As IS attacks continue, pressure on the Iraqi government to order all foreign forces out increases
Shutterstock
While some say a US presence in Iraq is vital to stability and point to continuing gaps in Iraqi security force capabilities, others say the time for any foreign military presence has passed.
On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week in New York City in late September, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani made remarks that seem to suggest a push to end the US-led international coalition presence in the country.
In an interview with UAE media, he urged a “clear timeline" for how long foreign troops would remain in the country.
Though there are officially no longer any foreign combat forces in Iraq, advisors and trainers remain as part of the international coalition mission against the Islamic State (IS).
Six years after successful coalition-supported battles to push IS fighters out of their few remaining territorial strongholds in the country’s western Anbar region and Hawija, Iraq has shifted its priorities elsewhere.
In the gradually less heavily fortified Green Zone of the Iraqi capital, large billboards now commemorate the lives of Iranian general Qassem Solaimani and Iraq’s Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Both men were killed in a January 2020 drone strike in Baghdad conducted by the same country that has poured billions into training the country’s security forces and whose presence in any form remains highly contentious: the US.
The Ain al-Asad base in Iraq's western Anbar province. March 1, 2022
While some say a US presence in Iraq is vital to stability and point to continuing gaps in Iraqi security force capabilities, others say the time for any foreign military presence – trainers, advisors, or otherwise – has passed.
While some say a US presence in Iraq is vital to stability and point to continuing gaps in Iraqi security force capabilities, others say the time for any foreign military presence – trainers, advisors, or otherwise – has passed.
Attacks continue
IS cells remain active in Iraq, while a recent outbreak of violence across the border where thousands of Iraqi (alleged) IS fighters and their families remain has recently led to a surge in concerns.
Among the more high-profile attacks and deaths, a French commando from the international coalition was killed in Iraq in clashes with IS militants in late summer in mountainous terrain notorious for serving as a hideout for the group.
In September, the tribal council sheikh for northern Baghdad was targeted in an assassination attempt later claimed by the international terrorist group. Though he survived, he sustained injuries and remains under threat. Two of his sons had, in previous years, also been killed.
The French commando died in a 28 August clash lasting five hours, local sources told Al Majalla at that time. Multiple other French members of the unit and their local counterparts from the Iraqi Counterterrorism Services (CTS) they had been supporting were injured.
The fighting ensued after an airdrop into an eastern area of the Salah al-Din province. The airdrop had followed an air strike on the hideout that had not succeeded in killing the militants, who had apparently waited for the commandos to search for the corpses of the IS militants presumed dead — a standard practice the militants are aware of — and then ambushed them, according to Iraqi sources.
France's Le Monde reported that Mazier's death was "also the first death among Special Forces members since the loss of two soldiers from the Hubert commando in Burkina Faso in 2019, during a hostage rescue operation."
Iraqi Baghouz near the Syrian border.
Need for intel
On 17 September, Iraqi defence ministry official Maj. Gen. Yehia Rasoul wrote on the X social media platform that the country's intelligence services had "overthrown a dangerous terrorist network in the capital".
"This operation is linked to a previous operation carried out by the agency in conjunction with the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) on 26 February 2023, which contributed to the killing of 22 terrorists in the Anbar desert in the west of the country," he wrote.
The defence ministry official added that this previous operation had "identified new targets and revealed this network, which was planning to carry out suicide operations targeting religious processions, police stations, checkpoints, and public markets in several cities."
He noted that "after careful field monitoring of its movements, all its members were arrested and confessed to belonging to the terrorist organisation."
A member of the Iraqi security forces deployed to western Anbar told Al Majalla that US advisors from the coalition had been present during the CTS operation in western Anbar that had led to the 22 IS fighters being killed.
At a press conference following that operation, CTS chief Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi said that senior IS leaders had been among those killed and that the fighters had been wearing suicide vests.
He named two of the leaders killed and said 14 of the others had been identified but did not state their names or nationalities.
The security source told Al Majalla in late August that foreign forces were the ones to do the DNA testing and that he was uncertain as to whether the 22 corpses found were of Iraqi nationals or foreigners.
IS cells remain active in Iraq, while a recent outbreak of violence across the border where thousands of Iraqi (alleged) IS fighters and their families remain has recently led to a surge in concerns.
Lebanese IS trainer and foreign fighters?
In late August, IS announced that its military trainer known as Abu Ahmad al-Lubnani had been killed in clashes with Iraq's CTS. It did not state exactly when.
Lubnani, born Abd al-Rahman Musa al-Qarhani in 1995, was a Lebanese national originally from Tripoli's Bab al-Tabbaneh district. He had spent several years in Lebanese prisons after taking part in fighting inside his own country as a teenager prior to being released in 2016. He reportedly joined IS between late 2020 and early 2021.
A local source security in Iraq's western Anbar told Al Majalla that Lubnani had been in charge of IS training activities in the region, which is mostly desert and shares a lengthy border with Syria.
He also claimed that US forces were active in fighting IS in the desert and that it was no longer simply through "airstrikes and drones like it had long been until recently".
Sniper practice on the Ain al-Asad base in western Anbar, a largely desert area of Iraq bordering eastern Syria. Mar. 1, 2022.
He said that US military advisors were accompanying the local forces "with vehicles on the ground" in the region "for about the past six months", and that this showed that they "trusted" the situation under Prime Minister al-Sudani.
The source told Al Majalla that a number of foreign IS fighters had been killed in recent months among the IS cells operating in the country's western desert and that IS activity and hideouts seemed to be concentrated in an area "about 115 km south of Qaim".
Qaim is the main border crossing between Iraq and Syria along the Euphrates River.
Brig. Gen. Abdulamir al-Mohammadawi from Iraq's Emergency Response Division told Al Majalla on 27 September that he did not think Iraq needs international coalition military forces for counter-terrorism operations as the IS presence in the country has been dramatically reduced in recent years.
However, "Iraq needs the coalition for development of the security forces" and other forms of support, including "information gathering and aerial surveillance", especially in "hard to reach areas such as in Diyala and Salah al-Din and Anbar and Mosul".
"We need the coalition for training and advising and logistical support," he added.
Regarding the Iraqi prime minister's recent statements, former coalition spokesman Retired US Army Col. Myles B. Caggins III also gave an overview of the coalition's work in the country to Al Majalla.
"In 2014, (IS) seized large swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq, the government in Baghdad invited the US-led coalition to bring in advisors to help with the defeat" of the international terrorist organisation, he said.
"Since that time, the United States has pumped about one billion dollars a year into the Iraqi coffers and during the peak of the global coalition, there were more than 55,000 members of the Iraqi security forces trained by — not only US troops, but troops from Denmark and Finland and France and (the) United Kingdom and Spain and Italy and Canada," he noted.
"And there is clear evidence," the former spokesman stressed, "that the Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga – in particular, the elite counter-terrorism troops – are stronger and more capable today because of the investments of the global coalition. And where there is security, there is much more appeal for investors."
There is clear evidence that the Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga – in particular, the elite counter-terrorism troops – are stronger and more capable today because of the investments of the global coalition.
Retired US Army Col. Myles B. Caggins III
Counter-terrorism operation in western Anbar near the Iraqi border with eastern Syria.
On whether IS remains a threat, he noted that "each month, the United States Central Command in Tampa, Florida" in the United States "reports activities against IS in Iraq and Syria. And every single month, there are raids. Raids conducted by the Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga against IS positions. And, in recent weeks, one of these raids where there was a search for an IS leader that was coordinated with French commandos, there was tragically loss of life on the French side and others wounded and maimed."
"So IS still remains a consistent threat in pockets, and the global coalition helps the Iraqi security forces find and finish these IS outlaws," the retired colonel concluded.
Meanwhile, US Central Command reported in a 25 September statement that it had "successfully conducted a helicopter raid in northern Syria" two days before.
"Abu Halil al-Fad'ani, an IS Syria Operational and Facilitation official, was captured during the raid. Al-Fad'ani was assessed to have relationships throughout the IS network in the region," it added.
Captures of IS militants often prove useful for understanding networks and tracking down other fighters. The statement did not mention the nationality of the man captured. All known top leaders of the international terrorist organisation thus far have been Iraqi nationals.
