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ISIS Still Active in Syria
(U.S. State Department) Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and Counterterrorism Coordinator Ambassador Nathan A. Sales on Thursday provided an update on the efforts of the 80-member coalition. Jeffrey said that in Syria, "ISIS elements are still very active to the south of the Euphrates, where the Assad regime does not have control, and in Idlib, which is a major terrorist concern not just for ISIS." In Iraq, "what we have seen is a persistent, resilient, rural terrorist level of violence generated by these underground cells of ISIS, particularly in the area south of...Mosul and the Kurdish areas down to Baghdad." Sales noted that "the ISIS brand lives on around the world....In Africa, ISIS-linked groups are on the rise. ISIS branches and networks now span the African continent from east to west and north to south. They've increased the lethality of their attacks, they've expanded into new areas, and they've repeatedly targeted U.S. interests....In South Asia, ISIS networks and ISIS-inspired terrorists are increasingly active." "We estimate that since 2015 some 1,200 ISIS fighters have traveled back home to Europe, while hundreds more have returned to Southeast Asia....There's currently about 2,000 ISIS foreign fighters in SDF custody in Syria, and that's in addition to the Syrian and Iraqi citizens captured by the SDF. Let me be clear: These fighters are dangerous, battle-hardened terrorists....We all have an obligation to keep them from ever returning to the battlefield."