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ISW’s new ISIS Global strategy map places Chad and Niger in ISIS’s Far Abroad campaign to reflect recruitment by ISIS’s Libyan affiliate and attacks by ISIS’s Nigerian affiliate (also known as Boko Haram), respectively.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies in Moscow and Tehran are continuing to complete the encirclement of Aleppo City despite an ostensible ‘cessation of hostilities’ that began on February 27, 2016. Russia resumed its air campaign against the opposition on February 28 following a one day hiatus, concentrating its strikes against the opposition-held northwestern suburbs of Aleppo City.
Since the publication of ISW’s last ISIS Sanctuary Map on January 16, 2016, ISIS lost a major resource hub in Shaddadi, northeastern Syria and was expelled from its remaining positions in Ramadi, western Iraq. ISIS responded by launching a campaign against Kurdish forces in Tel Abyad, northern Syria, and briefly seizing the city of Khanaser, southeast of Aleppo from Syrian regime forces.