Wall Street Journal: ISIS resurges in Syria amid security vacuum

According to the report published on Thursday, October 23, 2025, ISIS has expanded its presence in Syria by exploiting both the absence of effective governance and the international community’s declining focus on counterterrorism efforts within Syrian territory.

The report noted that ISIS militants carried out more than 117 attacks across various Syrian regions since the beginning of 2025, compared to 73 attacks in 2024.

The Wall Street Journal emphasized that the reduced U.S. military footprint in northern and eastern Syria has created conditions allowing ISIS to regroup, weakening the international coalition’s ability to monitor the vast Syrian desert and the Syrian–Iraqi border—areas witnessing heightened militant activity.

The newspaper further indicated that ISIS has shifted its operational tactics, no longer attempting to seize and hold territory as it did between 2014 and 2017. Instead, it now employs guerrilla-style warfare, relying on small, mobile cells of no more than five fighters to conduct swift attacks. The group has also intensified its use of extortion and forced “zakat” collection from local populations and merchants to secure steady financial resources.

The report attributed the group’s resurgence to several factors, including persistent lawlessness, the failure of the transitional government to establish full control over the Syrian desert (al-Badiya), and the existence of extensive ungoverned spaces that provide militants with freedom of movement. It also cited local financial networks and external funding channeled through intermediaries as sustaining elements for ISIS operations.

Security estimates cited by the newspaper place the number of ISIS fighters in Syria between 2,500 and 3,000, concentrated mainly in the desert and Deir ez-Zor regions.

The report warned that the growing activity of ISIS now poses a transnational threat, with Western intelligence officials expressing fears that Syria may once again become a launchpad for external terrorist operations.

Intelligence sources also revealed that some ISIS leaders have reestablished communication lines with cells in Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Africa, raising alarms about the possible reemergence of the group’s global threat.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani confirmed that U.S. advisers—working in coordination with Iraqi forces at Ain al-Asad base in Anbar, as well as at facilities near Baghdad and Erbil’s Harir base, and with the al-Tanf base in Syria—are monitoring ISIS movements across the desert border regions.

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ANHA