11-12-2018, 08:42 PM
(11-12-2018, 06:04 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(11-12-2018, 01:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: From 2007 and earlier to 2011, the IS was known as Al Qaeda in Iraq.
But it was very weak back then. It only regained real influence after the civil war started in Syria. Some troops left on Syria-Iraq border could easily prevent that.
No, they were powerful enough to largely single-handedly carry out terror attacks that fomented and stoked the civil war in Iraq that the US caused with its invasion. What happened in 2014, 2+ years after the civil war in Syria started, and 3 years after the movement against Assad started, is that this group, now known as the Islamic State, grabbed territory in Syria as well as Iraq because of the chaos and the resulting inability of Assad to rule over the eastern parts of his country.