The resurgence of the Islamic State can be attributed to a weakened Iraqi government along with an administrative and security vacuum in the country.
The Islamic State (IS) has carried out a series of attacks in recent times which has led security studies analysts to take note of the resurgence of the terrorist and extremist groups in Iraq. According to a May 2020 report by the Combating Terrorism Centre (CTC), there has been a surge in attack activities in the second half of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.
The number of reported Islamic State attacks increased from 1,470 in 2018 to 1,669 in 2019, with 566 reported attacks in the first quarter of 2020 alone. As per the CTC report, the number of areas with active attack cells seems to nearly double, from an assessed 27 areas in December 2018 to an assessed 47 areas in May 2020. The IS attacks have taken place in the provinces of Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa and Salah al-Din. The IS has also plenty of fighters at its disposal.
In May 2020, assessments from the U.S. Central Command, the Defence Intelligence Agency and the U.S.-led coalition, shared in a report by the Defense Department Inspector General, claimed that the IS as a group was still operating mostly on the margins, both in Iraq and Syria and the terror group lacks the capabilities to sustain that pace over several months. However, many security experts contend that the U.S.-led coalition is unable to see key changes on the ground.
The most recent U.S. estimates put the terror group’s force strength in Iraq and Syria at anywhere from 14,000 to 18,000 fighters. Further, despite the U.S. raid that killed former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October last year, IS has maintained command and control under new leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.
Financing is also not a problem for the IS as the group has financial access to hundreds of millions of dollars, with new money coming in from extortion rackets, kidnappings for ransom, looting and the use of front companies. The resurgence of the Islamic State can be attributed to a weakened Iraqi government along with an administrative and security vacuum in the country.
Reports have suggested that the IS has increased its presence significantly in villages and suburbs across Iraq and Syria. The IS has also increased its information network having a greater knowledge of troop movements and also identifying more bases through which it can launch terror attacks.
Another factor attributed to the resurgence of the Islamic State is the ongoing tensions between the US and Iran. Attacks in Khatuniya region went up after the U.S. assassinated the Iranian military leader Qassem Suleimani on Iraqi territory in January, 2020.
In response, the Iraqi Parliament backed a resolution in which the Prime Minister called for all foreign troops to be ordered out of the country. The U.S.-led coalition suspended its activities to protect “all Coalition personnel committed to the defeat of Daesh”. The IS militants have also taken advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown. The IS has mentioned coronavirus in its propaganda and urged its supporters to take advantage of governments’ distraction to scale up the attacks. In an audio recording released in late May, IS Spokesperson Abu Hamza al-Quraishi encouraged the IS insurgents and sympathizers to increase their activities against the Iraqi government targets. Al-Quraishi, in the message, described the COVID-19 as a punishment for “the crusaders”, promising that “great opportunities” were ahead for the diminished group.
The Islamic State further took advantage of the halt in the activities of the Iraqi as well as the Coalition forces as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Addressing the resurgence of the Islamic State will require Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to address issues with the international coalition against the IS and ensure that there is no further withdrawal of the military actors waged in a war against the IS.