Isis as a methastasis

Miro un mapa y noto la proximidad del conflicto, la guerra islamista, a mi país. España la tiene casi dentro. El asunto nos toca de cerca. O a unos 800 kilómetros en línea recta a la Comunidad Canaria. El presidente Barack Obama mezcla, sin mucha fortuna, sentimientos con objetivos estratégicos globales. Describir como un cáncer a Isis resulta una metáfora desafortunada. ¿Qué o quiénes integran Isis?.

Global Research

Publico un extracto de una pieza de Jason Burke, que me ha ayudado a ponerle cara a la estructura actual de la yihad islámica. Variopinta, compleja y muy bien dotada en recursos. Se me ocurren varias hipótesis sobre de dónde proceden los dineros. No hay guerras sin inversiones financieras. Las contiendas no las sostienen los desposeídos. Toda guerra es un negocio para algunos.Termino imaginando un califato extenso y poderoso. El reino absoluto de Alá en la tierra del petróleo.

Miembros de isis. Foto:telegraph.co.uk

"The creation of Islamic State (Isis) showed that Islamic militancy had entered a new phase. But there were other changes too, all indicating radical evolution. The first was territory. If the remnants of al-Qaida "central" are restricted to the Afghan-Pakistan border, many of its affiliates and other groups are better off with territory.

Al-Qaida in the Maghreb, Islamic State, the Boko Haram network of groups in Nigeria, independent clusters of militants in Libya and Egypt, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Shabaab in Somalia, non-IS militants in Syria, together occupy more physical space than at any time within living memory, possibly ever.

Another change is resources. After several years of penury, the cash has started flowing again to the militants. It is coming from wealthy donors, from extortion, from kidnapping and from seized resources such as oil fields and smuggling networks. A third shift is tactical. For a decade, from the mid-1990s, the "far enemy" (the west) was the priority target, at least in theory. Osama bin Laden's aim was to radicalise and mobilise through spectacular violence – "propaganda by deed" – to prompt a global uprising among the world's Muslims against unbelievers.

This is not the aim of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Islamic State, nor of many of the other militants active around the world today. Only al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the group closest to the old al-Qaida leadership, still doggedly launches successive attempts to attack US interests, or even "the homeland" itself. Only 1% of attacks between 2010 and 2013, the Rand Corporation thinktank said in a recent report, were international.

The strategic principle of Islamic State has been reported as distinctly pragmatic: hold, then expand. A fourth change is a new pragmatic readiness to form coalitions with a far wider range of partners than had been the case for many years, even decades".