CENTCOM says ISIS is reconstituting in Syria and Iraq, but the reality is even worse

In an unusual public statement late on July 16, United States Armed Forces’ Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that after six months of 2024, “ISIS is on pace to more than double” the number of attacks in Syria and Iraq it claimed in 2023. According to CENTCOM, ISIS has so far conducted 153 attacks across both countries from January through June, noting that “the increase in attacks indicates ISIS is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability.” CENTCOM’s commander, Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, insisted that achieving an enduring defeat of ISIS still relies on the “combined efforts of the Coalition and partners” — a clear message ahead of next week’s US-Iraq bilateral talks in Washington regarding the future of the counter-ISIS coalition presence in Iraq.

That CENTCOM is willing to so publicly point to ISIS’s 2024 surge is one thing, but the reality is far worse than its statement suggested. Why? CENTCOM’s metric for measuring ISIS attacks is the terrorist group’s claims of responsibility, but as has been known for years, ISIS claims only a fraction of its attacks in Syria and Iraq in an apparent effort to conceal its methodical recovery.

That recovery is a palpable reality in Syria, but not in Iraq. While ISIS conducted 122 attacks in Iraq in 2023, that number has fallen to only 35 in the first six months of 2024 — suggesting a potential 43% decline this year. But while CENTCOM says ISIS conducted 153 attacks in Syria in the first half of 2024, a day-to-day monitoring of reported ISIS attacks across the country indicates the true number is 551 in areas controlled both by the US and our Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) partners and by Syria’s regime. As the data below makes clear, 2024 has seen a dramatic surge in ISIS attacks on Syrian soil. If CENTCOM thinks ISIS is on track to double its operational tempo this year, the reality is much, much more concerning.

Source: Author’s personal data collection, cross-referenced with Gregory Waters’ ISIS Redux, Zain al-Abidin, and privileged sources in northeastern Syria.
 

In its July 16 statement, CENTCOM also documented the actions taken to combat ISIS. In Iraq, 137 joint US-Iraqi partnered operations were conducted from January to June 2024, resulting in 30 ISIS militants killed and 74 detained. Such operations play a vital role in keeping ISIS down, achieving the 43% attack reduction noted above. But next door in Syria, where ISIS is reawakening, CENTCOM’s counterterrorism numbers are far lower, at 59 operations, resulting in 14 ISIS killed and 92 detained. That represents a potential 16% decline in operations compared to 2023, and a 72% decline in ISIS killed and captured.

The fault for this reduction in counter-ISIS operational activity lies primarily with Iran and its militant proxies in Iraq and Syria, which have launched at least 185 attacks on US troops since October 2023 — limiting US military freedom of maneuver significantly, particularly in Syria.

But the ingredients for ISIS’s surge in 2024 were in place in Syria prior to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The group has been slowly and methodically rebuilding its capabilities since 2020, especially in the regime-held central badiya (desert). It has been in this vast expanse of minimally populated territory that ISIS has slowly rebuilt itself in recent years, taking advantage of a regime that lacks the capability to tackle a dispersed insurgency and whose track record of caring about ISIS is poor. ISIS’s deeper investment in regime areas is illustrated clearly in how deadly its attacks have been over the past year, with 82 killed in SDF areas and 566 in regime territory.

Source: Author’s personal data collection, cross-referenced with Gregory Waters’ ISIS Redux, Zain al-Abidin, and privileged sources in northeastern Syria.
 

The past six months have seen ISIS produce and deploy at least three vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), something almost unseen since the group last held territory in 2019 and a clear indicator of enhanced logistics, supply chains, and access to secure production facilities. IED attacks have also increased significantly this year, as have complex amassed assaults, coordinated ambushes, raids, pop-up checkpoints on highways, and targeted assassinations.

ISIS attacks in Syria this year have also involved greater numbers of fighters operating in the open for more prolonged periods of time; this suggests a far greater willingness to potentially lose personnel in battle and implies recruitment is no longer a problem. ISIS attacks are also increasingly infiltrating urban areas and striking more strategic targets, like oil and gas facilities and military checkpoints. The group’s “shadow governance” is also back, with a well-coordinated extortion network again widespread and ISIS militants issuing bespoke “taxation” invoices to local business and enforcing commercial trucking customs duties on main roads.

ISIS’s roots date as far back as the late 1980s, and the group’s “state” was first established in 2006. The group has existed for far longer without territory under its control than it has with it. It is an inherently patient terrorist adversary, with a well-established track record of recovery and resurgence after suffering crippling territorial defeats. The ISIS surge in 2024 has occurred in both SDF- and regime-held regions of Syria, making for a reality we have not seen since 2017; and when paired with the qualitative spike in its activities, big red alarm bells should be ringing not just in CENTCOM headquarters but also in the White House. If this is not tackled swiftly, we risk watching a familiar story play out all over again in the coming months and years.

Charles Lister is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute.

Photo by Ali Makram Ghareeb/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images