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. From 2003 to 2013, the group pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda (mostly under the name "Islamic State of Iraq") and participated in the Iraqi insurgency against the United States and its allies. The group changed its name again to "Islamic State of Iraq and Levant" for about a year, before proclaiming itself to be a worldwide caliphate, called simply the Islamic State. As a caliphate, it demanded the religious, political, and military obedience of Muslims worldwide, despite the rejection of its legitimacy by mainstream Muslims and its statehood by the United Nations and various governments. For the next few years the Iraqi Armed Forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces beat back "the Islamic State" and degraded its financial and military infrastructure, assisted by advisors, weapons, training, supplies and airstrikes by the American-led coalition, and later by Russian airstrikes, bombings, cruise missile attacks and scorched-earth tactics across Syria, which focused mostly on razing opposition strongholds rather than ISIS bases.