Chip Off The Old Block?

As the Islamic State is driven out of its former strongholds, a U.N. panel is warning that the next big terror threat in the region could come, once again, from Al Qaeda — led by the son of Usama bin Laden.

The report by U.N. experts, delivered to the Security Council and released this week, included startling findings about both terror networks. The report found that while ISIS had been defeated militarily in Iraq and most of Syria, it had rallied in early 2018 and still had approximately 20,000-30,000 members in the two countries.

The U.S.-led coalition in the region racked up numerous military wins against the group in 2017 and helped reduce its territory to mere pockets of Syria. At the State of the Union address this year, President Trump declared victory: “I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and in Syria.”

The U.N. report found ISIS, though, is in the process of moving from “a proto-State network to a covert network” that continues to threaten other countries, and its leadership is still in tact, under Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

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