There are Different translations for the name of the al-Qaida splinter group that has led the charge among Sunni extremists who have seized territory in **rthern and western Iraq. The name in the original is the Islamic State of Iraq and "al-Sham" ? an Arabic word that refers to Greater Syria or the Levant. So it is alternately referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS; or other versions of "al-Sham." However it's translated, the name refers to the group's stated goal of restoring an Islamic state, or caliphate, in Iraq and a region stretching from southern Turkey through Syria to Egypt on the eastern Mediterranean.