Since ISIS stormed onto the world’s stage on June 10, 2014 with its seizure of Mosul, the Institute for the Study of War has been the institution of record for tracking ISIS.
The ISW “ISIS Sanctuary Map” quickly became an iconic image of the conflict ranging across Syria and Iraq.
It has been used hundreds of times, in several languages, and adapted for such uses as electronic backdrops on CNN, Fox, and other news broadcasts. When developing a 1,200 year history of Iraq in maps, The National Geographic used only one source for its map of the recent conflict: ISW.
The ISIS Sanctuary Maps from the last 14 months (and longer—see below) show how ISW has tracked the conflict and become the recognized expert on ISIS’s expansion.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of US and coalition airstrikes against ISIS, we have collected all our Sanctuary Maps, along with examples of where they have appeared, to help show the role ISW is proud to have played in tracking ISIS.
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The original ISIS Sanctuary map, then call Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), published in September 2013:
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