About 1.000 Islamic State fighters have returned to Iraq in recent months and are waging a low-level uprising that threatens to destabilize rural areas and could be the harbinger of a new war, an expert warned. Thousands of fighters belonging to the Islamic State - also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS - entered Syria in late 2017. In December XNUMX, the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the victory in the war against the Sunni militant group. Since then, however, many of these fighters have returned to Iraq from Syria and are now rearming themselves against the Iraqi state, which they see as dominated by Iranian-allied Shia.
In an article published Sunday, the Washington Post quotes Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi security adviser to the Baghdad government, who has sounded the alarm that ISIS is regrouping in Iraq. Al-Hashimi told The Post that about 1.000 ISIS fighters have entered Iraq from Syria since December 2018. Most of them are Iraqi citizens who are returning to Sunni-majority areas of the country that were previously considered strongholds of the country. 'ISIS in 2018. Upon their return, the fighters join small ISIS cells operating mainly in rural areas of central and northern Iraq. They move at night and are familiar with the local terrain, which allows them to effectively use a variety of hiding places. These cells can now be found in places ranging from the city of Kirkuk in the north to Diyala province east of Baghdad. They are responsible for dozens of kidnappings, roadside bombings and sniper attacks targeting local officials and security personnel. Local observers point out that the emerging ISIS cells are too weak to threaten the Iraqi government's territorial control of the country. However, they are rapidly destabilizing the rural areas of the country and appear to be preparing for a prolonged insurrection that could potentially lead to another major tribal war.
The Washington Post report comes a month after a group of researchers from the Institute for the Study of War had already warned that the Islamic State is capable of making a sudden return to the Middle East and that it could be "faster and even more devastating ”compared to 2014, when the group quickly conquered a territory the size of Great Britain. In a 76-page article titled The Second Return of ISIS. The report notes that government forces have found it "increasingly difficult to establish lasting and legitimate security and political structures" in those areas, but they should also be concerned about the possibility that ISIS will actually regain territory in both Iraq and Syria.
