„The extremist group known as the Islamic State has lost major amounts of territory over the past six months and in terms of its stated goal of creating an actual state that “will remain and expand”, it is certainly failing. However, this has also meant a change of tactics. Rather than acting like an army that fights other armies, the Islamic State, or IS, group is returning to the tactics of the organisation from which it was born, Al Qaeda in Iraq. Since February 2016 the number of terrorist-style bombings per day has increased quickly, says senior Baghdad police officer, Karim al-Muhamadawi. (…)
The tactics now being used by the IS group are almost certainly deliberate, sewing sectarian discord and weakening the political system in Iraq. (…) Before mid-2014 when the IS group were able to take over whole cities, Al Qaeda in Iraq had used precisely these tactics to cause chaos they could then exploit. Certainly, the political mess and long standing differences in Mosul helped the IS group to take over there in 2014.
Today there are other issues the extremist group can exploit. These include continuing abuses of the Sunni Muslim population in areas that the IS group has been pushed out of, hundreds of thousands of displaced Sunni Muslims living in difficult conditions, political conflicts between the ruling Shiite Muslim alliance, lack of reform, a change of government and fear of the Shiite Muslim militias fighting the IS group.“
(Mustafa Habib: „Goodbye IS, Hello Al Qaeda: Extremist Group Has Deliberate Plan To Inflame Sectarian Fighting In Iraq“)
