Islamic State militants on motorcycles ambushed two American-backed Kurdish soldiers this week, opening fire with AK-47s as their pickup truck passed a row of shops.
Both soldiers were killed. The shop owner nearest the attack site expressed the growing fear now gripping the region. “We are all afraid,” he said. “They have returned to our city.”
The troops belonged to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S. partner force that helped dismantle the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate — once a sprawling territory that ruled millions and extracted hundreds of millions of dollars annually from extortion and taxes. That hard-won success is now under increasing pressure.
Commanders warn that the terror group, reduced to a decentralized insurgency, is exploiting both the erosion of American involvement and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria to rebuild and recruit. The militants have regained weapons and ammunition after raiding arms depots when rebels took Damascus and the regime’s forces and their Iranian allies fled.
While the group lacks the capacity to seize and hold major territory, it has contributed to growing lawlessness. “The withdrawal of American forces is inspiring Daesh,” said Goran Tel Tamir, a senior regional SDF commander, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “We see them launching more attacks on us. We are getting more complaints from people. This is putting us in a difficult position.”
SDF figures show that militants carried out 117 attacks in northeast Syria through August — compared with just 73 in all of 2024. The Syrian government says the group has even plotted attacks in the capital, roughly 270 miles away from its eastern bases of operation.
Many attacks have occurred in Deir Ezzour province, a desert expanse roughly the size of Maryland, home to an estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters. A tour of several towns there revealed a population strained by renewed intimidation — attacks on representatives of Kurdish authorities, renewed demands for payments, and an unmistakable atmosphere of fear. As an SDF convoy passed through Hajin — once an Islamic State stronghold — men and boys glared from storefronts. Women, wearing black niqabs from head to ankle, watched silently.
Islamic State’s resurgence follows a dark legacy. The group rose from the violent upheaval after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, later capitalizing on chaos from the Arab Spring to seize vast territory. At its peak, it commanded 8 to 12 million people and became infamous for public beheadings and the enslavement of women. After the U.S.-led coalition and SDF liberated Raqqa in 2017, thousands of fighters surrendered or were detained. Others dissolved quietly into conservative Sunni communities where sympathy remains.
Yet as Islamic State adapts, the United States has scaled back. Since April, U.S. troop levels in Syria have dropped by roughly 500 from 2,000, and bases in the east have been closed or handed to the SDF. The Pentagon expects force levels could soon fall below 1,000 — a drawdown officials describe as reflecting “success in degrading the group,” according to spokesman Sean Parnell.
But U.S. oversight has raised alarms. A Pentagon inspector general report in August warned that militants are working to “exploit Syria’s volatile and fragmented state to rebuild,” and the Department of Homeland Security says the group “wants to conduct or inspire attacks in the U.S.”
May was the deadliest month for SDF forces since 2019: 20 attacks left 10 soldiers dead and 15 wounded. At least seven SDF soldiers were killed in August, and militants launched eight attacks in Deir Ezzour in the first week of September alone. On Monday, two more soldiers died after a land mine blast.
Islamic State now favors small sleeper cells — sometimes multiple in a single town. Each cell is unaware of the others, making disruption difficult. Their operations remain inexpensive.
“They depend on small groups, four or five people, for one operation,” said Siymend Ali, spokesman for the People’s Defense Units, a core militia within the SDF. “Everyone has one AK-47 and an explosive device.”
For residents of the region who once saw the caliphate fall, fear has returned — and with it, renewed questions about America’s retreat from a fight it once vowed to finish.
[READ MORE: U.S. Deploys Advanced Carrier to Caribbean as Tensions With Venezuela Soar]
