US voices concern as ISIS threat returns in Syria

Tensions across Syria and its neighbouring states are escalating as the United States reassesses its strategy in the country, warning that the reported escape of ISIS fighters from north‑east Syria poses a renewed regional threat, reported by The National on January 20th.

A US‑led international coalition was formed in 2014 as part of a campaign to weaken ISIS, which at the time was rapidly expanding across Syria and Iraq. President Donald Trump has since made the fight against the group a key condition for his support as he re‑engaged with the new Syrian government.

“This is a big concern for us,” a Western diplomat told The National. He said the ISIS problem in north‑east Syria, where thousands of fighters and their families are held in camps and prisons, remains a central priority. “This is why we have the coalition,” he added.

In 2024, Syria joined the international coalition and its campaign to curtail ISIS’ resurgence, whose sleeper cells remain a threat despite the group’s defeat in Syria in 2017, marking a significant diplomatic shift.

US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, released a statement in support of a new ceasefire agreement between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In it, he said that the Kurds were being offered “a pathway to full integration into a unified Syrian state with citizenship rights, cultural protections, and political participation.”

The establishment of a new government in Damascus “shifts the rationale for the US‑SDF partnership: the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti‑ISIS force on the ground has largely expired,” Mr Barrack wrote on the social media platform X/Twitter.

Mr Trump told reporters at the White House, “I like the Kurds.” He went on to say, “But just so you understand, the Kurds were paid tremendous amounts of money, they were given oil and everything, so they were doing it for themselves, more so than they were doing anything for us.” He added, “But we got along with the Kurds, and we are trying to protect the Kurds.”

The fighting in Syria has also stirred concern in neighbouring Iraq about a potential ISIS resurgence and the risk of militants slipping across the border. In response, Shi’ite cleric and former leader of the anti-American “Mahdi Army” militia, Moqtada Al Sadr, urged the government to bolster security by sending additional forces to the frontier.

Iraqis still vividly recall the period after the 2003 US‑led invasion, when thousands of extremists poured in from Syria and the country descended into years of sectarian bloodshed. The most devastating wave came in mid‑2014, when ISIS seized large swathes of northern and western Iraq, triggering a nearly four‑year war to drive the group out.

Iraq is “monitoring and following the events in Syria”, Interior Minister Abdul Amir Al Shammari told the state news agency.

He said the Iraqi‑Syrian frontier is “fully secured and reinforced” with a 620km trench, concrete barriers, thermal cameras, and drones. “Our forces on the border are sufficient, are fully equipped and are supported by the Army Aviation and the Air Force,” he said, warning that “any ISIS threat that approach’s the Iraqi border will be met with gunfire.”

Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, the government‑backed umbrella organisation of paramilitary units dominated by Iran‑aligned militias, reported that they had detained an ISIS leader who had slipped across the border from Syria.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces said the militant, detained in the desert outside Mosul in north‑western Iraq, was a “dangerous ISIS leader who is considered one of the prominent field leaders,” adding that he had been tasked with “overseeing ISIS operations in Mosul’s desert and Syria, planning attacks and co‑ordinating sleeper cells.”

The National, Maghrebi.org