In some ways, the pandemic has presented an opportunity for teams like the Islamic State group, known by the initials IS, as the surge in fitness spending has strained many countries’ budgets and diverted attention away from extremism. 19 have also asked the police and army to provide skills in some cases.
But the Islamic State’s feared buildup of violence has largely failed to materialize.
We are academics reading the causes of violence within countries, between armed teams and governments, and what works to save it. Together with our colleague Qutaiba Idlbi, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Think Tank, we sought to perceive how COVID-19 lockdowns have effects on the ability of teams like ISIS to function.
As our new studies show, COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, such as curfews and bans (the maximum of which governments have since lifted), made it harder for ISIS to serve and, as an indirect consequence, helped decrease violence in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.
The Islamic State organization, known as IS, ISIS and ISIL, emerged as an offshoot of the Islamic militant terrorist organization al-Qaeda in Iraq around 2004.
In its rise, ISIS has used unusually brutal and sadistic opponents of government officials as well as civilians, adding intense torture and beheadings.
But Islamic State has cultivated real help from some citizens in Iraq and Syria by exploiting their grievances against a weak and corrupt government, while rarely offering better public services such as street cleaning and line repair. of force, which the government did in the spaces it controlled.
Omar, a local journalist and civil society activist from Deir Ezzor, Syria, reminded our co-author Qutaiba in 2022 how for many in his province, “when ISIS took Deir Ezzor province, the deficient and those who simply could not flee were satisfied that the province would not fall back under the Assad regime. For them, ISIS was the most productive demon.
Throughout 2013 and 2014, ISIS began taking territory in Syria and Iraq. At the time, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was embroiled in a civil war that began in 2011 when Assad tried to quell a popular uprising that opposed his family’s 40-year-olds. -Annual regime.
The Assad regime fired on nonviolent protesters, detained and tortured activists, and retaliated against communities challenging its authority. in Eastern Ghouta.
Political instability was not limited to Syria at the time.
In Iraq, for example, then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attacked the 2011 anti-corruption protests with violence, kidnappings, torture, and killings of activists and protesters.
The Islamic State organization has increased civil strife and public uprisings and has tried to identify control of territory in parts of Iraq and Syria.
At its peak in 2014, the Islamic State led 34,000 square miles (or 88,000 square kilometers) through Syria and Iraq, home to some 10 million people. The organization also replaced its call from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham to the Islamic State, reflecting its plans to expand into more territory.
The United States introduced an army intervention to defeat the Islamic State organization in 2014.
This coalition of the army came to its knees in early 2018 and ended up in the vast territory it once led in Syria and Iraq.
The United States announced it would withdraw its troops from Syria in 2018 and declared victory over ISIS. The Islamic State organization lost its last territory in Syria in 2019.
But despite the group’s setbacks, totaling tens of thousands of fighters killed since its rise, the Islamic State remained active in early 2020.
In March 2020, the Syrian government imposed a two-month closure that closed most businesses and imposed a partial curfew. Iraq and Egypt also implemented widespread closures and curfews to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
We analyzed knowledge of more than 1500 attacks introduced through ISIS during an 18-month era in those places in 2019 and 2020. Our research, published in January 2023, shows that bans and curfews have particularly helped decrease ISIS attacks.
These findings underscore that COVID-19 containment measures have affected ISIS’s ability to function. Curfews have made it harder for ISIS to generate profits and conceal its movements by closing public and private establishments and restricting movement between provinces.
Our research showed that, instead, curfews and travel bans have helped decrease ISIS violence, specifically in densely populated areas.
In Iraq, violence has decreased by about 30% due to lockdown. In Syria, there has been an overall relief of approximately 15% in violence during this period.
But in Egypt, the government had already instituted curfews in some spaces because of the Islamic State group’s presence and violence. This has made it difficult to analyze COVID-specific lockdowns.
Unlike many other militant groups, IS had gigantic monetary reserves to maintain the blockade. It also operates in predominantly rural spaces and was therefore not particularly vulnerable to the effects of lockdown measures in urban spaces.
Our studies come at a critical time as lawmakers and counterterrorism experts debate a long-term strategy for ISIS.
In 2022, the U. S. military will be able to do so. U. S. operations in Syria and Iraq conducted 313 operations in Iraq and Syria, killing 700 ISIS fighters.
The United States and its partners in the region have also assassinated several leaders in recent years, adding Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who died in February 2022.
But the existing U. S. strategy, which focuses heavily on the military’s alliances with local components, is not sustainable, in part because it doesn’t take into account why other people in Syria and Iraq still help ISIS.
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