After claiming responsibility for the Moscow attack… Will ISIS return again?

ISIS, which previously controlled large areas of territory extending from northeastern Syria to northern Iraq, showed signs of a significant decline in its attacks during the year 2023, according to data collected by the BBC Media Monitoring Unit.

ISIS activities decreased by more than half compared to the previous year, and the organization’s leaders suffered losses.

The organization’s branch in Egypt remained calm this year, joining the other two dormant branches in Libya and Yemen. Meanwhile, its branch in Afghanistan claimed responsibility for only a small portion compared to the number of attacks it claimed responsibility for last year.

Also, the organization in Africa claimed fewer attacks, with the exception of the Sahel branch, which expanded into eastern Mali, claimed major attacks in Niger, and focused on propaganda activities.

What do the numbers indicate?

ISIS claimed responsibility for a total of 838 attacks globally in 2023, excluding December, compared to 1,811 attacks during the same period last year, which means a decrease in attacks by 53 percent.

The analyzes and conclusions drawn about the number of attacks are based on the organization’s official announcements claiming responsibility for the attacks, on its propaganda messages and campaigns, and on those announcements and campaigns of its supporters. In this case, the numbers may be either exaggerated or sometimes lower than they actually are.

All figures mentioned for the year 2023 represent attacks carried out during the period between January 1 and November 30.

What do we know about ISIS attacks?

At the height of its influence, ISIS controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq, but by 2017, it had lost 95 percent of the areas it controlled.

In 2019, an international coalition led by the United States and Kurdish militants took control of the village of Baghouz, the last stronghold of ISIS in Syria, and this was followed by a series of defeats that led to the organization’s decline.

Since that date, ISIS has focused on strengthening its branches in Africa, as it sought to divert attention from its defeat in the Middle East.

The organization is still carrying out insurgency operations in Iraq and Syria and supervising a network of branches associated with it in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, but a significant decline in their activities can be observed.

In March, ISIS sought to justify the decrease in its attacks by saying that it does not publicly claim responsibility for all the attacks it carries out, mostly for security reasons.

The organization’s branch, which is based in Egypt’s Sinai, did not claim responsibility for any attacks this year, compared to its claim of responsibility for 102 attacks last year – including operations carried out near the Suez Canal late in the year – which indicates that the organization has received A severe blow at the hands of the Egyptian Armed Forces.

Attacks carried out by the so-called Khorasan Province branch of ISIS in Afghanistan also decreased, as the organization claimed responsibility for 20 attacks in 2023, compared to 145 attacks last year and 293 attacks in 2021, the year in which the Taliban movement returned to power.

Although there was a decrease in the number of attacks, they resulted in a higher number of victims. In July, the ISIS branch in Khorasan Province claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a political gathering of the Islamic party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl in northwestern Pakistan, which killed at least 60 people.

In Iraq, the organization claimed responsibility for a total of 141 attacks in 2023, compared to 401 attacks for the same period last year, which represents a 65 percent decrease.

The organization claimed responsibility for 112 attacks in Syria this year, a decrease from the 292 attacks it carried out last year.

Is ISIS growing in Africa?

Since its loss of Baghouz in 2019, ISIS has shifted its propaganda campaign to focus on its “expansion” and “victories” in sub-Saharan Africa, where it maintains five branches: the West Africa Province branch, “ISWAB,” which focuses on Nigeria, and the Central Africa Province branch. Which focuses on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and which occasionally carries out incursions into Uganda, the Sahel Branch, the Mozambique Branch and the Somalia Branch.

The most active branch is the “ESWAB” branch, which operates mainly in northeastern Nigeria and the surrounding Lake Chad region, but its activities also declined in 2023. The organization’s branch claimed responsibility for 470 attacks in 2022, and 266 attacks in 2023.

The organization’s branches in Central Africa State and Mozambique claimed responsibility for a smaller number of attacks, although they remained a major threat. In practice, both of them continued to adopt attacks on local and regional forces and on soft targets, especially Christian villages.

The ISIS branch in Central Africa Province claimed responsibility for four attacks this year in Uganda, one of which claimed the lives of two tourists and their guide, but it did not claim responsibility for the bloody June attack on a secondary school in western Uganda, for which the organization was widely blamed.

In general, the attacks claimed by ISIS from its branches in sub-Saharan Africa combined decreased to 508 in 2023, from a total of 847 attacks last year. However, this number still represents 60 percent of the total number of ISIS attacks globally – the highest percentage for Africa so far.

Where is ISIS activity expanding?

ISIS branches in the Sahel region and the Philippines were more active this year, according to data collected by the BBC Media Monitoring Unit.

It is reported that ISIS has been expanding in eastern Mali near the border with Niger since April. The organization’s expansion here comes amid ongoing security and political unrest affecting the Sahel countries, and extremist groups are keen to exploit them.

Between July and October, ISIS published reports and photos showing “military campaigns” that the organization claimed to have carried out since May with the aim of “fighting crime” and implementing “justice.”

His propaganda materials appeared to promote the application of Islamic law in the border areas between Mali and Niger, where he acts as the de facto local authority.

In Niger, following the July military coup in the country, ISIS claimed responsibility for a series of attacks that caused mass casualties against the army in the west of the country.

One attack in early October reportedly killed nearly 60 soldiers, prompting Niger’s government to declare three days of mourning.

Since 2014, ISIS has received pledges of loyalty from armed groups in Southeast Asia as well. The organization’s branches are active in the region in the islands south of the Philippines, where a Muslim majority lives in the Christian-majority country.

Since July, the organization’s branches have claimed responsibility for 20 attacks this year, compared to seven attacks in 2022.

ISIS also claimed responsibility for the attack that targeted a Catholic mass in the southern Philippines on December 3, outside the time period that our statistics consider, and issued a call for mobilization and recruitment in the region.

What do we know about ISIS leaders?

The organization has recently suffered heavy losses among its leaders, and has lost three different leaders in more than a year, all of whom were killed in Syria during the period from February 2022 to April 2023.

Following the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an American raid on October 27, 2019, the organization was led by Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, then Abu al-Hassan al-Qurashi, followed by Abu al-Hussein al-Qurashi.

These three leaders are not related to each other, as the Qurashi family name refers to their connection to the Quraish tribe in Mecca, from which the Prophet Muhammad descended.

Since the organization unilaterally declared its “caliphate” in June 2014, it has continued to refer to its leaders as “Caliph,” the first of whom was Al-Baghdadi.

In August 2023, ISIS presented its new leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, but not much is known about him and he has yet to deliver a leadership speech.

ISIS also lost some of its prominent leaders, especially in Syria and Iraq, most of them in strikes by the US-led coalition.

Last August, the Mozambican army said that it had killed the leader of ISIS in the country, but the organization rarely comments on such killings, except in the case of the killing of the “caliph” and the organization’s spokesman.

It is believed that military operations against ISIS, and competition from other organizations in some countries, including Somalia, the Sahel and Lake Chad regions, and Syria, are among the factors contributing to the decline of the organization’s activities.

Losses in the ranks of the leadership – and the relative ambiguity about the identity of the current leadership – are also a major factor, but there are still hundreds of ISIS attacks, especially in Africa, and the organization continues to operate in many countries by exploiting political, security and societal weaknesses.

The war in Gaza may be viewed as one of these “opportunities” by ISIS and other extremist groups, which may seek to find ways to exploit the conflict to redirect anger at their enemies.

While Al-Qaeda called on Muslims to participate in the fighting alongside Palestinian militants, ISIS’s response, published in the organization’s weekly newspaper, Al-Naba, did not contain any praise for the Palestinian factions, nor did it call on Muslims to support Hamas.

The organization had previously accused Hamas of suppressing its followers in the Gaza Strip. Instead, the organization focused on inciting revenge attacks globally, including attacks against Arab governments that it accused of “protecting” Israel. (BBC)