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Yasaman Alavi grew up in Iran, a country with a vibrant food culture. "Food is a big part of life in Iran," says Alavi, a psychotherapist who now lives in Washington, D.C. She says her mother and aunt were excellent cooks who often prepared big feasts for family gatherings.

But as a young woman in Iran, she didn't bother to learn their culinary tricks. "I didn't really like cooking that much," she says.

That changed once she moved to the United States in 2008. "I missed the Persian dishes," she says. "So that's what motivated me to cook more and more."

In this video, she shows us how she makes zereshk polow ba morgh the Farsi name for a rice dish with raisins and barberries a tart fruit like the cranberry that is eaten with a slow-cooked chicken dish on the side. The meal is often accompanied by a yogurt sauce with cucumbers called mast-o-khiar.

This video is part of a series called #NPRHotPot, featuring foods from around the world and the memories people associate with them. Want all six Hot Pot episodes? Sign up for NPR The Salt's newsletter and we'll deliver them to your inbox: n.pr/2sK8q2w.

Jump to the recipe.

Alavi says cooking in her adopted country also helped her deal with homesickness. "I kind of coped through cooking," she says. The act of re-creating dishes from her childhood and youth helped Alavi feel more connected to her country and family. These days, she and her husband, also an Iranian-American, regularly cook Persian food.

Alavi's instinct to tackle homesickness through food is something immigrants from many countries including myself can relate to. I moved to the United States in 2002 and only then started cooking the regional Indian cuisine from my home state, West Bengal. And while I love the range of cuisines I have access to in this country, the food I turn to when I'm homesick is a simple Bengali meal of rice and massoor daal red lentils cooked with fried onions and a five spice mix called paanch phoron.

Sometimes the relatives from back home ease the pain with food parcels, like Greek families used to send to their loved ones abroad, says David Sutton, an anthropologist at Southern Illinois University. Sutton has studied the role of food in the Greek diaspora and found that Greek immigrants often describe how food from home makes them feel "whole."

"[T]here is an imagined community implied in the act of eating food "from home" while in exile," Sutton writes in a paper published in the journal, Anthropology and Humanism.

Some enterprising immigrants figure out a way to earn a living by serving the familiar tastes of home and something more. Mina Bestman moved to Georgia from Liberia about 20 years ago and now runs Mina's Cuisine, a West African restaurant that caters to homesick Liberians. "I opened the restaurant so we can gather and talk about back home," Bestman told Goats and Soda in a story we published a few years ago.

Food is a powerful trigger for nostalgia, says Chelsea Reid, a psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. Even the smell of food can evoke nostalgia and not just for immigrants. In a study published in 2014, in the journal Memory, Reid and her colleagues tested whether different scents including pumpkin spice, apple pie, eggnog, perfume and cappuccino could evoke nostalgia.

"The scent that evoked the most nostalgia was pumpkin pie," she says. "That's a scent that makes us think of celebrations, of Thanksgiving, gathering with family and friends."

She also found that the nostalgic feelings triggered by smells make people feel more optimistic and give them a sense of social connection.

That could explain why the smell of rice is so important to Alavi. "That's a big part of Iranian life the house [always] smells like rice is cooking," she says. "I think I started cooking to make the new home smell like the old home that I had back in Iran."

Rice with barberries

2 cups white rice 1/2 cup raisins 2/3 cup dried barberries (sold online and at Persian grocery stores) 4 cups water 1 tablespoon saffron water 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon butter Pinch salt 1 teaspoon saffron threads

(Note: You can buy dry saffron threads at any good spice store or online. Saffron threads should be dry. If they look moist, put them in the microwave for 5 seconds to dry them before cooking.)

Put the rice in a pot and add four cups of water and two tablespoon of oil with a pinch of salt.

Bring to a boil over a high flame.

Once the water is boiling bring the flame to medium-low. Then cover the pot and cook for about 30 minutes or until the water has evaporated.

Once there's no more water in the pot, and the rice looks close to being fully cooked, add 2 tablespoons of oil to the rice drizzle 1 tablespoon around the outer end of the rice, and drizzle 1 tablespoon in a small circle over the middle of the rice. The oil will help make the bottom of the rice brown and crispy, while preventing it from sticking to the pan. This crispy crust is called tahdig in Farsi it means "bottom of the pan." Most Iranian rice dishes are cooked this way to create a crunchy tahdig.

Grind the saffron threads by hand in the mortar and pestle into a fine powder (or use 1/2 teaspoon of saffron powder). Now add 2 tablespoons of boiling water to the saffron powder to make saffron water.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a small pan, add the berries and raisins as well as 1 tablespoon of the saffron water. Save the remaining water for the chicken. Stir frequently for a few seconds, until the water evaporates.

Now take the rice pot off the stove and flip the pot over a plate. The rice should come out of the pot looking like a cake, with the crispy and golden brown tahdig on top.

Put half of the mixture of berries and raisins over the rice, and put the rest in a small bowl next to the rice for extra garnishing.

Chicken

2 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon butter 3 large yellow onions, chopped 2 pounds of chicken legs and thighs 4 cardamom pods 1/2 tablespoon paprika 1 tablespoon black peppercorns 1 tablespoon white pepper 3 cloves 1 1/2 tablespoons coriander seeds 1/2 teaspoon cumin seed

Heat the pan and pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into it. Add the chopped onions. Cook on high flame, stirring occasionally.

While onion cooks, grind the spices (cardamom seeds, paprika, black and white pepper, cloves, coriander and cumin) by hand in a mortar and pestle. If you don't own a mortar and pestle, use a small food processor instead.

Now coat the chicken pieces on both sides with the ground spice mix and add the chicken to the pot with the onion. Cover the pot and let the chicken cook over medium heat for 45 minutes to one hour.

Add 1 tablespoon of the remaining saffron water to the chicken and stir just before taking it off the stove.

Yogurt sauce

1 24-ounce container yogurt. 4 English cucumbers, peeled and cubed 1 teaspoon dried mint tablespoon dried rose petals (available at specialty grocery stores or online) Salt and pepper to taste

Whisk the yogurt with salt, pepper, dried mint and dried rose petals till smooth. Add cucumbers and set aside till rice and chicken are ready.

To serve zereshk polow ba morgh, cut a wedge of the rice. Place it on a plate, garnish with some of the remaining berries, add a serving of chicken to the side and a dollop of yogurt sauce. Enjoy!

Tell us a memory you have about a dish you love. Post a video or photo on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #NPRHotPot, and we'll gather some of our favorites and post them on NPR.org. Get the details here.

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The Islamic State group has issued a short new video in which it threatens the Islamic Republic of Iran and vows to destabilize the country with terrorist attacks.

The video, released Tuesday, depicts a teenage boy in military uniform who directly looks at the camera and speaks Persian with a bold voice, threatening the regime.

The teenager is introduced as the "Persian Qattadah" in the video, which is the name of a close disciple of Prophet Muhammad.

"We will destroy your land and your home, we will disrupt your security and we will shed your blood into rivers," the teenager is heard saying in the video.

Iran has not yet reacted to the video. It was produced in similar fashion to other videos released by the terror group in the past.

In late March, IS released a 36-minute, Persian-language video aimed at Iran's Sunni Muslim minority in which several adults spoke in Persian, but with heavy Baloch and Arabic accents.

The new video portrays a child soldier who speaks fluent Persian with no accent at all, which suggests that the terror group may have made inroads in parts of the country to recruit.

Mixed reaction

Analysts' views on the content and purpose of the video were mixed.

Some said IS wanted to exploit Iranian Sunnis, who have long been deprived of their rights.

"Islamic State's propaganda is falling on fertile ground as Sunnis in Iran are deeply underprivileged and deprived of many of their rights," Ali Alfoneh, a nonresident senior fellow at Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at The Atlantic Council, told VOA.

"It is hardly surprising that the Islamic State is trying to target Iran's Sunni minority," Alfoneh added.

Others downplayed the video and viewed it as a desperate move by IS to show that it remains relevant. The terror group has faced numerous defeats on the battlefield in recent months in Iraq and Syria.

"This is an isolated case and depicts a desperate effort by IS to show it is still capable of conducting new attacks," said Alex Vatanka, a senior analyst at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

"With less territory under control and shrinking sources of revenue, recruiting new members from Iran, where people, even dissident Sunnis, see less common ground with IS, seems to be shooting in the dark and bears no fruit at all," Vatanka added.

Marginalization of Sunnis

Alfoneh of the Atlantic Council said he thought that some of Iran's policies were purposefully marginalizing the country's Sunni minority from the mainstream, which could drive them closer to extremist groups like IS.

"Iran's Sunnis are being oppressed, and the Iranian government policy of relating Sunnis to IS and Saudis has not given the desired fruit expected," he said. "Twin attacks on June 7 committed by Iranian members of IS prove that fact."

IS militants carried out twin terrorist attacks in early June targeting Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

The attacks, which IS claimed responsibility for, killed at least 17 people and injured dozens more.

Iran's mainly Baloch and Kurd Sunni minorities have long accused Tehran of discriminating against them because of their religious views.

Human rights organizations also have talked of mass executions of Sunnis and have urged Iran to lift restrictions on Sunnis, who make up about 9 percent of the country's population.

Tehran has acknowledged it executed at least 977 people in 2015, which it says was mainly for drug-related crimes.

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Islamic State Threatens Iran in New Video - Voice of America

WASHINGTON The Trump administration is pushing for inspections of suspicious Iranian military sites in a bid to test the strength of the nuclear deal that President Donald Trump desperately wants to cancel, senior U.S. officials said.

The inspections are one element of what is designed to be a more aggressive approach to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. While the Trump administration seeks to police the existing deal more strictly, it is also working to fix what Trumps aides have called serious flaws in the landmark deal that if not resolved quickly will likely lead Trump to pull out.

That effort also includes discussions with European countries to negotiate a follow-up agreement to prevent Iran from resuming nuclear development after the deals restrictions expire in about a decade, the officials said. The officials werent authorized to discuss the efforts publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The inspections requests, which Iran would likely resist, could play heavily into Trumps much-anticipated decision about whether to stick with the deal hes long derided.

If Iran refuses inspections, the argument goes, Trump will have a solid basis to say Iran is breaching the deal, setting up Tehran to take most of the blame if the agreement collapses. If Iran agrees to inspections, those in Trumps administration who want to preserve the deal will be emboldened to argue its advancing U.S. national security effectively.

The campaign gained fresh urgency this month following a dramatic clash within the administration about whether to certify Irans compliance, as is required every 90 days.

Trump was eager to declare Tehran in violation, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitors compliance says its infractions are minor. At the urging of top Cabinet members, Trump agreed at the last minute to avoid a showdown for another three months but only with assurances the U.S. would increase pressure on Iran to test whether the deal is truly capable of addressing its nuclear ambitions and other troublesome activities.

Trump faces another certification deadline in three months, and its unclear whether new inspections or any fixes to address his concerns will be in place by then. Trump told The Wall Street Journal this week he expects to say Iran isnt complying, setting a high bar for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other aides to persuade him otherwise.

If it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago, Trump said.

To that end, the administration is seeking to force Iran to let in IAEA inspectors to military sites where the U.S. intelligence community believes the Islamic Republic may be cheating on the deal, several officials said. Access to Irans military sites was one of the most contentious issues in the 2015 deal, in which Tehran agreed to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

Last week in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon floated the proposal to the European members of the Joint Commission that oversees the deal, one official said. Britain, France and Germany joined the U.S., Russia, China and the European Union two years ago in brokering the deal with Iran.

To force inspections of new sites in Iran, the U.S. would need to enlist the support of the IAEA and a majority of the countries in the deal. But the U.S. has run into early resistance over concerns it has yet to produce a smoking gun compelling evidence of illicit activity at a military site that the IAEA could use to justify inspections, officials said.

Among the concerns about a rush toward inspections is that if they fail to uncover evidence of violations, it would undermine the IAEAs credibility and its ability to demand future inspections. So the U.S. is working to produce foolproof intelligence about illicit activity, officials said. The officials declined to describe the intelligence activities or the Iranian sites the U.S. believes are involved.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, alluded to the strategy during an event hosted Wednesday by The Washington Post. Corker said the U.S. was trying to radically enforce the deal by asking for access to various facilities in Iran.

If they dont let us in, boom, Corker said. You want the breakup of this deal to be about Iran. You dont want it to be about the U.S. because we want our allies with us.

As a candidate, Trump threatened to rip up the deal that President Barack Obama brokered. As president, Trump has yet to take that step, as his administration finishes a broader Iran policy review expected to conclude in August.

The other major step to try to address what Trump has deemed flaws in the deal involves ensuring that Iran cant revert to old behavior once the limitations on its program sunset over the next decade-plus. The U.S. State Department said Trump has directed his administration to work with allies to explore options for dealing with that and other shortcomings. Talks are underway with the European countries about a supplemental deal, though its unclear how Iran could be persuaded to sign on.

The deals provisions for inspections of military facilities, or undeclared sites, involve a complex process with plenty of opportunities for Iran to stall. Tehran can propose alternatives to on-site inspections, or reject the request, which would trigger a 24-day process for the Joint Commission countries to override the rejection.

That could drag on for months. And under ambiguities built into the deal, its unclear whether Iran must allow IAEA inspectors into military sites, or whether the Iranians can take their own environmental samples and send them to the IAEA for testing, as was allowed under a 2015 side agreement that let Iran use its own experts to inspect the Parchin military site.

Even if Trump declares Iran in violation of the deal a move that would invigorate his conservative base he could still leave Irans sanctions relief in place.

American businesses are eager for the deal to survive so they can pursue lucrative opportunities in Iran. The aviation industry recently signed billions of dollars of contracts to sell passenger plans to Iranian airlines, including a $16.6 billion deal for Boeing.

Associated Press writer George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.

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US reportedly seeks to test Iran deal with more inspections - NavyTimes.com

During a week in which all signs point to Republicans enshrining President Obama's top domestic achievement into law, it's now looking like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has tricked President Trump into keeping the main pillar of Obama's foreign policy legacy in place indefinitely: the disastrous Iran deal.

On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that as part of Trump's move to certify Iran's compliance with the deal, the administration is pushing to "test" the deal with more inspections. On the surface, this may seem like a move to step up enforcement and lay the groundwork to unwind the deal theoretically consistent with Trump's vow to "get tough" on Iran. But in practice, it looks like a stalling tactic designed by Tillerson and Obama holdovers in the State Department to handcuff Trump, with endless bureaucratic delays, from ever being able to pull out of the deal.

Last week, Iran deal supporters in the administration, led by Tillerson, talked Trump into sticking with the deal and certifying Iran compliance for the second time of his presidency, even as he told the Wall Street Journal, "If it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago."

Under the agreement that secured his decision recertify the deal, the United States will push for more inspections of Iranian military sites. As the AP puts it, "If Iran refuses inspections, the argument goes, Trump finally will have a solid basis to say Iran is breaching the deal, setting up Tehran to take most of the blame if the agreement collapses. If Iran agrees to inspections, those in Trump's administration who want to preserve the deal will be emboldened to argue it's advancing U.S. national security effectively."

The problem is twofold one logistical, and one more fundamental.

Logistically, the process of requesting inspections of Iranian sites is long and arduous, with plenty of opportunities for international institutions and foreign governments to gum up the works, delaying any firm resolution indefinitely, and thus putting pressure on Trump to constantly renew the deal to let the process play out. The prospect of this has not been lost on opponents of the Iran deal, who have been furiously emailing and texting with each other in despair as they contemplate the implications.

In an email to reporters, Omri Ceren, managing director of the Israel Project and one of the most dogged and informed opponents of the deal, observed that, "The push [for inspections] can drag on literally indefinitely: It requires the State Department to persuade the Europeans to persuade the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to persuade the Iranians to allow inspections, and in between there need to be bilateral and multilateral intelligence exchanges, and anyway the [Iran deal] allows Iran to engage in dialogue with the IAEA indefinitely without ever violating the deal."

There are a number of scenarios in which this convoluted process can be exploited by Tillerson and his band of Iran deal proponents at the State Department to maneuver Trump into holding off on his desire to escape the Iran deal.

"One scenario: In 3 months, Iran deal advocates will tell the president he has to certify because the deal is still being tested,'" Ceren wrote. "Another scenario: In 3 months, the Europeans (or Iran deal advocates channeling them) will tell the president he has to certify because they've bought into the testing,' and would backlash against decertification while it's ongoing. These are a half-dozen of these scenarios getting bounced around this morning."

As I noted, these are the logistical problems with substituting the "more inspections" approach in the place of a more focused strategy specifically unwinding the deal. But there's also a more fundamental problem: Regardless of whether it's enforced, the Iran deal is still a really crappy deal.

That is, even if Iran completely complies with the deal, it will still be given space to become a much more dangerous conventional threat while putting it on a glide path to nuclear weapons over time.

One of the main conservative cases for an unconventional outsider like Trump was that at least he was willing to burn things down that needed to be burnt down. But he's been consistently outplayed by swamp creatures. He vowed to reverse eight years of damaging Obama policies, yet more than six months into the Trump presidency, Obama's legacy at home and abroad looks increasingly secure.

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Looks like Rex Tillerson tricked Trump into keeping the Iran deal forever - Washington Examiner

BAGHDADThe Iraqi government declared victory against the extremist Islamic State group in Mosul this month, and that was cause for major celebration.

But the extremists are far from eradicated in Iraq. Several strongholds remain. And the battle to push the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, out of these places will be more complicated than the previous, straightforward fights have been in places like Fallujah and Tikrit.

Notably, the stalemate between Turkey and Iran in this area poses a serious political challenge for the Iraqi government in the remaining cities controlled by ISIS.

At the same time, many extremists have taken to the hills and begun to wage a classic rural guerrilla war, while some sleeper cells have been activated at the very gates of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Today the extremists control three towns: Tal Afar, west of Mosul; Hawija, south of Kirkuk; and Al Qaim, west of Anbar. Each fight has its own complicated set of considerations, from political questions to military ones, as well as, in some cases, dangerous foreign policy ramifications.

Tal Afar

When the Iraqi military began the fight to push ISIS out of Mosul in October last year, there was a deliberate plan to exclude the Shiite Muslim militias from the campaign. This is because the city of Mosul had a Sunni majority population and there were fears that involving the Shiite Muslim militias, who began as a volunteer force fighting the ISIS, would eventually cause problems with Mosul locals, possibly even to the extent that the local population would not support the military.

The Shiite Muslim militias in the area then began to move toward the town of Tal Afar, another ISIS stronghold. The militias fought in the suburbs around Tal Afar but were warned off entering the town by one of Iraqs neighbors, Turkey.

The Turks said they were worried that the militias would take revenge on ethnic Turkmen living in the townthere were both Sunni Muslim and Shiite Muslim Turkmen living in Tal Afar before the security crisis, and the Sunni Muslim Turkmen who remained, and who would have been at the militias mercy, were considered by many to be supporters of ISIS.

There are still Turkish troops in Camp Zilkan east of Bashiqua. Despite protestations from both local and Iraqi federal officials, the Turkish military have remained there, which means that the threat of them acting against the Shiite Muslim militias also remains. And there are ongoing concerns that the Turks might try to join in the fighting for Tal Afar.

On July 19, some of the most senior leaders of several of the Shiite Muslim militiasHadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr organization; Qais al-Khazali, head of the League of the Righteous militia; and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes of Hezbollah in Iraqmet to discuss the matter. The three groups, known for having closer ties to Iran than to the Iraqi government, decided that they did wish to participate in this fight.

The apparent stalemate between Turkey and Iran in this area poses a serious political challenge for the Iraqi government. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will need to find a diplomatic solution to resolve an international conflict that could throw the fight against ISIS off course.

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The battle for Tal Afar will be difficult because it is a political fight as well as a military one, Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish MP, told NIQASH. Really all parties should be focusing on a common enemy, the [Islamic State] group.

One of the suggested solutions would involve different Shiite Muslim militias coming to fight in Tal Afar. These more moderate militias, including the Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigadeoften referred to simply as the Abbas Brigadesare known to be more loyal to the Iraqi government rather than Iran. The Abbas Brigades also helped support the Iraqi armys ninth division in the fight for Mosul.

One of the fighters with the Abbas Brigades, Kathim al-Daraji, says this seems probable. More than 3,000 reservists have been called up and it is likely they will be fighting alongside the Iraqi army in the fight for Tal Afar, he suggests.

Hawija

In the south of Kirkuk province, the town of Hawija has been dominated by the ISIS for the past three years. As yet there have been no military operations launched to push the ISIS out of Hawija, due in large part to the complicated political problems in this area between the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, the Shiite Muslim militias, and the Sunni Muslim community.

Shiite Muslim factions are insisting on taking part in this battle because they wish to protect the Shiite Muslim locals living in villages around Hawija. But the Iraqi Kurdish military fear that if the Shiite Muslim fighters do take part here, they will also try and stay in the area.

Kirkuk is what is known as a disputed territorythat is, the Iraqi Kurdish believe it should be part of their nearby semi-autonomous region, but Iraqi Arabs believe it is part of Iraq proper. If the Shiite Muslim Arabs stay in the area after ISIS is expelled, this dilutes the Kurdish claim on the area.

The unhappy relationship between Baghdad and the leaders of the Iraqi Kurdish region at the moment is also an issue. This has been exacerbated by the Kurds intention to hold a referendum on their regions potential independence from the rest of Iraq. Baghdad has already announced its strong opposition to the idea.

And there is another problem: The Sunni Muslim tribal leaders in this area are mostly worried that if the Iraqi Kurdish military or the Shiite Muslim militias take part in the battle, then there will unlawful acts of revenge taken on their people here.

Al Qaim

It is highly likely that the fight to expel the ISIS from Al Qaim is a long way down the list of battles to come. Tal Afar and Hawija probably will happen first. This is because Al Qaim is located on an international border, between Iraq and Syria. Given the geography, Al Qaim is by far the most secure city for the ISIS group.

Basically, both Damascus and Baghdad would have to coordinate a campaign against ISIS here.

The Syrian government is not able to do this at the moment, and the Iraqi forces are not ready for this fight either, according to Ibrahim al-Jumaili, a senior officer retired from the Iraqi army.

In February this year the Iraqi government announced that it would start aerial bombing of the area around Al Qaim, in coordination with the Syrian government. But after just a few days the raids stopped, and no explanation was given.

The most difficult fighting is that taking place on the border and in the large desert areas, explains al-Jumaili, who served in Iraqs ground forces during the Iran-Iraq war. If the Iraqi army pushes the ISIS fighters out of Al Qaim, they will just go to Abu Kamal [the Syrian town on the other side of the border]. But then they will just come back into Iraq when they want to, because there are no Syrian troops there to stop them.

There is also the difficult political situation in Syria to consider, with various actors engaged, including the United States and Russia. The longer it takes to settle the Syrian problem, the longer it will take to liberate Al Qaim and the Iraqi-Syrian border area, says al-Jumaili.

But the ISIS strategy for its remaining forces in Iraq is not limited to three towns.

The Hills of Hamrin

Having been driven out of Mosul, the extremist Islamic State group is doing what Al Qaeda did before it: setting up new bases in the rugged northern Hamrin mountain area, going back to their old tactics of hit-and-run, guerrilla style fighting against pro-government forces.

According to intelligence from the Iraqi Kurdish military, there have been intensive movements of ISIS fighters observed in the Hamrin mountains over the past few weeks. It is believed that many of the organizations leaders from Mosulhave retreatedinto this rugged backcountry.

The ISIS fighters often roam nearby at night but then fade away, back into the mountains, in the morning. It is a psychological war.

After the campaign against them in Mosul, ISIS is returning to the Hamrin area and into the Hawija area, either as individuals or as small groups, Rasoul Karkui, commander of the Iraqi Kurdish military in Kirkuk, also known as Wasta Rasoul, told NIQASH. It is clear that they intend to strengthen their presence in this area. A while ago they announced the creation of their Mountain State. But they dont plan to launch a war [as such] against the Iraqi army or us. They only want to attack us and use guerrilla tactics.

The Hamrin mountains extend through the provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk, and Salahaddin, right up to the borders with Iran and even onto some parts of the Syrian border. After ISIS took control of Mosul in mid-2014, much of the Hamrin basin was also under their rule. However counter-attacks by the Iraqi army and the Iraqi Kurdish military saw them return to pro-government hands and there had been relative stability there up until recently.

The Hamrin basin contains Hamrin lake, the south and east sides of which are under the control of the Iraqi army and the Shiite Muslim militias. The north and east are under Iraqi Kurdish control. Military intelligence does expect ISIS to use the lake for travel.

The Hamrin mountains have a long history of insurgent activity. The rugged terrain and the connection to various bordersin particular, Syriasfacilitate the transfer of fighters and weapons, as well as making it hard for local security forces to keep track.

After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which saw the government led by Saddam Hussein toppled, most of the anti-U.S. groups that arose afterwards found a home in the Hamrin mountains. That included Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Sunna, and the Naqshbandi Army, all of whom could be considered forerunners, or constituents of, the Islamic State.

ISIS is now resorting to guerrilla warfare after they lost control of the larger cities, confirms Abdulla Bor, leader of the Iraqi Kurdish forces in theTuz Khurmatu area, which have been attacked by ISIS fighters several times over the past few weeks.

In early June, Lahur Jangi Talabani, the head of one of Iraqi Kurdistans intelligence services, went to Baghdad to speak to senior officials there about it. At the end of last week, Talabani told Reuters that he believes ISIS will make the Hamrin mountains a major base and that the Iraqi Kurdish military are expecting hard times in this area.

The Gates of Baghdad

Almost daily, a suicide bomber tries to blow himself up but is thwarted by a soldier at a roadblock who shoots him before he can detonate his explosives. Then another suicide bomber tries again only a few meters away, but is stopped in the same way, by a different soldier.

The local media are not covering these events in the Tarmiyah district, an area that is often described as part of the Baghdad belt, the ring of more rural towns and neighborhoods around the Iraqi capital. But locals on social media continuously document the events. And according to their reports, there are one or two incidents every day involving snipers, masked gunmen, explosives, or a suicide bomber.

The reports are often confirmed by local security forces. For example, on July 8, a U.S.-led team attacked what was later confirmed to be an ISIS cell in Tarmiyah; seven ISIS fighters were killed in the raid. Media associated with ISIS also are publishing reports of the groups "successes" in Tarmiyah.

The area has been mostly clear of ISIS since late 2014, and the Iraqi military conducted a special operation here in April to try and hunt down ISIS members who might still be in the neighborhood. Afterwards the Tarmiyah area was declared safe by the Baghdad Operations Command, which is responsible for security in the capital.

People were encouraged to return, says Sabih al-Salman, one of Tarmiyahs tribal leaders. But the security forces are still cutting off streets, raiding different areas, and searching for wanted people, he says, Which means it is not actually as safe as we were told.

It seems clear that there are ISIS sleeper cells hiding in abandoned houses or keeping weapons and explosives there.

Tarmiyah connects four provinces: Diyala, Salahaddin, Anbar and to the south, Baghdad. If the ISIS can infiltrate this area, it will make carrying out attacks in Baghdad easierfighters can be funneled from those other provinces into the city through Tarmiyah.

It is also a relatively rural area, with many orchards and farms where extremists could hide, and it takes just half an hour to travel from Tarmiyah to the center of Baghdad, which is about 50 kilometers away.

The locals in Tarmiyah appear to want to protect themselves from ISIS. It is the duty of the people to act against any of the kinds of activities that will darken this district again," al-Salman says. If any of the sons of any of the local tribes becomes a member of ISIS, then the tribe should disown him."

On July 10, Tarmiyah residents signed an agreement with the Iraqi security forces that detailed how the community might cooperate with the military. For example, should an ISIS cell be found on a certain property, then the property owner who failed to notice it, or report it, would be held responsible. The person would be punished by both Iraqi law and by his or her own tribe.

Senior Iraqi army officer Hussein al-Maliki told locals that any tribal leader who allowed ISIS fighters to meet or live on his property, say, in an orchard, would have to face repercussions.

All of the tribes in Tarmiyah signed the agreement and everyone will support the security forces absolutely, says Sayid al-Jassim al-Mashhadani, another tribal leader in Tarmiyah. Anyone who hosts a terrorist is a terrorist, he stressed. Anyone who carries a weapon against the security forces is a terrorist and should be treated as such by them:

The security forces are really hoping this plan works. They believe that most of the attacks taking place in Tarmiyah are happening because of ISIS sleeper cells and that the only way to wipe these out is with the cooperation of the locals.

We believe the sleeper cells are only small, al-Maliki said. And that if the citizens and their leaders help us, then we will be able to eliminate them.

This article is adapted from three pieces published in Niqash by Mustafa Habib, Dashty Ali, and Ibrahim Saleh.

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Where ISIS In Iraq Will Make Its Last Standor Its Comeback - Daily Beast