ISIS return to Syria and Iraq is a matter of time, officials and experts say

Shafaq News/ Many officials and experts said that ISIS has not already been defeated and that returning under this or another name is only a matter of time.

Several reports from the analysis centers, the United Nations and even the Pentagon believe that it may be deprived of the land on which it is based, but it is still active.

"The organization is still alive and well in Iraq and Syria," Soufan Center for Analysis said.

"It is not permissible to talk about his return to Iraq and Syria," the report said.

It is clear that the elements of the organization with the decline and decay of the land they controlled in Syria, dispersed and are moving in secret, benefiting from the poor management of the liberated areas, and the partial withdrawal of US forces.

In a report released on Tuesday, the Pentagon's inspector general said that "although the organization has lost the land on which it succeeded, it has reinforced its capabilities to launch attacks in Iraq and has regained its activity in Syria this season."

The report added that " the organization succeeded in reorganizing its operations in these two countries, especially because the local forces there are still unable to remain in a state of alert for a long time, and to ensure the guarding of the areas they controlled."

In a report dated mid-July, the Security Council also said the organization was "adapting to the new reality and working to create conditions for the resumption of its activities in its former strongholds in Syria and Iraq."

"This process is making more progress in Iraq, where the leader of the organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the majority of its leaders are staying," UN experts said in their report.

There are also areas in Iraq and Syria that are not well controlled by the authorities, and where the cells of the organization are moving, the report added.

The organization's sleeper cells resort to assassinations, bombings, ambushes and the imposition money on people .

The RAND Center for Analysis released a report last week entitled "Returning and expanding" in an amendment to the Islamic State's well-known slogan "lingering and expanding."

According to experts at the RAND Center, which focused on studying "the Islamic State's finances after the caliphate and the opportunities available to it," the group still has more than $ 400 million hidden in various forms in Syria, Iraq and even in neighboring countries.

"If the Islamic State decides to return and this is what we believe will happen, it will resort to useful methods such as distributing its financial balance to projects capable of securing fixed revenues," it said.

"The organization has been considered defeated, but remains able to finance itself through criminal activities such as imposition of money on people by force, kidnappings for ransom, thefts and smuggling to secure the necessary income."

In a video released Sunday by ISIS, which is the second after its military defeat in March, it vowed to "intensify the fighting" against the US-led coalition and Kurdish units.

From: France Press