ISIS is quickly losing ground in the Middle East thanks to American and Russian airstrikes and Kurdish, Iraqi, and Syrian ground forces. The so-called caliphate is on the ropes and it looks like it may actually fall. But even as its armies fall back under attacks from the Islamic coalition, adherents to ISIS’s violent philosophy have launched deadly attacks in western countries. The bloodiest was in Paris in 2015 where 130 were killed. More recently, 49 Americans were killed on June 11 during an attack on the patrons of an Orlando nightclub.
To carry out violent attacks across the world despite being surrounded at home, ISIS relies on two groups of potential terrorists. The first is ISIS members who fought in Iraq and Syria to launch attacks abroad, such as Mohamed Abrini and Najim Laachraoui. These two men were suspected members of ISIS who played key roles in the Brussels bombings in 2016. Intelligence agencies track people returning from Iraq and Syria and had flagged both men.
The second group ISIS relies on is harder to track, though usually less trained than veterans of the Iraq and Syria conflict. These are disenfranchised, unhappy Muslims or potential conflicts living in countries that ISIS would like to target. Rather than trying to send fighters to all the countries they would like to attack, ISIS sends its propaganda to those countries and tries to find potential terrorists who just need a few nudges into radicalization. Only a few will actually decide to become terrorists, but each of those is another potential terrorist like the San Bernadino or Orlando shooters.
And ISIS has some impressive propaganda with which to radicalize these future terrorists. First, it publishes a slickly-edited magazine that currently has 14 issues. “Dabiq” has a number of recurring pieces that are aimed at potential fighters.