Islamic State: The end is near...is it?

First signs of the start of the end of Islamic State became visible in 2016. The self-proclaimed caliphate controls only around 50% of the land they controlled in 2014.

The loss of key bastions like Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq and Dabiq and Manbij in Syria meant that the aura of invincibility surrounding the group is slowly wearing off.

And, now with Iraq forces inching closer to total victory in Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is fighting with this back to the wall. Now only Raqqa, ISIS' self proclaimed capital, is the only major urban centre in their total control.

However, the recapture of the historic city of Palmyra indicates that it will be naive to take the Islamic State as a spent force.

As per the Pentagon, at least 50,000 IS fighters have been killed since 2014. With the group steadily losing ground, the biggest fear in western capitals and elsewhere in the world is the return of ultra-radicalised fighters to their home countries, to their communities.

Even as it suffered setbacks in its backyard, the Islamic State operatives and their sympathisers spread havoc from Cairo to Dhaka to Jordan and Berlin in 21016.

With Russia backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies with air strikes, and the US leading the fight back against Islamic State in Iraq, the real challenge in the coming days will be to strike a balance between the geo-political ambitions of the two powers.

Ultimately, what is of critical importance in ensuring Islamic State's defeat is to understand that its a movement born out of the resentment among Sunnis of being sidelines by the powerful yet minority Shias.