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There’s No Way Hillary Clinton Has Been Fighting ISIS Her Entire Adult Life

2 minute read

During the first presidential debate of the 2016 general election, Republican nominee Donald Trump — in making his case that Hillary Clinton’s approach to fighting ISIS would not work — made the claim that she has been fighting ISIS her entire adult life.

That claim, like his claim in August that President Obama was the founder of ISIS, does not mesh with the history of the founding of that group.

Hillary Clinton graduated from college in 1969.

See Rare Photos of a Young Hillary Clinton

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Hillary at Lake Waban on the Wellesley College Campus, 1969.Wellesley College Archives
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Hillary, c. 1960.Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library
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Hillary at Lake Waban on the Wellesley College Campus, 1969.Courtesy Wellesley College Archives
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Hillary as an intern with Congress, Summer 1968.Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library
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Hillary joins students and a faculty member at the Wellesley College Alumnae Council Student Panel, 1968.Courtesy Wellesley College Archives
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Hillary (center) attends a student rally at Wellesley College, October 8, 1968.Wellesley College Archives
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Hillary (center) attends a student rally at Wellesley College, October 8, 1968.Courtesy Wellesley College Archives
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Hillary at commencement with Ruth M. Adams, president of Wellesley, and distinguished guests, 1969.Wellesley College Archives
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Bill and Hillary at Yale Law School, 1972.Courtesy Clinton Foundation
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Hillary (bottom right) and her classmates at Yale, 1973.Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library
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Hillary and Bill on their wedding day, October 11, 1975.Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library
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Hillary and Bill on their wedding day, October 11, 1975.Courtesy Clinton Foundation
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Hillary and Bill playing volleyball, Fayetteville, N.C., 1975.Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library
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Hillary, c. 1979.Courtesy Butler Center, Arkansas Studies Institute, Little Rock
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Hillary and Bill, c. 1979.Courtesy Butler Center, Arkansas Studies Institute, Little Rock
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Hillary and Bill, c. 1979.Courtesy Butler Center, Arkansas Studies Institute, Little Rock
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Hillary and Bill, c. 1979.Courtesy Butler Center, Arkansas Studies Institute, Little Rock
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Hillary and Bill meeting President Reagan, March 1983.Courtesy William J. Clinton Presidential Library
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Hillary, c. 1976 or 1980. Courtesy Butler Center, Arkansas Studies Institute, Little Rock
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Bill and Hillary Clinton celebrate victory in the Democratic runoff in Little Rock, Ark. June 8, 1982.AP

Meanwhile, though the complicated factors in play in the establishment of ISIS go back for generations and the organization’s founders were operating in the 1990s, it was not until 2013 that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gave the group that name.

Late that year, TIME explained his reasoning:

An enigmatic leader who shuns the spotlight — there is only one photograph of him in circulation, a grainy head shot the U.S. State Department uses to advertise the $10 million price tag it has put on his head — Baghdadi’s ambitions match bin Laden’s: to create a new caliphate, or state based on Islamic law, stretching across the Middle East and North Africa. Many jihadist leaders have stated this ambition, but Baghdadi is actually carving out a mini-caliphate in parts of both Iraq and Syria. Not even bin Laden, for all his spectacular international terrorist attacks, came close to holding so much as a square meter of territory in any Arab country.

To make his intentions clear, in April 2013, Baghdadi gave al-Qaeda in Iraq a new name: the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). With operations reaching from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, it is al-Qaeda’s most successful affiliate.

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Read more on TIME.com about how ISIS was founded: President Obama Is Not the ‘Founder of ISIS.’ Here’s Who Really Started It

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Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com