Although in late 2017 Baghdad declared that the military presence of Daesh* in Iraq had been all but destroyed, jihadist attacks on the country's security forces show no signs of abating.
CNN has cited two unnamed sources as saying that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic had prompted the US-led military coalition to pause or suspend key aspects of its anti-Daesh campaigns in Iraq and Syria.
One of the sources, a senior coalition official, told CNN that over the past few weeks, Daesh has tried to exploit the instability caused by COVID-19 and a drastic fall in global oil prices in order to increase its attacks in Iraq.
Even so, the source went on, the coronavirus-related concerns added to many of the coalition missions in Iraq being scaled back or adjusted, including those related to coalition troops accompanying Iraqi units or the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces during raids on Daesh targets.
At the same time, they underscored that if “there was a target that was important enough, a Baghdadi raid-type thing, of course we'd go out there and do something like that with our partners or potentially even unilaterally”, in an apparent reference to former Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a US special operation in northwestern Syria last year.
COVID-19 Reportedly Forced US Military to Close Some of Its Bases in Iraq
The official also mentioned the closure of several US military bases on Iraqi territory in March, facilities that were then transferred…
