French President Francois Hollande used it after the large-scale terror attacks in Paris, which were claimed by the group.
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WE have become familiar with the names ISIS – an abbreviation for “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”, the shorter IS, or Islamic State, and occasionally ISIL, which stands for “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” to describe the murderous terrorist organization that has seized territory in Iraq and war-torn Syria, and spread its hateful tentacles to distant places like Yemen, Afghanistan, North and Central Africa, and possibly even here in Southeast Asia. Politicians often use this term in an attempt ensure that the group does not come across as convincing or believable or to deprive the group of the Islam-versus-the-West dynamic it longs for.
Arabs who oppose the group customarily use a version of Daesh, as do European politicians and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, among others. And what is Daesh?
A new term to have emerged recently, however, is “Daesh“. The Spanish government followed suit past year. All of these acronyms refer to the same group.
“The US decision to use Daesh, it’s definitely to support the French”, said Stewart Webb, editor of DefenceReport and a Canadian defence analyst. The Islamic State group is part militia, part insurgency, part terrorist organisation, part irredentist movement, and part proto-state.
“They have a lot more plans than what we’re seeing”, Keane said. It’s also very similar to the Arabic words daes and dahes, which refer to someone who crushes something underfoot and someone who sows discord, respectively.
In a recent blog post, Alice Guthrie, an Arabic translator living in England, advocated for the use of Daesh earlier this year, and criticized the world’s English-language media for doing a poor job explaining the term. Al-Sham is an Arabic term that describes a geographic region in the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Mesopotamia that encompasses Syria; the term doesn’t translate well to English, so most substitute the Levant (which is a somewhat larger region, but includes al-Sham) or simply Syria; hence, the acronyms ISIL or ISIS.
Zekulin says he also uses ISIS when referring to the group, mainly because that’s how most people know it.
On 16 November 2015, French authorities identified the alleged mastermind of the 13 November Paris attacks as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan descent who had joined the Islamic State in Syria sometime in 2013 or 2014.
2013 – Following a merger with al Qaeda branch in Syria – the Nusra front – ISIS once again rebrands, this time taking the name Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria – or ISIS.
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June 29, 2014 – The declaration of the Islamic State.
