IS likely to launch more terror attacks to compensate for losses: analyst

The world could face more terror attacks as it intensifies offensive against the Islamic State (IS) group, said a Syrian political analyst.

Osama Danura, a Syrian political researcher, told Xinhua in a recent interview that with the world striking it, the IS is expected to carry out more terror attacks worldwide to compensate for its losses, adding that it is this is how they are likely to try to survive for the next phase.

However, he said their so-called "state" will not hold for too long at all, adding that the IS is retreating from being a "state" into the old style of al-Qaida.

He also said that with many of the world's major powers scaling up their attacks against the IS, the extremist group could face a real challenge of continuity.

After last week's deadly attacks in Paris that claimed the lives of more than 120 people, the French air force intensified air strikes against the IS's de facto capital of Raqqa in northeast Syria, forcing large number of families of IS commanders and fighters to flee to the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is also under the control of IS.

The French were said to have sent Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean to support the operations of the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition's operations in Iraq and Syria.

The Russians have also started striking the terror group's positions in Syria late this September.

"The horizons are tightening in the face of the Islamic State particularly after the Russian air strikes started targeting their positions in Syria. The Russian intervention has marked a new serious effort in the path of eradicating IS," he said.

He said the recent attacks carried out by the IS in Beirut and Paris were nothing but retaliatory as its sway in Syria and Iraq is being heavily challenged with the superpowers pounding it day and night.

"It has become weak and wanted to give a message to the world that I am here and I can hurt you. But the fact is that those attacks are a sign that IS has started losing control," Danura said.

He said the IS execution of hostages of different nationalities will backfire.

"With every new killing, the IS gains another enemy. The killing of captives from various nationalities is only galvanizing more states in the world to be part of the campaign against IS," he said, adding that the countries that are losing victims to the IS will have to move toward fighting it to protect their people.

Danura and other analysts agreed that there shouldn't be a focus only on IS, arguing that there are many other groups in Syria that have similar mentality and ideology even though they bear different names.

"Fighting terrorism should focus on drying up the ideological resources of the terrorist groups and fight their mentality," he said. Enditem