ISIS lost a quarter of its territory since early 2015

(Image credit: Moadh Al-Dulaimi/Getty Images)

published 10 July 2016

The Islamic State has been forced to cede about a quarter of its claimed territory since January of 2015, reports research and analysis firm IHS, losing about half of that land this year alone. The square mileage ISIS has given up is about the size of Ireland.

"Over the past 18 months, the Islamic State has continued to lose territory at an increasing rate," said Columb Strack, an IHS senior analyst. But, Strack added, that doesn't evenly translate to increased stability in the Middle East.

As the would-be "caliphate shrinks and it becomes increasingly clear that its governance project is failing, the group is re-prioritizing insurgency," he explained. "As a result, we unfortunately expect an increase in mass casualty attacks" — like the recent truck bombing in Baghdad that claimed at least 215 lives — "and sabotage of economic infrastructure, across Iraq and Syria, and further afield, including Europe."

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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.