Anurag Kumar asked: What role did the US and Western countries play in the creation of ISIS?

Adil Rasheed replies: The US and Western countries did not play any overt or covert role in the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It is true that former US National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden, a few senior officers of the Iraqi military, members of the Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards sources have made allegations of the direct involvement of the US and Israeli forces behind the creation of the ISIS, but these claims have not been substantiated by any evidence and therefore such speculations lie in the realm of conspiracy theories.

However, it can be argued that the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent policies leading to virtual trifurcation of the Iraqi society caused a growing sense of alienation within the Sunni community of Iraq that facilitated the emergence of the ISIS. The fact that most of the ISIS leadership had earlier spent time in the US military prison at Camp Bucca in Iraq, where they joined ranks and sowed seeds for the terror outfit before their release, is also well documented. However, the hatred of the ISIS towards the US and Western powers — where it has carried out many terror attacks — as well as the US-led Western military intervention in Syria to eliminate the ISIS, proves that there is no validity behind the claims of the conspiracy theorists.

Posted on November 26, 2018