Though no longer in control of territory, the Islamic State (IS) continues to exploit dire conditions in Iraq and Syria to wage an insurgency and rebuild. Recent developments in Syria’s civil war and political turmoil in Iraq threaten to disrupt counter-terror operations crucial to ensuring that IS remains defeated and does not retake territory. “The underlying drivers for an ISIL resurgence exist in both countries,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a counter-terrorism expert and former British diplomat, told The New Arab, using an alternate acronym for IS. In Syria, officials and experts say that IS is b…