After almost five years of fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), commonly known as Daesh, the United States (US) in 2018 announced the defeat of the group. American leaders have especially been very vocal about how the US will eliminate ISIS. In 2014, former President Barack Obama proclaimed that Washington and its allies will “defeat” ISIS the same way they defeated al-Qaeda. Four years later, ex-President Donald Trump boasted that he had “100%” defeated ISIS.
However, despite these bold claims, neither Daesh nor al-Qaeda has been “defeated” and according to the US intelligence’s 2021 Annual Threat Assessment, both groups remain the “greatest […] terrorist threats to US interests overseas.” The report notes that Daesh is still capable of “waging a prolonged insurgency in Iraq and Syria” and will try to “expand” its capabilities, despite its territorial losses.
This is exactly what Daesh tried to do earlier this month. In its biggest operation since 2019, ISIS terrorists attacked the Ghweiran prison in Syria’s Al-Hasakah province to free thousands of its members. Not only did the militants take control over a major part of the prison but also freed hundreds of prisoners. It took the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mostly Kurdish militia unit, ten days of intense fighting to re-take control of the prison. The fighting resulted in the deaths of over 200 SDF soldiers, more than 300 ISIS fighters, and several citizens.
A recent report by The New York Times notes that while Daesh may no longer be the international threat it once was, it is certainly trying to make a comeback and the prison attack is proof that ISIS is still a menace. Moreover, the offensive demonstrates that ISIS not only has the will to stage an attack but also possesses the capability of pulling off a large-scale operation. In fact, Antonia Ward, a counterterrorism analyst at RAND, argues that “while terrorist groups may suffer periods of decline, they are extremely resilient and adaptable.” In this regard, Ward notes that countries should not “underestimate” the threats of groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda as “most terrorist groups experience resurgence.”
This assessment has been true in the case of ISIS. Since it lost all its territories in 2019, the group has been recuperating and conducting a low-level insurgency in Iraq and Syria. For instance, in 2021 alone, ISIS militants conducted over 300 operations in Syria and launched an average of 87 attacks per month in Iraq, including two major suicide bombings in January and July, each of which killed more than 30 people.
Furthermore, militants have also launched direct attacks on Syrian and Iraqi security forces. Last year, ISIS militants attacked Kurdish units in Syria several times and even killed an SDF commander. Similarly, in Iraq, attacks by Daesh killed dozens of fighters belonging to Peshmerga, an elite Kurdish force in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, as well as several Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Iraqi army soldiers.
The fact that Daesh has been able to pull off deadly attacks consistently shows that the group has no intention of backing down and is a warning that it could increase the intensity of attacks in the future. Even more concerning is that ISIS affiliates are emerging across many regions in the world and are thriving in some places. Groups that have pledged allegiance to ISIS have a major presence in Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Russian autonomous region of Dagestan, Libya, Tunisia, Bosnia, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
For instance, following the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan in August, ISIS-Khorasan, an ISIS affiliate active in South and Central Asia, has emerged as a major security threat for not only the West but also the Taliban. ISIS-K has conducted multiple suicide bombings in Afghanistan that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. Similarly in Nigeria, Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group that has pledged allegiance to Daesh, has killed thousands of people and abducted hundreds since 2014.
Another major concern is the spread of the group’s radical ideology and the possible global influence it may have. In fact, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimated in 2020 that ISIS “intends to carry out large-scale attacks” in the US. The FBI particularly notes that despite being territorially vanquished, ISIS remains “relentless and ruthless” in their campaign against the West and continues to attract “like-minded violent extremists.”
The widespread appeal of Daesh’s doctrine was one of the reasons that made it a deadly extremist group. Its use of savvy social media skills to attract a wider audience proved successful as many young people in the US and Europe carried out “lone wolf attacks” in cities like Orlando and Paris that killed hundreds of civilians. Therefore, even though the group may have lost its so-called “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, countries have not been able to entirely wipe out its ideological influence.
Syria’s Al Hol refugee camp is a great example of how ISIS is able to propagate its ideology and indoctrinate a new generation of fighters, including children. The camp, which hosts around 56,000 people, mostly women and children, is being used by former ISIS members to indoctrinate children. US Central Command chief Kenneth McKenzie has warned that children in the camp are extremely vulnerable to radicalisation in the Islamic State doctrine. “It will be a military problem in a few years if we don’t fix the non-military aspects of it now,” McKenzie said, referring to the rapid spread of militant ideology within the camp.
All things considered, the persistence of ISIS points to why terrorist groups cannot be defeated, at least not entirely. For instance, it was widely believed that al-Qaeda had been eliminated following the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, but almost a decade later, there are serious concerns among the international community, including the US, that the group is on the path of recovery. In this respect, Ward notes that countries should “continue to monitor terrorist organisations as closely as possible as they fall in order to prevent conditions that would allow a resurgence.” Therefore, the attack on the Ghweiran prison serves as a reminder that ISIS is far from defeated and more attacks are likely to follow in the future.
Why Terrorist Groups Don’t Die
Recent attack on a Syrian prison shows that terrorist groups like ISIS persist even if they have been beaten on the battleground.
February 3, 2022
ISIS fighters in Syria IMAGE SOURCE: MEDYAN DAIRIEH/ZUMA PRESS