How the Islamic State Could Leverage Syria’s Political Transition

Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overran Syria’s main cities, including the capital, in less than two weeks, finally ending the brutal regime of President Bashar Al-Assad over the past weekend.

Amid these momentous and historic changes, there are signs that remnants of another group, the Islamic State (IS), may try to take advantage of any potential power vacuum in the war-weary country.

The probability of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) re-emerging as a significant force in Syria remains a concern. While ISIS has been territorially defeated, the group continues to maintain a presence in parts of Syria, particularly in desert regions and areas with limited governance.

Islamic State  benefited from these attacks in the Syrian desert and is trying to occupy new areas after the withdrawal of the regime.

The United States conducted airstrikes against IS leaders, operatives, and camps in central Syria. In a statement, the US Central Command said the strikes aimed to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and ensure IS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria.

Amid regime withdrawals in the face of the HTS-led advance, the SDF moved into the eastern city of Deir az-Zour and also expanded south of Raqqa, the former de-facto capital of the self-styled IS caliphate it captured in 2017. It has vowed “to counter any attempt by IS to expand into our areas.

After just a few days, HTS announced it had wrested control of Deir az-Zour from the SDF.

The SDF has long been backed by the United States in the fight against IS, destroying the entirety of its territorial caliphate in Syria by early 2019. Despite this, IS remnants have continued to wage an insurgency from the desert in central Syria.

Syrian regime forces and the Russian military in Syria have unsuccessfully attempted to suppress this for years. The US launched rare airstrikes against senior IS leaders in the desert in late October, aptly demonstrating the limited success of the regime and Russia’s counter-IS efforts there.

With Russia and the regime now gone, it’s conceivable that IS could attempt to mount a resurgence by launching fresh attacks against its numerous domestic adversaries.

IS elements are making moves to take over territory along the Euphrates River Valley where Syrian forces are rapidly abandoning their positions.

We’ve also seen declarations by media outlets linked to IS that they will accelerate the pace of their operations again to take advantage of the power vacuum.

IS recently accused HTS of promoting a nationalist and un-Islamic agenda in its al-Naba newspaper. Despite such fighting words, IS militants may choose to bide their time.

IS does not benefit from rapidly seeking to expand its control in central and eastern Syria at this time.

It does not have the structure in place to hold and administer territory, and if it acts now, the international community will likely act against it furiously.

IS likelywill be incentivised to avoid direct clashes with other factions – at least for the time being.

They know they are going to be stuck battling it out against these groups, and so they’ll have to choose what territory they take over with an eye towards sustainability rather than just opportunism.

IS remnants have survived for so long by being careful with their operations and looking for opportunities to exploit weaknesses in the Assad regime or the SDF.

It is more likely that IS will wait to see if there is chaos after Assad that it can exploit rather than try to make a big push now.

Amid the swift HTS capture of Aleppo, Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) fighters launched a concurrent campaign targeting Kurds in that northwestern province, displacing tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians who are evacuating to SDF-run territories east of the Euphrates.

Turkey has long threatened to invade that region and used SNA militants against the SDF in previous cross-border offensives.

The displacement of Kurds from northwest Syria to the northeast could further overwhelm the SDF and its civilian administration, which are already overstretched and have endured a ferocious Turkish air and drone campaign against their infrastructure for years now.

The SDF has thousands of IS fighters and their families in prisons and camps across northeast Syria. Some of these fighters have attempted jailbreaks in the past, coordinated with fellow militants outside SDF captivity. The most infamous example occurred in Hasakah in January 2022 and took the SDF almost two weeks to subdue.

IS will attempt to conduct operations like jailbreaks and individual attacks and assassinations, That is something that’s likely to appear throughout much of the country in the course of the post-Assad transition.

The Turkish-backed SNA attacked the SDF in the town of Manbij on the west bank of the Euphrates, which the SDF captured from IS in 2016 after a bloody and costly battle. The SDF agreed to a US-mediated ceasefire in Manbij on Wednesday. SDF commander Abdi said his fighters agreed to withdraw “to ensure the safety and security of civilians” there.

Turkey wants to close off all SDF areas that are west of the Euphrates. With the chaos caused by the mass displacement of Kurds from Aleppo governorate, the SDF has an enormous challenge to care for the vulnerable displaced and to fend off Turkish-backed attacks.

We couldn’t anticipate another Turkish-SNA offensive against the SDF areas east of the Euphrates, at least not in the near term. Turkey launched a destructive cross-border offensive into the centre of that region in October 2019, again using the SNA as its proxy.

Thus, there will be skirmishes in the near term, but a full-scale offensive in the chaos of the Assad regime collapse seems less likely.

It’s almost certain Turkey will increase its military pressure on the SDF in an attempt to force them into concessions and possible disarmament as part of the post-Assad political transition process.

So, a future campaign does become significantly more likely under the future Trump administration in large part because Trump has shown so little interest in Syria.

IS previously fought an internal war against HTS when it was still the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra after the latter refused to subjugate itself under the caliphate.There could be another conflict as HTS becomes the predominant faction in Syria.

Almost assuredly, there will be an HTS-IS conflict that will accelerate as HTS assumes its position as the de facto government of Syria. HTS has limited resources in the near term, with tens of thousands of fighters who are suddenly going to be responsible for the security of this entire nation,”.

IS will be able to exploit that lack of security, and it’s probable that in the coming weeks and months, IS has a chance to take over territory and villages without substantial HTS pushback.

Years after losing its caliphate, IS remnants have shown greater strategic patience in their diminished state.

“IS is cognisant of its failures of the past in which it took on too many enemies in too many places and sparked a coalition that then crushed its caliphate.

Key factors contributing to the risk of resurgence include:

1. Political Instability: The ongoing civil war in Syria and lack of unified governance create a power vacuum that ISIS can exploit.
2. Economic Hardship: Widespread poverty and displacement make some populations more vulnerable to recruitment by extremist groups.
3. Weak Security Presence: Limited resources and capabilities of local forces to monitor and suppress insurgent activity allow ISIS cells to regroup.
4. Regional Tensions: Conflicts among external actors in Syria, such as Turkey, Russia, and the U.S., often divert focus from combating ISIS.

While a full-scale return to power akin to its peak in 2014-2015 is unlikely in the near term, ISIS remains a persistent threat through guerrilla attacks, recruitment efforts, and propaganda campaigns. Continued vigilance and international cooperation are essential to prevent its resurgence.

Actually, n      o major Syrian groups explicitly support the re-emergence of ISIS, as the group’s brutality and extremist ideology have alienated most factions, including other Islamist and opposition groups. However, some dynamics might indirectly facilitate ISIS’s activities:

1. Fragmented Opposition Groups: Infighting among opposition factions can weaken efforts to suppress ISIS cells, inadvertently giving the group breathing space.
2. Pro-Assad Regime Interests: While the Syrian government officially opposes ISIS, there have been allegations that the regime has, at times, used ISIS’s presence to justify its crackdown on opposition forces or to undermine international support for anti-Assad groups.
3. Criminal Networks: Smugglers and arms dealers in Syria, who profit from instability, may indirectly benefit from ISIS’s resurgence by providing logistical support or resources in exchange for money.

These factors do not constitute direct support but reflect the complexities of Syria’s fragmented landscape, where competing interests sometimes create opportunities for ISIS to exploit.Now it seems more likely that it will be focusing on a national strategy within Syria itself, trying to play off factions against one another and avoiding direct confrontation with stronger groups in order to rebuild itself as Syria reorganises in the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad.