Any longtime reader of Jihad Watch could have told Biden’s handlers that the Islamic State has shifted its focus to Africa and that it is organizing for a prolonged insurgency. But it takes the learned analysts longer to get there, because they have to work through their forest of false assumptions to get anywhere near the truth.
“The Islamic State Is Back — But Its Focus Has Shifted,” by Micaela Burrow, Daily Caller, September 18, 2022:
The Islamic State is festering globally as its base of operations shifts to Africa, where poor local control offers space for the violent jihadists to regroup and revitalize, according to experts.
Islamic State groups have proliferated throughout the Middle East, central Asia and Africa even after a U.S.-led global coalition dealt the core group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a territorial defeat in 2016, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. While so far the groups have adopted a locally-focused strategy of survival in some areas and rebuilding in others, the U.S. remains engaged in countering the revitalized terrorist threat.
“ISIS has regrouped … and it is organizing for a prolonged insurgency,” a recently-declassified intelligence document stated, forecasting ISIS capabilities through 2021.
The assessment has proven accurate, according to former Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Vandenberg Advisory Board member Christopher Harnisch. “They laid low for a while, have re-grouped, and are now making a resurgence in the region,” he told the DCNF.
ISIS has proliferated far beyond its initial hub in Iraq and Syria. Semi-autonomous affiliates have sprung up in Africa, vying with al-Qaida-linked groups for the speed of their territorial acquisition while weak or sympathetic governments struggle to contain the threat, experts told the DCNF….
