But Neumann and others said the decline in Islamic State recruiting figures — which has come almost as quickly as the rise following leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate in June 2014 — is hardly an unmitigated success for the United States and its allies.
Instead, it may be the beginning of a new stage, one in which would-be fighters choose to carry out attacks at home rather than travel abroad, and battle#hardened veterans seek out new lands for conflict.
“It’s like after the Afghanistan war in the 1980s,” said Neumann, citing the period after Soviet troops withdrew in 1989 and legions of foreign fighters formed a diaspora of radicalized veterans that subsequently fueled the rise of al-Qaeda. “They’ll be asking themselves, ‘
What’s next?’ ”
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