Ruggiero 1

Subject: International Terrorism - ISIS

Committee: The U.N General Assembly
Country: Syria
Delegate: Red Ruggiero
Syria: International Terrorism
Now well-known, ISIS has been an undeniable threat to countries worldwide. They have
conquered areas in both Syria and Iraq, such as Raqqa, Syria, which is their base of operations.
In these areas, they impose their strict, violent form of Islam, with severe consequences for those
who will not follow it. On the global scale, incidents such as beheadings, plane bombings, and
shootings have all been acts of violence employed by them in the name of terrorism. Most
notably, ISIS claimed responsibility for a devastating attack in Paris. During this incident,
gunmen and suicide bombers from the Islamic State killed 130 innocents, while leaving hundreds
more wounded. The president of France, Franois Hollande, responded harshly, vowing to fight
back merciless against the terrorist group, while using all necessary measures. Other
countries have also pitched in to help us fight off this group, such as the United States and
Russia.
As our country is still not yet fully developed, we have struggled to resist against the
oppressive Islamic State. There are too many individual fighting groups, which takes away our
ability to directly strike against them. In fact, President Bashar Assad believes that before we
even attempt to take on ISIS ourselves, we must be rid of the FSA (Free Syrian Army) and the
Nusra Front. These groups have both openly threatened our capital, Damascus, and are trying to
liberate Syria of President Assad. A businessman with close ties to the Syrian government even
believes that if the regime wanted to get rid of ISIS, they would have bombed Raqqa by now...
Instead they bomb other cities, where the FSA is strong. To deal with them, Assad has taken a
pragmatic approach to ISIS. He believes that the stronger ISIS gets, the more useful they will be
to the regime. By using them, Assad hopes to weaken the opposition in Syria to the point where
it will not be a factor anymore. Afterwards, the regime wants to make the international
community choose between ISIS and Damascus, which they believe will result in Syrias capital
over the black flags of the Islamic State. This is Assads goal; he wants international recognition
as to his legitimacy as Syrias President, thinking that he can easily handle ISIS with the help of
Hizballah and the Iran Revolutionary Guard.
However, even though Assad has not been willing to take down ISIS just yet, the
government has sent airstrikes down on areas under ISIS influence, in hopes of reducing the
threat they exude. While some of these have been successful, they come at a heavy cost in
civilian casualties. At least 18,666 innocent people have been killed by the Syrian governments
bombings, with more than 100 more when taking US-led strikes into account. Citizens have
explained how they feel trapped with ISIS dominating them on the ground and bombings
coming from the air. Efforts from humanitarian groups such as The White Helmets help to rescue
these victims, but the toll is still ridiculously high. A better long-term alternative to this strategy

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would be sending in ground forces that are local to Syria, which would reduce the unnecessary
death toll. An expert on defence strategies, Andreas Krieg notes that The reason is that unguided
- i.e. not guided by forced on the ground - air power is unable to discriminately destroy ISIS
military targets. By using ground forces, ISIS targets can be marked with precision and civilians
can potentially be moved away from the area to avoid harm.
As for the international community, there has been a massive response. Countries have
helped by taking in refugees from our country, effectively saving innocents from potentially
getting caught in the crossfire of the fight with ISIS. This is headed by Germany, which has
pledged to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees. Furthermore, others have offered military
help. The U.S., for example, has refused to send soldiers overseas, but has sent arms, airstrikes,
and drones. Similarly, Russia has ruled out sending ground troops; instead, Putin has sent navy
ships to cooperate with the military efforts. All of these certainly will help in the fight against
ISIS, but time will truly tell how effective it will be.

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Works Cited

"Defeating ISIS: An Integrated Strategy to Advance Middle East Stability."

Www.americanprogress.org. Center for American Progress, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 05 June 2016.

Tisdall, Simon. "France's Anti-Isis Coalition: Where the Key Countries Stand." The
Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 23 Nov. 2015. Web. 05 June 2016.

"The Battle between ISIS and Syria's Rebel Militias | Clarion

Project."ClarionProject.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 June 2016.

The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, n.d. Web. 05 June 2016.

"Why Bashar Assad Won't Fight ISIS." Time. Time, n.d. Web. 05 June 2016.