ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Almost two years after the Islamic State group was announced territorially defeated in Iraq, the US-led coalition fighting the militant group has said it conducted 47 airstrikes on targets over September and October, while Iraq’s counter-terrorism forces and predominantly Shiite militias have reported counter-ISIS gains in operations conducted on Monday.
Nineteen airstrikes were conducted against ISIS targets in Iraq in October, according to a November 13 press release from the US-led Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR). In September, it conducted 28 airstrikes against ISIS targets in the country, their November 16 release detailed.
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. It has conducted some 34,674 strikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria between August 2014 and the end of September 2019.
The group was declared defeated by former Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi in December 2017. However, remnants of the group continue to operate, returning to earlier insurgency tactics including ambushes, kidnaps and targeted killings.
The US-led coalition has supported the Iraqi army in operations to eradicate these remnants. Operations have focused on the northwest of the country, including areas disputed between Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. As yet, operations have failed to entirely clear their presence, and military bodies worldwide have warned the group is still resurging.
ISIS propaganda outlets have continued to publish claims of attacks it has conducted. According to the group’s weekly Al-Naba newspaper, its militants conducted more than 161 attacks against security forces and locals in Iraq in September alone.
Iraqi Counter Terrorism Forces (ICTS) conducted an anti-ISIS operation on Makhool Mountain, Saladin province on Monday, destroying six ISIS ‘nests’ in the area, according to state media outlet INA .
The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi), a predominantly Shiite group of militias and a long-term partner in Iraqi security force operations against ISIS, claimed on Monday that it had detained a number of ISIS militants and family members in Mosul.
The detained were reportedly smuggled into the city from northeastern Syria’s notorious al-Hol camp, where tens of thousands of ISIS suspects, widows and children are being held.
“A unit of Hashd al-Shaabi detained a number of ISIS militants and ISIS families who have been smuggled into the Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday,” a Monday statement from the PMF read. “The Hashd al-Shaabi unit handed the detainees over to the Iraqi army for investigations.”
