US battles ISIS resurgence in Syria as jihadists try to regroup

America has stepped up its battle towards ISIS in Syria, in search of to stop the group from exploiting the facility vacuum after the rebels toppled the Assad regime, launching a few of its heaviest airstrikes towards jihadists for years.

Over the previous two weeks, U.S. forces have struck greater than 75 Isis targets in two waves of assaults concentrating on jihadist leaders and camps within the Fractured Arab state. They killed no less than 12 militants and bombarded areas beforehand managed by regime forces and Russia, a significant overseas backer of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

Basic Michael Kurilla, head of US Central Command, additionally traveled to northeastern Syria to satisfy with US troops and the Syrian Democratic Forces, Washington’s most important native ally within the battle towards ISIS.

The wave of navy exercise, which started just a few hours after Assad fled to Moscow as rebels seized Damascus on Dec. 8, underlines U.S. fears that ISIS will use the vacuum created by the regime’s spectacular collapse to reconstitute itself.

“The most important danger I see is that ISIS will come again as a result of ISIS needs to reap the benefits of any vacuum or instability in Syria following a civil struggle,” the US nationwide safety adviser mentioned on Thursday. , Jake Sullivan.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” he added. “It is a actual risk: the specter of the return of jihadism and terrorism to Syria, due to what occurred. And it’s as much as us, in addition to all of the inhabitants of the area, to react firmly on this topic.

Syria was as soon as a part of ISIS’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” and is dwelling to a number of thousand jihadist fighters, prisons for captured militants, and camps housing greater than 40,000 people and relations linked to ISIS.

Worldwide coalitions have considerably weakened IS for the reason that jihadists launched a blitzkrieg assault in Iraq and Syria a decade in the past and seized a swathe of territory the scale of Britain. The group was pushed from its final territorial strongholds in 2019 and now operates inside a community of cells, in addition to via branches in Asia and Africa.

Centcom estimated in July that there have been 2,500 IS fighters in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, they’ve been largely restricted to pockets of desert within the heart and east, between territories managed by the previous regime and the U.S.-backed SDF dominated by Kurdish militants.

However the group has been extra lively this yr. Centcom mentioned the jihadists had claimed 153 assaults within the first half of the yr and have been “on monitor to greater than double” the 2023 complete, indicating that “IS is attempting to rebuild itself.”

Charles Lister of the Center East Institute mentioned in a report that “the fact is far worse” than the Centcom assertion suggests, as a result of Isis claims solely a fraction of its assaults in Syria and Iraq.

He added that ISIS has carried out extra advanced assaults this yr, together with coordinated ambushes, focused assassinations and assaults on oil and gasoline amenities, in addition to checkpoints.

The battle towards ISIS now dangers changing into extra advanced and precarious after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the insurgent offensive that toppled Assad, with an alphabet soup of native factions and overseas powers seeing a window to pursue their very own pursuits.

Turkey, the most influential foreign actor in post-Assad Syria, mentioned his “strategic goal” was to get rid of the Kurdish militant motion that dominates the SDF, which he sees as an extension of Kurdish separatists who’ve been combating the Turkish state for many years.

Ankara has deployed 1000’s of troops in northern Syria to push again Kurdish militants and help rebels below the umbrella of the Syrian Nationwide Military. The SNA, which coordinated with the HTS throughout its offensive, took benefit of the chaos to assault FDS territory.

That leaves america, which has about 900 troops in Syria, attempting to maintain the peace between a NATO ally and the Syrian power it has armed and educated to battle jihadists.

Specialists say there can be a big danger if Turkish-backed rebels attacked the SDF in Hasakah in northeast Syria, the place the Kurdish-led group runs detention facilities for round 9,000 prisoners of struggle. IS, together with overseas jihadists.

In September, Kurilla described the prisons as “a military of Isis in custody, actually and figuratively”, warning that if giant numbers of militants escaped “it will pose an excessive hazard to the area and past.” past.”

Stopping escapes from prisons holding ISIS fighters is “in all probability one of the vital essential issues going ahead to ensure every little thing is steady,” mentioned Aaron Zelin, a jihadism skilled on the Washington Institute assume tank. .

However, he added, “if america ensures that nothing like this occurs,” the ISIS risk will be managed via U.S. airstrikes and floor operations.

Specialists mentioned it will be within the curiosity of HTS, the nation’s de facto rulers, to help the marketing campaign towards ISIS.

HTS chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani briefly fought alongside ISIS in Iraq greater than a decade in the past, however has since spent years combating the group. He sought to painting HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, as a extra average power.

“HTS and Isis have been at loggerheads for 11 and a half years, they hate one another,” Zelin mentioned.

Jerome Drevon, an skilled on the Disaster Group assume tank, mentioned stopping a resurgence of ISIS can be important to HTS’s efforts to challenge stability and acquire legitimacy with worldwide powers.

America, the United Nations and others have designated the group and Jolani, who started utilizing his delivery identify Ahmed al-Sharea, as terrorists. However Washington and different Western powers have begun speaking with HTS in hopes of supporting a peaceable transition in Syria, with counterterrorism a precedence.

Specialists say HTS’s efforts to achieve Western help imply it is usually extra more likely to need a cope with the SDF, which has tens of 1000’s of fighters, than a battle.

“HTS needs legitimacy, and the best strategy to get it’s to say we will battle terrorism collectively,” Drevon mentioned. “They aren’t searching for a battle with[the SDF]. . . They’re not going to upset an American ally.”

One other variable can be how Donald Trump approaches Syria and the deployment of American troops to the nation after he takes workplace in January.

Throughout his first time period, Trump threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, sparking a backlash at dwelling and overseas, then appeared to greenlight a Turkish offensive towards the SDF. He reiterated this month that america “ought to don’t have anything to do” with Syria.

However Daniel Byman, director of the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, mentioned Trump’s unpredictability makes it troublesome to anticipate his subsequent steps.

“The president has been in every single place on this subject,” he mentioned. “He seems to favor an elevated position for Turkey, however after saying he had 4 years in the past to withdraw america from Syria, he has not accomplished so.”

Extra reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington

Mapping by Steven Bernard and knowledge visualization by Aditi Bhandari