Islamic Movement Researcher warns: ISIS exploits the current situation in order to revive itself

Ali Omar

ISIS has recently embarked on repetitive and frequent attacks in different areas of Syria, in the first place, targeting the Syrian Government Forces and Iranian-affiliated factions. These attacks have led to the killings and injuring and also increases the fear of a resumption of ISIS’ activities which had previously declined following the terrorist groups’s military defeat in the battle of Baghouz, situated in the countryside of the Eastern part of Deir-er-Zoor.

Lately, members of the ISIS terrorist group launched an attack on a weapon deposit, belonging to the Regime’s Forces in the desert of Palmyra, located in the countryside of Homs in the middle of the country. This attack further resulted in the killing of three members of the Damascus’ Regime Forces and the wounding of eight others; it also came in the aftermath of the killing of 33 members of the same forces in an attack of ISIS on a military convoy in the countryside of Deir-er-Zoor. This incident was further preceded by an explosion in the area of the grave of Zaynab bint Ali, which is located in the capital of Damascus and has resulted in the killing and injuring of nearly 30 people.

These increasing attacks by ISIS have sparked many fears of the terrorist organization’s resumption of further activities in Syria, especially in the light of the current circumstances, this country is witnessing, ranging from an unprecedented economic crisis to tensions and military escalations between the different parties, particularly the United States and Iran in the countryside of Deir-er-Zoor and the Syrian desert, considered one of the most crucial areas where ISIS cells are operating in.

Evolving into a war of attrition

The Islamic Movement Researcher Hassan Abu Haniyya says in his statements to the Target Media Platform the following: „The terrorist organization, after being defeated and losing its last enclose in Baghouz, has evolved from field control to a war of attribution and guerrilla warfare as well as into a flexible organization operating in a decentralized manner. Therefore, the terrorist organization became much more powerful in Iraq and Syria whereby estimations of the United Nations indicate that ISIS contains more than nearly 7000 fighters and some reports also indicate that the number might be even higher.

They further mention there is a sort of recovery for the organization so that it intensified its attacks step by step as we witnessed in the past couple of days numerous attacks on Regime Forces in the countryside of Deir-er-Zoor and Raqqa. These attacks even reached the center of Damascus in the neighborhood of Zaynab’s grave.

Thus, the organization now still has the “attractiveness” of ideology and is able to recruit new members, as there are sufficient funds and the organizational structure is coherent despite the killing of a number of its leaders, but it is still able to continue and work in a decentralized manner and its cells are not greatly affected, in addition to its spread in Africa and Southeast Asia, known as “Wilayat Khurasan,” meaning Afghanistan.

Objective conditions fuel the return of the organization

Abu Haniyya further adds: „The organization’s ability to recover is possible if we rely on the root conditions and reasons for its emergence, in terms of issues of slowing down reconstruction in Iraq. Plus, there are sectarian issues, in addition to traditional causes such as poverty, unemployment and political divisions, but things in Syria are more complex as there is no political solution and the SDF forces and the US forces control the east of the country. Meanwhile, the “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” controls the northwest of the country, along with the so-called “National Army” affiliated with Turkey, the Iranian militias, the regime forces and Russia, not to mention the geopolitical tensions and the absence of any political solution; in addition to the economic conditions, such as poverty, unemployment, and local indignation, in as well as the lack of focus of the international coalition in light of other American preoccupations such as competition with China and Russia and internal issues, and Russia’s preoccupation with the Ukraine war, all of which contributed to the transformation of the organization’s pattern from centralization to decentralization, and from direct military war and control to gang wars”.

International warning of the return of ISIS

This comes at a time when United Nations experts warned, in a report submitted to the UN Security Council, of the danger of the return of the terrorist organization ISIS in Syria and Iraq, stressing that the organization still maintains between 5 and 7 thousand members in the two countries, and that the threat posed by it remained very high. , despite the losses it suffered, the decline in its activity, and its military elimination in 2019.

The report of the UN experts said that ISIS has adapted its strategy and merged with the local population, and exercised caution in choosing battles that are expected to lead to heavy losses. More than ten thousand members of the organization are in prisons in northern and eastern Syria, along with tens of thousands of families of its members in the “Al-Hol and Roj” camps in the region, in which many cells of the organization are spread.

According to the Islamic movements researcher, Hassan Abu Haniyya, “the organization is still “frugal” and does not use suicidal and immersive tactics and large-scale attacks, but instead, restricts itself to preserving its structure and having a proven ability to communicate, and therefore until now the organization has the ability to recover, and this always depends on objective conditions and reasons, because its strength is not only subjective, but rather its ability to adapt and exploit crises“.

It is noteworthy that the organization’s current movements come in conjunction with rapid developments in the Syrian arena politically, economically and militarily, most notably the military escalation in northern Syria between the Turkish occupation and the Damascus government forces, and the worsening and unprecedented living crisis in the country and its repercussions on all fields, in addition to the slowdown in the path of normalization with Damascus by all parties, especially the Arab ones, thus fading hopes that this track could contribute to finding a political solution to the crisis and the consequent ending of the security chaos in the country and the elimination of terrorist organizations.