Islamic State’s revival is back and will rise

When Iraq’s prime minister declared a final victory over Islamic State in December 2017, he paid tribute to the militias that had repelled the jihadists. Many of them had been guided by Qassem Soleimani.

Less than a month earlier, dozens of fighters crowded round the smiling Iranian general as he toured Al-Bukamal just across the border in Syria after helping them flush the extremist group from the town.

Among the many potentially dangerous by-products of Soleimani’s killing by an American airstrike last week and the new chapter of upheaval for Iraq is that it could give rise again to the conditions that Islamic State can exploit.

Tehran and Washington were targeting a common enemy in the three-year battle against the group. Iranian-backed militias did a lot of the combat fighting while the U.S. provided air power. Now they risk turning Iraq into a theater of conflict again just as the country seeks to extricate itself from the influence of outside forces.

If Soleimani was heralded as a savior for helping defeat Islamic State, he was also partly responsible for its rise by stoking the sectarian tensions that have defined Middle East conflicts for generations.

Source: Financial Post