Syria’s Hasakah incidents arouse security alert in Iraq
ERBIL, KRG, Iraq (North Press) – The Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced, Monday, a security brief by the armed forces regarding operations launched against the Islamic State Organization (ISIS) adding that borders are fully secured as they seized control over the international border strip.
This came two weeks after intensive air and land operations against ISIS following incidents of al-Sina’a prison in Ghuweiran neighborhood in Hasakah, northeast Syria.
Frequent statements by governments of Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRG) were released, especially after al-Sina’a prison attack, that ISIS is still a threat on the country although it was completely defeated in Iraq 5 years ago.
Indeed, the ISIS attack on Hasakah was lunched in tandem with another brutal attack by the organization on Diyala governorate where 11 soldiers of Iraqi troops were killed.
With the participation of the KRG, border guard forces were deployed alongside the border strip with Syria, the Joint Operation Command noted in a press conference, yesterday.
During January, 22 airstrikes were launched killing 22 ISIS militants were killed and six sites of ISIS were damaged.
“The apparatus conducted 21 operations last month, during which 17 ISIS militants were captured and they are under investigation now,” head of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS), Colonel General Abdul-Wahab al-Saedi, said in a press conference.
Secure border with Syria
Al-Saedi said that the border is monitored by IP security cameras indicating that their forces tighten their control on most of the “cross border smuggling processes.”
“15 billion dinars were allocated to secure the border with Syria,” Lieutenant-General Hamid Al-Husseini, commander of the Border Guard Forces, said.
Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Kazemi, during his visit to the border strip with Syria, vowed to pursue ISIS members inside and outside Iraq’s borders.
Kazemi paid the visit to the border near the district of Shengal (Sinjar), to see the procedures and precautions taken by the security and military forces and inspect whether they are ready to counter any ISIS attack.
Diyala, Saladin, Kirkuk and Nineveh governorates are hotbeds where ISIS actively operates according to the number of operations launched by the organization.
Diyala to Nineveh
The axis passing throughout the country from the east in Diyala governorate to the west in Nineveh governorate near the border with Syria witnessed renewed activity by ISIS which was encountered by Iraqi forces military through launching campaigns , airstrikes and arrests.
The security vacuum in the disputed areas between Baghdad and Erbil is also a prominent factor, where boundaries between the two governments have witnessed, over the past few months, even bloodier operations targeting Peshmerga forces in Garmian and Makhmur killing at least 25 people, most of them were of the Peshmerga.
After the bloody attack, joint security operations were conducted between the Iraqi army and Peshmerga in Diyala and Kirkuk governorates to pursue ISIS sleeper cells.
Inspecting prisons
The anti-terrorism apparatus in Iraq conducted a major inspection campaign in prisons in several governorates, lasted between January 22 and 30 following the ISIS attack in Syria’s Hasakah prison in an attempt to escape their fellows out from the prison.
The campaign included several prisons that house ISIS members, the apparatus said in a statement, Sunday.
The campaign aim to take security measures in order to eliminate “terrorism ideologically and on the ground.”
Ideological threat
Having ISIS members in Syria’s northeast without trying them is a major danger particularly after it has followed new methods in waging attacks, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Peshmerga, Jabar Yawar, said on Monday.
ISIS have not been eliminated yet, “and it adopts new methods launching attacks in small groups, set ambushes, snipers, mines or kidnapping people and then releasing them in exchange for ransoms,” Yawar told North Press.
He believes that overcrowding of ISIS militants in prisons in northeast Syria and the KRG transfer the prisons to ideological schools.
The security media cell announced on January 24, killing of four ISIS militants in airstrikes targeted gathering of them northern Saladin governorate, central Iraq, a day after killing two ISIS leaders wearing explosive belts in addition to another one was with them in the same car south Mosul.
Earlier, another operation to pursue radical ISIS sleeper cells south of Mosul was launched with the participation of army, police and Popular Mobilization Forces to clear the Hatra desert which links three Nineveh, Saladin and al-Anbar governorates of ISIS cells..
Last week, the joint Iraqi operation command launched a large-scale security operation against ISIS, included Diyala and Saladin governorates in response to the ISIS attacks on Iraqi soldiers in al-Azim region three, which killed 10 soldiers and a colonel.
Early this week, the Iraqi army announced the killing of an ISIS sleeper cell, which involved in the massacre, with three of them bearing the Lebanese nationality, according to Iraqi official agency.