At the start of October 2015 a car bomb went off in Zubayr,
Basra leaving dozens of casualties. While vehicle borne improvised explosives
devices (VBIEDs) are nothing new to Iraq, this one marked the Islamic State’s
return to southern Iraq. That region of the country had not been bombed for a
year, but IS had been plotting for months to deliver a car bomb to that region.
On October
5, a VBIED detonated in a market in Zubayr in Basra. Ten people were killed
and 25 wounded. This was a notable event because the last time a car bomb went
off in southern Iraq was back on October
24 when there was an explosion in a garage in Najaf city that luckily left
no casualties. (1) The twelve month gap between those two attacks was caused by
a major defeat for the Islamic State, only to see the group bounce back in
another sign of its resiliency.
The major reason why southern Iraq was not bombed for a year
was the loss of Jurf al-Sakhr in Babil, the Islamic State’s major base in the
south. In October
2014, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Hashd finally cleared the area
after months of failed attempts. Jurf al-Sakhr was a hub of IS’s activities in
not only Babil, but neighboring Anbar and Baghdad, and the starting point for
car bombs into southern Iraq. With the loss of this base, IS was scattered
across northern Babil, and took months to regroup there. By 2015, the
insurgents were more interested in attacking Baghdad and Anbar, and there were
no car bombs attempts in the south at all. That all began to change when summer
started.
Starting in June 2015 the Islamic State once again began
trying to plant VBIEDs in the south, but was unsuccessful. On June 10,
seven car bombs were discovered in Karbala City. Six days later a suicide car
bomber was killed trying to get
close to the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. Two months later a suicide car bomb was discovered
in Ain al-Tamur in Karbala. The next month a car bomb was found
in that same town. While none of these attempts worked for IS, it showed
renewed interest in the south for the group. Karbala and Najaf were the targets
because car bombs there could help stoke sectarian tensions, which the
insurgents thrive off of. Those VBIEDs likely originated in Anbar or Babil and
showed that IS had re-established its lines into at least the outer south. The
October bombing in Basra highlighted that Is was now active once again at the
farthest tip of the country.
The Islamic State finally made a break through when it
detonated a car bomb in Basra. The group had been trying for the last several
months to plant a VBIED in the south, but the security forces thwarted its
plans. Now IS was able to deliver a bomb all the way to Basra. More attempts
are likely as IS is in the middle of a VBIED campaign that began in July. It
has been able to rebuild itself in northern Babil, and feels confident enough
to divert some of its resources away from Anbar and Baghdad to try to strike the
south. The Iraqi Security Forces do not have a good record breaking up
insurgent networks, but hopefully its counter measures can discover most of
these devices before they go off. They will have to be on guard as the IS
threat is renewed in the region.
FOOTNOTES
1. There was a truck bombing in Basra’s Um Qasr in March
2015, but most think it was due to a local dispute rather than being an act of
the Islamic State.
SOUTH
Abdul-Zahra,
Qassm, "Car bombs in Iraq kill 18, wound 45," Associated Press,
10/5/15
AIN, "Car bombs seized in Karbala,"
6/10/15
Al
Forat, "Car bomb explodes in Najaf," 10/24/14
-
"Initial Count: Basra truck bombing kills, injures 43 civilians,"
3/18/15
Al
Mada, "Thwart a suicide car bombing in Karbala and the arrest 28 suspects
in criminal cases," 8/18/15
Al
Masalah, "Found a car bomb west of Karbala," 9/15/15
Shafaq News, "Foiled a suicide attack after
breaking through barriers and accessing the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf,"
6/16/15
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