CALGARY — Canada’s former commander in Iraq says the Islamic State may have been defeated on the battlefield, but the militant group remains alive and well as an insurgency and could still wield strong influence in the war-torn region. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Daesh or ISIS in Iraq or northeast Syria has been defeated in the sense that they are no longer a quasi-state,” said Keiver in an interview with The Canadian Press. “The ideology has in no way at all been defeated. Those factors were cited as key contributors to the rise of the Islamic State in 2014.

Source: National Post June 09, 2019 13:52 UTC