On the evening of Tuesday, August 19, just hours before the operation in al-Numan, a security raid targeted ISIS cells in a house near the electricity company in the town of Atmeh. The raid was carried out by the Syrian Internal Security Forces with the backing and support of international coalition aircraft.

These latest operations in Atmeh came less than a month after a military operation in July in the city of al-Bab, in Aleppo province, where the international coalition, in cooperation with the Syrian Internal Security Forces, killed senior ISIS leader Dia Zoubaa Musleh al-Hardani and his two sons, Abdullah and Abdulrahman.

The escalation of operations by the international coalition and the Syrian transitional government against ISIS leaders and cells is part of broader efforts to implement the Paris Conference statement on Syria, issued on February 13, 2025. That statement stressed the need to provide the Syrian transitional government with the support it requires to prevent terrorist groups from establishing safe havens in Syria, to combat all forms of extremism and terrorism, and to stop the resurgence of such organizations inside the country.

This international push to combat terrorism, coupled with the Syrian government’s pursuit of ISIS leaders and cells, comes amid a notable increase in ISIS attacks following the collapse of the Syrian regime on December 8, 2024. According to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS carried out 161 attacks over the past eight months. Four of these targeted areas under the control of the Syrian government, killing three soldiers and one civilian, while the overwhelming majority—157 attacks—took place in areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces, resulting in dozens of deaths among both soldiers and civilians.

The Syrian government’s cooperation with the international coalition in combating ISIS has not, so far, provoked any direct military retaliation by the group against government forces or territories. Instead, ISIS has limited its response to issuing religious and ideological positions through its official magazine, al-Nabaa. In recent issues, the group reiterated its view that the Syrian transitional government is an “infidel government” that serves Western interests, refuses to implement Sharia, and accepts secular governance in order to remain in power.

This dynamic raises pressing questions: why has ISIS avoided direct military confrontation with the Syrian government up to this point? What is the future of the relationship between the two sides in the coming period? And is an outright battle inevitable?

In January, I arrived in Syria from the Netherlands after years of absence. The purpose of the visit was to work on several files, including the case of ISIS. I traveled through areas of the Syrian desert (al-Badiya), which had been one of the group’s most important strongholds during the period from its collapse in 2017 in western Euphrates areas, until the fall of the regime at the end of 2024.

The visit and movement inside Syrian territory allowed me the opportunity to meet with former ISIS leaders, as well as others still linked to the organization. On January 9, 2025, I met, through a mediator from Palmyra, one of the group’s commanders in the desert, known as Abu Muqdad al-Iraqi, in a tent 35 km west of Palmyra.

Based on that meeting and the information I obtained from Abu Muqdad al-Iraqi, I can say with confidence that ISIS continues to avoid confrontation with the Syrian transitional government, and this can be explained by several reasons.

The first reason is the group’s adherence to an unannounced agreement made between ISIS leaders and figures from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the days following the regime’s fall. The agreement stipulated that ISIS would refrain from attacking roads crossing the Syrian desert, in exchange for the transitional government’s military forces not launching operations against ISIS cells or areas of its presence. Some claim that ISIS tried to carry out attacks, such as the attempted targeting of the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus, but the security services foiled the plot.

While the group broadly respects this agreement, there remains a hardline current within ISIS that rejects any truce with the transitional government and insists on attacking its forces and interests. I can confirm that operations targeting government areas have been carried out by this hardline faction.

The second reason is that ISIS wants to delay confrontation until it sees how the transitional government will act if it takes control of the areas east of the Euphrates, where many ISIS fighters are imprisoned and where their families remain in camps. During my meeting, Abu Muqdad al-Iraqi stressed: “If the government hands ISIS fighters over to their countries, it will be the spark of war, since such a step amounts to a death sentence, especially for the Arab fighters among them.”

The third reason lies in the group’s strategic orientation. ISIS is Iraqi in origin and leadership. Over the past years, it suffered major setbacks and weakened in its central theaters—Syria and Iraq—while its power multiplied in regional branches like Central Africa and South Asia. For this reason, ISIS views the fall of Assad’s regime in Syria as a chance to reduce its battlefront there and instead refocus on Iraq, where the original causes for its rise still exist, namely a system of rule built on sectarian foundations.

Accordingly, the group promotes the idea of maintaining calm in Syria, using its presence there as a logistical base for operations in Iraq, ensuring a rear safe haven to provide fighters, weapons, and money in hopes of sparking a “third resurrection” of the group in Iraq.

The fourth reason preventing ISIS from clashing with the transitional government is its current weakness. Its manpower and military capacity are depleted, while its enemies are strong and experienced in fighting it—particularly HTS, which had already countered ISIS attempts to expand in Idlib before the regime’s fall.

ISIS is now focusing on rebuilding by shifting into urban centers after the regime’s collapse, exploiting the security vacuum. It also seeks to recruit radical elements formerly with HTS and opposition factions, arguing that ISIS is the only group that has applied and will continue to apply Islamic Sharia and fight against “Israel and the United States.” Meanwhile, it is trying to strengthen its military capabilities by taking advantage of the widespread availability of weapons.

These factors explain why confrontation between ISIS and the Syrian transitional government has been postponed. Yet such postponement will not last. The transitional government is bound by international commitments to fight terrorism, particularly ISIS. Once it gains control of eastern Euphrates areas, it will have little choice but to repatriate foreign fighters and prosecute the Syrians among them. It will also need to ensure that Syria does not serve as a base threatening neighboring countries, especially by hosting ISIS as it rebuilds in Iraq.

Moreover, establishing security in major cities will require the government to pursue ISIS cells that have infiltrated urban centers during the chaos that followed the regime’s fall. For the transitional authorities, it is vital to show their ability to impose security both to their domestic audience and to international backers.

All of this makes a future clash between ISIS and the Syrian transitional government inevitable. It will not be an easy confrontation. Despite the government’s considerable military and human resources, as well as regional and international support, ISIS can still turn the fight into a bloody battle. History has shown that past attempts to eliminate the group have been costly, and though it returned diminished, it nevertheless endured.