Recent developments in Syria indicate that the ISIS group has reportedly made a comeback to the country after its presence has deteriorated in the past years.
According to UN and US officials, ISIS has shown renewed vigor in Syria, attracting fighters and increasing attacks, adding to the volatility of a country still reeling since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
In a proactive step to reduce the immediate risk of the terrorist organization, Washington had roughly doubled the number of its troops on the ground in Syria, to 2,000, and its many strikes on ISIS in the Syrian desert in the last few months appear to have tamped down the immediate threat.
But experts said those measures won’t be enough if the threat of ISIS isn't dealt with at its roots.
They said there is a risk that ISIS can find a way to free thousands of its hardened fighters who are held in prisons guarded by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.
The Times showed that between 9,000 and 10,000 ISIS fighters and about 40,000 of their family members are detained in northeastern Syria. Their escape would not only add to the group’s numbers but also provide a propaganda coup.
“The crown jewel” for ISIS “is still the prisons and camps,” Colin Clarke, the head of research for the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm, told The Times.
Top US intelligence officials last month presented to Congress their annual worldwide threat assessment, concluding that ISIS would try to exploit the end of the Assad government to free prisoners and to revive its ability to plot and carry out attacks.
The US has hopes that the new Syrian government will become a partner against a resurgent ISIS. The initial signs were positive, with the group acting on US-provided intelligence to disrupt eight ISIS plots in Damascus, according to two senior US military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.
But sectarian-driven violence last month, in which hundreds of civilians were killed, showed the government’s lack of control over some forces nominally under its command, and it is unclear how much bandwidth it will have to fight ISIS, The Time wrote.
ISIS, which traces its beginnings to Al Qaeda in Iraq, is not a threat from the past anymore. According to a US defense department official who spoke anonymously to discuss information that has not yet been released publicly, the group claimed 294 attacks in 2024, up from the 121 it claimed in 2023. The UN ISIS monitoring committee estimated about 400 attacks, while human rights observers in Syria said the number was even higher.
The group’s resurgence reinforces concerns of renewed bloody scenarios, especially since ISIS exploited the chaos of Syria’s civil war to seize vast swaths of territory and return to Iraq.
The Times said concerns over a possible prison escape by ISIS detainees have been heightened by ongoing violence in the northeast.
The detention centers in northeastern Syria are guarded by the Kurdish-led fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who also help guard the nearby camps that hold ISIS family members. But those forces have been distracted by attacks from Turkish-backed militias.
The prisons have already proven to be a concern. In 2022, nearly 400 ISIS-linked prisoners escaped during an ISIS assault on a prison in the city of Hasaka. At the time, US Special Operations forces helped the Syrian Democratic Forces get control of the situation.
In Al Hol, the largest camp where ISIS women and children have been held for years, the extremist group has been testing the boundaries.
In a recent report, a UN committee said the chaos surrounding the fall of al-Assad allowed some ISIS fighters to escape the camp, although it was not clear how many.
If the Syrian Kurds are weakened, “there is no question that it will create a vacuum,” said Kawa Hassan, an Iraqi analyst and a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan organization in Washington. “And only ISIS thrives in a vacuum.”
A comprehensive strategy that goes beyond airstrikes and the presence of foreign troops is currently needed in Syria. This strategy should address the root causes of the return of extremism to ensure that ISIS will not use prisons and camps to launch its violent activities that has long been the main driver of chaos and destruction in the Middle East.
