ISIS’s decentralization transformation still poses deadly consequences

Published December 18, 2025 6:00am ET



It’s been almost seven years since ISIS lost the last bit of land it held in Syria, yet the two terrorist attacks that occurred on different continents last weekend demonstrate the threat the group continues to pose.

Last Saturday, an apparent ISIS fighter ambushed U.S. personnel in Palmyra, Syria, killing two U.S. Iowa National Guardsmen and an American civilian interpreter. One day later, two individuals who are believed to have been trained and radicalized by the Islamic State carried out an anti-semitic attack killing sixteen people and injuring more at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia.

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