ISIS is a different animal really. I'm actually reading the book "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror"
http://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578 now and I previously read some more scholarly type articles from various think tank types. I did this because I just assumed they were basically the same as Bin Laden. And they obviously have similarities but ISIS has much grander plans.
Bin Laden wanted the west out of the Arab/Muslim world and terror was a means to scare us and thus make us force our government to stop foraying into affairs over there by scaring us here. Simple idea really. He did dream of the caliphate and restoration of Islam etc but was not trying to bring that about and did not think it was happening anytime soon. And he did not try to attain nor did his aims require the taking of actual territory or establishment of a state.
But ISIS has MUCH grander plans. They share certain similarities with various Christian and other "end of the world" "apocalypse" focused sects who WANT to bring about apocalyptic events. They have established the Caliphate ISIS, the state, in order to bring about the end times and the victory over Rome. And, like Christians, they are awaiting the return of JESUS (I'll provide the quote below).
The first explanatory article about ISIS I read was this one,
What ISIS Really Wants
The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Heres what that means for its strategyand for how to stop it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/. I think it's a really good primer.
What I find essentially more frightening in many ways is that the end times Caliphate is very much at the heart of Islam. And people trying to say ISIS is "un Islamic" are not really correct:
Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the groups theology, told me, embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion that neglects what their religion has historically and legally required. Many denials of the Islamic States religious nature, he said, are rooted in an interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.
So, ultimately the Caliphate may hold much more interest for a larger array of Muslims than Bin Laden's cave based terror ever did. And, once again, we, the US have wittingly or unwittingly supported the expansion of this philosophy. ISIS is just a small step beyond Wahhabi's which has been funded, promoted, supported and spread by our closest ME ally Saudi Arabia. The substantive distinction noted in the article-Wahhabi violence was and is not as wanton.
The articles author interviewed an Islamic cleric who has been trying to join ISIS. He's stuck in Australia and emigrating to ISIS is illegal. He personally hates beheadings and actually speaks against suicide bombing but still supports ISIS. They also interviewed three supporters in the UK. One is Anjem Choudary who I know as a loathsome blowhard who often appears on Fox and other stations to defend the indefensible until they cut his mike. But he offers a good explanation of what is going on.
Before the caliphate, maybe 85 percent of the Sharia was absent from our lives, Choudary told me. These laws are in abeyance until we have khilafaa caliphateand now we have one. Without a caliphate, for example, individual vigilantes are not obliged to amputate the hands of thieves they catch in the act. But create a caliphate, and this law, along with a huge body of other jurisprudence, suddenly awakens. In theory, all Muslims are obliged to immigrate to the territory where the caliph is applying these laws.... the caliph commands obedienceand those who persist in supporting non-Muslim governments, after being duly warned and educated about their sin, are considered apostates.
The territory ISIS concentrates on is essential to the fulfillment of the "prophecy"
Now that it has taken Dabiq, the Islamic State awaits the arrival of an enemy army there, whose defeat will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse. Western media frequently miss references to Dabiq in the Islamic States videos, and focus instead on lurid scenes of beheading. ..The Prophetic narration that foretells the Dabiq battle refers to the enemy as Rome. Who Rome is, now that the pope has no army, remains a matter of debate. But Cerantonio makes a case that Rome meant the Eastern Roman empire, which had its capital in what is now Istanbul. We should think of Rome as the Republic of Turkeythe same republic that ended the last self-identified caliphate, 90 years ago. Other Islamic State sources suggest that Rome might mean any infidel army, and the Americans will do nicely....After its battle in Dabiq, Cerantonio said, the caliphate will expand and sack Istanbul...An anti-Messiah, known in Muslim apocalyptic literature as Dajjal, will come from the Khorasan region of eastern Iran and kill a vast number of the caliphates fighters, until just 5,000 remain, cornered in Jerusalem. Just as Dajjal prepares to finish them off, Jesusthe second-most-revered prophet in Islamwill return to Earth, spear Dajjal, and lead the Muslims to victory.
As I noted above, they are waiting for someone familiar to the west, Jesus:
An anti-Messiah, known in Muslim apocalyptic literature as Dajjal, will come from the Khorasan region of eastern Iran and kill a vast number of the caliphates fighters, until just 5,000 remain, cornered in Jerusalem. Just as Dajjal prepares to finish them off, Jesusthe second-most-revered prophet in Islamwill return to Earth, spear Dajjal, and lead the Muslims to victory.
OK, I'll shut up now. But I was truly AMAZED when I looked into what this was all really about...