Months after Iraq declared victory over Daesh, its fighters are making a comeback with a scatter-gun campaign of kidnap and killing.

With its dream of a Caliphate in the Middle East now dead, Daesh has switched to hit-and-run attacks aimed at undermining the government in Baghdad, according to military, intelligence and government officials interviewed by Reuters.

Daesh was reinventing itself months before Baghdad announced in December that it had defeated the group, according to intelligence officials who said it would adopt guerrilla tactics when it could no longer hold territory.

Iraq has now seen an increase in kidnappings and killings, mainly in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala, and Salahuddin, since it held an election in May, indicating the government will come under renewed pressure from a group that once occupied a third of the country during a three-year reign of terror.

Last month saw at least 83 cases of kidnap, murder or both in the three provinces. Most occurred on a highway connecting Baghdad to Kirkuk province. In May, the number of such incidents in that area was 30, while in March it was seven, according to Hisham Al-Hashimi, an expert on Daesh who advises the Iraqi government.

In one incident on 17 June, three Shia men were kidnapped by Daesh militants disguised as policemen at a checkpoint on the highway. Ten days later their mutilated corpses were discovered, rigged with explosives to kill anyone who found them.

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The militants have regrouped in the Hemrin mountain range in the northeast, which extends from Diyala, on the border with Iran, crossing northern Salahuddin and southern Kirkuk, and overlooks Iraq’s main highway. Officials describe the area as a “triangle of death”.

Military and intelligence officials gave varying estimates of how many Daesh fighters remain active in Iraq.

Al-Hashimi puts the number at more than 1,000, with around 500 in desert areas and the rest in the mountains.

Numerous attempts to track down and kill Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have failed, and his fighters are still active in other Arab states.

In Syria, Daesh still holds some territory but has suffered militarily. In Egypt, it is concentrated in the sparsely populated northern Sinai desert. It holds no territory but conducts hit-and-run attacks.

Daesh has tried to rebuild in Libya through mobile units in the desert and sleeper cells in northern cities.

The group has exploited the ethnic and sectarian divide in Iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish forces fought together against Daesh. Now ties are strained over a Kurdish bid for independence last year which Baghdad stifled.

Lack of coordination has caused a security vacuum in disputed territories, from which Iraqi forces dislodged the Kurds, creating opportunities for Daesh.