The return of ISIS: How a Toronto case fits into the global resurgence of a terror group we thought had been defeated

And there was a sickening boast to boot.

“If we succeed,” he allegedly wrote on Aug. 29 of a plot to kill ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York, it would be “the largest attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.”

The twisted prediction was allegedly made to undercover American police officers posing as eager jihadis. Khan was arrested on Sept. 4 in Ormstown, Que., 12 kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border.

But the details of the prosecution’s case provide a window into the renewed threat posed by a terror group that was thought to have been bombed into near oblivion half-a-decade ago.

As a fighting force, the Islamic State was decimated in the former territory in Iraq and Syria that served as its self-declared caliphate.

Many who survived the bombs and bullets of the anti-ISIS coalition ended up in the hellish custody of the Kurds in northern Syria, where tens of thousands — including women and children — remain in legal limbo.

But enough escaped with their lives to keep the radical Islamic dream alive.

Five years after the terror group was declared to have been defeated in 2019, it is back and, according to one leading researcher, more resilient than ever.

It has reorganized and rebuilt the group around nearly a dozen regional hubs, or provinces, that are located around the globe but centrally co-ordinated. It has embraced world-leading technology and runs a financing wing out of Somalia that deals in cryptocurrency.

Its operations are thus tougher to track, harder to stop and more able to withstand future efforts to wipe the group off the map.

And this year is the one in which ISIS, particularly its Afghanistan-based offshoot known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-KP), has taken centre stage in the global terrorism game.

“This year is exponentially bigger,” said Aaron Zelin, a researcher with the Washington Institute. “I think there’s been 20 or more plots related to IS-KP, including obviously successful attacks in Iran, a successful attack in Turkey and a successful attack in Russia.”

“What we’re seeing now is sort of the end result of this renewed building and planning over the last few years or so, and they’ve been able to get some new life again,” Zelin said.

THREE TYPES OF OPERATIONS

The confidence that Toronto’s Khan allegedly placed in the undercover cops and police informants posing as co-conspirators and sympathizers doomed the plan to failure almost from the start.

But the criminal indictment draws a picture of an aspiring Islamic State actor with some real-world connections.

There was alleged talk of travel to join the group’s West Africa Province and of sending money to support IS-KP’s operations. There were online group chats with other aspiring pro-Islamic State types discussing how to conduct co-ordinated attacks around the world.

Khan also allegedly claimed to be in direct contact with IS-KP’s “media wing,” which would take care of the post-attack video of the wannabe jihadi squad claiming allegiance to the Islamic State.

Zelin said the IS-KP plots and successful attacks have come in three different types.

The first is a “directed plot” where attackers have been fully trained, dispatched and controlled by Islamic State handlers — something like the 2021 attack on the Kabul Airport, killing nearly 200 people during the withdrawal of U.S. forces and foreigners from Afghanistan.

The second involves “guided attacks” in which an individual or group receive assistance, guidance and perhaps even some cryptocurrency funding for an attack.

The January attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, a concert theatre, is only the most spectacular example.

The gunmen were citizens of Tajikistan apparently recruited for the plot in Turkey. One said he had been offered a million Russian rubles (CAD$15,000) for his participation, half of it paid up front.

The third, and most challenging, are those involving people who have been “inspired” by Islamic State social-media messages and propaganda and decide to act independently.

Amarnath Amarasingam, an expert on terrorism and extremism at Queen’s University, said that the Israel-Hamas war has also been a trigger point for a number of recent terror plots.

“There’s a lot of anger even among regular people, so you can imagine what those who support jihadist causes might be thinking,” he said.

Khan allegedly hoped to carry out the New York attack on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas assault on southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people and sparked a retributive war that has so far resulted in 40,000 people being killed in Gaza. 

France’s top anti-terrorism prosecutor, Olivier Christen, told the country’s public broadcaster this week that three terror plots had been interrupted during this summer’s Paris Olympics. One allegedly targeted “Israeli institutions or representatives.”

But France had already raised its terror alert to the highest level after the IS-KP attack on Moscow in March. According to Reuters, police also began questioning France-based Tajiks and people from other Central Asian countries — the most common nationalities of those involved in IS-KP’s recent attacks — to try to get ahead of a troubling phenomenon.

It was a reminder, too, that even if much of the Islamic State’s leading figures are in Central Asia, the Middle East or Africa, its targets are increasingly located in the west.

In late August, a 26-year-old Syrian refugee, Issa Al Hasan, was arrested after killing three in a knife attack at a public market in the western German town of Solingen. He allegedly recorded a video pledging allegiance to IS-KP.

Police also reportedly recovered a blood-soaked phone in a sewer they were examining to see if the killer had been in contact with terrorist handlers.

That attack came shortly after arrests in Austria over a plot targeting Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna.

Prosecutors said one of the men joined IS-KP in August 2023 and, along with the other, had raised money to benefit imprisoned Islamic State members in northern Syria — another common cause for supporters and sympathizers.

Tasked with carrying out the attack in Stockholm, “the two made concrete preparations in close consultation with IS-KP officials,” prosecutors allege, including researching potential targets and trying, unsuccessfully, to obtain weapons.

Also in March, German prosecutors charged seven Central Asian men, who had been in custody for nearly a year, with plotting terror attacks on behalf of IS-KP. It is alleged that the five Tajiks, along with individuals from Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, came to Germany from Ukraine in 2022 and formed a terror group and met nearly 60 times to discuss potential operations.

It’s a terror onslaught with an unfortunate fallout. In response, Germany has decided to institute border checks at its land crossings starting next week, to better prevent migrants from entering the country and to boost security.

Experts suggest the Islamic State’s suddenly ascendant terror profile is due to determined work done on a shoestring budget plus a bit of good luck.

Researcher Antonio Giustozzi, of the London-based Royal United Services Institute, wrote this week that IS-KP’s biggest struggle in recent years has not been to stoke its propaganda and social-media feeds but how to actually pay and feed its personnel.

Funding has been tough to come by and running a global terror outfit is a costly undertaking, if done right.

For operations, IS-KP has largely turned to tried and trusted Central Asian veterans who had fought for ISIS in conventional wars against local forces in Syria and Iraq.

“For over two years, these Central Asian veterans were the main protagonists of almost all the largely unfruitful IS efforts to organize attacks all over Europe, Turkiye, Russia, Iran and even beyond,” Guistozzi wrote in The Insider.

The spectacular successes of the attacks in Russia and Iran in the first half of 2024 have changed that terror-on-a-budget mindset and appears to be having a snowball effect.

Attention is focused. Morale is boosted. Purse strings are opening. And like-minded individuals are hearing the call to action, Giustozzi suggested.

But is the world ready for another fight?

In the years since the countries came together to defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, geopolitical priorities have changed considerably. 

Though the United States reportedly tipped off Russia ahead of the IS-KP terror attack in March, it’s hard to imagine Moscow and Washington sitting down to share counter-terrorism strategies when they’re dug in on opposite sides of the Ukraine conflict.

It’s also hard to fathom the 87-country anti-ISIS coalition coming up with the will and resources to attack an organization that is no longer concentrated in a limited territory in Syria and Iraq —particularly with military resources and money flowing into Ukraine and bolstering NATO’s eastern European flank.

And after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, there is now talk about the remaining 1,000 American troops being pulled out of Syria as well.

It’s money and personnel that could be redeployed to other, more pressing priorities such as Russia or China. 

“Of course it makes perfect sense from an existential perspective,” Zelin said. “Russia and China are a much bigger problem than jihadis, but at the same time the jihadis have a much better chance of destabilizing things.”