ISIS Captures Mosul and Declares a Caliphate, Boko Haram Abducts 276 Girls in Chibok and Ukraine Descends Into Armed Conflict

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 July 2014 | Reporting Period: 3 April – 2 July 2014

Quarterly Briefing

• The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria captures Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, on June 10 and within days controls vast swathes of northern Iraq; on June 29, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaims a caliphate, renaming the group the Islamic State and demanding allegiance from Muslims worldwide.
• Boko Haram abducts 276 female students from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria, on the night of April 14–15; the “#BringBackOurGirls” campaign reaches global prominence, though the girls remain missing.
• Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine declare the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and hold disputed referendums in May; heavy fighting between Ukrainian forces and armed separatists escalates through the quarter with mounting civilian casualties.
• The Thai military stages a coup on May 22, ousting the caretaker government and imposing martial law; the event is the twelfth coup or coup attempt in Thailand since 1932 and draws international condemnation.
• The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people aboard, continues across the southern Indian Ocean; no wreckage has been found and no explanation confirmed.
• Venezuela’s government and opposition trade accusations through the quarter as street protests that began in February continue, the economy deteriorates and shortages of basic goods worsen; PETROCARIBE continues to supply Caribbean states at concessional terms.

Prologue: Borders Dissolving

The second quarter of 2014 will be remembered above all for the dissolution of boundaries that had defined the Middle East and Africa for a generation. The Sykes-Picot line between what is now Iraq and Syria — drawn by British and French diplomats in 1916 — was erased in practice by the Islamic State’s June advance and its proclamation of a caliphate straddling both countries. The Nigerian government’s effective authority dissolved in the northeast, where Boko Haram could abduct 276 girls and hold them with apparent impunity. And in eastern Ukraine, the lines between a sovereign state and a territory occupied by armed groups with foreign backing became contested in ways that the European security order had not seen since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. For Jamaica and the Caribbean, these were not abstract geopolitical events: they shaped oil markets, remittance flows and the general sense of whether the international order that underpins Caribbean prosperity was stable or fragmenting.

ISIS Takes Mosul and Declares the Caliphate

The fall of Mosul on 10 June shocked military analysts who had assessed the Iraqi Army, trained and equipped at vast American expense since 2003, as a capable fighting force. Divisions of Iraqi soldiers fled before a much smaller ISIS force; American weapons, vehicles and cash stockpiled in the city fell into ISIS hands. Within days ISIS had advanced to within 50 kilometres of Baghdad, seized the strategically critical Mosul Dam and threatened the Yazidi and Christian populations of the Nineveh plains. The Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki appealed for American air support; the Obama administration began moving advisers and assets into the region while stopping short of airstrikes.

On 29 June, the group’s spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani announced the proclamation of a caliphate, with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as its caliph. The name was shortened to the Islamic State — a deliberate signal that the organisation was no longer confined to Iraq and Syria but claimed authority over all Muslims globally. The proclamation was rejected by most Islamic scholars and by rival jihadist organisations, but its symbolic resonance cannot be dismissed: for the first time since the Ottoman abolition of the caliphate in 1924, a movement had declared a state governed by its interpretation of Islamic law across substantial territory.

Chibok, Boko Haram and the Limits of Outrage

The abduction of 276 girls from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, in the early hours of 15 April generated an extraordinary global response when it became widely known in late April. The “#BringBackOurGirls” hashtag was used by Michelle Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and dozens of heads of state; the United States, Britain, France, Israel and China all offered intelligence or military support to the Nigerian government. Yet as this edition publishes in early July, the girls remain missing. Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau released a video in May claiming to have married off many of the girls and defying the world to find them. The episode illustrated the gap between the viral energy of social media campaigns and the operational capacity to translate that energy into rescue or accountability.

Ukraine and Venezuela

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, the quarter saw armed conflict spread to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists supported by Russian fighters, weapons and intelligence occupied government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk and held referendums whose results — impossibly high votes for independence — were not recognised internationally. Ukraine’s newly elected president, Petro Poroshenko, who took office on 7 June, launched military operations against separatist positions. The fighting caused significant civilian casualties and destroyed infrastructure in populated areas. The European Union and United States expanded sanctions on Russia; Russia’s counter-measures included restrictions on European food imports that complicated the relationship further.

In Venezuela, where oil revenues are the economic underpinning of both the domestic economy and the PETROCARIBE programme, protests that began in February continued through the quarter as the government of Nicolás Maduro confronted a combination of inflation running above 60 per cent, severe shortages of basic goods and an opposition emboldened by urban middle-class discontent. The government detained opposition leader Leopoldo López in February and several protest leaders subsequently. Oil production, though declining, remained sufficient to keep PETROCARIBE deliveries to Caribbean states broadly on schedule. But the trajectory of Venezuelan instability is a growing concern in Kingston, Georgetown and Port-au-Prince, where governments depend on Venezuelan oil financing for fiscal stability.

Looking Ahead

The Islamic State’s caliphate proclamation is barely four days old as this edition publishes. The question of whether the United States will intervene militarily in Iraq — from which it withdrew its last combat troops in December 2011 — remains formally unanswered, though the deployment of military advisers suggests the answer is moving toward yes. Boko Haram’s Chibok captives remain missing and the Nigerian government has no credible plan to find them. Eastern Ukraine’s fighting is intensifying. And Venezuela’s fiscal trajectory, with oil prices still above $100 but with production stagnating, will be the key variable for Caribbean economies in the months ahead. The quarter just ending accelerated multiple crises; the quarter beginning today offers no sign of deceleration.

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Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review is published quarterly, examining how wars, geopolitical tensions and major international crises have shaped Jamaica, the Caribbean and their economies.

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