UN report: IS responsible for most attacks in Iraq and Syria

UNITED NATIONS — International terrorist groups carried out more attacks in Iraq and Syria in the last six months of 2018 than in any other country, and Islamic State extremists were primarily to blame, according to a new U.N. report circulated Wednesday.

U.N. experts said in the report to the Security Council that IS and its a liates “continue to pose the main and best-resourced international terrorist threat, while al-Qaida remains resilient and active in many regions and retains the ambition to project itself more internationally.”

Even though IS’s territorial losses in Iraq and Syria “have forced the group to abandon notions of controlling a geographical so-called ‘caliphate’ for the near future,” the experts said its leaders continue to advance this aspiration in statements and online propaganda.

The panel of experts said IS “has not yet been defeated” in Syria — contrary to U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration of victory over the militant group in the country in December and announcement that all 2,000 U.S. troops would be pulled out of Syria.

IS fighters remain under “intense military pressure” in their stronghold in eastern Syria, the experts said, but have “shown a determination to resist and the capability to counter-attack.”

U.N. member states, who were not identified, estimate the number of IS militants active in Iraq and Syria at between 14,000 and 18,000, the experts said.

This includes between 3,000 and 4,000 in the only remaining IS-held territory in Syria in the Middle Euphrates River valley near the Iraqi border, around the town of Hajin, they said.