FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 28, 2019
Contact: press@defensepriorities.org
WASHINGTON, DC—This weekend, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died following a U.S. military raid on his compound in Syria. Defense Priorities Policy Director Benjamin H. Friedman issued the following statement in response:
“Baghdadi’s killing further demonstrates ISIS’s demise and how the United States can strike at its remainders without having a permanent ground presence. It is more reason to actually get U.S. forces out of Syria.
“U.S. forces did not have to occupy northeast Syria to carry out a raid in northwest Syria. The United States can collect the intelligence needed for counterterrorism strikes in various ways without nearby ground forces. Besides that, local forces, like Kurds, Russia, and the Syrian government are also eager to kill ISIS leaders—they can fight against its remnants once the United States leaves.
“Idlib province, where Baghdadi was hiding, is the last redoubt of rebels in Syria. His presence there, in an area dominated by Al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, shows that terrorists hang on in parts of Syria where the Assad regime does not exercise power. ISIS originally gained sway in eastern Syria when the Syrian regime was occupied with rebels in the west. Syrian government forces, with Russian help, are likely to retake Idlib soon. As reprehensible as the Assad regime is, it is winning the civil war. Preventing Assad from regaining power in the rest of Syria benefits ISIS.
“Baghdadi’s death is symbolically useful. He had probably ceased to be operationally important while on the run, with his organization broken into bits. But it is one more demonstration that ISIS is weak and flailing, which undercuts its danger. ISIS’s threat was always a result of an aura of success, which let it recruit and inspire distant acts of violence in its name. The destruction of ISIS’s caliphate largely destroyed its allure. Baghdadi’s death, five years after he declared himself ‘caliph’ over millions of Syrians and Iraqis, reinforces the failure of his organization. It is another reason to accept victory and leave Syria.”
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