Alwaght- The ISIS terror group’s ideology is still a threat in Iraq even though the fight against terrorism has ended in military terms, the country’s prime minister has said.
"Our land war with ISIS has ended. We have saved all the land of our country and taken control of the Syrian border. But the danger of ISIS’s ideology and sleeper cells remains. I should warn everyone about that,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a Saturday speech at a meeting of the Islamic Dawa Party, Iraq’s ruling party.
"Iraqi officials had told me the war against Daesh might take up to 10 years, but we overcame it in a short time”, he said.
ISIS began losing control over land it had captured after reaching its peak at the end of 2014, when it occupied two-thirds of Syrian territory.
The collapse of Raqqa, its self-proclaimed capital, October last year marked the symbolic end of the ISIS terrorist organization.
On December 9, 2017, Al-Abadi officially declared full liberation of Iraq from ISIS terrorists after Iraqi forces assisted by PMF recaptured all the areas once seized by the Takfiri extremist group.
However, small groups and individuals of ISIS terrorists have since melted in urban areas or turned to deserts and rugged areas for safe havens, carrying out attacks from time to time against security forces and civilians.
