A Middle East expert has warned that while the Islamic State (ISIS) has been losing considerable territory and appears to be weakening, it does not imply that the situation is good.
Dr. Jonathan Spyer told CBN's Christ Mitchell after his returned from the front lines in Syria that losing ground on some key places may cause the radical Islamic group "to spread out more into international terrorism.''
"What is happening is—in a similar way to al Qaeda, actually—is that as they lose their territorial holdings, so the focus begins to be more on going into the business on international terrorism," Spyer said.
At the end of 2015, the Business Insider reported that ISIS has lost an estimated 14 percent of its territory since January, with some of these areas having been retaken from the group such as the Syrian border-crossing town of Tal Abyad, which connected ISIS de-facto capital of Raqqa with Turkey and the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar.
The extremist group has also lost a stretch of highway that connected Raqqa to its largest Iraqi holding, the city of Mosul; and in Tikrit and the Baiki oil refinery, the paper said.
Airstrikes and ground offensives launched by the U.S.-led coalition and even Russia have forced ISIS to withdraw from large parts of Syria's northern border with Turkey.
ISIS has also made some significant gains when it seized the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra in a "near-simultaneous" offensive in May. However, these gains came at the expense of losing northern Syria to the Kurds, IHS Conflict Monitor reported.
"This indicates that the Islamic State is overstretched, and also that holding Kurdish territory is considered to be a lesser importance than expelling the Syrian and Iraqi governments from traditionally Sunni lands'' like Ramadi, Columb Strack, senior IHS Middle East analyst, wrote, according to the Business Insider.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told a security conference in Germany on Friday that Iraqi forces have won back half of the territory previously under the control of the ISIS.
"The area we have liberated so far is more than half of what was occupied by Daesh (referring to ISIS) before," he said.
"We intend this year to make it the final year and the last year for the existence of Daesh in Iraq," the Prime Minister said.
