A day after declaring itself an Islamic caliphate and calling on Islamic factions worldwide to pledge their allegiance, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), now calling itself the Islamic State, raised its flag June 30 in the town of Tell Abyad, Syria, just across the border from Akcakale, Turkey.
That flag, however, has been up and down there since January 2014, with ISIS trading control with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The ISIS flag had been removed from Tell Abyad just two weeks ago.