Fully defeating Islamic State and rooting out sleeper cells that have spread across the Middle East and Africa could take years, even as the terrorist group has lost the vast majority of territory it once held in Syria and Iraq, a Defense Department inspector general’s report said, The Washington Times has reported.
The report said that a “reduced, covert version” of the Islamic State still exists not just in Iraq and Syria, but also in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen and that “clearing terrorists from remote and largely ungoverned terrain is a low and difficult process, and eliminating ISIS from rural Iraq and Syria could take years.”
The report added that “There are significant challenges to developing capable and self-sufficient security forces in Iraq and Sryia, and questions remain about the length of time it will take to train forces capable of preventing an ISIS resurgence.”
The inspector general specified that in Iraq, for example, it will likely require a long-term Pentagon commitment to defeat the pockets of Islamic State fighters that remain across the country, especially with ISIS fighters driven out of Syria increasingly finding sanctuary across the border there.
The report comes as the U.S.-backed military offensive against ISIS has stalled in eastern Syria after a counterstrike by the terrorists during a heavy sandstorm knocked the coalition back, according to The New York Times.
And although the number of foreign terrorist fighters pouring into Iraq and Syria has dropped sharply from its top level of about 1,500 a month, ISIS continues to attract some 100 new foreign fighters monthly.
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