The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with support from the US-led Coalition, carried out several security operations against the so-called Islamic State in the northern Syrian Deir al-Zor and Hasakah provinces this week, like reported by kurdistan24.net.

The SDF’s Coordination and Military Operations Centre on Wednesday announced on Twitter that they carried out a new operation against Islamic State fighters in Hasakah city.

“After security monitoring and follow-up, and as part of a new operation targeting ISIS cells, our special units with the participation of the international coalition forces are arresting a member of an ISIS cell in Hasaka city and transferring him for investigation.”

Furthermore, on Monday, the SDF Military Operation Centre said they carried separate operations in both Hasakah and Deir al-Zor.

“With the air support from the international coalition, an operation by our special units in the northern countryside of Dair Al Zor, resulted in the arrest of 3 members of ISIS cells, and confiscated a set of equipment during the raid,” the group said in another statement.

The SDF also arrested a member of Islamic State in the southern countryside of Hasakah and seized military weapons and equipment.

Despite the SDF and the US-led coalition announcing the Islamic State’s defeat on March 23, 2019 in Baghouz, the terror group’s sleeper cell attacks persist in areas the Kurdish-led forces had liberated. Islamic State cells are especially active in Deir al-Zor where there are still some local networks that maintain some links to Islamic State members. Furthermore, Syrian regime cells and others linked to Turkey are also active in the region.

In early June, the SDF launched the Deterrence of Terrorism operation in southern Hasakah and Deir al-Zor to stop increasing Islamic State activity in this region, including militants taxing of residents and conducting assassination attempts against locals working with the SDF or the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

According to a monthly report of the Rojava Information Centre (RIC) published Thursday, this week-long operation resulted in the arrest of 110 Islamic State suspects and caused sleeper cell attacks to fall 46 percent in northeastern Syria.

“SDF’s campaign of arrests put a dent in the constant sleeper-cell threat in North and East Syria, though a spike in assassinations indicates that the ISIS threat remains high,” Robin Fleming, a Syria-based researcher at the Rojava Information Center, told Kurdistan 24.

“Arson and attempted assassination attacks linked to the Turkish intelligence services and Turkish-controlled militias mean the Autonomous Administration faces security challenges on multiple fronts, even away from the active frontline around the zone of Turkish occupation.”

Col. Myles B. Caggins III, Spokesman for the US-led Coalition, formally known as Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Resolve (CJTF-OIR), told Kurdistan 24 that the SDF continues to apply pressure on Islamic State remnants in Hasakah, Deir al-Zor, and other areas of Syria.

“The Coalition is supporting those operations and we’re continuing to have success. We have been successful in the past couple of months by going after leadership and smuggling networks of Daash (Islamic State) in northeastern Syria.”

“The SDF has completed a massive operation, what they call the Deterrence of Terrorism, supported by the Coalition with high-level advising, intelligence sharing, and occasionally partnered operations, where we may assist with air support, helicopter transportation, as well as over flights, drones and airstrikes.”

“Our assessment of ISIS in Hasakah is that they’re very weak, because they have weak leadership in Hasakah, and the people who live in Hasakah reject Daash. Nobody likes ISIS in Hasakah, and the low-level ISIS terrorists in Hasakah are not from the area.”

He also added that low-level Islamic State members that operate in Hasakah are not from the region and are often from Iraq, speaking a different dialect and being rejected by the local population, adding, “When the local residents in Hasakah encounter these terrorists in town, they rat them out to the SDF, and the SDF plans missions and catches them, and puts them in detention facilities.”

“Therefore, ISIS in Hasakah is struggling and ISIS in Deir ar Zour is also on the ropes. But the troops of the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the anti terrorist forces will continue to apply pressure, continue to conduct wide scale operations and precision operations and raids as long as there’s any ISIS around the coalition’s got their back.”

Hezbollah has opened a new illegal border crossing along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria, a recent report said.

The Iran-backed group has developed the border crossing, previously used to facilitate the entry and exit of its fighters, to be used by civilians as well, according to Asharq al-Awsat.

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The report says that a newly paved road used for the crossing is outside the scope of the watchtowers set up by the British Army and later taken over by the Lebanese army.

The United Kingdom helped install more than 30-foot watchtowers along Lebanon’s border with Syria.

The UK has donated 350 Land Rovers, 4,000 sets of body armor and delivered training to 11,000 Lebanese personnel.

Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s fighters still use nearby roads to get in and out of Syria, the report said.

Local residents were quoted as saying that Hezbollah plans to use the new crossing to bring humanitarian aid to Lebanon’s Bekaa due to the food shortage.

Lebanon is experiencing an unprecedented economic and financial crisis. A shortage of US dollars has made importing products difficult while prices of basic foodstuffs have skyrocketed.

An Iran-backed armed group denied responsibility for a series of such attacks, like reported by anfenglish.com.

Iraqi government officials said the raid would serve as a “message” to deter future attacks, but late on Saturday more attacks were launched.

One rocket fired at the Green Zone landed near a house, wounding a child, according to the Iraqi military.

The rocket was launched from the Ali al-Saleh area of Baghdad and landed next to a house close to a local TV channel, a military statement said. The child suffered head injuries and the house was damaged.

Since October, US diplomats and troops across Iraq have been targeted by about three dozen rocket attacks that Washington has blamed on pro-Iranian armed factions.

On the night of 25 May, Iraqi anti-terrorist troops detained 14 members of the pro-Iranian radical group Hezbollah Brigade. Rocket launchers were seized in the operation. However, four days later, all but one of the arrested militias were released on grounds of “no evidence”. Authorities think such a detention operation is in itself a success.

A top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Iran has built underground “missile cities” all along its southern coast, warning they would be a “nightmare” for Tehran’s enemies, like reprted by toi.com.

Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri, who heads the IRGC Navy, said Iran has also constructed so-called missile cities offshore. He said the sites contain surface-to-air missiles.

“Iran has established underground onshore and offshore missile cities all along the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that would be a nightmare for Iran’s enemies,” he told the Sobh-e Sadeq weekly, according to Reuters.

Iran has used the term “missile city” to refer to underground facilities where weapons are stored to protect them from airstrikes.

Tangsiri claimed Iran would soon make an announcement on new long-range missiles and naval vessels, without further elaborating.

He also said Iran was monitoring every vessel that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. Iran has previously threatened to close the strait, through which some 20 percent of all oil passes.

Tangsiri’s comments came on the heels of a recent series of mysterious fires in Iran, including one at the Natanz nuclear site and another at a military complex that houses missile production facilities.

An Israeli TV report over the weekend said Israel was bracing for a possible Iranian retaliation if it determines Jerusalem is behind the Natanz explosion.

Two Israeli citizens from an Arab Israeli town in northern Israel were arrested in early June for allegedly working for Hezbollah as part of the Iranian-backed terrorist organization’s efforts to collect sensitive information on Israel, the Shin Bet security agency revealed according to israelhayom.com.

According to security officials who interrogated the two women, they were recruited by a former resident of their village who is now residing in Lebanon.

The recruiter works as a journalist at the Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar, which is considered a mouthpiece of the terrorist organization, while also serving as Hezbollah’s recruiter together with her husband Bilal. Both have apparently been tasked with contacting Arab Israelis and making them work for the organization.

In 2019, the recruiter met in Turkey with the two prospective recruits from her former village. The two were subsequently interrogated for allegedly joining the organization.

During their interrogation, they shed light on the methods used by the organization in Israel. The Shin Bet later contacted Bilal and warned him and his wife that the Israeli authorities were aware of their recruitment operation.

Iraqi security forces raided a headquarters belonging to the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in southern Baghdad late on Thursday, detaining dozens of its members, government officials and paramilitary sources said.

The raid was the most brazen action by Iraqi forces against a major Iran-backed militia group in years and targeted the faction, which US officials have accused of firing rockets at bases hosting US troops and other facilities in Iraq.

Iraqi government officials and paramilitary sources then gave contradicting versions of what followed.

The paramilitary sources and one government official said those detained were transferred shortly afterwards to the security branch of Iraq’s paramilitary umbrella grouping, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

A second government official denied any such transfer and said the militiamen were still in the custody of other security services. The sources gave different numbers for those detained. A PMF official said it was 19. A government official said it was 23.

Fifty-three members of the group were arrested, reported Al Arabiya television on Friday morning.

The raid was the first sign that the government of new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, intends to make good on pledges to take tough action against militia groups that have targeted US installations.

It took place after a number of rocket attacks near the US embassy in Baghdad and other US military sites in the country in recent weeks.

But the incident also highlighted how difficult it could be to take on the militias. A senior PMF official said after some negotiation, those detained were handed over to paramilitary security forces, reported Reuters.

One government official told Reuters three commanders of Kataib Hezbollah had been detained during the raid, carried out by Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service. One of those commanders was an Iranian, he said.

A second PMF official said no commanders of Kataib Hezbollah were detained.

A spokesman for the US-led coalition in Iraq and Iraqi paramilitary sources denied any of those detained had been handed over to the US military, after a government official said three had been.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran especially on Iraqi soil have been high for at least a year.

It nearly spilled into regional conflict in January after the United States killed Iran’s military mastermind Qassem Soleimani and PMF deputy chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike at Baghdad airport.

Both Tehran and Washington supported Kadhimi in becoming prime minister in May.

Turkey has flown special forces into the Iraqi Kurdish regional governorate for a ground operation against militants, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday according to thenational.ae.

The operation in Iraq’s Haftanin region, about 15 kilometres from the border, was launched following intense artillery fire into the area, the Turkish Defence Ministry said.

“Operation Claw-Tiger has begun,” it said on Twitter. “Our commandos, who are supported by combat helicopters and drones, have been transported by our air force,” it said.

The ministry did not say how many troops are involved but justified the operation as a response to “recent upsurge in attacks on our police stations and military bases” near the Iraqi border.

It said it also targets other “terror” groups in the region, but did not name them.

The move is likely to increase friction between Ankara and Baghdad, which on Tuesday summoned the Turkish ambassador to protest against Turkish air strikes on Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq this week.

Turkey regularly hits militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party operating out of Iraq but a ground operation is an escalation. The PKK has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast region. It is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The conflict has led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives since it started in 1984.

The ground operation came days after Turkey launched an air operation in the region, which the Defence Ministry said hit suspected PKK targets in several locations in Iraq’s north, including Sinjar, and targeted 81 rebel hideouts.

The PKK and Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Governorate is yet to respond.

Baghdad has not commented on the latest escalation but earlier this week Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi chaired a meeting of the National Security Council in response to a massive round of air strikes by Turkey.

The Arab League also condemned Turkey’s actions. Ankara’s “military intervention in Arab lands, whether in Iraq, Syria or Libya, has become a cause for concern,” Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said yesterday.

Most Arab countries “disapproved of its military presence”, Mr Aboul Gheit said.

The Arab League’s council adopted a resolution in March in favour of a unified Arab approach towards Turkey and condemned Ankara’s continued intervention in Iraq.

Twitter announced on Friday that it had removed 7,340 accounts tied to a Turkish state-linked information campaign aimed at increasing domestic support for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party, like reported by kurdistan24.net.

The campaign also reportedly targeted Kurdish parties in both Syria and Turkey, attempting to garner more support for the widely-criticized Turkish invasion of northern Syria in October 2019.

“Detected in early 2020, this network of accounts was employing coordinated inauthentic activity, which was primarily targeted at domestic audiences within Turkey,” Twitter said in a statement on Friday.

“Based on our analysis of the network’s technical indicators and account behaviors, the collection of fake and compromised accounts was being used to amplify political narratives favorable to the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party – AKP), and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan. We’re disclosing 7,340 accounts to the archive today.”

Louis Fishman, an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, wrote on Twitter that the move is embarrassing for the Turkish government.

“I’ve noticed an upward swing in the ‘Ak Trolls’ and it is not like we never knew this, but really it’s just pathetic. And to think of the possibility that many were getting salaries. Really, there is not a better way to help your country?”

Twitter has shared the data with researchers at the US-based Stanford Internet Observatory. In a report, the group said the tweets were critical of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) from Turkey “and accused it of terrorism and social media ploys.”

Furthermore, “Tweets worked to increase domestic support for Turkish intervention in Syria. There were also English-language tweets that attempted to increase the external legitimacy of Turkey’s offensive in northeastern Syria in October 2019.”

The Stanford report also suggested that Turkish pro-government accounts tried to legitimatize Turkey’s October offensive in “positive terms: as a fight against terrorists, as standing with the Kurds, and as a contrast to purported YPG (People’s Protection Units) tactics of targeting civilians.”

“Several of the English-language pro-Syrian intervention hashtags (such as #TurkeyFightsISISandYPG) appear to have originated with AKP politician accounts,” the report said.

Turkey’s so-called Operation Peace Spring was widely condemned by several countries and global organizations which pointed out that the campaign destabilized the region significantly.

According to Özlem Keyhan Pusane, an associate professor at Isik University writing for War on the Rocks, “the level and scope of international disapproval about Turkey’s most recent intervention in Syria — Operation Peace Spring — surprised Turkish policymakers and the public.”

As a result, Turkey attempted to gain more support for the operation through disinformation campaigns on Twitter.

According to an October 2019 report from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research (DFR) Lab, Turkish accounts waged the parallel hashtag campaign on Twitter #babykillerPKK after Turkish armed forces bombarded the “Kurdish militia allied with the United States in its counter-Islamic State campaign in northeastern Syria.”

The campaign referred to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish rebel force currently engaged in a decades-long war with Ankara for broader Kurdish rights in Turkey.

Turkey considers the YPG to be the Syrian branch of the PKK, a claim the YPG denies. In turn, the YPG accuses Ankara of supporting extremist Jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and also Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which the United States, Turkey, and Russia have all designated as terrorist groups.

The DFR report also claimed that pro-Turkish troll accounts tweeting the #BabyKillerPKK “also pushed a narrative equating the Syrian Kurds and the PKK, often referring to both simply as YPG/PKK,” and accusing them of killing civilians.

The Turkish operation according to a United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria report in March, however, led to mass waves of displacement, forcing more than 175,000 civilians from their homes. During the operation, civilians were also killed, including during an airstrike against a civilian convoy near Ras al-Ain (Serikaniye) in mid-0October in which 11 people were killed and 74 injured, including 19 women.

Moreover, there are reports that Islamic State leaders have returned to Tal Abyad after Turkey’s takeover. The activist group known as “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently” reported on Thursday that “many ISIS leaders have returned to villages around Tal Abyad recently.”

The Syrian Democratic Forces announced over the weekend that it has launched the “campaign to deter terrorism” in eastern Syria, one of the largest operations against ISIS since the fall of the militant group’s so-called “caliphate” in 2019, like reported by thenational.ae.

Unconfirmed reports estimated that 6,000 troops are taking part in the mission, which is being carried out in the area between Hasaka and the border with Iraq and around Deir Ezzor.

The mission is supported with “technical advice and eyes in the sky” from the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and in co-ordination with the Iraqi military.

A statement released by the SDF’s general command said that ISIS attacks have increased recently, posing a “real threat to people’s safety, security and stability”.

It said that their forces have begun an operation on Thursday to “pursue and track the cells of the ISIS terrorist organisation in the eastern Badia (Syrian Desert), along the Khabour River and the Syrian-Iraqi border”.

“The campaign will target ISIS hideouts and hotbeds, which are a source for concern to the people and that work to disturb security and stability in the region, as well threatening the return of ISIS,” it said.

According to members of the SDF on social media, 40 ISIS “gang” members have already been detained, and six tunnels and bunkers destroyed.

The arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East has provided a distraction that some believe ISIS have been exploiting to step-up operations, stoking fears of a resurgence.

Although the group has continued to stage attacks since the collapse of its physical territory in March 2019, it has carried out a series of large-scale attacks in Iraq and Syria over the last two months. Experts have said that the strikes have also become more sophisticated and complex.

At the end of last month, the group released a statement online that said changes in the region were offering “greater opportunities” than they have had over “the past decade”.

According to the Spokesperson for the Global Coalition, Myles B Caggins III, told The National that the SDF are conducting a “massive” anti-ISIS operation in eastern Syria.

“The international military coalition is supporting the SDF—specifically for anti-ISIS operations—with technical advice on planning and tactics, as well as intelligence sharing, including drones and air support,” he said.

“This is the largest SDF operation in 2020 and includes security along the Syria-Iraq border to disrupt ISIS smuggling routes.”

The Global Coalition met virtually last Thursday to discuss the creation of conditions to end the fight against the terrorist group.

“While ISIS no longer controls territory and nearly eight million people have been freed from its control in Iraq and Syria, the threat remains and thus calls for stronger vigilance and co-ordinated actions,” they said in a summary of the meeting on the coalition’s website.

At its height, ISIS controlled 88,000 square kilometres of land stretching across Syria and Iraq, but lost its last territory, the small town of Baghouz, to SDF fighters last year.

An unknown war plane targeted areas in Albukamal desert in eastern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory said that “an unknown war plane targeted, on Sunday afternoon, military vehicles carrying heavy machine guns belonging to groups loyal to Iran of non-Syrian nationalities” near the Iraqi border.

The Observatory pointed out that the raid on the desert of Albukamal city resulted in “killing 5 members of these groups and damaged three cars.”

The observatory did not say who was behind the raid, but its director Rami Abdel Rahman said it was likely that Israel was responsible for the attack.

In recent years, Israel has intensified its bombardment in Syria, targeting mainly Syrian army positions and Iranian and other targets of the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Israel reiterates that it will continue to stand up to what it describes as Iran’s attempts to establish a military presence in Syria and to send advanced weapons to Hezbollah.