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The two women and 12 children recently released by the German Foreign Ministry from al-Hol prison camp in northern Syria have returned to Germany. It was a humanitarian gesture on the part of Germany. And for the Kurdish self-government, it means less burden on its security forces.
The camp is home to some 64,000 people, most of them from a region that was once occupied by the terrorist organization “Islamic State” (IS). Most of those detained are Syrian and Iraqi nationals, according to a UN report. It says nearly 9,500 come from elsewhere, many of them from Europe.
For months, security authorities have demanded that the number of people in the camp be reduced, warning that many inmates still hold extremist ideas and pose a potential threat. If these people were able to escape during an insurgency, they would immediately rejoin the Islamic State or other jihadist groups, they argue.
ISIS Fighters Detained In A Prison In Hassaka, Northeast Syria, Face An Uncertain Future
Weakened but not broken
However, if potential terrorists managed to join ISIS, they would find an organization that is only a shadow of what it was before. The aura of his early years is gone; It doesn’t have the organizational or symbolic momentum it had before it was defeated in 2017/18.
IS is significantly weakened compared to five years ago, said Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College London. The idea of the “caliphate” proclaimed in 2014 no longer holds any fascination, he told DW, adding that the Islamic State is closely monitored, especially in Iraq.
“There is enormous pressure there, making it difficult for him to organize, get new weapons and recruit new members,” Neumann said. “All of this greatly weakens the movement in its home countries: Iraq and Syria.”
Lack of funds
Jassim Mohamad, a terrorism researcher who runs the website www.europarabct.com, comes to a similar conclusion.
“Some estimates from within the Iraqi government say there are around 3,500 fighters in Iraq and maybe 4,000 fighters in Syria,” he told DW. “If we talk about ISIS in Iraq, there is a significant decrease in the size of the organization and the operations of the organization after ISIS lost its strongholds in Syria and Iraq,” he said, using another acronym for ISIS.
“ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria have been withdrawn and it can no longer conduct specific operations,” he added.
IS is trying to obtain weapons, Mohamad said, adding that information “received from within the Iraqi government reveals that the organization only has light weapons and does not possess medium or heavy weapons.”
“ISIS is expected to lose its network of relationships and financial sources around the world,” he said.
Nice, France: IS is weaker but still present in Europe
‘Small and mobile groups’
If the IS decides to carry out specific operations, they are limited, he added, and said that as a general rule they are carried out by “mobile groups that do not exceed 10 people,” mainly in regions far or far from cities. Usually, he said, their activities are limited to swift actions such as blocking roads or attacking border military sites.
Since the group’s financial transactions are also being monitored more closely, its economic capabilities are also very limited, he said, adding that this has led to a decline in SI operations around the world.
New tactics to mobilize supporters
However, Neumann said, there is no reason for everything to be clear: the Islamic State is still active in Europe, although it has changed tack. It is currently not in a position to carry out large-scale operations or to rely on members with combat experience as it did a few years ago. Instead, Europe has seen smaller attacks by people, including in Paris, Nice, Vienna and Dresden.
“In this way, IS wants to show that it is still present and can still attack,” he said. “Look for new reasons for the mobilization, for example, the debate on the cartoons of Muhammad.”
Your recruiting drive is built on simple elements. A few videos with suggestive image sequences and solemn music are usually enough to win over a following. This type of cyber recruitment is even simpler and often more effective than the efforts made by Islamic theology schools and extremist groups often found in the vicinity of mosques, spearheaded by radical preachers. On a digital level, radicalization often goes unnoticed.
War and chaos on the ground in the Libyan capital Tripoli in 2020
Also present in Africa
The organization is present especially in West Africa and North Africa, taking advantage of the chaos in Libya, said Jassim Mohamad.
In addition to ideological mobilization, IS is primarily concerned with expanding smuggling routes to sub-Saharan Africa, he said.
Al-Qaida still has greater influence in the region, Mohamad said, but “overall, however, terrorist activity in West Africa can be expected to increase despite the efforts that are being made.”
This article was translated from German
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