IS timeline
April 2017
IS claims responsibility for two bombings targeting Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday in Egypt. At least 49 people are killed and 119 others are injured in the blasts.
April
The US military drops its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an IS compound in Afghanistan. An Afghan official later tells CNN that 94 militants were killed in the blast.
May
More than 200 civilians are killed by IS militants in Mosul, according to the UN.
May
Buses carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt are attacked by assailants, who fatally shoot at least 29. IS claims responsibility.
July
Mosul is liberated from IS.
October
IS loses control of its selfdeclared capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa. US-backed forces fighting in Raqqa say “major military operations” have ended, though there are still pockets of resistance in the city.
December 6
The Pentagon announces
that there are 5,200 American troops in Iraq and 2,000 troops in Syria. Troop levels are trending down, according to the Pentagon, as Iraqi forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces have liberated about 97% of the territory and people in the caliphate declared by IS.
December
The Iraqi military says it has “fully liberated” all of Iraq’s territory of “Isis terrorist gangs” and retaken full control of the Iraqi-Syrian border. The campaign to defeat Isis in Iraq took more than three years and about 25,000 coalition airstrikes.
July 2018
At least 166 people are killed in a suicide bombing and other attacks in the southern Syrian province of Suwayda, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Syria says. IS claims responsibility.
August
IS releases what it says is an audio message from leader Baghdadi. In the 55-minute recording, a man admits that IS groups are losing and urges his followers to carry on with the fight.
August
The leader of Isis in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed Orakzai and 10 other IS fighters are killed in an air strike in Nangarhar province, according to provincial spokesman Attaullah Khogyani.
September
The US special representative to Syria says American troops will continue their mission until there is an “enduring defeat” of IS in Syria.
December
President T rump sets the stage for a rapid withdrawal of American troops from Syria with a tweet falsely claiming that Isis has been defeated. Although coalition forces have been successful taking back territory that was once part of the Isis caliphate, militants continue to control a small swathe of land near the Euphrates river. A US defence department report put the number of Isis members in Iraq and Syria as high as 30,000, although estimates differ.