Leaders in the Middle East and their Western allies have been warning that Islamic State may use the overthrow of the Assad government to launch a resurgence in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where the terrorist organization previously terrorized millions of people.
More than 20 individuals, including political and security officials from Syria, Iraq, the United States, and Europe, as well as regional diplomats, have said that IS has been trying to do precisely that. According to the sources, the organization has begun reactivating fighters in both nations, locating targets, supplying weapons, and speeding up its recruiting and propaganda campaigns. The outcomes of these efforts seem to be limited thus far.
How close is IS to regaining operational strength in the region?
According to Reuters, security personnel in Syria and Iraq who have been keeping an eye on IS for years have thwarted at least a dozen significant plans this year. One such instance occurred in December, the month when Bashar Assad was overthrown in Syria.
Five Iraqi counter-terrorism officials said that IS commanders, who had taken refuge in Raqqa, the former capital of their self-declared caliphate, sent two envoys to Iraq as rebels advanced on Damascus. The group’s adherents received verbal orders to assault from the envoys. However, officials reported that on December 2, they were apprehended at a checkpoint while traveling through northern Iraq.
Eleven days later, Iraqi security forces claimed to have used a suspected IS suicide bomber’s cell phone to trace him to a packed restaurant in the northern town of Daquq, based on intelligence from the envoys. According to the military, the individual was shot dead before he could set off an explosive belt.
However, IS has recorded fewer strikes after Assad’s overthrow. According to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks militants’ internet activity, IS claimed credit for 38 strikes in Syria in the first five months of 2025, putting it on course for just over 90 claims this year. According to the figures, that would be around one-third of the claims made the previous year. IS claimed four assaults in the first five months of 2025 in Iraq, the country of its origin, compared to 61 strikes in the same period last year.
Questions concerning IS activity were not addressed by Syria’s government, which is headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country’s new Islamist leader. In January, Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told Reuters that the nation was improving its intelligence collection capabilities and that any danger would be dealt with by its security forces.
After being driven from their last bastion in 2019 by a U.S.-led coalition and its local allies, IS remnants in Syria and Iraq have been severely degraded, according to a U.S. defense official and a spokesman for the prime minister of Iraq.
He noted that drones and other technology have also improved the accuracy of Iraq’s intelligence operations. Between 2014 and 2017, IS dominated around one-third of Syria and Iraq, enforcing its harsh version of Islamic sharia law and earning a reputation for ruthless violence.
Some European and local officials are worried that foreign fighters may be joining extremist organizations in Syria. According to two European officials who spoke to Reuters, intelligence services have been tracking a few suspected foreign fighters traveling from Europe to Syria in recent months for the first time in years. However, they were unable to confirm if IS or another group was responsible for their recruitment.
