How Isis has changed over 10 years of spreading terror around the world

A decade ago, the Islamic State was growing in power across Iraq and Syria as it repeatedly defeated both countries’ armies to claim more and more territory.

Citizens under the terror group’s control were subjected to torture, death and brutal repression through its radical brand of Islam.

And simultaneously, followers of the organisation also known as Isis were instilling terror around the world with a succession of devastating attacks that aimed to kill as many people as possible.

Since then, the group has been weakened by multiple losses on the battlefields and the deaths of several top leaders.

But the appearance of an Islamic State flag at the site of the recent attack in New Orleans has left many people wondering how influential it still is.

History of Isis horrors

The Islamic State first emerged in Iraq a few years after the US-led invasion, but it was only after the decline of al-Qaeda and the beginning of the Syrian Civil War that it became a major force.

After killing hundreds in a campaign of violence mostly contained within Iraq throughout the early 2010s, a shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in May 2014 signalled the arrival of Isis terror in Europe.

By the end of that year, further incidents linked to the group took place in France, Australia, Canada and the US, as well as Iraq.

On November 13 2015, the world was stunned by a co-ordinated series of attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead – including 90 who were attending an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan theatre.

The car attack outside Parliament, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the London Bridge attack were carried out by perpetrators linked to the Islamic State within a matter of months in 2017.

However, the group’s power began to decline by the end of the 2010s as a US-led coalition took it on in the Middle East.

Then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed by US special forces in 2019 and the caliphate in Iraq soon collapsed.

Despite the loss of much of its territory, Isis has not completely disappeared, with its fighters now operating in largely autonomous cells.

The lingering threat was demonstrated in March last year, when four gunmen killed 145 concertgoers at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk near Moscow.

A Taylor Swift concert in Vienna was cancelled in August after authorities uncovered a plot that intended to kill ‘tens of thousands’, according to the CIA, with the teenage suspects believed to be followers of Isis.

With its fighter numbers uncertain and its leadership kept secret, the new structure of the Islamic State poses a serious challenge for anti-terror forces.

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