Daesh in Iraq and Syria

This item appears on page 15 of the May 2016 issue.

A suicide bomber targeted a soccer match in the city of Iskandarya, Iraq, 30 miles south of Baghdad, on March 25, killing at least 25 people and wounding about 60 others. The Islamist militant group Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack. 

Daesh effectively controls large tracts of land in Iraq and Syria. However, since December 2015, Daesh has lost around 22% of the land it had captured. On March 24-25, Syrian armed forces retook the ancient city of Palmyra and the nearby modern city of Palmyra, which Daesh had controlled since May 2015.