ISIS after Baghdadi? Why experts urge sustained vigilance.

So what happens to ISIS now?

The Islamic State group’s fortunes have whipsawed, from the dramatic collapse last spring of its self-styled caliphate, to the sudden window of opportunity created this month by the U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria and the retreat of allied Kurdish forces, and now to the spectacular and unexpected death this weekend of its shadowy leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a U.S. raid in northwestern Syria.

But the basic conditions that created fertile ground for ISIS’s ideological appeal remain in place, experts note. The group still has a draw as an anti-establishment Islamism that stands up to oppressors; Syria continues to be mired in a civil war complicated by foreign interference; and recent violence in Iraq indicates that governance there is still deeply problematic.

Eradicating ISIS, experts warn, requires sustained effort and stability,

Narratives of revengeOngoing insurgenciesBeyond the Kurdish zone