ISIS or ISIL? The debate over what to call Iraq’s terror group (WAPO)
If you are listening to the President, you are hearing him repeatedly refer to ISIL, which was jarring to me, given I'd only heard this new jihadist group referred to as ISIS Here's the explanation:
If you're following the ongoing crisis in Iraq, you've probably encountered the conflicting acronyms used for the jihadist group storming through the country. The Washington Post has been referring to the organization as ISIS, shorthand for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. This is how most news organizations that operate in English began identifying the outfit when it emerged as a dangerous fighting force two years ago, launching terror strikes and carving out territory amid the Syrian civil war.
But the acronym that's now deployed by many agencies as well as the United Nations and the U.S. State Department -- and President Obama -- is ISIL, for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Here's how the Associated Press justified switching its acronym style from ISIS to ISIL.
In Arabic, the group is known as Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham, or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The term al-Sham refers to a region stretching from southern Turkey through Syria to Egypt (also including Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan). The groups stated goal is to restore an Islamic state, or caliphate, in this entire area.
The standard English term for this broad territory is the Levant. Therefore, APs translation of the groups name is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/06/18/isis-or-isil-the-debate-over-what-to-call-iraqs-terror-group/