By Jennifer Cafarella and Melissa
Pavlik
ISIS’s
first attack in Iran punctuated two stark realities: the group’s annual Ramadan
campaign is alive while the US-led anti-ISIS campaign is on a path to failure. ISIS surges attacks every year
during Ramadan in order to gain or increase momentum in its global campaign to maintain its declared
caliphate, expand across the Muslim world, and win an apocalyptic war with the
West. ISIS has conducted successful attacks in three new countries this year –
the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Iran – and will likely pull off more
before the Muslim holy month is over. The jihadist group has sustained a global
insurgency despite the considerable military pressure it faces in Iraq and
Syria.
ISIS
has been waging its global campaign in four separate “rings” since 2014. First, ISIS is
defending and attempting to remain in and expand its territorial control in its
“core terrain” in Syria and Iraq. Second, ISIS seeks to weaken the Middle
East’s power centers of Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Third, ISIS is
expanding in other Muslim majority countries through attack networks and, when
possible, ground operations. Fourth, ISIS is conducting spectacular attacks in
the non-Muslim majority world, or the “far abroad,” in order to polarize those
communities and radicalize their minority Muslim populations. ISIS’s Ramadan surges
set conditions in these rings, varying its main
effort based on its circumstances and the capabilities in Iraq and Syria and of
its networks abroad.
ISIS’s
first Ramadan surges in 2012, 2013 and 2014 kick started its resurgent campaigns to seize vast swaths of terrain in
Iraq and Syria and declare the caliphate. ISIS continues to strike offensively
against anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria each Ramadan. ISIS began its
campaigns in the “far abroad” and Muslim world as early as late 2013, when the
ISIS external operations wing in Syria began to recruit, train, and deploy
foreign fighters to conduct spectacular attacks in Europe and across the Middle
East and North Africa. In 2014, ISIS sent senior operatives to Libya and
Sinai in order to
cultivate new affiliates. ISIS’s success in the Muslim world in 2014 enabled it
to recognize formal affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Russia’s Caucasus, Nigeria, and Yemen before Ramadan 2015. ISIS did so
in order to “remain” in Iraq and Syria and “expand” by creating resilience globally
to counter pressure.
The
main effort of ISIS’s Ramadan campaigns became the Muslim world and “far
abroad” in 2015, after reaching its apex in Iraq and Syria by seizing the
cities of Ramadi and Palmyra shortly beforehand. ISIS surged
its campaign in the Muslim world, including spectacular attacks at a beach
resort in Tunisia and a Shi’a mosque in Kuwait while continuing to
deploy attack cells into Europe. ISIS struck a wide variety of targets across
the Muslim world and the “far abroad” in 2016, including successful attacks in Bangladesh, Turkey,
and Saudi Arabia. The same year a terrorist
pledging allegiance to ISIS’s leader attacked a nightclub in
Orlando, Florida, shortly after the beginning of Ramadan.
ISIS
is expanding its reach even further this Ramadan, which began on May 26. ISIS conducted
two near-simultaneous, complex, coordinated attacks against symbolic targets in
Iran’s capital
on June 7. These
attacks are a major inflection point that signals growing capability in the
second ring of strong Muslim states. ISIS is also gaining momentum in Southeast
Asia, part of its third ring, where it launched a major ground offensive in the Philippines, seizing
a city and defending it against a counter-offensive by Philippine security
forces. ISIS
also conducted its first successful suicide attack in the UK, a priority target in the majority
non-Muslim fourth ring. This attack suggests ISIS has a growing network in
Europe despite increasing European counterterrorism efforts. Other ISIS attack
cells have been thwarted in areas with ISIS networks including Spain, Tunisia,
and Russia. ISIS has continued to conduct a Ramadan surge in Iraq, though
security forces have thwarted some of its attacks.
The
scope of ISIS’s current global Ramadan campaign, its continuity with past campaigns,
and its resilience within Iraq and Syria demonstrates that the US has failed to
contain ISIS or to reclaim the initiative, much less destroy the organization. Secretary
of Defense James Mattis has said America’s goals against
ISIS are to
“crush ISIS’s claims of invincibility, deny ISIS a geographic haven from which
to hatch murder, eliminate ISIS ability to operate externally, and eradicate
their ability to recruit and finance terrorist operations.” Current US-led
operations in Syria and Iraq will not accomplish these objectives. These
operations amount to chasing the ISIS external attack cell around the
battlefield through successive linear, tactical assaults that tie up our military
capability without achieving decisive results. The ISIS external attack cell
has now moved from Raqqa, the main effort of U.S.-backed operations, to southeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, an
area where America’s ground partners cannot now project force.
ISIS
is globalizing its external attack capability in order to endure even a total
loss of its terrain in Iraq and Syria, which even today extends beyond Mosul
and Raqqa, respectively. ISIS is deliberately “[fostering] interconnectedness among its scattered branches,
networks, and supporters, seeking to build a global organization,” according to
an assessment released by the anti-ISIS coalition in March 2017. The US has
increased the tempo of operations against high-value ISIS operatives, but has not disabled the external
operations cell. ISIS has shifted to mobilizing prospective fighters in place
rather than bringing them to Syria, Iraq, or Libya as foreign fighters. ISIS’s
expansion in farther flung areas like Afghanistan and Southeast Asia also generates
alternative basing options for command-and-control elements and potential
fighting forces.
President
Donald Trump’s supposed “acceleration” of the anti-ISIS campaign he inherited
from his predecessor has minimally increased the speed of tactical gains in
Raqqa and Mosul while doing little to ensure that the U.S. achieves its
strategic objectives The liberation of Mosul and Raqqa in 2014 might have defeated
the organization, but it no longer suffices. ISIS’s global attack network is
now more robust, dispersed, and resilient than ever. ISIS will remain dedicated
to its global objectives after Mosul and Raqqa fall and will continue to wage a
calculated global campaign. ISIS’s global success generates a momentum for
jihadism that will endure even if the US manages to defeat the organization,
moreover. Al Qaeda is waiting to pick up the mantle of the
global war against the West, and could be even more successful than ISIS. The
threat the US faces from jihadism vastly overmatches its current hyper-tactical
campaign in Iraq and Syria. The first step in placing the US and its allies
back on a path to victory is to recognize that the existing strategy of tactics
will not suffice.
Jennifer
Cafarella is the Lead Intelligence Planner at the Institute for the Study of
War. Melissa Pavlik is a Counter-terrorism Analyst at the Institute for the
Study of War.