Global Coalition Against Daesh

The Global Coalition Against Daesh (also called the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS) was established in September 2014, convened by the United States after Islamic State fighters seized Mosul and large parts of northern Iraq and eastern Syria earlier that year. It is not a treaty-based organization and has no permanent secretariat or standing forces; instead, it operates as a flexible political-military partnership in which member states contribute according to capacity and political will.

The Coalition organizes its work across several lines of effort, which have included military operations, stabilization of liberated areas, counter-financing (through the Counter-ISIS Finance Group), counter-messaging and strategic communications, and stemming the flow of foreign terrorist fighters. The military campaign, conducted primarily under the U.S.-led Operation Inherent Resolve, combined coalition airstrikes with support to local ground partners — the Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria.

By March 2019, the SDF declared the territorial defeat of Daesh's so-called caliphate with the fall of Baghuz in eastern Syria. Coalition leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. raid in Idlib in October 2019. The Coalition has since shifted emphasis toward preventing a resurgence, addressing detention of suspected ISIS fighters and displaced families in northeast Syria (notably Al-Hol camp), and expanding focus to ISIS affiliates in Africa, including the Sahel and Mozambique — formalized through the creation of the Africa Focus Group in 2021.

Membership has grown to include dozens of states plus the European Union, NATO, Interpol, and the Arab League as institutional partners. Decisions are made by consensus at ministerial meetings and through Small Group and working-level coordination, typically chaired or co-chaired by the United States.