JENNIFER KAVANAGH
The day before ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) carried out a deadly attack on a concert hall in Moscow, General Michael Erik Kurilla testified before Congress about the threat posed by the group. The leader of U.S. Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee that ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State, “retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.” He made a similar assessment one year earlier in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he also warned that additional funding to support expanded intelligence activities and strike operations would be required to counter the group’s rise.
In the wake of the March 22 attack, Kurilla’s predictions looked prescient, and his push to scale up efforts to counter ISIS-K gained traction. Senator Lindsey Graham argued for massive airstrikes on the group inside Afghanistan. Terrorism expert Peter Bergen implied that greater U.S. military presence overseas might be required, suggesting that “the decision to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan allowed ISIS to regroup there with the capability to carry out large-scale attacks in other countries.” The Pentagon asserted that continued and reinforced U.S. military presence in Iraq and Syria would be essential to U.S. efforts to contain the global threat posed by ISIS.
President Joe Biden’s administration should resist calls to expand the scope of its counterterror operations overseas, even by a little. Increasing overseas military operations is not the most efficient way to protect the U.S. homeland in this instance—and in fact, it may do more harm than good. U.S. intelligence capabilities appear able to track the group proficiently, even without forces deployed in Afghanistan. An already overstretched U.S. military can ill-afford to widen its counterterrorism responsibilities as it tries to manage the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and tensions in the Western Pacific—especially given its limited success in countering similar terrorist threats elsewhere. This is a case where the best response may be no response.
The risk of an ISIS-K attack inside United States is limited, despite the assault in Moscow. Though they receive a significant amount of media attention, terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamist groups in the United States have been far less frequent than those committed by right-wing extremists over the past twenty years. Since the emergence of ISIS, only a handful of violent attacks inside the United States have been linked to the group and none to ISIS-K, which has so far been most active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kurilla himself admitted that ISIS-K attacks on the U.S. homeland are not likely in the near term.
Far from being on the rise, attack claims across all ISIS affiliates have fallen significantly in the past few years. This same trend follows for ISIS-K, owing in part to Taliban efforts to suppress the group’s activities inside Afghanistan. ISIS-K has increased its external operations over the past year, but the group still has been connected to fewer than two dozen plots and attacks worldwide. None have targeted the United States, and those in Europe were largely disrupted before they occurred.
In addition, evidence is minimal that a degradation of U.S. core intelligence capabilities has occurred after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, at least as it pertains to ISIS-K. Instead, U.S. intelligence on the group is robust, timely, and specific, suggesting continued strong capabilities and extensive networks even in the absence of boots on the ground. Indeed, the U.S. intelligence community has already proven its ability to track ISIS-K activity with considerable accuracy. Weeks before the March 22 attack, U.S. officials informed Moscow of the group’s intent to strike civilian targets inside the country—including concert halls—but their advice was rebuffed. U.S. officials offered a similar warning to Iran prior to the group’s suicide bombing in Kerman. There is good reason to be confident that these same intelligence assets would offer warning of potential ISIS-K attacks on the United States, with enough time for officials to take necessary action and without any major changes to current U.S. military posture or activities.
Even if a credible ISIS-K threat to the U.S. homeland were to emerge, expanding counterterror operations would probably not be the most effective response. First, ISIS-K’s most active cells are now spread across Central Asia, making them difficult to target or eliminate and undermining the rationale for renewed airstrikes in Afghanistan. Furthermore, research shows that both large-scale air campaigns aimed at terrorist group hideouts and more limited drone operations rarely fully eradicate terrorist organizations and can sometimes backfire. Second, as the war in Gaza and the U.S. global war on terror have demonstrated, ground-based military campaigns also cannot wipe out diffuse and networked terrorist groups. In fact, most U.S. military operations intended to counter and defeat terrorist groups like ISIS-K over at least two decades in the Middle East and elsewhere have been met with only limited success and considerable cost and risk, especially when it comes to containing the spread of offshoots. ISIS-K emerged in Afghanistan while the United States was still operating in the country, suggesting that having more U.S. troops on the ground is not the solution to any increase in extremist activity that has occurred.
The United States should maintain its current focus on “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism. This strategy may include some drone strikes, but they would be limited and aimed at containment, not elimination, of groups like ISIS-K. (Examples may include destroying munitions stocks, degrading targeting capabilities, or disrupting operations already underway.) Existing research suggests that such strikes have been able to contain and deter terrorist groups for short periods and at sustainable cost—the strategy will not require additional resources to be effective. As part of U.S. homeland defense, coordination between local law enforcement and federal agencies and increased protection at civilian events and for soft targets should also be priorities, including the development of well-established emergency procedures and more extensive training for security personnel.
Above all, an already overstretched U.S. military and defense industrial base under strain cannot afford to take on a renewed counterterror role, especially when its likely contributions would be of only marginal value at best. Any expansion to current counterterror operations would absorb valuable surveillance and reconnaissance assets, personnel, munitions, and long-range precision missiles that are already in short supply and high demand, including in Ukraine, the Red Sea, and the Indo-Pacific. In an era of constrained resources and major power adversaries, the United States should prioritize its military investments, and this will require choosing what not to do. Withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021was a good step in that direction, and Washington should avoid being pulled back into yet another counterterror campaign while more pressing threats from Russia and especially China loom.
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