Yousif Ibrahim no longer wanders about his village of Jalawla in northeastern Iraq at night. He is afraid of being swept up in Islamic State strikes.

"The police and army don't come into our area much anymore. If they do, they get shot at by militants, "said the 25-year-old, who makes a job selling seafood at a neighboring market.

According to a dozen security officials, local leaders, and people in northern Iraq, Islamic State fighters are re-emerging as a lethal danger nearly three years after losing their final bastion. This is facilitated by the absence of central control in many places.

Although Islamic State is no longer the powerful force it once was, jihadist groups operating in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria have survived, and in recent months they have conducted increasingly audacious operations.

"Daesh (Islamic State) isn't as powerful as it was in 2014," Jabar Yawar, a senior officer in Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdistan region's Peshmerga forces, said.

"Its resources are limited and there's no strong joint leadership," he told Reuters. "However, as long as political issues persist, Daesh will return."

Some people believe this is already happening.

According to security sources, Islamic State carried out one of its worst strikes against the Iraqi army in years in late January, killing 11 troops in a hamlet near Jalawla.

On the same day, its fighters assaulted a Syrian jail controlled by a US-backed Kurdish force, attempting to rescue captives loyal to the organization.

It was the Islamic State's most serious strike since the collapse of its self-proclaimed caliphate in 2019. At least 200 detainees and terrorists, as well as 40 Kurdish forces, 77 prison guards, and four civilians were killed in the attack.

Rivalries between armed factions are blamed heavily by officials and locals in northern Iraq and eastern Syria. When the Islamic State was proclaimed defeated by Iraqi, Syrian, Iranian, and US-led forces, they clashed throughout the area it had governed.

Militias supported by Iran are now attacking US soldiers. Turkish soldiers have launched airstrikes on Kurdish separatist insurgents. Baghdad and Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region are locked in a territorial struggle.

The conflicts are jeopardizing security and decent administration, as well as producing the kind of uncertainty that the Islamic State thrived on in the past.

For Ibrahim, getting to work in a town held by Kurds until a few years ago means passing through checkpoints staffed by the Iraqi army and Shi'ite Muslim paramilitaries.

According to local officials, Islamic State fighters hideout in the rural fields between each military base.

A similar trend can be seen across the 400-mile mountain and desert corridor that runs through northern Iraq and Syria, where Islamic State previously ruled.