A Year After al-Baghdadi's Death, ISIS Is Alive - and Growing

Roughly a year ago, U.S. special operators located and killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

A few months earlier, in March 2019, the United States and its allies took control of the last vestiges of the ISIS caliphate in eastern Syria. These two events, the death of al-Baghdadi and the defeat of Islamic State forces, closed the chapter on the short-lived ISIS caliphate.

It did not, however, mean the end of the Islamic State organization. Indeed, a year after the end of the caliphate, it appears that the Islamic State, or IS, continues to be well-funded, and is not only maintaining, but even expanding, the scope of its worldwide operations.