Recent attacks by ISIS, Turkey, and Iran complicate Iraq’s road to sovereignty.
A sequence of cross-country attacks perpetrated by various groups indicate Iraqi’s Security Forces are being pulled in too many directions.
Over the span of one week, Turkish forces began a fresh offensive targeting Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq, U.S. assets were bombarded with rocket attacks for the thirtieth time since January in Bagdad, and eighteen Iraqi military personnel were killed by ISIS fighters in various agricultural suburbs in the country. While the Iraqi government has focused on balancing U.S.-Iranian tensions, Ankara and ISIS sleeper cells have taken advantage of perceived gaps in the country’s security apparatus. In order to counter the resurgence of extremist activity, the Iraqi Security Forces must be reworked to exclude the Iranian-backed Shiite paramilitary groups.