A Resurgent ISIS Attacks Iranian Proxies in Iraq, Syria // FAI ONLINE

A 2016 propaganda video shows Isis fighters on patrol in Anbar Province, Iraq. (Credit: Zuma/Rex va Shutterstock)

ISIS stunned Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria on Saturday with two well-coordinated attacks in each country, killing at lease 17. The two attacks were carried out within hours, and combined they represent the deadliest 24-hour period since the Islamic State was dismantled just one year ago.

In Iraq, a fierce gun battle raged between ISIS militants and members of Iranian-sponsored Hashd al-Shabi militias in Salahadin province near Samarra. Eleven militiamen were killed before the attack ended. Salahadin is an ethnically and religiously mixed province, and a flash-point for Sunni-Shi’a sectarian tensions going back to the US Iraq War. Samarra, along with Fallujah to the west and Baghdad to the south, made up the so-called “Sunni Triangle of Death”, where al-Qaeda in Iraq killed hundreds of US and Iraqi soldiers before morphing into ISIS in 2013. Statements and video released by the US-led Coalition reported a series of strikes against ISIS-held caves in Iraq’s rugged central region, demonstrating that the terror group is under increasing pressure in its country of birth, even as it lashes out across the region.

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In Syria, a roadside IED exploded near a Syrian army transport, killing at least 6 Syrian soldiers on a desert road near Humaymah, which is halfway between the regime-controlled towns of Palmyra and al-Bukammal, a vital weapons pipeline for Iran and Hezbollah. ISIS has maintained a presence in the barren desert of Southeast Syria. After the attack, Hezbollah was reportedly conducting sweeps of the nearby desert, seeking to push the remnants of ISIS out of their desert sanctuary.

Both attacks come only a day after similar attacks in Iraq and Egypt, in which two Iraqi policemen were wounded in a shooting ambush and 10 Egyptian soldiers killed or wounded in a vehicle bombing in North Sinai. The Egyptian branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the latter attack in a statement released afterwards.

Friday and Saturday’s attacks on multiple fronts underscore the ongoing threat posed by ISIS, which continues to show resiliency, despite the deprivation of its territorial caliphate and the death of its caliph last year. A Middle East increasingly distracted by street protests and pandemics is left vulnerable to those whose vision of an Islamic State is persistent and unwavering. Although fighting between ISIS and Iranian proxies might seem like a good thing, the scale of sectarian conflict, suffering and death over the last two decades in Iraq would caution otherwise. We ask our global partners to continue to pray for a divine hedge of protection around the people of Syria and Iraq, especially ethnic and religious minorities, who are most vulnerable to radical Islamist groups on both sides of the sectarian divide. We also ask for continued prayer for our field teams in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the threat of both a resurgent ISIS and the expanding influence of Iranian-linked militias are palpable, that we may continue to minister to the people of Kurdistan with courage and grace, shodding our feet with the Good News of peace.