ISIS Prepares for the loss of the "Caliphate"

ISIS leaders are acknowledging their declining fortunes on the battlefield and are preparing for the possibility of their remaining strongholds.

Yet they vow to carry on their campaign of violence.

U.S. counterterrorism experts think the large scale attacks carried out in Istanbul and Baghdad last month were a response to the ISIS military reversals in Iraq and Syria. Analysts say that terror attacks are expected to continue and even intensify as ISIS evolves from a quasi-state with actual territorial holdings to a diffuse network of terror cells on at least three different continents.

According to a Washington Post report an ISIS official said in an Internet – based interview," While we see our core structure in Iraq and Syria under attack, we have been able to expand and have shifted some of our command, media and wealth structure to different countries. We do have, every day, people reaching out and telling us they want to come to the caliphate, but we tell them to stay in their countries and rather wait to do something there."

Last month an editorial titled, "The Crusaders' Illusions in the Age of the Caliphate" appeared in the Islamic state's weekly Arabic newspaper, al-Naba. The editorial sought to strengthen ISIS followers by insisting that ISIS will survive even if all its cities fell to the "crusaders" ( Western and Russian backed forces).

"The Crusaders and their apostate clients are under the illusion that… they will be able to eliminate all of the Islamic State's provinces at once, such that it will be completely wiped out and no trace of it will be left."

The article asserts that the "whole world…has changed" with the creation of their movements which has, "shown all of mankind what true Islamic State is like."
"If they want to achieve true victory- they will not, G-d willing- they will have to wait a long time: until an entire generation of Muslims that was witness to the establishment of the Islamic State and the return of the caliphate…is wiped out."

According The Washington Post the Islamic State official who consented to the interview, "acknowledged that some of the group's followers had become disillusioned because of mistakes by individual commanders. He said he didn't care whether the organization's headquarters remained in Raqqa or moved to North Africa or elsewhere- although he added that the loss of Raqqa would certainly be avenged. "

"There is a message to all members of the coalition against us: We will not forget, and we will come into your countries and hit you, he said, one way or the other."
A senior French security official speaking anonymously said," They are… challenged as we adapt our strategy to their initial one, in order to start 'de-sanctuarizing' them. But they will now expand to other tactics and start executing much more insidious and covert ops, in big cities.

"The next step," he said, "has begun."

קישורים:
Inside ISIS: Quietly preparing for the loss of the ‘caliphate’

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