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Some members of the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last month unquestionably saw themselves through the lens of history. A quick look at the crowd revealed flags from several periods of America’s history: Betsy Ross’ 13 star, Christopher Gadsden’s “Don’t Tread on Me” from the American Revolution, the Alamo’s “Come and Take It” flag from Texas’ Independence movement, and the “Southern Cross” battle flag of the Confederacy. Similarly, two of the organizations promoting the “stop the steal” narrative explicitly define themselves through historical allusion. The Proud Boys refer to themselves as “western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world,” while the Three-Percenters Militia claim to be latter-day patriots defending the ideals of the American Revolution.  

There is nothing revolutionary about extremists situating their movements within history, however. Salafism, the fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam that undergirds much of jihadism, teaches adherents to strictly follow the behavior of the Prophet Muhammed and his earliest followers (the Salaf). Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the brutal terrorist who led al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor to ISIS, idolized Nur ad-Din Zanki, an Arab-Muslim hero of the Second Crusade. Allusions to Saladin, who led the Muslim military campaign against crusaders in the Levant, and condemnations of western nations as “crusaders” are so common in jihadi parlance as to verge on becoming extremist-cliché.

On the other end of the extremism spectrum, the far-right idolizes Charles Martel, who is credited with stopping in 731 the Muslim invasion of France at the Battle of Tours. Allusions and memes of crusaders are fixtures of far-right web forums. Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Bering Brevik, who killed 77 people in 2011, described himself as a latter-day Templar knight. Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019, claimed that the “reborn Knights Templar” gave his attack their blessing. White supremacists across Europe and the United States regularly claim as ideal the “racial purity” of ancient Greece and Rome. 

Of course, the historical allusions anchoring political beliefs are notoriously oversimplified, cherry-picked, and in some cases outright false. Early Islamic history is shrouded in myth, thus the precise behaviors of the Salaf are possibly historically unknowable. The Crusades were not a simple case of unified Islam and united Christendom engaging in battle. There is bitter historical debate over just how influential Martel’s victory was in defending the West. Recent evidence suggests between 15 and 25 percent—as opposed to three percent—of American colonists fought the British. While extremist groups span a vast chasm of temporal, geographic, and ideological differences, a near-universal constant is their reliance on simplified historical allusions. Why?

Simply put, shared history is good for nation-building. Historians have long recognized that a sense of history is essential for self-identity. In The Idea of History, R.G. Collingwood wrote that “the value of history . . . is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.” When that pursuit of self-knowledge is applied broadly to a nation, an ethnic group, or an extremist movement, history becomes, in the words of post-colonial historian Prasenjit Duara, “the most important pedagogic technique of identity formation.” Extremist ideologues are in essence attempting to build a new nation that is based on jihad, white identity, nationalism, etc.

Humans intrinsically seek to belong. Research has shown that many who are drawn to extremist movements believe themselves in some way disenfranchised from mainstream society. What better way to recruit those individuals than with a glorious narrative—linking past, present, and future—that defines them not as outsiders, but as temporarily-dispossessed victims and defenders of a pure and righteous path? Selective historical interpretation thus becomes the scaffolding upon which modern extremists frame their struggle.

While much research has examined the psychological and sociological underpinnings of radicalization, there has been considerably less research into how their view of history informs what extremists believe. We continue to neglect this at our own peril. Appreciating how a group sees history, and its place within it, is an essential element of defeating it, both militarily and ideologically. 

For example, the meteoric rise of ISIS’s so-called caliphate in early 2014 left policymakers struggling to understand what, exactly, motivated their extreme brutality and millenarianism. A sober examination of ISIS’s deep belief in a particular strain of Islamic doctrine and history would have provided policymakers important insights into how the group would evolve, its determination to defend the caliphate to the bitter end, and its shift to targeting Europe.

Ultimately, examining and understanding extremist groups’ usage of history provides insights into the motivations of the evildoer on his own terms. If we truly seek to defeat an extremist, then our only option is to understand his thinking, free of our own normative biases that inevitably distort our perceptions. Fyodor Dostoyevsky may have summed it up best: “While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”  

Following is the January 2021 installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. Previous editions of ISIS Redux can be viewed through the following links: December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, and April. A full background and analysis of ISIS’s resurgence in Syria, including its methodology, can be explored here and here.

ISIS militants carried out at least 46 confirmed attacks in January, killing at least 55 pro-Assad regime fighters, 26 civilians, and one local political leader, while wounding at least 22 in the Homs, Deir Ez Zor, Raqqa, Hama, and Aleppo governorates. January witnessed a significant increase in the number of ISIS attacks, high quality* attacks, and confirmed deaths compared with previous months. They were in fact the highest of all three metrics since the start of the insurgency two years ago.  

Fighting in Homs and Deir Ez Zor provinces increased sharply, with ISIS carrying out 18 and 13 attacks, respectively. Attacks in east Hama (7) dropped slightly compared to December, largely due to an apparent pause in attacks there since January 18. Attacks in Raqqa (5) province were also down, though attacks here were evenly spread throughout the month. Aleppo (3) continues to be the least active region of the insurgency, although ISIS conducted two attacks in the Andarin area north of Rahjan for the first time in January, indicating a possible northward expansion from the east Hama town.

Homs

The jump in reported attacks in Homs was largely due to a significant increase in fighting around the city of Sukhnah. ISIS claimed to have conducted three attacks near Sukhnah on both January 20 and January 26, marking the most intense periods of fighting around the town since November.

In addition to this, ISIS cells carried out several significant attacks against regime forces in the regions immediately surrounding Sukhnah. During the first nine days of January, ISIS forces twice attacked regime patrols in the al-Hayl gas field, south of Sukhnah, killing 10 Liwa al-Quds fighters. On January 16, ISIS killed five Liwa al-Quds members near Taybeh, northeast of Sukhnah, and two days later killed at least three more militiamen during intense battles near Kawm, further to the north.

Meanwhile, ISIS kept up its sporadic attacks around Palmyra. On January 1, two 5th Corps vehicles disappeared while on patrol, with all occupants presumed dead. On January 5, a regime soldier was found dead near the Shayrat Airbase, 75 miles west of Palmyra. The next day, ISIS cells clashed with regime forces around the T4 Airbase, 35 miles west of Palmyra.

Map of ISIS attacks in Homs, January 2021.

Deir Ez Zor

Most of the attacks in Deir Ez Zor were in response to an ongoing regime operation north of Shoula. Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and local Syrian and foreign militias launched this operation following the December 30 ISIS attack on troop transports nearby that left 31 soldiers dead. For the entire month of January, ISIS and pro-regime forces clashed north of Shoula and nearby Kababbj, marking the most sustained fighting between them since the insurgency began. ISIS’s response to the regime operation has involved both high and low quality attacks. ISIS carried out at least one complex ambush that killed six Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-backed foreign fighters. The regime also sustained losses due to ISIS mines and harassment fire on its patrols.

Historically, ISIS cells have proven more fluid in the face of regime sweeps, harassing patrols while temporarily moving out of the area. ISIS’s apparent refusal to give up its positions on the northern side of the crucial Palmyra-Deir Ez Zor highway mark an important evolution in the group’s strategy. This change appears to indicate that ISIS is both more prepared for head-on battles with regime forces now, and that the group is placing increasing importance on the ability to impede regime movement along the M20 Highway. Indeed, on January 24, an ISIS cell attacked a convoy of two to three buses carrying Syrian Republican Guard fighters just five miles west of Deir Ez Zor city and three and a half miles south of the SAA’s 137^th Brigade base.

Unlike the December 30 attack, when the militants used pre-placed Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) or mines to attack the buses, this time ISIS moved in on trucks in the middle of the day, firing on the buses with small and heavy arms. The fact that this attack occurred so close to heavily fortified regime areas and in the midst of a large-scale anti-ISIS campaign demonstrates the apparent confidence cells have on their ability to move freely about the area. Three days later, regime forces scored their first victories against ISIS in the area, destroying an ISIS truck and killing three militants on January 27, and killing two militants and uncovering a hideout on January 28. Despite this, the operation and intermittent clashes continue along the Shoula-Kababbj corridor. 

Map of ISIS attacks in Deir Ez Zor, January 2021.

Hama-Aleppo-Raqqa

ISIS activity in Hama was carried out at the same intense pace for the first half of January as it had been in December. On January 3, insurgents cut the Salamiyah-Ithriya highway less than seven miles west of Ithriya, ambushing a convoy of oil tankers, lorries, and an overnight bus. ISIS destroyed the nine oil tankers and one of two lorries, killing seven civilians and two soldiers. Loyalist media claimed the militants were attempting a mass kidnapping, but were stopped by the arrival of security forces. Shortly after the first attack, ISIS fighters hidden nearby attacked the first responders, forcing emergency vehicles to retreat until additional security forces cleared the area.

These attackers likely came from north of the highway, where ISIS cells appear to have embedded themselves. These cells have regularly attacked regime forces around the town of Rahjan in past months, and did so again on January 8. Farther north, regime forces were twice attacked when attempting to patrol in the Andarin area of Aleppo, close to the Hama border. The regime has long been absent from this area, and it is likely that northeast Hama cells have an established presence here.

ISIS also continued attacking regime forces along the Ithriya-Raqqa highway, targeting soldiers at the Zakia junction in Aleppo on January 22, and clashing with pro-regime fighters in southwest Raqqa on January 25. Further east, ISIS fighters launched a large attack on Resafa on January 1 and successfully captured three soldiers somewhere in the province on January 11. The next day, militants massacred 18 shepherds near Sabkhawi, the same hamlet tribal forces had liberated on August 29, 2020. This massacre was followed by regime airstrikes on multiple locations in southeast Raqqa.

Map of ISIS attacks in east Hama and south Aleppo, January 2021

On January 9, ISIS killed an IRGC 2nd Brigadier General in Deir Ez Zor. The general had reportedly been touring Liwa Fatemayoun positions in the days prior to his death, suggesting that he was either killed in the fighting near Shoula, or somewhere near Bukamal. He was the 25th commander killed in the Badia (Syrian desert) since January 2020, and his death marks the 14th month in a row that ISIS militants have successfully killed a pro-regime officer.

Five days later, ISIS assassinated a local Sheikh in northeast Hama. According to loyalists, the Sheikh has played a major role in arresting many local ISIS sympathizers, making him a prime target for insurgents. It was the first confirmed killing of a civil society leader in the Badia since the ISIS insurgency began, and hints strongly at heavy local support for ISIS in the volatile northeast Hama region. On January 17, ISIS killed its third regime commander of the month, destroying the vehicle of a National Defense Forces (NDF) field commander with a mine in southeast Hama.

For their part, the Syrian regime and its allies conducted three main operations in January. The first, as previously described, was launched north of Shoula and was ongoing through the end of the month. The second operation was launched following the January 3 ISIS highway attack in east Hama, and was said to span from Ithriyah to Resafa. The third operation was conducted from Palmyra to the T2 Pumping Station, on the Homs-Deir Ez Zor border. This operation ended on January 28, and, according to local loyalists, “cleared” four hamlets north of the Palmyra-T2 road. There were no claims of this operation encountering any ISIS fighters.

In addition to these operations, there was increased activity by Syrian and Russian jets in central Syria. Airstrikes were conducted regularly throughout the month, both in support of the operations and in response to ISIS attacks in Raqqa and Homs. As always, there is no evidence of the impact of these strikes, although the regime continues to largely hit pre-selected locations, leaving little chance for the strikes to have any material impact on ISIS operations.

Since many of ISIS’s January’s attacks were a reaction to sustained regime operations, February’s fate will likely be determined by what the regime chooses to do. If regime operations around Shoula and Sukhnah end, attacks will likely drop back to the late 2020 levels. ISIS activity is certain to return to east Hama, with the cells there leveraging their local intelligence-gathering to hit high value targets. Meanwhile, with both the Salamiyah-Raqqa and Palmyra-Deir Ez Zor highways under constant ISIS pressure during the past two months, the likelihood that militants again ambush civilian or military vehicles in February remains high.

Map of locatable ISIS attacks (highlighted dots) in January 2021. To view an interactive version of this map, please click here.

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*High quality attacks are defined as attacks behind frontlines, those that result in seized positions, target regime officers, involve coordinated attacks on multiple positions, fake checkpoints, ambushes on military convoys, or attacks on checkpoints that kill at least three soldiers or lead to POWs.

Following is the December installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. Previous editions of ISIS Redux can be viewed through the following links: November, October, September, August, July, June, May, and April. A full background and analysis of ISIS’s resurgence in Syria, including its methodology, can be explored here and here.

ISIS militants carried out at least 33 confirmed attacks in December, killing at least 56 pro-Assad regime fighters and wounding at least 57 in the Homs, Deir Ez Zor, Raqqa, Hama, and Aleppo governorates. While there was a slight increase in the overall number of attacks compared to November, December saw a significant drop in high quality* attacks, ending a four-month streak of double-digit high quality attacks.  

November concluded with the Assad regime carrying out widespread anti-ISIS operations in northeast Hama, a reaction to the consistent high quality attacks in the area that month. These operations appeared to have little or no effect on the group, as attacks continued in the province at an even greater pace in December. Indeed, December was the first month in which more attacks occurred in Hama (10) than in any other governorate. Attacks in Homs (5) dropped sharply, but remained focused on both Palmyra (2) and Sukhnah (2). Meanwhile both Raqqa (8) and Deir Ez Zor (8) saw increases in ISIS activity, reversing a downward trend that began in October, with nearly half of the attacks in the latter province being high quality.

Last month, we noted that attack patterns appeared to show a connection between the ISIS cells operating in northeast Hama and Raqqa, particularly its southwest region. Despite an increase in both Raqqa and Hama attacks in December, this geographic pattern remained consistent as the increased attacks in Raqqa occurred almost exclusively in the southeast section of the province. Thus, it seems we can roughly define two groups of cells in the area, one operating in southeast Raqqa (and likely northeast Homs), and the other group operating from southwest Raqqa to northeast Hama.

Map of ISIS attacks in northeast Hama, Aleppo, northeast Homs, and Raqqa in December (highlighted dots).

ISIS carried out seven high quality attacks in December, the fewest since July. The lack of important attacks during the first half of the month was likely due to ongoing regime sweeps in Hama, Raqqa, and Deir Ez Zor. However, on December 12 an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) killed seven soldiers on the highway outside Maadan, Raqqa. It was the deadliest attack of the year in southeast Raqqa. Two days later, fighting erupted outside Rahjan, northeast Hama. ISIS claims the clashes were triggered when its fighters repelled a regime patrol that entered an ISIS-held village in the area. Fighting then raged across the area for two more days, with at least 28 soldiers wounded by the end. There is no evidence that ISIS lost any fighters in the battle. At the end of the third day, pro-regime forces declared a string of hamlets east of Rahjan “secured.” This was the second multi-day battle around Rahjan in as many months.

On December 27, ISIS killed a Republican Guard colonel near Boukamal, Deir Ez Zor. The colonel was the 24th commander killed in the Badia (Syrian desert) this year. His death marks the 11th month in a row that ISIS militants have successfully killed a pro-regime officer. Three days later, ISIS used IEDs and heavy machine guns to ambush three buses carrying members of the 4th Division’s Security Office along the Deir Ez Zor-Palmyra highway. The militants completely destroyed one bus, killing at least 30 soldiers and wounding 17. The attack occurred in the middle of the night, and ISIS reportedly waited nearby for the arrival of regime reinforcements before launching a second attack, which resulted in additional casualties.

This final major attack of 2020 came just one week after ISIS launched similar attacks on vehicles in the same part of the highway. Just two days earlier, on December 28, the commanders of the Deir Ez Zor National Defense Forces (NDF), the 104th Republican Guard Brigade, and the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) 17th Division had toured this area in a show of force. While this media tour ultimately changed nothing on the ground, it did reveal an important development in the SAA-NDF relationship in the governorate.

In November, the SAA-NDF power struggle came to a head when ISIS killed 17th Division regiment commander, likely operating on intelligence passed to the group by the local NDF commander. However, in early December, the 17th Division’s Chief of Staff was promoted to commander, and he quickly initiated a serious of meetings with the long spurned local tribal leaders and heads of other regime security forces. The December 28 battlefield tour was the first time in more than a year that both the head of the Deir Ez Zor NDF and the head of Deir Ez Zor’s most important SAA unit, the 17th Division, were pictured together outside of a ceremony.

The continued rebuilding of this relationship, and the broader work unifying the disparate pro-regime military units in the governorate, remains crucial for any attempts to reverse ISIS gains here. While the joint NDF-SAA sweeps conducted after the December 30 attack are a positive development, such tactics remain ineffective at rooting out ISIS cells. As long as the regime is unable to find a more effective counter-insurgency strategy, ISIS will continue to move about freely, harassing patrols and conducting high quality attacks wherever it finds vulnerabilities—of which there are many.

January will surely see continued pressure in east Hama, as ISIS appears to have demonstrated that no level of regime presence in the region will prevent it from carrying out attacks. The boldness of the late December attacks along the Deir Ez Zor-Palmyra highway may indicate that ISIS is renewing an old strategy of pressuring key transit lines. If this is the case, we can also expect to see attacks in January occur along the M20 and the Salamiyah-Resafa highway. The trend of the past five months suggests there will be about 30 attacks in January, with the number of high quality attacks contingent on the extent of the regime’s commitment to launching widespread and sustained sweeps.

Map of locatable ISIS attacks (highlighted dots) in December. To view an interactive version of this map, please click here.

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*High quality attacks are defined as attacks behind frontlines, those that result in seized positions, target regime officers, involve coordinated attacks on multiple positions, fake checkpoints, ambushes on military convoys, or attacks on checkpoints that kill at least three soldiers or lead to POWs.

Following is the November installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. October’s update can be read here, September’s update can be read here, August’s update can be read here, July’s update can be read here, June’s update can be read here, May’s update can be read here, and April’s here. A full background and analysis of ISIS’s resurgence in Syria, including its methodology, can be explored here and here.

ISIS militants carried out at least 30 confirmed attacks in November, killing at least 58 pro-Assad regime fighters and 17 civilians as well as wounding at least 29 soldiers and civilians in the Homs, Deir Ez Zor, Raqqa, Hama, and Aleppo governorates. While the overall number of attacks matched the number carried out in October, November saw the highest number of high quality* attacks and the second highest number of confirmed casualties since the insurgency began.

As we predicted last month, ISIS continued to pressure east Hama. The group conducted eight attacks, the highest number yet of attacks in a month in the province. Of those, three were high quality. Overall, ISIS continued last month’s concentration on Homs, where it conducted 13 attacks, of which seven were high quality. Attacks in Deir Ez Zor (six) and Raqqa (two) continued to drop off, following a pattern that began in October.

The sharp drop in attacks in Raqqa noted during the second half of October continued in November, correlating with a significant increase in violence in northeast Hama. The patterns in fighting in south Raqqa and northeast Hama—e.g., along the highway running from Resafa, Raqqa to Ithriya, Hama—suggests that a handful of separate ISIS cells operate across this area. Thus, a reduction of attacks in south Raqqa and an increase in attacks in northeast Hama implies the movement of fighting groups from one governorate to the other.

ISIS carried out three major attacks in northeast Hama in November. On November 11, ISIS fighters overran an Assad regime outpost near the Abu Fayyadh Dam, just outside Ithriya, killing at least 15 soldiers. Two days later, militants set up two fake checkpoints along the highway, killing several civilian drivers. On November 23, ISIS attacked a regime checkpoint along the Ithriya-Sukhnah road, killing at least three personnel. The attack occurred at night, implying the use of thermal or night vision equipment by the militants. ISIS carried out three other attacks during the month in the Ithriya-Rahjan area, as well as two attacks in the southeast part of the province.

Map of ISIS attacks in Hama in November (highlighted dots).

Despite the continued escalation in east Hama, Homs was the center of ISIS activity in November. More than half of all ISIS attacks in the province this month were high quality. In all, the group killed at least 32 soldiers and 13 civilians. On November 1 and 2, ISIS fighters disguised as soldiers preyed on civilians in the remote village of Roud al-Wahsh, killing at least three and wounding seven at fake checkpoints. The group set up a third fake checkpoint near Sukhnah on November 2, killing at least two pro-regime Liwa al-Quds fighters. ISIS again targeted local civilians on November 15, when militants attacked a group of shepherds, killing 10 and burning down their camp.

ISIS conducted two of its most significant attacks in the province on November 24 and 25. ISIS first overran a large Syrian Arab Army (SAA) outpost, killing five and capturing one, near Wadi Qasr Halabat before moving northeast to Palmyra the following day, where they attacked a joint PMC Wagner (Russian paramilitary organization) and SAA position west of the city. Both of these attacks occurred in a region of Homs that has previously witnessed little or no ISIS activity, yet now appears to have a large ISIS cell roaming freely between SAA positions. Lastly, ISIS claimed to have killed 20 SAA soldiers and destroyed two tanks west of Sukhnah on November 28. This claim is almost certainly an exaggeration of the fighting that took place that day. An attack of that nature would be unprecedented, not to mention the SAA does not deploy its limited number of tanks outside the city. According to a trusted loyalist fighter, ISIS instead killed four soldiers, wounded two, and captured a regime truck during several hours of fighting that day.

Map of ISIS attacks in Homs in November (highlighted dots).

ISIS also assassinated a regime commander for the 10th month in a row. On November 18, ISIS fighters ambushed Brigadier General Bashir Ismail and nine others as the men came to investigate an “abandoned” ISIS camp near Faydat Ibn Muwayna in southern Deir Ez Zor. Ismail commanded the local 17th Division’s 137th Regiment and was, according to one National Defense Forces (NDF) fighter, widely hated. It is believed the general was set up by Mohammed Assef, the recently appointed commander of the Mayadeen NDF, as part of the ongoing power struggle between the NDF and the 17th Division. The aforementioned NDF fighter suggested Assef was able to act without fear of retaliation due to the fact that the SAA high command held Ismail in low regard.

November’s attacks continued the trend of geographic expansion. ISIS appears to have embedded itself in northeast Hama, launching repeated high quality attacks around Ithriya and regularly harassing regime forces near Rahjan, a village once viewed as deep within loyalist territory. The November 24 and 25 attacks west of Palmyra suggest that the October 2 attack near Qaryatayn was not an isolated incident, but that ISIS has decided to relocate or activate a large cell in the mountains southwest of Palmyra. The impact of the large anti-ISIS operation around Ithriya, launched on November 27, remains to be seen, while the regime continues to ignore the consistent, intense fighting around Palmyra and Sukhnah.

December will likely witness the same trends present in November. It remains doubtful that the number of total attacks will surpass those of August and September. However, as in November, high quality attacks can be expected to continue to constitute a higher percentage of overall attacks. Significant attacks in Homs, particularly around Palmyra, will continue as long as the regime ignores the area. Depending on the longevity of the regime’s northeast Hama operation, ISIS will either continue to conduct attacks here at a high frequency or shift its focus back to south Raqqa.

Map of locatable ISIS attacks (highlighted dots) in November. To view an interactive version of this map, please click here.

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*High quality attacks are defined as attacks behind frontlines, those that result in seized positions, target regime officers, involve coordinated attacks on multiple positions, fake checkpoints, ambushes on military convoys, or attacks on checkpoints that kill at least three soldiers or lead to POWs.