Daesh has been one of the most “successful” terrorist organizations in history. But even though it has now lost its leader and last territorial holdings in the Levant, it would be a mistake to suppose that the world has heard the last of it. To understand why this is the case one must understand what made it so effective in the first place. Daesh grew out of an Al-Qaeda affiliate in northern Iraq, from where it expanded into the security void created by the civil war in Syria. But Daesh was unlike any other Al-Qaeda offshoot. Where Al-Qaeda measured success by the number of terror attacks and caliber of targets it managed to hit, Daesh measured it by the amount of territory under its control. At its peak, that stood at a dazzling 34,000 square miles. The audacity of trying to build a state from scratch, and the initial apparent success in that endeavor, completely revolutionized the global extremist movement. Success breeds success, and foreign and local young extremists flocked to join the marauding army, which soon ruled over more than 10 million people and had an annual tax income of more than $800 million. The problem with having a territory, however, is that you are a sitting target. And while Daesh could fight off the divided, dysfunctional land armies of Baghdad and Damascus, they never really stood a chance once the US, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Gulf allies weighed in. The only reason Daesh lasted as long as it did is because all the other players on the battlefield were fighting their own fights, for their own purposes, among which Daesh was at most an incidental nuisance. But tens of thousands of extremists who have sworn allegiance to the Daesh flag remain in the Levant and beyond, from Libya to the Philippines. It cannot be expected that they have all laid down their weapons willingly and retired to civilian life. As the military situation deteriorates and Daesh fighters start to trickle out from the war zones, one can expect that they will simply shift toward other fronts in failed states where Daesh outposts continue to hold out. Currently, the most obvious destination is Afghanistan. But governance is extremely fragile in large swathes of the Middle East. New areas in which states are unable to assert their monopoly of force can always emerge, so these fighters are likely to have places to go for the foreseeable future. Others will likely revert to the old Al-Qaeda rule book: Organize terrorist attacks in stable states in the Middle East and the West, combined with renewed efforts to proselytize. This route will be available especially to Western-born extremists, who can often return to their countries of origin and operate either alone or in small cells to undermine the security of these nations. The material conditions of poor governance, social inequality, ethnic strife and demographic imbalances that have fed the endless regional conflict continue to be pervasive. Dr. Azeem Ibrahim The most concerning issue is that the group still has substantial funds at its disposal, which means terror and radicalization operations in our countries will become more sophisticated and thus more likely to succeed. Daesh is down but it is far from out. For the time being it will be forced to revert to the old tactics of Al-Qaeda — a model of extremism that continues to be successful and resilient — but the hardcore of the group will be viewing the loss of the Levant as no more than a temporary setback. They will be looking to retreat and regroup, biding their time as they wait for an opportunity to return and claim land for a “state” somewhere else in the Muslim world. Whether they return under the label of Daesh is rather beside the point. The material conditions of poor governance, social inequality, ethnic strife and demographic imbalances that have fed the endless regional conflict continue to be pervasive. Global extremism is a hydra, fed by a diverse array of causes. All the world has achieved is to cut off the most visible head — but the hydra yet lives. Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, and author of “Prospective Foreign Policy of a Corbyn Government and US National Security Implications” (Hudson: Sept 2019). Twitter: @AzeemIbrahim Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view