The so-called Islamic State (IS) suffered two strong lead uppercuts in Syria in late October. One was the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a US raid on a compound in the village of Barisha in northern Idlib, just 5 miles from the Turkish border. The other was the killing of IS spokesman and possible Baghdadi successor Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir in a drone strike on an oil tanker truck in which he was being smuggled across northern Syria near Jarablus, a border town controlled by the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army. Will those two devastating punches knock IS down? The short answer to this hard question is “absolutely not.” Here is why.

Although IS has lost its territorial domination in Syria and Iraq, it has grown into an international “brand” with extensive global outreach. The group remains an effective war machine. After losing its last stronghold in Baghouz, Syria, in late March, the group went underground, managing to survive as an effective insurgency. Since March, IS has claimed more than 550 terrorist attacks in Syria, mostly in Deir ez-Zor, and around 800 terrorist attacks in Iraq, mostly in Diyala, Kirkuk and Ninevah provinces.

The IS ideology remains intact as well. While IS has spread across the Sunni world, its religious ideology and beliefs draw on a hard-line understanding of Wahhabism. In its essence, the IS ideology considers all other Muslims as adversaries, rejects negotiation and dialogue and sees armed struggle under the concept of jihad as the only way of achieving its aims. It appeals mostly to people who have failed to integrate into the socioeconomic and political systems of their countries, using a strategic rhetoric that they have “a blood debt to the Sunni ummah” and that “the more Sunnis the West and the Shiites kill, the more the Sunni ummah will resurge.” IS aspires to become an authority having the final say in the Sunni realm as part of a rebuilt caliphate. 

In short, unlike other religious movements, IS offers the young a cause to die for and an enemy that is more tangible and closer than the unclear and distant enemy that al-Qaeda defines, coupled with a Kalashnikov, some money and even a spouse, a home and a “real identity.” The IS package of cause, enemy and armed violence is compounded with the idea of “land” and “an Islamic state,” offering a more realistic, attainable and thus more appealing notion to fight for than al-Qaeda.