What is the Islamic State group and what attacks has it inspired in its affiliates and lone wolves?

The FBI said it recovered the austere black flag of the Islamic State extremist group from the truck that an American man from Texas attacked those attending a New Year’s party in the French Quarter of New Orleans on Wednesday, killing 15 people.

The investigation is expected to examine, in part, any support or inspiration the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, may have received from that violent Middle East-based group, or from any of at least 19 affiliated groups around the world.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday night that the FBI had informed him that “a few hours before the attack, (Jabbar) posted videos on social media indicating he was inspired” by the Islamic State group.

Expelled from its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq by a U.S. military-led coalition more than five years ago, the Islamic State group has focused more on seizing territory in the Middle East than carrying out massive al-Qaeda-style attacks in West.

But in its home territory, the Islamic State group has taken every opportunity to behead Americans and other foreigners who fall within its reach. And it has had success, although diminished in recent years, in inspiring people around the world attracted by its ideology to carry out heinous attacks against innocent civilians.

Below, a look at the Islamic State group, its current status and some of the spin-off armed groups and so-called lone wolves that have killed under the Islamic State banner.

What is the Islamic State group?

The Islamic State group is also known as IS and ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

It began as a splinter group of Al Qaeda.

Under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS had taken impressive amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria by 2014. Within the territory under its control, it killed and abused members of other religions and targeted deviating Sunni Muslims. of his strict interpretation of Islam.

By 2019, a U.S.-led military intervention had driven the Islamic State group from the last inch of its territory. Al-Baghdadi committed suicide, and two children near him, that same year, detonating an explosive vest as US forces approached him.

Today, the core Islamic State group is a dispersed and greatly weakened organization working to regain combat strength and territory in Syria and Iraq. Experts warn that the group is reconstituting there.

And that ISIS flag? Typically, it is an austere black flag with white Arabic letters that express a central tenet of the Islamic faith. Countless Muslims around the world see the group’s coercive violence as a perversion of their religion.

What is the influence of the Islamic State group today?

Some experts argue that the Islamic State group is powerful today in part as a brand, inspiring both militant groups and individuals in attacks in which the group itself may have no real role.

The Islamic State group’s ruthless creed and military successes have helped fuel affiliated groups in Africa, Asia and Europe. It is a very decentralized alliance.

Many spinoffs have carried out deadly attacks, such as a March 2024 attack attributed to an Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Islamic State group that killed about 130 people in a Moscow theater.

What is the group’s track record of inspiring attacks in the United States?

The New Orleans massacre reflects the deadliest Islamic State-inspired attack on U.S. soil in several years.

Other attacks in the past decade include a 2014 rampage by a husband and wife team that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and a 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Floridaby a gunman who killed 49 people, pledged his allegiance in a 911 call to al-Baghdadi and condemned the “dirty ways of the West.”

Those attacks coincided with the arrival of thousands of Westerners, some of them Americans, who traveled to Syria in hopes of joining the so-called caliphate.

After those murders, the threat from radicalized followers of the group appeared to have diminished in the United States. Defense Department strikes have eliminated other members of the Islamic State group, and the FBI has had significant success in disrupting plots before they materialize.

But over the past year, FBI officials have warned of a significantly elevated threat of international terrorism following the massacre of Hamas in Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Intelligence group SITE reported that IS supporters celebrated in online chat groups on Wednesday.

“If he is a brother, he is a legend. Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” one of them was reported to have said in the chat.

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