http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 276 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 8 / 2016 of 2014, the Islamic State for Iraq and Syria, ISIS, a real terrorist army fighting in Iraq and Syria, is causing thousands of deaths and has devastated small villages and cities in the Middle East, combining religious fanaticism with military experience, and ob-taining spectacular and unexpected victories over the armed forces of those countries50. ISIS imposed submission to its sectarianism (through its exclusive and erroneous interpretation of Islam) to Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Alaouites, and Christians from Iraq and Syria, whom it assassinated or forced to flee if it considered them apostates, po-lytheists, or if they did not agree with its norms, thus applying the suicide bomber or public violence to frighten and terrorize its adversaries. Since June 10, 2014 (date on which Mosul, in the north of Iraq, was captured), and during 105 days, ISIS devastated Iraq and Syria, in spite of the armies from both countries being better equipped and more numerous. At the end of September of that year, ISIS announced the establis-hment of a Caliphate that reached the interior of Syria and Iraq, whose leader was Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi. «For the US, the UK, and the Western powers, the emergence of ISIS and the Caliphate is the greatest disaster»51. The war fought against terrorism, on which millions of dollars have been spent, and civil liberties have been limited, has been a resounding failure. In the case of terrorism in the Basque Country, where the religious dimension of its population is larger than in the rest of the Spanish communities, the ideals of ETA terrorist organization are a consequence of having tinged an enshrined and racist nationalism as modern socialism. The political strategy of the organization was born, to a certain extent, in the hiding of sacristies (there being some controversy regarding this origin)52. ETA’s members who died in terrorist actions were honored as true heroes and martyrs in churches and streets of their towns and cities, whereas the families of ETA’s victims found real difficulties to hold a simple funeral service for their dead in Basque churches. As far as the mental condition of the terrorists, it cannot be affirmed that there are paranoid traits in their behavior. Fanaticism is not considered a mental disorder, and it violations, massive massacres, stoning, etc. The terrorist and criminal violence of Boko Haram has provoked 1.5 million refugees displaced to Nigerian territory and to the boundary countries Chad and Cameroun. UNICEF also alerts that 800,000 children are deprived of health, education, and social services; in other words, lacking the needed humanitarian aid. NARANJO, José, «Boko Haram´s re-ign of terror», International, El País, Dakar, 14 April, 2015, Available at <http://internacional.elpais.com/ internacional/2015/04/13/actualidad/1428934482_032512.html> last viewed: 10 February, 2016. 50 COCKBURN, Patrick, ISIS. The Return of the Jihad, Barcelona, Editorial Planeta S.A., 2015, pg.11. 51 Ibidem, pg. 47. 52 According to the Basque sociologist Javier Elzo, ETA did not emerge in a seminary, although Basque priests (critical of the lack of freedom during the Franco regime) supported the ideals of the armed group; they rejected violence. ELZO, Javier, After the yoke of ETA. For a just and reconciled society, Madrid, PPC, 2014, pg.165.
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