DAMASCUS Syria witnessed a notable escalation within the rhetoric of the Islamic State group (ISIS) over the previous week after the group launched a brand new propaganda message urging its members and international fighters inside Syria to “proceed preventing” towards the Syrian state and chorus from surrendering or leaving the nation.
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The enchantment, circulated by way of platforms linked to the group, comes at a delicate second for Syria as the federal government continues efforts to consolidate safety management in jap areas and the Syrian desert, the place ISIS sleeper cells stay intermittently lively. Analysts say the most recent message displays an try by the group to take advantage of ongoing safety tensions and reintroduce itself as a pressure nonetheless able to confrontation after years of army collapse and territorial losses.
In accordance with the assertion attributed to ISIS, the group targeted notably on inciting international fighters, claiming that Syrian authorities “will step by step remove them” and calling on them to affix what it described as a “new section of preventing.” The message additionally urged assaults towards the Syrian military and safety forces, particularly in Deir ez-Zur, Raqqa, and the Syrian desert, areas which have continued to determine in sporadic ISIS operations in current months.
Analysts following Syrian affairs imagine such rhetoric represents an effort by ISIS to reaffirm each its media and army presence because it seeks to reactivate dormant cells and regroup what stays of its fighters after years of heavy losses.
ISIS first emerged overtly in Syria in 2013 after increasing from Iraq amid the chaos of the Syrian battle and deteriorating safety situations. Initially working below the identify “Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham,” the group later cut up from al-Qaida and have become concerned in violent confrontations with Syrian opposition factions.
Between 2014 and 2015, ISIS reached the height of its energy after seizing huge territories throughout Syria and Iraq, most notably the town of Raqqa, which it declared the “capital of the caliphate,” along with massive elements of Deir ez-Zor, the Syrian desert, and border areas with Iraq. On the time, the group relied on an unlimited community of native and international fighters, in addition to financing by way of oil revenues, taxation, smuggling, and intensive media propaganda campaigns that enabled it to recruit hundreds of fighters from all over the world.
Throughout its enlargement section, ISIS developed into one of the crucial excessive and arranged militant teams within the area, attracting hundreds of international fighters from Arab, Asian, and European nations, in addition to from the Caucasus and North Africa.
ISIS shrinks from over 40,000 to lower than 3,000 fighters
UN and Western estimates point out that greater than 40,000 international fighters joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2017. Nevertheless, the group step by step started to say no following army campaigns launched towards it by the US-led worldwide coalition, alongside operations performed by the Syrian military, Russian forces, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), ensuing within the lack of its main strongholds and culminating within the fall of its last territorial enclave in Baghouz in 2019. Since then, the group has shifted into a brand new section based mostly on clandestine operations and small cellular cells slightly than direct territorial management.
Its assaults now rely totally on ambushes, improvised explosive units, assassinations, and speedy assaults concentrating on checkpoints and army forces, notably throughout the huge Syrian desert stretching between Homs and Deir ez-Zor and in distant areas close to the Iraqi border. In accordance with a February 2025 report by the UN Safety Council’s Analytical Assist and Sanctions Monitoring Group, ISIS’s mixed energy in Iraq and Syria was estimated at 1,500 to three,000 fighters, most of them, together with key leaders, in Syria. These fighters are believed to function in small cells supported by logistical networks, smugglers, and sympathizers who facilitate motion and provides.
UN investigators and counterterrorism researchers say hundreds of international nationals with alleged ISIS hyperlinks stay in al-Hol, Roj, and SDF-run detention services in northeastern Syria. The unresolved standing of international fighters has remained a significant safety concern, with UN displays warning that jihadist networks in Syria proceed to learn from instability and weak state management in some areas.
Consultants imagine ISIS’s newest name directed at these fighters displays fears throughout the group of dropping what stays of its most skilled cadres, whereas additionally trying to remobilize them into a brand new venture centered on guerrilla warfare and long-term attritional battle.
On this context, Abdul Rahman Riyad, a Syrian affairs analyst who has written on safety and political developments in Syria, advised The Media Line that the most recent message “displays ISIS’s try to take advantage of any transitional section or safety shifts in an effort to reactivate its cells.” He added that the group understands it has misplaced the flexibility to train broad territorial management and subsequently now depends on propaganda, incitement, and a technique of attrition by way of small cellular cells. He additionally famous that the group’s deal with international fighters reveals fears over the fragmentation of what stays of its human and army infrastructure.
Retired Brig.-Gen. Mustafa al-Sheikh, a safety and strategic affairs skilled, advised The Media Line that ISIS “is not able to returning within the conventional type it appeared in throughout 2014, nevertheless it nonetheless poses a safety risk because of the flexibility of its cells and their capability to maneuver by way of desert areas.” He defined that ISIS at present depends on speedy ambushes, restricted nighttime assaults, and concentrating on army roads and provide traces, including that “what we’re witnessing at the moment is a special model of the group, one which relies upon extra on guerrilla warfare and safety exhaustion than on direct management of cities.”
ISIS trying to protect its picture after setbacks
Syrian educational and political researcher Dr. Mahmoud al-Hamza advised The Media Line that ISIS’s newest name carries “extra propaganda and psychological dimensions than indications of a broad army comeback.” He defined that the group is trying to protect its picture amongst supporters after years of setbacks, which is why it focuses closely on mobilizing rhetoric and portraying itself as an lively pressure regardless of continued safety strain. He added that ISIS advantages from any safety fragility or financial and social crises to rebuild its clandestine networks, particularly in desert and border areas that stay troublesome to totally safe.
However, Syrian authorities insist that the risk posed by the group stays below management. A safety spokesperson for the Syrian Inside Ministry advised The Media Line that safety businesses “proceed to watch ISIS cell actions carefully” and have managed in current months to thwart a number of plots and arrest people linked to the group.
The spokesperson, whose identify is being withheld for safety causes, acknowledged that the current propaganda messages “replicate the weak point the group is experiencing greater than any actual energy on the bottom.” He added that safety forces proceed operations within the Syrian desert and jap Syria and won’t permit any terrorist risk to reemerge amid intensive safety and intelligence coordination aimed toward stopping the exploitation of any safety vacuum.
Though ISIS not possesses the army and political capabilities that when enabled it to determine what it referred to as a “caliphate,” current developments point out that the group’s risk has not fully disappeared and that it continues to hunt alternatives to take advantage of instability and safety gaps in an effort to reactivate its armed networks inside Syria. As Syrian forces and their allies proceed pursuit operations, the difficulty of international fighters and the camps scattered throughout northeastern Syria stays one of many nation’s most complex recordsdata, amid rising fears that these environments might turn out to be fertile floor for the resurgence of extremism within the years forward.
