US diplomat says ISIS could make a return in Iraq

The malign influence of Iranbacked militias in areas of Iraq could lead to new flashpoints and allow the return of ISIS militants, a senior US diplomat said.

Andrew Peek, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran and Iraq at the US State Department, told The National that the greatest concerns were in areas once run by ISIS and now controlled by groups that answer to Tehran.

“Where does ISIS come back?” Mr Peek said on the fringes of Chatham House’s Iraq in Transition conference in London. “It comes back in areas where there are sectarian gains on religious minority populations or populations that are not represented, where the security forces do not look like them, pray like them, where there are sectarian gains in majority-Sunni areas,” he said.

The US official said that ISIS had not left Iraq but instead hidden itself underground. In the face of the ongoing threat from the radical group, Mr Peek said the US and its allies needed to remain “very vigilant”.

It was crucial to promote the integration of Iraq’s different communities to stop another resurgence “whether it is ISIS, or whatever radical iteration has come in the past or, God forbid, comes in the future”, he said.

As Iraq and the US-backed coalition battled ISIS, Iranbacked militias, called into action by a 2014 fatwa from Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, played a pivotal role while fighting alongside Kurdish and Iraqi security forces.

But after the defeat of ISIS, Washington has been increasingly critical of the role played by predominantly Shia militias and the power Iran wields through them.

Mr Peek said the presence of Iran-backed militias in Iraq were one of several areas where Baghdad and Tehran did not enjoy an equal relationship. “We want Iraq to have a normal relationship with Iran,” Mr Peek said. “This means that the 30,000 or 40,000 armed men in Iraq that answer to Tehran right now answer to Baghdad.”

After the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, whereby world powers agreed to lift economic sanctions on Iran in return for the country giving up its nuclear weapons programme, Iraq has felt the strain of tension between Tehran and Washington.

Mr Peek said Iraqis needed to look beyond Iran for support and development.

“This is precisely where the capabilities of the region and Iran diverge,” he said.

Iran “cannot provide what they need to be stable and Iraq’s Arab neighbours, as an entree to the international community, can,” he said.

In recent days, Iraq’s capital Baghdad and other cities across the country have been bit by a series of violent protests which have, in turn, led to led to the deaths of at least 19 protesters. Curfews have been imposed in Baghdad and Najaf as well as the southern city of Amarah.

The US urged Iraq’s security forces to show restraint.