Up to 30,000 Islamic State members still in Iraq and Syria: UN

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – As many as 30,000 Islamic State (IS) militants still roam Iraq and Syria according to a United Nations (UN) report circulated on Monday, despite the military defeat of the terrorist organization and its current inability to take in more foreign fighters.

The claims came as UN experts and investigators made their semiannual submission to the international organization of estimates compiled from its member-states.

It said that their numbers fall “between 20,000 and 30,000 individuals, roughly equally distributed between the two countries” of Iraq and Syria. “Among these is still a significant component of the many thousands of active foreign terrorist fighters.”

In Iraq, it read, some of them are still actively engaged in violent acts “through sleeper cells," while others are "hiding out in sympathetic communities and urban areas.”

IS came into prominence in 2014 after it took over large swaths of land in the two middle-eastern countries.

After driving out Iraqi security forces from Mosul, IS proclaimed the city its capital and said it was establishing its caliphate there. The area was later liberated by Iraqi forces in July 2017, with the support of Kurdish Peshmerga forces, Hash al-Shaabi (PMF) militias, and US-led coalition airstrikes.

In December, Iraq declared complete victory over the group and by January, they were mostly confined to small pockets in Syria. However, its fighters still carry out guerrilla-style attacks, many of them concentrated in territories disputed between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad.

On Saturday, IS killed at least five people from a village near Baiji, the nation’s largest oil refinery.

The report adds that the supply of new foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria “has essentially come to a halt,” with member-states telling the UN monitors that IS resources are drying up.

It also claimed that fighters are moving towards Afghanistan in increasing numbers, with 4,500 thought to be there currently. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 thousand members are also thought to be based in Libya and an additional 250 to 500 in war-torn Yemen.

Editing by John J. Catherine