Islamic State (IS) militants have killed more than 600 Yazidi Kurds in recent weeks. Over 100 women and children have been kidnapped and tens of thousands displaced from their homes. World powers have shown some sympathy and military transport planes dropped several tons of food and water in areas where Yazidis are stranded in the Sinjar Mountains in northern Iraq. The United States also used drones to carry out limited strikes on IS troops in the region. This is yet another chapter of the IS assault on minorities that had included the persecution of Christians in Mosul, who were forced to choose between paying Jizia tribute — a sign of submission to IS and its roles that does not regard non-Muslims as citizens of the state — and leaving their homes.

But this story is not limited to Iraq and Syria. Supporters of the al-Qaeda spinoff exist in every country in the region; in fact, in every country where Muslims reside. Beyond mere support, the extremist ideology has become a franchise where volunteers can simply subscribe to the cause of al-Qaeda and decide to carry out attacks to advance its agenda.

The rising influence of Islamist militants comes almost a century after the Sykes-Picot Agreement and other colonial arrangements and promises that has shaped Middle Eastern states since then. Islamists claim that the regional orders — including current Arab (and Muslim) states, borders, economic, social and educational systems, alliances and allegiances — were installed and are being artificially sustained to serve the interests of world powers through controlling natural resources of the region and keep Muslims in bondage, preventing them from reaching their true potential and the word of Allah from reaching the hearts of the rest of humanity.

There are elements of truth in the injustices of a world order that has manipulated the region and used its own political regimes to serve global powers. But many argue that the Islamist militant ideology could also be seen as yet another control mechanism, one that this time uses sectarian sentiments to weaken the unifying threads holding together the fabric of societies with the resulting conflict knocking down pillars of existing states and sending the entire region into chaos and turmoil for decades to come. In any case, the Islamist discourse is evidently unsuited to help Arabs or Muslims advance or alleviate the suffering of the people, because it breaks their societies at their core.