Islamic State (IS) militants, routed from one urban stronghold after another in Syria, have recently been moving deeper into Syria’s remote desert, where experts say they are regrouping and preparing their next incarnation.
The militants’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” with its contiguous stretch of land — linking major cities such as Syria’s Raqqa and Iraq’s Mosul — might have been vanquished, but many agree the territorial defeat will not mark the end of the IS.
Beyond the urban and inhabited areas lies the vast Syrian Desert, also known as Badiyat al-Sham, famous for its caves and rugged mountains. It encompasses about 500,000km2 across parts of southeastern Syria, northeastern Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and western Iraq.
Photo: AFP
The desolate landscape is a perfect hideout and a second home for many IS militants from the days before the birth of their caliphate.
Experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to mount search operations — and even more to put the desert under permanent control.
Once they melt into the desert, without an army of tens of thousands of supporters from dozens of countries, IS militants are likely to resort to guerrilla-style attacks: scattered hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings.
“They love fighting battles in the desert and they will go back to the old ways,” said Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based opposition activist originally from Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which lies in the heart of Badiyat al-Sham.
IS leaders appear to have made contingency plans that involve precisely this — regrouping in the desert and launching attacks, much like the IS’ predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, did for more than a decade after the US-led 2003 invasion.
Some of those plans are already on display. In the eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen, a former IS stronghold, the militants pulled back and disappeared into the desert after only a few days of battle with Syrian government forces earlier this month.
Brett McGurk, the top US envoy for the anti-IS coalition, said the militant group is now down to the last 10 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria.
The group still maintains some appeal for Sunnis, who complain of discrimination by Iraq’s Shiite-led government and by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The IS would also look to buy time and benefit from political and other conflicts — such as this month’s clashes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces following the Kurdish independence referendum.
That fighting has already diverted resources from the war on the IS, the top US general in Iraq, Lieutenant General Paul Funk told reporters last week.
A similar dynamic threatens recent gains in Syria. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Russia-backed government troops have been the most effective in the fight against the IS, but are now waging parallel offensives in Deir el-Zour that could bring them into conflict with one another.
US General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the SDF’s liberation of Raqqa an “inflection point” in the fight against the IS, but said that the coalition needs to stay focused.
“ISIS is on their heels right now and our job is to make sure they don’t recover,” Dunford said, using another acronym for the group.
Experts say that will be difficult.
Dana Jalal, a Sweden-based Iraqi journalist who closely follows extremist groups in the Middle East, said the IS “will become an underground terrorist organization.”
“The lone wolf has nothing to lose. They have nothing to defend now,” Jalal said.
The IS will again “find a supporting base in Sunni Iraq,” where discontent with the Shiite-led government runs high, said Mutlu Civiroglu, a Washington-based Kurdish affairs analyst who follows the battle against the IS.
After losing ground in Syria and Iraq, the IS is likely to try to increase its presence in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, North Africa and elsewhere.
That the IS “carried out or inspired attacks in around 30 countries worldwide shows its global reach,” he added.
“The angry, disfranchised base that the group exploited is still there, so getting rid of the caliphate will not mean getting rid of the threat this group poses,” Civiroglu said.
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