Washington Post Analysis: In what ISIS might turn into after the defeat from Mosul - the “last heroic, cinematic scenario”

World News Nilgun Salim
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ISIS seeks to symbolically portray the defeated image obtained during their last attempt to fight back in Mosul, the millenarian axis of the “caliphate” they had decreed in 2014 in Iraq.

The terrorist group characterizes their current situation as a “last heroic, cinematic scenario” says Rita Katz, an expert in terrorism and co-founder of the International Terrorist Intelligence Group (SITE).

“The caliphate soldiers continue to point epic until they reach one of two goals, either victory or martyrdom,” said Katz, quoted in a Washington Post analysis.

Rita Katz also says that ISIS has labeled the defeat upon the Iraqi territory as a failure in the name of all Muslims in front of the Shiites: “Describing things in this way is not just a rescue attempt on the background of a major symbolic loss but also an attempt to capitalize in a way that energizes the foundation of the group.”

Technically speaking, the Islamic state has been left without a “state,” says Mohamad Bazzi, a journalism professor at the University of New York.

However, that does not mean their recruitment mechanism has stopped.

And the new reality – after the official announcement regarding ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death – from inside the jihadist movement will be re-orientated among the new recruits by adopting a different approach: the “leaderless jihad”.

“Despite the amateurism reflected by their recent attempts, the militants who trained and fought with ISIS in Iraq and Syria have returned to Europe and they are now able to train and radicalize others”, explains Bazzi.

“The group has already obtained what they really wanted from Mosul. Laying the siege and ruling the city for more than a thousand days was more than enough for a group to leave a historical mark and it will be enough for the organization to brag in the future about something that was once a jihadist utopia.

There will be no need for another group to keep its followers close, even if it has lost everything”, Charlie Winter, a researcher from The Atlantic has revealed.