For now the extremists are confined to the shadows - emerging at night to carry out hit-and-run attacks. But Iraq has seen terror grow from these beginnings before, and some here fear a new threat is coming, for the region and the West.
Keeping up the pressure
The top US military Acne=Acne여성의류
commander on the ground in Iraq says IS is trying to reconstitute itself but faces a different response from Iraqi and Kurdish security forces this time around.
According to Brigadier General William 홍콩명품레플리카=홍콩명품미러급 홍콩명품레플리카 홍콩명품이미테이션
Seely, Commander of Task Force-Iraq, these forces are better prepared than in 2014 when IS gained control of a third of Iraq and took Mosul, its second largest city, virtually unopposed.
"The ISF [Iraqi security forces] and the 현대큐밍 살균 냉온정수기렌탈=현대큐밍 큐밍S 플러스 살균 냉온정수기렌탈 카운터형추천
Peshmerga are not the same forces as when Mosul fell," said Brig Gen Seely. "We have been here adding to their training. The ISF is keeping their foot on the pedal to ensure the momentum against Daesh [IS] remains steady."
He cites a single month, from mid-October to mid-November, in which the ISF carried out 170 "clearance operations" and destroyed almost 1,700 components for improvised explosive devices.
He says IS fighters are now hiding 경산사동족발
out in caves and in the desert "in conditions that no one can handle for too long", and they can't move in large formations. "The largest I have seen in my six months here is 15, he says, adding that even one ISIS fighter is too many.
