Iranian intelligence operatives have attempted to recruit local Syrians to spy on U.S. forces in the region and could use them to carry out future attacks, according to a U.S. military intelligence assessment.

The assessment was noted in the latest inspector general report [PDF] on U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria, which also said that “Iran-affiliated forces probably retain the ability to attack U.S. interests and partners in Syria with little warning.”

“According to the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], although Iranian leaders were wary of escalating tensions with the United States before the U.S. presidential transition, Iran likely continues to develop plans for operations against U.S. positions across the region, including in Syria,” the inspector general report says.

Overall, it says Iran appears to be positioning itself for a post-ISIS era in which it can assist Syrian President Bashar al-Assad consolidate power and push out U.S.-led forces from the region.

On ISIS, the report said that the terror group’s numbers are believed to have fallen to 16,000 on the high end — possibly due to better border security in Turkey — but those that remain are committed to the cause. (In 2014, the CIA estimated ISIS had around 30,000 fighters.)

“ISIS’s strategy, capabilities, and cohesion in Iraq and Syria either remained unchanged or did not change significantly this quarter,” the military’s inspector general wrote. “The DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] reported that it has not observed any large-scale defections or splintering of ISIS.”

ISIS, along with Iranian-backed militants, “posed the most significant threat to the Coalition and its mission,” the DIA said, according to the report.

So perhaps most troubling, Acting Pentagon Inspector General Sean O’Donnell wrote that the U.S. had fallen into a “status quo” in Iraq and Syria.

“Over the last year, the situation in Iraq and Syria has settled into a status quo where local partner forces, with Coalition support, are preventing ISIS from resurging, but are unable to degrade ISIS further to the point that it no longer poses a threat,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell said the solution to the problem is not a purely military one, but suggested it required “economic, political and societal” remedies that could “take years to unfold.”

The U.S. launched Operation Inherent Resolve, the international operation to defeat ISIS, in October 2014. The military has spent just under $50 billion in support of the mission since.

PRIMARY SOURCE: Quarterly Report on Operation Inherent Resolve (PDF)

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