Isis and the ticking time bomb facing the West

You thought Isis was old news. The world celebrated its territorial defeat nearly four years ago. The group that once controlled an area the size of the UK had been battered by more than 30,000 airstrikes, and tens of thousands of its militants had been killed. It was over. Really, though, the war against Isis never stopped. The US military has just announced that last year some 700 Isis militants were killed and 400 captured in operations in Iraq and Syria. The group was responsible for more than 500 attacks on Iraqi and Syrian soil. Isis is not going away.

When Isis was ‘defeated’ at Baghouz in eastern Syria in March 2019, the group was left weaker than it had been in a decade. The US and allies had put together an effective intervention, working ‘by, with and through’ the military in Iraq and anti-Isis militias in Syria. Hoping to avoid a commitment like that in Iraq in 2003 or Afghanistan in 2001, we put the onus on locals to fight with our support, rather than the other way around.