Iraqi army reinforces Rawa-Hatra desert line to deny Isis hideouts

BAGHDAD — Iraqi army units on Thursday began reinforcing a defensive line across the desert between Rawa and Hatra to stop remnants of the Islamic State group from using remote areas as hideouts, the Defense Ministry said.

Forces of the Jazeera Operations Command and the West Nineveh Operations Command are strengthening their positions along the line, which runs through desert north of the Euphrates toward Nineveh and Salah al-Din governorates, ministry spokesperson Maj. Gen. Yahya Rasool said. Rawa is an Anbar town on the Euphrates, and Hatra is a desert district southwest of Mosul.

The deployment is meant to hold the desert, pursue the group’s remaining members and stop them from setting up shelters or bases in remote areas, Rasool said.

The forces will also secure a shorter route for travelers and commercial traffic, supporting investment, farming and livestock grazing, the ministry said.

The line runs through the desert north of Rawa, where two soldiers were killed and two wounded on Oct. 4 when an explosive device left by Isis went off during a search operation. They were from the Jazeera Operations Command’s 7th Infantry Division, and the blast hit in the area of the 27th Infantry Brigade, the ministry said at the time.

Isis attacks in Iraq rose from two in July to 10 in September, with five more in the first two weeks of October, according to the fact-checking platform Sahih Iraq. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ordered the armed forces to their highest level of combat readiness on Oct. 13, two weeks after the U.S.-led coalition’s mission in Iraq ended.

Farther east in Salah al-Din, gunmen attacked an army position near Baiji late on Sept. 18 as they approached two main power transmission towers between Baiji and Haditha. They fled after clashes, and no one was hurt. A former Baiji district official told 964media that, according to preliminary information, the attackers were Isis remnants and sleeper cells.

The deployment comes as the army hands security in towns to the police. Security Media Cell chief Lt. Gen. Saad Maan said Sept. 1 that security in city centers in Nineveh, Salah al-Din, Diyala and Kirkuk was being handed to the Interior Ministry, and that the army’s sectors had been reorganized according to the nature, scale and location of threats.

Iraq declared victory over Isis in December 2017, after the group lost the territory it had seized in northern and western Iraq in 2014, including Mosul. It has since operated through sleeper cells and small units, particularly in desert and rural areas.