A militant Islamist fighter uses a mobile to film his fellow fighters taking part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province. (2014/file)
VOA: Weakened IS May Find Havens in Rural Iraq, Syria
If expected military offensives rout the Islamic State group from the cities that are its strongholds in Syria and Iraq, military analysts and Kurdish commanders say the extremists would establish bases in rural areas to further their regional terrorism.
"When they run out of options, and soon they will, [IS fighters] will act more violently outside their areas of control,” said Radwan Badini, a politics professor at Salahaddin University in Irbil, in northern Iraq.
"In the countryside of rural provinces in Syria and Iraq, IS will continue to have an influence and it will try to use these areas as operation centers to stage attacks on their immediate enemies.”
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WNU Editor: This analysis is probably correct. When the Taliban were driven out of the cities in Afghanistan they either fled to the rural regions of Afghanistan and/or Pakistan.
