UN Envoy to Iraq: Prevent ISIS Resurgence

The UN’s special envoy to Iraq has pleaded for “wide-based international support” to prevent the resurgence of Islamic State in the country. “We risk creating a new breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert told the Security Council, adding that ISIS members returning to Iraq had regrouped and were already active. At its peak, the terror group controlled vast swaths of the country, including the major cities of Mosul, Ramadi, Fallujah and Tikrit. Its rise forced the US to deploy additional soldiers to Iraq, essentially reversing then-president Barack Obama’s decision to bring the troops home. Washington assembled a coalition of more than 70 countries to combat ISIS, with Kurdish units and Shi’ite armed groups – many of the latter loyal to Iran – doing the bulk of the fighting on the ground in Iraq. The coalition recently recaptured ISIS’s last stronghold in Syria, effectively ending the organization’s self-declared caliphate. The Islamic State perpetrated crimes against humanity in both nations, most notably the mass killing of Yazidis in Iraq and the enslavement of thousands of the ethnic sect’s women.