HAWI AL-AZIM , Iraq — Bullet holes riddle the concrete
watchtower of a remote
Iraqi army outpost north of Baghdad, a sign of the
Daesh group’s night-time attack that killed 11 soldiers.
اضافة اعلان
The small riverside base is ringed by sand berms, a shallow
moat and coils of razor wire, and three soldiers in mismatched uniforms are
busy strengthening it with cement and cinder blocks.
It has been four years since the Islamist extremist group
lost its self-proclaimed "caliphate" stretching across much of Iraq
and
Syria after long and grueling battles.
But
Daesh fighters remain active in a low-level insurgency
and have recently stepped up their hit-and-run attacks against anyone in
uniform, or anyone else who dares to stand up to them.
"They hide in holes dug into the ground or in abandoned
houses," said a senior Iraqi army officer during a visit Monday to the
dusty outpost in the eastern province of Diyala.
"This is also where they hide their explosives and
weapons," he told AFP during the trip, asking not to be identified.
The unenviable task of Iraq's security forces is to hunt
Daesh cells in a vast territory that stretches from Baghdad to Kirkuk, nearly
250km to the north, straddling three provinces.
At this outpost, one of a string of bases along the banks of
the Adhaim river, Daesh fighters struck in the middle of a bitterly cold night,
last Friday at 2:30am, killing 11 soldiers.
The ambush came at the same time that, across the border in
Syria, more than 100 Daesh fighters launched their biggest attack in years, on
a prison in the northeastern city of Hasakeh, attempting to free fellow
fighters.
The fierce battle there still has raged on, with the death
toll topping 160 on Tuesday, as US-backed
Kurdish forces surrounded the prison,
while Daesh fighters remained holed up inside with thousands of detainees.
Bloody cat-and-mouse game
In Iraq, troops and police have been sweeping the area along
the Adhaim river since the attack last week, in the latest chapter of a bloody
cat-and-mouse game with the terrorists.
"We have been in this area for four days," said
Capt. Azhar al-Juburi of the Federal Police Rapid Response Force as he returned
from a patrol.
"We haven't had any direct confrontation, but we have
arrested terrorists."
The local soldiers were not allowed to speak with visiting
press, but the senior army officer explained that the terrorists "took
advantage of the bad weather and the early hour to attack".
It was "the first time that Daesh has attacked us
directly", he said.
"They did not have the means until now. They were
limited to planting improvised explosive devices and sniper fire."
Diyala's provincial governor Muthanna Al-Tamimi had another
explanation, blaming "the negligence of the soldiers".
"The base is fortified," he said after the attack.
"There is a thermal camera, night vision goggles and a concrete
watchtower."
‘Daesh reorganizing troops’
Whatever the case, said Iraqi analyst Imad Allou, the attack
does underscore that Daesh "is trying to reorganize its troops and
activities in Iraq".
A UN report last year estimated that around 10,000 Daesh
fighters remained active across Iraq and Syria.
The ongoing Daesh presence in Syria is largely in desert
hideouts in the east of the country, where the Kurds maintain a semi-autonomous
administration that borders Iraq.
In Iraq, Daesh is most active in the north but has also
claimed bomb attacks on civilian targets elsewhere, including a blast last July
on a market in Sadr city, a Shiite suburb of Baghdad, that killed dozens.
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