At the peak of the Islamic State’s power, the territory the group controlled in Syria and Iraq was around the size of Britain. But by early 2019, following airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition and an assault by a Kurdish-led fighters against the group’s remnants in eastern Syria, U.S.-backed forces declared the final defeat of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate. Later the same year, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, died during a U.S. military operation in Syria.
But while the world’s attention has moved on, the group and its offshoots in the Middle East and elsewhere have continued to strike targets, including a 10-day attack on a prison in Syria in 2022.