Repositioning or Restoring Lost Balance? Daesh: America’s Purported Arm in The Middle East

By Zeinab Abdallah

It was just one day after Donald Trump left office as President of the United States when Daesh-claimed terrorist attacks reemerged across the Middle Eastern region.

Over the past week, Daesh [the Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIS/ISIL’ group] has been claiming responsibility for a string of attacks in Iraq, Syria, as well as Egypt.

The scene instantly raises a series of questions regarding the timing and the excuse. Would it be a pretext to renew America’s so-called war on terrorism? Would it be an end of a deal that expired the moment Trump left office? Or is it something else?

What is definite is that something is being cooked, as the terrorist outfit most recently murdered dozens of civilians in the blast that rocked the Iraqi capital, in addition to targeting the Iraqi resistance positions in Salahuddin.

The twin suicide attacks last week killed at least 32 people and injured more than 100 others in a crowded open-air Baghdad market, being a jolting reminder of the threat posed by the group before being defeated by the Iraqi Army and allied forces in late 2017.

To go into details, the terrorist attacks targeting Iraq’s Armed Forces, Anti-terror Units, and the Popular Mobilization Units are geographically limited with areas that were totally controlled by Daesh between 2014 and 2018, according to retired Lebanese Army General Charles Abi Nader. Moreover, the same areas are ground or located near most of the US bases in the country, namely in al-Hadhar south of Mosul, northern Salahuddin, southwestern Kirkuk, between the Himrin Mountains going westward to reach al-Qayyarah southern Mosul, where the three most important US bases are located: al-Qayyarah, Balad, and Altun Kupri.

The awaking sleeper cells are also being more active where US bases are located in Ain al-Assad, al-Habbaniyah and the most recently evacuated al-Qaim base.

On the other side, Daesh is increasing its activity in Syria, being mostly active in southwestern Deir Ezzor and the Syrian Desert [Badiyah], where it has been committing more terrorist attacks against Syrian Army personnel and civilians alike.

Additionally, a large US military convoy entered northeastern Syria on January 21st, state-run SANA news agency cited sources on the ground.

According to SANA’s report, the convoy included some 40 trucks and armored vehicles and was backed from the air by helicopters. It entered Syria from Iraq via the al-Waleed crossing to bring arms and logistical equipment to the bases in Hasakah and the oil-rich Deir Ezzor provinces.

SANA also reported that some 200 US troops arrived in the Hasakah province on helicopters.

According to the report, the troops are set to deploy on the nearby oilfields, with Kurdish-controlled eastern Syria rich in energy resources.

Let it be another goal, looting Syria’s oil was admitted by the former American president. Donald Trump has time and again said that he expects the United States to benefit by millions of dollars per month from Syria's oil revenues while US troops remain in the country.

Relatively, Syrian Strategic and Military Expert Major General Hassan Hassan confirmed that American helicopters are transferring Daesh fighters from Iraq to Syria to busy the Syrian Army with military operations that destabilize the region. Hassan noted that Daesh is the intelligence arm of the now ruling Democratic party after Joe Biden assumed responsibilities at the White House. And although his predecessor Donald Trump took advantage of its presence, still the Dems are more experienced in dealing with the terror outfit they confessed that it is their product.

The Biden administration believes that the time is ripe to reuse Daesh at best to pressure Damascus so that the Syrian government compromises in parallel with other political and economic pressures.

With enough aims behind Daesh’s rebirth, the only benefiter is the US agenda that eyes oil, wealth, and a strong hand in the ridden countries.

The Americans are trying to find more convincing pretexts that guarantee their boots’ remaining on Middle Eastern soil after the united commitment to expel every single US soldier in wake of last year’s assassination of the top anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani who was referred to as a leader to all resistance movements in the region. But would they be able to achieve this goal? Time will tell.

The alleged achievement of eliminating Daesh at the hands of American occupation troops in the Middle East, which expired with Trump’s presidency, seems to be sought again by his successor, to deceive the American public with one achievement by the current administration some four years later.

The resurgence of blasts is a clear display that Trump’s attempts to corner Iran and exclude its role as a key factor in the region’s developments have failed. It is why one Gulf diplomat has responded to a question regarding the suspension of terrorist attacks in Iraq during Trump’s era by saying that “the equation has changed”. For now, another equation is being created, which will definitely not be in favor of the Middle Eastern countries, as the choice of destabilizing Iraq and shaking its security would be the easiest to thwart any diplomatic efforts to make Iran-conditioned understandings with the new US administration.

Several Arab countries that consider Iraq’s regaining its sovereignty with the help of Iran would harm their interests, form and added reason to the reemergence of terrorism targeting the country. Those countries were also against Washington’s return to the nuclear deal with Iran, after Trump withdrew from it unilaterally in May, 2018.

The expected smoke bombs will be used alike by the ‘Israeli’ enemy and its friendly Arab normalizing regimes to help the US restore ‘its balance’ in the region.

When money and politics talk, every conspiring regime turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to the killing of civilians as long as this pleases its master, the terrorist regime of America.