It was a bleak day in the town of Chamchamal in Iraqi Kurdistan. Droplets splattered from dark, dense clouds rumbling overhead. The same heaviness filled the home of Mahmoud Mohammad, a Kurdish Peshmerga soldier killed in battle.
Relatives were gathered there to mourn the loss of this much-loved family man of 44, one of three Peshmerga soldiers shot dead by Isis fighters near the Iranian border on December 4. Two others were injured during the night-time attack.
A spate of recent Isis attacks in the region have claimed a further 11 lives and more than 20 have been injured, suggesting that, two years after losing the last of its territory in Iraq, the extremist terror group whose “caliphate” once held sway across a region the size of Britain in Syria and Iraq, is stirring again.
For the moment, the remnants of Isis are confined to the shadows, hiding by day in a warren of caves and tunnels in a vast, disputed no-man’s land in northern Iraq, emerging to carry out hit-and-run attacks under cover of darkness. Yet the prospect of them gaining strength to pose a renewed threat to the whole region is being taken seriously by their opponents on the front line.
“We believe that it’s gone beyond regrouping,” Ranj Talabani, a Kurdish security official told The Sunday Times in the city of Sulaimaniya. “Isis is now back on the operational stage.”
At an outpost overlooking a swathe of uncontrolled territory separating Iraq from the autonomous Kurdish region, Major General Sirwan Barzani, a Peshmerga commander, acknowledged that Isis had a free rein in the area.
The latest attacks, he feared, were “just the beginning”. Attempted attacks had become “a daily occurrence”. He said grimly: “Next year will be worse if they continue to regain power.”
The group had changed strategy, he added. “They don’t have the numbers to hold ground so, instead, they are using guerrilla tactics” making them more difficult to target. Like their predecessors in al-Qaeda, Isis fighters have gone underground, many of them in Iraq’s Hamrin and Qara Chokh mountains.
As Barzani spoke, his troops — part of a contingent of several hundred stationed throughout the Qara Chokh mountain range — kept watch through thick fog from behind sandbags. They claimed that on a clear day they could see Isis fighters bathing in springs in the valley below.
Peshmerga fighters said their foes seem to have abandoned the black flag that once fluttered over their territory in favour of a new image: a tiger emblazoned on a white background. Some guessed that the new flag was an attempt to confuse enemies.
Safadin Mohammad, 34, nephew of the slain Peshmerga fighter, talked of a determined enemy. “It was heavy fog — perfect conditions for an attack because of the reduced visibility,” said the soldier, who had fought alongside his uncle. “The attack began at 8.30pm. The first Peshmerga to be killed was shot in the chest.
“There was shooting between the two sides and then the second Peshmerga was shot in the head.” Unbeknown to Safadin, that was his uncle.
Amid the chaos, one of Safadin’s comrades shouted out that his uncle had been hit. “It was the worst moment of my life,” he said, as Mahmoud’s widow and mother-of-five, Layla, wept silently next to him.
Eventually, reinforcements arrived and the fighting subsided, allowing Safadin to be with his uncle in his final moments. “He was a great man, his death has affected the whole community. ”
According to Safadin, intelligence regarding an imminent attack was shared with the base’s lieutenant, but he failed to inform the soldiers on the ground.
He is concerned at the prospect of an Isis resurgence. “They have the advantage of sophisticated weapons,” he said, claiming that the enemy had assault rifles, night-vision binoculars, sniper rifles and explosives.
The city of Kirkuk has been the target of several attacks in recent months. On Friday an American civilian contractor was killed and several US troops wounded in a rocket attack on a base in the city housing forces in the coalition to defeat Isis. It was not immediately clear who was to blame, but American officials believe Iranian-backed militias are behind a spate of attacks targeting US bases over the past two months. Last month five Italian soldiers were seriously wounded in a roadside explosion.
Talabani believed that Isis would continue exploiting a sense of isolation felt by Sunni Muslims to recruit members and stressed the threat that this could soon pose if not contained. He believed the group, notorious for its gruesome videos of beheadings, was trying to put on a show of strength after the demise of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its leader, who had proclaimed the caliphate in 2014.
The man thought likely to be his successor, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, the group’s spokesman, was killed in a separate raid.
Last week, an Isis affiliate in Nigeria claimed responsibility for the murder of 11 people in retaliation for the deaths of al-Baghdadi and al-Muhajir.
A video of the killings released on Thursday called them a “message for Christians”.
@Charlie_Faulk
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