s Force, has been to the Iraqi city of Amirli, to work with the United States in pushing back militants of the Islamic State.
8 September: The Islamic State carried out a double suicide attack in a town north of Baghdad killing 9 people and wounding 70 others.
10 September: After ISIS had outraged American opinion by beheading two American journalists and had seized control of large portions of Syria and Iraq in the face of ineffective opposition from American allies, President Obama decided on a new objective for a rollback policy in the Middle East. He announced: "America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat. Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy."
12 September: A Western-backed Syrian rebels group operating around Damascus and the Islamic State signed a "non-aggression" agreement.
Conspiracy theorists in the Arab world have advanced false rumors that the US is secretly behind the existence and emboldening of ISIS, as part of an attempt to further destabilize the Middle East. After the rumors gained viral status, the US embassy in Lebanon issued an official statement denying the allegations, calling them a complete fabrication. Others are convinced that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is an Israeli Mossad agent and actor called "Simon Elliot". The rumors claim that NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal this connection. Snowden’s lawyer has called the story "a hoax".
^The Islamic State was previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), alternately called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (referring to Greater Syria; Arabic: الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام ad-Dawlah l-ʾIslāmiyyah fīl-ʿIrāq wash-Shām). The group is also known by the Arabic acronym DAʿESH (Arabic: داعش Dāʿesh). These names continue to be used.
^According to classical Islamic sources, Hilf al-Mutayyabin was an oath of allegiance taken in pre-Islamic times by several clans of the Quraysh tribe, in which they undertook to protect the oppressed and the wronged. The name "oath of the scented ones" apparently derives from the fact that the participants sealed the oath by dipping their hands in perfume and then rubbing them over the Kaʻbah. This practice was later adopted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad and incorporated into Islam.
^During this ceremony, the participants declared: "We swear by Allah...that we will strive to free the prisoners of their shackles, to end the oppression to which the Sunnis are being subjected by the malicious Shi'ites and by the occupying Crusaders, to assist the oppressed and restore their rights even at the price of our own lives ... to make Allah's word supreme in the world, and to restore the glory of Islam..."
^"Accordingly, the "Iraq and Shām" in the name of the Islamic State is henceforth removed from all official deliberations and communications, and the official name is the Islamic State from the date of this declaration."