ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – US-led coalition forces will not allow Islamic State (ISIS) remnants to reestablish their ‘caliphate’ in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq and Syria despite the group’s growing resurgence, coalition spokesman Col. Myles Caggins III told Rudaw last week.
The coalition was established in 2014 after ISIS militants seized vast swathes of northern Iraq, including Iraq’s second city of Mosul, and threatened to march on Baghdad and Erbil.
Coalition forces launched airstrikes against ISIS positions and provided Iraqi and Kurdish forces with arms and training. The coalition also partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria to retake northern cities overrun by ISIS.
Caggins warns the fight against ISIS is not over in Iraq or Syria “despite the significant decrease of ISIS attacks in the area”.
“ISIS wants to become the caliphate which they once were, but that won’t happen, and that is because of the strong response the coalition forces have alongside the Iraqi army partners and the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria,” Caggins said.
“I want to describe it as we are punching ISIS with the right hand, which is the ISF, and with the left hand with the SDF.”
However, ISIS is resurging in Iraq and Syria, mainly in Sunni-majority provinces of Iraq, such as Diyala, Saladin, Nineveh, and Anbar, Caggins acknowledged.
“To eliminate the threats of ISIS, the coalition is committed to keep finding and destroying the ISIS hideouts in Iraq and Syria, with the help of ISF and CTS in Iraq, and SDF in Syria,” he said.
ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December in 2017 and in Syria in March 2019.
However, the group continues to pose a serious security threat in both countries. Militants have formed sleeper cells and resorted to earlier guerrilla tactics, taking advantage of security vacuums.
According to a report from the Pentagon Inspector General which covers April to late June, ISIS has attempted to expand its influence over populations in the Sunni-majority provinces north and west of Baghdad and has reorganized its leadership and established safe havens in rural Sunni-majority areas.
Caggins said the coalition will continue to train and advise Iraqi and Peshmerga forces in Iraq and the SDF in northeast Syria.
Iraqi forces, including the Peshmerga, will soon start a wide operation against ISIS in Iraq, Caggins told Rudaw.
The ISF, in collaboration with various other domestic forces, has already conducted a series of military operations known as the “Will of Victory” in an effort to eradicate the remaining ISIS presence in Iraq.
“The coalition will keep on providing Iraqi forces and Peshmerga forces in Iraq, and SDF in Syria with sufficient airstrikes to assist them in fighting ISIS,” Caggins said.
The coalition conducted 34,514 strikes across both Iraq and Syria between August 2014 and the end of May 2019, according to a Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve monthly civilian casualty report released on June 28, 2019.
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