Iraqi sheikh: Defeating ISIS could lead to the rise of more radical groups

Iraqi Sheikh warns about possible ISIS defeat aftermath.
(Image credit: MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP/Getty Images)

Destroying ISIS and replacing it with nothing could lead to further chaos and brutality in Iraq, an Iraqi sheikh of a mixed Sunni and Shiite tribe warned on Wednesday.

"There is no doubt we must remove and defeat IS," Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari said. "But the absence of any political solution or national reconciliation will pave the way for more radical groups to emerge — some possibly even more radical than IS." His comments come as ISIS leaders move into Libya, where a power vacuum left in the wake of 2011's civil war and American intervention created welcoming conditions.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.