Iraqi security forces in Rutba, Iraq
© AFPIraqi security forces in Rutba, Iraq
The Iraqi army and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) clashed with ISIS militants in western Anbar governorate on 3 February, an Iraqi security source told Al-Mayadeen.

The Iraqi Al-Nujaba satellite channel said that ISIS took advantage of the US bombing of targets in Iraq and Syria by launching an attack on the army and the PMU forces in the area of ​​Kilometer 160 on the Al-Sakkar highway near the town of Rutba in Anbar.

The US has occupied the nearby Al-Tanf Base on the Syrian side of the border since 2015 and has used it to arm and train ISIS militants.

The US and allied intelligence agencies used ISIS to attack the Syrian and Iraqi armies as part of its effort to effect regime change in Damascus starting in 2011 and to depose Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in 2014.

After ISIS conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria, US forces turned against the group. With help from Kurdish forces, the US took control of much of the territory in Syria ISIS once controlled. In Iraq, the US partnered with Iraqi forces to retake Mosul.

Gulf-backed Syria researcher Charles Lister wrote in Foreign Policy on 24 January that ISIS is enjoying a resurgence and that 10,000 ISIS militants are detained within at least 20 makeshift prisons in US and Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria, constituting an ISIS "army in waiting" and its "next generation."

The comments raised fears the US may use ISIS militants to counter forces from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), a coalition of Shia armed groups that seek to expel US forces from Syria and Iraq and end the Israeli genocide on Gaza.