ISIS destroyed?

ISIS has been defeated at its final shred of territory of Baghouz in Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Saturday 23 March, announcing the end of its self-declared "caliphate" that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria.

The SDF declared the "total elimination of (the) so-called caliphate", Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, wrote on Twitter.

The SDF has been battling to capture Baghouz at the Iraqi border for weeks.

The last holdouts of ISIS have been largely confined to Baghuoz since last month. The Kurdish-led SDF launched a new offensive on March 10 after slowing its push to allow civilians to flee — and to let thousands of ISIS fighters and their families surrender.

In the final push to control Baghouz, the SDF blew up an ammunition storage area and slowly pried positions away from ISIS. On Tuesday, the SDF captured hundreds of sick or injured ISIS militants and sent them to nearby hospitals, Bali said.

They detonated car bombs and hurled explosives from drones. Suicide bombers ran across the front line under cover of darkness to attack the sleeping quarters of the coalition.

In the last weeks, the ISIS militants’ families fled for their lives, their burqa-clad wives streaming into the desert by the tens of thousands. Some of them defiantly chanted Islamic State slogans and lobbed fistfuls of dirt at reporters. However, after a gruelling campaign, the last speck of land was finally wrested from the Islamic State.

NPR's (National Public Radio) Ruth Sherlock reports, "More than 60,000 people have poured out of this area in the past two months. Most of them have been ISIS fighters, supporters, and their children, but there have also been ISIS victims – Yazidi children and women who were taken by the group from Iraq and used as slaves."

Sherlock adds, "It's believed more hostages – Yazidis, westerners and others – are still trapped inside."

Even as U.S.-backed forces wrest back the Islamic State’s last strip of territory in Syria, the United States and its allies are nowhere close to bringing down the terrorist organization’s economic empire. The group remains a financial powerhouse: It still has access to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to experts’ estimates, and can rely on a battle-tested playbook to keep money flowing into its coffers. This continued wealth has real risks, threatening to help it retain the allegiance of a committed core of loyalists and wreak havoc through terrorist attacks for years to come.

The Islamic State’s financial strength offers a window into the broader challenge facing the United States and other governments. In its effort to squeeze the group financially, Washington has been forced to rely on a fundamentally different strategy than it employed in its military campaign: The main weapons at its disposal are not air strikes and artillery barrages, but subtler tools, such as sanctioning Islamic State–linked businesses, denying them access to the international financial system, and quietly cooperating with governments across the globe. Successes will be less visible, the campaign against the group will likely take years, and there is no guarantee of victory.

The end of the Islamic State’s days of holding and governing territory represents a double-edged sword for officials looking to starve it of resources. On one hand, its dramatic losses have made it far more difficult for the group to rely on two major sources of revenue: the exploitation of oil fields in Iraq and Syria, and the taxation of citizens living under its rule. These methods played a key role in allowing the Islamic State to raise roughly $1 million a day, a senior Iraqi security official, who declined to be identified discussing intelligence issues, told The Atlantic, transforming the group into the world’s richest terrorist organization.

On the other hand, the Islamic State’s loss of territory has freed it from the costs associated with trying to build its self-declared “caliphate,” allowing it to focus exclusively on terrorist activity. A U.S. Treasury Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the group is operating increasingly like its insurgent predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and no longer requires the same resources it did when it governed territory. Oil still brings in revenue too: While the Islamic State no longer controls individual fields, the Treasury official added that a key source of the group’s income is the extortion of oil-supply lines across the region.

“Maybe the group will be defeated in Syria, but not elsewhere,” Salam Abid, who spent four and a half years in Islamic State territory, fleeing only after 20 members of his family were killed in an airstrike, said through the bandages covering his burned face. “Sure, in Syria, they are down to nothing, but in the deserts of Anbar, they live on. And in Asia and in Africa, they are still fighting.”

Citations:

1. Rukmini Callimachi (March 23, 2019). ISIS Caliphate Crumbles as Last Village in Syria Falls. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/world/middleeast/isis-syria-caliphate.html?emc=edit_th_190324&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=791369550324

2. David Kenner (March 24, 2019), All ISIS Has Left Is Money. Lots of It, The Atlantic. Retrieved from: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/03/isis-caliphate-money-territory/584911/

3. NDTV (March 23, 2019). US Ally Declared Fall of ‘Caliphate’, Last Village Captured. Retrieved from: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-ally-declares-fall-of-isis-caliphate-last-village-captured-2011707

4. NPR (March 19, 2019), ISIS Camp is Baghouz Is Captured As U.S. Allies Declare, Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/19/704730563/isis-camp-in-baghouz-is-captured-as-u-s-allies-celebrate-progress-in-syria

5. The Straits Times (February 14, 2019), Hundreds streaming out of last Islamic State stronghold as extremists face military defeat, Retrieved from: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/hundreds-streaming-out-of-last-islamic-state-stronghold-as-extremists-face