By Samah Abdel Fattah | 2025-08-08

Surviving leaders of the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) are too weak and scattered to carry out significant terrorist operations, experts told Al-Fassel.

Sustained international coalition strikes in Iraq and Syria have systematically destroyed the group's command structure and financial networks, they said.

During a recent US ground operation in the Syrian city of al-Bab, three ISIS elements, including leader Dhiya Zawba Musleh al-Hardani and his two adult ISIS-affiliated sons were killed.

In a tactical shift, ground forces conducted the raid to protect three women and three children at the site, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) officer Farhad Khoja told Al-Fassel, noting that ground operations are rare.

The operation's success "demonstrates US resolve, on the one hand, and, on the other, demonstrates a significant weakness in the group's structure, which has become unable even to hide its remaining leaders," he said.

Relentless surveillance by the international coalition has "almost completely crippled its capabilities," leaving ISIS unable to maintain the operational security that once allowed its leadership to evade capture, Khoja added.

Operational breakdown

The targeting of key figures has created a cascade effect throughout ISIS's remaining structure, Khoja said.

Regional cells now operate in isolation, lacking the coordination and strategic direction that previously made the group a formidable multinational threat.

This operational breakdown is a dramatic reversal from ISIS's peak years, when it controlled territory in two countries and coordinated attacks across multiple continents, terrorism experts said.

The group's former ability to transfer funds and fighters between regions has been severed, leaving scattered remnants operating more like independent criminal gangs than a unified terrorist network.

"Now even if an operation is carried out, it poses no real threat; rather, it is an individual operation that could be thwarted immediately upon its inception," Khoja said.

Without established chains of command, remaining cells struggle with basic operational challenges: secure communications, resource allocation and tactical planning.

This has made the group particularly susceptible to intelligence infiltration, as cell leaders often lack the protocols to properly vet new recruits or verify the legitimacy of supposed supporters, experts said.

ISIS has lost its entire hierarchical leadership in recent years, with inexperienced elements now in charge, terror group specialist Wael Abdul Muttaleb told Al-Fassel.

The old operational methods "have completely disappeared and have been replaced by weak and sloppy methods that make the remaining cells vulnerable to elimination at any time and place once they are discovered," he said.

The group's propaganda apparatus has been reduced to sporadic, amateur communications that lack the production quality and strategic messaging that once amplified the group's influence.

Remaining hideouts cannot sustain operations, and raw materials for improvised explosive devices have become nearly impossible to obtain, Abdul Muttaleb said.