TERROR IS NOT
DEFEATED
Terrorism and Africa
Terrorism and Afghanistan
Terrorism and Iraq
Terrorism and Syria
In early 2014, ISIS captured the Syrian city of Raqqa to establish a caliphate (what is this? read more here). Through the next few months, ISIS stampeded across eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq gaining territory — including Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. ISIS finally declared its self-styled caliphate in June. At its peak, ISIS had engaged over 40,000 recruits from 100 countries.
Almost five years later, in March 2019, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — the Syrian Kurdish militia led by the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) — declared victory over ISIS and their so-called caliphate. Serving as America’s primary ground ally, the SDF liberated five million people from terrorism and 52,000 square kilometers of Syrian territory at the cost of 11,000 of their soldiers’ lives. Although ISIS was not entirely defeated, the collapse of the caliphate was a massive victory for the SDF and the United States.
Without question, the demise of their caliphate was a major blow to ISIS, as was the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019. But these should be viewed as events that provided a temporary disruption to the terrorist group’s activities, not as absolute victory for those of us who have been fighting them.
After al-Baghdadi’s death, for example, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) concluded that “ISIS is ‘postured to withstand’ al-Baghdadi’s death, and will likely maintain ‘continuity of operations, global cohesion, and at least its current trajectory.’”
Very soon after their caliphate collapsed, ISIS militant fighters were reorganizing in Syrian bunkers, the Badia desert, areas around the disputed border between the Kurdistan region and the rest of Iraq, and other areas controlled by Kurdish and Iraqi forces — devising guerrilla warfare tactics to make a comeback.
In some areas — like Raqqa and the Deir al-Zour province in Syria, the province of Diyala in northeastern Iraq, and Afghanistan — the group was soon back to carrying out bombings, assassinations, ambushes, and firing mortar rounds.
One thing we learned or should have learned from this episode is that there are plenty of menacing groups chomping at the bit to fill the vacuum created by the exit of U.S. forces from the region. Iran, for one, is just waiting for the moment when it can call down the Hezbollah militias under its control in western and southern Syria to gain control over the major oil fields in Deir al-Zour.
The United States Institute of Peace — a federal institution founded by Congress that is tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide — reminds us that:
“To a certain extent we have been here before, back in 2007 following the ‘Anbar Awakening’ in Iraq. And we have seen how the Islamic State in Iraq, as it was then called, was able to rebuild itself and reach even greater heights. The Islamic State’s strategy is based on a staged approach — not dissimilar from the Maoist strategy of protracted warfare — and after their defeat in the Anbar Awakening they simply returned to a lower stage, went underground and re-grouped in the countryside. They expect to oscillate between stages before eventual victory. It is important to remember that it is this strategy that is arguably its primary export to global affiliates. If we are not careful and vigilant, the Islamic State is more than capable of re-emerging and rising in strength once again.”
Already, “the decline of ISIS’s core has been coupled with the rise and expansion of ISIL provinces and affiliates around the world — now stretching across Europe, Russia, Eurasia, Asia, and Africa…the central trend has been the displacement of activity away from the Middle East and North Africa, with a global presence becoming an increasing part of the Islamic State’s operations. In 2019, Islamic State provinces and affiliates accounted for 74 percent of all the deaths from the group’s acts of terrorism. In particular, the African continent has become a focus of affiliates’ growth and increasing activity, with sub-Saharan Africa by itself now accounting for 41 percent of deaths.”
Then there is this warning from a United Nations report released on June 1, 2021:
“A significant part of the leadership of al-Qaida resides in the Afghanistan and Pakistan border region, alongside al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent. Large numbers of al-Qaida fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan.
The primary component of the Taliban in dealing with al-Qaida is the Haqqani Network (an officially listed terrorist group). Ties between the two groups remain close, based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle and intermarriage.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan remains diminished from its zenith, following successive military setbacks that began in Jowzjan in summer 2018. However, since June 2020, it has had an ambitious new leader, Shahab al-Muhajir, and it remains active and dangerous, particularly if it is able, by positioning itself as the sole pure rejectionist group in Afghanistan, to recruit disaffected Taliban and other militants to swell its ranks.”