The shadow of Islamic State will loom over the Trump presidency
Whatever ISIS’s operational capacity, its standing in extremist circles has influenced a wave of radicalised “lone wolf” attackers on both sides of the Atlantic.
In his first term, president Donald Trump declared victory over the Islamic State. It was December 2018 and Trump announced that the US-led coalition against the extremist Islamist group had completed the job of dislodging the terrorist faction from its major redoubts in Syria and earlier in Iraq.
The campaign to extinguish the IS “caliphate” – its mini-state that includes major cities like Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq – had been intense, involving waves of heavy bombing and the combined efforts of US and Western air power and allied local militia on the ground.
