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Iraq
KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani met with Iraq's Defense Minister Juma Inad to discuss a joint mechanism to combat ISIS in Iraq. Photo: KRG Prime Minister's Office
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — As Islamic State (ISIS) militants continue to launch attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces, officials have been shuttling between Baghdad and Erbil to discuss a possible joint security mechanism to secure disputed territories of Iraq and prevent further instability.
Iraqi Defense Minister Juma Inad arrived in Erbil on Thursday to discuss increased coordination between Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga forces to fill the security vacuum in the disputed areas. Inad stressed the importance of “close coordination” between Iraqi forces and Peshmerga forces against ISIS in the disputed areas.
In the meeting, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani stressed the need to implement a joint security coordination mechanism between Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army in the face of threats by ISIS. The same issue was on the agenda when Barzani received the chief American military attache to Iraq on Tuesday, and when Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani met with the US and UK ambassadors in Baghdad today.
The flurry of diplomatic shuttling follows as Iraq’s Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, is set to visit Washington next month to attend highly anticipated talks between the United States and Iraq.
The long-awaited strategic dialogue between the US and Iraq, the first talks of their kind in more than a decade, aim to put all bilateral issues on the table including the faltering Iraqi economy and the possible withdrawal of US troops.
The critical focus will be on improving security cooperation between Baghdad and Erbil in response to attacks that continue to plague Iraq’s disputed territories.
Though ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017, remnants of the group have taken root in sparsely-populated provinces where control is disputed between the Iraqi central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. In Kirkuk, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces, ISIS has resumed using insurgency tactics including ambushes, kidnappings and targeted killings to harass the local population.
ISIS is able to take advantage of political fissures between Kurdish and Iraqi forces in the territories. The final status of the ethnically diverse and resource-rich areas surrounding Kirkuk was left unsettled between Erbil and Baghdad, leading to a vacuum of uncertainty of who controls them.
ISIS has vowed to exploit the drawdown of American troops, who have been repositioned away from several Iraq military bases in recent months, leaving the fight against ISIS in the hands of Iraqi Security Forces.
While it has kept up small-scale attacks and ambitious threats on its communication channels, a Pentagon assessment issued in May found that ISIS’ capabilities remain minimal.
“ISIS used to hold 110,000 square kilometers of territory. Now they hold zero, and we assess that they cannot hold physical territory, but they are able to have a low level insurgency where they can conduct crimes and harass people and small attacks,” US Army Colonel Myles Caggins III told Rudaw English in an interview in April.
“We know that they are conducting criminal activity, mostly to get money. ISIS is broke. They can't pay their fighters like they used to be able to pay their fighters. So they're stealing cow, they're stealing sheep,” said Col. Caggins, spokesperson for the anti-ISIS coalition forces. “They can hide in caves and then come out of the caves at night and harass people in the villages.
Several villagers were killed in an ISIS attack in Khanaqin in mid-June, prompting Kurdish leaders to renew calls for joint security coordination in the disputed territories.
Last week, ISIS claimed in its weekly propaganda newsletter, “al-Naba,” that its militants had carried out 52 attacks in Iraq between June 11 and 17 alone – almost half of them in Diyala province.
Jabar Yawar, chief of staff at the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, warned in April that the ISIS resurgence has been underway for some time.
“According to our data, the group increased its activities in 2018 and 2019, especially in Kurdistani areas outside of the Kurdistan Region administration, including Diyala, Hamrin, Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmatu, and Qarachogh. In Qarachogh, they even established bases,” Yawar told Rudaw.
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