Repercussions of Diyala massacre: ISIS remains a threat to Iraqi national security
ISIS still poses a direct threat to
Iraqi national security, which gives space in return for the state factions
affiliated with the mainly Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and
enhances the legitimacy of their presence under the pretext of fighting the
terrorist organization and tracing its impact in the various provinces. Between
the two, Iraqi citizens suffer from two terrorists of different sects, although
they do not differ, and the victim is the Iraqi people.
Diyala massacre
ISIS committed a massacre in Diyala
Governorate, east of Baghdad, when a group of ISIS elements, comprising about
ten terrorists, launched an attack on a site of the First Division in the Iraqi
army, killing 11 soldiers, in addition to a sniper, using medium weapons.
Members of the terrorist organization took advantage of the soldiers’ sleep in
the Diyala camp and attacked them by shooting them randomly.
On the other hand, the Diyala
Operations Command of the PMF announced the launch of a large-scale security
operation from several axes to search for and pursue the terrorist
organization's elements in the Great Basin area in the east of the country.
The PMF commander of Diyala
operations, Talib al-Moussawi, said in a statement that the PMF launched a
large-scale security operation on Sunday morning to pursue ISIS remnants in the
eastern and western parts of the Great Basin area.
Warning of
chaos
For his part, the leader of the
Sadrist movement in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr, warned against exaggerating the
danger of terrorism to spread fear and sectarianism, in an implicit warning of
the scenario of the PMF exploiting the situation to carry out sectarian acts.
It is worth noting that the ISIS
attack on the Iraqi army camp in Diyala came in conjunction with the rebellion
of the organization’s members in a prison in eastern Syria and their attempt to
escape with the support of their comrades abroad, which raised the Iraqi
government’s fears of the terrorist organization’s return, so its forces
mobilized on the border to prevent the infiltration of ISIS elements fleeing
from Syria.
The recent ISIS activity raises
fears that there is an error in international assessments about the terrorist
organization's capabilities, its reconnaissance means and an incubating
environment through which it can inflict painful strikes on sensitive sites in
Iraq, in addition to a noticeable change in its tactics and the transition from
the method of lightning attacks on small targets to an advanced stage of
attacking supposedly fortified sites to achieve military goals that will lead
to more targets and regaining what it lost after its defeat and loss of all the
areas that it controlled in Syria and Iraq, including the Badia desert region
extending from western Iraq to eastern Syria, where the organization threatens
to attack again.