BREAKING NEWS: ISIS Declares 'New Phase' of War on Syria, Brands Interim President a Turkish 'Puppet Without a Soul'
In his first audio message in over two years, ISIS spokesman Abu Huzaifa al-Ansari calls for an all-out offensive against Syria's new government, claiming the country has traded Iranian occupation for American-Turkish control.
The Islamic State (ISIS) has announced a dramatic escalation of its campaign against Syria's new government, with the group's spokesman releasing his first audio statement in more than two years to declare that jihadist fighters must now make overthrowing the Syrian leadership their primary objective. The message, released on Saturday, February 21, 2026, coincided with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and marked a clear strategic shift by the organisation after years of keeping a low profile in the country.
Abu Huzaifa al-Ansari, who has served as the group's official spokesman since August 2023, recorded the audio statement in which he declared that ISIS members in Syria must fight “the new Syrian regime, with its secular government and national army” and make that their priority. In stark, inflammatory language, he dismissed Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa as “a puppet without a soul” placed in power by Western forces, and vowed that the president's fate would ultimately mirror that of ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.
'From Iranian Occupation to American-Turkish Occupation'
Al-Ansari framed the political transition that ended Assad's decades-long rule not as a liberation but as a change of foreign overlords. Syria, he argued, has moved from Iranian occupation to Turkish-American occupation, targeting Ankara's prominent role as a key backer and military presence in the new Syrian government.
“Syria today is ruled by the Crusaders after they placed a leader who is a puppet without a soul,” al-Ansari said in the recording. “Syria has entered a new era of defense and the convoys of jihad will eventually march in Syria.”
He also called on IS followers worldwide to attack Jewish and Western targets, extending the group's rhetoric beyond Syria's borders. Al-Ansari sent formal greetings to fighters from the group's overall leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, who assumed command of the organisation in 2023.
Attacks Claimed as ISIS Signals Operational Shift
The propaganda statement was not merely rhetorical. Hours after its release, ISIS claimed responsibility for two separate attacks on Syrian army personnel. The group's Dabiq news agency reported that it had targeted an individual of what it called “the apostate Syrian regime” in the city of Mayadin in Deir al-Zor province using a pistol, and carried out a machine-gun attack on two other personnel in the northern city of Raqqa. Syria's Defence Ministry confirmed that a soldier and a civilian were killed on Saturday by unknown assailants.
The assaults followed an attack two days earlier in Deir al-Zor that killed a member of the Interior Ministry's internal security forces and wounded another. According to a report released last week by the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, ISIS has also carried out five failed assassination attempts targeting President al-Sharaa and two senior cabinet ministers.
Social media accounts and Telegram channels aligned with ISIS quickly amplified the statement, issuing calls for intensified attacks using motorcycles and firearms — low-tech, high-frequency methods the group has long favoured for urban operations.
Who Is Abu Huzaifa al-Ansari?
Little is publicly known about the identity of Abu Huzaifa al-Ansari. He was announced as the group's spokesman in August 2023 through Al-Furqan Foundation media, replacing Abu Omar al-Muhajir, who had been arrested by Tahrir al-Sham — the very faction now leading Syria's government. In his first major announcement, al-Ansari declared the death of the fourth ISIS Caliph and named his successor. Analysts at BBC Monitoring have speculated that al-Ansari is likely Iraqi. His previous audio message, released in January 2024, urged ISIS supporters to target Jewish communities in retaliation for Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Expert Analysis: A Strategic Regrouping in Syria
Analysts say the statement signals more than a shift in rhetoric — it marks a formal and public strategic reorientation. Cagatay Cebe, an independent researcher specialising in jihadist movements, told Middle East Eye that the audio makes official a change in posture the group had already begun signalling.
“After its last territorial losses in 2019, the organisation preferred to keep its presence in this country low-profile, focusing on strengthening its branches in different continents,” Cebe said. He noted that ISIS had been carrying out operations in Syria without claiming responsibility — a deliberate strategy of concealment that has now been abandoned.
The turning point, according to Cebe, came after President al-Sharaa's visit to Washington last year. “They had already dispersed all their cadres from the deserts to Syrian cities and towns,” he said. “IS is now preparing for a campaign centred in Syria again. This may not yield results in the short term, but they might try to transfer their forces from Iraq to Syria.”
Context: Syria's New Government and Its Radical Past
The target of al-Ansari's fury, Ahmad al-Sharaa — previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — rose to power after his Islamist coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led the offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Al-Sharaa became Syria's interim president in January 2025.
Al-Sharaa's history is complex. He founded al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, in 2012, before breaking from the organisation in 2016. His NusraFront also fought against ISIS during the Syrian civil war. In recent years, he has actively sought to distance himself from his radical past, presenting a moderate, nationalist image to Western governments. That outreach appears to have succeeded: he visited Washington last November, where he met with President Donald Trump, and formally signed Syria's accession to the US-led global coalition against ISIS.
It is precisely this alignment with the West that ISIS has seized upon as the basis for its renewed offensive. For the group, al-Sharaa's transformation from jihadist to coalition partner represents the ultimate act of apostasy.
What the Statement Did Not Say
Notably absent from al-Ansari's message were references to two significant recent developments. He did not mention the transfer of 5,704 suspected ISIS detainees from prisons in northeastern Syria to Iraq in recent weeks — a major logistical operation that reduced ISIS's in-country support network. He also made no reference to the al-Hol camp, once home to more than 24,000 individuals — mostly women and children with ties to ISIS — which is now nearly empty after Syrian government forces assumed control from the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last month.
Al-Ansari did acknowledge that ISIS had suffered significant losses over the past two years as a result of strikes by the US-led coalition, describing the detainees as a source of fear for “the Americans, Shiites and Kurdish fighters.”
Implications for Regional Security
The statement arrives at a pivotal and fragile moment for Syria. The country is still in the early stages of rebuilding after more than a decade of devastating civil war, and its new government is under pressure from multiple fronts — including the enormous task of securing vast desert territories where ISIS sleeper cells have long operated.
For the international coalition and Syria's new authorities, the message is unambiguous: ISIS views the post-Assad political order not as a resolution to its grievances, but as a new enemy to be fought. Whether the group has sufficient capacity to mount a sustained campaign remains uncertain, but analysts warn that the combination of dispersed urban sleeper cells, potential reinforcements from Iraq, and renewed propaganda activity represents a serious and evolving threat.
Sources: The National, Middle East Eye, Al-Monitor, The Associated Press, Times of Israel, AFP. Reporting compiled February 22, 2026.