Sukhnah is operationally significant because it connects Deir ez Zor city to Palmyra and southern Raqqa to Homs via al Kawm. Northeastern Syrian media outlet NPA Syria reported that ISIS set up checkpoints and patrols in some areas of Sukhnah town. ISIS has isolated regime forces along key ground lines of communication in central Syria to regain territorial control in the central Syrian desert, which allows ISIS to create support zones in central Syria. ISIS Activity in Central Syria Since January 1, 2023 Both SDF and regime forces make money from smuggling routes overlapping with the lines of communication, and the two sides frequently clash along the Euphrates, preventing cooperation.įigure 1. The SDF and regime are unable to collaborate to close these lines of communication. ISIS is conducting attacks along the river to maintain its lines of communication between regime-held and SDF-held areas. Insurgent commanders frequently change their tactics to avoid decapitation strikes. Joint US-Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) raids are eliminating detention planners, but ISIS planners will choose to move into safer regime-held areas where the United States and SDF do not conduct operations.
TRIBAL WARS 2 ATTACK PLANNER FREE
ISIS is taking advantage of the seam between counterinsurgency forces along the Euphrates River, which will enable the group to rebuild its insurgency free from effective counterinsurgent operations. A PTI collapse would exclude the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa constituencies from mainstream politics and feed the Salafi-jihadi narrative that democratic governance is bound to fail.
Pakistan’s interior minister has proposed banning the PTI. The Pakistani military and government have arrested thousands of PTI leaders and supporters since Pakistan’s widespread protests on May 9–10. The PTI has a stronghold in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where Salafi-jihadi groups also have safe havens and attack frequently. Salafi-jihadi groups will likely try to exploit any banning or severe weakening of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party to recruit. The resulting resource constraints and degraded support zones will likely proportionately degrade the regional IS support network in West Africa until ISWAP recovers. ISWAP will likely increase the rate and geographic scope of its attacks outside of northeastern Nigeria in response to the increased pressure. ISWAP is also fighting a rival Boko Haram faction, which will likely combine with the counterterrorism operations to temporarily weaken the group for several months. The recent increase in counterterrorism operations by regional forces in the Lake Chad Basin are unlikely to permanently weaken IS West Africa Province (ISWAP) because security forces cannot adequately sustain operations in the remote havens they are targeting. These planners will use safe havens elsewhere in Syria to plan new attacks. US and SDF raids are successfully targeting ISIS planners, but these high-value targets will evade effective counterterrorism pressure by exfiltrating to central Syria, where US and SDF forces decline to conduct raids targeting ISIS due to regime presence.
ISIS will use the seam and lack of coordination between counterterrorism forces to set conditions that will enable a rapid resurgence after a US withdrawal. ISIS is taking advantage of the seam between Syrian territory held by the regime and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to evade counterinsurgent pressure and rebuild its insurgency. Salafi-Jihadi Movement Weekly Update, May 17, 2023Īuthors: Brian Carter, Kathryn Tyson, Liam Karr, and Peter Mills
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