Officially defeated, the Sunni extremist group still have diehard supporters, writes Patrick Cockburn in Karbala. A few minutes later, he pressed a remote control, detonating the explosives he had left in a bag under his seat on the bus.
Isis claimed responsibility for the attack. The bombing made an impact out of proportion to its size because, for the last two years, Iraqi cities have been largely free from the devastating bombings by Isis, the worst of which once killed hundreds of civilians at a time. The latest attack is a sign that Isis is not completely destroyed and is trying to rebuild its strength, though it has never recovered from the loss of its capital Mosul after a nine-month siege in Among those whom it particularly seeks to recruit are those from Sunni communities that suffered badly during the ferocious civil war that raged in Iraq between about and and which has left a legacy of deprivation and hatred.
It is this legacy that makes the place of origin of the three-member Isis cell that allegedly carried out the Karbala bombing so significant. Jurf al-Sakhar, which once had a population of 90,, was one of the few Sunni towns south of Baghdad and was notorious as a stronghold of al-Qaeda and later of Isis.
They exploited its strategic position close to Baghdad and on the main route to Shia southern Iraq to launch bomb attacks in the capital and against Shia targets in and around Karbala. The town was stormed by Shia paramilitary groups in and the entire Sunni population was expelled β many families who had once owned large farms being reduced over the last five years to living in shacks or being packed into a single room.
Jurf al-Sakhar became a ghost town, largely occupied by hardline Shia militias. Its inhabitants have long been asking for permission to go home, but this basic privilege is unlikely to be granted any time soon. The representatives of the majority Shia population in surrounding Hilla province, much relieved that Isis no longer has a territorial base close to them, have threatened legal action against any politician who calls for the people of Jurf al-Saakhar to be allowed to return to their old town.
