Around a month ago, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the Islamic State group, was killed in a US commando raid on his hideout in northern Syria. Accurate intelligence information and impressive operational capabilities came together to result in another American success in the fight against ISIS. Al-Qurayshi, also known as Abdullah Kardash, had succeeded the terrorist group's founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed two years ago by the Americans, not far from where al-Qurayshi was killed.
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Similar to the mythological Hydra, however, ISIS also grows a new head every time its old head is severed, and the group last week named Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi as the replacement to Kardash.
But the issue isn't the identity of the Islamic State's leader, who regardless became a symbol bereft of leadership capabilities which he doubtfully required in the first place, once the state created by ISIS last decade ceased to exist after its capital, Raqqa, was conquered by the Americans. The issue is the ideology that ISIS espouses and its supporters who are willing to sacrifice their lives for it, and these have not ceased to exist. It seems that similar to a fish returned to the water, ISIS, too, has returned to its natural habitat where it grew and prospered – the desert regions of Iraq and Syria – where the local populations provide its terrorist cells a safe haven.
In the past few weeks alone, ever since its leader was assassinated, ISIS has carried out a series of terrorist attacks across the globe. In Syria, dozens of soldiers were killed and wounded in an attack on a convoy near the city of Palmyra in the country's center. ISIS attacks were also reported in Iraq and the Sinai Peninsula. The group's operatives also attacked a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, in which 63 people lost their lives and more than 200 were wounded. Hundreds have also been killed and maimed in a series of attacks carried out by ISIS in Nigeria, Mali, and Somalia.
We can downplay the value of these attacks and also attribute them to local operatives fighting under the Islamic State's broad umbrella, rather than its direct command. But in Syria and Iraq, the epicenter of the group's activities, not a day goes by without its fighters attacking Bashar Assad's army or the Iraqi military. In January, hundreds of ISIS fighters carried out a coordinated, well-planned attack on the main prison in the city of Hassakeh, in the heart of the Kurdish region of eastern Syria, and freed around a thousand of their comrades who were detained there. An attack of this sort demonstrates notable operational prowess, and mainly indicates that the group has commanders and fighters within its ranks that are capable of carrying out such attacks.
Last decade, when the Americans destroyed the ISIS-created caliphate, there were those who warned that although the ISIS state had collapsed, the bedrock ideology driving its actions was still both alive and supported by the people. Indeed, not only is the dream of waging jihad still appealing to many, but the reality on the ground, which originally drew Sunnis in Iraq and Syria to fight their respective Shiite-led regimes, hasn't fundamentally changed.
Because its terrorist attacks in Western Europe have all but ended, the world has lost interest in the group, even though the embers of its ideology continue to burn. The Americans are focusing their efforts on hunting its leaders or trying to fundamentally change the reality on the ground that incubates ISIS and allows it to continue its activities.
ISIS is here to stay and for the time being it is warming up on the sidelines, waiting for the opportunity to get back in the game.
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