Syria

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"In central and southern Syria the group has expanded its reach, according to the Counter Extremism Project. In regime-held areas the group had its deadliest month in three years, launching 38 attacks in Deir Ezzor, Homs, Hama and Raqqa. In April, at least 71 civilians were killed by ISIS and another seven were kidnapped."

Date
June 8, 2023
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ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency in May 2023

Following is the May 2023 installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. A review of developments throughout 2022 and 2021 can be found here and here . The...

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CEP Research Analyst Gregory Waters interviewed: "This attack occurred in an area outside Sukhnah that has, according to security forces, long been controlled by ISIS, for many years. The fact that they were in an area controlled by ISIS supports the idea that it was ISIS that was behind the attack...  

Since the beginning of 2019, there's been over 900 confirmed ISIS attacks in central Syria. We are used to seeing ISIS as this group that has a very flashy media, that claims every single thing it does. But it's no longer holding territory...  

In 2020, we saw a huge uptick in ISIS attacks. And at this time, the ISIS cells were more concentrated in the really remote central core of the desert area. Now it's running an insurgency using small groups of well-armed militants driving around in motorcycles or pickup trucks with machine guns. They're doing hit and run attacks all the time, all over the place...

The frequency of attacks increases, the severity of the attacks increases. And finally there's this really big pushback from the regime, Russia, and Iran...

You also have the Iranians and Iranian-backed militias, which includes both Syrian militias, and Afghanistan and Pakistani foreign fighters, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iraqi groups. So all of these groups are here, they're all spread together, they work together at times, they work separately at times, but they're spread throughout central Syria...

Sheep have been a really key financing opportunity for ISIS for several years now. Sometimes they kill the shepherds. Sometimes, they just steal the sheep. Then they take them and they sell them either on the black market or at regular sheep markets...

ISIS is most effective when no one can see its movements, of course, when no one can find its camps, its hideouts and caches. All of that's in danger when you have civilians wandering into these really remote areas. So what does the group do? They attack civilians...

Kidnappings often end with the bodies being found executed somewhere else. Executed is the word I use, because almost without fail the bodies are found lined up with bullet wounds to the head."             

Date
May 26, 2023
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ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency in April 2023

Following is the April 2023 installment of “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency,” a monthly chronicle of attacks by the terrorist group ISIS in central Syria. A review of developments throughout 2022 and 2021 can be found here and here . The...

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"In this episode of 'The Hunt with WTOP national security correspondent J.J. Green,' Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, said it’s not enough to say he’s dead. You need to present evidence."

Date
May 3, 2023
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April 27, 2023

New CEP Resource: Armed Opposition Groups In Northwest Syria

The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) published a new resource today, Armed Opposition Groups In Northwest Syria, examining the structure, composition, ideologies, means of communication and recruitment, and violent activities of armed opposition...

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"In Syria, the terror group 'has generally increased or maintained a higher tempo of attacks' since an initial jump in activity last August, according to an assessment earlier this month by the Counter Extremism Project, a New York and Berlin-based non-profit.

'There are increasingly many similarities between attacks over the past months and the period of initial ISIS expansion in late 2019 and early 2020,' the CEP report added, though it cautioned the terror group appears to be increasingly focused on attacking civilians as opposed to security forces."

Date
April 25, 2023
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CEP Research Analyst Gregory Waters writes: "While recent massacres of civilians in central Syria have refocused some international attention on the desert region, known as the Badia, the renewed widespread battles between militants and regime security forces that have occurred in parallel to these attacks have gone unnoticed. The most significant of these was the recent battle for the village of al-Kawm between ISIS cells and Syrian military units led by the Russian private military company Wagner Group. The fighting has, as of the time of this writing, ended in a stalemate, with ISIS militants retaining control of the mountains overlooking the village."

Date
April 21, 2023
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CEP Research Analyst Gregory Waters interviewed: "The important thing here, I think, is that it's not necessarily about the truffles. It's that civilians in this area have been targeted by ISIS for many years, both during and outside of truffle hunting season. They're kind of trapped in between this battle taking place since 2018 between ISIS fighters and the Syrian regime, ever since the Syrian regime retook territorial control in central Syria. The truffle hunting brings civilians deep into the remote areas of central Syria, where the risk of them stumbling upon an ISIS camp or a convoy of ISIS fighters is really high. So when they come out looking for truffles, ISIS goes and murders them to basically stop them from potentially finding out where ISIS members are and informing the regime." 

Date
April 16, 2023
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Daily Dose

Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.

In Their Own Words:

We reiterate once again that the brigades will directly target US bases across the region in case the US enemy commits a folly and decides to strike our resistance fighters and their camps [in Iraq].

Abu Ali al-Askari, Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) Security Official Mar. 2023
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