Publications

ISIS's Regional Campaign: May 2016

June 3, 2016 - Caitlin Forrest

ISIS continued to set conditions for Ramadan by launching attacks within and along the periphery of the Muslim world in order to foster regional disorder and push the boundaries of its caliphate contiguous to non-Muslim lands. The group is expanding its footprint to the edges of non-Muslim lands, as shown by arrests in Ingushetia, Russia and escalating attacks in majority-Muslim areas in Bangladesh and the Philippines and in Pakistan. ISIS is likely preparing to launch new affiliates in Bangladesh and the Philippines during the holy month of Ramadan, which begins on June 6.

ISIS's Regional Campaign: April 2016

May 5, 2016 - ISW Press

 

ISIS-Linked Activity in Southeast Asia: March 2 to April 21, 2016

April 21, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

ISIS continues to expand its influence in Southeast Asia.

ISIS's Regional Campaign: March 2016

April 1, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

ISIS continued to pursue ongoing campaigns both regionally and further abroad throughout March. The group carried out a spectacular, sophisticated terror attack in Brussels on March 22. The attack, which was unprecedented in Belgium, is part of ISIS’s  ongoing campaign to attack and polarize the West, sowing disorder to make way for future expansion to a global Caliphate.

ISIS's Campaign in Europe: January 2014 to March 25, 2016

March 25, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

ISIS is using its foreign fighters and safe haven in Iraq and Syria to execute a terror campaign within Europe. ISIS’s March 22 Brussels attacks support a larger strategy to punish, destabilize, and polarize the West. ISIS will likely continue to attempt attacks in France and Belgium in 2016, using its large Francophone foreign fighter population and local supporters. ISIS’s support networks in southern Europe may enable ISIS’s operatives to launch operations in other parts of the continent, including Austria, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

ISIS's Campaign in Europe: December 5, 2015 to March 25, 2016

March 25, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

 ISIS is using its foreign fighters and safe haven in Iraq and Syria to execute a terror campaign within Europe. ISIS’s March 22 Brussels attacks support a larger strategy to punish, destabilize, and polarize the West. ISIS will likely continue to attempt attacks in France and Belgium in 2016, using its large Francophone foreign fighter population and local supporters.

ISIS Global Strategy: March 2016

March 25, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

ISW’s new ISIS Global strategy map places Chad and Niger in ISIS’s Far Abroad campaign to reflect recruitment by ISIS’s Libyan affiliate and attacks by ISIS’s Nigerian affiliate (also known as Boko Haram), respectively.

ISIS-Linked Activity in Southeast Asia: January 1-March 2, 2016

March 2, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir
ISIS is using its safe haven and foreign fighter population in Iraq and Syria to expand influence in Southeast Asia, in pursuit of its grand strategic objective to rule all Muslim lands. ISIS’s Syria-based Southeast Asian fighters are resourcing and directing local networks to launch attacks.

ISIS's Regional Campaign: February 2016

February 29, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

 

Afghanistan Partial Threat Assessment: February 23, 2016

February 24, 2016 - Harleen Gambhir

Security in Afghanistan has been deteriorating since U.S. force levels dropped from a high of 100,000 in 2011 to the current force size of 9,800 they reached in June 2014.  Lt. Gen. John W. “Mick” Nicholson, the incoming commander of Operation Resolute Support and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, agreed with the remark that “the security situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating rather than improving” in a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing on January 28.

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