Abu Kamal or Al-Bukamal is a city on the Euphrates river in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate of eastern Syria near the border with Iraq. It is the administrative centre of the Abu Kamal District and the local subdistrict. Just to the south-east is the Al-Qa'im border crossing to the town of Husaybah in the Al-Qa'im District of Iraq's Al Anbar Governorate.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist group and a former unrecognised quasi-state. Its origins were in the Jai'sh al-Taifa al-Mansurah organization founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004, which fought alongside al-Qaeda during the Iraqi insurgency. The group gained global prominence in 2014, when its militants successfully captured large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, taking advantage of the ongoing Syrian civil war. By the end of 2015, it ruled an area with an estimated population of twelve million people, where it enforced its extremist interpretation of Islamic law, managed an annual budget exceeding US$1 billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters.
The Islamic State of Iraq, was a Salafi jihadist militant organization that fought the forces of the U.S.-led coalition during the Iraqi insurgency. The organization aimed to overthrow the Iraqi federal government and establish an Islamic state in Iraq.
Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili, known by his nom de guerreAbu Omar al-Shishani or Omar al-Shishani, was a Georgian-Chechen jihadist who served as a commander for the Islamic State, and was previously a sergeant in the Georgian Army.
Taha Sobhi Falaha, known by his nom de guerreAbu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami, was the official spokesperson and a senior leader of the Islamic State. He was described as the chief of its external operations. He was the second most senior leader of the Islamic State after its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Media reports in August 2016 suggested he was in charge of a special unit, known as the Emni, that was established by IS in 2014 with the double objective of internal policing and executing operations outside IS territory.
Beginning in 2014, a number of people from various countries were beheaded by the Islamic State (IS), a radical Sunni Jihadist group operating in Iraq and Syria as well as elsewhere. In January 2014, a copy of an IS penal code surfaced describing the penalties it enforces in areas under its control, including multiple beheadings. Beheading videos have been frequently posted by IS members to social media. Several of the recorded beheadings were conducted by Mohammed Emwazi, whom the media referred to as "Jihadi John" before his identification. The beheadings received wide coverage around the world and attracted international condemnation. Political scientist Max Abrahms posited that IS may be using well-publicized beheadings as a means of differentiating itself from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and identifying itself with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda member who beheaded Daniel Pearl. The publicised beheadings represent a small proportion of a larger number of total people killed following capture by IS.
Al-Hayat Media Center is a media wing of the Islamic State. It was established in mid-2014 and targets international (non-Arabic) audiences as opposed to their other Arabic-focused media wings and produces material, mostly Nasheeds, in English, German, Russian, Urdu, Indonesian, Turkish, Bengali, Chinese, Bosnian, Kurdish, Uyghur, and French.
On 15 June 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered United States forces to be dispatched in response to the Northern Iraq offensive of the Islamic State (IS) as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. At the invitation of the Iraqi government, American troops went to assess Iraqi forces and the threat posed by ISIL.
Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, better known by the pseudonym Haji Bakr and sometimes his kunyaAbu Bakr al-Iraqi, was a senior leader of the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), heading its Military Council and leading its operations in Syria, prior to his killing by Syrian rebels in January 2014. Previously a Colonel in the Iraqi Intelligence Service, papers found after his death indicated that al-Khlifawi played a key role in devising the plans ISIL used to conquer and administer territory in Syria and Iraq.
The Turkey–Islamic State conflict were a series of attacks and clashes between the state of Turkey and the Islamic State. Turkey joined the War against the Islamic State in 2016, after the Islamic State attacks in Turkey. The Turkish Armed Forces' Operation Euphrates Shield was aimed against both the Islamic State and the SDF. Part of Turkish-occupied northern Syria, around Jarabulus and al-Bab, was taken after Turkey drove the Islamic State out of it.
2013 was the year in which the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant adopted that name. The group expanded its territorial control in Syria and began to do so in Iraq also, and committed acts of terrorism in both countries and in Turkey.
In early 2014, the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured extensive territory in Western Iraq in the Anbar campaign, while counter-offensives against it were mounted in Syria. Raqqa in Syria became its headquarters. The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived under its control in the two countries.
This article contains a timeline of events from January 2015 to December 2015 related to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS). This article contains information about events committed by or on behalf of the Islamic State, as well as events performed by groups who oppose them.
Collaboration with the Islamic State refers to the cooperation and assistance given by governments, non-state actors, and private individuals to the Islamic State (IS) during the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi Civil War, and Libyan Civil War.
The Eastern Syria campaign of September–December 2017 was a large-scale military operation of the Syrian Army (SAA) and its allies against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during the Syrian Civil War. Its goal was to clear the city of Deir ez-Zor of any remaining ISIL forces, capture ISIL's de facto capital of Mayadin, as well as seize the border town of Abu Kamal, which became one of ISIL's final urban strongholds by the latter stages of the campaign.
The As-Suwayda offensive began on 6 August 2018, in rural areas of the Suwayda Governorate in southeast Syria after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) members committed a string of suicide bombings and gun attacks.
The origins of the Islamic State group can be traced back to three main organizations. Earliest of these was the "Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād" organization, founded by the Jihadist leader Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi in Jordan in 1999. The other two predecessor organizations emerged during the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation forces. These included the "Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansurah" group founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004 and the "Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah" group founded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his associates in the same year.
The US intervention in the Syrian civil war is the United States-led support of Syrian opposition and the Federation of Northern Syria during the course of the Syrian Civil War and active military involvement led by the United States and its allies — the militaries of the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, Australia and more — against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Nusra Front since 2014. Since early 2017, the U.S. and other Coalition partners have also targeted the Syrian government and its allies via airstrikes and aircraft shoot-downs.
Islamic State