Eleven years ago this week, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq fell as United States troops and marines occupied Baghdad and headed north towards Mosul. The war seemed over. Afghanistan also seemed much quieter by that time. Only three weeks later, on 1 May 2003, George W Bush could deliver his “mission accomplished” speech from the flight-deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Now, Iraq is at the heart of another war involving a US-led coalition, one which extends through Syria. At the centre is Islamic State, regarded as the most dangerous of the many extreme Islamist paramilitary movements now active. The latter include Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and its neighbours, al-Shabaab in Somalia and northern Kenya, Ansar Dine, al-Nusra, al-Qaida in Yemen, the Caucasus Emirate, the multiple militias in Libya, the remaining parts of the original al-Qaida in Pakistan - and this is but a partial list.
This week’s advance into Tikrit by the new coalition is widely seen as a stage in Islamic State's inevitable slow retreat. Several US sources have cited the number of IS militants targeted as evidence of this: General Lloyd Austin, head of US Central Command, has reported that over 8,500 had died under the bombardments in Iraq and Syria, and secretary of state John Kerry claimed that up to half of the paramilitary leadership had been killed.
