ISIL steps up attacks in Syria and Iraq, officials say

ISIL extremists are mounting increasingly bold attacks in Syria and Iraq following their loss of territory in both countries and are planning for the breakout of their fighters in detention facilities, U.N. experts said in a new report.

The panel of experts said in the report to the U.N. Security Council that, the group known as IS and ISIL, is also exploiting weaknesses in security in both countries.

The experts monitoring sanctions against the ISIL and al-Qaeda said it is unclear whether the ISIL's new leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi Al-Qurayshi, can effectively lead the extremist group's diverse and far-flung supporters and affiliates.

But the panel said unidentified U.N. member nations have made a provisional assessment that the strategic direction of the extremist group is unchanged when it comes to administration, propaganda, and recruitment and that command and control between its "core in the conflict zone and affiliates abroad will be maintained."

Al-Qurayshi's predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a U.S. raid last October in Syria's last rebel stronghold in Idlib province.
The experts said the issue of foreigners who came to fight for the ISIL and were part of its so-called "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq "remains acute."

Member states assess that between one-half and two-thirds of the more than 40,000 who joined the "caliphate" are still alive, they said in the report circulated on Jan. 31.

The panel said the reduction in U.S. forces in Syria has raised concerns about the ability of security forces in the country's northeast "to maintain adequate control over a restive population of detained ISIL fighters, as well as family members, numbering more than 100,000."

"Many dependents remain...