After Baghdadi’s Death…US Coalition against ISIS has too much to do

Eslam Mohammed

From dissolving the group’s caliphate to killing its leader, the coalition has notched major achievements, but all that work may be for naught if the United States and other members do not renew their cooperation at the upcoming ministerial meeting.

Charles Thepaut and Matthew Levitt mark in their analysis entitled “The Counter-ISIS Coalition Has Much to Do After Baghdadi’s Death” the reasons of American Coalition to stay in Syria after Baghdadi’s Death.

After Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed on October 27, one might wonder why foreign officials are still gathering in Washington on November 14 for a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

But the threat posed by the group has persisted through years of similar setbacks, so the many countries active in countering ISIS must discuss how best to continue their efforts.

Despite a difficult campaign with many casualties, local troops managed to retake all ISIS territories by March 2019. Steady cooperation with these forces also enabled the recent U.S. operation to kill Baghdadi.

Since 2017, European contributions under the coalition framework have totaled more than $400 million in support to northeast Syria. These funds have contributed to clearing land mines left by ISIS, averting humanitarian crises in refugee camps, repairing basic infrastructure, providing primary healthcare, and relaunching the local economy.

The coalition has also promoted bilateral and multilateral support to Iraq, including funds to rebuild the University of Mosul. Such efforts are crucial to restoring decent living conditions for populations who suffered from ISIS rule and the war against it.

In addition, the coalition has coordinated projects to counter ISIS propaganda and shut down its social network accounts. Information sharing on terrorist financing and foreign fighters has been improved as well.

In short, the coalition was formed to ensure the Islamic State’s enduring defeat, and increased cooperation on nonmilitary dimensions is required to achieve this goal. That is why the alliance still has an important role to play.

Items on the agenda for next week’s small-group ministerial meeting include several burning political issues:

How to deal with the new Syria map? The most contentious issue is the instability caused by last month’s Turkish incursion and uncoordinated U.S. withdrawal in northeast Syria. French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian requested the ministerial meeting after coalition member Turkey launched its operation to retake a thirty-kilometer-deep zone along the border.

How to deal with ISIS detainees? The coalition’s most urgent task is designing a coordinated response to the detention and prosecution of ISIS detainees. In the immediate term, this means preventing ISIS prison breaks within Syria’s current security vacuum.

Accordingly, U.S. officials who attend next week’s meeting will likely be asked to explain how the SDF can be expected to continue detaining ISIS fighters while contending with the U.S. departure and Turkish-Syrian military advances. On October 15, Turkish presidential spokesman Fahrettin Altun declared that “nobody is dumping those [imprisoned] terrorists on Turkey,” so it is unclear whether a new division of labor with Ankara will be possible.

Beyond discussing specific solutions, the meeting will serve as a test of U.S. leadership over international counterterrorism efforts. Credibility requires stability—in the wake of Washington’s hasty Syria withdrawal, it will be very difficult for senior U.S. officials to convince Western and Middle Eastern partners that any proposals they make next week will not suddenly change the week after.

Allies may therefore be unwilling to send troops or make other investments that are contingent on U.S. policy remaining constant. More likely, they will try to adapt to the reality of Russia’s strengthened position on the ground in Syria and its growing influence in the Middle East theater.

Here, the success of the coalition’s nonmilitary lines of effort offers a lesson on the necessity of multilateral counterterrorism cooperation, including at the strategic level.

The underlying conditions that led to the rise of ISIS—poor governance, corruption, repression—persist across the Middle East, and political settlements are still needed in Syria and Iraq.

These tough challenges require the United States and its allies to engage diplomatically at all levels, such as by pressuring the Syrian regime and the UN-led Constitutional Committee with Turkey’s help.

In Iraq, the coalition should capitalize on the current climate of anti-government protests to advocate for more-inclusive governance in former ISIS territories. Some have also suggested expanding the coalition to counter the terrorist and insurgent threat posed by ISIS wilayat (provinces), which have sprouted in Afghanistan, Algeria, Cameroon, Chad, Chechnya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, India, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Turkey, and Yemen.