ISIS continued to pursue ongoing campaigns both regionally and further abroad throughout March. The group carried out a spectacular, sophisticated terror attack in Brussels on March 22. The attack, which was unprecedented in Belgium, is part of ISIS’s  ongoing campaign to attack and polarize the West, sowing disorder to make way for future expansion to a global Caliphate.

ISIS is using its foreign fighters and safe haven in Iraq and Syria to execute a terror campaign within Europe. ISIS’s March 22 Brussels attacks support a larger strategy to punish, destabilize, and polarize the West. ISIS will likely continue to attempt attacks in France and Belgium in 2016, using its large Francophone foreign fighter population and local supporters. ISIS’s support networks in southern Europe may enable ISIS’s operatives to launch operations in other parts of the continent, including Austria, Germany, Spain, and Italy.