They are a mixed bag across more than 2600 kms of borders - Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, an Azerbaijan enclave, Georgia, Bulgaria and Greece. And across the Black Sea he has Russia.

Now he has an unofficial neighbour: Daesh, also known as Islamic State. It has been active along Turkey's frontier inside Syria and regards territory it has seized as part of its self-styled caliphate.

It poses a dilemma for President Erdogan. He has 1.5 million refugees on his hands, mainly from Syria as a result of barbaric actions by Daesh. The EU has offered him what some see as a generous bribe to deter the refugees from heading west to Europe.

He has joined the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Daesh, but is his heart really in it even though he has blamed it for killing 100 people at a peace rally in Turkey in October? His air force by all accounts prefers to attack Kurdish targets.

His critics say he tolerates Daesh as being good for business and helping deal with what he sees as his real enemy, the Kurds. But for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh, it is the Kurds who have done more than any other force on the ground in repelling its advances.

David Graeber, a professor at the London School of Economics, thinks he has the answer to eliminate Daesh. Writing in the Guardian, he says:

‘All it would really take would be to unleash the largely Kurdish forces of the YPG (Democratic Union party) in Syria and PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) guerrillas in Iraq and Turkey. But instead the YPG-controlled territory in Syria finds itself placed under a total embargo by Turkey and the PKK forces are under continual bombardment by the Turkish air force. Not only has Erdogan done almost everything he can to cripple the forces actually fighting (Daesh); there is considerable evidence that his government has been at least tacitly aiding (Daesh) itself'. Continue reading

• John Tulloh had a 40-year career in foreign news. This opinion piece was posted on John Menadue's blog.

They also have "allegiance" from different radical Islamic groups around the world (from Afghanistan to Nigeria) who "govern" self-proclaimed provinces.

Within the areas they control they have established a reign of terror second to none.

They have institutionalized slavery and rape (particularly of adherents to the Yazidi religion who they view as devil worshippers) and have carried out genocide and ethnic cleansing of Christians, Alawites, and other Shiites and Yazidis in the territories they control.

They have struck with a vengeance beyond their territories. Suicide attacks in Baghdad, Beirut, and Ankara killed hundreds.

In October 2015, they detonated a bomb aboard a Russian airliner leaving from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.

In November, they orchestrated a multi-suicide attack in Paris, killing 129 people. They have inspired "lone-wolf" terror attacks by sympathizers in places as far away as Ottawa and Sydney.

A bit of nomenclature:

You may have heard about ISIS referred to as IS, ISIL, or Daesh. All of these acronyms describe the group in question.

• ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria was the name of the group when it captured Mosul in 2014 and became the terrorist juggernaut it is today. They named themselves that to assert their dominance in Syria (more on that later).
• ISIL: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (aka Greater Syria) is the name that Obama uses to describe the group (pretty much only Obama uses it). Superficially speaking, it is just a translation thing.
• IS: Islamic State is the name the group gave itself after a "rebranding" effort when they wanted to show off their global strategy (they wouldn't be limited to Syria and Iraq anymore). Continue reading

Sources

• The Week
• Image: NBC News