The Islamic State’s territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria may have been eliminated years ago, but as Christopher P. Costa and Colin P. Clarke write, the terrorist group itself is very much in business. ISIS-K, its branch in Afghanistan, has conducted two large-scale external attacks over the last two months—one in Iran that killed more than 80 people and another near Moscow that took the lives of more than 130.
If the United States and its allies haven’t found a way to defeat ISIS-K in its entirety, it’s because terrorism itself is an enemy that can’t be defeated in the traditional sense of the term. This is why the war on terror framework, initiated under the George W. Bush administration immediately after the 9/11 attacks, was such poor terminology. Terrorism is going to be with us for as long as humanity exists.
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