WASHINGTON — The Islamic State has carried out nearly 1,500 attacks in 16 cities across Iraq and Syria after they were declared freed from the militants’ control in recent months, providing new evidence that the group is reverting to its insurgent roots and foreshadowing long-term security threats.
The information was compiled by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in a study made public Thursday that warns that any military gains will fall short without increased efforts to restore the security, governance, and economies in territory once held by the Islamic State.
“Pushing the Islamic State out as the formal governing party in a territory is not a sufficient development when it comes to ending the group’s ability to enact violence against individuals in Iraq and Syria,’’ the 20-page report said.
US diplomatic and military leaders say an even greater challenge than ousting the Islamic State, or ISIS, from its self-declared religious state, or caliphate, in eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq may well be the daunting political and economic reconstruction in the years ahead.
Counterterrorism specialists said the new study illuminates a trend that has been emerging for several months, as US-backed ground forces in Iraq and Syria have steadily rolled back territorial gains the Islamic State achieved in 2014 and used as the basis for its global appeal to Muslims to come join the caliphate. Now, its strongholds of Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria, its self-declared capital, are besieged, and senior leaders have fled as opposing forces close in.
“ISIS has anticipated the loss of its government for over a year,’’ said William McCants, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State.’’ “They are prepared to wage a war from the shadows to reclaim it.’’
The report’s authors, Daniel Milton and Muhammad al-Ubaydi, say their findings aim to draw a more accurate picture of the military challenges in Iraq and Syria, especially in maintaining security in cities large and small that have been reclaimed from ISIS.
“Despite all of these positive connotations, the liberation of cities in Iraq and Syria has proved to be much more of a mixed bag for those living in the aftermath,’’ the report said. “Part of this is the challenge of governing post-liberation areas where city infrastructure has been destroyed and where security threats still remain.’’
The report cites the example of Fallujah, which was freed by Iraqi forces in June 2016. Many months later, news media reports suggest that residents still face an array of challenges, such as destroyed buildings, live Islamic State munitions buried in the rubble, and the continuing threat of Islamic State attacks, the report said.
