ISIS attacks surge as region deals with coronavirus

There have been blasts in Egypt, Iraq and Syria in recent days

Iraqi forces during a search operation in Taramiyah, 50 kilometres north of Baghdad, April 30, 2020. AP

The man wearing an explosive vest emerged from a car and calmly marched toward the gates of the intelligence building in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk. When he ignored their shouts to halt, guards opened fire, and he blew himself up, wounding three security personnel in the first week of Ramadan.

Days later, a three-pronged co-ordinated attack killed 10 Iraqi militia fighters in the northern province of Salahaddin — the deadliest and most complex operation in many months.

The assaults are the latest in a resurgence of attacks by the ISIS in northern Iraq. The first was a brazen suicide mission not seen in months. The second was among the most complex attacks since the group’s defeat in 2017. In neighbouring Syria, ISIS attacks on security forces, oil fields and civilian sites have also intensified.

Up to 10 Egyptian soldiers were killed and three wounded on Thursday when a bomb hit an armoured vehicle south of Bir Al Abd city in the northern Sinai region in attack later claimed by ISIS.

The renewed mayhem is a sign that the militant group is taking advantage of governments absorbed in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing slide into economic chaos. The virus is compounding longtime concerns among security and UN experts that the group would stage a comeback after its “caliphate,” which once encompassed a third of Iraq and Syria, was brought down last year.

In Iraq, militants also exploit security gaps at a time of an ongoing territorial dispute and a US troop drawdown.

“It’s a real threat,” said Qubad Talabani, deputy prime minister of the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. “They are mobilising and killing us in the north and they will start hitting Baghdad soon.” He said ISIS was benefiting from a “gap” between Kurdish forces and federal armed forces caused by political infighting.

Intelligence reports say the number of ISIS fighters in Iraq is believed to be 2,500-3,000.

In northeast Syria, Kurdish-dominated police have become a more visible target for ISIS as they patrol the streets to implement anti-virus measures, said Mervan Qamishlo, a spokesman for US-allied Kurdish-led forces.

ISIS fighters in late March launched a campaign of attacks in government-held parts of Syria, from the central province of Homs all the way to Deir Ezzour to the east, bordering Iraq.

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Coronavirus around the Middle East

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  A security guard checks the temperature of a man at a shopping mall after the Saudi government eased a curfew and allowed stores to open. Reuters

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  After some seven weeks of lockdown, then full curfews on weekends, hairdressers, textile, shoes and some other businesses of Jordan were allowed on the last week of April to reopen their shops. EPA

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  Lebanese nationals who were stranded abroad due to the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic arrive from Cairo at Beirut international airport. EPA

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  Lebanese nationals who were stranded abroad due to the coronavirus pandemic arrive from Cairo at Beirut international airport, Lebanon. EPA

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  A street vendor walks along a road during a countrywide lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease in Sidon, Lebanon. Reuters

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  People line up while social distancing to use an ATM at a shopping mall in Saudi Arabia. Reuters

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  A woman wearing a protective mask walks at a shopping mall after the Saudi government eased a curfew and allowed stores to open, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease. Reuters

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  A woman stands on a social distancing marker at a shopping mall after the Saudi government eased a curfew. Reuters

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  Mayor of the municipality of Tunis Souad Abderrahim distributes free masks in front of the central market in Tunis. EPA

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  A Tunisian Red Crescent member distributes free masks in front of the central market in Tunis. EPA

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  Men wearing protective face masks are pictured in downtown Cairo, amidst concerns about the spread of the coronavirus disease. Reuters

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  A Yemeni wearing a protective face mask passes the shops of dates, a popular appetizer for breaking the fast during Ramadan, at a market in Sanaa. EPA

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  A Yemeni wears a protective face mask while attending a meeting on coronavirus awareness amid the ongoing coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic in Sanaa. EPA

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Some 500 fighters, including some who had escaped from prison, recently slipped from Syria into Iraq, helping fuel the surge in violence there, Iraqi intelligence officials said.

ISIS is shifting from local intimidation to more complex attacks, three Iraqi military officials and experts said. Operations previously focused on assassinations of local officials and less sophisticated attacks. Now the group is carrying out more IED attacks, shootings and ambushes of police and military. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

Multiple factors help the militants. The number of Iraqi military personnel on duty has dropped 50 per cent because of virus prevention measures, the military officials said.

Also, territorial disputes between Baghdad and authorities from the northern Kurdish autonomy zone have left parts of three provinces without law enforcement. The rugged landscape is difficult to police.

The uptick also coincides with a pullout of US-led coalition forces from bases in western Iraq, Nineveh and Kirkuk provinces in line with a drawdown conceived in December.

“Before the emergence of the virus and before the American withdrawal, the operations were negligible, numbering only one operation per week,” said a senior intelligence official. Now, he said, security forces are seeing an average of 20 operations a month. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authoried to brief the media.

Coalition spokesman Col Myles B Caggins III said ISIS attacks were increasing in reaction to operations against its hideouts in the mountains and rural areas of north-central Iraq.

Iraqi military officials believe the improved, organised nature of the attacks serves to cement the influence of new ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim Al Hashimi Al Quraishi, who was named after his predecessor was killed in a US raid late last year. One military official said more operations are expected during Ramadan to demonstrate the new leader’s strength.

In Syria, one of the most significant attacks occurred April 9, when ISIS fighters attacked government positions in and near the town of Sukhna. The government brought in reinforcements for a counterattack backed by Russian airstrikes.

Two days of fighting left 32 troops and 26 ISIS gunmen dead, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the country’s nine-year war.

Days later, the government said that because of the security situation in the desert several gas wells in the fields of Shaer and Hayan were damaged, leading to a 30 per cent drop in electricity production.

Back in Iraq, the green pastures of the northern village of Kujalo conceal a hidden enemy that keeps resident Nawzad up at night. His farming community lies in a disputed territory that has witnessed a sharp increase in attacks, including a nearby ambush earlier this month that killed two peshmerga officers.

He said the militants have local collaborators. “They know everything about each farm in Kulajo and they know to whom each house belongs,” he said, asking to be identified only by his first name, fearing reprisals.

The militants also receive shelter, supplies, food and transport from local sympathisers, said Kurdish Brig Kamal Mahmoud. His peshmerga forces are based on part of the front lines there, but can’t operate in other parts run by government troops — and there, he said, the overstretched security forces control only main roads with no presence in villages and towns.

On April 1, a federal police officer was killed, and a battalion commander and brigadier general wounded in a security operation in the Makhoul mountain range in Diyala. Two days later, an IED attack targeted a patrol of a commando regiment of the Diyala Operations Command in the outskirts of Maadan village.

Sartip, a Kujalo resident, said he fears the militants’ improved capabilities.

“ISIS has been carrying out attacks in Kurdish areas for a long time, but now they are more organised and have more people,” he said