Islamic State influence grows as territory shrinks

Families were left waiting for news of loved ones missing after the attack in Baghdad left at least 142 people dead. Photo / AP

Massacres attributed to Isis (Islamic State) have struck on four continents this year, reflecting how the appeal of the group's ideology is growing even as the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria has receded, according to experts.
The slaughter of civilians in three large attacks in the past week alone - in Istanbul on Wednesday, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Saturday, and in Baghdad on Sunday - suggests that militant actions beyond the caliphate's borders are taking place more frequently and not necessarily with any overt direction from some caliphate headquarters. Even more alarmingly, a growing number of attacks, starting with those in Paris and Brussels, were conducted by gangs of assailants instead of by an individual gunman.
"What's striking to me about the Istanbul and Dhaka attacks is that both weren't done by lone wolves at all," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA counterterrorism official and analyst of al-Qaeda and Isis who is at the Brookings Institution. "These were done by teams of terrorists working with a very thought-through attack plan. I call them wolf-pack attacks. They are rapidly becoming the Islamic State's signature."

Last week, to mark the two-year anniversary of its self-declared caliphate, Isis created a chart showing its influence, stretching from the moderate control it claims in the Philippines to a "covert" presence in France, with 15 other countries in between.
Even countries not on the list are fearful. In India, the Government says dozens of Indian Muslims are being monitored after they have undergone some kind of training with Isis, but Indian officials acknowledge the actual number may be much higher.
While the core of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been pummelled by coalition airstrikes and by armies and militias fighting them on the ground, Isis soldiers have spread throughout the Middle East and far afield. Attacks in Turkey, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and several European capitals, and the lone-wolf attacks in Orlando, Florida, and San Bernardino, California, show Isis' potency as an ideology.
California Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday that Isis is "vicious and adaptive" in what he called a "global terrorism campaign". "It's very much losing territory but at the same time expanding its global presence," he said.
US intelligence officials say battlefield setbacks in Iraq and Syria appear to have driven Isis leaders to speed up their timeline for attacks abroad. Many intelligence officials and terrorism experts think that recent terrorist strikes in Paris, Brussels, Turkey and Bangladesh are a reflection of that strategy.
"We judge that [Isis] will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda," CIA Director John Brennan said in testimony before the Senate last month.
While Isis had been primarily focused on building and defending its caliphate, the group has long expressed ambitions for attacking targets outside the Middle East. The jihadists' English-language magazine, Dabiq, regularly includes discussions of plans to conquer Rome and other cities of symbolic importance, in addition to capturing all lands that were once part of the Islamic empires of history. In Dhaka, foreign customers at the Holey Artisan Bakery who were from "Crusader countries" were singled out for death.

Bangladeshis light candles and sing songs as they pay tribute to those killed in the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo / AP

A "news bulletin" radio broadcast that Isis disseminates on social media recently provided a rapid-fire listing of attacks conducted by its fighters, who it characterises as the "forces of the caliphate". The group's aspirations date back to its earliest days, when it was called al-Qaeda in Iraq and led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi.
"We perform jihad here while our eyes are upon al-Quds [Jerusalem]. We fight here, while our goal is Rome," Zarqawi famously said, in a line frequently cited by Isis' leadership.
The group's highly regimented structure includes a unit dedicated to facilitating attacks on foreign soil, US and European officials say. Former Isis fighters now in custody have told investigators that the unit, called EMNI or AMNI, has been active in Europe for more than a year.
One jailed French recruit named Nicholas Moreau recalled meeting some of the EMNI operatives in Syria and described them as part of the "secret service for the exterior of the Islamic State", according to notes of the interview obtained by the Washington Post.
"The external mission is to send people all over the world to do violence, to kill or recruit young people, or to obtain cameras, or chemicals for weapons," Moreau said, according to a translation of the French investigators' notes. He identified as an EMNI operative the Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the reported field commander of November's terrorist strike in Paris, and said at least four others had travelled to northern Europe to make preparations. It is not clear whether the four have been identified and arrested.
"They are dangerous and know the background about weapons," Moreau was quoted as saying. "I think they are in Europe. I do not know where they are exactly."
US Secretary of State John Kerry has frequently said that attacks, whether conducted by or inspired by Isis, are a sign of the group's desperation as the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria is chipped away. Nevertheless, the group apparently remains rooted enough that it recently issued its own caliphate dinar currency, embossed with the words Islamic State.
But increasingly, it's the idea of Isis, rather than the group's control of any territory, that has taken on greater significance.
"As Dhaka and Istanbul demonstrate, the idea is being translated into a tactic that is much more dangerous than inspiring a single individual to go out and carry out an attack," Riedel said. "As horrific as Orlando was, had it been four guys in the bar, think how much more complicated it would have been.
"It's making the challenge of defeating it more and more urgent, as well as more and more difficult."

Mourners carry the coffin of Muhammed Eymen Demirci, killed at the blasts in Istanbul's Ataturk airport. Photo / AP

Iraq
Isis (Islamic State) claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in the Shia neighbourhood of Karrada in Baghdad on Sunday that by last night had claimed at least 142 lives and wounded about 185 people. It issued a statement saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of "ongoing security operations". Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered changes to Baghdad security measures in response to the bombing, the most deadly in Iraq this year.
Bangladesh
The slaughter of foreign hostages in Dhaka on Saturday has put Bangladesh firmly on the frontline of the global war on terror despite government efforts to portray a campaign of attacks as the work of domestic opponents, according to analysts. The Government has denied Isis' claim of responsibility for the attack, which began as a hostage-taking on an upscale restaurant and left 28 dead, including six attackers and 20 of the hostages. "By hacking people to death ... they wanted to show the world that they can go to any extent for jihad," said K G Suresh, a senior fellow at New Delhi's Vivekananda International Foundation thinktank. "Once they attack a restaurant popular with foreigners ... their message is clear who they want to go after. By sparing Muslims, they wanted to send out the message that they are only against Westerners." The hostage-takers tortured and killed those who couldn't recite verses of the Koran.
Turkey
Thirteen suspects, including 10 Turks, have been charged over the Istanbul airport suicide bombings, the deadliest of several attacks to strike Turkey's biggest city this year, the Dogan news agency reported. Turkish officials have pointed blame at Isis for Tuesday's gun and bomb spree at Ataturk International Airport, which left 45 people dead including 19 foreigners. The suspects, who are in police custody, were charged with belonging to a terror group, homicide and endangering the unity of the state, Dogan reported, without providing the foreigners' nationalities.
Saudi Arabia
A suicide bomber blew himself up near the United States consulate in Saudi Arabia's Red Sea city of Jeddah yesterday, the Interior Ministry said. Two security officers were lightly injured. There was no immediate word on who was responsible, but since late 2014 Saudi Arabian security officers and members of the Shia minority have been hit by deadly violence claimed by Isis.