Paris (AFP)

The Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria has not been really defeated and its resurgence, under this or another name, is only a matter of time, warns officials and experts.

Contrary to President Donald Trump's assertion that the jihadist organization was defeated, recent reports from think tanks, from the United Nations but also from the Pentagon, describe an organization that, although it lacks a land base and has gone into hiding, still active, with thousands of fighters, millions of dollars and a network of propaganda and global support.

In a report titled "Do not talk about a return: the persistence of the Islamic State," the analyst firm Soufan Center believes that "the IS is alive and well in Iraq and Syria."

"It is clear that the IS is able to maintain its insurgency in the foreseeable future," writes the Sufan Center. "There is no question of his return to Iraq and Syria: the group and its members have never left."

The gradual loss of the territories he controlled in the face of an overpowering international coalition was not accompanied by a flight or a demobilization of his fighters but by a dispersion, a passage to the underground promoted by the bad governance of the liberated areas, the partial withdrawal of the American forces and the dissensions within its adversaries.

In a report released Tuesday, the Inspector General of the Pentagon believes that "even though he lost his + territorial + caliphate, IS has increased its insurgency capabilities in Iraq and resumed operations in Syria this quarter."

The IS has been able to "consolidate and support operations" in these two countries partly because the local forces "remain unable to maintain long-term operations, conduct operations simultaneously, or keep the territory they have liberated ", he adds.

- To undermine authority -

In a report in mid-July, the UN Security Council also believes that "the IS adapts, consolidates and creates the conditions for a possible resurgence in its bastions in Iraq and Syria" .

"The process is more advanced in Iraq, where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and most of his leaders are now based," say the UN experts.

In Iraq as in Syria there are gray areas, poorly controlled by the authorities in which IS cells have been able to rebuild, note the authors of these reports. Elsewhere, clandestine cells resort to targeted killings, attacks, ambushes, racketeering, threats to weaken their enemies.

A crop firing campaign was held this summer in several regions to undermine the authority of local governments and demonstrate their inability to control and rebuild war-torn areas.

Diverting the slogan of IS, "Staying and Spreading," the think tank Rand Corp. titled his report, published last week, "Come back and expand?".

According to the Rand experts, who studied "the finances and prospects of Islamic State after the Caliphate", the group could still have a treasure trove of more than $ 400 million, hidden under a multitude of different and clandestine forms in Syria, Iraq and neighboring countries.

"If the IS anticipates a return, as we believe it is, the group will stick to the revenue that works: diversify its financial portfolio to have reliable and stable funding," said the Rand.

"The group has already been given for defeat," add his experts. "His talent for financing through criminal activities will prove useful: his members will rackete, kidnap, kill, steal, trade to obtain the money necessary for their survival."

In a video posted Sunday by his propaganda agency, the second since his military defeat in March, IS has pledged to step up the "fight" against the US-led coalition and its Kurdish allies.

"The fire of the battle between us and them has been reignited and will intensify" threatens the IS, on images of executions.

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