ISIS May Return to Syria Soon

The US has warned that ISIS has begun reconstituting in some areas of Syria because a Turkish military offensive against a northern city Afrin has forced the Kurdish forces away from the fight against the rebel groups, thereby creating a space for ISIS to reorganize. 

The ISIS activities may lead to more future wars, discussing the Turkish offensive against Afrin and increasing ISIS activities Pentagon spokesman US Army Col. Rob Manning said, “We are very concerned about the effect fighting there has had on our defeat ISIS efforts and would like to see an end to the hostilities before ISIS has the opportunity to regroup in eastern Syria.” He also added that, “we cannot allow ISIS to gain momentum at this critical point.”

The State Department went a step farther, saying that ISIS has already begun to rebuild in places. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in  a statement released recently that, “the fighting in western Syria over the last two months, including in Afrin, shifted the focus from the ISIS defeat campaign, which thereby provided an opportunity for ISIS to begin reconstituting in some areas.”

The US primarily backs the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS, a group that is about 50% Arab and 50% Kurdish, but much of the group's leadership is Kurdish.

United States has made it clear that it will remain in Syria until the group is routed as part of its foreign policy in January this year, when outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared, “United States will maintain a military presence in Syria focused on ensuring ISIS cannot re-emerge.”

More than 150,000 people have been displaced in the last few days from Afrin. Turkey’s decision to target Afrin is concerned by the concerns that Syrian Kurdish militias backing the US fight against ISIS. This may one day help Kurds in Turkey to push for independence. While the Kurdish forces have been the most effective fighters on the ground for the US-led coalition against ISIS, Turkey dismisses them as “terrorists” and sees them as a potential existential threat. 

Meanwhile Turkey has shown its willingness to work together with US as Spokesman for Turkish President Ibrahim Kalin said his government had come to an agreement with the US through talks with Tillerson and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster to move the Kurdish fighters. He said, “we have agreed on a main framework for the area to be evacuated so the elements will move to the east of the Euphrates river, we have also asked the US officials to move them out of Manbij so those areas can be secured by the local people.”

Meanwhile on ground it reflects other actions. As the war continues in Syria, Turkish troops with the support of a group of rebels known as the Free Syrian Army, seized swaths of the Kurdish town recently, amid reports of looting, heavy civilian deaths and the reported bombing of a hospital. 

The United Nation’s envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura also warned that Syria is heading for a catastrophic partition and could see the return of Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria actively, if there is no inclusive peace settlement soon. He told an audience at Geneva’s Graduate Institute, “the truth is that a soft, long-term partition of Syria, which (is) the one that we are witnessing at the moment, in different areas of control, will be a catastrophe, not only for Syria but for the whole region”. He continued, “Without an inclusive political process, including those who are excluded, particularly the majority, the Sunnis, Daesh will come back.”

Mistura also said he believed neither the European Union nor the World Bank would help fund the estimated $352 billion cost of rebuilding Syria unless there was a political process with a new constitution, elections under UN supervision and power-sharing.

In the year 2014 ISIS swept across Syria and Iraq after the fall of Al Qaida, declaring a free country named as “Caliphate” which is roughly the size of Britain in the Syrian border, attracting thousands of youths to join as jihadists, training them for war. But it has suffered a series of defeats last year, including the loss of their de facto capital Raqqa in Syria.

Russia is a strong supporter of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad while the United States backs the moderate rebels trying to oust him. But both Russia and the United States had a common interest in seeing ISIS defeated, which is positive.