Fall of key town Baaj to Shia forces leaves pocket of west Mosul and Bukamal as only urban centres in Iraq with big Isis presence

Islamic State has surrendered the key town of Baaj in north-west Iraq, a known hideout of the terrorist group’s leader which had been under Islamist militants’ control throughout 14 years of war and insurgency.

The few remaining Isis fighters fled the town on Saturday night, allowing Shia militia forces to enter unopposed.

A statement from the Popular Mobilisation Front, an umbrella organisation for pro-government paramilitaries that is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, announced the “total liberation” of the Baaj district and declared: “The Iraqi flag has been hoisted above its buildings.”

Throughout Sunday, the Front’s fighters raised Iraqi flags and banners where Isis flags had flown since mid-2014, securing a victory that resonates far beyond the formerly untamed corner of north-west Iraq.

Social media posts hailed the victory as one of the most symbolic of its kind, alongside the successful battles to win back Falluja, Tikrit, Ramadi and most of Mosul.

Isis fighters who remain in western Mosul have barricaded themselves in the old city district and have little chance of escape.

The withdrawal leaves just that pocket of Mosul and the town of Bukamal as the only urban centres in Iraq, or on the Syrian border, with a significant Isis presence. The fight to reclaim lands seized by Isis is now expected to shift focus to Syria, where the next, and potentially final, leg of the campaign to eradicate the group’s presence is intensifying.

A Guardian source who saw Isis’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in Bukamal earlier this year described him as thin and stooped. The source said Baghdadi was travelling with a small security detail in a convoy of four cars and spent only minutes in public before being escorted away.

The crumbling of the Isis caliphate has also renewed focus on finding Baghdadi, who is known to have spent large parts of the past three years in Baaj under the protection of tribes that had been loyal to the cause of Islamic State and its earlier incarnations. Baghdadi has also been sighted in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Isis caliphate in Syria.

Baaj has become increasingly important to Iranian efforts to influence what emerges from the war against Isis. A statement claiming the capture of the town came from Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a prominent Shia paramilitary leader with extensive ties to Iran.

Last month he, together with the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, directed Shia paramilitary forces to capture Baaj as a crucial part of a land corridor that Iran has been trying to establish across Iraq and Syria.



Bukamal is expected to be a new focus of both Iranian and US efforts. At the same time, US-backed Kurdish troops are now within sight of Raqqa on three sides of the city. Kurdish groups say the battle to retake the city is likely to start sometime this month.

“This is all coming to a head now,” said a senior regional diplomat. “But not in a coordinated way at all. Everyone has their own agenda. There is no common purpose here. And there sure as hell isn’t a strategy.”



In Mosul, the battle to fully reclaim the city continues. It bears particular significance because the city’s Nouri mosque is where Baghdadi first declared the caliphate in 2014.



The battle was supposed to be over before the summer, but continues to grind on slowly six months on, with ideologically committed and battle-seasoned Isis fighters holding out against a three-pronged advance that has all but ground to a halt, while taking heavy casualties.

While the defeat of Isis seems assured, a plan to stop the group from re-emerging after the fighting is yet to take shape.

“Isis emerged in the first place because it was a rallying call for Sunni grievances,” a diplomat, who wanted to remain anonymous, said.

“It could remain that even if it loses. In fact, the loss could rehabilitate the group, giving it a renewed sense of victimhood that it encourages vanquished Sunnis to feed off.”