Islamic State attacks on track to double in Iraq and Syria compared to last year, US military says

BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that the Islamic State group is trying “to reconstitute” as the number of attacks in Syria and Iraq is on track to double this year, compared to the year before.

IS claimed 153 attacks in the two countries in the first six months of 2024, CENTCOM said in a statement. According to a U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t allowed to speak publicly on the matter, the group was behind 121 attacks in Syria and Iraq in 2023.

“The increase in attacks indicates ISIS is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability,” CENTCOM said.

In northeastern Syria, Kurdish-led authorities issued a general amnesty Wednesday that would include hundreds of Syrians who have been held by the main U.S.-backed force over their roles within IS.

The U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, are holding over 10,000 captured IS fighters in around two dozen detention facilities — including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them. The SDF captured the last sliver of land in Syria from IS in March 2019.

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The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria said a life sentence will be reduced to 15 years in jail, while those detainees serving life sentences who have incurable diseases will be set free, as will those who have reached the age of 75. It said the amnesty will not include IS officials and members who fought against the SDF, nor those who carried out attacks with explosives that killed people.

Legal expert Khaled Jabr told The Associated Press that the amnesty will include some 600 Syrian citizens who are held on terrorism charges and links to IS, as long as their hands are not tainted with blood or they were detained while fighting SDF members.

The announcement comes just after the 10-year mark since the militant group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria. At its peak, the group ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom where it attempted to enforce its extreme interpretation of Islam, which included attacks on religious minority groups and harsh punishment of Muslims deemed to be apostates.

Militants also killed thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority and kidnapped thousands of women and children, many of whom were subjected to sexual abuse and human trafficking.

A coalition of more than 80 countries, led by the United States, was formed to fight IS, which lost its hold on the territory it controlled in Iraq and 2017 and in Syria in 2019, although sleeper cells remain in both countries and abroad.

Iraqi officials say that they can keep the IS threat under control with their own forces and have entered into talks with the U.S. aimed at winding down the mission of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq.

The talks come at a time of increased domestic tensions over the U.S. military presence.

From October to February, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq launched regular drone attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, which they said was in retaliation for Washington’s support of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza and were aimed at forcing U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq.

Those attacks largely halted after three U.S. soldiers were killed in a strike on a base in Jordan, near the Syrian border in late January, prompting U.S. retaliatory strikes in Iraq.

On Tuesday, two Iraqi militia officials said they had launched a new drone attack targeting the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. It was unclear whether the attack had hit its target. U.S. officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Associated Press writer Hogir Al Abdo contributed to this report from Kobani, Syria.