ISIS still a threat to the US and the World capable of wreaking havoc and bloodshed

In spite of repeated assertions by Trump of his administration’s success in defeating the terrorist organization and destroying its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, experts still think that ISIS remains a threat. While ISIS’s so-called “caliphate” has been destroyed, and it no longer holds even a fraction of the territory it once did. March 2019 was the most recent significant ISIS defeat when the terrorists lost control of any physical territory in Baghuz, Syria. “This territory gave ISIS tremendous resources. It recruited both volunteers and conscripts, extorted ordinary citizens, and plundered oil reserves and ancient artifacts to fill its coffers, said Zack Beauchamp.

 

That matters a lot: Without a safe haven in which you can plan, train your forces, and build up your military, it’s a lot harder to launch a major military offensive like the kind we saw when ISIS first swept into Iraq in 2014. If you’re constantly on the run, moving from safe house to safe house while being hunted by US-led forces, it’s also difficult to communicate with the more far-flung members of your organization.

“We must reflect on this great achievement by our partner forces and the coalition,” British Army Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika emphasized. “For five years, [ISIS’] reign of terror instilled unbounded fear into innocent Iraqis and Syrians. Today, it has been reduced to an underground organization, forced out of population centers and into hiding in caves and the mountains. Its aspirations for a global caliphate have been destroyed.”

 

Although it may not have its caliphate anymore, ISIS is still a potent terrorist organization capable of wreaking havoc and bloodshed. A 2018 report by the Defense Department’s Inspector General,  said the US military estimates that ISIS still has between 28,600 and 31,600 active fighters in Syria and Iraq. Those numbers support the findings of a July 18 UN report that said several current estimates from UN member states put the number of active ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria at “between 20,000 and 30,000 individuals, roughly equally distributed between the two countries.”

 

A national counterterrorism expert in July 2019 said  he’s concerned that Americans are becoming complacent because the United States hasn’t seen a large-scale terrorist attack on its soil since the 9/11 attacks. “When I testify [before Congress] now, ‘complacency’ is a word that I use a lot, because I do worry that we are a bit of a victim of our own success,” Russ Travers, the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told former CIA director Michael Morell in an interview for CBS News.

 

“There’s a bit of a fatigue factor, I think, settling in with terrorism in general,” he told Morell, now the CBS News senior national security contributor, for his “Intelligence Matters” podcast. Travers said the complacency worries him because there are a “lot of ominous trends out there.”

 

Travers noted that ISIS has brought together a core group of leaders after its caliphate collapsed earlier this year, and it is still operating insurgent cells. More than 14,000 ISIS fighters are still operating in Iraq and Syria, said Travers, marking more than it had six or seven years ago in a network that has spread out to more than 20 countries. ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters sometimes cooperate in Africa but fight against each other in Yemen and Syria.

 

The general warned against complacency, stating that this is not the end of ISIS or operations against ISIS. “Although it is now on the back foot,” he said, “[ISIS] foresaw the fall of its physical caliphate and has been reorganizing itself into a network of cells, intent on striking key leaders, village elders and military personnel to undermine the security and stability in Iraq and Syria.”

 

ISIS fighters are still ambushing security patrols, detonating improvised explosive devices and kidnapping people, the general noted. And despite its loss of territorial control in Iraq and Syria, ISIS’ ideology still inspires people around the world, he warned. The ISIS-claimed Sri Lanka bombings on Easter prove the organization’s ongoing acts of terrorism, while the online appearance of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi for the first time in more than five years conceded defeat in Baghuz, but roused ISIS supporters to fight, he noted.

 

Providing a coalition operations update from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference, British Army Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika said ISIS has “morphed into an underground network that we must root out and destroy.” The enduring defeat of ISIS is OIR’s objective, the general said. Strong governance and effective stabilization are the long-term keys to security and prosperity, and the international community must do all it can to help, he added.

 

“The Iraqi army, supported by the coalition and by Iraqi F-16 fighter jets and C-130 transport aircraft, are disrupting the network of [ISIS] cells across Iraq’s Ninevah, Salah ad Din, Anbar, Diyalah and Kirkuk provinces,” the general said. “Recent operations in Wadi Ashai and the Hamrin Mountains have cleared successfully hundreds of miles of territory in which [ISIS] groups were hiding. [ISIS] commanders and fighters have been killed or captured, and weapons, ammunition and IED-making equipment have been seized.”