From Syria, desperate IS fighters slip into Iraq
Security officials say the jihadists are now destabilising Baghdad
BAGHDAD: Islamic State (IS) fighters facing defeat in Syria are slipping across the border into Iraq, where they are destabilising the country’s fragile security, US and Iraqi officials say.
Hundreds - likely more than 1,000 - IS fighters have crossed the open, desert border in the past six months, defying a massive operation by US, Kurdish, and allied forces to stamp out the remnants of the jihadi group in eastern Syria, according to three Iraqi intelligence officials and a US military official.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly on intelligence matters. But indications of the extremist group’s widening reach in Iraq are clear.
Cells operating in four northern provinces are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, and roadside ambushes aimed at intimidating locals and restoring the extortion rackets that financed the group’s rise to power six years ago.
“IS is trying to assert itself in Iraq, because of the pressure it is under in Syria,” said Yahya Rasoul, the Iraqi army spokesman.
The Islamic State militants can count between 5,000 and 7,000 among their ranks in Iraq, where they are hiding out in the rugged terrain of remote areas, according to one intelligence official.
In Syria, Kurdish-led forces backed by the Us-led coalition have cornered the militants in a pocket less than one square kilometre in Baghouz, a Euphrates River village near the 600kmlong border.
US WILL KEEP 200 TROOPS IN SYRIA
The US plans to leave a contingent of “peacekeeping” troops in Syria even after the withdrawal ordered by President Donald Trump, the White House said on Thursday.
“A small peacekeeping group of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
Neither Sanders nor a spokesman for the National Security Council detailed where the American forces would be stationed or how long they expected to remain in Syria, which has been devastated by eight years of civil war.