Three years after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan and ushered in a new phase in the war on terror, the threat posed by terrorist groups such as ISIS is once again on the rise around the world.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks around the world this year, from Turkey to Iran to Russia. ISIS-linked individuals carried out a stabbing attack in Germany this month and threatened a Taylor Swift concert in Austria.
The new ISIS threat highlights how the United States and its allies are struggling to combat these groups at a time marked by the proliferation of terrorist groups in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Sahel region of Africa, as well as threats from nation-state actors such as Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.
Still, there is no interest in Washington or among the American public at large in launching a long-term foreign invasion mission to fight terrorism so soon after the 20-year war in Afghanistan and the eight-year war in Iraq.
Instead, small numbers of U.S. troops are sent to countries willing to accept a U.S. presence, ostensibly to give the U.S. a perspective on “over the horizon” threats. But this has proven a difficult strategy to manage, with Iraq contemplating the possibility of expelling U.S. troops and African countries ousting the U.S. and Europe after their fall in military coups.
The terrorist threat is on the rise again, though not as strongly as before, and security experts worry the United States is slipping back into a passive stance.
“All it takes is one bomb going off in Times Square,” said Colin Clark, adjunct senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Our policies are too reactive, not proactive enough.”
“Unfortunately, I don't think we've learned much from 9/11. We need to be prepared for these events and be prepared to respond. We need to stay calm. We need to be somewhat cautious in how we respond to these issues,” he added.
The United States completed its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago Friday, but an ISIS-K suicide bombing at Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. troops and about 170 Afghan civilians.
U.S. forces have largely defeated ISIS since it rose to power in 2014 and seized vast swathes of Syria and Iraq. By 2017, U.S. and allied forces had weakened the group and pushed it out of the territory it once controlled.
Still, the U.S. continues to fight the stubborn ISIS, with about 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq. The Iraqi government invited the U.S. to Iraq in 2014 to help defeat ISIS, and the deployment allows U.S. troops to remain in neighboring Syria.
Over the past three years, the group's Central Asian branch, ISIS-K, has experienced a resurgence. It claimed responsibility for an attack in Kerman, Iran, in January that killed nearly 100 people, a shooting at a Moscow concert hall in March that left more than 130 people dead, and a shooting at an Istanbul church in January that left one person dead.
Authorities say the broader ISIS network claimed responsibility for a knife attack in Germany this month that left three people dead, and was also behind a thwarted plot to kill thousands at a Swift concert in Austria.
U.S. Central Command In a statement in July It said ISIS has carried out 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2024 and is “on pace to more than double the total number of attacks it claimed last year.”
The US has warned that ISIS is trying to regroup while its forces track down around 2,500 fleeing ISIS members in Iraq and Syria.
ISIS-K remains a regional stronghold, “flying hundreds of thousands of dollars to financial intermediaries and providing personnel and weapons to support external operations.” The Treasury Department said in the report: this year.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters this week that the U.S. is “fully focused” on fighting terrorism and is stepping up cooperation with allies to share intelligence and intelligence to thwart plots.
“We know we cannot turn a blind eye to threats from groups like ISIS-K,” he said. “We have and will continue to invest in and deploy cutting-edge capabilities to keep the American people safe.”
Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office, said: warned in a briefing this month. ISIS has “improved its financial and logistical capabilities over the past six months, including through support from its diaspora in Afghanistan and Central Asia,” and has also stepped up its recruitment efforts.
“Preventing terrorism requires sustained counter-terrorism efforts. [ISIS] “We must build on these gains,” he said. “We must come together to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a breeding ground for terrorism again.”
ISIS is not the only new threat: Global terrorism deaths are expected to rise 22% to 8,352 in 2023, the highest level since 2017, according to a study by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Latest Global Terrorism Index.
Although the number of incidents is falling, the rising death toll shows terrorism is becoming “more concentrated and more deadly”, the report said.
The Middle East remains a crucial region for counterterrorism efforts, but the future of U.S. deployment there is uncertain.
Baghdad is holding high-level talks on a possible withdrawal of the United States from Iraq, where Iraqi officials have expressed concern over the repeated clashes between the U.S. and Iran-backed groups.
If the US were to withdraw from Iraq, it would likely have to withdraw from Syria as well, since the technical justification for the US presence in Syria is the defense of Iraqi territory.
Iraqi forces have trained with the United States to counter ISIS and other violent extremists, but a withdrawal of U.S. troops could lead to the group's resurgence, said Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Zelin said that if the US pulled out and ISIS took over parts of northeast Syria, “they would have more money and more fighters.” [and] They will replenish their “arsenal” and restart the insurgency in Iraq.
“As long as the U.S. remains in Iraq and Syria, they will more or less address this issue,” he said. “Of course, that will change once the U.S. leaves.”
However, the most dangerous breeding ground for terrorism is the Sahel region, which occupies the western and north-central parts of the African continent.
In Africa, ISIS is a presence, but al-Qaeda-linked groups are the biggest problem, while the Shiite group Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen is the most persistent threat across the Sahel, and al-Shabaab has long been a threat in Somalia and East Africa.
Burkina Faso remains the world's most terrorist-hit country, accounting for a quarter of all terrorism-related deaths, according to the Global Index report.
Sahel countries have long struggled to combat violent extremist groups, and some, including Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, face even greater instability after falling to military coups.
The junta has forced the withdrawal of US and French troops. In August, the US completed its withdrawal from its bases in Niger. The withdrawal of US troops from key regional bases after the military seized power in 2023 has put counterterrorism efforts at risk. France, a key partner in the counterterrorism effort, has also been forced to withdraw from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Across Africa, terrorism-related deaths increased by 56% between 2021 and 2024. According to the African Center for Strategic Studies The deaths took place at the Department of Defense-funded National Defense University. The Sahel region accounted for roughly half of the total deaths, and has seen a three-fold increase in terrorist killings there.
Joseph Seigle, research director at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, said the “dramatic increase” in violence across Africa was alarming. He noted the threat is complex, with multiple violent extremist groups behind the surge and actively recruiting members, particularly from low-income poor communities disaffected by military-led governments.
“We're now facing not isolated terrorist attacks, but these entrenched insurgences,” he said. “Countering these requires a whole-of-society effort, with governments on the ground, services on the ground, the ability to counter claims that the government doesn't care.”
The United States has been fighting terrorism since 9/11 and the public is weary of large-scale deployments like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, but counterterrorism experts say it's important to maintain at least small, robust intelligence and military networks abroad to degrade the ability of violent groups to launch attacks.
After the Afghanistan war, the US has pivoted to bigger threats, focusing on the war in Ukraine and supporting Israel against Iran while dealing with the Russian threat. China remains Washington's biggest national security concern.
Yet the global threat is not an isolated incident. In Africa, Russia has expanded into countries such as Niger, exploiting military regimes to extract resources for defense and military training.
Jason Blazakis, director of the Center for Terrorism Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said this brings a geopolitical dynamic to the war on terrorism.
“This also feeds into the broader nation-state threat landscape because we are ceding advantage to countries like Russia,” he said.
“Some of these things go hand in hand, especially when it comes to great power competition. And great power competition often escalates into the use of proxy forces. So we need to prepare for that possibility as well in the coming years.”
