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Jihadist militant group Isis has said it is establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\nJihadist militant group Isis has said it is establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n
It also proclaimed the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph and “leader for Muslims everywhere”.<\/p>\n
Setting up a state governed under strict Islamic law has long been a goal of many jihadists.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Iraq’s army continued an offensive to retake the northern city of Tikrit from the Isis-led rebels.<\/p>\n
The city was seized by the insurgents on 11 June as they swept across large parts of north-western Iraq.<\/p>\n
In a separate development, Israel called for the creation of an independent Kurdish state in response to the gain made by the Sunni rebels in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Allegiance demand<\/p>\n
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) announced the establishment of the caliphate in an audio recording posted on the internet on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Isis also said that from now on it would be known simply as “the Islamic State”.<\/p>\n
The BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, says the declaration harks back to the rise of Islam, when the Prophet Muhammad’s followers conquered vast territories in the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n
The Sunni-Shia split has its origins in a dispute over the succession to Muhammad.<\/p>\n