Amaq News Agency was first noticed by SITE during the Siege of Kobanî (Syria) in 2014, when its updates were shared among ISIL fighters. It became more widely known after it began reporting claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries, such as the 2015 San Bernardino attack, for which ISIL officially claimed responsibility the next day. An Amaq cameraman shot the first footage of the capture of Palmyra in 2015.