Why ISIS remains a threat

The ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq was defeated at a cost of billions of dollars and the loss of thousands of lives. And yet the ideology of violence and hatred espoused by the Islamic State lives on and has spread into cities in the West like a poison with no antidote.

The black flag attached to the pick-up truck which plowed through crowds of people in New Orleans celebrating the new year was both a symbol of the Islamic State and a message from the terrorist jihadists that they have “sleepers” ready and willing to carry out atrocities.

For western governments this poses a never-ending challenge. Judging by what the FBI has discovered so far, this was not the act of a foreigner breaching US boundaries to kill Americans but a “home-grown,” radicalized, ISIS-inspired US Army veteran who turned against his own country.

To underline the challenge to America’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the truck driver, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was believed to be operating alone.

Ever since the forming of ISIS — which grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2013 and morphed into an army of well-trained and expertly-led fighters of multiple nationalities — the intelligence services in the West have struggled to keep pace with the spreading of its appeal to disillusioned, angry and vengeful young Muslims.

MI5 in the UK had to expand its counter-terrorism department to such an extent that other branches such as those trying to counter organized crime and even Russian and Chinese espionage had to fight for adequate resources.

Thanks to a deluge of propaganda put out by ISIS and avidly picked up on the internet by sympathizers, the ideology of hate was embedded in people who would not necessarily have resorted to violence without the Islamic State’s persuasive powers.

What turned Shamsud-Din Jabbar? What made him offer his services to launch the terrorist attack in New Orleans? 

One thing that is clear is that the forty-two-year-old former soldier had learned from previous “comrades” that one of the most effective modus operandi was to use a vehicle as the weapon of choice to mow down innocent people.

There have been too many similar incidents in recent years. What works is repeated. It doesn’t need a self-styled leader of ISIS to appeal to potential supporters to drive at speed into crowds of people, although in the past, guidance of this sort has been put out by the Islamic State.

The worst of such attacks occurred in Nice on July 14, 2016, when a man drove a nineteen-ton truck into crowds watching Bastille Day fireworks, killing eighty-six people and injuring hundreds more.

The driver, thirty-one-year-old Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was shot dead at the scene. But eight others, seven men and a woman, were found guilty of association with the terrorist and supplying weapons and were sentenced to prison terms of between two and eighteen years.

Though French police never found a direct link with ISIS, the Islamic State claimed responsibility and the attack had all their hallmarks. Police discovered images of dead bodies linked to radical Islamism on Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s computer along with searches for jihadist propaganda.

On March 22, 2017, fifty-two-year-old Khalid Masood, born in the English county of Kent, drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. He killed five people including a police officer, PC Keith Palmer, who was stabbed when the attacker left his vehicle. More than fifty people were injured. 

As the war against international terrorism has shown, military action backed by intelligence can be remarkably successful in eliminating the leaders and lower ranks of jihadist organizations.

Al-Qaeda was once the most feared terrorist group. But when Osama bin Laden, its founder, was killed by US Navy Seals in 2011, and his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was assassinated by a US weaponized drone at a house in Kabul in 2022, al-Qaeda’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks abroad was dramatically reduced. The new leader, Saif al-Adel, has survived so far by enjoying sanctuary in Iran.

Isis, too, has suffered, mostly at the hands of the Americans and coalition partners. Since losing its self-proclaimed caliphate in March 2019, following years of bombings and ground assaults, the US has relentlessly targeted its leaders.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS, was cornered by US special forces in Syria and took his own life in October 2019. A new leader, Abu Yusif, was killed in a US airstrike in Syria on December 19, 2024.

Isis still remains a threat in Syria and in many regions in the world where there are Islamic State factions. And, as the New Orleans attack has demonstrated, its creed of violence manifests itself where and when no one expects it.