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09-07-2016, 04:48 AM
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After setbacks, IS digs in with focus on deadly attacks
The increasing pressure on IS, including Turkey’s decision to launch an operation against it in **rthern Syria, has seen the organisation lose ground at an unprecedented pace. But the Jihadist organisation still has the capacity to obtain *******, attract recruits and dis***** fighters to carry out devastating attacks abroad, according to experts. On Sunday, the Turkish operation reclaimed the last stretch of the Syria-Turkey border from the Jihadist group, sealing off its self-styled "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq and forcing it to rely on smuggling networks instead. It was just the latest setback for IS, which is **w under attack from Syrian and Iraqi troops, but also Kurdish fighters, Syrian rebels, Turkish forces, Russian warplanes, and a US-led coalition. US officials say the group has lost around 20 percent of the territory it once held in Syria, and 50 percent of its territory in Iraq. Last month, the Jihadists lost Jazirat al-Khaldiyeh, an area in Iraq’s western Anbar province that was a key crossroads, dealing a major blow to its mobility. And in Libya, the group is on the verge of losing its stronghold of Sirte. The territorial losses have been accompanied by a ****** of high-profile assassinations of its key leaders, including senior commander Omar al-Shishani, and spokesman and top strategist Abu Mohamed al-Adnani. The setbacks paint a picture of decline for IS, once deemed the world’s richest "terror" group, able to attract a flood of foreign recruits with its army-like prowess and a pledge to "remain and expand". But analysts warn that the group is far from finished, and that its focus may simply be shifting from territorial expansion to consolidation of population centres -- like Syria’s Raqa and Iraq’s Mosul -- and new attacks against civilians in the region and the West. "IS has faced a campaign of exponential pressure that has steadily constrained their capacity to fight, to operate, to earn and to credibly claim an ‘expanding’ caliphate," said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think-tank. "But it remains a highly adaptable organisation with extensive asymmetric reach -- it should **t be underestimated." While the loss of the border with Turkey will hamper the group’s ability to import new ******* and recruits, as well as to export resources such as oil, that challenge is hardly new. "IS’s access to the border has been dramatically reduced for a while **w," said Syria expert Thomas Pierret, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. أكثر... ??????? ??????: After setbacks, IS digs in with focus on deadly attacks || ??????: ahlam1399 || ??????: اسم منتداك
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