Whether it's last year’s brutal attack at the office of Charlie Hebdo, or the Paris attacks in which more than 100 people died, or the more recent Brussels attack, Islamic State (IS) has become a potent threat to global peace in the last three years. Since September 2014, ISIS has taken lives of over 1100 people in different terrorist attacks world over. Even now these attacks are far from over as ISIS remains a potent force and holds key positions in Middle-East despite the NATO as well as Russian forces claiming victory against the IS fighters. Much like Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations, Islamic State aka ISIS too is an offspring born of nefarious imperialist intentions of the West and the Islamic world’s perpetual fear of Islam being in danger. Daesh, as it is called in Arabic, is a phenomenon which propagates the idea of Islamic rule or the Caliphate over the world - where power would flow from the sanctum-sanctorum of Mecca itself.

Will the Islamic State survive all challenges ahead?

The threat of IS, despite being a global challenge, hasn’t found a common consensus. The West was initially reluctant till incidents of Charlie Hebdo, and the Paris and Brussels attacks, came to haunt them. President Obama earlier remarked that IS isn’t a great threat, but soon his own convictions died out.

But there are certain important scenarios that have arrived that paint a grim picture. Turkey still believes the Kurds are a bigger threat than IS, despite the number of attacks in Ankara, and other cities openly challenged their position. Saudis and other Sunni states, especially monarchies, who initially helped the IS grow suddenly, find their position in quagmire. They believed the only threat was Assad, a proxy ruler of Iran by helping Free National Army and Al Nusra front against his regime. But this didn’t bring much success as Assad is still strong.

Now with Iran in a post-nuclear deal situation and direct engagement of Russians, Assad is going to stay. But meanwhile, IS has become a problem for Saudi and other monarchies in the region. IS’s notion of monarchies being anti Islamic has given Saudi Arabia cold feet.

Russian intervention is another important aspect. What America couldn’t achieve in years, the Russians did in months. Assad's regime was strengthened, IS forces lost key positions including many world heritage places like Palmyra.

A Kurdish force also advanced its position in Iraq where they have dented IS positions significantly in recent times.

But IS is still strong, and it will remain a potent force to reckon with. The only silver lining out of this chaos is that the West seems to have learnt a lesson - creating monsters is an easy job, but controlling them is an utterly difficult task.

The author is a research scholar in the Centre for West Asian studies in School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi. His area of interest is Islam, and he is currently working on Islam in Western Discourses. He is a freelancer and writes for various websites and magazines on geopolitics. He has also worked as a journalist at Business Standard, Chennai, and as a consultant to UNICEF Bihar.