What’s up with ISIS?

By Laura Bohnert

Rumours about ISIS have been accumulating for a while now—that they are broke, that their power is waning, that they are being attacked by women in veils—but how many of these are true?

In a way, all of them are.

Rumours that ISIS is going broke have been circulating since late last year, and they don’t wander far from the truth. Of course, ISIS isn’t exactly going bankrupt, but they certainly aren’t generating the revenue they were back in 2014. The reason? Loss of area, the crash in oil—you name it. ISIS lost close to 40 per cent of the area it held in Iraq in 2015 which means it lost hold of a number of wealth-generators including Hawl. ISIS’s withdrawal from the deserted Northern Syrian town meant walking away from an oil plant that converged on a network of pipes. It was a small facility, but with three oil storage tanks, it played a big role in helping ISIS’s war economy.

ISIS’s withdrawal from places like Hawl occurring alongside the crash in the oil market meant taking an economic hit, but that wasn’t the only one.  Their loss of area and the high numbers of individuals who have fled their area of control translates into a shrinking tax base and, that, in combination with the caliphate’s isolated economy—one that makes profiting off the trade of the resources that are still available more than a little difficult—as well as its high spending history has all contributed to a direct hit to the funding.

Of course, dwindling funds and declining territory means a decline in power—and influence—too. More and more territory is being taken back from ISIS, and each successful reclaim of territory lessens ISIS’s terror grip a little more. Even everyday citizens—and women—are beginning to fight back.

Anyone who claims his or her main problem with the Burka to be its visually obviated enforcement of the oppression of women may want to rethink that claim. ISIS leaders have recently joined the “ban the Burka” party after a so-called “veiled assassin” killed two high-profile commanders. In a separate incident, an ISIS fighter was also killed by a woman in a veil.

Veiled female assassins: apparently they’re everyone’s worst nightmare—even terrorist-formed political forces. It’s definitely a sign that the Burka is, perhaps, not so oppressive after all—or that the oppression so many are opposed to isn’t that of the woman behind the veil.

But hey, isn’t the first step to peace negotiations finding a common ground?  Governments are thematically uniting under the fear of the too-covered-up woman. It’s definitely an interesting coincidence that so many power structures seem to be threatened by that one thing in common: the woman whose face and body are hidden.