COVID-19 appears to be giving ISIS a chance to regroup, experts warn aleteia.org

For several years, Middle East experts and observers have warned that the jihadist terrorist organization, the Islamic State group, is not dead, even if it was defeated on the battlefield. Its Islamist ideology is still very much alive, and though Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi might have died in a raid in 2019, his followers have not given up on his vision.

Now, it is feared, a disease is bringing ISIS back to life.

With national and local governments focusing largely on the coronavirus pandemic, ISIS appears to be regrouping, reorganizing and engaging communities in the Near East and parts of Africa. They are capitalizing on the frustration of people in areas undergoing economic stress and taking advantage of conspiracy theories to win populations over to their promise of a better life under the Caliphate…