
Loading summary
A
Welcome to the Watch for I'm Sarah Adams. Something is happening in ISIS that deserves attention. I'm talking about real attention. We just carried out our most recent investigation. We're going to be naming it isis. Know thy enemy. And during the process, we learned something pretty profound. We found out that ISIS re established its military council. As a title, you might wonder. Okay, it's a council. So what? This is their central war planning capability. This would be like the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you know, in our department of war, this is like the command corps. It's the structure that connects leadership to battlefield decisions. And of course, the battlefield decisions we get concerned about is targeting of U.S. forces overseas and then emanating any attacks toward the U.S. homeland. Here is a second issue that really matters because obviously this isn't occurring in some sort of vacuum. Other things are going on. And what is the biggest issue that's happened with ISIS this year? It's the fact that all these terrorists got released in January. It was just over the course of two days, January 19th to January 20th of this year, 1700 ISIS terrorists got released in Syria. 1700. That doesn't include all the terrorists released over the last year in Syria, which just for ISIS is 2,150 terrorists. I kid you not. This is like 15 years of counterterrorism, like up in flames in a tiny period. So we now have thousands of extra terrorists. We have a command structure back in place. And this combination is really, really bad. And it's really shocking that the press and nobody is even talking about this. We didn't even get the press to push on the US Government to ask them, hey, how many ISIS terrorists were released? It's like there's zero interest in knowing what's happening. And that's very concerning when we're talking about a threat perspective. So we have a really simple question we should be answering today. It's okay, is this just ISIS surviving or is this ISIS rebuilding capacity? That difference matters. So for years, ISIS was operating in fragments. You know, at the time, they had lost all their territory, which of course we all know they called the Caliphate. They really lost a lot of their command structure. And they became pretty decentralized. And it was between 2013 and 2023 that its military council, which was referred to as Dewan Al Jund, was majorly degraded to where it basically functionally broke apart. And they were no longer staffing it and running a military council. I've never had a complicated skincare routine. 10 steps like layered cream serums. That's not for me, I'm a keep it simple kind of girl. I rarely put anything on my face. So if it's gonna go there, it has to do something, it has to work. And that's when I notice one skin. Now, it's not the packaging or the hype around it. It's the fact that it was created by longevity researchers. Right? Those are scientists, not influencers. And they took a moment to just ask basic questions about aging. And what they did is they focused on the pseudoscent cells and those are the ones that kind of build up and then they show us that visible sign of aging. So they didn't create some product to cover this up. Many of us are perfectly fine with aging naturally. What they did is they created this product, OS1. It's a proprietary peptide. And what it does is it switches off those damaged cells. So it basically goes in and targets at the source. We all know I love targeting. You know, it might be a different approach, but it works great. So when I started, I use the OS one face. It's a very simple moisturizer. You know, I put it on at night and then when I get up in the morning, it's super lightweight. It absorbs quickly and evenly. My skin feel so much healthier. You know, it's not just softer, it's stronger and it's subtle, but it's more reactive and it's just consistent throughout the day. And then I moved on and I started using osi. And this is interesting. It's the same peptide, but it's made to go into, you know, some of those more delicate areas around the eyes where we all know we see our stress and fatigue so much more. And since I've been using it, it looks a lot healthier and it's very natur. It's not like it leaves any kind of artificial feeling or look or shine around that area. I love that I'm not juggling a bunch of products to fix things. You know, it's just two items. I travel a ton. I can throw them quickly in the bag and they're evidence based. And when I say evidence based, that's backed by four peer reviewed studies. But also you can go see plenty of reviews from people like me. There's over like 10,000 of them. When people saying, hey, here's what I felt and here's what I think of the product. Lastly, Bloomberg even highlighted this product in the skin longevity space. That's the kind of science that matters to me. And I like that I can trust it. Born from over a decade in longevity research, 1 skin OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging. It helps you unlock your healthiest skin skin now. And as you age, for a limited time, try one skin at 15 off using code watch at OneSkin co. Watch again, that's 15% off at OneSkin Co using code watch. After your purchase, let them know we sent you and thanks for supporting us here on the watch floor. That matters because this isn't just some administrative layer in this organization. This is the group's operational brain. And when we say operational brain, that's attack planning. This is the structure that historically handled approving operations, including external operations. United States assigning commanders to specific roles and regions, coordinating among the different provinces. It could be ISIS in Syria, ISISIS in Iraq, ISIS over in Afghanistan, ISIS in Africa, et cetera. And then setting the military priorities for all the regimes and having a real mission for the entire group, an operational mission. Without it, ISIS became decentralized. They were really, like, more reactive. They were fragmented. Like, they were mostly on the defense, not the offense. Well, that's now changed. So when we talk about the military council being kind of reestablished, what they're calling it internally is the Majulus Al Shura Al Askari. So, you know, if you hear that terminology, it's not really kind of this new element within the group. It's just the reestablishment of the military council. And what's interesting is we're in this time where it's very clear that ISIS is experiencing a massive resurgence. And of course, with a massive resurgence, becomes more operations, more threats, and unfortunately more deaths. So who's running the council? His name is Abu Sawab Al Rumi. I want to explain to you something that's going on in isis, though, that's very interesting. So now I've said his name. Okay, so Abu Suwayb's name is out there. And Sarah Adams said he's the head of the military council in 2026. Well, what ISIS is now going to do, especially if this name gains steam, they'll do one thing, which is usually there's some sort of operation or some sort of accident, and he now d. Okay, but he didn't die. And then you'll give him another alias. So Abu Suwayb right now has a handful of aliases. I don't even know all of his aliases because they keep turning him over. So next year, when we say the name of the head of the military council, it might be the same guy, but it'll be a different alias. So I Want to be very clear to you about how this is working. That's why last year you heard about the head of isis who is Abu Hafsa. Hashemi Al Qurashi died three times, right? He didn't even die once. It's this game, and it's how ISIS kind of recycles their leadership, how they protect them from external targeting, how they keep the outside world a little deceived about who's leading the organization and where it's led from. So, for example, the organization right now is led from Syria, but the misinformation ISIS is putting out is that it's led from Somalia. So you don't focus on them in Syria, and they keep their most important commanders safe. So just keep that in mind. There's a lot of deception here. So again, Abu Suwayb goes by five or six aliases, but there's no need to go through all those aliases right now because they'll probably make two more this year. So besides the issues with his identity, it's the fact that this role is incredibly important. It's not like, symbolic. He's not like the prince or the king. He is the head of all operations for one of the most powerful terrorist groups in the world. And the majority of people in the world don't even know who this person is. They don't know his name. They don't know his face. We'll show you his face. But again, this is an effort by ISIS to rebuild their centralized military coordination. And then that coordination, of course, improves operations across all the groups, and then that becomes a bigger threat to all of us. Right. The more coordinated they are, the better planned, the better equipped, the better trained, the better finance obviously leads to better operations. So the group realized we have to move away from these scattered provincial activities and get back to a synchronized command. Right. We need to put ISIS back on the map. As you know, this powerful entity, not like these little pieces here and there, these lone actors that might pop off. And this is a major structural shift back to how we saw ISIS when they ran their caliphate. This episode is brought to you by Dose for cholesterol. One of the things we've been talking about more lately is how people are starting to pay closer attention to the habits they build into their daily routine, especially when it comes to things like cholesterol support. The reality is a lot of people hesitate when they're told they might have to start taking something long term that they're not completely, completely comfortable with. People feel like they want to have still, some say over how to manage their own health and what they're putting into their body. That's part of the reason why a lot of people have started to look for these gentler alternatives with ingredients in them that they actually understand, like a Coq 10 pomegranate ginger. And one of those alternatives is is Dose for Cholesterol. Dose for Cholesterol is a clinically backed cholesterol support supplement that targets triglycerides, HDL and total cholesterol levels. Dose for Cholesterol is a clinically backed cholesterol support supplement that targets triglycerides, HDL and total cholesterol levels. One of the reasons I'm comfortable mentioning it here is there are members of our team who've actually rolled it into their daily routine and they're really encouraged by what they've seen. Another positive is how simple it is to take. It's only a daily two ounce liquid shot. It's no capsules, no powders, and it literally tastes like mango. It uses ingredients like CoQ10, turmeric, amla and other plant and mineral forward ingredients. So it's easy for people to work into their routine to support cholesterol habits. And it gets delivered right to your door, which makes it so much easier to stay consistent. New customers can save 35% on their first month subscription at Dailydose Co or by using Watch Floor at checkout. Again, that's DailyDose Co Watchfloor for 35% off your first month subscription. You know, this signals a major step forward we've seen in ISIS since the caliphate, you know, since they lost all that territory. This idea of bringing back this functional military planning layer. And this really isn't something that we can ignore because they're putting steps in place to become more operational. And as we told you, there's now all these terrorists that got released who can jump into these important roles. So we have 2,150 terrorists just released in Syria. Think of how much that brings to the battlefield. About 400 to 450 of these ISIS terrorists were senior leaders, senior plotters. And then you know, the other about 1700 are like hardened fighters, right? They've all been on the battlefield. So it's not like you just recruited 2,000 guys. You have to train and you now have these squared away members. And remember, these 2000 plus terrorists blame the US government for their detention. So they also are this cadre or this massive body of individuals who want to take it to us. So when we talk about these thousands of ISIS tariffs, right, these Aren't like, manpower numbers. This is institutional memory, right? We have some of the best bomb makers released, some of the best trainers, some of the best attack masterminds. They're all out and ready to go. And this matters, I think, so much more than people realize. You know, there's a reason we lock them up and hopefully throw away the key. And the fact our government isn't even being honest with the American public that these terrorists have been released. This is a much bigger problem, I think, than people realize, because it's not just like these terrorists got released and they stayed in Syria. We found them move all over the place. So obviously, some went to Iraq. A large number went to Afghanistan. We found at least a handful that have gone to Libya. We know of some that have traveled to Yemen, and then we know some express interest in getting to Europe or the United States. All right? So don't think and don't be naive that, oh, these terrorists got released and they're just going to stay in their terrorist wonderlands of Syria or Afghanistan. No, they're focused on us. We are the enemy. We are who took the caliphate from them, and they want the caliphate back. So this military council is really a force multiplier. It's like organizational rebranding or rebuilding is what we see. You know, if you're in the business world. But this brings on a massive capability that everyone believed ISIS no longer has. We almost forget. It's like you defeat certain pieces and then you forget that, oh, they could come back if you don't keep taking it to them. And ISIS knew that we just have to outlast the US Government, and we're going to get back everything we want. I mean, this is a problem with the fact that the US Kind of loses focus. They take their eye off the ball. They decide, well, we're going to only focus on this terrorist group. We're not going to focus on this terrorist group or this terrorist group is worth targeting. This terrorist group is a little more moderate, and we play games. And honestly, in the whole last year, we haven't even had a known counterterrorism policy. Right? Our government has not put out a counterterrorism policy to where we don't even know who is prioritized. But I can tell you ISIS in Syria isn't prioritized because we just pulled all of our troops out of Syria, and that's where the headquarters of ISIS is still based. So we have a problem because we have isis, who's kind of like, creating this new acceleration, taking advantage of this resurgence. And they're bringing things back online that a lot of people just assumed, well, those days are over, that ISIS is over. ISIS is broken. They're weak. They're not going to be able to centrally plan and emanate threats. And that's no longer over. We let ISIS in the last year bring everything back on board. Like that's a problem. So what does this mean going forward? One of the biggest threats, of course, is overseas because now kind of all the provincial structures and ISIS are going to be more coordinated. When ISIS gets coordinated, we do see coordinated attacks. They can do attacks in three different regions at three different times. That's incredibly impactful when, when you're a terrorist group, not just from the fear factor, all the press, but that level and scale of an attack brings in a ton of financing for the terrorists because it's like, oh, ISIS is back on top. ISIS is winning. I'm going to put my money into them because they are looking the most powerful right now. And that really matters to terrorists because a lot of effects are kind of like this amplification. That's why they lean so heavily online. People think most of it's for recruitment. It's not. Most of it is to put out influence and propaganda and to create fear even when you're weak. Well, when ISIS is now potentially going to be strong again, think about how that effort then catapults them. They don't have to fake anymore. They're strong if they are strong. The other problem is we have this kind of like threat potential over time. So we're saying hundreds of like high capability individuals got released. I mean, think about it as if you have like a couple hundred special forces come into your organization now. You can improve kind of your training, your doctrine, your operational planning. Like, everybody gets better when you bring that talent in, right? This is why people care so much when they're hiring, because a bad apple can ruin a team. A rock star can make every single person better. And so ISIS is banking on this. They actually took some of these senior tariffs and they said, go down and lead in Libya. So the senior leaders of ISIS and Libya right now, none of them are Libyan, most of them are Iraqi. And that's now the ability they have. They can afford, deploy their best operatives because they have the numbers again, right? They're not scrounging for talent. They almost have too much talent. And that's something incredibly concerning. Also there's now this greater resilience. It's not even just that they got the military council Back, there's a resurgence, there's all these extra terrorists. They now are harder to disrupt because you put thousands of more targets, of course, back into play and then you don't exactly have all these isolated cells. They now can work closer and stronger and do things in a better way. They can do their operational security better because they have more people to work on it. So. So it's not the idea yet that ISIS is back to full strength. I mean, that's not true. But they are like a thousand steps ahead of where they were just a year ago. And so that's a scary thing to have that much momentum and to propel that much forward in such a small period of time. And the more we don't focus on this and we let them take advantage of this resurgence, the farther we're going to be behind. Of course, when they threaten us and we have to go back after them again. Just to zoom out again, this military council I know sounds like it's just something in an org chart, in an organizational structure, but this really is going to make ISIS more centralized and their attacks much more deadly because they're going to be better planned. There's also this issue with all these released terrorists. Our government isn't telling the public they're out there and we've seen none of these tariffs be recaptured since January. So it makes me incredibly concerned. Is that even a priority? Are we even going to go after and take them back off the battlefield? I don't think so. I don't even think we have the numbers to do it. You know, we, we pulled out of Syria, we only have what, 2,500 troops in Iraq. I think the days are over that we're going to take it to ISIS in a meaningful way until they start attacking us again. And by then they'll be back to their core strength. And so we're just almost sitting back and not only letting them rebuild, but letting them take advantage of this resurgence and this massive win they have. Because to them it is a win. Right? They all got out of prison, their military council's back on track. They can deploy senior leaders all over the world, they can travel around the world and nobody's even bothering them. That's another crazy thing. And so you're giving them this like, leg up that they never should have, and you're letting them go back on the offense. You want them on the defense. So they're fearful, they're hiding, they're more focused on protecting themselves now on the offense, their focus is coming after us right harming people meeting their objectives, like the Islamic caliphate. And they're starting to plan again in larger, grander, more strategic ways than we've seen in many, many years. So we want to highlight this for you and really make you aware that, you know, there's some bad days coming from isis. Later this week, we're going to release our newest investigation, isis, Know Thy Enemy. And there you can kind of see a layout of the organizational structure of the entire organization, you know, just to get an understanding and feel of, you know, who's leading it, you know, what their backgrounds are and then where they're going from here. Thanks for tuning in today.
Episode: CIA Expert Drops Chilling Warning About U.S. Threat
Date: May 12, 2026
Sarah Adams, former CIA targeter and counterterrorism expert, delivers a stark warning about an overlooked and mounting terrorist threat: ISIS’s resurgent military council and the mass release of battle-hardened ISIS operatives. Drawing on her team’s latest investigation, she provides insider context on organizational changes within ISIS, explains the implications for U.S. and global security, and criticizes the lack of public and governmental attention to these developments.
On the gravity of mass release:
"This is like 15 years of counterterrorism up in flames in a tiny period." (01:50)
On leadership and deception:
"Abu Suwayb right now has a handful of aliases. I don't even know all of his aliases because they keep turning him over." (19:52)
"Abu Hafsa Hashemi Al Qurashi died three times, right? He didn't even die once. It's this game..." (20:07)
On threat capability revival:
"It's not like you just recruited 2,000 guys you have to train. You now have these squared away members." (28:25)
"We have some of the best bomb makers released, some of the best trainers, some of the best attack masterminds. They're all out and ready to go." (28:47)
On strategic risk:
"This military council is really a force multiplier... brings on a massive capability that everyone believed ISIS no longer has." (31:17)
On U.S. neglect:
"In the whole last year, we haven't even had a known counterterrorism policy... our government has not put out a counterterrorism policy to where we don't even know who is prioritized." (35:44)
On what's at stake:
"There's some bad days coming from ISIS." (54:05)
Stay tuned for the upcoming investigative release "ISIS: Know Thy Enemy," featuring detailed charts of the terrorist organization’s current structure and leadership.