Small Wars Journal

Baghdad Bombings Reveal ISIS New Plan: Tearing Iraq Apart

Tue, 05/17/2016 - 3:37pm

Baghdad Bombings Reveal ISIS New Plan: Tearing Iraq Apart by Nancy A. Youssef, The Daily Beast

In a week, ISIS went from growing its self-proclaimed Islamic State to trying to break another fragile state—Iraq—by sowing fear and sectarian hatred.

In the last week, has slaughtered brides, shoppers, and good Samaritans in their campaign to split the Iraqi state. On Tuesday, at least 63 people were killed and another 100 plus injured in Baghdad in three bombings, all of which struck open markets.

In all, more than 200 people have been killed in the last week in what has become the deadliest spate of bombings to strike the capital in years. ISIS has stormed soccer fans watching a match in the northern city of Balad, targeted women at the hair salon in north eastern Baghdad getting ready for their wedding day and on Tuesday, a fruit and vegetable market in the neighborhood of Dora.

The sudden rise in ISIS attacks, U.S. officials believe, signals that the terror group no longer is committed to territorial expansion. Rather, ISIS is looking to keep Iraqi government troops from hitting ISIS’s local capital of Mosul—by putting those forces on the defensive in Baghdad. If Iraqi security forces are struggling to stop unending attacks on Baghdad, the logic goes, they cannot move hundreds of miles north to reclaim Iraq’s second largest city…

Read on.