ISIS has regrouped in the Syrian desert, its fighters hiding in caves

ISIS, the Islamic terrorist group that was defeated two years ago and lost the caliphate it built between Syria and Iraq, regrouped and went on the offensive in both countries. On the Syrian side, he controls five enclaves, one near the biblical city of Hama and four around the ruins of Palmyra. Since the start of this 2021, from there have come orders that have executed 66 attacks against the Kurds of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which are supported by the West. They killed 50 and wounded dozens, according to the local agency North Press. And according to a statement from SDF commanders released last Tuesday, on the second anniversary of the fall of the city of Raqqa, the last territory controlled by the Islamic State, the situation “is more dangerous today than before because (the commandos) do not fight directly, but they do it with rapid blows and disappear in the desert ”.

The vast Syrian desert, which borders the blurred Iraqi border, has become a key haven for ISIS operatives and a springboard for attacks, the UN said. The group is “Build and preserve a cellular structure allowing it to carry out terrorist attacks”, General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US Central Command that oversees troops deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, reported last month.

They also maintain “liberated” areas across the border in Iraq, where they have been severely attacked in recent days when US-led coalition bombers carried out a major offensive against the state. Islamic in the north of this country. They were 133 airstrikes in 10 days against a cave complex that served as a refuge for terrorists. The offensive, in support of the Iraqi land forces, destroyed 61 hiding places, 24 caves and eliminated “an unknown number of terrorists”, said Col. Wayne Marotto, spokesperson for the Joint Task Force.

In October 2019, a U.S. drone strike in Syria killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and several other commanders. Immediately Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawlaque took command, who is the one who ordered the fighters to take refuge in caves, the same technique used at the time by the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan.

“The fall of the last ISIS territory in northeastern Syria did not mean total defeat,” the SDF said. “They are in the desert and have great discipline to survive and launch sporadic attacks,” he warned. Despite this, Kurdish authorities, local tribal leaders and members of the US-led coalition that drove ISIS from its Syrian stronghold on Tuesday celebrated the anniversary of ISIS’s defeat in 2019. with a military parade on the ground. The Al-Omar oil company, protected by the United States, in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Those in attendance held up Self-Defense Forces banners to commemorate the anniversary, as well as posters with photos of fighters killed during years of fighting against the jihadists. The fighters, in fajina costume, marched in what represented a show of force. The Kurdish fighters joined the Iraqi Arab forces to form the alliance of the United States-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2015. It was they who led the offensive against ISIS and in 2017 drove the fighters from Raqqa, the capital of the caliphate.

ISIS’s defeat in the eastern riverside village of Baghouz marked the end of the cross-border “caliphate” declared in the bands of Iraq and Syria. But two years later, the Islamic State (IS) showed that you don’t need to dominate a very large territory to be a powerful threatand jihadists regularly carry out attacks and ambushes, including planting roadside bombs and machine gun vehicles. At the same time, they are recruiting new fighters from among the tens of thousands of ISIS relatives detained in IDP camps. ISIS maintains some 10,000 active fighters in Syria and IraqAlthough most are in Iraq, according to a latest United Nations report.

There are also the tens of thousands of jihadists in Kurdish prisons and their relatives allegedly detained in camps for internally displaced persons have become an extremist powder keg. Attacks are also reportedly underway from these camps. The Kurds of Syria holds nearly 43,000 foreigners with links to jihadist group in prisons and informal IDP camps, according to an analysis by Human Rights Watch. Among them are 27,500 children, including at least 300 in miserable prisons, while the rest remain in rehabilitation centers or closed camps.

The Kurdish SDF reiterated its call on countries to press for repatriations and to create international tribunals to prosecute detainees accused of being jihadists. The largest of the camps where prominent ISIS fighters are located is that of Al Hol, in the Syrian desert. There they meet 62,000 people, mostly women and children, including Syrians, Iraqis and thousands of Europeans and Asians accused of having family links with the fighters. In the report released last month, the UN said it had documented cases of “radicalization, fundraising, training and incitement to operations outside” Al-Hol. He also warned of the fate of some 7,000 children who live in a special annex reserved for foreign parents. And this is where they train “the puppies”, those who will soon be new fighters in the jihadist ranks.

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