Islamic State desert bases still headache for Iraq
As Iraqi forces continue cleansing the western desert to keep the Syrian-Iraqi border region calm, Islamic State counterattacks in Syria are posing a new risk across the border.
AL-QAIM, Iraq – With police being targeted in their homes near Ramadi, and with the Islamic State (IS) still in possession of bases in the vast Iraqi desert, counterattacks on forces across the border in Syria are of growing concern to the Iraqis.
Security sources deployed to the area told Al-Monitor that with the recent military campaign launched by Turkey in northern Syria against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), there is a risk that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the YPG, might withdraw from their positions in nearby eastern Syria to assist their fellow Kurds to the north. Such a development could make it easier for remaining IS forces in Syria to slip across the border and cause trouble.
Despite a Dec. 7 Russian declaration that IS had been defeated in Syria, some villages and areas in the east near the Iraqi border remain under the extremist group's control. The former rapper and IS convert known as Deso Dogg was reportedly killed Jan. 17 in an airstrike on Gharanij, one of the three main towns of the Shaitat tribe now under SDF control, but where clashes with IS continue to be reported. IS still holds the areas of Hejin and Soussa.
Local intelligence is likely to be key to preventing the remaining IS members in sleeper cells and in the desert, estimated at a few thousand, from conducting major attacks in the near future, as well as preventing fighters from slipping across the border into Iraq from Syria.
