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'Caliphate' or Not, ISIS Expands Its Reach

The ISIS terror group still holds a powerful attraction for some people despite territorial setbacks - AFP
The ISIS terror group still holds a powerful attraction for some people despite territorial setbacks - AFP
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'Caliphate' or Not, ISIS Expands Its Reach

The ISIS terror group still holds a powerful attraction for some people despite territorial setbacks - AFP
The ISIS terror group still holds a powerful attraction for some people despite territorial setbacks - AFP

In the two years since Kurdish forces wrested away the ISIS's last Syrian bastion, the militant group has proved it does not need a stronghold to pose a potent threat in more countries than ever.

At their apogee, the extremists controlled a territory the size of Britain covering large swaths of Syria and Iraq, where it waged one of the most brutal campaigns of systematic terror in modern history.

Its defeat on March 23, 2019, was, it turns out, far from definitive, with the group managing to maintain its cohesion despite the dispersal of its leadership.

It has also continued to claim scores of deadly attacks far beyond its original base, while taking advantage of the vast deserts of war-scarred Syria to target forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

"It has for the time being gone to ground, but with the goals of maintaining its insurgency in Iraq and Syria and a global cyber-presence," General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US Central Command that oversees troops deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, said last month.

At the same time, the group is "building and retaining a cellular structure which allows it to carry out terrorist attacks," he said, AFP reported.

Shortly afterwards, France requested a meeting of the coalition partners who teamed up with Kurdish forces to drive out the insurgency, warning of a "strong resurgence of ISIS." The worries are well founded, analysts say.

Between the fall of ISIS' eastern Syria holdout of Baghouz and last month, the group has claimed responsibility for 5,665 military operations -- an average of eight per day -- according to a widely followed terrorism expert who publishes on Twitter as "Mister__Q_".

And Syria and Iraq are still subjected to ISIS attacks, like the one when twin suicide bombers struck Baghdad in January, killing more than 30 people at a market.

The group's gruesome propaganda videos of prisoner beheadings, immolation and other atrocities, which drew scores of foreign fighters to its "caliphate," have also resonated beyond the Middle East.

ISIS militants are now active in 30 countries ranging from Egypt, Mali and Mozambique to the Caucasus and southeast Asia.

Even the death of its chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a raid by US forces in October 2019 had only a limited impact, with its new leader Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla still able to direct and inspire attacks by its far-flung affiliates.

Al-Mawla's aims may still be uncertain, but the deadly potential of the group's decentralized command structure remains intact.

"Taking out ISIS leaders is still of value to the international coalition, particularly in terms of intelligence, but it's not going to remove ISIS from the battlefield," said Charles Lister, a counter-terrorism expert at the Middle East Institute.

And no matter where it operates, the tactics are the same. "First it exploits a state's instability by hounding its armed forces in a kind of war of attrition," the analyst known as Mister__Q_ told AFP.

"It then forces its rivals to flee the territory, and sets itself up as a guarantee of security for the local population," he said.

The third phase of setting up an administrative "caliphate" comes later -- though many analysts now believe ISIS does not actually want or need it.

"The idea that the caliphate ended when the international coalition re-took territory in Iraq and Syria is a Western conception mostly alien to ISIS itself, especially given its expansion internationally," Lister said.

"In the minds of its members and supporters, it still exists today," he said.

Tore Hamming, a researcher at the King's College Department of War Studies in London, agreed that ISIS's ability to quickly shift tactics poses a huge challenge to nations hoping to stop it from taking root.

"I don't think the group would agree that the caliphate ended," he said. "After all, their leader is still entitled 'the caliph'."

Looking ahead, officials warn that ISIS leaders will focus on recruiting the huge numbers of young people whose lives have been upended by the years of sectarian conflict in the Middle East and West Africa in particular.

The US estimates for example that 62,000 suspected relatives of ISIS militants are held at the squalid al-Hol camp in Syria. Two-thirds of them are younger than 18 years old, and half under 12.

For them, the group's notorious black flag could be a powerful magnet after a life steeped in misery, violence, religious fanaticism and hatred of the West.

"The longer-term risk is the systemic indoctrination of this population to ISIS's ideology," McKenzie said in February.

"Failing to address this now means ISIS will never be truly defeated," he added.

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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies.

Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp. She learned Greek. She struggled with illness and depression as her marriage collapsed. She tried to make a fresh start in Germany but eventually returned to Lesbos, the island that first embraced her. Today, she works at a restaurant, preparing Iranian dishes that locals devour, even if they struggle to pronounce the names. Her second child tells her, “‘I’m Greek.’”

“Greece is close to my culture, and I feel good here,” Namjoyan said. “I am proud of myself.”

In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe — the majority by sea, landing in Lesbos, where the north shore is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Türkiye. The influx of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty sparked a humanitarian crisis that shook the European Union to its core. A decade later, the fallout still reverberates on the island and beyond.

For many, Greece was a place of transit. They continued on to northern and western Europe. Many who applied for asylum were granted international protection; thousands became European citizens. Countless more were rejected, languishing for years in migrant camps or living in the streets. Some returned to their home countries. Others were kicked out of the European Union.

For Namjoyan, Lesbos is a welcoming place — many islanders share a refugee ancestry, and it helps that she speaks their language. But migration policy in Greece, like much of Europe, has shifted toward deterrence in the decade since the crisis. Far fewer people are arriving illegally. Officials and politicians have maintained that strong borders are needed. Critics say enforcement has gone too far and violates fundamental EU rights and values.

“Migration is now at the top of the political agenda, which it didn’t use to be before 2015,” said Camille Le Coz Director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, noting changing EU alliances. “We are seeing a shift toward the right of the political spectrum.”

A humanitarian crisis turned into a political one

In 2015, boat after boat crowded with refugees crashed onto the doorstep of Elpiniki Laoumi, who runs a fish tavern across from a Lesbos beach. She fed them, gave them water, made meals for aid organizations.

“You would look at them and think of them as your own children," said Laoumi, whose tavern walls today are decorated with thank-you notes.

From 2015 to 2016, the peak of the migration crisis, more than 1 million people entered Europe through Greece alone. The immediate humanitarian crisis — to feed, shelter and care for so many people at once — grew into a long-term political one.

Greece was reeling from a crippling economic crisis. The influx added to anger against established political parties, fueling the rise of once-fringe populist forces.

EU nations fought over sharing responsibility for asylum seekers. The bloc’s unity cracked as some member states flatly refused to take migrants. Anti-migration voices calling for closed borders became louder.

Today, illegal migration is down across Europe While illegal migration to Greece has fluctuated, numbers are nowhere near 2015-16 figures, according to the International Organization for Migration. Smugglers adapted to heightened surveillance, shifting to more dangerous routes.

Overall, irregular EU border crossings decreased by nearly 40% last year and continue to fall, according to EU border and coast guard agency Frontex.

That hasn’t stopped politicians from focusing on — and sometimes fearmongering over — migration. This month, the Dutch government collapsed after a populist far-right lawmaker withdrew his party’s ministers over migration policy.

In Greece, the new far-right migration minister has threatened rejected asylum seekers with jail time.

A few miles from where Namjoyan now lives, in a forest of pine and olive trees, is a new EU-funded migrant center. It's one of the largest in Greece and can house up to 5,000 people.

Greek officials denied an Associated Press request to visit. Its opening is blocked, for now, by court challenges.

Some locals say the remote location seems deliberate — to keep migrants out of sight and out of mind.

“We don’t believe such massive facilities are needed here. And the location is the worst possible – deep inside a forest,” said Panagiotis Christofas, mayor of Lesbos’ capital, Mytilene. “We’re against it, and I believe that’s the prevailing sentiment in our community.”

A focus on border security

For most of Europe, migration efforts focus on border security and surveillance.

The European Commission this year greenlighted the creation of “return” hubs — a euphemism for deportation centers — for rejected asylum seekers. Italy has sent unwanted migrants to its centers in Albania, even as that faces legal challenges.

Governments have resumed building walls and boosting surveillance in ways unseen since the Cold War.

In 2015, Frontex was a small administrative office in Warsaw. Now, it's the EU's biggest agency, with 10,000 armed border guards, helicopters, drones and an annual budget of over 1 billion euros.

On other issues of migration — reception, asylum and integration, for example — EU nations are largely divided.

The legacy of Lesbos

Last year, EU nations approved a migration and asylum pact laying out common rules for the bloc's 27 countries on screening, asylum, detention and deportation of people trying to enter without authorization, among other things.

“The Lesbos crisis of 2015 was, in a way, the birth certificate of the European migration and asylum policy,” Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president and a chief pact architect, told AP.

He said that after years of fruitless negotiations, he's proud of the landmark compromise.

“We didn’t have a system,” Schinas said. “Europe’s gates had been crashed."

The deal, endorsed by the United Nations refugee agency, takes effect next year. Critics say it made concessions to hardliners. Human rights organizations say it will increase detention and erode the right to seek asylum.

Some organizations also criticize the “externalization” of EU border management — agreements with countries across the Mediterranean to aggressively patrol their coasts and hold migrants back in exchange for financial assistance.

The deals have expanded, from Türkiye to the Middle East and across Africa. Human rights groups say autocratic governments are pocketing billions and often subject the displaced to appalling conditions.

Lesbos still sees some migrants arrive Lesbos' 80,000 residents look back at the 2015 crisis with mixed feelings.

Fisherman Stratos Valamios saved some children. Others drowned just beyond his reach, their bodies still warm as he carried them to shore.

“What’s changed from back then to now, 10 years on? Nothing,” he said. “What I feel is anger — that such things can happen, that babies can drown.”

Those who died crossing to Lesbos are buried in two cemeteries, their graves marked as “unknown.”

Tiny shoes and empty juice boxes with faded Turkish labels can still be found on the northern coast. So can black doughnut-shaped inner tubes, given by smugglers as crude life preservers for children. At Moria, a refugee camp destroyed by fire in 2020, children’s drawings remain on gutted building walls.

Migrants still arrive, and sometimes die, on these shores. Lesbos began to adapt to a quieter, more measured flow of newcomers.

Efi Latsoudi, who runs a network helping migrants learn Greek and find jobs, hopes Lesbos’ tradition of helping outsiders in need will outlast national policies.

“The way things are developing, it’s not friendly for newcomers to integrate into Greek society,” Latsoudi said. "We need to do something. ... I believe there is hope.”