SUMMARY: The deadly Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka have refocused attention on the Islamic State, which claims connection to the eight believed suicide bombers. Judy Woodruff talks to Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times about indicators of the terror group’s influence on the Sri Lanka attacks and how ISIS maintains robust media presence and recruiting levels.
SUMMARY: Although the Islamic State’s physical territory has dissolved, immense destruction from the brutal battle to eradicate the militant group remains. In the former caliphate’s capital city, Raqqa, survivors sort through the wreckage in search of bodies, recalling the atrocities they’ve seen in this city of the dead. Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports from Raqqa.
SUMMARY: After nearly five years of fighting, a U.S.-led coalition has almost completely destroyed what's known as the territorial caliphate, the Islamic pseudo-state created in Iraq and Syria by ISIS--but that doesn’t mean the end of the terror group. Amna Nawaz talks to special correspondent Jane Ferguson for an on-the-ground look at what war has left behind in Syria and the threat that remains.
SUMMARY: White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Friday that a few hundred American troops may stay in Syria as a stabilizing force after the majority of U.S. forces withdraw. Still, American allies fear that ISIS will have the capability to create a powerful insurgency as U.S. presence in Syria recedes. Nick Schifrin talks to Judy Woodruff about President Trump's new plan and the reaction to it.
SUMMARY: In Syria, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces are retaking the final territory of the Islamic State. As the caliphate dissolves, however, what will happen to the 40,000 foreign fighters who joined the terror group’s ranks over the past few years? Many of them have been detained, but the path for prosecuting them, and preventing them from driving an ISIS resurgence, remains unclear. Nick Schifrin reports.
SUMMARY: What should the U.S. government do with American citizens who traveled to live among the Islamic State? Sam El Hassani is an American woman who is being held with her children by Kurdish forces in northern Syria after living in Raqqa with her husband, who was an ISIS sniper. Special correspondent and filmmaker Josh Baker reports in partnership with Frontline and the BBC.
SUMMARY: The El Hassani family, now being held in Northern Syria by Kurdish forces, are not the only Americans who went to land controlled by the Islamic State -- there are dozens known to have ventured to the so-called caliphate since 2014. What should happen to those families and their children now? Amna Nawaz explores the dilemma with Seamus Hughes of George Washington University.
SUMMARY: A recently discovered trove of thousands of documents offers new insight into the horrors of life under the Islamic State militant group. Driven out of Mosul in late 2016 after months of fighting, ISIS left behind evidence of how the controlled the city and their would-be caliphate. Amna Nawaz learns more from Rukmini Callimachi from The New York Times.
