Islamic ideology workforce still a risk, 10 years after its peak

It has been exactly 10 years since the self-styled Islamic Group (IS) group declared its caliphate, which its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi launched days later from the Nuri Mosque in Mosul.

The gang, often known as ISIS or Daesh in Arabic, took over parts of Syria and Iraq, imposing its nefarious version of Sharia (Islamic law), carrying out brutal punishments and killings, followed by videos online. Posted.

Over the following five years, IS was able to attract thousands of would-be jihadists from across the region to what it promised would be an imaginary Islamic caliphate. The truth is that for a year there was a reign of ultimate violence: severed heads caught on the railings of the city square, constant harassment through “morality police” patrols and regular bombing raids by the US-led coalition.

That coalition, numbering more than 70 countries, finally drove IS from its largest haven in Baghuz in eastern Syria in 2019. There was no physical caliphate, but the ideology remained.

So what has happened to IS these days?

A senior Whitehall official in London described the gang’s situation as “down but not out”. Its core control remains in Syria, but IS has expanded its franchise across several continents.

Most of the attacks carried out in its name are now in sub-Saharan Africa. In Europe and the Middle East, its most dangerous region is considered IS-Khorasan province, which has been largely blamed for this week’s casualty attacks in Moscow and Kerman, Iran.

IS-Khorasan Province or ISKP is based entirely in Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan, from where it is waging an insurgency against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban.

This may seem strange, since the Taliban have imposed their own, ultimate model of Sharia, banning women from jobs or even proper education, with penalties ranging from stoning to death. Has started. But the Taliban and IS are fierce competitors – and in the two decades since the insurgency, the Taliban are actually finding themselves hunters turned gamekeepers.

When IS had a physical base – its caliphate in Syria and Iraq – it was able to attract recruits for whom it was easy to fly to Turkey, catch a bus to the border and then smuggle them into Syria.

Those recruits generally had no military experience or any real understanding of the civil war tearing Syria apart. Many had backgrounds in petty crime and drug use back home. They included four men from west London who were nicknamed The Beatles because of their captors, who used to protect and torture Western aid workers and newshounds.

One was recently released and the others are in prison, with two now serving year-long sentences in an American supermax prison.

But IS is still instigating attacks through its online media. The two primary reasons for this at this time are the demand for revenge for Israel’s nine-month-long attack on Gaza and the imprisonment of IS women and children in grim, blown-up camps in northern Syria.

Like al-Qaeda, which no longer exists, IS thrives on blame, depression and weak governance through no means.

In some parts of Africa, all three are major powers. In recent times, successful military coups have all led to major instability in the international locations of the Sahel belt – particularly Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

French, American and EU troops who were helping local governments ward off jihadist threats have now been driven out or replaced, not always effectively, largely by Russian mercenaries. .

IS now has 5 branches in Africa, which it refers to as wilayats (provinces), spread across West Africa, the Poole Chad department, the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Mozambique.

Here, too, IS is in direct conflict with – and continues to disagree with – al-Qaeda. IS claims that it is increasing surveillance on each of its operations and the boxes under them. It undoubtedly appears to be more agile than the governments it is fighting, constantly carrying out vicious raids and ambushes that destroy ranking soldiers or villagers in remote locations.

Africa is no longer the geographic magnet for global jihadists that Syria was 10 years ago. There is no pipeline of volunteers the way there was to the Turkish-Syrian border or, before that, to the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. However, the IS franchise still has substantial recruits, mostly young, native men, given the almost overall inadequacy of options in other locations.

Small, local but extremely violent conflicts in Africa may be taking place thousands of miles from Europe’s shores, but as jihadist alarm increases, it will inevitably drive more migrants from Africa to seek a safer year in Europe.

At the peak of its strength, in the mid-2010s, IS was capable of carrying out impressive, mass-casualty attacks in Europe, such as the 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris that killed 130 militants.

The killers were trained and dispatched from Syria, crossing multiple borders with impunity and having no trouble accessing powerful computerized guns such as Kalashnikovs from the Balkans.

Since the next and subsequent diverse attacks in towns across Europe, considerable progress has been made in intelligence sharing between police forces and security businesses. UK officials now believe that it would be much more difficult – though no longer unimaginable – for IS or al-Qaeda to carry out a highly planned and coordinated attack like the 2005 London bombings or the 2015 Bataclan.

In turn, they worry most about solo operators: self-motivated extremists and sociopaths who become radicalized through online jihadist propaganda.

In the United Kingdom, most counterterrorism work conducted through the security vehicle, MI5, is still directed against plots inspired by IS or al-Qaeda. Europe still remains their center of attraction – and the attack on Moscow’s Crocus Town corridor in March 2024, which killed more than 140 attackers, shows that IS can seize the opportunity to attack the enemy if unbalanced. In case through fighting in Ukraine.

IS’s online media output is not as intense as it used to be when it had a physical caliphate, yet it is still able to engage talented realist designers and internet designers to spread its message of hate and incitement. Revenge.

One of its new videos shows a highly lifelike AI-generated avatar of an Arabic-speaking newsreader, delivering his message but without the possibility of the speaker’s identity being made clear.

The possibility of identification has threatened IS control since the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. Without a persistent, charismatic online presence – as was done in the past by the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Enumbard. – Management risks viewing its fans as unfair, distant and disconnected.

Alternatively, counterbalanced by this is the trim lifespan of jihadi leaders. When they travel to the community, they are likely to have their whereabouts known through digital surveillance and interception or through human informants from within their own ranks.

Almost nothing is understood regarding the flow chief of IS.