ISIS is on the rise again in war-torn Syria as the group’s numbers and operations grow exponentially. Iraqi National Intelligence Service Director Hamid al-Shatri has issued a warning in a rare interview with The Washington Post over what he described as a sharp increase in Islamic State activity in neighboring Syria.
In the rare interview, al-Shatri said Iraqi intelligence estimates suggest that ISIS’s presence in Syria has grown from roughly 2,000 fighters a year ago to as many as 10,000 terrorists today. The claim has raised concern in Baghdad amid continuing instability across Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024.
Al-Shatri attributed the group’s resurgence to the sectarian and political turbulence that has persisted under Syria’s interim government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa. He said Iraqi intelligence believed some recent ISIS recruits were formerly aligned with al-Sharaa and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, before becoming disillusioned with the direction of Syria’s transition.
“This certainly does pose a danger to Iraq,” al-Shatri told The Washington Post, adding that “ISIS - whether it’s in Syria or Iraq or anywhere in the world - is one organization, and it will certainly try and find ground once more in order to launch attacks.”
However, al-Shatri’s estimate was significantly higher than figures cited by US and United Nations officials, who have placed the combined number of ISIS fighters operating in Syria and Iraq at closer to 3,000 in recent months.
Analysts at The Washington Post note that the discrepancy highlights both the difficulty of independently verifying terrorist strength in remote and contested areas and Baghdad’s heightened sensitivity to developments across its western border.
Speaking earlier this year at the 7th annual Baghdad International Dialogue Conference, al-Shatri emphasized that Iraqi and Syrian security interests overlap.
“What happens in Syria directly affects Iraq, and vice versa,” he said, adding that Baghdad has conveyed warnings to Damascus regarding extremist threats exploiting governance vacuums on both sides of the border.
The Iraqi warnings come as Syria undergoes a tense transition in security. In recent weeks, clashes between forces aligned with al-Sharaa and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reduced Kurdish control over territory in northeastern Syria. Some Iraqi security officials warned that the pace and violence of the transition could have unintended consequences.
The rapid rollback of Kurdish-controlled territory and state infrastructure was referred to as a “disaster” by Saeed al-Jayashi, a senior Iraqi national security adviser, referring to the dismantling of Kurdish security structures that had long been central to counter-ISIS operations.
As Kurdish control over detention facilities and local governance has receded, Iraq has agreed to repatriate approximately 7,000 ISIS detainees held in Kurdish-run prisons in northeastern Syria, amid concerns that instability and prison breaks could further fuel the group’s resurgence.
Centralization efforts test Syria’s fragile transition
More than a year after the collapse of the Assad regime, al-Sharaa had pledged to unify Syria under a single national framework, dismantling rival militias and integrating armed groups into a centralized military under Damascus’s authority. That effort, however, has encountered resistance across several regions. In northeastern Syria, Kurdish-led forces that were long backed by the United States had refused to be absorbed into a national army without firm guarantees of political autonomy and security protections. Skirmishes between Kurdish fighters and the al-Sharaa-led Syrian army erupted last week, which underscored the continued fragility of the transition even after more than a year since Assad’s ouster.
A recent Reuters report noted that while al-Sharaa has framed the centralization of armed groups as a necessary step toward restoring sovereignty, Kurdish commanders “remain wary of government assurances regarding Kurdish rights,” even after a negotiated ceasefire. The concerns reflect fears that al-Sharaa’s unification drive could marginalize communities that played a central role in the fight against ISIS, according to analysts with Reuters.
Syria has been shaped by more than a decade of civil war: for the interim government, asserting sovereignty over a fragmented state without reigniting the instability that fractured it has proved to be a contentious dilemma. The country remains deeply diverse, ethnically, sectarianly, and politically. According to analysis by Reuters, many communities, including Kurds, Alawites, and Druze, relied on their own security forces and governance structures for survival over the decade-long civil war, making the transfer of authority to a centralized regime a source of persistent distrust and key motivator for minority groups to continue to pursue their own autonomy in post-Assad Syria.
Within this context, Iraq’s warnings highlighted the risks of failing to confront ISIS and instability in Syria. Al-Shatri’s remarks reflect concern that Syria’s consolidation efforts may be advancing faster than its ability to guarantee security and political inclusion. Iraqi intelligence assessments suggest that unresolved instability, rather than borders or troop numbers, poses the greatest long-term threat, creating conditions that ISIS has historically exploited.
As Damascus presses forward with its campaign to absorb autonomous forces and assert control over Syria’s territory, the outcome may hinge on whether al-Sharaa can establish central authority without reopening the fractures that once allowed ISIS to flourish.