In progress – Evaluation of the Dutch military contributions to the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria | Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB)

From 2014 till 2025, the Netherlands has contributed to the military fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. IOB is developing an evaluation to investigate the effectiveness of this effort.

Background

In 2014, the leader of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) declared a global caliphate, and IS controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria. As a result of IS's increasing territorial gains, the internationally felt need to intervene also grew.

By the end of 2014, the Netherlands decided to contribute militarily to the anti-ISIS coalition. This initially involved special operations forces to train and assist Iraqi forces and F-16s. Dutch F-16s also operated over Syria between 2016 and 2018. The Netherlands has remained militarily active in Iraq for 10 years, both within the anti-ISIS coalition's Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) and the NATO Mission in Iraq (NMI). The Netherlands has also contributed to the civilian EU Advisory Mission in Iraq.

The military contributions fall under the Article 100 Assessment Framework, which requires for an independent evaluation of these efforts. The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense requested IOB to conduct this evaluation.

Researchers

Process

IOB is currently working on the Terms of Reference. Once finalized, we will publish them on this page.

This research is in step 1, "Exploration". The other steps are: 1. Exploration, 2. ToR adopted, 4. Report adopted, 5. Drafting policy response, and 6. Report to parliament.