A CRUSHED CALIPHATE ... BUT I.S. STILL LIVES

JUST a few weeks ago I stood in ‘Hell Square’ in the centre of Raqqa, the former capital of Islamic State in Syria, listening to harrowing tales of death and devastation amid razed buildings.

It was cold and I took refuge in a juice bar to talk to young men who told me of the horrors they witnessed under the rule of IS – and which earned this place its name.

Mass executions and numerous beheadings, with the heads of Syrian fighters impaled on a makeshift fence.

I was reminded of a speech Theresa May made in January 2017 in Philadelphia – nine months before Raqqa fell – when she tried to rewrite the British doctrine that defined the Blair years.

The days of ‘failed’ liberal intervention in the affairs of other nations were over, the Prime Minister announced to a standing ovation from US Republican leaders.

Fast-forward two years and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson couldn’t be more gung-ho on future UK military capability. Britain must be prepared to take military action against countries that ‘flout international law’ or it would risk being seen as a ‘paper tiger’, he said this week.

There is little doubt that Mr Williamson was emboldened by events unfolding many thousands of miles away.

Aided by British and US firepower, Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Defence Force are on the cusp of ‘victory’ against IS.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant’s sprawling caliphate, which once covered more than 60,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq, is now squeezed into less than one square mile in the Syrian desert.

There, a few hundred jihadists waged some of the fiercest fighting of the war this week, knowing the end is near.

AN attempt to negotiate safe passage has failed, and they’re pounded by coalition airstrikes. Yet still they fight back with small arms fire and suicide attacks. It is futile. The extremist Islamic state they dreamed of will be gone in days.

So as the coalition scales down its air campaign and the US starts to pull its troops from Syria, what are we leaving?

Ask any military chief if the battle is won and the answer is a resounding ‘No’.

Major General Christopher Ghika, Britain’s top commander against IS, says it is forming worldwide sleeper cells and ramping up online propaganda to convert others to their murderous creed. ‘It is not over,’ he said simply. Make no mistake, we’ve come a long way since July 4, 2014, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stood in the Grand Mosque in Mosul and declared a caliphate, an Islamic state. What followed was a rapid accumulation of territory in Iraq and Syria; slick propaganda videos including those showing Jihadi John – the Briton Mohammed Emwazi – beheading Western hostages; a flood of foreign fighters and supporters, such as four schoolgirls from East London; and the emergence of IS as a disciplined force with sophisticated weaponry.

Its success sent shockwaves around the world as its brutality spread to inspire attacks in Paris, London and Manchester, causing the deaths of scores of civilians.

At its peak from 2014 to 2015, IS ruled a territory the size of Britain with a population of eight million. It was thought to have almost half as many soldiers as the British Army. A staggering 900 Britons were lured to Syria and Iraq by the promise of an Islamic state.

ON the north- east bank of the Euphrates, IS established an ‘external operations cell’ in Raqqa – a unit dedicated to exporting terror abroad using the internet and social media.

Al-Naeem Square has been unofficially renamed by locals – its translation of Paradise Square has become Hell Square thanks to all the punishments and executions held there. Prisoners were lashed or thrown from buildings, beheaded, or shot while crowds were forced to watch.

For a time, it seemed almost impossible to imagine how IS would be overcome. It took four and a half years, numerous militias and a coalition of more than 60 countries to get here. The human cost has been enormous, with more than 20,000 civilians thought to have been killed.

IS may have lost its territory, but the ideology has not been defeated. As Patrick McGuinness, the UK’s former deputy national security adviser, said in 2017, Britain won’t be safe unless IS is wiped from the internet by the tech giants.

British spies and soldiers have hacked into the IS propaganda machine, and the RAF has targeted ‘media factories’ where extremists recruit jihadists online. But the military can only do so much.

With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and encrypted apps such as WhatsApp, inciting terror could hardly be easier. ‘They’ve lost their territory, but they’re everywhere,’ a security source says.

Spy agencies fear IS cells are morphing into a group with Al- Qaeda in nations such as Mali to plot attacks in Europe.

Meanwhile, the surviving British terrorists who went to fight for the caliphate are languishing in Syrian jails or have fled to Libya, Afghanistan or other regions.

The caliphate has been vanquished, but the enemy is by no means defeated.