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ISIS leaders appear to have made contingency plans that involve precisely this \u2014 regrouping in the desert and launching attacks, much like ISIS\u2019 predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq, did for more than a decade after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of those plans are already on display. In the eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen, a former ISIS stronghold, the militants pulled back and disappeared into the desert after only a few days of battle with Syrian government forces earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, said the Sunni militant group is now down to the last 10 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group still maintains some appeal for Sunnis, who complain of discrimination by Iraq\u2019s Shiite-led government and by Syrian President Bashar Assad\u2019s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ISIS will also look to buy time and benefit from political and other conflicts \u2014 such as this month\u2019s clashes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces following the Kurdish independence referendum. That fighting has already diverted resources from the war on ISIS, the top U.S. general in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, told The Associated Press last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iraqi troops, Shiite militiamen and Kurdish forces have driven ISIS from nearly all of Iraq, but if they turn on one another, that could give the extremists an opening to regroup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A similar dynamic threatens recent gains in Syria. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and Russia-backed government troops have been the most effective in the fight against ISIS, but are now waging parallel offensives in Deir el-Zour that could bring them into conflict with one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the SDF\u2019s liberation of Raqqa an \u201cinflection point\u201d in the fight against ISIS, but warned that the coalition needs to stay focused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cISIS is on their heels right now and our job is to make sure they don\u2019t recover,\u201d Dunford said, using an alternative name for the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Experts say that will be difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dana Jalal, a Sweden-based Iraqi journalist who closely follows jihadi groups in the Middle East, said ISIS \u201cwill become an underground terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe lone wolf has nothing to lose. They have nothing to defend now,\u201d Jalal said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group\u2019s predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq, was almost crushed in 2007 by U.S. and Iraqi forces. But after the Americans withdrew from Iraq in 2011, the militants regrouped, eventually emerging stronger than ever in the summer of 2014, when they conquered large areas of Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ISIS will again \u201cfind a supporting base in Sunni Iraq,\u201d where discontent with the Shiite-led government runs high, said Mutlu Civiroglu, a Washington-based Kurdish affairs analyst who follows the battle against IS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After losing ground in Syria and Iraq, ISIS will try to increase its presence in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, North Africa and elsewhere. The fact that ISIS \u201ccarried out or inspired attacks in around 30 countries worldwide shows its global reach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group is also increasingly reverting to its weapon of choice: suicide attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A suicide attack killed nearly 20 people at a Damascus police station earlier this month. In late September, ISIS gunmen emerged from the desert and hit government forces in central Syria, cutting their supply lines for days. ISIS has also carried out deadly attacks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and in western Iraq\u2019s sprawling Anbar province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe angry, disfranchised base that the group exploited is still there, so getting rid of the caliphate will not mean getting rid of the threat this group poses,\u201d Civiroglu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamic State militants, routed from one urban stronghold after another in Syria, have recently been moving deeper into Syria\u2019s remote desert, where experts say they are regrouping and preparing their next incarnation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":91819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,12,25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1209],"class_list":["post-47509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"MI42DNAWXNGWNFG2GDM3UZQFZM","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/10\/29\/their-caliphate-in-ruins-isis-militants-melt-into-the-desert\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n