re: #43 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate

BBC said the next move is to dislodge them from Mosul, their only remaining important base of operations. No Mosul, no money.

A larger point - if they lose Mosul, their ‘caliphate’ ceases to exist and they can no longer recruit according to Islamic Law.

Al‑Qaeda is ineradicable because it can survive, cockroach-like, by going underground. The Islamic State cannot. If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate. Caliphates cannot exist as underground movements, because territorial authority is a requirement: take away its command of territory, and all those oaths of allegiance are no longer binding. Former pledges could of course continue to attack the West and behead their enemies, as freelancers. But the propaganda value of the caliphate would disappear, and with it the supposed religious duty to immigrate and serve it.