Attacks claimed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria are on track to double last year’s total, the U.S. military said in a report, as the terrorist group’s affiliates become increasingly deadly elsewhere around the world.
An Islamic State flag in a bombed-out militant headquarters in 2017 in Mosul, Iraq.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
The New York Times
July 17, 2024
By Eve Sampson
Attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria this year are on the rise and on track to double last year’s count, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, indicating a resurgence of the terrorist group a decade after it wrought destruction and death across the region.
The group, also known as ISIS, took responsibility for 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of this year, according to a report by the military’s Central Command, despite continued operations targeting the organization’s operatives by a U.S.-led coalition and partner forces in both countries. In all of last year, ISIS claimed 121 attacks in Iraq and Syria, a defense official said.
The group, a Sunni Muslim organization that traces its roots to Al Qaeda, exploited the power vacuum that emerged after Syria’s civil war broke out to conquer large areas. Notorious for kidnappings, sexual enslavement and public executions, ISIS took its largest prize when it seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, before being beaten back in 2014.
Though the last fragment of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate in the Middle Eastern region was liberated with U.S. military support five years ago, the group has morphed into a decentralized collection of cells and affiliates around the world. The U.S. military has since maintained a presence in Syria and Iraq.
Mourners in Qamishli, Syria, at a mass funeral in 2022 for Kurdish fighters killed fending off ISIS gunmen during a prison siege.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
ISIS in Iraq and Syria: Attacks on the Rise
The U.S.-led coalition has conducted nearly 200 missions against ISIS since January, the military said, coordinating with Kurdish-led forces in Syria and the military in Iraq. In all, the report said, U.S.-led forces have killed 44 ISIS operatives and detained 166 others.
“We continue to focus our efforts on specifically targeting those members of ISIS who are seeking to conduct external operations outside of Iraq and Syria and those ISIS members attempting to break out ISIS members in detention in an attempt to reconstitute their forces,” Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.
The reasons behind the increase in attacks in Syria and Iraq may be complex, experts say. The group has become stronger and gained more freedom of operation, but a combination of other factors has also most likely contributed, said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on counterterrorism.
“The increase in attacks may be caused by continued disenchantment with the governments of Iraq and Syria and their focus on other issues,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. “It could also be due to the diversion of U.S. assets toward Iranian-backed groups.”
Although Mr. Byman said the increase in attacks did not mean there was an immediate cause for global alarm, the group’s reconstitution could have serious and dangerous consequences for people in the region, many of whom have been suffering the effects of war for decades.
Though he said “this is not a ‘Baghdad is about to fall’ situation,” Mr. Byman highlighted the threat the attacks posed for Iraqis and Syrians. “The ISIS resurgence is bad news for these communities,” he said.
A roadside memorial in front of the burned-out Crocus City Hall in Russia after a deadly attack by what U.S. officials say was ISIS-K.Credit...Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
ISIS Around the World: Raising Cells’ Profiles
In the past six months, ISIS and its affiliates have launched high-profile and deadly attacks, highlighting the group’s resilience and its ability to diversify via a network of cells around the world. In some cases, attacks have targeted civilians and locations without obvious military connections.
On Tuesday, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque in Oman, where gunmen killed six people and wounded more than 30 others. In a video of the attack, which took place on an important Shiite holiday, the attackers described the worshipers in disparaging terms.
An ISIS affiliate active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran — the Islamic State Khoransan, or ISIS-K — has become increasingly emboldened and deadly. U.S. officials say the group was responsible for the bloody attack in March on a concert hall outside Moscow, which killed over 130 people and injured scores more.
In January, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for deadly bombings in Iran that killed 84 people during a memorial procession for a top commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who was slain four years earlier in a U.S. drone attack. Iran is a theocracy ruled by Shiite clerics and General Suleimani previously led the country’s efforts to unite Shiite groups across the region.
U.S. officials are also monitoring the group’s expansion across the Sahel region in Africa amid political instability and a number of coups.
In March, the Islamic State claimed an attack on Niger’s army that reportedly killed 30 soldiers.
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