ISIS Regains Strength And Increases Attacks
This article is by Eric Schmitt, Alissa J. Rubin and Thomas Gibbons-Neff.
WASHINGTON — Five months after American-backed forces ousted the Islamic State from its last shard of territory in Syria, the terrorist group is gathering new strength, conducting guerrilla attacks across Iraq and Syria, retooling its financial networks and recruiting at an allied-run tent camp, American and Iraqi military and intelligence officers said.
Though President Donald J. Trump hailed a total defeat of the Islamic State this year, defense officials in the region acknowledge that what remains of the group is here to stay.
A recent American inspector general’s report warned that a drawdown this year from 2,000 American forces in Syria to less than half of that has meant the American military has had to cut back support for Syrian partner forces fighting ISIS.
Although there is little concern that the Islamic State will reclaim its former territory, a caliphate that was once the size of Britain and controlled up to 12 million people, the group has mobilized up to 18,000 remaining fighters in Iraq and Syria. These teams have carried out attacks against security forces and community leaders.
The Islamic State can still tap a war chest of as much as $400 million. It is also believed to have invested in businesses, and uses extortion to finance operations: Farmers in northern Iraq who refuse to pay have had their crops burned.
ISIS has made inroads into a camp in northeast Syria holding 70,000 people, including thousands of family members of ISIS fighters. American intelligence officials say the Al Hol camp, managed by Syrian Kurdish allies, is evolving into a huge breeding ground for future terrorists. The Syrian Kurdish force also holds more than 10,000 ISIS fighters, including 2,000 foreigners, in separate makeshift prisons.
At Al Hol, the inability to provide more than “minimal security” at the camp has created conditions allowing the spread of ISIS ideology, the inspector general’s report said.
The military’s Central Command told the report’s authors that “ISIS is likely exploiting the lack of security to enlist new members and re-engage members who have left the battlefield.” A recent United Nations assessment found the same.
“However weakened ISIS may now be, they are still a truly global movement, and we are globally vulnerable,” said Suzanne Raine, a former head of Britain’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Center.
For Iraqis in northern and western provinces, the attacks slowed, but never halted. In just the first six months of this year, there were 139 attacks in those provinces — Nineveh, Salahuddin, Kirkuk, Diyala and Anbar — and 274 people were killed.
In early August, armed men claiming ISIS allegiance held a public beheading of a policeman in a rural village about two hours north of Baghdad.
On August 10, a Marine Raider, Gunnery Sergeant Scott A. Koppenhafer, 35, was the first American killed in combat in Iraq this year. In January, four Americans were killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria.
A July report by United Nations analysts on the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee said that Islamic State leaders are “adapting, consolidating and creating conditions for an eventual resurgence” in Syria and Iraq. A new inspector general’s report assessing ISIS activities from April through June concluded the group was “resurging in Syria” and had “solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq.”
Mr. Trump has continued to claim credit for defeating the Islamic State, contradicting warnings from his own officials that ISIS remains a lethal force. “We did a great job,” Mr. Trump said in July. “We have 100 percent of the caliphate, and we’re rapidly pulling out of Syria. We’ll be out of there pretty soon. And let them handle their own problems.”
The Islamic State is well equipped, the officials said, though its leadership is fractured.
“Coupled with a U.S. drawdown, it’s setting the conditions for ISIS to retake pockets of territory while coercing local populations,” said Colin P. Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, a research organization for global security issues.