Formed in 2013, ISIS is a jihadi Salafist militant group. It is virulently anti-democracy and sectarian – and also a seasoned militant operation with a transnational membership, to which, despite heavy losses, it is constantly recruiting. With key leaders who were prominent in the Iraqi insurgency in the 2000s, it is also well-armed and financed.
Iraq is facing its most alarming crisis in years. The second city of Mosul and the major city of Tikrit have been seized by a violent jihadist group, ISIS – the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, formerly Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad and Al-Qaeda in the Land of Rafideen.