Iraq Military Spokesman to Asharq Al-Awsat: ISIS No Longer Poses a Threat

Iraq’s military spokesman Yehya Rasool.
Iraq’s military spokesman Yehya Rasool.
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Iraq Military Spokesman to Asharq Al-Awsat: ISIS No Longer Poses a Threat

Iraq’s military spokesman Yehya Rasool.
Iraq’s military spokesman Yehya Rasool.

Since the start of 2020, ISIS has been mounting activities that suggest the group has reorganized its ranks after the defeats it sustained in the past few years on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi borders.

The Iraqi army, however, is showing no signs of concern over the growing activities of the terrorist group.

Military spokesman Yehya Rasool said ISIS no longer poses a threat to Iraq and that its cells are nearly completely destroyed and unable to threaten Iraqi towns and civilians.

The lack of public display of concern does not mean that Iraqi authorities aren’t taking the threats posed by ISIS seriously. In the last few weeks, dozens of security campaigns were carried out against ISIS hideouts across the country.

Rasool, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, clarified that these raids are preemptive and are based on intelligence reports.

This indicates that Iraqi security apparatuses own a substantial corpus of intelligence on ISIS cells, extracted from interrogating hundreds of the group’s operatives and leaders who were arrested during the course of the past years.

Other than Iraqi raids, the Arab- Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have been mounting anti-ISIS campaigns with the aid of the US-led international coalition in Syria.

“Iraqi security forces, after defeating ISIS, intensified their intelligence effort and began preemptive operations and arrested many terrorist leaders and elements, as well as those who finance these terrorist gangs, especially in areas that were under the control of ISIS,” Rasool told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He added that one of the "most prominent terrorists arrested" is the “mufti of ISIS,” who was detained on January 16.

“Mufti of ISIS,” Shifa al-Nima, loomed large over ISIS as a religious figure who issued fatwas against several clerics who refused to swear allegiance to the group.

Al-Nima, whose actual name is Abu Abdul Bari, encouraged ISIS members to attack security forces and destroy historic sites during their reign over large swathes of Iraq and Syria.



One in 10 Children Screened in UNRWA Clinics are Malnourished

Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
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One in 10 Children Screened in UNRWA Clinics are Malnourished

Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 14, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

One in 10 children screened in clinics run by the United Nations refugee agency in Gaza since 2024 has been malnourished, the agency said on Tuesday.

"Our health teams are confirming that malnutrition rates are increasing in Gaza, especially since the siege was tightened more than four months ago on the second of March," UNRWA's Director of Communications, Juliette Touma, told reporters in Geneva via a video link from Amman, Jordan.

Since January 2024, UNRWA said it had screened more than 240,000 boys and girls under the age of five in its clinics, adding that before the war, acute malnutrition was rarely seen in the Gaza Strip.

"One nurse that we spoke to told us that in the past, he only saw these cases of malnutrition in textbooks and documentaries," Reuters quoted Touma as saying.

"Medicine, nutrition supplies, hygiene material, fuel are all rapidly running out," Touma said.

On May 19, Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza, allowing limited UN deliveries to resume. However, UNRWA continues to be banned from bringing aid into the enclave.

Israel and the United States have accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing from UN-led aid operations - which Hamas denies. They have instead set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, using private US security and logistics firms to transport aid to distribution hubs, which the UN has refused to work with.

On Monday, UNICEF said that last month more than 5,800 children were diagnosed with malnutrition in Gaza, including more than 1,000 children with severe, acute malnutrition. It said it was an increase for the fourth month in a row.