30,000 IS Members Still in Iraq and Syria

The Islamic state still has 30,000 members in Syria and Iraq, and its increasing global network is a serious threat to the world as Al-Qaida is growing much stronger in some places, according to a United Nations report, released recently.

Despite the defeat of IS in Iraq and mostly in Syria, the militant’s core group is still said to be surviving in both the countries, with significant supporters in Afghanistan, Libya, Southeast Asia and West Africa. According to the report, Al-Qaida’s global network is growing with its affiliates and allies, who are much stronger than IS in some places like Somalia, Yemen, South Asia and Africa’s Sahel region.

Al-Qaida in Iran has grown more significant under the leadership of the extremist group’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the organization has again started to project his authority more effectively than they earlier did.

The report which is submitted to the United Nations Security Council by the experts, who have been working for years monitoring sanctions against IS and al-Qaida, also said that the estimate of the current total IS membership in Iraq and Syria came from governments, which it did not identify. The estimate is between 20,000 and 30,000 members, which also includes thousands of active foreign terrorist fighters.

So far many IS fighters and commanders have been killed and many have left the conflict zone, but according to experts many still remain in the two countries. While some are engaged in militarily, others hiding with sympathetic communities and in urban areas.

The emergence of Islamic States occurred with the IS fighters swept into Iraq in the beginning of 2014, taking control of almost one-third of the country and at the height of its power, its self-proclaimed caliphate declared the Islamic State from the edges of Aleppo in Syria to the north of the Baghdad in Iraq.

Now the Islamic state movement is transforming itself from a proto-state movement to an international terror network, which is most advanced in Iraq, as it still controls some pockets in Syria, according to the UN report.

The UN report also confirms that the modus operandi and the system of IS remain intact and the final authority is their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Though the rate of terrorist attacks in Europe has fallen, the experts are of the opinion that it is temporary until IS recovers and reorganizes itself and Al-Qaida increases its international terrorist network and any other organization may emerge in the terrorist arena.