Summary
The New Orleans attack, where U.S. Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar killed 14 while flying an Islamic State flag, highlights the group’s ongoing ability to inspire violence despite territorial losses.
ISIS remains active through decentralized cells, executing attacks globally, including Russia, Iran, and Somalia, and attempting a resurgence in Syria after Assad’s fall.
U.S. officials warn of lone wolf attacks, like Jabbar’s vehicle-ramming, as ISIS-Khorasan also poses risks.
Experts believe ISIS’s territorial ambitions are unlikely to succeed but caution about its capacity for widespread, random violence and influence.
Yes and no
When we’re dealing with terrorist organizations like ISIS, things aren’t always totally clear-cut, there’s always going to be groups merging and splitting off, alliances between different groups being made and broken, people switching sides, internal power struggles, name changes, etc.
So yes in the sense that he was not specifically part of the organization known as ISIS when it was known as ISIS
However, al-Nusra Front was at least very closely tied to or even a part of ISI, and ISI would later essentially become ISIS (or ISIL, IS, Daesh, whatever you want to call it)
Personally I’d consider making a distinction between ISI and ISIS to be uselessly pedantic hairsplitting. And depending on how you regard the relationship between ISI(S) and al-Nusra Front, I think it’s fair to say that he was either part of or at least very closely-allied with them.
Now as of right now, al-Sharaa/al-Julani seems to be doing an alright job as leader of Syria all things considered, he could certainly be doing a lot worse. But it’s still a new and evolving situation and it’s hard to say exactly what his intentions are/were, how his thoughts, beliefs, and allegiances have or have not changed. It could be that his actions with ISI were part of a means to this specific end to be a decent leader for Syria, it could be that over the years he has genuinely had a change of heart from being a jihadist, or it could be that the current situation is just a facade to keep international heat off of himself while he consolidates power in Syria and once he has he’ll go right back to full-on islamist extremism.
I hope for the best, I’m not really qualified to offer much of an opinion on him beyond that, and I suppose only time will tell.
What? Al-Nusra front was an Al-Qaeda affiliate until they split away completely and became Hayat Tahrir Assham in 2017, but they were always enemies with ISIS. Are you sure you’re not mixing up your terrorist organizations?