On October 4, 2017 an ISIS affiliated terrorist group killed four US servicemen, four Nigerien soldiers and an interpreter near Tongo Tongo
Tag: Islamic State
Islamic State of Iraq
T
he Islamic State of Iraq (ISI; Arabic: دولة العراق الإسلامية Dawlat al-ʿIrāq al-ʾIslāmiyyah) (commonly referred to as al-Qaeda in Iraq) was a militant Salafist jihadist group that aimed to establish an Islamic state in Sunni, Arab-majority areas of Iraq during the Iraq War and later in Syria during the Syrian Civil War.
Islamic State of Iraq traces its origins to Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which was formed by the Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Jordan in 1999. Jama’at participated in the Iraqi insurgency (2003–2011) following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces, and on 17 October 2004 al-Zarqawi had pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network; and the group became known as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq).
In January 2006, Tanzim and five other Iraqi insurgent groups formed the Mujahideen Shura Council, which on 15 October 2006 merged to form Islamic State of Iraq. At their height in 2006–2008, ISI had military units or strongholds in Mosul and in the governorates of Baghdad, Al Anbar and Diyala, and they claimed Baqubah as their capital. The area under its control decreased dramatically following the 2007 troop surge, during which dozens of ISI leaders were killed by coalition forces.
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