Grown out of al-Qaeda in Iraq in April 2013, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is the main jihadist groups fighting government forces in Syria. Active in Iraq, present in a number of towns near the Turkish border and with claims over the whole Levant, ISIS’s rise to power was helped by several exogenous factors, from the international community’s inaction toward the crisis in Syria – which allowed ISIS to fill the vacuum of power left by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – to Iraq’s prolonged state of internal disarray. The Policy Dialogue looked at developments in Iraq, analysed the role of ISIS and Jihadist groups in region, the impact on the broad region and the role of external actors including Turkey and Saudi Arabia.