Islamic State is resurgent in Syria, filling a void left by the US

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limited All rights reserved. Sudarsan Raghavan, The Wall Street Journal 10 min read 23 Oct 2025, 07:14 IST The militants have attracted hundreds of foreign fighters and become known for public beheading and the enslavement of women. (AFP) Summary Attacks by the militant group are ongoing as it exploits a reduced US presence and the collapse of the Assad regime. “They returned to our city.” HAJIN, Syria—The two American-backed Kurdish soldiers were driving past a row of shops in a pickup truck when Islamic State militants on motorcycles opened fire with AK-47s, killing them both. A shop owner near the site said it was the first Islamic State attack on the road. “We’re all scared,” he said, visibly shaken a day after the ambush. “They returned to our city.” The soldiers were with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which fought alongside the US to topple an Islamic State empire in Syria and Iraq that at its height ruled millions of people and raked in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in extortion and taxes. Six years later, that rare, decisive victory over militancy is being eroded. Islamic State, now a decentralized mobile insurgency, is exploiting a reduced US presence and the collapse of Bashar-al-Assad’s regime in Syria to recruit new recruits and expand its reach, US and Kurdish military commanders said. The group is newly equipped after raiding weapons caches late last year after rebels took Damascus and the regime’s army and its Iranian allies fled. It is unable to hold territory, but this contributes to a sense of lawlessness that adds to the strain on the new state. Islamic State militants carried out 117 attacks in northeastern Syria through the end of August, far surpassing the 73 attacks in all of 2024, according to SDF figures. They also planned attacks in the capital, 270 miles away from their bases of operations in the east, Syria’s government said. Many of his attacks in the northeast have been in Deir Ezzor province, a desert region the size of Maryland that is home to most of the country’s estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters. A week-long trip through the province’s towns showed how the militant group is adapting its tactics to reassert its influence—killing representatives of the area’s Kurdish rulers, renewing its demands for payments and sowing fear. “The withdrawal of American forces is inspiring Daesh,” said Goran Tel Tamir, a top regional SDF commander, who uses the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “We see them launch more attacks on us. We get more complaints from people. This puts us in a difficult position.” A day after the ambush, The Wall Street Journal joined an SDF convoy of more than 20 vehicles led by Tel Tamir to patrol Hajin. It drove along the potholed, rural road leading to the small eastern city and stopped at the site of the attack. Broken glass was still strewn across the road. The militants shoot and run, Tel Tamir said, but they also find support in Sunni-dominated towns like Hajin, once a major Islamic State stronghold. As the SDF convoy rolled by, men and boys glared from storefronts. Women wore black niqabs, the ultraconservative head-to-ankle garment that covers the body and face. Islamic State emerged from the chaos of Iraq after the US invasion in 2003 and took advantage of the instability unleashed by the Arab Spring in Syria to capture swaths of territory. It declared a caliphate in 2014 and at its peak ruled 8 million to 12 million people. The militants attracted hundreds of foreign fighters and became known for public beheadings and the enslavement of women. Loyalties in some towns were divided between Islamic State and the militias opposed to it. In 2017, US coalition forces and the SDF drove Islamic State from its capital Raqqa, forcing its remnants to retreat to Deir Ezzor province. After heavy fighting in Hajin and other towns, thousands of Islamic State fighters and their families surrendered. Thousands are still in detention camps in the area. Others melted into sympathetic, conservative Sunni Arab communities and tried to rebuild. As Islamic State digs in, the US has declined. Since April, the US has withdrawn about 500 of the 2,000 US troops in Syria and closed several bases or handed them over to the SDF, which controls a swath of Syria’s northeast. In the coming months, the number of troops could drop below 1,000, the Pentagon said. Much of the withdrawal took place in eastern Syria, particularly Deir Ezzor. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the reductions reflected US success in humiliating the group. In August, the inspector general for the US military’s Syria and Iraq mission against Islamic State said the US and its partners had achieved significant success in stopping the militants from regaining control of territory, but said Islamic State militants were trying to exploit Syria’s volatile and fragmented state to rebuild. The Department of Homeland Security says the group wants to carry out attacks in the U.S. Islamic State militants targeted SDF patrols 20 times in May, leaving 15 soldiers wounded and 10 dead, including the two in the pickup truck. SDF commanders said it was the deadliest month for their troops since 2019, when Islamic State was driven from the last of the territory it controlled. In August, at least seven SDF soldiers were killed, including five in a single day. In the first week of September, the militants launched eight attacks in Deir Ezzour alone. On Monday, two soldiers were killed there by a landmine planted by an Islamic State cell, the SDF said. SDF commanders said Islamic State’s tactics had changed. They now operate in small sleeper cells—sometimes with several cells in a town, each unaware of the others. They are given orders to set up ambushes and plant improvised explosive devices on roads. It is a cheap arrangement that is difficult to eradicate. “They depend on small groups, four or five people, for one operation,” said Siymend Ali, a spokesman for the People’s Defense Units, the main militia within the SDF alliance. “This way they save a lot of money. Everyone has one AK-47 and an explosive device.” Militants no longer wear uniforms or carry their trademark black flags. Most are Syrian citizens, which allows them to easily blend into local populations. SDF senior leaders are prime targets. Islamic State has killed several of them this year. Khabat Shaydi, a commander in the SDF’s military council for Hajin, was leading a four-vehicle convoy to inspect SDF checkpoints in March, when Islamic State militants shouting “Allahu akbar”—God is great—fired three rocket-propelled grenades from a cluster of houses. Two of his soldiers were seriously injured. After a 10-minute firefight, the half-dozen attackers fled with their wounded across the Euphrates River to areas controlled by Syria’s government, which SDF commanders say are patrolled more lightly. Later that day, Shaydi, who was slightly injured, received a call on his cell phone. The voice said, “Infidel. You survived. Next time we will kill you,” then hung up. Shaydi, himself a Sunni Arab, recognized the voice. It was a member of his own tribe, the Al-Shaitat. For Shaydi, the attack brought back dark memories. His tribe rebelled against Islamic State’s authority in 2014, but were killed in a campaign of shootings and beheadings that left hundreds dead, including some of his relatives. The following year, he and some of his tribesmen joined the SDF determined to take revenge and regain control of their tribal lands. Others went the opposite way and joined the Islamic State or were conscripted. Today, Islamic State fighters openly ride motorcycles in the streets of Diban, about 30 miles to the north, said Muhammad Al Bou Herdan, an oil investor who fled the town eight months ago. One day, a group of militants called him and demanded that he pay zakat – an Islamic tithe – amounting to $1,000. He said this was standard practice in Diban, one of several towns where Islamic State has many sympathizers and exerts influence through intimidation. A masked man came to his house and picked up the cash. “They watched me and all my movements,” Al Bou Herdan said. “They knew all the details about my work and my family. I couldn’t escape paying.” Two months later, an Islamic State militant called from another cellphone and also demanded $1,000. When Al Bou Herdan told them he had already paid, the militant said he was lying and threatened to target his small oil refinery and his home if he did not pay. Al Bou Herdan politely refused and blocked the phone number, he said. Later, he spotted two men on a motorcycle at the gates of his refinery, where he had three employees. “The moment I saw them, I knew they were looking for me,” Al Bou Herdan said. “I turned my car around and sped away. They started shooting.” One of his workers was shot dead. Al Bou Herdan closed his refinery and fled to Hajin. He changed his phone number and closed his social media accounts. He carries a gun. His two cousins, also armed, protect him day and night. Farhad Shami, an SDF spokesman, said the group had received many reports of similar cases of extortion. While the SDF controls much of Syria’s northeast, its troops are stretched thin. In addition to patrolling the area, they are responsible for guarding camps and prisons that house nearly 50,000 former Islamic State fighters, along with their wives and children. The SDF asked foreign countries to take their citizens back there, but most did not. Since the fall of the Assad regime, the Kurdish-led forces have also fought on-and-off battles with militias backed by longtime enemy Turkey. In August, they found themselves in confrontations with forces associated with Syria’s new government. They recently clashed again in the northwestern city of Aleppo. In March, the government and SDF signed an agreement under which the Kurdish-led forces would be integrated into the Syrian army and government, but it faltered amid mistrust between the two sides, creating room for Islamic State to strengthen its foothold. “This area is too big and the Damascus government is unable to control it,” said Tel Tamir. “Daesh is taking advantage of it.” Syria’s Ministry of Information admitted that “a security gap” exists due to the government’s limited powers and lack of control over all areas, allowing armed groups to move and operate more freely. Nevertheless, security forces successfully disrupted Islamic State cells in Damascus and foiled planned attacks, the ministry said. “While ISIS continues to pose a danger, the government remains fully committed to containing and eradicating it,” the ministry said. Under the Assad regime, Arab tribes and the Kurds in the northeast were united by their resistance to the minority Alawite regime in Damascus. Now some Sunni Muslim Arab communities prefer to be governed by Syria’s new leaders, who are mostly Sunni Muslim Arabs, rather than the Kurdish-led local government. President Ahmed al-Sharaa was once aligned with Islamic State before switching to al-Qaeda, then eventually renounced extremism as he and his forces fought to control Syria. Mistrust persists. Some SDF commanders question whether former jihadists in the government have renounced their hard-line ideology, allowing the Islamic State to move unhindered. “These claims are politically motivated and have no basis in fact,” the Syrian Ministry of Information said. The SDF alienated some by arbitrarily detaining hundreds of civilians “during mass attacks carried out under the pretext of pursuit [Islamic State] cells,” the Syrian Network for Human Rights said in a report in August. The U.S. military has helped keep ethnic and religious tensions from boiling over. It brokered a ceasefire after clashes erupted two years ago when the SDF arrested a prominent Sunni military commander. Tensions are expected to rise with the reduced U.S. presence, the inspector general’s report said in August. with help to the US force and the SDF report said in August. State, and provide air support for SDF operations. The US military said its forces killed a senior Islamic State leader along with his sons in July, and another in August. Still, SDF commanders in Deir Ezzour feel the Americans’ absence. Instead of communicating face-to-face, they now send requests for help senior commanders hundreds of miles away, who then pass it on to the U.S. military, Tel Tamir said. As the convoy left Hajin and returned to the SDF base, it passed former US camps that sat empty in the desert behind thick barricades topped with barbed wire. The Americans used to carry out daily patrols, many with the SDF, which helped to deter the Islamic State and the population reassuring, Tel Tamir said nostalgically. “When people here see the Americans, they feel safe,” he said. Write to Sudarsan Raghavan at [email protected] Get all the business News, market news, news events and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. more topics #SDF Read next story