A bombing in Bangladesh that killed four people Thursday punctuated the most terror-filled month in memory to close the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.
attack on security officials in Saudi Arabia, a bombing in Afghanistan that killed 64 and a shooting massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 49.
Most of the victims overseas were Muslim.
The majority of the attacks were claimed or inspired by the Islamic State, which has launched a wave of terror around the world to show it remains a force to be reckoned with even as it loses territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya, the analysts said.
The Islamic State, which swept across large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014, lost city after city in Iraq this year, the latest being Fallujah. Fighting the militant group are the U.S.-led air campaign, the Iraqi military, Shiite militias trained and organized by Iran, U.S.-backed Kurdish militia, plus Russian and Syrian forces that occasionally strike Islamic State targets while fighting an anti-government rebellion.
Faced with this rapid loss of territory, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani issued a statement last month to prepare followers for severe setbacks and a future once again “in the desert without cities and without territory.”
Adnani was referring to the period from 2006 to 2012 when the group’s predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, was nearly decimated by U.S. forces and survived in a nearly dormant existence until a new opportunity arose from the political turmoil in Iraq and Syria, McCants said.
Islamic State terrorism threatens multiple countries across the Middle East and Africa, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, Gatenstein-Ross said.
While Egypt and Tunisia are fairly stable, terrorist activity there has virtually killed tourism, an important source of revenue, he noted.
0 comments:
Post a Comment