Our view: Sri Lanka attacks show ISIS is down but not out
So disorienting was the Easter Sunday carnage strewn by coordinated suicide bombings on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that investigators at first overestimated the death toll.
It was recalibrated at 253 dead Christian worshipers and tourists, mercifully lower than the 359 first reported, but still a barbarous record for any attack linked to the Islamic State terrorist group. Sri Lanka suffered nearly twice the number killed in Paris in a similarly coordinated fashion by ISIS attackers in 2015.
In fact, in the four months since President Donald Trump stood on the White House lawn and declared “we have won against ISIS” by recapturing its territorial caliphate, the terror group has claimed responsibility for deadly assaults in Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Eight Islamic State branches and a dozen networks operate around the world, along with an unknown number of sleeper cells. Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appeared in a video for the first time since 2014, praising the Sri Lanka attacks.
Al-Qaeda, the group behind the 9/11 attacks, also remains a threat. Despite being driven from Afghanistan in 2001 and suffering the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, al-Qaeda continues operating in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and controls a northern Syrian province. Its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, remains at large.
Terrorist attacks have increased fivefold since 2001, according to a study by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Hateful ideologies are pumped into the bloodstream of fragile states via a social media network using videos and newsletters and directing collaborators through encrypted messaging apps.
The island nation of Sri Lanka, with a civil war that lasted from 1983 to 2009, was a perfect host for this viral extremism. Minority Muslims feel persecuted, and investigators now suspect that a radical cleric, Zahran Hashim — who ran an organization with a record of little more than vandalism — could have received ISIS assistance in pulling off the complicated Easter attacks.
In the face of global extremism, the United States must remain vigilant and forward-leaning. Now is no time for complacency. American counterterrorism operations are vital, and it was a mistake for Trump to sharply reduce U.S. troop levels in the former caliphate region of northeast Syria. That area is at risk of ISIS resurgence.
Even so, counterterrorism is only part of the solution. As USIP President Nancy Lindborg said last week, “We can’t kill our way out of this.”
While nation building is not America’s job, the Trump administration can partner with the more than 70 nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fashioned to fight ISIS. The United States can offer modest bilateral assistance to fragile countries most susceptible to extremist violence.
This is a war that doesn’t end with the capture of a nation’s capital or a signed armistice. It’s a battle of ideas that remains to be won.