2015, The year of the war on terror

Although there were many high points of 2015, the year also brought much fear across the world due to the acclaimed "ISIS", the Islamic state. This saw the largests scale of attacks in Paris, both a the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January and the Bataclan theatre attacks in November. On the 10th of January, 2016, the people of Paris gathered to remember all of the lost victims of the terror attacks in their country in 2015. President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo attended to pay their respects at the ceremony in Place de la République. However the event was low key in comparison with the close friends and family of the victims invited, and Francois Hollande briefly meeting with them. Abriel Rudnik who attended the ceremony to show his respects, carried a sign that read, "I'm afraid but I'm here." he told CNN."I am here to show my support and to say that we must continue to live,"

These attacks is just in Paris alone, alongside many threats to the west there has been thousands of deaths in Syria, Iraq and even journalist and tourists have been killed when travelling to the region.

In November of 2015 Russia, America and the U.K placed airstrikes on Syria in order to put a stop to ISIS, however there is more complicated political agenda behind ISIS that operates in Syria and now rules areas in Syria. Yet it would be naive to think that ISIS are only in Syria, which makes it harder to stop such a group when they can't be predicted or found. It is hard to understand how such a political group as the class themselves could hard so much harm to the world, they even present propaganda  videos in order to entice vulnerable people to join them, very little of the western world has had communications with ISIS. This has brought much fear across the world, when will the next attack happen, what can we do in 2016 to stop terror attacks ? Although ever increasing,  this has not just been an issue of 2015 Is ISIS just an extension al‑Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Is the war of 2015 a war of territory, either way, the most important question of 2016 is how can the leaders of the world find a solution to stop this.





Laura Bailey

Sources: PBS, The Atlantic, CNN
Images: PBS