Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, fears of a renewed ISIS insurgency have intensified. MintPress News has uncovered that, despite Meta’s previously strict policies on banning terrorism-related content, ISIS-linked accounts have been posting freely on its platforms.
Although Meta previously removed 26 million pieces of terrorism-related content—an impressive 99% of such material on its platform—MintPress News has revealed that content supporting ISIS, often referred to by its pejorative epithet ‘Daesh’ in the Arab world, is now flourishing on the platform. Many of these accounts are based in regions of Syria historically known as strongholds for the extremist group.
In early 2020, following the U.S. drone strike that assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Quds Force, Meta’s platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, swiftly began removing posts featuring images of Soleimani. Meta implemented measures to detect and block such images, preventing users from posting them altogether.
Similarly, videos commemorating the late Secretary General of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, were swiftly targeted and removed by Facebook for allegedly violating the platform’s guidelines. In October 2024, The Intercept revealed that Meta’s Israel policy chief, Jordana Cutler—a former senior Israeli government official—had actively advocated for censoring pro-Palestine accounts across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
These efforts included targeting prominent organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
However, following the rebel offensive that overthrew Assad, there appears to be a resurgence of openly pro-ISIS content that Meta has yet to address. For instance, a pro-ISIS Facebook user posted an image of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi held up at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The post, which glorifies al-Baghdadi, has remained on the platform since December 22, garnering over 1,000 likes and countless supportive comments.
A series of seemingly pro-ISIS accounts have emerged, concentrated in areas such as Binish, Sarmeen, Jarablous, Manbij, Palmyra and Deir Ezzor—regions historically known as strongholds for the terrorist group. New accounts appear daily, with some prominently displaying ISIS flags as their profile pictures.
These accounts frequently post speeches by ISIS leaders, which remain active on the platform and often garner hundreds of likes and comments. These include videos of the group’s fighters parading with weapons in the back of SUVs, attracting significant attention and interaction on the platform.
Notably, Facebook had previously taken significant measures to ban and censor this type of content. In July 2020, the London-based think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) published a study on ISIS propaganda, highlighting Facebook’s past efforts. The report revealed that, over a two-year period, Facebook removed 99% of what it classified as terrorism-related posts, amounting to approximately 26 million pieces of content.
The surge in popularity of pro-ISIS content, which has evidently followed the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, contrasts sharply with the relentless censorship of such material in the past. Previously, engaging with ISIS propaganda online required navigating a labyrinth of accounts that often employed cryptic language to obscure their affiliations.
The surge also comes amid numerous warnings from experts and officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about the group’s attempts by ISIS and its affiliates to exploit the chaos in Syria to stage a revival. These warnings underscore the critical need for vigilance in countering extremist propaganda, yet the response from platforms like Meta has been inconsistent.
Meta recently announced plans to scrap its “fact-checker” system and replace it with “community notes,” a change pitched as a step away from overt censorship. However, this shift appears to have coincided with a more lenient approach to pro-ISIS content, even as pro-Palestinian content continues to face shadow bans and restrictions.
A Syrian military analyst with direct insight into the country’s security landscape, speaking on the condition of anonymity, provided MintPress with a sobering assessment of the chaos following the overthrow of Assad’s government. “Weapons depots are open around the country, which many terrorist groups could easily supply themselves from,” the analyst explained. “There is no real state or security apparatus here yet.”
The source further revealed that there had already been a significant uptick in extremist activity over the past year, including operations by ISIS members in areas such as Eastern Hama. “The ISIS terrorists had started to make a comeback before the fall of the regime, which is why the U.S. was even launching airstrikes in territory technically held by the Syrian state last year,” the analyst explained.
He added, “These people are not happy with Ahmad al-Shara’a. They believe that he sold them out, that he betrayed their cause.” Ahmad al-Shara’a, Syria’s new de-facto leader, only recently resumed using his given name. He was previously known as Abu-Mohammad al-Jolani, a moniker he adopted during his tenure as a leader of ISIS and later Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
To Meta’s credit, Syria’s myriad other militant groups, even those backed by the United States, are often flush with former ISIS fighters. This can make it difficult to differentiate between the grFor example, Jund al-Aqsa, initially an affiliate of the al-Nusra Front, was heavily populated by former ISIS members. The situation became so fraught that al-Shara’a, then leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, launched a military offensive in 2017 to crush the rebranded group in Idlib, accusing it of serving as a front for ISIS.
Even the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), close allies of the U.S. government, were not immune to such overlaps. The SDF’s “Deir Ezzor Military Council” reportedly included numerous former ISIS fighters.
There is growing chatter online about a potential ISIS resurgence during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, fueling anxiety within Syria. Such a revival could notably serve to justify the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria under the pretext of combating terrorism through “Operation Inherent Resolve.” This could provide the U.S. with a rationale to increase its troop numbers in the region, which some experts anticipate, despite murmuring that the Trump administration may have its eye on winding down the U.S. military presence in the country.
An ISIS resurgence would also pose a significant challenge for Turkiye, which currently seeks to target the SDF in northeastern Syria. A renewed insurgency could blunt Ankara’s efforts by creating additional instability, complicating its military objectives.
Following Israel’s largest-ever air campaign, which decimated much of Syria’s military infrastructure, the country now lacks the air power necessary to combat a potential ISIS insurgency. The power vacuum left behind has not yet been effectively addressed by the new HTS-led administration. Compounding the issue is the absence of key actors who previously countered ISIS on the ground—Russia, Iran, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and Hezbollah are no longer actively engaged in Syria, removing a critical layer of resistance against the extremist group. Meta, it seems, has left its own vacuum, allowing Syria’s myriad extremist groups to rebuild their ranks unhindered.
Feature photo | Syrian militants take a selfie in downtown Hama, Syria, Dec. 6, 2024. Omar Albam | AP.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
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