The Islamic State has regained its momentum, and the Biden administration might inadvertently give it another boost.
Since Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel on Oct. 7 and the resulting Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, tensions and hostilities across the Middle East have reached fever pitch. And with such a complex regional crisis playing out, it should not come as a surprise that the Biden administration is reconsidering its military priorities in the region.
It should be cause for significant concern, however, that this could involve a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. While no definitive decision has been made to leave, four sources within the Defense and State departments said the White House is no longer invested in sustaining a mission that it perceives as unnecessary. Active internal discussions are now underway to determine how and when a withdrawal may take place.
Notwithstanding the catastrophic effect that a withdrawal would have on U.S. and allied influence over the unresolved and acutely volatile crisis in Syria, it would also be a gift to the Islamic State. While significantly weakened, the group is in fact primed for a resurgence in Syria, if given the space to do so.
The unprecedented international intervention launched in 2014 by the United States and more than 80 partner nations to defeat the terror group’s so-called territorial state was remarkably successful, with the final pocket of territory in Syria liberated in early 2019.
In Iraq, too, the Islamic State has almost vanished, degraded to such an extent that in 2023, it averaged just nine attacks a month—down from about 850 per month in 2014.
But the situation in neighboring Syria is more complex. With approximately 900 troops on the ground, the United States is playing an instrumental role in containing and degrading a persistent Islamic State insurgency in northeastern Syria, working alongside its local partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Yet the threat remains. Early on Jan. 16, an Islamic State rocket attack was launched on an SDF-administered prison holding as many as 5,000 Islamic State prisoners, triggering a mass breakout attempt. While that operation was ultimately foiled, the U.S. deployment also plays a vital role in stabilizing an area in which 10,000 battle-hardened Islamic State militants are detained within at least 20 makeshift prisons and a further 50,000 associated women and children are held in secured camps. As the U.S. Central Command has repeatedly warned, keeping the Islamic State’s “army in waiting” and its “next generation” secured is a vital U.S. national security interest.
While U.S. troops and their SDF partners have managed to contain the Islamic State’s recovery in Syria’s northeast, the situation is far more concerning to the west—on the other side of the Euphrates River, where the Syrian regime is in control, at least on paper.
In this vast expanse of desert, the Islamic State has been engaged in a slow but methodical recovery, exploiting regime indifference and its inability to challenge a fluid desert-based insurgency. In the past few years, the terrorist group has also reestablished an operational presence in regime-held Daraa in southern Syria and markedly expanded the scale, scope, and sophistication of its operations throughout the central desert, temporarily capturing populated territory, seizing and holding gas facilities, and exerting considerable pressure around the strategic town of Palmyra.
In eastern and central Syria, the Islamic State’s shadow influence has returned. The group has reestablished a complex extortion operation, extracting so-called taxes from everyone from doctors and shopkeepers to farmers and truck drivers. With increasing frequency, the Islamic State is issuing them bespoke extortion demands based on acquired knowledge of local business revenue streams. In some cases, Islamic State-branded receipts are issued and when required, and threats are sent to cell phones and relatives.
While much of this activity was initially focused on rural Syria, it is now urban, and in many rural areas, the Islamic State is increasingly recognized as a shadow authority. These far less visible activities may not make media headlines, but they are the core ingredients for a resilient and deeply embedded terrorist insurgency.
