It is always difficult to confirm, but it appears that ISIS has announced his death.

ISIS will be defeated, probably in the next two or three years. The notion of an Islamic State will eventually be defeated in Libya, Somalia, Nigeria and - perhaps over a longer time period - in Afghanistan. And Islamo-fascism will be danger to the rest of the world throughout this century.

Islamo-fascism isn't just the outcome of the machinations of small groups of people independent of Islam - it is an inevitable and constant outgrowth of major fundamentalist branches of Islam, the most well-known being Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. Islamo-fascism springs from Islam, and will keep doing so until Islam has been thoroughly reformed.

Religions throw up ideologies to cope with the actual world that followers have to live in. Those ideologies don't just go away if a particular sect is defeated in battles, or even in debate. The believers will still believe, and may even increase their fervour, tighten their rules and paranoia about the machinations of the wicked outside world. They will, some day, try again. And again.

Fundamentalist Christians work that way. The extreme Right works that way (some believe that Hitler is still alive, after all). And for sure, many of the various philosophies on the Left, Trotskyism and Gramscianism for example, work that way. Whether the extreme Right or the Left are effectively practising religions, is not for me to say. The point is that 'true-believers' don't give up after a few battles. Their minds haven't been changed - they may have become more paranoid, but they will stick with their fundamentalist beliefs until death.

So it is with many in Islam, that body of 1.4 billion people. As with nominal Christians or Hindus, many Muslims (I hope) wear their beliefs fairly casually, perhaps not praying five times each day, perhaps not beating their wives, perhaps not having four wives on the side, perhaps not ever contemplating selling off their twelve-year-old daughters or having them mutilated. But who knows, perhaps 0.1-1.0 % do. 1.4-14 million. 1.4 to 14 million, constantly passing their twisted beliefs onto their children.

It's going to be a long century.

Joe

LM,

I don't believe Islamic State will survive 2016.

When ISIS took Raqqa, Fallujah and Mosul they captured oil fields thousands of vehicles, along with many $m, tanks armoured cars artillery etc, and were getting 1000s of volunteers. Given the state of the Iraqi army, there was no way to retake these cities. The allied strategy was to use air power to wipe out their heavy weapons, any military installations, their soldiers and their cash flow.

As it stands, ISIS has lost nearly all its heavy weapons, tanks and armoured cars, its cash flow has all but stopped, its soldiers pay has evaporated, most of its experienced leaders and fighters have been killed, and shortly its vital link to Turkey for supplies will be cut off.

Every time it tries to fight back, its soldiers are drawn into the open where the drones and aircraft pick them off. Being surrounded there will be no escape, and hopefully ISIS will shortly be a bad memory.

HI SM,

Yes, very likely, although I think the recapture of Mosul will take much longer and be dreadfully costly in human lives.

But until Islam is reformed, fascist groups like ISIS will keep springing up. How on earth Islam can be reformed in countries where there is no strong impulse for reform, is hardly going to happen in the near future. Other groups will rise up, chucking gays off tall buildings, beating wives, mutilating children, stoning women for looking sideways, and imams will prattle in their half-witted way about a 'religion of peace' while they advocate all manner of vile practices.

Islamo-fascism, perhaps in worse and worse forms (if possible), will outlive both of us, SM, and probably our grandchildren as well.

Cheers,

Joe

ISIS may die but the death of militant Islam will be much exaggerated.
They have been making a bloody nuisance of themselves for 1400 years
and are not likely to stop any time soon.
Allah via Mohammed has forbidden any changes to the Koran.
That is punishable by death.
There are a couple of organisations that are trying to update Islam
but I think they are pretty small movements.

Mosul will almost certainly be a blood bath as it will be their last
and biggest holding.
My prediction is that there will be a civil war in France spilling
over into Belgium, Holland and Germany. It will get to the stage where
the only way to remove them from a city like Marseilles will be with
tactical nuclear weapons.
That will be the solution once a city like that becomes 100% muslim.
I just do not see the Germans submitting to Islam. It would probably
escalate into nuclear attacks on the middle eastern countries that
would be supporting the moslem insurrection.

Australia needs to take note of what is happening in Europe.
There have been attacks on British citizens in their cars at Calais
as they are making their way back to the UK. "F;'; the UK" they shout
as they besiege the cars and trucks throwing rocks at them.
The port has been closed although the cars & trucks are trapped.

I see no solution to this problem even if they ban cousin marriages
in the next 500 years.