Coalition against Islamic State meets in Rome, turns eye on Africa

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who co-hosted the meeting along with his Italian counterpart, said the coalition’s 83 members had achieved considerable success, but that “there is still more work to be done” to ensure there is not a resurgence by the terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

He pointed out that Islamic State is still capable of launching major attacks in the two countries, despite the coalition having dealt them major setbacks there in recent years.

To make his case, Blinken pointed to an Islamic State attack on a market in central Baghdad in January that left 30 dead.

He said the group increasingly posed a threat to places outside of the Middle East, including Afghanistan, where the US is pulling out its troops, as well as Yemen, Egypt’s North Sinai and parts of West Africa, like Mali.

Blinken announced that a senior leader of the Islamic State’s Greater Sahara branch, Ousmane Illiassou Djibo, was being designated by the US as a global terrorist.

The Mali-based militant played a role in attacks on foreigners and local security forces in the Menaka region and neighbouring Niger, the State Department said.

“Ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS also, means effectively confronting ISIS threats outside of Iraq and Syria, in the place where ISIS has recently focused its efforts,” Blinken said, using another acronym for the group.

It is unclear to what extent the different offshoots are still centrally controlled, according to experts.

Since the death of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who killed himself in 2019 as US special forces closed in on him in Syria, the leadership seems to have lost some of its influence.

Little is publicly known about Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, who succeeded al-Baghdadi.

“In Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has been pushed back but not defeated; in other regions it is even gaining influence,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said ahead of the talks. “In Rome we will make it clear: We will not allow the terrorists an inch, even in Africa.”

Germany has around 250 troops in Iraq dedicated to the coalition’s operations.

According to Britain’s Press Association, British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab pledged an additional 17.5 million dollars to the fight against Islamic State during the Rome meeting.

As the coalition took stock of its military efforts, Blinken also touched on the subject of the Islamic State’s foreign fighters who have been imprisoned by Syrian opposition forces, saying they needed to return to their home countries to face justice.

Blinken said 10,000 Islamic State fighters are being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has been major partner of the coalition.

“This situation is simply untenable,” the secretary of state said. “It just can’t persist indefinitely.”

Blinken pledged an additional 436 million dollars in US humanitarian aid in the region. US aid payments in connection with the Syrian war now total 13.5 billion dollars, he said.

In the summer of 2014, Islamic State took control of large areas of northern Iraq. Shortly thereafter, the jihadists proclaimed a caliphate, which also included the regions they controlled in war-torn neighbouring Syria.

The anti-Islamic State coalition was then founded under the leadership of the US, which played a crucial role in crushing the group’s caliphate by March 2019.

But even though the group lost its territory, it is nevertheless still active in both Syria and Iraq.