After more than 53 years of a brutal dictatorship and nearly 14 years of debilitating conflict, the Assad government fell in just under two weeks. The sudden collapse of the regime — which killed, tortured and repressed countless Syrians — has brought a remarkable sense of unity and euphoria across longstanding divides in the country.
There is also a palpable sense of trepidation growing in northeastern Syria, where the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, once controlled swaths of land. While the group has lost almost all of what it once called its caliphate, its threat has not dissipated. On the contrary, the Islamic State has conducted nearly 700 attacks in Syria since January, by my calculations, putting it on track to triple its rate of last year. The sophistication and deadliness of ISIS attacks have also surged this year, as has their geographic spread.
In addition to ISIS’ monthslong campaign of attacks on Syria’s oil industry, the group’s infamous extortion network is also back, giving it renewed funding and indicating a level of local intelligence that is cause for alarm.
The United States has spent nearly a decade combating the Islamic State in Syria and next door in Iraq, with 900 American troops stationed in Syria focused on the task. At this precarious moment in Syria’s history, urgent steps are required to ensure that progress is not lost.
Countering the Islamic State is not straightforward, and it requires a complex set of interconnected responses, not just military action. After all, ISIS has always been a symptom of the chaos wrought by Syria’s civil war — not a cause. It relies on instability, human suffering and local grievances to fuel its narrative, drive its recruitment and justify its actions. To prevent ISIS from filling vacuums left by President Bashar al-Assad’s fall, the United States and its allies must use every tool available to fight its resurgence.
Assad regime forces, who had been trying to fend off the Islamic State’s desire to expand, have abandoned their positions in central Syria. Syrian opposition fighters have already sought to fill some of that space, but their numbers are minimal, and their capacity to coordinate a complex desert campaign against the Islamic State is limited, at best. The first U.S. response to this sudden vacuum came last Sunday, when American aircraft struck more than 75 ISIS targets throughout central Syria. The U.S. military will need to remain vigilant in the coming weeks, primed to strike ISIS where it seeks to amass resources, regroup or launch attacks.
Much of Syria remains a tangle of factional militias, each with its own set of motives. For the past eight years, the United States has partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led coalition that paved the way for the fall of the Islamic State in Raqqa in 2017. The S.D.F. is now facing a potentially critical moment. The Syrian National Army, a Turkish-backed rival militia grouping, has captured strategic towns from the S.D.F. and may now have the symbolic Kurdish city of Kobani in its sights. A U.S.-mediated cease-fire between these two warring factions was reached Tuesday, but it is fragile.
As of Friday, the S.D.F.’s tenuous control over its territory shows signs of faltering. Protests against the S.D.F. in Raqqa and Deir ez Zour descended into violence and chaos, with reports of the S.D.F. firing on civilians. The United States must engage intensively with the S.D.F. to discourage escalation. This will require military monitoring and more diplomacy. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s travel to Ankara a few days ago is a good step: Turkey holds many of the keys in this conflict.
This state of play — while concerning — also presents new opportunities for the United States in its fight against the Islamic State. The Arab tribes and militias in Deir ez Zour have been combating the Islamic State for a decade, as their roots lie within Syria’s armed, anti-Assad opposition. Assuming the United States will not want to deploy additional forces into Syria, there may be room for collaboration and new partnerships.
Amid all this change and uncertainty lies the detainee crisis in northeastern Syria, where tens of thousands of ISIS male prisoners and associated women and children languish in S.D.F.-administered detention facilities. These detainees must be returned to their places of origin and, when appropriate, should be prosecuted for the crimes they committed while associated with the Islamic State. But the many children in the camps deserve a chance at a new life.
A significant majority of the thousands of detained Syrians hail from areas that were, up until this month, under the Assad regime’s control. Now free movement across Syria is once again possible, and there is no regime to detain, disappear or abuse them upon their return.
The regime’s fall could open pathways to repatriating foreigners held in these camps as well. Mr. al-Assad had normalized ties with several countries in the Middle East and North Africa — countries where a significant portion of detainees in S.D.F. prisons and camps come from. Organizing returns between a nonstate group not recognized by Mr. al-Assad and these nations was impossible while he remained in power. With that obstacle removed, the State Department’s years of laudable efforts to push forward the repatriation agenda can be surged.
Ultimately, there is no quick fix to the problem of ISIS. But if at least some of these steps are not taken, America’s allies in Syria may eventually be taken apart by internal division and external attacks — forcing a hurried U.S. military withdrawal. With ISIS already resurgent and poised to receive a considerable boost, a U.S. departure would be disastrous.
This perilous moment for Syria’s future comes at a moment when American foreign policy in the region could change on a dime. President-elect Donald Trump has already stated the United States should have “nothing to do” with Syria’s future. But to do nothing would give the Islamic State a chance to surge once again.
Charles Lister is a senior fellow and the director of the Syria and the counterterrorism programs at the Middle East Institute. He is the founder of Syria Weekly and author of three books on Syria, including “The Syrian Jihad.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
