The Islamic ‘State ’ Challenge: Defining the Actor

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL/IS) threat poses crucial questions of public international law/relations, including, but not limited to: is it a terrorism threat? If not, what is it? Do we really need international law to combat the threat? What lessons can be learnt for international law and international actors from the (apparent causes of the) threat? And what needs to be done as a matter of urgency and strategy? This article does not try to engage with all these timely but complex questions; rather it is meant to invite a scholarly debate and reflection on the challenge of defining and understanding IS as an actor which may or may not have apparent legal or political implications. Of course the world is currently faced with many serious threats and human security concerns including repeated (but ignored) immigrant deaths of high numbers in the Mediterranean Sea, the Nepal Earthquake, racial and homophobic tensions (in the US and South Africa for example), the Ukraine and Yemen crises. However, the rise of Islamic extremism with relatively strong conventional military capabilities in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, amongst other territories, is a unique and unprecedented threat in the 21st century which cannot be dealt solely with diplomacy, border controls or by deploying the police, nurses, medicine, and other forms of humanitarian assistance. This article argues that IS is neither a terrorist group, a quasi-state, nor a classic armed group; it is simply a regional extremist criminal organisation (RECO) with an army, territory (spanning from Syria to Iraq) an