ISIS in attrition war to exhaust security agencies during Christmas

Ahmed Sultan

The British Foreign Department warned in a report this month against terrorist attacks that may happen during Christmas.

European states raised their security alert levels in preparation for any security emergencies with the celebrations.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Center in the UK warned, meanwhile, against a new wave of terrorism in Europe.

In making their warnings, the center and the UK Foreign Department depended on an analysis of the threats made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) through social media weeks ago.

ISIS backers call for staging attacks during Christmas celebrations. They asked the organization’s wolves and backers in Europe and the US to assassinate government officials and military commanders.

The same backers suggested untraditional attacks, including by balloons and vehicles. They also suggested setting forests on fire and attacking petrol stations.

These calls fall within the war of attrition started by ISIS since the collapse of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria in March 2019. This was when then-ISIS caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, called for staging a long war against the enemies of his organization.

The late ISIS spokesman, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, said his organization wanted to wage a long war against the member states of the international coalition against ISIS. ISIS cells, he said, would stage attacks in countries away from Iraq and Syria.

Exhausting deployments

ISIS forces the states it targets to deploy a large number of troops for a long time, which is always an exhausting process.

The organization declares its plan to stage attacks in given places. This makes it necessary for security agencies to step up security in the same places, but then ISIS stages no attacks. It strikes only when this state of high security alert comes to an end.

Extended security measures, an ISIS publication said, weaken the morale of security agencies, and exhaust them. ISIS just knows that security agencies cannot be on high alert for ever.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said in a previous report that ISIS is still capable of launching attacks. It added that this threatens regional and international security.