New Orleans attack puts spotlight on ISIS comeback bid
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At least 15 people were killed when a Texas man carried out an attack in New Orleans on Jan 1 that was inspired by ISIS.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - A US Army veteran who flew a black ISIS flag on a truck that he rammed into New Year’s revellers
At the height of its power from 2014 to 2017, the ISIS “caliphate” inflicted death and torture on communities in vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and enjoyed franchises across the Middle East.
Its then leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in 2019 by US special forces in north-western Syria, rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims.
The caliphate collapsed in 2017 in Iraq, where it once had a base just a 30-minute drive from Baghdad, and in Syria in 2019, after a sustained military campaign by a US-led coalition.
ISIS responded by scattering in autonomous cells, its leadership clandestine and its overall size hard to quantify. The UN estimates it at 10,000-strong in its heartlands.
The US-led coalition, including some 4,000 American troops in Syria and Iraq, has kept hammering the militants with air strikes and raids that the US military says have seen hundreds of fighters and leaders killed and captured.
Yet ISIS has managed some major operations while striving to rebuild and it continues to inspire lone wolf attacks such as the one in New Orleans which killed 14 people.
Those assaults include one by gunmen on a Russian music hall in March 2024 that killed at least 143 people, and two explosions targeting an official ceremony in the Iranian city of Kerman in January 2024 that killed nearly 100.
Despite the counterterrorism pressure, ISIS has regrouped, “repaired its media operations, and restarted external plotting”, acting US director for the National Counterterrorism Centre Brett Holmgren warned in October.
Geopolitical factors have aided ISIS. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has caused widespread anger that militants use for recruitment.
The risks to Syrian Kurds who are holding thousands of ISIS prisoners could also create an opening for the group.
ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack or praised it on its social media sites, although its supporters have, US law enforcement agencies said.
A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been growing concern about ISIS increasing its recruiting efforts and resurging in Syria.
Those worries were heightened after the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the potential for the militant group to fill the vacuum.
‘Moments of promise’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that ISIS will try to use this period of uncertainty to re-establish capabilities in Syria, but said the US is determined not to let that happen.
“History shows how quickly moments of promise can descend into conflict and violence,” he said.
A UN team that monitors ISIS activities reported to the UN Security Council in July a “risk of resurgence” of the group in the Middle East and increased concerns about the ability of its Afghanistan-based affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), to mount attacks outside the country.
European governments viewed ISIS-K as “the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe”, it said.
“In addition to the executed attacks, the number of plots disrupted or being tracked through the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Levant, Asia, Europe and potentially as far as North America is striking,” the team said.
Mr Jim Jeffrey, former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, and special envoy to the Global Coalition To Defeat ISIS, said the group has long sought to motivate lone wolf attacks like the one in New Orleans.
Its threat, however, remains efforts by ISIS-K to launch major mass casualty attacks like those seen in Moscow and Iran, and in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he said.
ISIS has also continued to focus on Africa.
This week, it said 12 ISIS militants using booby-trapped vehicles attacked a military base on Dec 31 in Somalia’s north-eastern region of Puntland, killing around 22 soldiers and wounding dozens more.
It called the assault “the blow of the year. A complex attack that is first of its kind”.
Security analysts say ISIS in Somalia has grown in strength because of an influx of foreign fighters and more revenue from extorting local businesses, becoming the group’s “nerve centre” in Africa.
‘Path to radicalisation’
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and US Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, acted alone in the New Orleans attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Jan 2.
Jabbar appeared to have made recordings in which he condemned music, drugs and alcohol, restrictions that echo ISIS’ playbook.
Investigators were looking into Jabbar’s “path to radicalisation”, uncertain how he transformed from military veteran, real estate agent and one-time employee of major tax and consulting firm Deloitte into someone who was “100 per cent inspired by ISIS”.
US intelligence and homeland security officials in recent months have warned local law enforcement about the potential for foreign extremist groups, such as ISIS, to target large public gatherings, specifically with vehicle-ramming attacks, according to intelligence bulletins reviewed by Reuters.
US Central Command (Centcom) said in a public statement in June that ISIS was attempting to “reconstitute following several years of decreased capability”.
Centcom said it based its assessment on ISIS claims of mounting 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2024, a rate which would put the group “on pace to more than double the number of attacks” claimed the year before.
Dr H.A. Hellyer, an expert in Middle East studies and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said it was unlikely ISIS would gain considerable territory again.
He said ISIS and other non-state actors continue to pose a danger, but more due to their ability to unleash “random acts of violence” than by being a territorial entity.
“Not in Syria or Iraq, but there are other places in Africa that a limited amount of territorial control might be possible for a time,” Dr Hellyer said, “but I don’t see that as likely, not as the precursor to a serious comeback.” REUTERS
