Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also translated as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known by the Arabic acronym Daʿish, and self-proclaimed as the Islamic State, is a Sunni, extremist, jihadist rebel group based in Iraq and Syria, where it controls territory. It also operates in eastern Libya, the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, and other areas of the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The United Nations has held ISIL responsible for human rights abuses, and Amnesty International has reported ethnic cleansing by the group on a "historic scale". The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Indonesia, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The group originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which was renamed Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn—commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq —in 2004. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, AQI took part in the Iraqi insurgency.