The threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the international network of militants it has spawned will be with us for a “generation”, according to experts speaking at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 24 September 2014.

From Al-Qaeda to ISIS: terrorist tactics. Panel discussion at the Frontline Club, 24 September 2014. From L to R: Patrick Cockburn, Peter Neumann, Sam Kiley, Alia Brahimi and Aymenn al-Tamimi. Photograph by Richard Nield

On the day that the UN security council agreed to launch an effort to prevent the flow of foreign jihadis in support of the Islamic State and US-led airstrikes continued in Syria, the Frontline Club panel underlined the seriousness of the ISIS threat and sought to explain its appeal to an estimated 15,000 foreign fighters.

Hosted by Sky News foreign affairs editor Sam Kiley, the debate brought together Peter Neumann, Professor of Security Studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and founder and director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR); Alia Brahimi, visiting research fellow at the Oxford University Changing Character of War Programme at Pembroke College, Oxford and author of Jihad and Just War in the War on Terror; Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a recent graduate from Brasenose College, Oxford University, and a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum; and Patrick Cockburn, a Middle East correspondent since 1979 and author of The Jihadis Return: Isis and the New Sunni Uprising.

The panel was unanimous in its belief that the airstrikes launched by a US-led alliance on Monday 22 September would not bring a speedy halt to the ISIS insurgency, something that UK prime minister David Cameron and a spokesperson for the US defence administration later admitted.

“I don’t believe the air campaign is going to be able to defeat ISIS, or that a more intensive military campaign would either,” said Neumann. “We’re going to be down there for years.”

Military strikes against ISIS ignore the root of the problem, the panel argued. “I’m pessimistic about the efficacy of airstrikes,” said al-Tamimi. “What is needed is a change of mindset on the ground. It’s local mindsets that matter here in Iraq now.”

“The US is trying to cut them off at the head, but we have to cut them off at the legs and deal with the causes,” said Brahimi.

The popularity of ISIS was attributed to a range of factors, including government failings and the organisation’s successes on the battlefield. “Maliki’s heavy handed responses to political issues in Iraq have definitely played a part,” said Brahimi. “Both Maliki and Assad have attempted to deploy military solutions to political problems.”

“One simple thing in ISIS’ favour is victory,” said Cockburn, pointing to the organisation’s military successes in Mosul, Anbar and Tikrit, and the fact that it has inflicted heavy defeats on the Syrian army. “In the context of great numbers of bitter, angry Sunni young men in Syria and Iraq, their lives pretty hopeless. . . . All of a sudden there’s this victorious army that they can join. It’s all very appealing.”

ISIS has taken advantage of a groundswell of anger and disillusionment among unrepresented Sunnis, which make up about 20% of the population in Iraq and 60% in Syria, and tapped into a history of insurgency that dates back to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“ISIS has ridden on the back of an overall revitalised Sunni insurgency in Iraq,” said Brahimi. “You can draw a straight line between [the invasion of Iraq] and the rise of ISIS. So many in Syria . . . cut their teeth in the Iraqi insurgency, trying to take the whole territory in the war against the US.”

For the time being, ISIS is focused on the ‘near enemy’, but it is likely that it will eventually move against Western targets. “[ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-] Baghdadi will relish straying onto [Al Qaeda leader] Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ground,” said al-Tamimi. “Conducting attacks against the west has the ability to re-energise the ranks and silence internal critics. Baghdadi and Al-Zawahiri are in a race.”

The conflict has attracted between 12,000–15,000 foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq in the past three years, the largest overseas participation of independent fighters since Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to Neumann. Foreign combatants make up an estimated 40% of ISIS recruits.

Many were initially motivated by humanitarian reasons, but more recent converts to the ISIS cause are driven by a mixture of ideology, idealism, and adventure. “The idea of a caliphate . . . motivates people to build something that can be there in a thousand years time,” said Neumann. “It’s like an adventure holiday minus the alcohol.”

“The narrative is increasingly utopian and the reality increasingly dystopian,” said Brahimi. “We have to make more of that.”

The broad international appeal of ISIS is storing up huge problems for the future, and this is something that airstrikes will not change. “You have 15,000 people who may go to other conflicts, go back to their own countries, or stay in the region,” said Neumann. “These networks will keep us busy for another generation.”

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“I would be more pessimistic if I had to rewrite the last sentences,” said Christophe Ayad, co-director of Syria: Assad’s Twilight. The documentary finished where it began – with Bashar al-Assad’s brutality unleashed upon his own people, captured only on shaking mobile phones – but with a feeling of optimism that the regime’s days are numbered and its power is waning.

But things have changed since Christophe Ayad and Vincent De Cointet finished filming in June 2011. There is no longer any certainty that the Assad regime will have to go. On the same day as the UK premiere of their documentary, Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council that the Syrian government had agreed to withdraw forces from towns and cities.

The film takes us back to the beginning of the Assad regime in 1971, to Hafez’s establishment of a single-party state that ruled with an iron fist, to his longstanding conflict with Israel, and his entrenched involvement in Lebanese politics. Little changed in 2000, when Bashar came to power after his father’s death. In particular, neither man could tolerate opposition.

We see parallels between father and son in the only surviving evidence of the 1982 Hama massacre – four weeks of mass murder, rape, and torture – a series of faded photographs of destroyed buildings, looking then like the Homs district of Baba Amr does today.

After the screening, Patrick Seale, author and Middle East expert featuring in the documentary, joined Ayad on stage for the Q&A.

Ayad was asked to expand upon his pessimism. He said: “The peaceful demonstrations were totally new to the regime, but the moment the demonstrators took up weapons they entered a game that the regime knows how to play.”

Seale described the mounting layers of Syria’s problems: “Unemployment, drought, a demographic explosion and an education system and government services over-burdened . . . coupled with the mindset of Bashar – he has faced a series of external conspiracies which have threatened the regime.”

Ayad agreed, but said: “The external problems can be changed, solved, but I’m pessimistic about the regime’s capacity to reform in its approach to its own people. The regime does not consider them as citizens – they are just there to shut up. Syria has lost its people, but you can run a country without your people.”

“After 2005, Bashar felt that he had overcome something and that he didn’t have to listen anymore. Even Hafez was more political – for example, he sided with the US against Iraq during the Gulf War – but Bashar is not political. He’s a mix of Western idealism and Eastern autocracy.” – Christophe Ayad

Ayad is no longer certain that we are witnessing the Assads’ twilight because Syria has various assets that prolong its grip on power: agricultural wealth and the support of two substantial powers – Russia and Iran. It also maintains control of a strong security apparatus which, until now, has not fallen apart. But what remains of Bashar’s capacity to rule?

The critical nature of coming weeks was acknowledged by the panelists who took part in the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday discussion on Syria on the night that the UN Security Council condemned the government’s violent crackdown in the city of Hama.

"Ramadan was always going to be an explosive month for Syria," said Sue Lloyd Roberts who posed as a tourist in June to film Syrian protesters for BBC2’s Newsnight:

"You can be arrested if a group of people meet in a public place, which is why during Ramadan, when thousands go to their mosques routinely every day, it was going to be a chance to focus political dissent and to set off demonstrations.

"This is what has happened and the army was waiting for it to happen and my god have they retaliated in a brutal way."

Malik Al-Abdeh, a former BBC journalist and chief editor of Barada TV a London-based Syrian opposition satellite channel, said if the regime was to emerge stronger than it is now then we could see the beginning of a civil war in Syria.

He added that the slogan from the beginning of the revolution has been ‘death over indignity’ and said many of the protesters would prefer to die than to continue to live under Bashar al-Assad:

"There is no going back as far as the protesters are concerned. They know that if they go back they will all be arrested because there is still a network of informers. However, after Ramadan, if the regime is visibly weakened, then it could well spell the beginning of the end for Bashar al-Assad, so the next three weeks will be crucial."

Christopher Phillips, Syria analyst in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Middle East team, agreed that the Syrian uprising was "at a key juncture". This is the the moment that "the gloves have come off" and the regime had given up all pretence of being reformist, he said:

 "There’s no pretence any more that Bashar in particular is some kind of reformer, or is unwilling to use violence. He is clearly involved in this and he is clearly willing to use force."

But Phillips said he was uncertain if there would be a civil war because that would require another side to fight back.

"One of the reasons movement is peaceful is because they know full well that if ever they give the regime a genuine opportunity to crush them, a genuine justification, they will be smashed. The only arms that can be got hold of are small arms, they would be absolutely crushed. It’s not like Libya where you have large segments of the military with hardware that would switch sides."

Ammar Waqqaf, a member of the British Syrian Societ, who insisted that the uprisings were of a sectarian nature, also said the country was already in a state of civil war: "This is why the regime has toughened up because if it hadn’t then the other side is going to take matters into its own hands," he said.

Daniel Pye, a Damascus-based freelance journalist who has worked as deputy editor of a Syrian current affairs magazine since February 2011, said he had heard only occasional sectarian slogans at anti regime demonstrations. "Maybe one person in a crowd shouts something and everyone else has said ‘No, this isn’t what we’re about, we’re one people against the regime’," he said, adding that there was a growing movement of people in Syria that the world should take notice of:

"It may be disorganised and chaotic and have many different elements to it but there is a movement of people that people all over the world should listen to and do everything they can to understand."

Watch the one and half hour event for a full briefing on Syria here or download the podcast here. The hashtag for this event was #FCSyria.

Follow us on Twitter and catch up on any events you missed on the Forum blog or download our podcasts on iTunes.

The week starts off with two high-profile court hearings on Monday. Former Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al Adly is scheduled to go on trial in Cairo on charges of ordering the deaths of protesters, but the hearing has been twice postponed so far, sparking angry demonstrations.

In Perugia, the long awaited report on a review of DNA evidence in Amanda Knox’s murder appeal is presented to the court.

Contentious land issues are the theme of the day on Tuesday, as new Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar arrives in New Delhi for two days of highly anticipated meetings with her Indian counterpart SM Krishna.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council in New York holds an open debate on the Middle East, the bulk of which is expected to focus on Palestinian plans to seek UN recognition in September.

UN business continues in the same vein on Wednesday, with the Panel of Inquiry into the 31 May, 2010 Gaza flotilla due to publish its report. Turkey’s representative to the Panel, Ozdem Sanberk, said it’s the ‘last chance’ to re-establish good political relations between Israel and Turkey.

On Thursday, new Peruvian President Ollanta Humala takes office following his 5 June defeat of Keiko Fujimori, daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori.

In the Syrian town of Al Bukamal, a 10-day deadline issued by the Armed Forces expires. Residents have been told to hand over weapons and submit to Government control by today or face a full military assault.

Two small developments in the phone hacking scandal are set for Friday, with Jonathan May-Bowles (aka Jonnie Marbles) scheduled to appear in a London court to face charges related to him throwing a shaving foam pie at Rupert Murdoch during the 19 July culture, media and sport committee hearing. BSkyB’s preliminary results are also released.

In Nigeria, the High Court is expected to deliver its verdict in the case of four men charged over last October’s independence day bombings in Abuja, which killed 12 people. One of the defendants is Charles Okah, brother of alleged leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) Henry, who is facing trial in South Africa for masterminding the bombing.

Friday also marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Pakistan floods, which went on to cover over a fifth of the country, killing nearly 2,000 people.

The Lebanese government has until Saturday to arrest persons named in the indictment issued by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon on 30 June, or to inform the Tribunal of the measures taken to attempt arrest. If arrests are not made, the STL may order a public advertisement calling on the accused to surrender, which would mark the first time Rafik al Hariri’s alleged assassins have been publicly named.

On Sunday, US hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer are expected to go on trial in Tehran on charges of spying for the US. Sarah Shourd, who was arrested alongside them, was released in September 2010. You can watch the Frontline Club event last year looking at Iran’s record on detainment , which was attended by Bauer’s mother, Cindy Hickey here

Monday marks the 16th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, which has returned to the forefront again recently with Ratko Mladic’s arrest and last week’s Dutch court verdict assigning responsibility to the Dutch state for the deaths of three men who were handed over to Bosnian Serb forces.

In Washington, Hillary Clinton is set to host the latest meeting of the Middle East Quartet, which is hoping to break a deadlock and re-start peace talks ahead of the September UN General Assembly meeting.

In Brussels on Tuesday, the OECD and the European Commission launch the OECD International Migration Outlook for 2011, which is expected to feature details on recent and future migration to the EU from North Africa.

Meanwhile, the Julian Assange saga is revived as his two-day extradition appeal opens in London. Assange is fighting a 24 February ruling that would extradite him to Sweden to face questioning for alleged sexual assaults.

Hours before the Assange hearing closes on Wednesday, the long-running sodomy trial for Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim resumes following his fourth unsuccessful attempt to have the trial judge dismissed. The oft-delayed trial has been going on for over two and a half years.

The UN Security Council is also scheduled to meet in New York on Wednesday to discuss South Sudan, and, according to current UN Security Council President Peter Wittig, the UN General Assembly may formally approve the new country’s UN membership on Thursday following independence on 9 July.

A Utah court hears an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) constitutional challenge to the Utah Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act (Bill HB497) on the day that a restraining order against the enforcement of the bill expires. The law requires police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone stopped for felonies or certain misdemeanours.

Friday is the big deadline in Greece, when the government is due to repay some €2.4bn in sovereign debt bonds, a payment only possible if it receives the next tranche of its IMF/EU loan in time. Another €2bn payment is due on 22 July.

In nearby Istanbul, the fourth meeting of the Libya Contact Group gets underway, with EU diplomats publicly hoping for an increased presence from African Union members.

The role of social media in the Arab Spring is also likely to be a hot topic today, as Twitter celebrates the fifth anniversary of its public launch.

On Saturday, thousands of Shia Muslims converge on Iraq’s holy city of Karbala to celebrate the ninth century birth of Imam Muhammad al Mahdi in a pilgrimage known as Shabaniyah.

Presidential elections are held in the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe on Sunday, with incumbent Fradique de Menezes ineligible for a third term and the country’s first President Manuel Pinto da Costa hoping to return to power.

Sunday also marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Highlights: Srebrenica anniversary and Quartet meeting (11 July); OECD migration report and Julian Assange hearing (12 July); Assange and Anwar Ibrahim hearings and UN Security Council meeting (13 July); South Sudan UN membership and Utah immigration challenge (14 July); Greek bond payment, Libya Contact Group meeting and Twitter anniversary (15 July); Shabaniyah pilgrimage (16 July); Sao Tome and Principe elections and Spanish Civil War anniversary (17 July).