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Washington Reactivates ISIS 

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In a brief statement Wednesday U.S. Central Command announced that it is transferring up to 7,000 ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq. The reason provided is “to help ensure the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities” and it comes on the heels of reports of releases and abandonments at other prisons housing tens of thousands of ISIS members, a ramp up of ISIS activity, and black flags flying again.

The plan includes talk of repatriating many of the ISIS prisoners to their country of origin, and the whole thing raises a whole lot of questions. Coupled with other U.S. moves in Syria and Iraq, the ISIS transfers appear to be part of an effort to further engulf the region in chaos and direct in the direction of Iran. So here are six questions and observations on what’s happening. 

  1. Why Couldn’t the Prisoners Be Repatriated in Previous Years? 

According to Miqdad Miri, the spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, the prisoners will be distributed across high-security prisons throughout Iraq with the ultimate aim of repatriating the majority—many to European nations—to their home countries.

The U.S.-led International Coalition is providing logistical support for the transfers and help with repatriation efforts, but apparently could not get started on that process in previous years while the prisoners were still in Syria.

2. Why Can the US Not Trust a Trusted Government in Damascus to Keep ISIS Militants Imprisoned? 

Back in November US President Donald Trump welcomed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to the White House. Soon after the meeting, the US Treasury Department announced the lifting of sanctions, with Congress later fully repealing Caesar Act sanctions. And Syria signed a political cooperation declaration with the global coalition to defeat ISIL (ISIS).

Yet the US now says it must move ISIS out of the country en masse in order to prevent a breakout. There is no talk of reimposing sanctions.

3. Is the U.S. Withdrawing From Syria? 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the US is considering a complete withdrawal from northeastern Syria—despite the fact al-Sharaa is demanding the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) disband. Washington has long partnered with the SDF, and as the WSJ notes, the SDF “helped the U.S. defeat the ISIS caliphate in 2019, were responsible for guarding roughly 9,000 ISIS prisoners in detention facilities across the northeast.”

Indeed, as the Kurds are forced back, there are already reports of prison breakouts and releases at sites housing tens of thousands of inmates. And there are sightings of the black flag flying once again:

The US is partnering with the al-Sharaa government despite it not ever making a serious effort to integrate the anti-ISIS Kurdish fighters in the government:

So…the US partners with al-Sharaa who cannot be trusted with ISIS prisoners and who attacks the US partner SDF. And the US, ostensibly in Syria to defeat ISIS, is just going to peace out? Help it make sense.

4. The US No Longer Supports the Kurds. 

Yes, Levant viceroy Tom Barrack announced on Tuesday that “the situation has fundamentally changed.” You bet it has.

Here’s Barrack’s full statement:

And here’s the meat of his “reasoning”:

Syria now has an acknowledged central government that has joined the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (as its 90th member in late 2025), signaling a westward pivot and cooperation with the US on counterterrorism. This shifts the rationale for the US-SDF partnership: the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps.

Okay. Let’s make sure we have this straight to this point.

  • The US is ending support for the Kurdish SDF because former Al-Qaeda headchopper al-Sharaa is now a good guy and he’s going to partner against ISIS.
  • But the former head chopper cannot be trusted against ISIS and the head chopper band is already getting back together again.
  • So the US is transferring some ISIS prisoners to Iraq while also considering an end to the stated mission of defeating ISIS in Syria.

Do we have that about right? So what’s the missing plot point(s)? Well here’s one report that ties it altogether. According to SDF sources, Barrack’s offer to the Kurds was this: either join ISIS in attacking Iran-aligned groups in Iraq or the US will withdraw support and allow the Turks and al-Sharaa government in Syria to overrun them. 

5. Why Is the US Shifting ISIS to Iraq at the Same Time It Is Upping Pressure on Baghdad?

Reuters reported on Friday that Washington is threatening to block Iraq’s access to its own oil revenue held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if representatives of Iran-supported Shia groups are included in the next government. Here’s The Cradle with more detail: 

…the US government has restricted the flow of dollars to Iraqi banks on several occasions in recent years, raising the price of imports for Iraqi consumers and making it difficult for Iraq to pay for desperately needed natural gas imports from Iran.

However, this is the first time the US has threatened to cut off the flow of dollars from the New York Federal Reserve to the Central Bank of Iraq.

Officials in Washington can threaten Baghdad in this way because the country was forced to place all revenues from oil sales into an account at the New York Fed following the US military’s invasion of the country in 2003.

This gives Washington strong leverage against Baghdad, as oil revenue accounts for 90 percent of the Iraqi government’s budget.

Is it just a coincidence that Iraq is on the receiving end of thousands of ISIS members as the US/Israel sets its sights on Baghdad? Probably not: 

Let’s also recall that back in May Iraq released more than 19,000 prisoners under an amnesty law designed to relieve pressure on its overcrowded prison system. Inexplicably included were thousands convicted of being members of ISIS.

And Al-Sharaa’s government in Damascus is kindly pausing some hostilities to help the US move ISIS members to Iraq: 

6. Will the US use Syria to attack Iraq? 

Back in November Barrack said that “Damascus will now actively assist us in confronting and dismantling the remnants of ISIS, the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Hamas, Hizballah, and other terrorist networks.”

Well, they clearly aren’t dismantling ISIS, but it does appear as though the deal against the Resistance groups still stands.

There are reports that al-Sharaa’s forces are already beginning to target Iraq:

Resistance forces are preparing to respond:

And just in time comes the return of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The country’s dominant political bloc announced Saturday it is nominating al-Maliki as its PM candidate following Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s decision to step aside despite his bloc winning the largest number of seats in November’s election.

We’ll see if al-Maliki’s second go round is smoother than the first when ISIS invaded western Iraq and conquered large parts of the country. It’s not looking good. Here’s the Stimson Center stating the obvious: 

For Baghdad, the problem is clear: Many elements within the Syrian government’s forces are former ISIS militants or fighters with extremist backgrounds, and they are steadily advancing toward border areas. In response, Iraqi state media confirmed on January 18 that additional Iran-aligned Popular Mobilizatin Front (PMF) units have been deployed along the Syria-Iraq border in Nineveh, while Iraqi army units have also been stationed along Anbar’s frontier. The prospect of these two ideologically driven forces confronting each other along Iraq’s border is not merely a security concern — it is potentially catastrophic.

That the fighting in Syria coincides with ongoing U.S. pressure on Baghdadto disarm Iran-backed militias while leaving Syrian Sunni jihadists free to operate and advance toward the border is not only unrealistic; it is strategically naive. For Iraq and Tehran, any such expectation would be treated with disbelief. Baghdad cannot consider reducing the leverage of its armed proxies without concrete guarantees that Syrian extremist elements will be contained, or the country risks turning the border into the next active battlefield.

“Unrealistic.” “Strategically naive.” As always, it depends what Washington’s goals are. If it’s to create a mess in Iraq that will add to the number of hostile US-backed groups on Iran’s borders, perhaps it’s not so naive. Horribly destructive, but not naive. Could it have major downsides for American corporations making money in Iraq? Sure.

In that vein, this prediction, which we linked to last year, unfortunately appears to be on track: 

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30 comments

  1. ilsm

    ISIS is a US invention! Baghdadi went off the ranch and chopped too many heads on TV. One US journalist beheaded by ISIS in Syria comes from New Hampshire, remembered in my town.

    Recall, US presence in Iraq and its government forces did no harm to ISIS in Kirkuk, it was PMF and Quds who cleared ISIS from Iraq.

    Further recall that Shi’a are 2/3 of Iraq, that the most radical Shi’a are not in control. But renewed ISIS will put the radicals’ forces in demand.

    US remains firmly on the Sunni side of the Islamic schism!

    As long as the Sunni kill Shi’a not Israelis.

    1. The Rev Kev

      When ISIS advanced into Iraq, it was in long columns going down desert highways. It was the stuff of dreams for US fighter pilots. And yet the US never attacked them at all. At the time the Iraqi government got so desperate for air power, that they accepted Russian fighter-bombers that were shipped to Iraq and assembled. This time they will have the air power to put a crimp on ISIS operations and are more prepared this time. If I was Iraq and if things get bad, I would be asking the Russians to send a team of advisors rather than rely on local American advisors.

    2. Balan Aroxdale

      As long as the Sunni kill Shi’a not Israelis.

      I would argue that the primary purpose of the likes of Isis and Al-Qaeda is to redirect militant and revolutionary forces within the Arab world(*) against their fellows and not against Israel or western interference in general. In this they have been a spectacular success, serving as little more than junkyards dogs for foreign occupiers across a smashed middle east.

      (*)Of note of course is the large amounts of these fighters who in fact hail from the UK, France, the US, Australia, etc. Rather like the IDF foreign legionaries. Watching western governments openly back these thugs is revolting.

  3. hk

    Could it have major downsides for American corporations making money in Iraq? Sure.

    I think it’s another reminder that money and profit motive hardly explains anything, at least as far as foreign policy (defined broadly) goes.

  4. jefemt

    Lotta lotta lotta folks died when Iraq and Iran last fought a fairly full-on very brutal war (70’s/80’s?)
    T P T B seem to enjoy the divided plebes warring on each other and doing the self-extirpation.

    Move ISIS to Iraq…

    Move ICE to ‘progressive dem alt-left’ philosophical stronghold cities and states.

    There is a conspicuous paucity of ICE in ruby red Montanny, land of the gated community and tech-broligarchy build-out. Lotta brown Spanish-speaking construction workers, no ICE.
    Hell , we don’t even have snow!

  5. Aurelien

    It’s not hard to understand, actually, but you need to be prepared to take into account the history going back twenty years, and be familiar with the situation in the ground from local sources.
    ISIS began in 2006 in Iraq as a result of the feud between the vanguard intellectuals of AQ, then battered and in hiding, and the populist radicals who wanted to found the Caliphate now, and they fought the US but also the Shia. When Syria started to fall apart in 2011, they rapidly expanded there, but most importantly they developed a sophisticated propaganda organisation, and began to recruit thousands of foreign fighters. Many of these were from Europe, although in fact the largest single group were Tunisians. Quite a few were converts. After the war, nobody wanted them back, and nobody does now. For years, the Kurds have wanted to get rid of them, but the West has pressurised them not to. It’s hardly surprising, given that they still live effectively under ISIS discipline, and often in families where children have grown up indoctrinated in their ideology. Think of it, if you like, as the equivalent of a camp for Waffen-SS troops and their families in about 1955.

    The Kurds do not owe the new Syrian government–or the West–any favours. Although the Kurds deny it, the general opinion in the region is that the Kurds deliberately let the prisoners go, hoping to create problems for the new government. The detainees are likely to regard the new regime in Damascus as their enemy because Al-Sahra’a has accepted the idea of a secular state, which was always anathema. And they’re out for revenge. In the circumstances, taking them to Iraq is probably the least worst option, and will help to stabilise Syria, but it doesn’t get around the problem of the (tens of?) thousands of foreigners who will want to go home, some to settle peacefully perhaps, but others to spread the jihad. By comparison the carnage in Europe in 2015-16 was accomplished by only about fifty people all told, including those involved in logistics, transport and planning. Although most of ISIS’s support structures have been demolished, returnees would still be capable of creating havoc, and I don’t think the Kurds would lose any sleep over that.

    In general, it’s wise to ignore the gesticulating of US think-tanks on questions like this, because they have a financial interest in making the US seem a much more important player than it really is. The US had some influence over the SDF (now basically lost) and a coincidence of interest with anyone who wanted to see Assad overthrown, ranging from the FSA to ISIS. But that’s long in the past. This isn’t a Sunni-Shia thing, nor does it have much to do with Iraq. And most importantly, the US doesn’t have a large Muslim immigrant community with radicalised clerics and support networks, and so is probably simply unable to understand the fear that other countries feel.

    1. AG

      How do you evaluate the Richard Medhurst/Craig Murray POV that ISIS is to a major part MI6/CIA creature?
      ilsm too alludes to it above

      p.s. re: SS comparison – I would want to add that Germany was never a colony of superpowers. So the genesis of SS was a very different one and not reaction to a state of affairs beyond their influence as maybe the case with ISIS to an extent

      1. Aurelien

        It’s always puzzled me how intelligent people can simply ignore the mass of studies, first-hand accounts, interviews, and evidence in court cases and whatever, that collectively paint a detailed and comprehensive picture of the origin, flourishing and demise of ISIS. Even if the only language you have in English, there’s still enough material out there to keep you busy for months.

        I think it’s partly like the fable of the blind men and the elephant. The modern western liberal mind recoils from the foundational idea of Political Islam, let alone its violent and apocalyptic manifestations. (There’s a comparison with the 1979 Revolution in Iran where there’s a whole academic literature devoted to the West’s conceptual failure to understand what it was seeing.) The temptation is to take something that you think you can understand, and massively inflate its importance precisely because you understand it. The idea that ISIS was created by the CIA and “MI6” absolves you from having to grapple with challenging and unfamiliar (as well as unpleasant) ideas, and plunging into the complexities of Islamic doctrine, the Muslim Brotherhood and the endless feuds and schisms that convulsed radical Islam from the 1980s onwards. It turns it into something which is About Us, which, as well as being flattering to the western ego, excuses us from the hard work of actually trying to understand what’s going on. I’d add that this mythology is predominantly an Anglo-Saxon one: in Europe, which suffered the brunt of the ISIS atrocities and has its own problems with home-grown radicalism, you find it much less.

        What is true, and I know this from people who were there, was that once western governments saw that Assad was not going to fall immediately, and having bought so quickly and deeply into a demise that seemed certain at the beginning, they were desperate to bring him down, and more importantly to gain as much influence as possible with the forces that were likely to replace him. This resulted in various western countries providing training and weapons to anyone who turned up and said the right things. From what I hear, some of those being trained were on the pretty radical fringes, but at the time it didn’t seem to matter. That being so, of course, the military backbone of ISIS was provided by ex-Baathist officers from Iraq, and much of the equipment stolen from Iraqi Army depots, so this shouldn’t be got out of proportion. I don’t know (and I’m sure neither does Murray), but it’s a reasonable bet that there were also western intelligence officers on the ground at the time making contact with at least some of the anti-Assad factions, if only trying to find out more about them, which is after all what intelligence agencies are actually for. Some garbled version of this, if it happened, may well have reached people like Murray.

        1. lyman alpha blob

          And how exactly were ISIS able to liberate all that military equipment from Iraq? Were the Iraqi military guards all asleep at their posts that day or did something else happen around that time involving the US and UK?

          Do the intelIigence agencies try to project that they have more influence than they actually do? I’m quite sure they do. But it doesn’t follow that they are barely involved and just opportunistically joining in at the fringes when opportunities present themselves. You put MI6 in scare quotes as if they don’t actually exist. I really do not understand why you continuously try to downplay US/UK involvement in fomenting violence in foreign countries. They have done it for literally centuries at this point.

          1. Polar Socialist

            It is rather well documented (and reported even in MSM) that by 2012 (two years before declaration of ISIS) CIA was running an arms trafficking operation (with the help of MI6 before Obama gave them official permission) to arm the “moderate opposition” in Syria.

            Even if US Defense Intelligence Agency was warning at the time that this was very likely to lead to

            establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria

            (a.k.a. ISIS). 15 different intelligence services from The West and Middle East were involved in this weapon distribution trough Turkey and Jordan.

          2. Aurelien

            Well, you may remember the Iraqi Army running away at the time and abandoning its weapons and equipment. It was covered extensively at in the media as another chucklesome example of US failure, on this site among others. “MI6” lost its overseas intelligence functions in the 1920s and was disbanded in 1964. Didn’t you know that?

            1. Alex Cox

              MI6 was not disbanded in 1964. It has a massive, showy HQ on the South Bank. The website of the SIS – the UK’s secret intelligence service – states, “We are SIS … better known as MI6.”

              1. Polar Socialist

                Just like GRU changed it’s name and acronym in 1992 to GU GŠ VS RF, yet everyone (even Mueller’s team in the indictments) still uses GRU.

            2. NotThePilot

              Interestingly enough, I agree with your main point that Western intelligence didn’t magically create ISIS and its tens of thousands of berserk supporters ex-nihilo. Or even Gulf / Turkish intelligence, though they would know the culture better.

              But exploitation is a different story, and I always thought the Iraqi Army’s collapse you describe, especially around Mosul, had a whiff of treachery about it. It quickly got dropped from the narrative, but I remember a few interviews where Iraqi soldiers said they were dug-in only to find their ammo stores were empty or generals just suddenly withdrew without giving orders.

              Obviously “failure is an orphan” so it could have just been demoralized soldiers coping, but IIRC this would have also been during the time when the US was still “assisting” the Iraqi Army with a lot of influence through support functions (like logistics) and elite sections of the army (like the special forces and joint staff).

            3. ArvidMartensen

              Well dang it, Mr ““MI6” lost its overseas intelligence functions in the 1920s and was disbanded in 1964” .
              Following the tip from Alex Cox, I found the following @ https://www.sis.gov.uk/
              “MI6 Secret Intelligence Service

              We are SIS, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. We are the UK’s foreign intelligence service, gathering intelligence and working with partners internationally to protect the UK’s interests, values and security overseas, and achieving economic, diplomatic and technological advantage for His Majesty’s Government (HMG).”

              Dang it. Because I have read your stuff with interest, and now it looks as if you are some sort of UK SIS adjacent disinformation jockey. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this either but the first time or two I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Because you are supposed to have some professional cred.

              But really!! Throwing in all sorts of red herrings and dead ends to the likes of people like me who just want to know WTF is going on with the UK and other nefarious actors.

              Well, I it looks like we won’t find out from you.

              1. AG

                I don´t think that is a fair or appropriate verdict.
                (Hope you don´t mind me commenting even though I am not being addressed)

        2. Ignacio

          I don’t know how it is in France but in Spain, the analysis I find on the region by let’s say the Real Instituto Elcano which is, supposedly, well informed and connected tends to result… how would I say it… flawed. I don’t know but it’s like if somehow driven more by wishes that simple dry analysis. This, even if they contain a lot of useful information. The latest analysis i read said that in the Middle East the things they are changing (wow!) and that the Old Liberal order pushed by the US and it’s allies is loosing influence and (diplomatic) capacity in the region. It says that national interests are now gaining relative importance compared with religious ones and this is resulting in a whole new game of alliances in the region with all kinds of uncertainties and chaos. It seems to me that apart from the US keeping full support for Israel, the interest in the region by Trump’s government (and possibly in general the US) is fading away with it’s ability to influence the rest of the other states in the region. This context looks to me more or less accurate to explain changes described in this post.

        3. Balan Aroxdale

          The idea that ISIS was created by the CIA and “MI6” absolves you from having to grapple with challenging and unfamiliar (as well as unpleasant) ideas, and plunging into the complexities of Islamic doctrine, the Muslim Brotherhood and the endless feuds and schisms that convulsed radical Islam from the 1980s onwards.

          It does because those are irrelevancies. If radical Islam did not exist, ISIS would have been created by appealing to something else. Witness the Ukro-nazis, or remember the Contras or the Einsatzgruppen.

          The creation of irregular militant forces by intelligence agencies and states is NOT a function of existing ideologies or histories as much as it is simply the employment of criminals, the insane, and the psychopathic under whatever pretenses are convenient at the time. The ideologies are the excuse, the rationalization used by states to recruit such forces when convenient, and that is why they are permitted to exist in Riyadh, in Egypt, and in Bradford.

    2. Kouros

      “ISIS began in 2006 in Iraq as a result of the feud between the vanguard intellectuals of AQ, then battered and in hiding, and the populist radicals who wanted to found the Caliphate now, and they fought the US but also the Shia.” And I thought that ISIS resulted from the de-Baathification and firing of the entire Iraqi Army by the US Consul. What do I know?!

      Also, why this move reminds me how the USUKCAN provided shelter to German and other nazis after WWII. Globe and Mail asked for the list of those individuals sheltered in Canada and they were just denied by the Privacy Commissioner because it would “inadvertedly affect the security of another state”…

      1. Aurelien

        Well, you could read any number of standard histories of the development of ISIS in a choice of languages. The best and easiest to read in English is Jason Burke, The New Threat from Islamic Militancy, revised edition, I think 2018, easily available. It covers the early history of ISIS in Iraq, as a result of the fusion of various groups under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who broke from AQ in 2001, and formed what was then called the Islamic State in 2006, just before being killed by the US. The Baath angle is important insofar as that, much later in 2014 when the IS was established in Raqa’a, it became clear that the military command council was made up of former Sunni Baathist officers, who among other things planned the attacks in France the following year. There’s a question, on which I don’t have the knowledge to comment, about whether these people were radicalised by their experience, or just decided to join what they thought would be the winning side. All this is well-known and extensively documented.

      1. Aurelien

        It’s a history of western newspaper op-eds. She has no idea what she’s talking about. It really is time to put this nonsense away.

    4. vao

      If the Kurds owe no favours to the Syrian and Western governments, and if ISIS primarily targets those whose existence is anathema to their ideology (Yezidis, Alawis, Shiias, Druzes, Christians, and of course Kurds), and if ISIS has been and could still be instrumentalized (more or less successfully) by the enemies (HTS, Turkey) and ex-“allies” (USA) of the Kurds, and if the Kurds had been trying to get rid of ISIS prisoners for a long time already, and if the elimination of those thoroughly indoctrinated islamists would actually arrange European governments that fear them, then

      why didn’t the Kurds, once they saw the writing on the wall, organize a Säuberungsaktion and mow down every single ISIS prisoner before retreating?

  6. redleg

    End times “Christians” need their war against Magog (interpreted as Russia) in Syria to activate the second coming and the rapture, i.e. Armageddon. It’s important to take this motive seriously because the people who have it 1. wield higest-level political and military power in the US, 2. think they are literally doing God’s work, and 3. welcome the destruction of everything.

  7. David in Friday Harbor

    When I read of all this scheming — mostly down to the Revisionist Zionists hoping that the Arabs, Turks, Persians, and Kurds will all kill each other off instead of pushing the settlers into the sea — I despair of all the suffering in the Cradle of Civilization. After all, this comes down to too many people and not enough resources.

    The Kurdish leadership (and Aurelian) are correct: contrary to the fantasies of the CIA/MI-6/Mossad these people aren’t simply mercenaries to be bought-off and discarded at whim, or detained indefinitely. They have agency and aspirations and can’t be counted on to simply wipe one another out.

    Watch closely, because it will return here soon. The Europeans know what’s coming. Chaos has a nasty habit of spilling over borders and seas.

  8. ISL

    Thanks, Connor, for highlighting these machinations – certainly the number one motivation of the US (aside from its perpetual effort to please Israel) is its hybrid, soon anticipated to become hot, war with Iran.

    Still, I wonder, where is Turkey in all this – they have closer connections with ISIS than the US.

  9. lyman alpha blob

    Another great piece Conor.

    This bit that you quoted-

    “Officials in Washington can threaten Baghdad in this way because the country was forced to place all revenues from oil sales into an account at the New York Fed following the US military’s invasion of the country in 2003.”

    – is a great reminder of where the Trump people got the idea to do the same thing today with Venezuelan oil. These clowns are far from original.

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