because they didnt yet

have the ability to fight back. But there wasalso a political calculation. After Saddamwas toppled, Shiite politicians replaced theSunnis who had long dominated poweristructures in Iraq. Zarqawi was counting onSunni resentment against the Shiites to buildalliances and find safe haven for his group.It worked: Zarqawi sent dozens ofsuicidebombers to blow themselves up inmosques,schools, cafes, and markets,usually inpredominantly Shiiteneighborhoods or

towns.


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The Rise & fall

By 2004, Zarqawis campaign of suicidebombings across Iraq had made him asuperstar of the international jihadi

movement, and won the endorsement of binLaden himself. Zarqawi now joined hisgroup to bin Ladens, rebranding it al-Qaedain Iraq, or AQI. (It is also sometimes calledal-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, but dont confusethatwith AQIM, which refers to the Algerianfranchise, al-Qaeda in the Maghreb.)

Soon, however, Zarqawis targeting ofcivilians created misgivings among the coreal-Qaeda leadership. In 2005, bin Ladensright-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wrote aletter chiding the Jordanian for his tactics.Zarqawi paid it no heed. Last year Zawahirilikewise took ISISs new leader, Abu Bakr

al-Baghdadi, to task for his excessiveferocityand was again ignored.

By the spring of 2006, Zarqawi wasbeginning to see himself as something morethan an emir or insurgent commander: He

aspired to spiritual leadership as well. (Hissuccessor as emir, Baghdadi,would makethe same transformation, appointing himselfcaliph after taking Mosul.) No longer

content merely with alliances, he began toinsist that his Iraqi Sunni hosts submit tohis harsh interpretation of sharia lawveilsfor women, beheadings for criminals, andthe whole nine yards. Those who resisted,even prominent figures in the community,were executed.

But Zarqawis ambitions were cut short inJune, 2006, when the U.S. Air Forcedropped a pair of 500-pound bombs on hishideout, 20 miles north of Baghdad.

His death came just as the tide was turningagainst AQI. Many Sunni tribes, chafing atZarqawis sharia rules, had begun to fightback. The U.S. military, led by GeneralDavid Petraeus, capitalized on this to

finance and support an insurgency-within-an-insurgency, known as the Awakening.Tribesmen willing to fight AQI, even if theyhad previously fought the Americans, weredesignated Sons of Iraq, to underscore thefact that most of AQIs commanders were

foreigners, like Zarqawi himself. These IraqiSunnis believed that joining forces with theU.S. would give them immunity fromprosecution from previous crimes, lucrativegovernment contracts to rebuild devastated

Sunni areas, and a share of political powerin Baghdad.

Petraeuss Awakening campaign wasaccompanied by a surge of U.S. troops,andit worked up to a point.

Demoralized by the loss of Zarqawi, AQIsforeign cadres melted away. But Petraeuss

plan was designed mainly to reduce theviolence and allow the U.S. to leave Iraq,not to repair the Shiite-Sunni rift thatZarqawi had opened up.Americanpoliticians and militarycommanders talked of creating a space forpolitical dialogue between the two groups,but the effort to enable that dialogue was, atbest, desultory. It was left to Iraqs electedgovernment, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to make a lasting peace.

As the U.S. discovered, Maliki and hisShiite-led governing coalition were moreinterested in recrimination thanreconciliation. The Sons of Iraq were deniedsalaries they had been promised. Triballeaders never got those governmentcontracts. In Baghdad, Sunni politicianswere ignored, often humiliated, sometimesprosecuted. The most senior of them, Vice


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President Tariq al-Hashimi, fled the countryafter being charged with terrorism; he waseventually sentenced to death in absentia.

Meanwhile, Maliki filled the ranks of Iraqi

police and military with Shiites, some ofthem partisans from militias that hadpreviously killed Sunnis. Sunni resentmentnow bubbled up again, setting the stage forAQIs return.

Beginning of ISIS

By 2011, when the U.S. troop withdrawalwas complete, AQI was being run by Abu

Bakr al-Baghdadi, and had morphed from alargely foreign to a largely Iraqi operation.Baghdadi himself, as his name suggests, islocal. The absence of foreigners made iteasier for the Sons of Iraq and their kin toignore previous resentments against thegroup. There wasalso another rebranding:AQI was now better known as the IslamicState of Iraq, or ISI.

Baghdadi took Zarqawis tactics andsupercharged them. The Shiites were still hismain targets, but now he sent suicidebombers to attack police and militaryoffices, checkpoints, and recruiting stations.(Civilian targets remained fair game.) ISIs

ranks were swelled by former Sons of Iraq,many of whom had previously beencommanders and soldiers in Saddams

military. This gave Baghdadis fighters the

air of an army, rather than a rag-tag militantoutfit.

The group is now able and willing to seizeand control territory, not simply send suicidebombers to their death.

With thousands of armed men now at hisdisposal, Baghdadi opened a second frontagainst the Shiitesin Syria, where there

was a largely secular uprising againstPresident Bashar al-Assad. What mattered toBaghdadi and his propagandists was thatAssad and many of his senior militarycommanders were Alawites, members of a

Shiite sub-sect. Battle-hardened from Iraq,ISI was a much more potent fighting forcethan most of the secular groups, and foughtAssads forces to a standstill in many areas.Soon, Baghdadi renamed his group theIslamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS),reflecting his greater ambitions. His blackflags, emblazoned with the Arabic words forThere is no god but god and thereproduction of what many believe to be theProphet Mohammeds seal, became

ubiquitous.

The Final Battle

Just as Zarqawi had in Iraq, Baghdadioverplayed his hand in Syria. He began toimpose harsh strictures on Syrian towns andvillages under ISIS control, especially in theprovince of Raqqa. In early 2014, Assads

forces had regrouped and begun to strikeback; in May, they retook the city of Homs,which had been the symbolic heart of theuprising. It was a blow for the rebels.

But Baghdadi was planning a much bigger,bolder strikein his home country. Thetaking of Mosul the following monthmarked a new phase in ISISs evolution: It

was now able and willing to seize andcontrol territory, not simply send suicidebombers to their death. Baghdadi used theoccasion to promote himself to caliph andrenamed the group the Islamic State, in anod to its now even bigger ambition ofruling the entireregion from theMediterranean to the Gulf.


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He also broadened his list of targets.Although ISIS had encountered minorityreligious and ethnic groups like Christiansand Kurds in Syria, there seems to havebeen no central directive about what to do

with them: Fighters were free to exercisetheir discretion. But in Mosul, the wordcame down from the caliph: Non-believers must either pay a special tax,leave, convert, or face death. The last twooptions were preferred. The citys ancient

Christian community was the first to betargeted, and thousands fled. Then, as theIslamic State widened its operations,smallergroups found themselves in the firing line.

By now, IS and Baghdadi were dominatingheadlines around the world in ways AbuMusab al-Zarqawi could hardly haveimagined. While the world has previouslybeen wondering from where these peoplecame from, you as a committee have tocome out on top and present a resolution thatwill put an end to this ongoing conflict onceand for all.

Current Status of ISIS

On 29 June 2014, ISIS removed "Iraq andthe Levant" from its name and began to referto itself as the Islamic State, declaring theterritory under its control a new caliphateand naming Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as itscaliph. On the first night of Ramadan,Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami, spokesperson for ISIS, described theestablishment of the caliphate as "a dreamthat lives in the depths of every Muslimbeliever" and "the abandoned obligation ofthe era". He said that the group's rulingShura Council had decided to establish thecaliphate formally and that Muslims aroundthe world should now pledge their allegianceto the new caliph. The declaration of a

caliphate has been criticized and ridiculedby Muslim scholars and rival Islamistsinside and outside the occupied territory.

By that time, many moderate rebels had

been assimilated into the group. In August2014, a high-level IS commander said, "Inthe East of Syria, there is no Free SyrianArmy any longer. All Free Syrian Armypeople [there] have joined the IslamicState. The Syrian Observatory for Human

Rights claimed that the Islamic Staterecruited more than 6,300 fighters inJuly2014 alone, many of them coming fromthe Free Syrian Army.

Analysts observed that dropping thereference to region in the group's new namewidened its scope, and LaithAlkhouri, aterrorism analyst, thought that aftercapturing many areas in Syria and Iraq, ISISfelt this was a suitable opportunity to takecontrol of the global jihadist movement.

A week before it changed its name to theIslamic State, ISIS captured the Trabilcrossing on the JordanIraq border, the onlyborder crossing between the two countries.ISIS has received some public support inJordan, albeit limited, partly owing to staterepression there, but has undertaken arecruitment drive in Saudi Arabia, wheretribes in the north are linked to those inwestern Iraq and eastern Syria. RaghadHussein, the daughter of Saddam Hussein,now living in opulent asylum in Jordan, haspublicly expressed support for the advanceof ISIS in Iraq, reflectingthe Ba'athist alliance of convenience withISIS and its goal of return to power inBagdad.

In June and July 2014, Jordan and SaudiArabia had moved troops to their borderswith Iraq, after Iraq lost control of, orwithdrew from, strategic crossing points that


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had then come under the control of ISIS.There was speculation that al-Maliki hadordered a withdrawal of troops from theIraqSaudi crossings in order "to increasepressure on Saudi Arabia and bring the

threat of Isis over-running its borders aswell".

In July 2014, BokoHaram leaderAbubakarShekau declared support for thenew caliphate and Caliph Ibrahim.

In August, Shekauannounced that BokoHaram had captured the Nigerian town ofGwoza. Shekau announced: "Thanks be toGod who gave victory to our brethren in

Gwoza and made it a state among theIslamic states". Boko Haram launched anoffensivein Adamawa and Borno States innortheastern Nigeria in September,following the example of the Islamic State.

In August 2014, ISIS captured Kurdish-controlled territory and massacred a largenumber of Yazidis. The US launchedanaerial bombing campaign against ISIS and ahumanitarian mission to aid the Yazidis.

Currently Identified Personnel

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Leader -declared emir of the Islamic State of Iraq in2010[131] and caliph of the self-declaredIslamic State on 29 June 2014)

Abu Muslim al-Turkmani (DeputyLeader for Iraq) Abu Ali al-Anbari (Deputy Leaderfor Syria)

Abu Mohammad al-Adnani (Officialspokesperson)

Abu Omar al-Shishani (ISIS fieldcommander in Syria)

Abu Waheeb (ISIL militant in AlAnbar, Iraq) Jihadi John (ISIL member withBritish accent seen in beheading videos)

Abu Yusaf

[132][133]

(senior securitycommander)

Abu Suleiman al-Naser (Minister ofWar, Islamic State of Iraq)

Finances

A study of 200 documentspersonal letters,expense reports and membership rosterscaptured from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and theIslamic State of Iraq was carried out by theRAND Corporation in 2014. It found thatfrom 2005 until 2010, outside donationsamounted to only 5% of the groupsoperating budgets, with the rest being raisedwithin Iraq. In the time-period studied, cellswere required to send up to 20% of theincome generated from kidnapping,extortion rackets and other activities to thenext level of the group's leadership. Higher-ranking commanders would then redistributethe funds to provincial or local cells thatwere in difficulties or needed money toconduct attacks. The records show that theIslamic State of Iraq was dependent on


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members from Mosul for cash, which theleadership used to provide additional fundsto struggling militants in Diyala, Salahuddinand Baghdad.

In mid-2014, Iraqi intelligence extractedinformation from an ISIS operative whichrevealed that the organization had assetsworth US$2 billion, making it the richestjihadist group in the world. About threequarters of this sum is said to be representedby assets seized after the group capturedMosul in June 2014; this includes possiblyup to US$429 million looted from Mosul'scentral bank, along with additional millionsand a large quantity of gold bullion stolen

from a number of other banks inMosul.However, doubt was later cast onwhether ISIS wasable to retrieve anywherenear that sum from the central bank, andeven on whether the bank robberies hadactually occurred.

ISIS has routinely practiced extortion, bydemanding money from truck drivers andthreatening to blow up businesses, forexample. Robbing banks and gold shops hasbeen another source of income. The group iswidely reported as receiving funding fromprivate donors in the Gulf States, and bothIran and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have accused Saudi Arabia and Qatarof funding ISIS, although there is reportedlyno evidence that this is the case.

The group is also believed to receiveconsiderable funds from its operations inEastern Syria, where it has commandeeredoilfields and engages in smuggling out rawmaterials and archaeological artifacts. ISISalso generates revenue from producingcrude oil and selling electric power innorthern Syria. Some of this electricity isreportedly sold back to the Syriangovernment.

Since 2012, ISIS has produced annualreports giving numerical information on itsoperations, somewhat in the style ofcorporate reports, seemingly in a bid toencourage potential donors.

Equipment

The most common weapons used against USand other Coalition forces during the Iraqinsurgency were those taken from SaddamHussein's weapon stockpilesaround thecountry, these included AKM variant assaultrifles, PK machine guns and RPG-7s. ISIShas been able to strengthen its militarycapability by capturing large quantities andvarieties of weaponry during the SyrianCivil War and Post-US Iraq insurgency.These weapons seizures have improved thegroup's capacity to carry out successfulsubsequent operations and obtain moreequipment. Weaponry that ISIS hasreportedly captured and employed includeSA-7 and Stinger surface-to-air missiles,M79 Osa, HJ-8 and AT-4 Spigot anti-tankweapons, Type 59 field guns and M198howitzers, Humvees, T-54/55, T-72, and M1Abrams main battle tanks, M1117 armoredcars, truck mounted DShK guns, ZU-23-2anti-aircraft guns, BM-21 Grad multiple


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rocket launchers and at least one Scudmissile.

When ISIS captured Mosul Airport in June2014, it seized a number of UH-60

Blackhawk helicopters and cargo planes thatwere stationed there. However, according toPeter Beaumont of The Guardian, it seemedunlikely that ISIS would be able to deploythem.

ISIS captured nuclear materials from MosulUniversity in July 2014. In a letter to UNSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Iraq's UNAmbassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim saidthat the materials had been kept at the

university and "can be used inmanufacturing weapons of massdestruction". Nuclear experts regarded thethreat as insignificant. International AtomicEnergy Agency spokeswoman GillTudorsaid that the seized materials were"low grade and would not present asignificant safety, security or nuclearproliferation risk".

The Recent Timeline of ISISrelated

events

1 September: The Germangovernment's Cabinet decision to arm theKurdish Peshmerga militia was ratified inthe Bundestag by a "vast majority" of votes,after an emotional debate.

2 September: The IS released a videoshowing the beheading of a man whom theyidentified as American journalist StevenSotloff.

4 September: A member of theIslamic State issued a threat to RussianPresident Vladimir Putin, vowing to ousthim over his support of Bashar al-Assad'sregime in Syria.

5 September: The GermanBundeswehr dispatched the first of aplanned series of cargo planes to Iraq,loaded with helmets, vests, radios, andinfrared night-vision rifle scopes. After a

three-hour stopover in Baghdad forinspection, the aircraft will deliver theequipment to German personnel already inErbil for distribution to the Kurdish fighters.QassemSoleimani, Commander of the eliteIranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force,has been to the Iraqi city of Amirli, to workwith the United States in pushing backmilitants of the Islamic State.

8 September: The Islamic State

carried out a double suicide attack in a townnorth of Baghdad, killing nine people andwounding 70 others.

10 September: After ISIS outragedAmerican opinion by beheading twoAmerican journalists and seized control oflarge portions of Syria and Iraq in the faceof ineffective opposition from

American allies, President Obama decidedon a new objective for a rollback policy inthe Middle East. He announced: "Americawill lead a broad coalition to roll back thisterrorist threat. Our objective is clear: Wewill degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISILthrough a comprehensive and sustainedcounterterrorism strategy."

13 September: UK humanitarian aidworker David Cawthorne Haines, whose lifehad been threatened by Jihadi John in theSteven Sotloff video, was purportedlybeheaded in a video titled "A Message to theAllies of America".

15 September: The Battle of Suq alGhazi ended with a USIraqi win.


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18 September: The AustralianFederal Police, Australian SecurityIntelligence Organization, QueenslandPolice and New South Wales Policelaunched the largest counterterrorism

operation in Australian history. The targetswere ISIS-linked networks thought to beplanning to behead an Australian at homeand launch mass-casualty attacks inpopulated areas. Fifteen people werearrested in the raids by police andintelligence organizations, with one beingcharged with terrorism offenses.

20 September: The hostages from theTurkish consulate in Mosul who had been

captured on 11 June 2014 were released.

21 September: Islamic State forcesoverran an Iraqi military base in Al Anbarprovince.

21 September: Official spokesmanAbu Mohammad al-Adnani released aspeech, titled "Indeed, Your Lord is EverWatchful", encouraging Muslims around theworld to kill non-Muslims.

23 September: Aerial operationsbegan over Syria. Cruise missiles andprecision-guided bombs struck ISIS targetsin Syria, and military aircraft from Bahrain,Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UnitedArab Emirates participated in the airstrikesagainst ISIS. The Syrian Observatory forHuman Rights estimated that about 400 ISISfighters died in the airstrikes.

29 September: ISIS releases thirdvideo of "long-term prisoner" and journalistJohn Cantlie entitled "Lend Me Your Ears -Messages from the British Detainee JohnCantlie: Episode 2". As in previous videos,Cantlie appears alone, sitting at a deskwearing an orange prison uniform. The

scripted video criticizes US presidentBarack Obamas strategy of using air strikes

to defeat Islamic State fighters.

3 October: After a meeting of the

Australian National Security Committee,Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbottannounced that Australia would contributeeight F/A-18F Super Hornets to aid the wareffort against Islamic extremists in Iraq. Theaircraft join a KC-30A Tanker and an E-7AWedgetail AEW&C aircraft alreadydeployed.

The Worlds Opinion

TURKEY:Having refugees at their border with Syria,Turkey aids the Peshmergas and Kurds infighting the ISIS. They have troops in Iraqand Syria that are currently working to putan end to this tyranny once and for all.Turkey has taken steps to cut the flow ofmoney to ISIS and denied entry to ordeported several thousand foreign fightersheading to Syria to join the extremists.Recently, on the 20th of March, Turkey wasattacked by three ISIS members, accordingto government officials in which apoliceman, a non-commissionedgendarmerie officer and a truck driver werekilled, and five soldiers were wounded.Clearly, this may be the start of more majorattacks on the state. The United Statesbelieves that Turkey, along with a few otherstates has promoted a proxy Shia-Sunni war.

USAThe United States Of America has beencarrying out airstrikes on the ISIS for a longperiod of time now (almost over 150) andhas gained massive success. A report statedthe last drone strike injured both JihadistJohn and Abu-Bakr Al Baghdadi. Americais also looking for allies and support against


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the ISIS as it believes that saving thesecountries is not only its duty. Although theyhave sent their troops to Baghdad, to protecttheir Embassy, they have denied interveningas the Iraqi and Syrian government is to deal

with the ISIS themselves.

FRANCE:France is one of the two European nationsalong with Britain to start their own series ofair strikes. Ithas six Rafale fighter jets and

just under 1,000 soldiers based in the Gulf.It has carried out two rounds of air strikes inIraq against the extremist group which hasseized vast swaths of land across Iraq andSyria in recent months.France has plannedmeasures which could see more troops sentto France's military base in the Gulf andsupport increased to ground forces such asthe Kurdish Peshmerga to which theyalready deliver arms.

UNITED KINGDOM:The United Kingdom was the first Europeannation to pledge airstrikes against ISIS. Ithas also deployed drones to help further thecause.UK, working closely, with Turkey is alsobeginning to have doubts about theeffectiveness of airstrikes and is consideringa ground offensive.

IRAQBeing the epicenter of the ISIS activities,Iraq is the major area affected by this group.Their weak military does not stand a chancein defeating the ISIS and a record shows thatthey fled the battlefield against them. Theones who fought till the end were thencaptured and tortured to death. The IraqiGovernment has even asked for the help of

local Sunni tribes but have received a verypoor response as a very few have agreed tosupport them, leaving them unable to eventry to defeat the ISIS.

RUSSIALike almost every other country, Russiaopposes the ISIS but is unable to doanything to stop them because of theimposing of sanctions. The ISIS Chechensespecially, pose a great threat to Russia.

SAUDI ARABIAAlthough belonging to the same sect,i.e.;WahabiSunnism, the Saudi governmentclearly opposes the ISIS. Having several

border clashes and many threats, the ISISwas unable to manage taking control ofSaudi territories. The government hasoffered to train rebels on its soil and has put500 million dollars into the coffers of theU.N. humanitarian aid agencies in Iraq.Saudi Arabia is deeply committed to theeffort to terminate this terrorist group.

KURDISTANBeing a large group of fighters standingagainst the ISIS, the Kurds have the supportof the USA. Their solidarity has increaseddramatically as they are trying to push for anindependent state. Kurd military is alsofighting in Syria and have managed tocapture some land. The PresidentMasoudBarzani has also said, "Leaders ofthe semiautonomous region of Iraq arewilling to send their Peshmerga forces tofight beyond their borders if there's acomprehensive international strategy put inplace."

SYRIAAnother one of the major areas of the ISISactivities is Syria. With an ongoing civil warwhich the ISIS is taking a full advantage of,Syria is left with support from absolutely nocountry as even the USA has declared the


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Syrian Government as a dictatorship.Although Russia supported the Syrianpresident, Bashar Al Assad and helped himduring the war, they lost a lot of landincluding their oil and gas fields that played

a huge part in their economy and now in theISIS's finances. The ISIS has a stronghold inor nearby the area. The Free Syrian Armyhas been involved in several clashes withISIS and has enjoyed some success indefeating it.

QATAR:

The Qatari policy on ISIS is an ambiguous

one. While there have been reports of

sighting of ISIS leadership with Qatars

ruling elite, Qatar has shocked the world byjoining the US led coalition against

ISIS.Qatar's decision to join the hostilities

was a pragmatic response to pressure from

fellow Gulf Arabs, who have rebuked Qatar

for backing Islamists during Arab Spring

revolts. It can also be said that Qatar's

reticence about its role suggests that it is

also being careful to preserve influence with

Islamist forces it believes are the long-term

future. Qatar is also hosting the member ofthe Al-Nusra front.

What is expected in the committee?

This topic is not much discussed in recentMUN conference and it is an ongoing

conflict. Events will be frozen as soon asyou walk in the committee. This is veryimportant to remember because if somethinghappens in the real world during theconference that information will not bediscussed. We expect the committee to findout what is going to be the future plan,create an understanding of the Finances ofISIS, establish an accepted approachtowards the solution of this threat, find outwhether its possible to join forces, if yes

then decide the terms and conditionsaccording to your stances and if not thencome up with an alternative plan of actionand above all design the resolution so itspositive


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QARMA:

1. How to contain ISIS from launching a

military offensive2.How to address the political causes behindISIS3.How to curb the finances available to ISIS4.How to eliminate the religious sentimentsbehind ISIS5.What repercussions should states face forsupporting ISIS6.How to counter ISIS recruitment andreverse it7.How can the middle eastern government

fill the power vacuum created by ISIS8.How to encourage greater cooperationbetween regional authorities9.What changes can be made in the socioeconomic lifestyle of the Middle east to stopsuch organizations emerging

Specpol Study Guide - Dalmun III

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