ISIS Never Really Went Away
December 18, 2025
28 min
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Episode 160 · December 18, 2025
ISIS Never Really Went Away
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The Atlantic Episodes Around December 18, 2025
Episode 332 of 364 — walk the feed in the order it was published.
28:00This episodeISIS Never Really Went Away
Summary
More than a decade after its peak, the Islamic State has changed, but it isn’t defeated. This past weekend, the jihadist group reemerged in connection with two disparate acts of violence thousands of miles apart.
Two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria by a man the Pentagon says is affiliated with ISIS. A day later, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, two men opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration, killing 15 and wounding dozens. The men had homemade ISIS flags in their car, and had recently traveled to an area in the Philippines where ISIS-affiliated groups are known to still be active. Are these incidents connected? And do they point to a group that’s evolving?
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