An Israeli border policeman patrols the area of the Judean desert, near the Jordan border. After swift victories in Iraq, the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) terrorist group is setting its sights on Jordan, threatening to drag Israel into the global jihadist conflict. (photo by Nati Shohat/FLASH90)
Emerging from the chaos of the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group has gained the world’s attention for its brutal medieval-style justice and its swift victories in Iraq, threatening to overrun the weak U.S.-backed government there. But now ISIS is also setting its sights on Jordan, threatening to drag Israel into the global jihadist conflict.
“They are a vicious and brutal group, and have even done some things that al-Qaeda thought were unwise,” Elliot Abrams, who served as deputy national security advisor for former President George W. Bush and is currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told this reporter. “More people, more money and more guns. They do constitute a real threat.”
The goals of ISIS are clear from its name. Alternatively translated as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (the Arabic name for the Levant region) or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the group seeks to control the entire region, which, in addition to Iraq and Syria, includes Jordan, Lebanon, and even Israel and the Palestinian territories.