Fight against Islamic State ‘far from over’ in Iraq, Syria

Group losing grip on cities, still holds swaths of territory

USA TODAY

The Islamic State remains a formidable global threat and still clings to large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria despite the group’s imminent loss of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

“This fight is far from over,” said Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

The Islamic State has proved capable of plotting terror attacks even as it has lost significant territory. Many of its leaders have already escaped Raqqa, its capital in Syria, and have fled to other strongholds inside the country.

“We’ve consistently been chasing ISIS’ communications node around the battlefield,” Cafarella said, using an acronym for the group.

Still, U.S. officials and analysts say pushing militants out of their major strongholds in Iraq and Syria is a critical first step to an overall defeat of the militant group, which emerged as a worldwide menace three years ago when it swept through parts of Iraq and Syria.

The group’s defeat in Mosul also frees thousands of Iraqis from a brutal rule. Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said last week that the group’s selfproclaimed caliphate was finished and hailed it as a major victory over the terror group.

Several hundred militants remain in the city, but they are surrounded and losing more territory by the day. In Syria, U.S.backed local forces have surrounded Raqqa and have begun an assault into the city.

The offensives in Raqqa and Mosul have put the terror group on the run and have forced the group to relinquish much of the territory it controlled at its peak in 2014.

But the group has also proved stubbornly resilient.

Some Islamic State leaders have already fled to militantcontrolled areas along the Euphrates River Valley south of Raqqa, which have become a key stronghold for the militants now that Mosul and Raqqa are under military pressure.

In Iraq, militant fighters still control Tal Afar — a town west of Mosul in northern Iraq —and desert towns in the far reaches of western Iraq.

“There still remains ISIS holdouts in both Iraq and Syria,” said Col. Ryan Dillon, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. “We’ll continue to support and stand shoulder to shoulder with our partners in those fights.”

The next stage of the battle in Iraq will be determined by Iraq’s government, the Pentagon said.

“There’s plenty of work left in this country,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Martin, a top coalition commander in Iraq.

The U.S. military has deployed about 5,500 troops in Iraq to advise and train Iraqi forces and nearly 1,000 troops in Syria to support the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Pentagon has said that the Islamic State likely will revert to a more conventional terror organization that operates from caves or other hiding places as it loses territory. But the loss of a capital will take away a key selling point to get recruits from around the world.

The sheer resiliency of the militants have commanders concerned, however.

“When I consider how much damage we’ve inflicted, and they’re still operational, they’re still capable of pulling off things like some of these recent terrorist attacks we’ve seen internationally, I think we have to conclude that we do not yet fully appreciate the scale or strength of this phenomenon,” Lt. Gen. Michael Nagata, an official at the National Counterterrorism Center, said in an interview published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.