IS’ Strategy in Iraq and Syria: From ‘Remain and Expand’ to ‘Adapt and Evolve’ by The Cipher Brief Analysis
From ‘Remain and Expand’ to ‘Adapt and Evolve’
- Small pockets of Islamic State fighters have regrouped throughout parts of Iraq and Syria.
- Jihadists are becoming more brazen, executing coordinated attacks on security services and oil fields.
- The Islamic State’s remaining war chest could prove to be sufficient for the group to fund its resurgence.
- Engineering a comeback is part of the group’s current strategy of resting, rearming, and recuperating.
With the renewed vigor of the so-called Islamic State in areas north and west of Baghdad, a residual American military presence in Iraq is necessary to keep the terrorist group from staging a comeback in areas previously considered ‘liberated.’ What is quietly happening across parts of Iraq is less of a resurgence, and more a resurfacing, of the Islamic State. Many of these fighters never actually left, but merely scattered temporarily, having melted away into the population only to return. Intent on forming clandestine cells of fighters to cobble together a covert resistance, militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) have husbanded resources and launched sporadic attacks against local security services. Reporting from early 2019 indicated that a group of several hundred Islamic State fighters known as the ‘White Flags’ has sought safe haven and sanctuary in the Hamreen Mountains of northern Iraq. More broadly, the Defense Department recently estimated there could be more than 30,000 ISIS fighters remaining across Iraq and Syria combined…