ISIS Isn't Dead Yet. In Fact, They're Planning Attacks on the West. By Robert G. Rabil - The National Interest
The battle for the Syrian Idlib province has begun, and its ramifications for U.S. national security are critical. Bordered by Turkey in the north, the Assad regime in the south, and the U.S.-supported Kurds in the northeast, Idlib province, whose airspace is controlled by the Russians, is the last rebel-held and contested area in Syria. Turkey, Russia and Iran have been holding senior level meetings to prevent another tragedy affecting more than 2 million Syrians. An estimated 100,000 or more rebels, including a majority of Salafi-jihadis, have entrenched their military presence in Idlib. Led by al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and ISIS, these Salafi-jihadis have launched a concerted propaganda campaign to terrorize the West—especially the United States—into panic, mayhem and grief. The Trump administration should disabuse itself of the belief that ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq have been defeated. Evidently, al-Qaeda affiliate Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, ISIS and other Salafi-jihadi organizations are not only preparing to defend their terror haven but also to foster wide-scale terror attacks on the West.
In the last few weeks, ISIS and al-Qaeda have joined hands to incite Muslims, especially in the West, to carry out terror attacks, including using unconventional weapons, on vital Western interests. On July 20, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Telegram channel "Distance of Month's Journey Media" published a book titled Jihad Without Borders—Attacks in the West from an Islamic Perspective. The sixty-eight-page book, underscoring controversial Islamic sources, justified jihad in the West as part of the indisputable concept of what Salafi-jihadis consider “jihad without borders.” The author Abdullah Ash-Shaybani tried to discredit the mainstream Islamic concept of jihad as a means of self-defense…