The victory is to be credited to the first Trump administration. At the end of March 2019, the last Syrian stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) fell, in Baghouz, on the banks of the Euphrates. “I am pleased to announce that with our international coalition partners […]including the Iraqi security forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the United States has liberated all the territories controlled by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, 100% of the caliphate,” the Republican president then welcomed. He is nevertheless cautious: “We will remain vigilant […] until the organization is defeated, wherever it may be.”
Six years later, ISIS has still not been defeated. Worse, the terrorist group is talking about itself again, on United States soil itself. And all about twenty days before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, probably not expecting to find such a file on his desk. In the middle of New Year’s Eve, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old former soldier, born in Texas, drove his pickup truck into the festive crowd in the historic center of New Orleans, killing at least 15 people and several dozen injured. Before the attack, he published videos in which he said he was inspired by the Islamic State, whose flag he had in his vehicle.
The attack confirms the re-emergence last year of IS as an international threat. On January 3, 2024, nearly a hundred people were killed in Kerman, Iran, during a tribute to General Qassem Soleimani (eliminated by an American drone in 2020), by two men equipped with explosive belts. The attack was claimed by ISIS and attributed to its Central Asian branch (Islamic State – Khorasan Province), as was that, on March 22, of the Crocus City Hall concert hall, in Moscow. That day, four people attacked spectators with automatic weapons, before setting fire to the building, killing 145 people and injuring hundreds. Then in July, ISIS also claimed responsibility for its first attack in Oman with the assassination of six people in a Shiite mosque.
Added to this is an increase in plans for jihadist attacks in the West. Several were thwarted by the security services in France during the year – two 18-year-old people were arrested at the end of July after the creation of a group on social networks to recruit Daesh supporters ( IS in Arabic) ready to carry out an attack during the Olympic Games. In the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland and elsewhere on the continent, dozens of suspects have been arrested for possessing or spreading IS propaganda, their membership or support for the organization, see for planned attacks, such as the one targeting, in Austria, a concert by the American singer Taylor Swift.
This resurgence was also evident in the United States even before the attack in New Orleans, as researcher Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute recalls. “Of the 14 arrests linked to ISIS in the United States in 2024, five were for planned attacks, he specifies on the reference site that he foundedJihadology. They targeted churches in Idaho, LGBTQ establishments in Philadelphia, synagogues and Jewish centers in New York, election day polling places in Oklahoma City and a gay pride in Phoenix.” He also notes, in a column published in Julythat “Turkey has become an epicenter of ISIS attack plans, with the country having recorded [en 2023] highest number of ISIS-related arrests in the world.
IS consolidates in Africa
Most of this violence and planned attacks appear to be the work of people guided, via the Internet, by members of the Islamic State, or by individuals “inspired” by Internet propaganda translated into many languages. “The attacks come from different branches of ISIS with which the link is made online, via operational instructions,” notes Lucas Webber, analyst at the Tech Against Terrorism platform. ISIS thus shows its determination to strike the West and in particular the United States, seen as a powerful and influential actor in the regions where ISIS operates, with the message that despite the end of their territory in Iraq and Syria, they have the capacity to take revenge .”
These guided attacks come at a time when several countries are unable to eradicate the branches of ISIS thriving on their soil. EI-Khorasan is the security priority of the Taliban, victims of their attacks in Afghanistan. The trend is towards a shift in the organization’s center of gravity towards the south and in particular towards Africa, where ISIS is consolidating its operations. “Several fronts have developed: a Sahelian front of 2,000 to 3,000 fighters, according to the UN, a front around Lake Chad of 4,000 to 7,000 people, another in Somalia with a few hundred armed men, including foreigners, underlines Marc Hecker, deputy director of IFRI and co-author of The Twenty Years’ War: Jihadism and Counterterrorism in the 21st Century (Robert Laffont, 2021) with Elie Tenenbaum. But for the moment this threat seems rather regional, with no capacity to export to Europe.”
Since the recent fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, concern has focused on the possible resurgence of a sanctuary from the Syrian desert. On December 31, France carried out, for the first time in more than two years, strikes on two IS positions in this region, in line with dozens of bombings carried out at the beginning of the month by the United States on other sites of the terrorist group. Despite the end of the caliphate, ISIS remains active in the region. Added to this is the risk represented by the thousands of its fighters detained, with their families, in camps and prisons under the responsibility of Kurdish groups in Syria, in the sights of Turkish power.
This rise in jihadist power comes at a time when this threat is no longer the priority of the White House. A strategic cycle has closed, begun by the September 11 attacks and completed, in a certain way, with the withdrawal from Afghanistan for the benefit of the Taliban. For Washington, China is now the main strategic priority, followed by Russia. “There are fewer resources than before devoted to counter-terrorism, notes Lucas Webber. But actors like ISIS or Al-Qaeda will persevere in their desire to attack, we must therefore maintain significant vigilance, by focusing in particular on online activities and the footprints left there by jihadists, to hinder them.”
Donald Trump could decide that the fight against terrorism must focus more on Islamists and less on the threat from the far right (highlighted by the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2020 by supporters of the Republican leader). In any case, it seems unlikely that the new administration will provide more military resources to the fight against ISIS, while the trend seems to be towards a reduction in military commitments abroad. “We need something much bigger than what happened in New Orleans, with massive and proven links to the Middle East or Central Asia,” said Marc Hecker. Basically, without another September 11, no second round of war on terrorism.”
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