"Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day," said Abu Mohamed al-Adnani in announcing the rebirth of the caliphate in the broad territory between Aleppo in northern Syria and Diyala province in eastern Iraq.
It hasn't actually grown much more in the past couple of weeks, but it certainly intends to go on expanding.
The radical Sunni Muslim organization that conquered almost half of Iraq in a whirlwind week at the beginning of June has changed its name. Before, it was ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/al-Sham — the old Ottoman province that used to include Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel). But now it wishes to be known simply as the Islamic State, for there can only be one such state and it should include everywhere that Muslims have ever ruled.
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