Islamic State digging roots in Iraq after endgame in Syria
IS sleeper cells remain holed up in several regions inaccessible by Iraqi forces
BAGHDAD:WITH the demise in Syria of the Islamic State’s (IS) vision of a cross-border “caliphate”, jihadists are strengthening their roots in neighbouring Iraq more than a year after Iraqi authorities proclaimed their defeat.
In July 2017, then Iraqi prime minister Haider al-abadi declared victory in the northern metropolis of Mosul after a nearly nine-month offensive. Five months later, he declared IS had been vanquished in Iraq at the end of a three-year war.
But security officials say jihadist sleeper cells remain holed up in mountainous or desert regions north of Baghdad or in western Iraq along the border with Syria, still inaccessible to Iraqi forces.
These largely rural Sunni-majority areas are located in the provinces of Salaheddin, Kirkuk, Anbar, Diyala and Nineveh home to Mosul, once the IS group’s de facto Iraqi capital of the “caliphate”.
Diehard jihadists continue to carry out bloody attacks against civilian and military targets despite Us-led coalition air strikes and efforts by Iraqi security forces to track them down and arrest fighters.
“Everyday, there are operations against the sleeper cells,” said Iraqi general Najm al-juburi, who heads the operations in Nineveh province.
Iraqi forces regularly issue reports claiming to have killed a number of jihadists during fighting and, since recapturing Mosul, they have arrested “2,500 terrorists”, Jubburi said, referring to IS fighters.
In Kirkuk province, also north of Baghdad, jihadists have killed a dozen village leaders just in the past six months, according to local officials.
At the same time, “they have carried out 55 bomb attacks against the police and on several occasions damaged the electricity infrastructure”, general Saker Kawin of Iraq’s federal police told AFP.
Now amid the rout of jihadists from their last stand in eastern Syria, thanks to a fierce offensive by Us-backed Kurdish-led Syrian forces who declared a total victory on Saturday, concerns are mounting that IS fighters are spilling across the border back into Iraq.
Authorities are desperately trying to secure an area of more than 600 square kilometres along the porous frontier between Iraq and Syria riddled with ancient smuggling routes.
Iraqi forces have at times managed to repel IS incursions along the border, “but in certain areas, fighters easily navigate isolated and rugged terrains between Syria and Iraq”, a security source said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said these fighters are well armed and use vehicles to move around the desert and mountainous regions along the border.
These areas, security officials say, were inaccessible to Iraqi forces well before the rise of IS, and remain so today.
After the 2003 Us-led invasion of Iraq that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, al-qaeda jihadists and other Sunni armed groups dug a warren of tunnels in those areas to serve as hideouts and weapons caches.