The Huffington Post | By Kira Brekke
Posted: 09/19/2014 3:15 pm EDT Updated
ISIS, IS, the Islamic State, ISIL -- the international community can't seem to decide what to call the Islamic extremists who have been terrorizing the Middle East, and now the French government has announced it will use yet another name for them, which is reportedly upsetting the group.
The French foreign ministry released a statement earlier this week referencing the Islamic State group as "Daesh." The new moniker is a transliteration of an acronym of the group's Arabic name "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. It is also similar to the arabic word that means "to trample."
France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius explained that he views the organization as "a terrorist group, not a state."
“I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists. The Arabs call it ‘Daesh,’ and I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats,'" Fabius said, according to France 24.
The Associated Press reported that the extremist group finds the term disrespectful.
Many media organizations have adopted the term "Islamic State," including The Huffington Post. But Secretary of State John Kerry aligns with the French on this issue.
At a hearing on Thursday, Kerry brought a new term to the table: the "enemy of Islam."
"I call them the 'enemy of Islam' because that's what I think they are, and they certainly don't represent a state even though they try to claim to," Kerry said.
It doesn't end there. A group of Muslims in the UK has called on the government to call the group the "UnIslamic State."
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