Every few months, on the heels of yet another horrific attack inspired, facilitated or directed by the Islamic State, a familiar wave of articles appears under a misleading headline: Is the group back? Is it resurging? Are we seeing the emergence of “IS 2.0”?
These questions are now being asked once again, following a bloody weekend that saw three American troops killed by an IS gunman in Syria, and a massacre targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. The latter attack was committed by a father-and-son duo who took a monthlong trip to the southern Philippines in the weeks before the attack, raising the possibility that the attackers were trained or directed by members of the Islamic State East Asia, the group’s Southeast Asian affiliate. IS’ weekly publication Al-Naba, however, claims the attack was inspired by the group but not directed by it. Other recent terrorist plots that were disrupted by authorities in Poland and Germany, potentially inspired by IS, indicate that the threat remains persistent and global.
For analysts like us who study the group and track it closely, these incidents come as no surprise. After all, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim in 2019 that IS has been defeated, the reality is far more complex. While the threat from the group has been significantly attenuated, especially from its apex during the height of its so-called caliphate between 2014 and 2018, the nodes in IS’ global and highly decentralized network remain potent enough to conduct sophisticated terrorist attacks.