Thank you, Ms. Laverdière.
In this regard, funding certainly plays an important role. It comes from two or three external sources, especially from Arab Sunni governments. I am referring here more particularly to the Gulf countries, whether it be Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or Kuwait. That is well known. It is an open secret. On the other hand, Turkey provides quite extensive logistical support. As you said quite correctly, the borders are porous.
That said, they do have some resources, oil in particular as well as the revenue from taxes and ransoms. In that sense, there is a certain funding. However, I should make a brief comment about that. The Islamic State group is barbaric, but you have to see the situation as it is perceived in the street and by Arab Sunni governments. They are disoriented by the break in the American strategy and what was the hobby horse during the cold war, i.e. political fundamentalism, especially combative, jihadist fundamentalism.
Moreover—this is an observation and not necessarily a value judgement— unless I am mistaken, I think that a large majority sees this conflict as a just cause. Their Arab Sunni brothers are in their opinion mistreated by the Alawite Assad regime and its alliance with the Persian-Shiite Iran regime, as well as by the allies of Shiite Iran who govern Baghdad, and have marginalized certain Sunni leaders and parties.
As I was saying, the Islamic State group was born of that sectarian, denominational frustration. Some could accuse western countries, including Canada, of applying a double standard. On the one hand, they declare that the Islamic State group is barbarian or terrorist, but on the other, they ignore the activities of other militias, in particular those of Asaib Ahl al Haq. That is how things are seen from the inside.
As concerns your question on the porous borders, there is a lot of pressure on borders drawn up at the San Remo Conference of 1920. One hears more commonly about borders defined by the Sykes-Picot accords of 1916.
For the Islamic State group and its supporters, as well as a very well known and measurable political trend in the Iraqi and Syrian Arab Sunni communities, there is a de facto Kurd state. An Alawite state is being created, as well as a Shiite state. So they are wondering where their state is. In that sense, the Islamic State group caused borders to fall long after other countries did so, whether we are talking about Hezbollah militias or those of Asaib Ahl al Haq, or Sunni fighters from Lebanon, Iraq or elsewhere.
On that point, borders are indeed porous. According to the most prevalent utopic visions, i.e. pan-Arabism or pan-Islamism, those borders are seen as having been drawn by the west. So it is not considered a great tragedy when they fall. In that sense, the Islamic State group responded to expectations. You have to look at its constitution. First, there are former officers of the army of Sadam Hussein. There are also tribes and clans with Naqshbandiyyah or mystical tendencies, as well as the successors of al-Qaeda such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, heirs of all of that Islamic jihadism that is well known.