The extremist group has attracted support elsewhere in both Muslim and Western countries and currently has more than 28,000 foreigners among its ranks.
In an attempt to create a so-called caliphate in the Middle East region, the Islamic State group has been carrying out deadly attacks and other crimes across the world since it burst onto the international arena in 2014 when it seized large areas of Syria and Iraq.
The most recent actions undertaken by the organization left more than 180 people dead in a series of coordinated attacks in Beirut, Lebanon, and Paris, France. Hundreds more were injured in both capitals.
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The extremist group has attracted support elsewhere in both Muslim and Western countries and currently has more than 28,000 foreign fighters among their ranks, including 250 of them from the United States.
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The Historian Robert Freeman has said the U.S. government is responsible for the creation of the extremist organization, and this statement is based in a 2010 CIA document leaked by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which reveals a discussion on whether the United States is a possible "exporter of terrorism" because of al-Qaida recruitment inside its territory.
According to Prensa Latina, the analyst said the expansion of the extremists went through three major stages. Firstly, the U.S. Iraq invasion in 2003, and the subsequent overthrow of President Saddam Hussein; secondly, the White House’s attempts to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad; and thirdly, the training of insurgent groups in Syria along with its Western and Arab allies.
The U.S. has led a coalition that has been pounding alleged Islamic State group targets in Syria since September 2014 without authorization from Damascus or the United Nations Security Council, which is a violation of international law.