Re: Isis’s slaughter of the Yazidi is a new Rwanda happening before our eyes
They broke off from and turned against their sponsor, Al-Qaeda. They started off by tapping into the Al-Qaeda funding network in 2004, their founder being a first-afghan war acquaintance of Bin Laden . The group began as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda brought access to its funds). It was almost completely crushed by the US-funded Sunni Awakening in 2007-2008.
Its reversal of fortune began with the Syrian civil war. It got funding from Al-Qaeda to create a Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, the Al-Nusrah Front. It quickly began operating in parallel to Al-Nusrah, ignored Al-Qaeda’s instructions to merge with Al-Nusrah, conquered territory enough territory in Syria to raise funds from independently and severed its ties to Al Qaeda. Its greater success in Syria than Al Qaeda began winning over support from Al Qaeda sympathisers in the Gulf, bringing more manpower and funding. It has already been ignoring Al Qaeda’s instruction to turn down the anti-Shia violence in Iraq; when Al Qaeda ordered them to merge their Syria operations with Al-Nusrah, they refused, arguing that they were more powerful than Al Qaeda and that Al Qaeda should be subservient to them.
They then judged the timing to fight against the Iraqi government conventionally right; have capitalised on a wellspring of Sunni resentment in Iraq against the Shia dominated government, and their actions and success will be winning them support and funding from wealthy Sunnis in the gulf who see ISIS as liberating Sunnis from Shia oppression.
Both US Think Tanks and Iranian sources point to private donations from the Gulf as being a huge source of funding for ISIS.
Saudi Funding of ISIS - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
PressTV - The United States? biggest ‘allies’ are funding ISIS