U.S. forces in the Middle East are seeing new reasons to worry about the Islamic State terror group, which appears to be taking advantage of some newfound stability to wreak havoc in parts of Iraq and Syria.
The group, also known as IS or ISIS, claimed 153 attacks across both countries between January and June of this year, according to a statement Wednesday from U.S. Central Command.
“ISIS is on pace to more than double the total number of attacks they claimed in 2023,” it said, warning, “The increase in attacks indicates ISIS is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability."
The latest CENTCOM assessment also suggested that IS operatives have started feeling secure enough and confident enough to begin planning attacks beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq.
“We continue to focus our efforts on specifically targeting those members of ISIS who are seeking to conduct external operations,” according to CENTCOM’s commander, General Michael Erik Kurilla.
FILE - Army Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 7, 2024. (Source: Defense Department)
Some independent analysts have counted as many as five external plots tracing back to IS in Iraq and Syria since the start of the year.
This is not the first time this year that U.S. officials have expressed renewed concerns about IS’s activities.
Back in April, CENTCOM said IS likely had grown to about 2,500 fighters across Syria and Iraq — more than double previous estimates shared in January.
And U.S. partners have likewise warned about a possible resurgence.
Officials with the political wing of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces told VOA in January that the terror group’s activities had "increased significantly," both in areas patrolled by the SDF and in areas overseen by the Assad regime.
SEE ALSO: Worrying signs exist that IS growing stronger in SyriaThe nonprofit Counter Extremism Project (CEP), which has been tracking IS activity in Syria, has likewise been warning of a more active and violent trajectory.
“The level of violence increased in June by every metric compared to May,’ CEP said in its monthly report.
“Several brutal attacks were carried out against local tribesmen in the Jubb Jarah region of eastern Homs that resulted in locals hunting down and killing two ISIS members,” it added. “Still, the vast majority of ISIS activity remained focused on [Syrian] security forces.”
CENTCOM said it has begun pushing back against the renewed IS activity, launching almost 200 operations with the SDF and the Iraqi military over the first six months of 2024.
It says those operations led to the deaths of 44 IS fighters, including eight senior leaders, and the arrest of another 258 IS members.
But despite the success of the U.S. and its Syrian and Iraqi partners, there are indications that conditions are ripe for a lasting IS comeback.
The vast majority of the U.S. anti-IS operations, 137 of the 196 missions, took place in Iraq, where according to some analysts, IS poses the lesser threat.
“Two-thirds of IS attacks from Iraq and Syria comes from Syria,” said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who specializes in jihadism.
Zelin told VOA the situation on the ground may be more treacherous than the numbers indicate.
“Since 2020, IS has had a strategy or policy of underreporting claims in Syria, so it's likely even worse there," he said. “That's why even though it's [IS] not really a daily problem in Iraq these days, its strength in Syria could once again threaten Iraq if the U.S. withdrew from Syria.”
Additionally, the group’s current emir, Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, has been in place for almost a year, potentially creating some stability after the group lost its two previous emirs within a span of 10 months.
A report issued earlier this year based on intelligence from United Nations member states warned that IS may be even bigger than the U.S. estimates suggest.
The U.N. report said IS likely had between 3,000 to 5,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq, adding that the central Syria desert had become "a logistics and operations hub with 500 to 600 fighters."