by Shimon Sherman
The resurgence is likely to continue, the Institute for National Security Studies' Yoram Schweitzer tells JNS.
Detainees suspected of being members of the Islamic State group are released in Syria's northeastern city of Hasakeh, on Sept. 2, 2024. Photo by Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images. |
Three hours into 2025, a white pickup truck plowed into a crowd on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street. After the attack, the assailant, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, got out of the truck and opened fire on responding police, wounding two officers before being killed in the shootout.
The attack left 14 people dead and dozens wounded. Attached to the back of the pickup was the black and white flag of the Islamic State (ISIS).
This attack was the latest in a recent surge of operations carried out by ISIS or its affiliates, including a massacre at a Russian music hall, which left almost 150 dead, a bombing in Kerman, Iran, which left nearly 100 dead and a foiled plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.
A global campaign
ISIS’s attempt to renew its operations has been ongoing for many years. Ever since the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria collapsed territorially under mounting U.S. military pressure in 2019, the organization has sought to reconstitute itself. ISIS fighters were forced to disperse into independent cells and its leadership was driven underground.
At this point, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimates there to be approximately 2,500 ISIS fighters in the Iraqi-Syrian heartland, a fraction of the estimated 50,000 fighters ISIS had at its height.
However, some experts believe the subdued version of ISIS since the fall of its caliphate may be a mirage.
“ISIS was never dormant. It just moved its operations to more marginal locations that weren’t as noticeable in the West,” Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Program on Terrorism and Low-Intensity Conflict, told JNS.
CENTCOM numbers show a sharp rise in ISIS activity in Iraq and Syria in 2024, with 153 attacks in the first half of the year, more than double during the same period in 2023. In a recent report, CENTCOM warned that ISIS was on an active path to “reconstitute itself following several years of decreased capability.”
A U.N. team responsible for tracking ISIS has been ringing alarm bells over the past year. In July, the team reported that ISIS was “at major risk of resurgence” and pointed to an Afghanistan-based ISIS splinter group known as ISIS-K as a particularly significant threat.
“ISIS-K is the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe,” the team wrote in its report. “In addition to the executed attacks, the number of plots disrupted or being tracked throughout Europe, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Levant, Asia and potentially as far as North America is striking.”
According to Schweitzer, the resurgence is likely to continue: “I don’t think we’ve reached the peak of it.”
A central cause of the Islamic State’s recent growth is the expansion and development of its online recruitment and propaganda operations. ISIS uses every tool at its disposal to spread its ideology, including social media, online videos and even a weekly newsletter. Recent ISIS propaganda has capitalized on Israel’s war in Gaza to grow jihadist recruitment.
While the media campaign likely doesn’t have a physical headquarters, it is still a highly organized affair with “a centralized operation for media, propaganda and finances,” Schweitzer explained.
In a recent statement, acting U.S. Director for the National Counterterrorism Center Brett Holmgren warned that ISIS “repaired its media operations, and restarted external plotting.”
In Syria
Beyond ISIS’s drive to grow its international cells and to inspire “lone wolf” attacks through propaganda, the terror group has recently sought to capitalize on instability in Syria. In the aftermath of the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime, ISIS is pushing to reconstitute its territorial caliphate.
“Strategically for them, the control of territory is more important than carrying out terrorist attacks in foreign countries,” Schweitzer said. “That is their main way to increase capabilities, to recruit people, to fundraise money, and to prove that they are alive and kicking.”
Ever since Assad’s Baathist regime fell to the ex-ISIS-affiliated group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), ISIS has been making moves to rebuild its army and its state.
“ISIS loves vacuums,” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a recent interview. “What we see in Syria right now are areas that are ungoverned because of the fall of the Assad regime, and that is a recipe for disaster.”
Although Syria’s new masters officially split from ISIS in 2014, it is unclear whether they can be counted on to quell the rising star of the Islamic State. For its part, ISIS has frequently derided HTS, calling its members “jihadists turned politicians” and traitors.
“ISIS sees HTS as apostates,” Schweitzer said. Despite this, ISIS has not called for attacks on the Syrian rebel group.
A central goal of ISIS in Syria is to rebuild its fighting force. For this purpose, the organization has turned its spotlight on a series of prisons and camps under the control of the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). These camps, located in northeastern Syria and guarded by the SDF over the past five years, house around 40,000 ISIS prisoners and their family members. In a recent propaganda drive, ISIS restarted its “Breaking the Walls” campaign, which called for organized jailbreaks.
Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s top commander, said in a recent interview with CNN that his forces were having trouble guarding the prison sites, especially due to mounting pressure from Turkey on his organization. Many members of the SDF are also members of a separate Kurdish group known as the YPG, which is designated as a terror organization by Turkey.
“With the increasing threats that face the city of Manbij, we relocated ISIS detainees from the prisons there to other, more secure detention facilities,” Abdi said. “As Turkey-backed factions advanced toward the city center, cells launched attacks on detention centers holding both civilians and terrorists. Currently, detention centers in both Raqqa and Hasakah are facing similar threats, necessitating enhanced cooperation and additional security measures to protect these sites.”
Beyond guarding prisoners, the SDF’s preoccupation with attacks from Turkey has also prevented it from continuing operations to combat ISIS’s active fighters.
“At the moment, joint operations against ISIS are halted. This is not a decision, but a military reality,” Abdi said. “If these attacks persist, joint operations will remain suspended.”
“The SDF and the Assad regime were the primary opponents of ISIS,” Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a recent interview. “With the former gone and the latter under pressure from Turkish proxies, concerns about the expansion of ISIS are warranted.”
With the SDF teetering, the U.S. has stepped up direct efforts to combat the resurgence of ISIS in Syria.
“Our goal is to ensure that we support the SDF, the Kurds, and that we keep ISIS in check,” Sullivan explained.
CENTCOM head U.S. Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla echoed this point, saying, “There should be no doubt we will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria. All organizations in Syria should know that we will hold them accountable if they partner with or support ISIS in any way.”
Shortly after the fall of the Assad regime, the US carried out a series of airstrikes wiping out almost a hundred targets including ISIS leaders, operatives and camps. Furthermore, last month CENTCOM confirmed that the US assassinated an ISIS leader in a targeted airstrike.
In Africa and Afghanistan
While ISIS in Syria has certainly drawn the most attention, most experts agree that the bulk of the group’s growth is happening elsewhere.
“There is still a lot of room to develop for the organization in Africa and Afghanistan, and they will likely grow there. Africa and Afghanistan are a major focus of [the ISIS renewal] operation,” Schweitzer explained.
Last week, ISIS terrorists used IEDs to kill 22 soldiers in Somalia’s northeastern region. This operation was hailed in an ISIS newsletter as “the blow of the year,” and “a complex attack that is [a] first of its kind.”
According to a report by the U.S. Department of Defense, ISIS’s growth in Africa, particularly in Somalia, is due to a significant surge in recruitment and growing revenue due to extortion of local businesses. Moreover, much of ISIS’s media campaign can be traced to ISIS affiliates in North Africa.
“In Africa, mainly in the Congo, Nigeria and Somalia, they have a major presence. Africa is a crucial district for ISIS,” Schweitzer told JNS.
In Afghanistan, ISIS-K has also significantly grown its profile and turned itself into an integral element of the Islamic State network. ISIS-K first gained notoriety after a terrorist bombing at the Kabul airport in 2021 killed 182 people, including 13 American soldiers. Last year, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the Crocus City Hall attack, which killed 145 people in a suburb of Moscow.
“In Afghanistan, ISIS-K has a high reputation and they are actively trying to export their terrorism beyond Afghanistan’s borders,” Schweitzer said.
The threat to Israel
While the danger posed by ISIS grows internationally, Schweitzer said that the threat to Israel remains peripheral.
“In general, most of the operations carried out in Israel were not done by official ISIS members, but by affiliated groups. There were some people from the Bedouin and the Arab communities that tried to go and fight with ISIS in Syria, but this phenomenon was not that significant,” he said, adding, “That’s not to downplay the seriousness of these threats. There were people affiliated with ISIS who managed to kill Israelis.”
The most prominent attack claimed by ISIS in Israel was executed on June 16, 2017, when three attackers opened fire on police officers and fatally stabbed a civilian passerby. At least five other attacks have been carried out in Israel by terrorists inspired by ISIS, resulting in a total death toll of 12 people and dozens wounded.
Schweitzer explained that one of the reasons ISIS has not entrenched strongly in Israel is pressure from other terror groups. It is a major disadvantage for them: “In the [Israeli] jails, Hamas and Fatah subdued people with ISIS affiliations, because they did not want them as a challenge.”
Shimon Sherman
Source: https://www.jns.org/global-concern-as-isis-makes-a-comeback/
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