By Samah Abdel Fattah | 2025-08-25

Syrian counterterrorism forces, backed by the US-led International Coalition, have intensified their campaign against the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) in recent months, carrying out dozens of raids that have eliminated senior leaders, seized weapons caches, and dismantled financing networks from Idlib to Deir Ezzor.

The campaign has shrunk the extremist group's options and pushed it closer to collapse, security analysts say.

On July 20, coalition-backed forces captured Ahmad al-Talib, a high-ranking commander in Deir Ezzor who was preparing a car bomb targeting civilians and security forces.

The device was neutralized without casualties, North Press reported.

Weeks later, the forces arrested a senior ISIS figure in al-Hasakeh City on August 6, then detained two suspects linked to weapons smuggling the following day at dawn in Deir Ezzor's Hawayej Dhiban area.

On August 11, two operatives were arrested in the town of al-Hol accused of managing the group's financial and logistical networks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Meanwhile, in northwestern Syria, coalition helicopters launched a rare airborne assault in Idlib's town of Atmeh on August 20, capturing Abu Hafs al-Qurashi, an Iraqi national described as one of ISIS's most prominent foreign fighter recruiters.

Several foreign women associated with the group were also detained in the stormed house, though it remained unclear whether by local security forces or coalition forces, the Observatory said.

Coordinated dismantlement

These operations are part of a broader campaign that has struck ISIS leadership and infrastructure across multiple provinces this year.

The Observatory has documented 45 joint operations since January, leaving 11 extremists dead and 92 detained.

The arrests include military commanders, weapons distributors, and recruiters who believed they could exploit regional instability to stage a resurgence.

Operations in al-Raqa and al-Hasakeh have netted senior figures and financiers, while Deir Ezzor raids have targeted sleeper cells and active networks planning assassinations and bombings.

Coalition-backed strikes in Idlib and Aleppo have further demonstrated that whether in areas inside or outside traditional ISIS strongholds, no safe haven remains.

The data reveals that once capable of coordinating nationwide attacks, ISIS is now reduced to sporadic ambushes and scattered plots easily disrupted by counterterrorism raids.

Its communication channels are compromised, its leaders routinely exposed, and its ability to protect operatives virtually extinguished.

The more leaders are arrested or killed, the more ISIS fragments into isolated cells with no capacity for coordinated action, the Observatory and local media reports indicate.

For anyone who joins ISIS now, the outcome is either capture or death, the evidence demonstrates.

With Coalition-backed raids spanning cities, deserts, and border areas, counterterrorism forces are dismantling ISIS cell by cell in a campaign that, analysts say, ensures the group's remnants face only one fate: defeat.