{"id":23915,"date":"2016-06-17T15:12:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T19:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=23915"},"modified":"2016-06-17T15:12:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T19:12:38","slug":"islamic-state-losing-still-hopes-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/islamic-state-losing-still-hopes-win\/","title":{"rendered":"“Why the Islamic State Is Losing, and Why It Still Hopes to Win”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have just published a new paper on the war against the so-called Islamic State over at The Century Foundation<\/a>, arguing that the group is now clearly losing the war on the ground in Syria and Iraq. But the tide may turn, depending on what happens in the Syrian Civil War, among the rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, and with the increasingly tense situation in Baghdad. The introduction is below and you’ll find the full thing here<\/strong><\/a>. \u2014 Aron Lund<\/em><\/p>\n

\"IslamicThe Sunni extremist group known as Islamic State (IS, also known by an earlier acronym, ISIS) is taking a terrible beating. In the past few days, it has lost territory in both Syria and Iraq. Syrian Kurds have attacked it east of Aleppo and north of Raqqa City, while it is battling Sunni Arab rivals north of Aleppo. The Syrian army of President Bashar al-Assad is pressing into the Raqqa Governorate and taking ground in the deserts east of Palmyra. In Iraq, other Kurdish groups have struck east of Mosul, while an alliance of Shia militias and the Iraqi army is moving into its stronghold in Fallujah. Further afield, the jihadis are being purged from the Libyan city of Sirte.<\/p>\n

Islamic State\u2019s self-styled caliph<\/a>, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is nowhere to be seen or heard as his fighters face attacks on all fronts. According to the U.S.-led<\/a> anti-Islamic State coalition<\/a>, the jihadi group has now lost half of the area it controlled in Iraq at its peak in late 2014 and a fifth of its territory in Syria. Revenues from oil and other assets are reportedly down by a third<\/a> and a U.S. government official recently claimed<\/a> the coalition has \u201ccut off entirely their revenue that\u2019s coming from the outside.\u201d The coalition also says that the total number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria has dropped from a peak of around 31,000 in December 2014 to between 19,000 and 25,000 today, and the influx of foreign jihadis has allegedly been reduced by three-quarters.<\/p>\n

Islamic State has not scored a major victory on the battlefield in more than a year, and its ability to govern efficiently is withering. People with their ear to the ground in Islamic State\u2019s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa speak of frail governance and worsening repression, since the group can no longer afford to buy civil peace. If popular discontent continues to grow, a weakening Islamic State could face internal dissent and tribal uprisings.<\/p>\n

Still, the decline of Islamic State is certainly not irreversible and its enemies could be in for rough surprises ahead. In some areas, the forces confronting Islamic State are even more dysfunctional than the group itself, held together only by foreign influence and the fact that they face a common enemy. Now, with Islamic State\u2019s influence finally receding, that brittle unity is being tested. Syria has long been torn asunder by civil war and regional rivalries, while Iraq suffers from a worsening political paralysis. Islamic State is weaker than at any point since it conquered Mosul two years ago, but thanks to the chronic disorder among its enemies, it may still be able to regroup and reclaim the initiative.<\/p>\n

For more, read the full report<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have just published a new paper on the war against the so-called Islamic State over at The Century Foundation, arguing that the group is now clearly losing the war on the ground in Syria and Iraq. But the tide may turn, depending on what happens in the Syrian Civil War, among the rival Kurdish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[103,30,256,95],"tags":[117,508,509,316,507,476,143,188,510],"class_list":["post-23915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aron-lund","category-iraq","category-isis","category-uprising","tag-aron-lund-2","tag-daesh","tag-daish","tag-is","tag-isil","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-syria-comment","tag-510"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n"Why the Islamic State Is Losing, and Why It Still Hopes to Win" - Syria Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/islamic-state-losing-still-hopes-win\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Why the Islamic State Is Losing, and Why It Still Hopes to Win" - Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have just published a new paper on the war against the so-called Islamic State over at The Century Foundation, arguing that the group is now clearly losing the war on the ground in Syria and Iraq. 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