Where Did ISIS Come From?

Iraqi forces are battling the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq this week, the largest operation against the jihadist group since it took over parts of Iraq and Syria last year. We now know its tactics well - kidnapping, beheading, looting, seizing territory in Iraq and Syria and ruling by violence and terror.

When ISIS militants took over Mosul and other Iraqi territories, few had ever heard of them, and it seemed like they came out of nowhere. But the group has roots going back a decade in Iraq.

Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson talks to Austin Long, an assistant professor of international affairs at Columbia University, about the origins of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham.