MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
ISIS is back in the headlines. That's because in Australia, authorities say last Sunday's mass shooting at Bondi Beach was an act of terrorism inspired by ISIS, also known as the Islamic state. The day before that, two U.S. service members and an American civilian were killed in Syria. President Trump blamed that attack on ISIS.
Now, it was only six years ago that Trump announced U.S. forces had pursued the leader of ISIS to his death after having, quote, "obliterated his caliphate 100%." So what is the state of ISIS today? Aaron Zelin is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also directs there the Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map Project. Aaron Zelin, welcome.
AARON ZELIN: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: Start with the where question. When we think about ISIS today, where is the hub? Where are we seeing the most activity?
ZELIN: It's most active nowadays in different African countries. In particular, Nigeria has the most attacks in the last two years or so, but they also control territory in Mali, Somalia and Mozambique.
KELLY: I mentioned the Sydney attack. Suspects in that attack are believed to have recently traveled to the Philippines to an area particularly known for Islamist insurgents. How strong is ISIS there?
ZELIN: They actually are at its weakest. Historically, the (inaudible) operating there 8 or 9 years ago, and they actually controlled a city called Marawi for about five or six months. Well, we've seen the number of attacks there go down lower and lower every year since, you know, 2017, 2018. So it is interesting that they went to the Philippines of all places to potentially get training.
KELLY: What went through your mind as an expert on the group when you saw that detail?
ZELIN: I mean, I think one of the things to consider is that, in recent years, we've seen the Islamic state being able to inspire as well as direct attacks from locales where they don't necessarily actually control territory. A decade ago, when they were in control of Iraq and Syria and, to a lesser extent, Libya, people would go to the training camps there because they controlled the territory and then send them out to do attacks like we saw in Paris, Brussels, Manchester, et cetera. But more recently, we saw proof of concept from the Islamic State's province in the Afghanistan region, doing attacks in Iran and Russia in 2024, but they didn't actually control territory there. So this case possibly could be similar to that proof of concept that they don't actually need to control territory anymore to try and do attacks abroad.
KELLY: Stay with the controlling territory piece and back to where they first emerged, Iraq and Syria. Size of the group in that part of the world these days - what are their numbers? What are their capabilities?
ZELIN: I don't think anybody has any idea how many fighters it has in Iraq and Syria nowadays, to be honest. In Iraq, it's quite weakened. It had less than 60 attacks this year, which is the lowest it's ever been. As for Syria, it's had a continued insurgency since they lost their territory there in 2019. We've seen an increase of attacks more recently against the new Syrian government, especially since they joined the Global Coalition Against ISIS when the president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, came to Washington, D.C., about a month or so ago. And so the attack on the American soldiers, in line with attacks against Syrian security forces as well in the last few weeks - that's part of a broader trend of larger and more attacks more recently in the Syrian governmental territories.
KELLY: So what does it even mean now to be inspired by ISIS? That - I said that's the term that authorities in Australia are using to describe the suspects in the shooting there. It's also the term we heard the FBI using here in the United States on the first day of this year, January 1, when a man drove a truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killed 14 people in that attack, the FBI said, inspired by ISIS.
ZELIN: I mean, traditionally, most people think of inspired by ISIS as somebody that watches their propaganda, reads their propaganda, is inspired by this message and then takes it upon themselves to do an attack without having any actual connective tissue to the organization. However, in this particular case, because they went to the Philippines, it could be more than an inspired attack, of course. But if they did come into contact with actual ISIS members in a training camp there and then went back, I would regard that as a directed attack more akin to what we saw in Paris and Brussels in 2016. And it highlights that even if the Islamic state is relatively weaker now than it had been, you know, six years ago when it lost all of its territory in Iraq and Syria, some of its messages still resonate with some people.
KELLY: Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, thank you.
ZELIN: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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