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US warns Daesh is attempting ‘to reconstitute’ amid increase in attacks in Iraq, Syria

July 19, 2024 at 12:04 am

People attend the funeral of 45 unidentified victims killed by Daesh/ISIS terrorists exhumed from a mass grave near a jail in Badoush, Nineveh Governorate and transported to a cemetery in Najaf, Iraq on May 16, 2023. Daesh/ISIS overran the territory between 2014-2017 and the militants carried out mass killings. [Karrar Essa – Anadolu Agency]

The United States has warned that Daesh is actively attempting to “reconstitute” amid a spike in attacks over the past year, a decade after the terror group began declaring its authority in the region.

According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), Daesh had claimed 153 attacks in Syria and Iraq during the first six months of 2024, leading the command to believe that it “indicates ISIS [Daesh] is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability”.

The number of those attacks is reportedly on track to double this year in comparison to last year, CENTCOM stated, with the outlet, ABC News, citing an unnamed US defence official as saying that Daesh had been responsible for 121 attacks in the two Middle Eastern countries in 2023.

The apparent resurgence of the terror group has been foretold and warned of numerous times over the years since its military and territorial defeat in 2019, but this year’s warning also comes amid the general amnesty issued yesterday by the US-backed Kurdish militias in north-east Syria for former Syrian Daesh fighters and those affiliated with the group “whose hands are not stained with blood”.

Around 10,000 former fighters are imprisoned in the Kurdish forces’ detention facilities in north-east Syria, of which the amnesty is not valid for any of them who fought against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) or who carried out explosives attacks that killed people. For those whom it is valid for, it reduces life sentences to 15 years imprisonment, while setting free those who have incurable diseases and who are at least 75-years-old.

According to the Associated Press (AP), legal expert, Khaled Jabr, told it that the SDF’s amnesty will include around 600 Syrian citizens who are held on terrorism charges and over links to Daesh.

Although the amnesty does not leave room for the immediate release of the most dangerous of the fighters, it has raised concern that the decision may allow some of those released to rejoin Daesh and boost the group’s attempts at resurgence.

Read: Iraq Forces kill senior Daesh leader in a raid in Syria