Claimed Islamic State activity 2024

A look at November, December events and an overview of the year

The fall of the Asad regime naturally provoked concern over the threat of a resurgent Islamic State. Since the group lost the last of its officially administered territory in Syria in February 2019 it has used the Syrian badiyah as place to regroup. This desert between fertile western Syria and the Euphrates was nominally under the control of the regime, though given the rugged terrain and the sparse population this control did not extend much further past the main roads and towns. Islamic State fighters regularly launched deadly attacks targeting regime vehicles traveling through the badiyah, to which the regime and Russia would respond with only temporarily successful security sweeps. For whatever reason many of these attacks went unclaimed by the group. Instead the bulk of claimed Islamic State attacks in Syria since 2019 have occurred in SDF-territory, primarily consisting of less deadly small arms and IED attacks on SDF and Asayish patrols and checkpoints carried out by local cells.

As part of the broader countrywide collapse Syrian Arab Army units and affiliated militias deployed to eastern Syria dissolved in the direction of Damascus and Iraq in early December. This left a majority vacuum in the badiyah which many feared would be filled by the Islamic State. Starting around December 6th the SDF responded by moving south from al-Tabqah and crossing the river in Deir ez-Zour to establish control over essentially the entire right bank of the Euphrates. However the SDF soon withdrew, possibly due to widespread local anti-SDF sentiment or pressure from the US, and deployments of HTS-aligned fighters took its place by December 10th. While Deir ez-Zour west of the Euphrates has since been incorporated into the new HTS-led administration in Damascus, the number of security forces there is likely lower than in western Syria where establishing hegemony is a higher priority.

A photo from IS’s last attack of the year, targeting an SDF vehicle in southern al-Hasakah on December 30th (via al-Naba’ #476)

The Islamic State’s claimed attack pattern does not reflect the drastically changed situation in the Syrian badiyah. Over the course of the month of December its various media organs announced 21 attacks targeting the SDF, compared to 25 the previous month. The SDF reported three fighters killed in Deir ez-Zour over the course of the month, while the Asayish reported eight members killed in attacks in Deir ez-Zour, al-Hasakah, and al-Raqqah. Meanwhile to the best of my knowledge it has not carried out any major attacks in now HTS-controlled Deir ez-Zour west of the Euphrates. While determining the rationale behind which attacks get claimed and which don’t is guesswork, it seems likely that IS has avoided taking advantage of the weakened security state west of the river so as to not provoke the US into expanding its footprint on the ground. Rather than deploy part of its 2,000 man force across the Euphrates or support the SDF in ding so the US (and France) targeted IS in the badiyah via airstrikes on December 8th, 16th, 19th, and the 23rd, continuing a pattern of the past several months.

Below is data I’ve collected regarding officially claimed Islamic State attacks against the SDF over the past year.