On 20 March 2019, President Trump proudly brandished a sheet of paper before White House reporters, said Adrian Blomfield in The Daily Telegraph. On it were two maps of Syria. The first, swathed in red blotches, showed how much territory Islamic State had held in the country when he became president. The second, almost perfectly white map, showed what the jihadist group now held: just one tiny area near the town of Baghuz. And that, boasted Trump, would disappear very soon.
It did, in a matter of days; but last week's deadly ramming attack in New Orleans, by a man apparently inspired by the group, is a reminder that Isis is still far from eradicated. Indeed, analysts have been warning for months that the group is having something of a revival: according to one expert, it has carried out almost 700 attacks in Syria over the past year.
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