At the same time, the expert, Mokhlad Hazem Al-Darb, warned in a comment to “Sky News Arabia” that the battle with ISIS has turned from a direct military confrontation into an information battle in the first place, and the security forces need to develop their capabilities in this direction.
On Sunday, the Security Media Cell announced, in a statement, the investigation into an attack attributed to ISIS in the Dibis district of Kirkuk, on Saturday, which it carried out with light and medium weapons on a point belonging to the 32nd Brigade of the 8th Division of the Iraqi army.
According to sources, the attack resulted in the death of 4 people, 3 officers, and an affiliate who died due to his severe wounds.
The statement vowed to ISIS by saying: “Let the elements of ISIS gangs know that the response will be urgent and unexpected and will shake the ground under their rotten feet.”
Lone wolves and desperate letters
Iraqi security expert Mokhlad Hazem Al-Darb explains what is behind the attack, and what it means regarding ISIS’s ability to launch similar attacks in the future:
- This attack is an attempt to prove its existence, and to send a message that ISIS is present on the ground, even though it is no longer the same in terms of security and intelligence as it was before.
- The organization wants to tell its members outside the borders that “security is not established” in Iraq.
- ISIS elements operate according to administrative decentralization unlike before, and those present are the remnants of ISIS, and groups operating individually according to the “lone wolf” strategy, which carries out hit-and-run operations, according to the conditions of place and time.
- The source of the survival of these groups is that after the end of the military operations against ISIS in 2017, elements of the organization infiltrated into Kirkuk, especially in rugged places in the Valleys of Tea and Olive, Aman al-Khanjar, and the Hamrin Basin, as sanctuaries for them, and they exited and became active at intervals, with qualitative and proactive operations.
- In the complex, we can say that these operations are desperate operations.
Information battle
The Iraqi security expert points out that the battle with ISIS in Iraq after 2017 has changed from a battle of direct confrontation to a battle of security and intelligence, that is, an “information battle”, and obtaining proactive information through citizens or information technology makes the difference.
Al-Darb expects that “there may have been inaction in this area, which gave ISIS an opportunity to launch these attacks in Kirkuk and Diyala,” and this could be addressed by “laying ambushes and building bridges of trust between the forces and the citizen to obtain this information.”
In addition, it is recommended to provide expertise and capabilities to reach the rugged areas where the terrorists are holed up, and to surround them and the borders of the provinces in which they are located with towers and thermal cameras, and to set up ambushes in the areas of entry and exit.
successive blows
The recent terrorist operation was preceded by ISIS receiving successive strikes at the hands of the Iraqi forces, the last of which resulted in the killing of what ISIS calls the governor of northern Baghdad, called Adnan al-Lahibi, in the Tarmiya district, north of the capital.
And according to what was reported by the Baghdad Operations Commander, Lieutenant General Ahmed Salim, at the time of the announcement of the operation, on Wednesday, to the Iraqi News Agency “INA”, the killing of Al-Luhaibi achieved gains, including “raising the morale of our fighters, and encouraging them to continue pursuing the remnants of ISIS,” in exchange for thwarting the morale of the terrorists. and paralysis.
He pointed out that ISIS “is currently being subjected to multiple strikes in various sectors, including Diyala and Kirkuk, and not only in northern Baghdad, and it is bringing down its important leaders, and any loss of its leadership elements will affect it.”
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