THE awful carnage at the checkpoint outside the Iraqi city of Hilla on Sunday was notable for more than the savage butchery of the suicide bomber. He was driving a fuel tanker laden with explosives. The use of trucks to cause maximum destruction is now becoming an established tactic of Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS). Life now looks hard for the tens of thousands of truckers who distribute essential supplies in a country with a limited rail network and where air transport of most goods is impractical. If lorry bombs become the new horror, then truckers can expect to be corralled into special secure lanes and inspected one by one. But this also means that life will become harder and indeed, since cargo rates will rise, even more expensive for ordinary Iraqis. The thinking is that as Daesh is slowly pressed back from the territory it seized, it will seek to penetrate government-controlled areas with increasing determination. The much-telegraphed assault on Mosul is expected anytime soon. With their supply lines interdicted by US-led coalition air strikes, the outcome of a likely bloody battle, is virtually inevitable. Daesh will once again be driven back. But how far ahead are Iraqi government planners really thinking? The terrorist textbooks always warn that they should not come into battle formations until they are sure they can consolidate their position. When Ramadi fell in June 2015, it looked as if Daesh was poised to attack Baghdad. But that now seems the furthest extent of the terrorists' campaign. Ramadi is back in government hands. The tide of battle is clearly turning. But what happens when the last concentrations of Daesh killers have been destroyed? What happens when Iraqi troops are once again able to patrol the long and difficult border with Syria? The IS threat will not have gone away. It will simply have changed. It will have morphed back into a standard terrorist dimension, of which Iraq has been victim ever since the US overthrew Saddam Hussein 13 years ago. Even now it cannot be doubted that Daesh is hiding caches of weapons and explosives for later use. It is counting off terrorists who will go underground and form the same sort of secret cells that Al-Qaeda used to bring bloody chaos to the country after 2003. There is the clear danger of a common factor between Al-Qaeda then and Daesh in the not too distant future. Terrorists are always exposed in a hostile environment. Saudi Arabia is proof of this. Successive terror cells have been caught thanks to information provided by ordinary members of the public. In Iraq, Al-Qaeda and Daesh received the not-always-willing support of Sunni tribal leaders. A key reason was the blatant discrimination shown by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. The former premier Nouri Al-Maliki set out to marginalize and isolate Iraqi Sunnis from the political process. Thus for his successor Haider Al-Abadi to win the peace he will have to convince the Sunni community that they have a proper place in the country's government and administration. This is a huge task. But if he leaves Sunnis in the shadows, away from any political power and influence, then it can be expected that the terrorists will be able to hide there too.
