Islamic State said to be planning to spring fighters held in Syria and Iraq

The terror group Islamic State is preparing a campaign to free thousands of detained fighters and conduct raids of detainee camps in Syria and Iraq in the coming month, a new study on the group’s resurgence found.

According to recent findings published Monday by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the terrorist organization is “preparing to free its loyal fighters and followers from prisons and displacement camps across Syria and Iraq.”

The report comes as President Trump and his aides have stepped up complaints that countries in Europe and the Middle East are refusing to take back thousands of their fighters swept up in the campaign to defeat the ISIS “caliphate” and now being held in camps in Syria and Iraq.

Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced plans for the campaign in a speech earlier this month. He asked his followers in the speech how they could “accept to live while Muslim women are suffering in the camps of diaspora and the prisons of humiliation under the power of the Crusaders?” according to information published in the assessment.

ISIS fighters have been boosting its fundraising activity in the displacement camps across northern Syria and increasing propaganda distribution through pro-ISIS social media accounts since at least mid-July.

The ISW report found the various accounts include videos made by children and female ISIS insurgents within the camps and were active as of last week.

“Their posts nonetheless allow ISIS to demonstrate the continued allegiance and unrepentant attitude of its local followers to its global audience,” according to the assessment.