The group began in 2004 as al Qaeda in Iraq, before rebranding as ISIS two years later. It was an ally ofand had similarities withOsama bin Laden’s al Qaeda: both were radical anti-Western militant groups devoted to establishing an independent Islamic state in the region. But ISISunlike al Qaeda, which disowned the group in early 2014has proven to be more brutal and more effective at controlling territory it has seized.
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CNN’s Atika Shubert, Ivana Kottasova and Sean O’Key contributed to this report.
