Resurgent ISIS launches 260 attacks during Ramadan

Islamic State has waged its deadliest campaign in Iraq for nearly two years, raising fears that jihadists are staging a resurgence.

Islamic State attacks have rebounded despite the death of founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last October. Picture: AFP

Islamic State has waged its deadliest terrorism campaign in Iraq for nearly two years, raising fears jihadists are staging a resurgence.

In the past month, since the start of Ramadan, Islamic State (also known as ISIS) has claimed responsibility for more than 260 attacks across Iraq, allegedly killing or wounding 426 people.

The attacks form part of the group’s self-proclaimed “battle of attrition” campaign, which also has inspired violence by Islamic State branches in Syria, Egypt, Nigeria, Niger, Congo and Mozambique in recent weeks.

The US-led military coalition and local security forces say they have mounted a counter-offensive that resulted in the killing of two senior Islamic State leaders in Syria last week.

However, the rise in attacks across the Middle East and Africa will raise concerns that jihadist sleeper cells could regroup and capitalise on the disrup­­tion caused by the corona­virus pandemic and its economic aftershocks as US troops are poised to withdraw from regional bases.

US President Donald Trump and others had claimed in February that Islamic State was “100 per cent defeated” with the loss of its former territory and the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its founder, last October. However, up to 15,000 jihadist fighters are thought to have gone into hiding as their self-proclaimed caliphate collapsed, emerging only to carry out sporadic hit-and-run attacks.

This month Islamic State propaganda channels announced the start of a co-ordinated Ramadan campaign by urging militants to exploit the “breakdown of morale” among Iraq’s security forces.

A video was released of the group’s recent violence in Iraq. It included footage of night-time ambushes, murders and roadside bombs across the country.

The latest gun and bomb attacks by Islamic State fighters have targeted mostly Iraq’s army, police and members of rival paramilitary groups to the north and east of Baghdad, including in the provinces of Diyala and Kirkuk.

Jihadists have intimidated com­munities by killing civilian “informers”, burning farms and destroying electricity pylons while security forces are distracted by the pandemic. A total of 152 people in Iraq have died of COVID-19.

Analysts said the rate of Islamic State-linked security incidents in the past two weeks was the highest in Iraq since June 2018.

Josh Lipowsky, of the US-based Counter Extremism Project, said: “ISIS views the global pandemic as an opportunity to weaken its enemies.”

The Times