The Washington Post reports:

The Islamic State is racing to capitalize on the deteriorating security situation in northern Syria, stepping up attacks on prisons as well as on the now-weakened Kurdish militia that served as the vanguard in the U.S.-led war against the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate, intelligence officials and terrorism experts say.

Despite Thursday’s announced cease-fire, Turkey’s week-old incursion into northeast Syria is already proving to be a propaganda windfall for the extremist group, which in recent months had been making faltering attempts at a comeback in parts of eastern Syria controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, the analysts said.

The Islamic State’s official ­media arm taunted the SDF on Thursday, calling it an abandoned American ally and warning that further attacks were coming.

“The withdrawal of the U.S. from northern Syria and the destabilization that has ensued has created a perfect situation for ISIS to capitalize on,” said Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, a private firm that tracks online extremist activity.

An editorial in the Islamic State’s al-Naba newsletter said the Kurds were only the latest of Washington’s allies to be dumped after they were no longer needed.

“Once they [Americans] attained what they sought from them, they handed them over to the Rafidha,” the essay said, “so we took vengeance on them.” Rafidha is a pejorative term used by Sunni extremists for Shiite Muslims in general, and most particularly for predominantly Shiite Iran, which was among the winners in the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria’s northern border region. [Continue reading…]