Iraq braced for renewed assault by ISIS fighters

Thousands of jihadists have emerged from hiding among civilians to reform under a core leadership in the mountains.

Women and children at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of Islamic State fighters, in northeastern Syria. Picture: AFP

Thousands of Islamic State jihadists have seized their chance to “reorganise” in Iraq and are threatening to launch a new wave of attacks, a Kurdish general has warned.

Sirwan Barzani, a Peshmerga commander stationed near the northern city of Arbil, said the extremists were exploiting a lull in anti-ISIS operations caused by the pandemic to emerge from hiding among civilians, and reform under a core leadership operating in the country’s mountainous regions.

The Peshmerga estimate there are more than 7000 ISIS fighters in Iraq, many of whom evaded Iraqi forces during the liberation of Mosul in 2017.

General Barzani, 50, said that ISIS was still “a big threat for all of the world” and that the fighters “will keep pushing as they want to become more powerful”.

“When the liberation started for the whole area, they shaved their beards and posed as civilians, but they were waiting for the opportunity and slowly they went back to rejoin them,” he said.

“They reorganised themselves quicker because of the pandemic and because there were less coalition operations. That was something that was good for them but bad for us, of course.”

General Barzani noted how the fallout from Washington’s killing of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January last year led to a suspension of the coalition’s training of Iraqi and Kurdish forces. The training was again paused in March as coronavirus spread throughout the world. Coalition forces also suspended joint raids with Iraqi forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces of northern Syria.

Later in the year, Camp Taji military base, north of Baghdad, was handed over to Iraqi security forces, and British military personnel were slowly sent home, with only 100 troops remaining.

There are now about 2500 US troops in the country, compared with 5200 last summer. The US coalition continues to carry out air strikes on ground targets across the country.

General Barzani said that there was less activity from the coalition at the beginning of the pandemic and that aircraft were operating at about 80 per cent capacity.

He said that a strike by the RAF last month against a depot containing improvised explosive devices was the first one by British forces in three months.

In the past six months ISIS snipers had managed to get their hands on night-vision goggles, which were helping them to attack under the cover of darkness, he added.

At its peak in late 2014, ISIS controlled 110,000 sqkm and eight million people were under its control.

Wayne Marotto, the global coalition spokesman, questioned whether the group would ever be defeated entirely given the way that its ideology had spread. Colonel Marotto said there had been a 5 per cent increase in attacks on convoys, specifically IED attacks against Iraqi civilian convoys.

“We’ve defeated them territorially, but we haven’t defeated them ideology wise and they are resilient, and right now what they’re doing, it’s almost like an insurgency. It’s like al-Qaeda in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Mr Marotto said.

“So what Daesh does is kidnappings, assassinations, intimidating people, extortion, and they use a lot of hit-and-run tactics against the Iraqi Security Forces.”

A UK ministry of defence spokesman added that the pandemic had had “no impact” on the coalition’s strike levels.

“RAF surveillance flights continue at pre-pandemic levels and air strikes remain intelligence led and a final step,” he said.

The Times