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As a link between the terror organisation and the Bondi Beach gunmen is investigated, Peter Neumann, author of ‘Isis: the Inside Story’, explains how they have evolved as a group and the chilling call to arms made just months ago
Isis is not what it used to be. At its peak a decade ago, the group governed a territory in Iraq and Syria roughly the size of Great Britain, with a population of nearly 10 million people. It declared so-called provinces across three continents and projected an image of unstoppable momentum. That version of Isis no longer exists.
Its self-declared “caliphate” was comprehensively defeated by decisive international action led by the United States and its allies. By 2019, Isis controlled little more than a handful of villages along the Syrian-Iraqi border. With the collapse of territorial control came the end of its centrally directed global terror campaign, which had reached Europe and Britain in the mid-2010s with devastating attacks in Paris, Brussels, Manchester, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Barcelona, and other European cities.
