ISIS’s Global Campaign Remains Intact

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.

The Virtual Caliphate: ISIS's Information Warfare

By Harleen Gambhir

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) poses an evolving threat to the U.S., its allies, and its broader interests. Its approach to information warfare has represented a key component of its overall strategy, including during the period it has faced sustained pressure. ISIS has suffered significant setbacks on the ground, yet has demonstrated the ability to adapt.

ISIS will likely maintain the capacity to align its military and information operations (IO) in the coming years. Continuing conflicts and the plodding effort to address the underlying conditions where it has taken root will likely help ISIS retain physical sanctuary and command and control capability in Iraq, Syria, and North Africa, even if it loses control of major cities.

ISIS’s IO campaign has supported multiple objectives, including control over territory, coercion of populations, and recruitment. This campaign has enabled ISIS’s survival and execution of international terror attacks. It may ultimately usher in a “Virtual Caliphate” – a radicalized community organized online – that empowers the global Salafi-jihadi movement and that could operate independently of ISIS.

This “Virtual Caliphate,” the emergence of which becomes more likely the longer ISIS’s physical caliphate exists, would represent a unique challenge to American national security. Other hostile actors, beyond ISIS and the global Salafi-jihadi movement, are also adopting elements of a broader IO campaign, highlighting the requirement for the U.S. to formulate a determined response.

The U.S. possesses inherent advantages, including material resources, military strength and convening power, with which to confront this evolving threat. It also has challenges to overcome, including the lack of a government-wide strategy – supported by the necessary resources and proper bureaucratic organization – to counter enemy IO.

The U.S. should continue to counter ISIS and other enemies in this arena by focusing on rolling them back on the ground, degrading their technical capabilities and other means they employ to reach their intended audiences, and helping facilitate the emergence of compelling counter-narratives amenable to American interests.  

Please visit our website to read the full report. 

UPDATED-ISIS Sanctuary Map: September 15, 2015

By ISW Research Team

Key Takeaway: ISW’s updated ISIS sanctuary map includes a new attack zone in Deraa, southwestern Syria and an expanded sanctuary zone in Idlib, northwestern Syria. ISIS claimed an attack against the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) in Deraa on August 18, and also may be responsible for an ongoing assassination campaign against JN in Idlib. ISIS likely intends to target JN and Syrian opposition’s governance structures in preparation for future offensives in western Syria. ISIS’s increased attacks against JN also reflect an expansion of the rivalry between ISIS and JN for leadership of the global jihadist movement.  

Iraq Control of Terrain Map: September 11, 2015

By ISW Iraq Team

Op-Ed: The Fall of Ramadi Was Avoidable

By Kimberly Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan

The Washington Post, May 18, 2015

The seizure of Ramadi on Sunday leaves President Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State in ruins not only in Iraq but also throughout the Muslim world. It means that the Iraqi security forces will almost certainly not be able to recapture Mosul this year and, therefore, that the Islamic State will retain its largest city in Iraq. Worse, it gives the group momentum again in Iraq even as it gains ground in Syria and expands in the Sinai, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere. This defeat was avoidable. Neither the Islamic State nor any other al-Qaeda offshoot has ever taken a major urban area actively defended by the United States in partnership with local forces. This is what happens when a policy of half-measures, restrictions and posturing meets a skillful and determined enemy on the battlefield. If the president does not change course soon, he will find that his legacy is not peace with Iran and ending wars, but rather the establishment of a terrorist state with the resources to conduct devastating attacks against the United States and a region-engulfing sectarian war.

Obama reacted slowly and reluctantly to the initial Islamic State surge last June from Syria into Mosul and then down the Tigris toward Baghdad. He authorized U.S. air support to assist the defense of the Kurdish capital of Irbil in August and eventually deployed first a few hundred and then a few thousand U.S. advisers. He did not allow those advisers to fight alongside the Iraqi units they were assisting. U.S. airstrikes have destroyed many fixed Islamic State targets and killed its fighters by the thousands since then, mainly in Iraq, but have allowed the group to retain a haven in Syria and even to maneuver freely within Iraq.

The Islamic State maneuver that led up to the fall of Ramadi was sophisticated and many weeks in the making, as a recent publication from the Institute for the Study of War shows. It entailed diversionary attacks in Baiji and Garma, a prison break in Diyala, attacks against pilgrims in Baghdad and raids near Ayn al-Asad air base west of Ramadi, a major hub of U.S. forces and Iraqi training. It was accompanied by a coordinated offensive around Deir ez-Zor, in Syria, that could give the group the ability to operate all along the Euphrates and toward Damascus as well. Numerous Islamic State fighters moved across Iraq and Syria. Although they leveraged poor weather that impedes U.S. reconnaissance, such activity must have created a signature that a properly resourced U.S. force in the region would have detected, and it certainly created a proliferation of targets on the ground for combinations of attack aviation and ground maneuvers — had those resources been available and allowed to operate freely. U.S. military power, properly employed and resourced, can thwart these kinds of maneuvers. The fall of Ramadi was unnecessary and avoidable....

Read the rest of this Op-Ed here.

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Kimberly Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War. Frederick W. Kagan is director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute

ISIS Captures Ramadi

By: Patrick Martin, Genevieve Casagrande, Jessica Lewis McFate, 

and the ISW Iraq and Syria Teams 

For years, ISW has paid close attention to Ramadi and its strategic importance as the capital of the largely Sunni Anbar Province.  ISIS first attacked both Ramadi and Fallujah in January 2014.  Although driven from Ramadi by local tribes and the ISF, ISIS contested control of the city since then.  

ISIS’s capture of Ramadi over May 15-18 was the culmination of months of ISIS probing and shaping operations around the city. Despite strategic gains by ISIS in Anbar and continued attacks on Ramadi throughout 2014, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) largely defended Ramadi successfully and maintained supply lines into the city center. ISIS however came close to overcoming their defenses in October 2014 and December 2014. ISIS resumed major attacks on Ramadi in April 2015, and on May 15, 2015, ISIS launched a coordinated attack on multiple fronts, contesting and eventually seizing major government infrastructure in central Ramadi by May 17, 2015.  This strategic gain constitutes a turning point in ISIS’s ability to set the terms of battle in Anbar as well to project force in eastern Iraq. It is also an important element of ISIS’s consolidation strategy, enhancing ISIS’s overall defense.

This presentation tracks the ISIS campaign against Ramadi from January 2014 to its capture this past weekend.  See the full presentation here.

The Islamic State Eyes Expansion in Damascus

By: Chris Kozak

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has begun to expand its presence in the Syrian central corridor which stretches from the Jordanian border through Damascus to the central cities of Homs and Hama. The “central corridor” is highly-contested key terrain for both the Syrian regime and its armed opposition, while ISIS presence has generally been limited in the area until recently. As one major exception, ISIS maintained a notable foothold in several opposition-held areas of Damascus in early 2014 before retreating due to pressure from local rebel groups. A small ISIS contingent, largely overlooked, endured quietly in the southern suburbs of Damascus throughout late 2014. Over the past two months, ISIS has once again escalated its military and public relations activities in this area, threatening to divert both regime and rebel resources away from active fronts in the Damascus area in order to contend with the ISIS threat. This development may provide an indicator of ISIS’s broader expansion plans in western Syria and the potential response of Syrian opposition fighters to this expansion.

ISIS in the Damascus City Suburbs

ISIS presence in the Damascus suburbs in January 2015 consists of the remnants of a former ISIS network which exerted influence throughout the eastern and southern areas of the city in late 2013 and early 2014. By the start of 2014, ISIS militants maintained headquartersin the towns of Mayda’a and Mesraba in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area as well as in the southern neighborhoods of Yalda and Hajar al-Aswad. ISIS forces in this sector reportedly included several hundred fighters, making it one of ISIS’s last major strongholds in western Syria following the expulsion of ISIS fighters from northern rebel-held areas of Idlib and Aleppo Province in early January 2014. ISIS in Damascus endured for a longer period, apparently taking advantage of shifts in the battle for Damascus to solidify its position within rebel-held areas.

In February 2014, the regime concluded ceasefire agreements with several rebel-held neighborhoods in south Damascus in preparation for an upcoming assault on the eastern neighborhood of Mleiha. ISIS exploited this lull to expand its presence into several of the neighborhoods involved in the ceasefire, including Babbila, Beit Sahem, and the Yarmouk refugee camp. This suggests that ISIS leveraged the ceasefire agreements to exploit rebel drawdowns and to tap into grievances of disillusioned opposition fighters – and later surviving Damascus Sunni populations discontented with the regime’s failures to honor the terms of the truces – in order to cultivate a base of support in these neighborhoods. This is a contrast to how ISIS was operating elsewhere in Syria at the time. ISIS had lost its northern positions in Idlib and Aleppo on the basis of a lack of popular support. ISIS had simultaneously forcibly seized control of Raqqa, from which it projected direct force in eastern Syria throughout the year. By contrast, ISIS in Damascus initially worked to avoid open confrontation with collocated rebel groups.

However, ISIS forces in Damascus proved unable to maintain positive relations with local residents and other armed opposition groups. Between March and June 2014, ISIS militants were repeatedly accused of conducting a number of kidnappings and assassinations targeting rebel commanders and civilian activists throughout eastern and southern Damascus. In one noteworthy incident, ISIS militants even killed a former ISIS Shari’a judge who had been placed under the protection of prominent Islamic Front group Jaysh al-Islam. These escalating tensions corresponded with an apparent countrywide trend of strained relations which had begun with ISIS’s expulsion from northwestern Syria. In early April, for example, ISIS launched an offensive against JN and other opposition groups in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zour Province, making significant gains leading up to the fall of Mosul and signaling ISIS willingness to expand at the expense of other armed groups.

Simmering tensions came to a peak following the fall of Mosul to ISIS forces on June 10, 2014. ISIS’s stunning victories in Iraq and operations in Deir ez-Zour framed a narrative of ISIS expansionism which rebels likely feared would pose a direct threat to their control in the suburbs of Damascus. Even limited ISIS activities behind opposition frontlines could disrupt the integrity of key battlefronts, including the ongoing rebel defense of Mleiha and the Jaysh al-Islam-led rebel offensive called “Breaking the Walls of Damascus,” launched on June 13. ISIS also increased its public messaging in Damascus following the fall of Mosul, including one incident in which two ISIS militants wearing SVESTs were detained distributing leaflets in the rebel stronghold of Douma on June 23. This posturing suggests that ISIS advances on other fronts bolstered the group’s confidence in the capital.

These developments likely spurred the June 24 announcementof the Eastern Ghouta Unified Courthouse by sixteen rebel factions, including Jaysh al-Islam, Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), and Ahrar al-Sham. Two days later, on June 26, the Unified Courthouse issued a statement demanding that ISIS militants dissolve their organization and turn themselves over to Eastern Ghouta court within 24 hours. ISIS refused to comply with these orders, sparking heavy clashes between ISIS and these groups, including several alleged ISIS VBIED attacks against the rebel stronghold of Douma. Following ISIS’s declaration of a caliphate on June 29, opposition groups quickly dedicated resources towards eliminating ISIS from rebel rear areas in Eastern Ghouta. An operation spearheaded by Jaysh al-Islam drove ISIS forces from the town of Mayda’a on July 1 and seized the town of Mesraba on July 10, eliminating overt ISIS presence in Eastern Ghouta. Surviving ISIS members likely fled northeast to the nearby Qalamoun region, relocated to ISIS-held neighborhoods in southern Damascus, or went into hiding to serve as potential “sleeper cells” within rebel-held terrain.

As ISIS forces successfully consolidatedtheir control over eastern Syria in the summer of 2014, violent conflict between ISIS and other rebel groups spread to southern Damascus. ISIS militants stormed the headquarters of the “Aisha Umm al-Mu’mineen” Battalion (affiliated with Jaysh al-Islam) in the neighborhood of Yalda on July 17, 2014 and detained the leader of the battalion as well as the Islamic Front commander for southern Damascus and the heads of two other rebel brigades. Jaysh al-Islam, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Ajnad al-Sham Islamic Movement, and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF) rapidly mobilized against ISIS, forcing ISIS out of its strongholds in Yalda and Beit Sahem into the adjacent neighborhoods of Hajar al-Aswad, al-Qadam, and Tadamon. Following further clashes, the ISIS commander in southern Damascus – a Yalda resident named Abu Sayeh Tayara – agreed to withdraw his remaining 250 fighters to the Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood in late July. This deal was reportedly formalized in early September 2014, when ISIS forces in southern Damascus signed a non-aggression pact with surrounding rebel groups in order to focus on combating the Syrian regime.

Successful regime advances in Eastern Ghouta, such as the seizure of Mleiha on August 14, may have catalyzed rebel willingness to postpone taking on ISIS in southern Damascus. However, opposition forces continued to impose a loose blockade around Hajar al-Aswad amidst sporadic assassination attempts against rebel commanders operating in the vicinity of the neighborhood. Since mid-2014, there have been a number of assassinations in the Damascus area – and throughout Syria – targeting rebel leaders with no firm attribution. However, the location and context of these attacks suggest that ISIS may have been the primary perpetrator in southern Damascus, as the elimination of opposition leadership would serve to disrupt organized resistance to future ISIS expansion out of Hajar al-Aswad.

From September to November 2014, ISIS forces in Hajar al-Aswad maintained a low profile. However, in the face of increasing battlefield pressures across its primary control zones in Iraq and Syria – including a steady stream of coalition airstrikes, the loss of at least 900 ISIS fighters at the Kurdish town of Ayn al-Arab/Kobane, and the seizure of key terrain in Iraq by Iraqi Security Forces – ISIS appears to have ordered the reinvigoration of other fronts (including Anbar Province in Iraq and Eastern Homs Province in Syria) in order to regain momentum. In line with this trend, ISIS militants in southern Damascus launched a public relations campaign to reassert their presence in the area. Following the rumored announcement of an ISIS ‘emirate’ in Hajar al-Aswad on November 24, 2014, previously existing official media accounts affiliated with ISIS “Wilayat Dimashq” [State of Damascus] which had become dormant following ISIS’s expulsion from Eastern Ghouta began to publish new reports detailing the organization’s military activities against regime forces along the southern front of the neighborhood. One post on December 4 allegedly depicted nearly 200 residents of “southern Damascus” pledging bay’ah (allegiance) to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In further posts throughout the month of December, ISIS also highlighted its governance activities in the neighborhood, including literacy classes, street beautification, drug enforcement, and military-religious training camps for children.

ISIS’s decision to promote these forms of positive messaging at this time, despite the organization’s long-standing presence in Hajar al-Aswad, suggests that ISIS forces in southern Damascus are prepared to reinvigorate their activities in the region in early 2015. Notably, on December 31, 2014 ISIS claimed to expand into the al-Zain neighborhood located between Hajar al-Aswad and Yalda – marking the group’s first overt presence outside of Hajar al-Aswad since September 2014. These activities also threaten to reactivate the southern Damascus front as a front line, disrupting the system of sieges and ceasefires utilized by the regime to redeploy valuable resources towards successful operations against rebels in Eastern Ghouta, such as the seizure of Mleiha and Adra.

ISIS in Rif Dimashq

Within the same timeframe as ISIS’s promotion of its activities in Hajar al-Aswad, another ISIS grouping emerged in the al-Lajat area of Rif Dimashq (sometimes referred to as Outer Ghouta), along the Damascus-Suwayda highway southeast of the Damascus International Airport. On November 20, Jaysh al-Islam stated that a group of fighters who had recently pledged allegiance to ISIS attacked a joint Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham headquarters in the Bir al-Qassab region of Rif Dimashq, killing two Jaysh al-Islam members and kidnapping several Ahrar al-Sham members. Four days later, unconfirmed reports stated that ISIS-affiliated militants attacked a checkpoint manned by local tribal fighters in far-northeastern Dera’a Province along the Damascus-Suwayda highway. Unknown gunmen also clashed with regime positions in the nearby Ber Haman area in the northeastern countryside of Suwayda. The exact origins of the pro-ISIS fighters operating in this region remain unclear. One unconfirmed report suggests that the militants consist of a group of armed Bedouin smugglers led by a defector from Jaysh al-Islam named Mohammed al-Mukkahal, while another indicated that the faction is composed of defected rebel fighters led by Lt. Abu Uday of the FSA-affiliated Liwa al-Mughawir. All accounts agree, however, that ISIS expanded into Rif Dimashq by securing a pledge of allegiance from some portion of a group of local fighters – demonstrating ISIS’s ability to exploit rebel discontent despite close proximity to key rebel centers of gravity.

Rebel factions in Rif Dimashq quickly moved to neutralize ISIS presence in the area. On November 26, 2014, JN deployed a heavily-armed convoy to the al-Lajat area in response to the emergence of “ISIS sleeper cells” in the vicinity – signifying JN’s interest in protecting its core areas in Dera’a Province from ISIS incursion. Five days later on December 1, Jaysh al-Islam, JN, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jaysh al-Aswad al-Sharqiya, as well as recipients of Western anti-tank weapons Shuhada Ahmed al-Abdo and Feilaq al-Rahman, announced the formation a unified leadership council and a joint military operations room for the eastern Qalamoun region bordering Rif Dimashq. Jaysh al-Islam once again spearheaded rebel anti-ISIS operations and launched an offensive against Bir al-Qasab with the assistance of reinforcements from Jaysh al-Aswad al-Sharqiya. Meanwhile, ISIS Wiliyat Damascus released images of a small convoy entering the Bir al-Qasab region – corroborating unconfirmed reports that approximately thirty ISIS foreign fighters had traveled across the desert from Albu Kamal in eastern Deir ez-Zour Province to support the ISIS faction present in Rif Dimashq.

On December 17, 2014, a Jaysh al-Islam spokesman stated that rebel forces had driven ISIS militants to the southern outskirts of Bir al-Qassab. On December 22, Jaysh al-Islam claimed that ISIS fighters had been removed entirely from the al-Lajat region. Yet despite these reports, ISIS media accounts continued to post photos depicting ISIS members engaging in clashes in Bir al-Qassab, destroying allegedly idolatrous shrines in the region, and conducting religious outreach in several areas along the northern outskirts of Suwayda Province. The latest ISIS statements regarding Bir al-Qassab, released on December 29, purport to show efforts to “mend fences” with local residents through public outreach – indicating that ISIS still maintains at least some measure of military presence and popular support in the region.

Implications

Recent ISIS efforts to expand its influence in the central corridor of western Syria are not limited to the environs of Damascus. Throughout December, ISIS reportedly secured bay’ah from several rebel groups occupying positions in key pieces of opposition-held terrain. For example, the commander of the Islamist-leaning “Asoud al-Islam” Battalion (based out of Telbisa in the rebel-held countryside north of Homs city) declaredallegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in early December, although this move prompted nearly 400 out of 500 fighters to leave the battalion. In the southern province of Dera’a, meanwhile, rumors emerged on December 14 indicating that at least some portion of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade had pledged allegiance to ISIS – inciting several days of clashes with JN which were resolved through mediation at the “Dar al-Adl” Shari’a court. In other parts of the country during this time, tribal rebel brigades with alleged links to ISIS – including Uqab al-Islam in eastern Hama Province and Liwa al-Touba in southern Aleppo Province – also conducted overt activities against both regime and rebel forces in their areas of operation.

Over this same time period, ISIS-affiliated militants with a historical presence in western Syria have also intensified their activities. In the Qalamoun Mountains, a zone where ISIS fighters have previously cooperated closely with JN and other factions to both resist regime offensives and conductoperations inside of Lebanon, ISIS Shari’a officials reportedly delivered messages to several rebel battalions on December 10 demanding that they pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in preparation for the establishment of an ISIS “emirate” in the region within the next forty-five days. This ultimatum likely came in response to recent JN attempts to unite rebel groups in the Qalamoun Mountains, a move which would threaten future ISIS expansion in the region. Meanwhile, in the Eastern Qalamoun, ISIS militants detainedFSA-affiliated Liwa Mughawir commander Uraba Idris on December 18 after he allegedly refused to pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi. Idris’ arrest sparked clashes between ISIS and rebel forces near the desert town of al-Quryatayn during which ISIS deployed a U.S. TOW missile system possibly captured from vetted moderate Syrian rebels. These overt actions by ISIS suggest that ISIS has also been developing its presence in the Qalamoun region over the past several months. This area of ISIS expansion must therefore be explored in greater detail.

The close temporal proximity of these renewed ISIS activities along the Syrian central corridor means that they are likely linked. If their ideals of a caliphate are to be achieved, ISIS’s long-term campaign design in Syria must eventually address the problem of securing critical regime and rebel terrain in western Syria. In the face of curbed military momentum due to ongoing challenges on the battlefields of Iraq and eastern Syria, ISIS appears to be pursuing an expansion strategy which prioritizes the use of its ideological appeal and military resources to encourage defections from within rebel ranks – enabling the organization to expand its borders in the short-term without necessitating the physical movement of large numbers of fighters. Although the defections of minor opposition brigades may appear opportunistic and ineffectual when confronted with pressure from other rebel groups, these actions potentially provide ISIS with already-deployed forward units which can play a number of important roles in shaping the ISIS campaign for western Syria by building ties with local populations, encouraging further defections through close contact with other rebel forces, and harassing rival centers of power within opposition ranks.

ISIS’s current motto is “Baqiya wa Tatamaddad” [“Remaining and Expanding”]. The ideological and morale-boosting benefits of extending ISIS’s borders through defection are also significant. By exploiting discontent among rebel groups and civilian populations weary of the stalemated status quo, ISIS may promote itself as the ‘true’ champion of the Syrian people. The execution video of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, for example, prominently featured the beheadings of a group of Syrian Arab Army officers in a dramatic representation of ISIS positioning itself as a counter-regime force. In a sign that these appeals may be gaining some limited traction, residents of the rebel-held neighborhood of al-Wa’er in Homs city held demonstrations on January 2, 2015, calling for ISIS militants to “break the siege” of the area and replace rebel forces which have proven unable to “defend civilians.” ISIS short-term strategy in western Syria will likely continue to leverage these latent feelings to develop zones of permissible terrain throughout the central corridor of Syria.

However, ISIS’s strategy of ‘soft power’ expansion faces a number of challenges. As demonstrated by the exodus of fighters from Asoud al-Islam, ISIS likely does not possess sufficient available physical resources or relational goodwill at this time to attract meaningful support from larger mainstream rebel blocs. ISIS will also confront active hostility from powerful entrenched rebel factions in western Syria who view ISIS as an ideological threat or a rival for power. In the Damascus suburbs and Rif Dimashq, for example, the presence of ISIS-affiliated groups faced concerted resistance from a regional opposition powerbroker – Jaysh al-Islam – with clear antipathy towards ISIS encroachment on its terrain. ISIS expansion efforts also spurred the creation of unified rebel structures, such as the Eastern Qalamoun Operations Room or the Mujahideen Shura Council in the same region, which intensify rebel unity and serve only to increase the difficulty of obtaining future defections.

In many areas of Syria, the spoiler role against ISIS expansion in the central corridor would likely be played by Jabhat al-Nusra. Despite rumors of a potential rapprochement between JN and ISIS in Syria as well as apparent continued local-level cooperation with ISIS affiliates, JN has not hesitated to neutralize ISIS cells perceived to be a threat to its core interests. JN fighters participated in operations against ISIS in the Yalda neighborhood of southern Damascus as well as in the al-Lajat region of Rif Dimashq. JN members – under the leadership of the notoriously anti-ISIS spiritual leader Abu Maria al-Qahtani – also conducted the majority of the fighting against the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade in Dera’a Province based on unconfirmed reports suggesting that the group had ties to ISIS. Likewise, on December 23, JN seized the headquarters of Liwa Uqab al-Islam – a group with assessed ties to ISIS – in Qasr ibn Wardan, eastern Hama Province, following sporadic clashes between the two parties. In the absence of expanded ISIS military support, future rebel formations pledging allegiance to the Islamic State will likely be similarly overwhelmed.

Finally, the increasing prominence of ISIS activities along the central corridor raises thorny questions for the U.S.-led coalition campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS. For one, ISIS’s ability to find willing defectors among rebel ranks in core opposition support zones presents the risk that Syrian opposition forces participating in the train-and-equip program may work in close proximity to ISIS-affiliated groups or simply defect to ISIS altogether. ISIS’s expansion through affiliates and defections also poses definitional targeting questions regarding the nature of the Islamic State similar to those raised by ISIS’s international “wilayats” [states]. Conducting strikes against ISIS outside of eastern Syria would put coalition forces in direct conflict with the Syrian regime and at best would witness U.S. aircraft unambiguously aiding President Bashar al-Assad. However, failing to address ISIS presence in western Syria may enable ISIS to establish a foothold in terrain critical to the end-state of the Syrian conflict while diverting the resources and attention of the moderate opposition.