ISIL has carried out a series of deadly attacks in northern Iraq that are being attributed to the group's use of sleeper cells in an offensive that could disrupt the country's upcoming elections.
The violence - at least 25 civilians and government fighters have been killed since Sunday - has been centred around Kirkuk province, with the insurgents boldly established checkpoints on the main road to Baghdad.
The uptick in attacks indicate that despite no longer controlling large swathes of territory, ISIL is far from a spent force in Iraq, undermining the government's claim that the group has been defeated.
In December, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi declared final victory over ISIL, after national security forces recaptured the last main areas controlled by the group.
But previously dormant fighters now appear to be mounting a campaign to undermine the nation's parliamentary elections in May.
"There are terrorist activities ongoing around Kirkuk, and on the Baghdad road," a senior police officer told The National, recounting suicide car bombs, raids, the assassinations of people close to the government or security forces, and fake checkpoints. The officer asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of publicly acknowledging that ISIL is regrouping.
The government has largely retained control of the country this year but other liberated areas such as Salahaddin and Diyala provinces have already suffered ISIL attacks.
Mr Abadi has acknowledged the threat posed by ISIL but any sustained effort to kill civilians, soldiers or police would undermine the prime minister's push to voters that he is the best candidate to protect Iraq from attack.
On Sunday evening, ISIL members set up a temporary checkpoint on the highway between Kirkuk and the Iraqi capital. The militants then reportedly attacked a car travelling south between Daquq and Tuz Khurmato — an ethnically mixed area previously riven by sectarian tensions. Five members of one family were said to have been killed. ISIL claimed responsibility for the attacks and published footage from the ambush which it said targeted Shiites.
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Iraq's Abadi orders 'immediate' probe into killing of officer at checkpoint
Iraq MPs call for timetable for foreign troop pullout
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The unrest also threatens to destabilise oil-producing Kirkuk province, parts of which changed hands last year when national police and soldiers took over from Kurdish forces who had held the eponymous city and its oil fields since 2014.
In a document released on March 8, ISIL claimed to have carried out 58 attacks around Kirkuk since December 20. Entitled "Harvest of Kirkuk", it listed a string of assassinations, suicide attacks, raids and improvised explosions that the group said had killed or injured 153 members of the Iraqi security forces.
Security sources told The National that ISIL sleeper cells have been able to take refuge in large tracts of ungoverned areas around the town of Hawija and in the Hamrin Mountains, emerging to carry out hit and run attacks.
In one such attack in mid-February, 27 Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) Shiite militiamen were reported killed in an ISIL ambush in Hawija. Reasserting government control over such a large rural area has proved to be beyond the capabilities of Iraqi forces, which remain stretched after three years of concerted fighting against insurgents.
"The militants are regrouping and retraining to carry out attacks on security forces in the region," Sarhad Qader, the former police chief of Kirkuk, told The National.
"There are hundreds of villages around the Hamrin mountain range which are beyond security forces patrols and control."
Mr Qader, a Kurd who was ousted from his role last October after federal forces reasserted control over Kirkuk, said: "The road of Baghdad from Kirkuk traverses remote areas. That makes it easy for ISIL militants to carry out ambushes."
The ability of ISIL members to blend into communities has also made them hard to pinpoint and dislodge.
"The ISIL militants are local and they know the area very well that give them advantage over the security forces," Mr Qader added. "They can move relatively freely in the area and the villagers cannot object because if they cooperate with the security forces they know how severe the consequences will be for them."
ISIL also appears to be regrouping in Nineveh province, whose capital Mosul is still severely damaged from a nine-month battle to recapture it which ended last July.
Police last week released photos of what it said was a huge weapons cache being transported to the northern city's Al Quds neighbourhood. The photos showed crates of ammunition and hundreds of rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles, many still wrapped in plastic from the factory.
With billions of dollars of damage inflicted on areas hit by fighting against ISIL, Sunni leaders in Nineveh are trying to maintain close relations with the Baghdad government to secure investment for reconstruction.
While it appears unlikely ISIL could recapture or hold large tracts of territory like it did in 2014, when around a third of the country came under their control, the potential for escalation remains.
"I don't know whether we could call this a proper insurgency as of now, but there are signs that it could develop if action is not taken," said Sajad Jiyad, the managing director of Al-Bayan Centre for Planning and Studies, a Baghdad-based think tank.
"The area around Kirkuk and Hawija has not been liberated for long, and it takes time to reassert control and for intelligence and local security forces to get to grip with what’s going on in these villages and towns. Our forces are fully stretched trying to secure the Syrian border, the Baghdad belt and other areas."
With Turkmen, Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs living in disputed territories, the region has long been fraught with sectarian tensions. "The dispute between the Kurdistan regional government and Baghdad over territory is something that Daesh is looking to take advantage of," Jiyad added, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.
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The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
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The specs: 2018 BMW R nineT Scrambler
Price, base / as tested Dh57,000
Engine 1,170cc air/oil-cooled flat twin four-stroke engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 110hp) @ 7,750rpm
Torque 116Nm @ 6,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.3L / 100km
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
In 2018, the ICRC received 27,756 trace requests in the Middle East alone. The global total was 45,507.
There are 139,018 global trace requests that have not been resolved yet, 55,672 of these are in the Middle East region.
More than 540,000 individuals approached the ICRC in the Middle East asking to be reunited with missing loved ones in 2018.
The total figure for the entire world was 654,000 in 2018.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The%20specs
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MATCH INFO
Manchester United 1 (Rashford 36')
Liverpool 1 (Lallana 84')
Man of the match: Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
The Sky Is Pink
Director: Shonali Bose
Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim, Rohit Saraf
Three stars
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Volunteers offer workers a lifeline
Community volunteers have swung into action delivering food packages and toiletries to the men.
When provisions are distributed, the men line up in long queues for packets of rice, flour, sugar, salt, pulses, milk, biscuits, shaving kits, soap and telecom cards.
Volunteers from St Mary’s Catholic Church said some workers came to the church to pray for their families and ask for assistance.
Boxes packed with essential food items were distributed to workers in the Dubai Investments Park and Ras Al Khaimah camps last week. Workers at the Sonapur camp asked for Dh1,600 towards their gas bill.
“Especially in this year of tolerance we consider ourselves privileged to be able to lend a helping hand to our needy brothers in the Actco camp," Father Lennie Connully, parish priest of St Mary’s.
Workers spoke of their helplessness, seeing children’s marriages cancelled because of lack of money going home. Others told of their misery of being unable to return home when a parent died.
“More than daily food, they are worried about not sending money home for their family,” said Kusum Dutta, a volunteer who works with the Indian consulate.
ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars;
- energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes,
- many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How to vote in the UAE
1) Download your ballot https://www.fvap.gov/
2) Take it to the US Embassy
3) Deadline is October 15
4) The embassy will ensure all ballots reach the US in time for the November 3 poll
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Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
Honeymoonish
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