ISIS is increasingly unopposed after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the collapse of Syria

The threat posed by the Islamic State has once again hit the headlines after New Year’s attack on a crowded street in New Orleans on Wednesday by a man who may have ties to a terrorist network.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US-born citizen who lived in Texas and a military veteran, drove a pickup truck with an ISIS flag into a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens of others.

However, the FBI has not confirmed his direct “affiliation” or “connection” with the notorious terrorist network that has been spreading around the world in recent years, especially in regions such as the Sahel in Africa, despite a claim in 2019 that the terrorist network had been “defeated”.

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“Claims about the defeat of the Islamic State, just like claims about the defeat of Al Qaeda, are premature,” Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital. “These groups may have setbacks, but they persevere.

“The Islamic State represents a threat from Afghanistan. It has a significant network in Africa, especially in the Sahel and East Africa, in Somalia. And its network in Iraq and Syria still exists,” he added.

While the FBI has not confirmed that the New Orleans gunman was directly involved with ISIS, reports suggested he was an apparent sympathizer of the terror network and “pledged allegiance to ISIS” in a series of videos posted on his Facebook page, according to The New York Times.

The FBI has not yet released a motive for the attack, and Roggio explained that the incident likely does not indicate a “resurgence” of ISIS, although the security expert stressed that the terror network is increasingly facing less and less resistance in areas where it previously resisted.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria last month, an al Qaeda spinoff called Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham left a security vacuum in the Middle East and South Asia – similar to what contributed to the rise of ISIS after the US withdrawal from Iraq. Security experts have warned that ISIS and other terrorist networks could exploit these gaps in power.

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ISIS-K – a regional branch of the terrorist group which originated in Iraq and Syria – drew international attention in August 2021 when it attacked Afghans fleeing a Taliban takeover amid a US withdrawal and used a suicide bombing to kill 13 US troops and around 170 Afghan civilians.

The Taliban takeover raised concerns that Afghanistan would become a safe haven for terrorists such as Taliban allies Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and other jihadist groups, although there were also concerns that Afghanistan’s new governing body would be unable to counter ISIS-K.

ISIS-K mostly couldn’t are making significant progress in Afghanistan after the fall of the democratic government and the withdrawal of American forces, but also no longer opposes it so fervently.

“The Taliban and the Islamic State are enemies. The Taliban are attacking the Islamic State even while we’re not there — that doesn’t make them a partner in the fight against terrorism, but now they don’t have a dual threat against them — the U.S. targeting the Islamic State and the Taliban targeting the Islamic State — they they have more freedom of movement,” Roggio said.

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The security expert said that when it comes to Afghanistan and threats against the US and its Western allies, the Taliban and Al Qaeda remain a bigger threat than ISIS, although he stressed that ISIS has more and more “room to operate.”

“The Assad regime was the enemy of the Islamic State,” Roggio said. “One of the enemies of the Islamic State has been removed from the board and will therefore give ISIS more room to rebuild its strength in an area where it already has a significant presence.”

However, there is a third area where ISIS has strong roots and could see a resurgence if the US withdraws troops from the area again.

The Biden administration announced in September that, in coordination with the Iraqi government, the U.S. would end its military mission in Iraq to fight the Islamic State by 2026. The move was immediately met with concern by security experts who argued that ISIS remains the greatest threat to the U.S. , and could further endanger American soldiers who are still fighting against the terrorist network in Syria.

Details of the troop withdrawal remain unclear, and plans to renegotiate changes to withdrawal plans after the fall of the Assad regime and the ambiguous state of Syria have not emerged.

The incoming Trump administration remains unlikely to seek to keep US troops in Iraq despite the threat posed by ISIS, given the president-elect’s push to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan during his first term.

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“The US must decide whether it wants to remain in Iraq and Syria to counter the Islamic State and other targeted groups,” Roggio said. “And if he decides to stay, he has to step up [its] presence to deter threats from militia groups that have been attacking US troops.

“US efforts to contain the Islamic State are critical. Without a US presence there, groups like the Islamic State will thrive in terms of lawlessness,” the security expert added. “As bad as the Assad regime is, and it was a terrible regimefought the Islamic State – so without their presence you have another terrorist organization nominally in control of large areas of Syria.

“As we learned in Afghanistan, you can’t trust terrorists to fight other terrorists,” Roggio added.

Fox News Digital could not reach Trump’s transition team for comment on his plans for US troops in the Middle East.