ISIS foreign fighters spur backlash in Iraq, Syria
Many Sunni Iraqis and Syrians are fighting back against the foreign fighters and extreme practices of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).
The rise of influence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in the past few months was based on two main factors: First, ISIS is a transnational organization operating across borders and benefiting from its ability to maneuver, given the fact it has bases in Iraq and Syria. Second, the sectarian conflict has been gaining ground in the region, providing fertile soil for the organization to recruit and gather sympathizers.
However, recent days have shown that ISIS has started to lose its main advantage points, as it is engaged in major confrontations in Iraq and Syria at the same time.
The Iraqi government has announced a large military campaign against ISIS in the areas of western Iraq. ISIS entered into armed confrontations with Sunni tribal forces in Anbar, and has been recently facing a military campaign waged against it in Syria, by the Syrian opposition that joined its ranks against it. This means that ISIS is being fought by groups that are mostly Sunni, and many are Islamist and Salafist, which are the very same constituencies it was appealing to. In Syria, ISIS faced military setbacks in several regions — such as the Aleppo countryside and Raqqa — not to mention signs of division within its ranks when some of its members defected to join Jabhat al-Nusra, which serves as the Syrian arm of al-Qaeda.
The organization is being pressured on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border, so it has become unable to withdraw from one side to another until the pressure is gone. Therefore, it has lost many opportunities for strategic maneuvers, which pushed it to abandon its secretive nature and reveal its locations in several areas in Iraq. This happened when ISIS took control of several areas in Anbar, including its most populated city, Fallujah, which it declared an Islamic emirate.
