And will add this from
2013 I had misplaced this and just located
"Al-Qaeda in Syria: A Closer Look at ISIS (Part I) "
"In 2012, however, AQI -- which renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) after Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. strike in 2006 -- began to bounce back. One of the factors that led to this resurgence was the Syrian uprising. In late summer 2011, ISI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched operatives to Syria to set up a new jihadist organization. Among them was Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, the leader of what would become JN, which officially announced itself in late January 2012. By November 2012, Jawlani had built JN into one of the opposition's best fighting forces, and locals viewed its members as fair arbiters when dealing with corruption and social services."
Al-Qaeda in Syria: A Closer Look at ISIS (Part I) - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Ignoring Syria as we did enabled this group.