TEN YEARS OF TERROR

Islamic State militants remain a danger to UK

- CHRIS HUGHES

IT took a year for Iraqi and Kurdish infantry to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, after starting their attack from 10 miles outside the city.

From the Battle of Bashiqa, IS's lunatics fought to the very end in Iraq's second city.

We witnessed the opening shots heralding the beginning of the end of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's brutal Caliphate back in 2016.

This month marks a decade since the most feared terror kingdom launched its bloody and depraved reign in Mosul.

For several years IS was entrenched in Syria and Iraq, plotting wider attacks far beyond Iraq's borders.

Kidnapping women and using them as sex slaves, extorting banks and businesses, and launching a black market of stolen booty built up a war chest of several billion dollars.

They even stole oil to sell at cut prices in Turkey, making the group a fortune to feed its endless thirst for warfare on the rest of the world.

Even now, Iraqi Special Forces are fighting IS in their caves and secret hideouts as they plot terror attacks, their militant tentacles stretching all the way to the UK.

Only last year the head of Special Forces there, Abdel Wahab al-Saadi, told me in Baghdad: "We know IS have been talking to UK-based terrorists and we know what they are planning. It is a big attack."