ISIS 2.0: How the group became a franchise

Since its 2019 defeat, ISIL has morphed into a series of affiliates taking hold in Afghanistan and Africa’s Sahel belt.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) has changed form several times over the years.

With its origins in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, ISIL was forged from an alliance between an al-Qaeda offshoot a…