(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Long before the last redoubt of the Islamic State collapsed in the Syrian town of Baghouz last month, the group was regressing to a conventional militant-jihadi organization, employing hit-and-run tactics and suicide bombings to sow terror. No longer a “state” of any kind, it is now merely one of many terrorist organizations operating from secret, constantly changing hideouts.
It’s an ignominious end for a group that, at its peak, governed a region the size of Britain. The loss of territory will make it harder for governments and counterterrorism agencies to contain Islamic State, but equally, it will constrain the group’s ability to recruit fighters and raise money. It will now have to compete with other jihadist organizations, without the special esteem it enjoyed along with the trappings of statehood.
That was more than a matter of prestige: It offered tangible advantages. Foremost among them was annual revenue — primarily from taxes and oil smuggling — of hundreds of millions of dollars, and the ability to recruit from among 10 million “citizens” while attracting tens of thousands of fighters and followers from around the world.
There was a political dimension, too. By appointing himself “caliph” in 2014, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi arrogated to himself the command of all jihadis. His ability to take and hold territory — including large cities like Mosul — made his claim to their loyalty compelling. (Most Muslims rejected it outright.) The leaders of other terrorist groups may not have recognized al-Baghdadi as suzerain, and jihadi theorists may have carped about his presumption, but few questioned his success.
Although the advantages of quasi-statehood made Islamic State the envy of terrorist groups everywhere, it was hard to emulate, not least because the very presence of the supposed caliphate, exerting a powerful gravitational pull in the jihadi universe, removed the need for a second such state. Other terrorist groups aspiring to seize and control territory satisfied themselves with smaller “emirates.”
It is more than likely that one of these will now seek to fill the void created by the collapse of Islamic State. “The challenge for the others is to recreate or re-conceptualize the Islamic State,” says Fawaz A. Gerges, a professor at the London School of Economics and the author of “ISIS: A History.”
If the next terrorist state can recreate the conditions al-Baghdadi had imposed at the height of his power, it will enjoy the advantages he did — and represent the same danger, both in its immediate neighborhood and in the wider world. Where might the next such state emerge?
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Emirates of varying sizes have popped up in many places, from northern Nigeria to the southern Philippines. What allowed Islamic State to grow beyond any of these was a set of special conditions. Al-Baghdadi was able to claim large swathes of territory because local forces were either unwilling to fight, as in northern Iraq, or occupied with other pressing problems, such as the civil war in Syria. In both countries, he was able to capitalize on ethnic and sectarian enmities, whether between Shiites and Sunnis or between Arabs and Kurds.
The proximity to major tourist destinations, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, allowed a path for foreign fighters to flock to the caliphate, especially in the early phase, when these countries weren’t paying adequate attention to their borders with Iraq and Syria. It also provided a market for the smuggling that was critical to the Islamic State economy.
Finally, al-Baghdadi benefited from the negligence of the U.S. and other Western nations. Islamic State rose even as Barack Obama’s administration was pulling troops out of Iraq, and expanded while the U.S. and Europe dithered about getting involved in the Syrian civil war. Terrorist groups with territorial ambitions tend to retreat quickly “when the U.S. shows up and hits them hard,” says Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. “In Syria, the U.S. didn’t show up for the first few years.”
This combination of circumstances — the collapse of order, the existence of internecine hostilities, the adjacency to major transport networks, and the lack of attention from Western governments — may not be exactly replicable in any one country or territory. But a few places come close enough for concern.
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Nowhere is more worrying than the country where al-Baghdadi just lost his caliphate: Syria. Across the country from Baghouz, in the northeastern province of Idlib, a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has emerged as the dominant force among the rebel groups opposed to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. Some of these groups are supported by Turkey, which has negotiated a ceasefire deal to keep Idlib from suffering the same fate as other areas formerly held by anti-Assad forces.
A beneficiary of this truce, HTS is quietly taking over the administration of the province, imposing a harsh interpretation of Islamic law — a reliable hallmark of jihadi control — and enacting “taxes” on aid convoys. Unlike Islamic State, it hasn’t claimed statehood, and has so far gone along with the ceasefire deal. But HTS has more than 10,000 fighters, and may be able to recruit more from other groups.
Another concern is Libya, where Islamic State briefly held territory. It was pushed out by Libyan forces in 2016, but never entirely eliminated. The Libyan forces are themselves now divided between those loyal to the government and others devoted to the warlord Khalifa Haftar. Many Islamic State fighters are reportedly making their way there from Syria and Iraq. Libya’s interior minister has warned that this influx will be hard to stop. The country’s borders with Egypt and Tunisia are notoriously porous.
Yemen’s endless war may also offer an opportunity for ambitious terrorists. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has twice seized and governed parts of the country’s southern region. Its fortunes have fluctuated in the war between Yemeni Shiite rebels known as the Houthis, backed by Iran, and a Sunni-Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. AQAP fighters have been evicted from some areas, but they’ve also gotten hold of American weapons supplied to the coalition.
Although Yemen is hard to reach, AQAP has shown it can recruit from the local population. It has also demonstrated a capacity to evolve: In 2012, after its first attempt to govern, the group’s leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, wrote to his counterpart in al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, detailing the lessons learned from the failure. (He warned, for instance, against imposing overly strict religious laws.)
Wuhayshi was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2015, but the group adhered to his new governing guidelines. It made a greater effort to work with local tribal leaders. Rather than impose its religious practices on the largely Sunni people under its rule, it portrayed itself as their shield from the predations of the Shiite Houthis.
Will AQAP take another stab at controlling territory? Almost certainly. The Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis has had little to show for four years of war, and is coming under increasing pressure to end the fighting. If a war-weary U.A.E. were to ease up, the group is in a good position to bounce back.
A final country worth watching is Mali, where an offshoot of al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate — the recipient of Wuhayshi’s guidance — has stepped up attacks. The Group to Support Islam and Muslims (known as JNIM) has allied itself to local herding communities that have a longstanding enmity with farmers. The farmers have retaliated by creating armed groups, which have been blamed for massacring herders.
The presence of French and United Nations peacekeepers has so far prevented a full-scale civil war. But JNIM has grown more ambitious; it has even attacked UN targets. And the Malian government is worried that the conflict will draw extremists from other parts of the Sahel.
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If the story of Islamic State’s rise inspires emulation by other jihadi groups, it also offers insights for governments on how to stop them. Some lessons have been learned: Social-media platforms have become more adept — if not always perfect — at cutting out channels of jihadi propaganda; law-enforcement agencies are better able to restrict the flow of men and means to extremist groups.
But other lessons are going unheeded. The international community remains unable to impose order in places — such as Libya and Yemen — where conditions are ripening for the creation of another Islamic State. Donald Trump’s inclination to reduce the footprint of American counterterrorism forces in much of the world hasn’t been matched by a desire by other powers to take up the burden. If that doesn’t change, the celebrations of the liberation of Baghouz will prove tragically premature.
The Bloomberg Opinion editorial board: “No, Islamic State Isn’t Defeated Just Yet.”
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.
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