The message of despair

The international community has been shocked and angry with series of bloody attacks which happened consecutively in Iraq, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and killed hundreds of people…

Suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and recently losing Fallujah city, the so-called IS organization is sending bloody messages in despair.

In fact, IS’ forces has been dispersed and reduced remarkably in number and finance in recent time. This was partly due to being attacked heavily and partly due to a growing number of fighters in the IS escaping from the force. Due to air strikes of Russia and the US-led alliance, the IS’ revenue from oil has been reduced by half, while this organization has been lost 47% territory in Iraq and 20% in Syria after a series fierce fights in recent time.

Being forced to return to traditional terrorist attacks of suicide bombing, the IS wants to stimulate the fighting will of its fighters, who have been losing their wills after consecutive defeats. Middle East and North Africa are now not ideal front, IS is aiming to Asia as a potential front, where it has gained loyal support from some local extremist terrorist organizations like Abu Sayyaf in Philipines.

The IS’ despair is also shown when it was quick to claim itself to take responsibility of all terrorist attacks that were not surely conducted by the IS, especially the terrorist attack in Bangladesh. Claiming itself as the conductor of attacks in new fronts like Bangladesh, the IS want to attract Islamist armed militants in these countries to join the organization.

Besides Southest Asia, South Asia is the area that IS is aiming to set its foot. By attacking Saudi Arabia, the founder and leading country of the anti-IS alliance of 34 Islamist countries, the IS wants to suppress these countries. Besides recent attacks, the IS wanted to conduct a biggest terrorist attack on Tehran and other cities in Iran but unfortunately had been prevented.

The series of bloody attacks on a lot of countries, however, has shown the IS’ determination of “an Islamist empire”. By conducting bloody suicide bombings, IS wants to show its capacity of attacking remote areas on the world.

IS is using this way to inspire those who potentially support IS and who have been injected with extremist jihadist ideology. This way is not only to market the power but also to recruit new members through violence. Therefore, the objectives of IS are not only in Western countries, the direct enemies of IS, but also in Islamic ones, where have a lot of Islamic people living.

To pursue its ambition, IS is changing its tactics by spreading “fear and death campaign” everywhere in the world. IS had chosen proper times to increase the effectiveness of the attacks.

It’s not unreasonable that the attacks in Iraq and Saudi Arabia were conducted on the occasion of holy month of Ramadan of Muslims that ended on July 5. In Islamic culture, the death in this holy month is the most valuable one than other times. This conception has been exploited by IS to call for martyrdom campaign because the call in Ramadan month would be more appealing to some jihadists.

The danger and sophistication of the IS’ operations haven’t reduced. Besides planned attacks, the attacks conducted by the “lonely wolves”, that are terrorists who act independently, are real danger to security of any countries in the world. Through sophisticated propaganda on the Internet and social networks, IS has been creating “lonely wolves” that has extremist ideology and could attack anytime, anywhere, out of control of security forces.

It’s more dangerous that the experienced gunmen, who had time in IS forces, are coming back to their home and continue the jihad silently.

According to Mr. Andrew M.Liepman, former deputy Director of National Center of Counter Terrorist, these attacks are not followed any special forms; some will be planned focusingly, while some other attacks will completely localized.

The change in direction of IS is creating challenges to international fight against terrorism. This fight needs proper adjustment in strategy and tactic to prevent quick attacks of IS.

This fight surely does not only end at the strike in Middle East, but also out of the region. In near future, the fight against IS will be tough, complicated and move to a new period in which the fight will take place at every battlefield, spreading to more fronts and demand the cooperation of the whole international community./.