Inside Story

Has ISIL been defeated in Iraq?

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says the war against armed group is over in the country.

In 2014, ISIL announced it was taking over parts of Iraq and Syria.

But three years later and billions of dollars lost, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says his military has defeated the armed group.

It has been a long road to get to this point.

The battle for Mosul alone took months, nearly a million people had to flee, and thousands were killed. 

And that was just one of several Iraqi cities once controlled by ISIL.

Has ISIL been defeated in Iraq? What does this mean for Iraq’s future? 

Presenter: Sami Zeidan

Guests:

Ali Al Dabbagh – Former spokesman for the Iraqi government

Tallha Abdulrazaq – Researcher at the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute

Ahmed Rushdi – Adviser to the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament.