2004 - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi establishes al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
2006 - Under al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda in Iraq tries to ignite a sectarian war against the majority Shia community.
October 2006 - AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri announces the creation of Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), and establishes Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its leader.
April 2013 - ISI declares its absorption of an al Qaeda-backed militant group in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the al-Nusra Front. Al-Baghdadi says that his group will now be known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani rejects ISIS's attempt to merge with the group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Events:
May 2014 - ISIS kidnaps more than 140 Kurdish schoolboys in Syria, forcing them to take lessons in radical Islamic theology, according to London-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
June 9-10, 2014 - Monday night into Tuesday, militants seize Mosul's airport, its TV stations and the governor's office. ISIS frees up to 1,000 prisoners.
June 20, 2014 - The United Nations announces that more than one million Iraqis have been displaced.
June 21, 2014 - ISIS takes control of Al-Qaim, a town on the border with Syria, as well as three other Iraqi towns.
June 29, 2014 - ISIS announces the creation of a caliphate (Islamic state) that erases all state borders, making al-Baghdadi the self-declared authority over the world's estimated 1.5 billion Muslims. The group also announces a name change to the Islamic State (IS).
June 30, 2014 - The United Nations announces that an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes.
June 30, 2014 - The Pentagon announces the United States is sending an additional 300 troops to Iraq, bringing the total US forces in Iraq to nearly 800. Troops and military advisers are sent to Iraq to support Iraqi security forces and help protect the US Embassy and the airport in Baghdad.
July 2014 - ISIS takes control of Syria's largest oilfield and seizes a gas field in the Homs Province, storming the facility and killing dozens of workers. Militants conquer a 90-mile stretch of Syrian towns, from Deir Ezzor to the Iraq border. In Mosul, they blow up Jonah's tomb, a holy site dating back to the 8th century BC.

January 22, 2015 - US diplomatic officials say that coalition airstrikes have killed an estimated 6,000 ISIS fighters to date, including half of the top command of the terror group. US intelligence officials estimate that ISIS still has 9,000 to 18,000 fighters and thousands of sympathizers.

February 5, 2015 - Jordanian fighter jets carry out airstrikes over Syria, reportedly hitting ISIS training centers and arms and ammunition depots in ISIS's de facto capital, Raqqa.

February 11, 2015 - US President Barack Obama asks Congress to formally authorize use of military force against ISIS.

March 12, 2015 - In an audio message, a speaker identified as an ISIS spokesman claims the caliphate has expanded to western Africa and that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has accepted Boko Haram's pledge of allegiance. On the same day, Iraqi forces retake most of Tikrit from ISIS, and ISIS blows up the Iraqi army headquarters north of Ramadi, killing at least 40 Iraqi soldiers.

November 13, 2015 - After a two-day battle, the Peshmerga Iraqi Kurdish military force declares victory in liberating the Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS. The battle was backed by the US coalition air power.

November 13, 2015 - Three teams of gun-wielding ISIS suicide bombers hit six locations around Paris, killing at least 129 people and wounding hundreds.

March 25, 2016 - The Pentagon confirms that US military forces have killed ISIS' finance minister, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, whom many analysts consider the group's No. 2 leader. His death took place within the last two days in Syria, the officials said.

June 26, 2016 - A senior Iraqi general announces on state TV that the battle for Falluja is over, as Iraqi troops retook the final ISIS holdout in the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yazidis:
August 6, 2014 - ISIS fighters attack the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, home of a religious minority group called the Yazidis. A Yazidi lawmaker says that 500 men have been killed, 70 children have died of thirst and women are being sold into slavery. More than 30,000 families are stranded in the Sinjar Mountains.
August 8, 2014 - Two US F/A-18 jet fighters bomb ISIS artillery units in Iraq. President Barack Obama has authorized "targeted airstrikes" if needed to protect US personnel from fighters with ISIS. The US military also could use airstrikes to prevent what officials warn could be a genocide of minority groups by the ISIS fighters.

January 17, 2015 - According to an Iraqi Kurdistan official, ISIS has released about 250 Yazidis. Many are children and the elderly.

 

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US journalists & workers:
August 19, 2014 - In a video posted on YouTube, US journalist James Foley, missing in Syria since 2012, is decapitated by ISIS militants. The militants then threaten the life of another captured US journalist, believed to be Steven Sotloff.
September 2, 2014 - ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff. Sotloff's apparent executioner speaks in the same British accent as the man who purportedly killed Foley.
October 3, 2014 - ISIS releases a video showing the apparent beheading of hostage Alan Henning. In the same video, the group threatens the life of American aid worker Peter Kassig, also known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig.
November 16, 2014 - ISIS militants claim to have beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig in a video published to the Internet. Peter Kassig, also known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig, is the fifth Westerner whom ISIS claims to have beheaded via video messages.

February 6, 2015 - In an online post, ISIS claims that Jordanian airstrikes killed American hostage Kayla Jean Mueller. The post contains a picture of a collapsed building, which ISIS claims Mueller was buried beneath. There is no proof of her death.
February 10, 2015 - Kayla Jean Mueller's family announces she is dead, after receiving confirmation from ISIS, including a photo of her wrapped in a burial shroud.

April 8, 2015 - According to Iraqi Kurdistan officials, ISIS releases more than 200 Yazidi women and children, as well as the ill or elderly.

May 16, 2015 - A US Special Operations raid in Syria results in the killing of a key ISIS figure and the capture of his wife. US officials say the raid yields significant intelligence on ISIS's structure and communications.

Other Religious & Muslim:
February 15, 2015 - In an ISIS video, militants appear to behead 21 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach. On February 16, Egyptian warplanes stage airstrikes against ISIS targets in Libya in retaliation.
March 1, 2015 - ISIS releases 19 Christian prisoners from a group of 220 Assyrians captured in northern Syria.
April 19, 2015 - The terror network's media arm releases a video of ISIS operatives beheading two groups of prisoners, including 30 Ethiopian citizens, at different locations in Libya.
May 17, 2015 - ISIS seizes control of Ramadi, the largest city in western Iraq, after government security forces pull out of a military base.
May 21, 2015 - ISIS takes control of Palmyra, a 2,000-year old city in the Syrian desert. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, it was the last Syria-Iraq border crossing under control of Syrian troops.
June 24, 2015 - The Syrian government reports that ISIS militants have destroyed two Muslim holy sites in Palmyra. The group attacked a 500-year-old shrine and a tomb where a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed's cousin was reportedly buried.
July 1, 2015 - ISIS launches simultaneous attacks on five Egyptian military checkpoints, reportedly killing 17 Egyptian soldiers and injuring 30 others. According to the Egyptian military, 100 terrorists are killed in the fighting.
August 2015 - ISIS destroys antiquities in the historic city of Palmyra in Syria, including the nearly 2,000-year-old Temple of Baalshami. UNESCO, the UN's cultural organization, calls the destruction of the temple a "war crime."