The Amaq statement outlined a detailed offensive that pointed to more than just an opportunistic attack. The fighters had divided into teams to target strategic points within the prison, while others were sent to harry a nearby battalion of Kurdish fighters and block off routes to the complex.
“Despite the loss of territory, ISIS has not been totally defeated. Its cells have been active in most of central Iraq and eastern Syria,” Emmanuel Karagiannis of King’s College London, another security expert, said.
“During 2021, ISIS was able to launch dozens of attacks against Kurdish forces. It is perhaps too early to say that ISIS is resurgent, but things do not look good now.”
ISIS fighters, including thousands of radicalized members from throughout the region and the world, swept across Iraq and Syria in 2014, seizing around 35 percent of Syria and 40 percent of Iraq in a lightning offensive. A pushback by the U.S. and its allies, as well as Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, eventually forced a retreat.
Since then, tens of thousands of ISIS members and their families, including children, have languished in prisons in Syria and Iraq in what Human Rights Watch has described as “inhuman and degrading conditions.”
Experts say that provides ideal conditions for radicalization — and potential new ISIS recruits.
“The SDF-run prisons have about 12,000 ISIS members and sympathizers. It is a ticking bomb ready to explode at any moment,” Karagiannis said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
