captured the last ISIL-held areas in the al-Jazira desert bordering Syria, on 9 December the prime minister announced the end of the war. A victory parade was held "in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone" on the following day, and Prime Minister al-Abadi declared that 10 December would become a new annual holiday for Iraq. However, other government officials and sources, such as the Australian Government, British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, and Reuters, warned that they expected ISIL to fight on by other means, such as guerilla warfare and terrorism. Despite the victory announcements, ISIL retained its natural hideouts in Wadi Hauran. Aftermath Although the war was declared over, ISIL continued a lower-scale insurgency. Months of relative calm in Baghdad ended with over 27 people killed by suicide bombers over a period of 3 days in mid-January 2018. Although there were no immediate claims of responsibility, it was reported that such attacks had usually been the work of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in the past, and that elements of the group were still active north of the city despite the government's claim of victory in December 2017. On Wednesday January 17, two days after the two suicide bombings on January 15, IS "claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in Baghdad this week", though the New York Times suggested that the delay, and a number of errors in the claim, may show that the group's "media apparatus has been disrupted". The Times meanwhile reported on 16 January that the Iraqi Army had launched an operation to oust ISIL from the Bosifian islands, a stronghold being used as a militant hideout. The hideout, located in Saladin governorate, was discovered in December and is one of the 10 patches where the group is still active. About 100 militants were killed by Iraqi forces in the past one week. An operation was launched on 7 February to hunt down the remnants of ISIL in Saladin Governorate, as well as members of Ansar al-Sunna and the "White Flags", a new insurgent group reportedly consisting of former ISIL members and Kurdish mafia groups. Despite these efforts, ISIL continued to hold out in the western desert and wage an insurgency campaign against government forces in northern Iraq by mid-2018, most notably in Diyala and Kirkuk Governorates. As the military could not protect the isolated hinterland of these regions, ISIL forces would repeatedly attack remote villages,