On 29 June 2014, the first day of Ramadan, the leaders of a Sunni army operating on the Syria-Iraq border proclaimed an 'Islamic State' under the rule of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its new 'caliph'. For many, this was the first we had heard of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil); but its forces, fanaticism and cruelty were to become all too familiar.
