Buckling under protests against cronyism and Iranian imperialism, Iraq’s government faces a new challenge as Christmas approaches: the increasing threat of new ISIS attacks.
While the terrorist group has lost much of its physical caliphate in Iraq and Syria, it retains thousands of capable fighters, tens of thousands of supporters, a logistics network, and continued ambition. And Christmas has long been a favored target of the Salafi-Jihadist death cult. In 2013, the group killed more than 35 Iraqis as they attended Christmas services in Baghdad. In 2016, ISIS carried out a truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12. Similar attacks on western targets were only prevented thanks to effective intelligence operations. Christmas attacks are favored by ISIS because they represent action against infidels (cause), and they concentrate people together (targets).
Two factors make this Christmas a particularly challenging one for Iraqi security forces. First off, ISIS, wiped off the battlefield, has regrouped and retooled itself specifically for mass-casualty attacks. As the BBC’s Orla Guerin reported this week, the group has returned to its pre-2013 roots — a decentralized cell structure and active operational security tactics against detection. This puts ISIS in a position to build bombs and deliver them to Iraqi civilian targets. It was always delusional to believe that the territorial degradation of the caliphate would lead to the elimination of its threat. Iraqi security forces will, of course, take steps to protect churches and worshipers. But the most capable ISIS cells are highly adept at avoiding detection, so the risks are high.
The political context is also critical here. With the Iraqi government facing a strong, multi-sectarian challenge to its rule, ISIS will hope to stoke the sectarian flames. Ironically, ISIS’s primary regional enemy, Iran, will benefit most from attacks against Shia or Christian targets, in that such attacks might allow the Iranians to consolidate their influence over Iraq’s Shia community.
Then again, the death of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi also gives ISIS all the more incentive to carry out a visible and successful campaign of terrorism, to prove the group isn’t dead yet.
