# The origin of ISIS **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2019, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712 "2019-10-30T20:01:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2019, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/1 "2019-10-30T20:01:19Z")
In the recent raid on ISIS, the US reportedly captured a large amount of information concerning the origin of ISIS. Does anyone know why this would be significant enough to bother reporting? Is there some mystery to the origin? Did “unknown forces” “conspire” or something along those lines that can now be illuminated? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/2 "2019-10-30T21:40:18Z")
Doesn’t it have to do with Queen Hatshepsut and her amulet? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/3 "2019-10-30T22:21:42Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Doesn’t it have to do with Queen Hatshepsut and her amulet? **Moderating** In GQ we ask to refrain from joke answers until there has been a serious effort to answer the question. No warning issued, but let’s hold off on answers like this until the question has been answered. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2019, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/4 "2019-10-30T22:41:40Z")
It’s worth finding out if there were specific groups or organizations that were providing money or other support to ISIS. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/5 "2019-10-31T00:21:55Z")
Funded and armed by the Saudis and the CIA via Turkey as a surrogate force to topple President Assad’s government (which would be called a “regime” if you were on the opposite side). An indigenous rebel force cannot exist without outside support. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/6 "2019-10-31T00:28:25Z")
ISIS, like Al Qaeda is a sunni extremist group. I’m guessing various powers in the area funded them for political and ideological reasons. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Saudi Arabia played a role. I’d wonder if Iran would benefit from ISIS since it would destabilize the region and make it easier for them to take over the south of Iraq (I have no idea honestly). ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/7 "2019-10-31T02:45:20Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > Funded and armed by the Saudis and the CIA via Turkey as a surrogate force to topple President Assad’s government (which would be called a “regime” if you were on the opposite side). An indigenous rebel force cannot exist without outside support. From what is known about ISIS/L while it did receive a bit of outside funding it seems to have been mostly been shakily self-financed. After all at its height it was functionally a territorial state. It sold pirated Iraqi oil and engaged in a variety of extortionate financial schemes, including shake-downs and kidnapping. Basically a brutally extractive economy with a finite lifespan, but one that served to keep its military arm in the field in the short run. An army with a state, rather than a state with an army - there have been other examples in history. Turkey’s pet project has largely been the Free Syrian Army. There are allegations of backhanded support or at least careful avoidance of conflict with ISIS, but they are definitely not major patrons like with the FSA. I wouldn’t be surprised at any details on that front, but at least since 2016 they seem to have decided they’re not a horse worth backing. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > ISIS, like Al Qaeda is a sunni extremist group. I’m guessing various powers in the area funded them for political and ideological reasons. They get some, but as above they seem to have been mostly self-financing when they still held a lot of ground. One assumes that has steadily crumbled as the passed their territorial peak. I wouldn’t be shocked at revelations that they have been have been getting more than at has been hinted at to date. But I suspect it would just be fleshing out the details, rather than a big reveal. > [@](#): > > I’d wonder if Iran would benefit from ISIS since it would destabilize the region and make it easier for them to take over the south of Iraq (I have no idea honestly). But this is rather unlikely. ISIS was a threat to the central government of Iraq and Iran is the Iraq central government’s best friend( if anyone thinks it is the U.S., they are mistaken ). Iran has been very heavily involved in the military actions against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. Both are Shi’a friendly/dominated governments and is to Iran’s advantage to prop up both and demolish existential threats to them. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/8 "2019-10-31T03:06:17Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > But this is rather unlikely. ISIS was a threat to the central government of Iraq and Iran is the Iraq central government’s best friend( if anyone thinks it is the U.S., they are mistaken ). Iran has been very heavily involved in the military actions against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. Both are Shi’a friendly/dominated governments and is to Iran’s advantage to prop up both and demolish existential threats to them. **Tamerlane** is right here - Syria has been one of Iran’s few reliable allies in the Middle East. ISIS’s fighting against the Syrian dictatorship is completely against the national interests of Iran. To illustrate: > [@wikipedia](#): > > Syria cooperates with Iran in sending arms to Palestinian groups and Hezbollah in Lebanon, since Israel has attacked Syria.[3] During the Syrian Civil War Iran conducted, alongside Russia, “an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power.”[4] Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Russia also form an anti-terrorism alliance that has its headquarters in Baghdad. The governments of United States, the United Kingdom and Canada have designated both nations of Iran and Syria as State Sponsors of Terrorism in part due to support for Lebanese Hezbollah.[5] > **[Iran–Syria relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Syria_relations)** > > Syria and Iran are strategic allies. Syria is usually called Iran's "closest ally", with ideological conflict between the Arab nationalism ideology of Syria's secular ruling Ba'ath Party and the Islamic Republic of Iran's pan-Islamist policy notwithstanding. Iran and Syria have had a strategic alliance ever since the Iran–Iraq War, when Syria sided with non-Arab Iran against neighbouring Ba'ath-ruled Iraq. The two countries shared a common animosity towards then Iraqi president Saddam Husse Syria... ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/9 "2019-10-31T03:59:16Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > In the recent raid on ISIS, the US reportedly captured a large amount of information concerning the origin of ISIS. Does anyone know why this would be significant enough to bother reporting? Is there some mystery to the origin? Did “unknown forces” “conspire” or something along those lines that can now be illuminated? Presumably the signficance is that the material will conclusively prove Trump’s claim that Barack Obama was the founder of ISIS. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/10 "2019-10-31T04:09:08Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > From what is known about ISIS/L while it did receive a bit of outside funding it seems to have been mostly been shakily self-financed. After all at its height it was functionally a territorial state. It sold pirated Iraqi oil… And Syrian oil… Guess who the buyers were. Satellite images showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Isis in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into neighbouring Turkey. Erdogan and family were directly linked to profiteering from this oil. BTW, The US never bombed these tankers.It was the Russian air force’s bombing campaign of these tankers and infrastructure that made a significant dent in Isis’s ability to produce, refine and sell oil. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2019, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-origin-of-isis/842712/11 "2019-10-31T04:24:36Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Presumably the signficance is that the material will conclusively prove Trump’s claim that Barack Obama was the founder of ISIS. **Moderating** Let’s refrain from political commentary in GQ. No warning issued, but let’s stick to the question in the OP. Colibri General Questions Moderator