A risk alert put out on Thursday by IHS said the West Tikrit and Ajul oil fields and other energy assets in the North are at “severe risk of being raided or targeted for sabotage”. The highways linking Baghdad to Basra are also at risk, and cargo travelling almost anywhere in the north is vulnerable to bomb attacks. The government claims to have stopped an assault on the country’s biggest oil refinery at Baij but IHS said the plant is still at “severe risk”.