Islamic State

The Islamic State (IS)also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; ), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and by its Arabic acronym Da'ishis a Salafi jihadist transnational Islamist terror group and former unrecognised quasi-state. It was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 and gained global prominence in 2014, when its militants conquered large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, aided by the Syrian civil war. By the end of 2015, it ruled an area with an estimated population of twelve million people, where it enforced its interpretation of Islamic law, administered an annual budget of more than billion, and had more than 30,000 fighters under its command. After years of intense and grinding combat with American, Iraqi, and Kurdish forces, by 2019 it had lost all its Middle Eastern territories and returned to insurgency tactics in the regions it once controlled, operating from remote hideouts and continuing its propaganda efforts, which have gained it a strong following in northern and Sahelian Africa.