Will the SDF's rollback lead to an Islamic State resurgence?

The military offensive by the Syrian interim government of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controlled northeast and east Syria for over a decade, has renewed fears of an Islamic State (IS) resurgence.

The SDF had held thousands of IS militants in camps, detention centres, and prisons for years, but after Damascus recently seized swathes of territory in the northeast, several of these facilities became unsecured, and a number of IS militants and sympathisers escaped.

Analysts do not rule out the possibility that this fighting could lead to an IS resurgence. At the height of its self-styled caliphate in the mid-2010s, IS carried out multiple deadly terrorist attacks in Europe and North America.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s veteran leader, Masoud Barzani, recently sounded the alarm over the possibility of IS making a dangerous comeback. In a meeting with Pope Leo XIV at Vatican City on 21 January, he warned that fears of an IS resurgence “are growing” and that this renewed threat “concerns everyone” and requires urgent action.

A recent analysis from the Institute for the Study of War noted that the IS threat was hitherto largely contained when the SDF guarded these camps. Now, the Syrian government’s offensive “to take full control of Kurdish areas in Syria in a rapid and disorganised fashion puts a decade worth of gains against ISIS at risk,” it warned, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Numbers game

Mohammed A. Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, noted that while exact figures are not yet available, it’s conceivable that hundreds of IS militants recently escaped or were released by government-affiliated forces out of “ideological or tribal or kinship sympathies”.

“If the recent history of the region is any guide, this is planting the seeds of a security crisis,” Salih told The New Arab. “Many IS prisoners and family members in camps are out. Additionally, there is a great deal of ideological overlap between the bulk of the current Syrian army and IS, as well as tribal and kinship relations that would work to IS's advantage,” he added.

“These people are being released to the core incubating and operating region of IS in the Syria-Iraq border areas,” he said. This new reality could pose a serious threat to regional states such as Iraq, as well as the wider region, and even Western states, if the situation deteriorates.

“We have seen that before, and there is no reason to believe it won’t happen again if the group gets strong enough,” Salih added.

Independent Middle East analyst Kyle Orton noted there is a “discrepancy” in claims from Damascus over how many IS militants escaped the enormous al-Hol camp in the northeastern Hasakah province and what US intelligence assesses.

“After the recaptures, it is either 40 or 120 IS loyalists still on the loose,” Orton told TNA.

“It is difficult to know how much weight to put on the assessments of 2,000 to 3,000 IS jihadists in eastern Syria, but to that extent, this breakout is a drop in the bucket,” he said. “The numbers game is treacherous, though, not only because the veracity of the figures is so dubious.”

IS infamously used captured Syrian territory as a launchpad to conquer one third of Iraq in June 2014, declaring its caliphate from that country’s second city, Mosul. Fearing IS could similarly threaten its security and territory, Baghdad requested that the US-led coalition transfer up to 7,000 IS detainees from Syria to more secure Iraqi facilities to ensure they don’t escape and pose such a threat again.

Tellingly, an Iraqi military official told the Iraqi Kurdish Rudaw Media Network on Saturday that Baghdad would halt this transfer if the SDF regains control over the territories the government captured.

“The clear signs of the Islamic State expanding its reach and activity in recent months in Syria are the things to watch, and depending on who broke out, they could act as a force multiplier,” Orton said. “It is a recurring theme in IS’s history that freed detainees play crucial roles at key moments.”

A volatile situation

FPRI’s Salih believes it’s hard to see how Damascus has the situation under control, arguing that if it really does, then it “should be seen as openly cooperating with IS,” given the manner of this war and the release of IS members by some of its forces.

“If it does not have the situation under control, then it spells catastrophe for the country and entire region,” he said. While the Syrian transitional government says they have secured the prisons and camps, the extent of its control and capacity remains to be seen.

“The fact that CENTCOM (US military Central Command) has decided to transfer 7,000 IS fighters to Iraq indicates very clearly that they do not trust the Syrian government in terms of capacity,” Salih added.

“But most likely because of its infiltration by IS elements and the strong ideological overlap between the two sides.”

Lawk Ghafuri, an Iraqi political analyst, believes that Kurds now have “little choice but to engage directly” with the Syrian government.

“Decades of PKK influence in Syria have prevented them from successfully transitioning from a military force to a political and diplomatic actor,” he told TNA. “They should have recognised the moment Al-Sharaa began receiving recognition from Washington that the SDF is no longer the United States’ sole ally on the ground in Syria.”

The analyst believes it’s “far too early” to assess whether Syrian government forces can “contain or crush any potential resurgence” by IS.

“What is truly alarming is the presence of dozens of ex-IS fighters and jihadists within these forces,” he said.

“Damascus must ensure that its ranks are free of such elements, because otherwise jihadism could reemerge precisely at the moment Al-Sharaa takes actions that might alienate these individuals.”

Infiltration

Before this Damascus-SDF crisis, there were already signs that at least some IS elements had infiltrated Syria’s new security forces.

Shortly after Syria officially joined the US-led anti-IS coalition in November, after Al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House, an IS member who infiltrated the security forces killed three American soldiers in Palmyra. By contrast, no US troops in SDF-controlled areas had lost their lives to any IS attacks since January 2019.

“It is a disastrous state of affairs that Syria is now at a point where the government in Damascus is confronting the SDF, the very force that defeated IS and prevented its resurgence,” Salih said. “This does not bode well for Syria or the region’s future.”

Furthermore, he argued, it’s no exaggeration to “speak of the infiltration” of Syria’s military by IS.

“We saw the attack in Palmyra by one such infiltrator,” he said. “The ideological overlap and sympathy exist as attested by members of the Syrian military openly wearing the IS emblem. Even if they wear it because the emblem predates IS, which it does, the fact of wearing such emblems despite IS’s notoriety speaks volumes about the ideological mindset and refusal to admit IS’s heinous legacy by many individuals within Syrian military ranks.”

External attacks

There has been a notable uptick in IS attacks since 2024, notably against Russia and Iran. However, these did not originate from Iraq and Syria, as most external attacks did during the days of the caliphate.

“All the trend-lines point towards continued escalation,” Orton said of the present situation. “The Afghan and African nodes of the Islamic State have been the main enablers so far, but that has been tied to military-political successes in both places,” he added.

“So, if the situation at the ‘Centre’ (Iraq and Syria) turns in IS’s favour, it is not unreasonable to expect this to contribute to the worsening of the external attacks.”

The analyst believes that the US has “reactively pre-empted” the worst outcome in Syria in the short term through its prisoner transfer operation to Iraq. However, what to do with this prison population in the long term remains uncertain. Additionally, the possibility of IS orchestrating more prison breakouts in Iraq cannot be discounted.

Here, recent history has some dire warnings.

“IS was already on the upswing in Iraq by the time the US left in 2011, but the US leaving, and the chaos IS exploited in Syria, undoubtedly hastened its revival and enabled the establishment of the caliphate,” Orton said.

As Damascus moves to dismantle the SDF, there is much uncertainty regarding eastern Syria’s security situation. Even in the event of the “smoothest transition of control,” Orton still sees “grave doubts” regarding the Syrian government forces' capabilities.

That, coupled with the US moving toward a complete troop withdrawal from Syria, recalls “some of the same elements” that enabled IS’s rise more than a decade ago.

“Again, this is not to suggest a direct repeat of the 2010s is imminent,” he said. “But IS does not have to get all the way back to a caliphate to cause a tremendous amount of death and destruction in the Fertile Crescent and beyond.”

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, who writes about Middle East affairs.

Follow him on Twitter: @pauliddon

Edited by Charlie Hoyle