2001
Al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, triggering the U.S.-led Global War on Terror and military interventions in Afghanistan and beyond.
2003
The U.S. invasion of Iraq dismantled the Baathist state, creating a power vacuum that fueled a Sunni insurgency and gave rise to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
2006
Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike, but AQI reorganized and rebranded as the Islamic State of Iraq, embedding itself within sectarian civil conflict as a resilient underground network.
2011
The Arab Spring and Syrian civil war created ungoverned spaces that the Islamic State of Iraq exploited to expand into Syria, dramatically increasing its territory, recruits, and resources.
2014
ISIS declared a global caliphate from Mosul, controlling roughly 88,000 square kilometers across Iraq and Syria and inspiring or directing attacks on six continents while attracting over 40,000 foreign fighters.
2017
A U.S.-led coalition backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces retook Mosul after a nine-month battle, and by late 2017 ISIS had lost over 95% of its territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
2019
The last ISIS territorial holdout at Baghouz, Syria fell in March; ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. raid in October, but ISIS and Al-Qaeda franchises in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East continued conducting attacks.
2022
ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliates—including ISIS-Khorasan, JNIM, and al-Shabaab—escalated operations across the Sahel, Afghanistan, and East Africa, demonstrating the network's transformation from a territorial state into a decentralized global insurgency.