Islamic State in Middle East and Asia — Strategic Threat Outlook | November 2025
Operational Trends, Regional Destabilization, and Forecast
Executive Intelligence Summary
The Islamic State (IS) has demonstrated persistent operational resilience in the Middle East and Asia, despite continued military pressure, the degradation of its central leadership, and growing logistical difficulties. The organisation has not regained significant territorial capabilities, but has consolidated a model of widespread, adaptive, and decentralised insurgency, with varying intensity across Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
During the period analysed, IS maintained:
Operational continuity through low- and medium-intensity attacks;
Local regeneration capacity, mainly through sleeper cells and tribal networks;
Propaganda centrality, with a constant flow of claims, media products and narratives of resilience.
From complex and coordinated operations to opportunistic attacks, targeted assassinations, IEDs and actions against “soft” or symbolic targets.
The joint pressure of state actors, local militias and international forces has contained IS’s territorial expansion, but has not broken its capacity for survival. The structural vulnerabilities of the states involved, political instability, economic crises, fragmented governance and latent conflicts continue to offer IS operational space and recruitment pools.
In the short to medium term, IS does not pose an existential threat to the states analysed, but remains a chronic factor of regional destabilisation, with the potential for asymmetric escalation, especially in contexts with low state capacity.
Threat level: Medium
Trend: → (stable with expansion potential)
Primary risk areas: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
Time horizon: 3–6 months
Confidence level: Medium–High
Scope and Methodology
This Strategic Threat Outlook is based on:
systematic monitoring of Islamic State propaganda (videos, photos, statements, claims);
reporting from sources in the field;
Integration of OSINT, SOCMINT, IMINT, and Digital HUMINT.
Sources include primary Islamic State media channels, open-source reporting, official statements, and local sources across affected regions.
Limitations
Incomplete or delayed reporting from conflict zones;
exaggeration or omission in group claims;
Propaganda bias and potential disinformation.
Where verification is not possible, this is explicitly noted.
Provincial Snapshots
Islamic State Sham;
Islamic State of Iraq;
Islamic State Khorasan;
Islamic State Pakistan.
Overview 2025
Between January and October 2025, the Islamic State confirmed that it had entered a phase of long-term insurgency stabilisation, devoid of immediate territorial ambitions but far from marginal in terms of regional security. The organisation showed no concrete signs of structural collapse, nor did it initiate “proto-state” reconstruction processes; on the contrary, it consolidated a low-cost, adaptive, and highly decentralised operational model, consistent with the lessons learned following the territorial defeat of the Caliphate.
IS’s overall activity in the areas under consideration (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) developed along three main, interconnected and now structural lines:
Insurgency persistence without territorial control.
In 2025, IS demonstrated a consistent ability to maintain armed pressure while operating in the absence of formal territorial control. This persistence is not the result of conventional military strength, but of a combination of well-known factors: resilient logistics networks, selective local entrenchment, exploitation of marginal or poorly governed areas, and the systematic use of low-exposure asymmetric tactics.
The observed activities—ambushes, IEDs, targeted assassinations, attacks against checkpoints and “soft” targets—indicate a clear preference for operations that maximise psychological and political impact while minimising operational risk. This approach is consistent with military and intelligence assessments that describe IS as an actor now fully adapted to a low-intensity war of attrition.
Regional differentiation of operational capabilities.
In 2025, IS marked asymmetry between provinces, both in terms of the frequency of attacks and operational complexity. Syria and Iraq continued to represent theatres of persistent but relatively limited activity, characterised by sleeper cells and opportunistic operations. Afghanistan and Pakistan, however, have shown more fluid dynamics and, in the Afghan case, a clear operational superiority of ISKP over other Islamic State groups.