Ascension and fall of the "caliphate" of the Islamic State: what is your new terrorist strategy

For years, the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has attracted the attention of the entire world his quick conquest, his desire to found a new state in the Middle East and his unprecedented brutality, united to a certain taste for the mbadive communication of his actions through his agency QAMA.

Moreover, because he managed to cross the borders of his so-called "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq and launching bloody terrorist attacks in Europe and around the world, eclipsing even Al Qaeda.

At the moment of its greatest expansion, in 2014, ISIS came to control an area of ​​100,000 square kilometers populated by 12 million people inside the borders of Syria and Iraq, according to the estimates of the company RAND. A bigger and more populated space than Ireland o L & # 39; Austria, just to give an example.

Infographic: Marcelo Regalado

In this "caliphate"As his leader Abu Bkr al Baghdadi called him from Mosul in reference to the medieval Islamic states, they levied taxes, recruited troops and provided basic services; members of different minorities were persecuted, the strictest Islamic law was imposed and the grotesque executions of their enemies filmed (like that of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh, burned alive), designed for the indignant consumption of his opponents and the recruitment of Sunni extremists around the world; and continued to extract and sell oil from Syrian wells, the main source of financing.

The reconquest led by the armed forces in Iraq and the micilias opposition of Syrian Democratic Forcess (SDF, in English) and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria began shortly thereafter. In 2017, the group lost control of the territory in Iraq.

And Saturday the SDF, supported by the international coalition led by the United States, announced the fall of Al Baghouz, the last Syrian village held by the Islamic State, although they also warned that the physical fall of the "caliphate" was not the end of the terrorist group. "The fight against violent extremism is far from over"said US Lieutenant General Paul LaCamera, commander-in-chief of the Joint Task Force of the Operation Inherent Resolution (Inherent resolution)

As a result, the end of the so-called "caliphate" has been proclaimed, although the truth is that many factions that swore loyalty to ISIS and controlled small portions of territory in Egypt, Afghanistan, Libya and Nigeria are still active and have to face the end of the central project of a Islamic StateAt the same time, the group's ability to launch terrorist attacks since the clandestine period, particularly in Syria and Iraq, remains a threat.

"Losing the territory One of the central elements of his speech is lost. It is hard to convince anyone that it is by divine will that we act, while so much has been lost, "said badyst Paulo Botta, researcher at the ### 39, Institut fog Global Studies, in dialogue with Infobae. "From the point of view of internal rhetoric, it is very difficult. If in 2014, they said that fast growth was a divine sign, what could they say now?? "he added.

In the same vein, the coordinator of the Eurasia Department of the Institute of International Relations of the National University of Silver pointed out that "from the political point of view, having no base where to obtain the resources considerably reduces their capacities ".

"But the danger of terrorism remains and is real, that's the big problem that ISIS is today, it ceased to be a group with territorial control and terrorist methodology, to be a group without territory and the same methodology "he thought. "This does not raise less complicated questions.What will become of the fighters, they will return to their territories of origin? ", he added.

This situation became particularly important during the last fighting, when the fighters of the Islamic State started to stop fighting until death and to go by the hundreds, with their families and their children. In addition, many of them are foreigners from other countries in the Middle East and Europe, and their repatriation and prosecution have become a problem, while a return without consequences for civilian life can lead to future extremism.

Thomas Joscelyn, researcher at the center thinking group American Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, for whom the loss of territory "This helped discredit, to some extent, the idea of ​​a caliphate." "But ISIS continues to have resources and a significant footprint in Iraq and Syriaalthough I'm not saying it will reach its peak again, "he told the agency. AP.

Columbia University Professor of International Relations, Stephen Biddle, on the other hand, There is a good chance that ISIS persists as a group of insurgents and that its intensity even increases.

"If the situation gets worse, and is most likely, I suspect that in the future we will look back at the time of the fall of the Caliphate and that the celebrations will be considered as another example of a close and short-term reading of the situation.", said the expert to journalist Robert Burns in a recent article

From the war in Iraq and al-Qaeda to the "caliphate"

The origins of ISIS return to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the international coalition led by the United States, which quickly ended the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the control of Sunnis in the country.

Immediately after starting an insurgency campaign against US troops but also against the new government controlled by members of the country's Shiite majority, and soon Iraq has entered a whirlwind of chaos and violence.

Among the many militias and terrorist groups that emerged during these years was the one founded by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, which became in 2004 Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) after swearing allegiance to the organization led by Osama bin Laden, how he rebuilds RAND.

Zarqawi died in 2006 in an American operation and the group lost strength. But in 2011, When US troops withdrew from the country and a civil war broke out in Syria between the Al Assad regime and various opposition militias, AQI was reconquered under the figure of its new chief: Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

We do not know for sure about the life of this Sunni and Salafist cleric, alleged doctor in Islamic studies at Baghdad University who has been keeping a low profile during the years of Saddam Hussein and would have become radicalized shortly before the 2003 invasion.

In 2004, when he held a religious post at AQI, he was arrested by American troops and sent to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, where he was considered a low-level activist and was later released.

In 2011, Al Baghdadi led a new campaign of insurgents and terrorists against the Shiite leaders in Baghdad and consolidated his power over the group in 2013, when he began to call the Islamic State in Iraq.

A year later, his organization broke off relations with Al Qaeda, claiming leadership of the world Salafist movement, and renaming himself Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, following which he launchedA blitz against various cities in Syria and Iraq, taking advantage of the chaos and insurgency that affected both countries.

Syrian troops, concentrated on other fronts of the civil war, and Iraqi troops who, because of rivalries between Sunitas and Shiites, did not want to fight, simply withdrew before the advance of the war. ISE fighters, who managed to capture Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in Syria, and Hawijah and Mosul in Iraq, among many other places.

In the case of Mosul, fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters aboard civilian vans captured the second largest city in the country before the departure of Iraqi forces, far superior in number and far better equipped. As the American General Lloyd Austin, former commander of the operation Inherent Resolve, emphasized at the time, Sunni army troops were simply not willing to fight for the Shia government.

The victory was seen by ISIS activists as possible thanks to divine interventionFrom the Great Mosque of Al Nuri to Mosul, Al Baghdadi proclaimed in July 2014 the founding of the "Caliphate" and his ascension as "Caliph Ibrahim", and demanded the obedience of all Muslims from world.

The fall of cities

In 2015, while its members were trying to consolidate their territorial conquests, ISIS has claimed responsibility for many terrorist attacks in different parts of the world, between Turkey, Tunisia and France, as well as the demolition of a plane filled with Russian tourists to Egypt.

The terrorist campaign, which seemed global, and the brutality of the group against the enemy militants and civilians on their territories, they generated a wave of repudiation around the world and international actions intensified. Operation Inherent Resolve of the US-led coalition launched in 2014, it increased in 2015 and allowed Kurdish militias to avoid the fall of Kobane, in northern Syria, and the Iraqi armed forces to resume the initiative.

Y Russia, for its part, intervened in 2015 in the Syrian civil war to support the regime of Al Assad and launched an air campaign against the targets of the Islamic State, among other active factions in the country.

After a reorganization and training process, special units of the Iraqi army, led by Iranian-linked Shiite militias eager to confront the Sunni ISIS group, were launched. in 2016, a siege on Mosul, the symbolic capital of the "caliphate", and with the help of international coalition aviation, they finally resumed it in 2017 after long and fierce fights. The same year, other smaller cities also fell, including Hawijah, and by the end of the year, the last redoubt had been released.

In Syria, crossed by a multitude of factions and interests in a civil war that continues, the operations took a little longer but in 2017, the SDF released Raqqa, capital of the "califto" in Syria, and the Syrian regime did the same to Deir Ezzor.

For much of 2018 ISIS is rooted in a handful of villages on the Euphrates River and on the border with Iraq, while the SDFs were recovering from previous fights and "cleansing" the jihadists in the liberated territories, and that the forces of Damascus were turning their attention to the province of Idlib, in the hands of the opposition forces and to A loyal faction to al Qaeda and very close to the presence of Turkey in northern Syria.

But towards the end of the year Kurdish troops and the coalition have resumed the last impetus on the last strongholds of the Islamic State, and in March of this year, they finally captured Al Baghouz, the last village.

Can ISIS then come back to function as an insurgent and terrorist group, as in the beginning of al Qaeda in Iraq?

For Botta, and although the threat is real, it should be noted that both at the beginning of the group and during the emergence of ISIS "no one could claim territorial control, but it no longer exists because the Syrian state, the Iraqis and the Kurds have become stronger, so it will be very difficult. "

Especially in Syria, the debate already seems to be diverted from the role of the Islamic State in the regional issue. "The end of the" caliphate "is going to be a big boost for the Syrian government. But today 's debate for Syria is how to become a moderately autonomous country again if it depends on the help of Russia, Iran and Turkey, and that Damascus must negotiate with Israelis and Kurds ", concluded the Argentine badyst.