page_title: History of ISIL
section_title: Capture of territory
hierarchical_section_title: History of ISIL / Islamic State (2014–present) / Capture of territory
caption_attribution_description: English: Coalition airstrike on ISIL position in Kobane on 22 October 2014.
context_page_description: The history of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant began with the group's foundation in 1999 by Jordanian Salafi jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād. In a letter published by the US State Department in February 2004, Zarqawi wrote that jihadists should use bombings to start an open sectarian war in Iraq so that Sunnis from other countries would mobilize against the assassinations carried out by Shias, specifically the Badr Organisation, against Ba'athists and Sunnis. The Islamic State would eventually grow to control territory with a population of millions.
context_section_description: On 3 August 2014, ISIL captured the cities of Zumar, Sinjar and Wana in northern Iraq. Thousands of Yazidis fled up Mount Sinjar, fearful of the approaching hostile ISIL militants. The stranded Yazidis' need for food and water, the threat of genocide to them and to others announced by ISIL, along with the desire to protect US citizens in Iraq and support the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIL, were all reasons given for the 2014 American intervention in Iraq, which began on 7 August. A US aerial bombing campaign began the following day.
  At the end of October 2014, 800 militants gained partial control of the Libyan city of Derna and pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, thus making Derna the first city outside Syria and Iraq to be a part of the "Islamic State Caliphate". On 10 November 2014, a major faction of the Egyptian militant group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis also pledged its allegiance to ISIL. In mid-January 2015, a Yemeni official said that ISIL had "dozens" of members in Yemen, and that they were coming into direct competition with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula because of their recruitment drive. The same month, Afghan officials confirmed that ISIL had a military presence in Afghanistan. However, by February 2015, 65 of the militants were either captured or killed by the Taliban, and ISIL's top Afghan recruiter, Mullah Abdul Rauf, was killed in a US drone strike.
  In early February 2015, ISIL militants in Libya managed to capture part of the countryside to the west of Sabha, and later, an area encompassing the cities of Sirte, Nofolia, and a military base to the south of both cities. By March, ISIL had captured additional territory, including a city to the west of Derna, additional areas near Sirte, a stretch of land in southern Libya, some areas around Benghazi, and an area to the east of Tripoli.
  On 7 March 2015, Boko Haram swore formal allegiance to ISIL, giving ISIL an official presence in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. On 13 March 2015, a group of militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan swore allegiance to ISIL; the group released another video on 31 July 2015 showing its spiritual leader also pledging allegiance. In June 2015, the US Deputy Secretary of State announced that ISIL had lost more than 10,000 members in airstrikes over the preceding nine months.
caption: Coalition airstrike on ISIL position in Kobani, Syria, October 2014
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2014:11:20 20:51:45", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image ExifOffset": "96", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "364", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4239", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:11:19 02:58:36", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1108", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "622", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1108", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "622", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "228", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "ee17a32f9e7d8812666be879ecf815d4"}