After Stinging Defeats, IS Revamps To Survive by Ammar Karim – AFP
Four years after announcing its cross-border "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria, a stinging string of defeats has pushed the Islamic State jihadist group to reorganise and change strategy to survive.
Having lost all urban centres under its control in Iraq and pinned down to its last desert holdouts in Syria, IS has changed its administrative structure and shifted its focus away from operating the state-like apparatus it once ran.
IS will have to find "a new way of doing things, especially to recruit after heavy losses", an Iraqi security official, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP.
At its peak, the self-proclaimed caliphate included 35 "wilaya" (provinces) mostly set within a swathe of territory spanning either side of the border between Syria and Iraq.
But following major military defeats -- including the jihadists' loss of their de facto capitals of Raqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq -- IS propaganda outlets now only mention six "wilaya".
Former IS provinces like Mosul, Raqa and Kirkuk -- an oil-rich province in Iraq -- no longer exist…