Posted by Joseph Fitsanakis
Iraq is currently witnessing the largest resurgence of the Islamic State since December of 2017, when the Iraqi government declared it had defeated the group, according to local and international observers. The Sunni militant group, which became known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is exploiting a moment of opportunity, as Iraqi security forces, Shia militias and American troops are essentially sheltering in place to avoid the effects of COVID-19.
Iraq has been on involuntary lockdown since March 22 in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s security forces are busy providing humanitarian relief to communities under lockdown. Additionally, large numbers of soldiers and police officers are either sick or sheltering in place with their families and are not turning up for work. Furthermore, United States forces have significantly scaled back their presence in the country following the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in January of this year, in an effort to avoid armed confrontations with Iraq’s pro-Iranian militias.
These conditions are allowing Islamic State fighters to emerge from hiding and conduct operations in nearly every province of Iraq. Last week the militant group launched a series of coordinated attacks in nearly 30 different locations across Iraq, which left dozens of Iraqi security forces and Shia militia members dead. Additionally, Islamic State saboteurs destroyed several power lines across northeastern Iraq, disrupting electricity supply to tens of thousands of homes in the region.
On Tuesday, Iraqi security forces teamed up with the Popular Mobilization Forces —a mostly Shia paramilitary group— to launch several operations against the Islamic State. The operations aimed to neutralize known Islamic State enclaves in mostly Sunni regions of northern and western Iraq. They also aimed to capture Islamic State regional commanders, most of whom operate along Iraq’s borders with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria.
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► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 11 May 2020 | PermalinkAdvertisements
News Source: https://intelnews.org/2020/05/11/01-2773/
