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Iran was the first country [2] to pledge assistance to Iraq to fight ISIL, deploying troops in early June 2014 following the North Iraq offensive. [3] [4]President of Iraq Fuad Masum has praised Iran as "the first country to provide weapons to Iraq to fight against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists".
A day later, Al-Qaeda's general command issued a public statement condemning the attacks and officially terminating all relations with the ISIL group. [26] [17] In March 2014, ISIL and Al-Nusra Front fought the Battle of Markada. In parallel, ISIL initiated ground assaults across Deir ez-Zor countryside, which were repelled by Al-Nusra Front ...
In late September, Iranian general Ahmad Reza Pourdastan threatened to "attack deep into Iraqi territory" should ISIL forces approach the Iranian border. [59] Earlier in the month, the Iranian government announced it had arrested Afghan and Pakistani nationals attempting to "cross Iran" to join ISIL. [60]
[116] [117] On 23 March 2019, ISIL was defeated territorially in Syria after losing the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, after which the group was forced into an insurgency. [118] ISIL's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, died during a US special operations raid in northern Syria in October 2019 [119] and was succeeded by Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.
ISIL is "far more ruthless" in building an Islamic state, "carrying out sectarian attacks and imposing sharia law immediately". While al-Nusra has a "large contingent of foreign fighters", it is seen as a home-grown group by many Syrians; by contrast, ISIL fighters have been described as "foreign 'occupiers'" by many Syrian refugees. [67]
ISIL marked Christian homes with the letter nūn for Naṣārā [86] [87] and Shia homes with the letter rāʾ for Rāfiḍa, a derogatory term used to describe Shias by some Sunni Muslims. Properties were confiscated and given to local ISIL supporters or foreign fighters. [88]
This culminated in Iran's involvement in the Iraqi insurgency, in which there were instances of Shia militants engaging the Multi-National Force in direct combat. [3] [4] Organizations that enjoyed large-scale Iranian support included the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as Kata'ib Hezbollah, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, and the Promised Day Brigade.
The Islamic State insurgency in Iraq is an ongoing low-intensity insurgency that began in 2017 after the Islamic State (IS) lost its territorial control in the War in Iraq, during which IS and allied White Flags fought the Iraqi military (largely backed by the United States, United Kingdom and other countries conducting airstrikes against IS ...