IS gets more dangerous as it weakens
With extortion and illegal oil sales, the militants are expanding their war, writes Mohamad Bazzi
By many measures, the Islamic State (IS) is a weakened and demoralised force. After months of US-led bombing and defeats by local troops in Iraq and Syria, the group lost thousands of its fighters, was forced to relinquish significant territory and has been cut off from routes it used to move weapons and reinforcements.
But the group remains a potent threat in other ways, especially in its ability to inspire self-radicalised militants to carry out attacks in the West and elsewhere.
The man accused of carrying out a bombing in New York on Sept 17 appears to have been inspired — if not directed — by the leaders and ideologues of al Qaeda and the IS. The 28-year-old suspect, Ahmad Rahami, wrote admiringly in a journal about al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, American-born radical Islamic preacher Anwar al-Awlaki — who was killed in Yemen by a US drone strike — and leading IS strategist Abu Mohammad al-Adnani.
In one section of his journal, Mr Rahami references a message in May by Adnani, urging the IS supporters to carry out attacks in the West during the holy month of Ramadan in retaliation for US-led air strikes against the group’s strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Mr Rahami wrote that Adnani had issued a clear directive to “attack the kuffar in their backyard”. (In Arabic, “kuffar” refers to unbelievers or those who reject Islam’s teachings.) US authorities recovered the bloodstained journal after a shootout with police in New Jersey on Sept 19, which led to Mr Rahami’s arrest.
There are still many unanswered questions about Mr Rahami’s motivations, whether he met militants who helped radicalise him on several trips to Pakistan, or if he received training in bomb-making. If he was swayed by Adnani’s appeal to undertake the New York attack, Mr Rahami would be the latest example of a self-radicalised militant who heeded the calls of the IS or al-Qaeda leaders to strike at targets of convenience in the West.
Over the past six months, Iraqi forces, with US air support, forced the IS out of the western cities of Ramadi and then Fallujah. But as it lost territory in Syria and Iraq under pressure from Western bombing and local military forces, the group has tried to project strength by organising or inspiring attacks around the world.
The IS campaign to reassert its influence peaked during Ramadan, when operatives and sympathisers carried out a spate of bombings, mass shootings and stabbings across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Many of the attackers were radicalised, “lone wolf” perpetrators inspired by and acting in the group’s name, but without taking orders directly from its leaders.
These attacks spread fear and allowed the IS’s leaders to show perceived strength to make up for their battlefield losses. They also signalled that the group would revert to its roots as a jihadist insurgency, bent on large and small-scale attacks that instil fear but do little to help the militants keep control of territory in Syria and Iraq.
The IS also shifted its propaganda to appeal to potential “lone wolf” attackers, who could amplify the group’s reach. In an audio message released on May 21, two weeks before the start of Ramadan, Adnani, who at the time was the IS’s leading spokesman, urged sympathisers to carry out attacks in the West and to turn the holy period, “with God’s permission, into a month of pain for infidels everywhere”.
Despite the spate of high-profile attacks during Ramadan, the IS suffered a series of surprisingly quick and relatively bloodless defeats this summer, both in Syria and in the Sunni heartland of Iraq. It is a much weakened group than it was even a year ago — and it is unlikely to be able to hold on to significant territory.
In late August, the IS lost the Syrian border town of Jarabulus to US-backed Kurdish fighters. It was the IS’s last outpost near the Turkish border, which had enabled the group to bring in recruits, money and supplies to its territory, especially its de facto capital in Raqqa.
The loss of territory has been accompanied by the high-profile targeting of IS leaders by US air strikes, which led to the assassination of Adnani, the top spokesman and strategist, and a senior military commander named Omar al-Shishani. This latest forfeiture of territory in Syria and Iraq; the drying up of routes for foreign fighters to reach the self-declared “caliphate”; and the assassination of senior operatives like Adnani and Shishani underscore how the IS is under siege in a way it has never been before.
But the jihadist group still has the capability to attract some recruits, raise funds through extortion and illicit oil sales, secure weapons and dispatch sympathisers to carry out attacks abroad. Ironically, as it gets weaker on the ground, the IS will have less to lose by unleashing more terror outside of Syria and Iraq.
US military officials say the group’s fighting force has been cut by half from a year ago — it now has as few as 16,000 combatants. “The number of fighters on the front line has diminished. They’ve diminished not only in quantity, but also in quality,” Lt Gen Sean MacFarland, then-commander of US forces against the IS, said in Baghdad last month.
He added, “We don’t see them operating nearly as effectively as they have in the past, which makes them even easier targets for us.”
Even as it lost territory and leaders, US security officials warned that the IS still had the ability to inspire or organise attacks in the West and across the world. Intelligence officials cautioned the group would pose an even greater threat, as it gets weaker, because its foreign sympathisers might be motivated to carry out attacks in the West if they are unable to reach the cut-off “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq.
“It is our judgement that ISIL’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks in Syria, Iraq and abroad has not to date been significantly diminished,” Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the US National Counter-terrorism Centre, told the House Homeland Security Committee in July. He added that the IS’s “external operations capability has been building and entrenching during the past two years, and we do not think battlefield losses alone will be sufficient to degrade completely the group’s terrorism capabilities.”
As it loses strength and larger chunks of its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq, the IS will lash out with more attacks around the world. And governments in the West and the Middle East will need to adapt to an enemy that can turn battlefield setbacks into new terror.
The group has tried to project strength by organising or inspiring attacks around the world.