The ISIS Solution. How Unconventional Thinking and Special Operations Can Eliminate Radical Islam. Copyright holder: SOFREP, Inc.

Transcription

1 The ISIS Solution How Unconventional Thinking and Special Operations Can Eliminate Radical Islam Copyright holder: SOFREP, Inc. St. Martin s Press (MAC LOGO) New York

2 The ISIS Solution How Unconventional Thinking and Special Operations Can Eliminate Radical Islam By: Brandon Webb, Jack Murphy, Peter Nealen & The Editors of SOFREP.com The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

3 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction Chapter Two: The Establishment Of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) Chapter Three: A Forensic Look at The ISIS Organizational Structure Chapter Four: Unconventional Solutions Past & Present Chapter Five: Large Scale Military Action Against ISIS Chapter Six: Our Conclusion Bonus Content: What You & Your Friends Can Do To Combat ISIS Appendix: The Military Industrial Complex & State of US Special Operations

4 "It always seems impossible until it's done." Nelson Mandela

5 Chapter One: Introduction American foreign policy strategies in a post 9-11 world have been opaque at best, and recently the unhinged plan is playing out on the world stage in countries like Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ukraine. If you ask an average American on the street what our strategy is to defeat al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, or any other fracture of radical Islam, it is likely that you will get different answers from everyone. Any good strategy in an organization, even big government, can be easily understood and is widely known by the people in the organization, in this case, the American public. Ask someone at Apple what their company stands for and what the company strategy is and chances are you ll get straight, unified and coherent answers back. This is the problem with American government, and the bureaucracy that surrounds it today, and it crosses party lines. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will responsibly end the war in Iraq so that we can renew our military strength, dedicate more resources to the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and invest in our economy at home. The Obama-Biden plan will help us succeed in Iraq by transitioning to Iraqi control of their country. 1 -Change.gov Iraq Plan Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the 1

6 concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population Nobel Committee Statement The irony of Obama s Nobel Peace Prize is also not lost on the Editors of SOFREP.com. While his predecessor admittedly did him no favors with the lack of planning post Iraq invasion, Obama s supporters cannot ignore that he has waged a public secret war across the globe that have led to destabilization in states like Libya, and civil war in Iraq and Syria. The President s supporters have to deal with the harsh reality that if there were a Nobel War Prize Obama would be a clear choice for the nomination today. The President recently announced that we don t have a strategy for dealing with ISIS. It's too soon to say what steps the United States will take against ISIS. I don't want to put the cart before the horse," Obama told reporters during a White House news briefing. "We don't have a strategy yet." -President Obama 3 If we have been at war with terror for over a decade and still don t have solid strategies for dealing with radical terrorism, then what have we really been doing the last thirteen iraq- syria/

7 years? It s a good question to ask yourself, and at least the President was telling the truth when he said we don t have a strategy for ISIS. [Figure 1] Introduction to ISIS The Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham, known derogatorily as Daash among its adversaries in Iraq, did not form in a vacuum. Founded in 2003 as Jama at al-tawhid wal Jihad (The Group of Monotheism and Jihad), by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian, in October of 2004, Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, renaming the organization to Tanzim Qaidat al-jihad fi Bilad al-rafidayn, or more simply, Al Qaeda in Iraq. Under this moniker, the group fought Coalition forces and Iraqi Security Forces for the bulk of the American occupation phase of the war. In October, 2006, the group renamed itself again as The Islamic State in Iraq, under Abu Omar Al Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al Masri. As ISI, the group was still the primary Al Qaeda affiliate in the region, and it was instrumental in forming and deploying Jabhaat al Nusra, which was formally founded as Al Qaeda s affiliate in Syria. In 2013, ISI renamed itself yet again as The Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham (the Levant), and in so doing, declared that it held overall command over Jabhaat al Nusra.

8 The resulting feud, although arbitrated by Al Qaeda s emir, Ayman al Zawahiri, has still not been resolved. [Figure 2] Just as the organization itself has not come out of a vacuum, its strategy and tactics have not developed in a vacuum, either. There is a consistency in their approach going back to the days of Zarqawi. So who is ISIS or IS? It can be argued that al Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) are one in the same, in that both organizations spring from the same radical interpretation of Islam and, as you will read in this book, they are closely connected in many ways. This is not a group to be defeated in a traditional sense, it s an ideology that has grown in massive popularity in the Middle East, and beyond. If the Islamic State goes un-checked it will not be long before the IS shows up on Americas doorstep, in many ways it already has, we just haven t seen the effects yet. We are in your state We are in your cities We are in your streets You are our goals anywhere ISIS ontwitter service- aware- apparent- isis- flag- photo- front/story?id=

9 Polarization, religious bias, and public opinion influence the halls of power in American politics these days. Making decisions based on bias, and popular opinion (what do the polls tell us?) is not leadership, and is large problem with our government leadership today. The war on terror has never been bigger than it is today. The citizens of America need to wake from their deep slumber, and notice that they have been manipulated to choose sides, conservative or liberal, right or left; and that this has been done by our own leadership and with the mainstream press feeding off it like sharks in bloodied sea water---it s news entertainment at its finest in the 21 st Century. The Internet is a powerful tool to pressure the system for change, start using it for good, and in the last part of this book we tell you how. Americans need to embrace independent and optimistic thought leaders, people who get stuff done (doers not talkers), and crash through the brick walls of bureaucracy. Reject decision based on popular sentiment and question reactionary strategies. The Objective of This Book The purpose of this book has two goals, to introduce, and explain ISIS, and to present new definitive thinking with the ultimate goal of making radical Islam, radicalism of any sort for that matter, out of fashion, we need to make it not cool.

10 There s a saying in the Special Operations community. Don t complain about something unless you are prepared to present solutions to the problem. The Editors of SOFREP.com are not here to complain; we are here to present real strategies when current leadership presents reactionary solutions based on popularity and traditional methods. These traditional methods have failed, and the proof is in the rise of ISIS itself. Have we defeated al Qaeda yet? More Airstrikes from US naval war ships will not win people over to a new way of looking at American and the free world. America must cross a new bridge in order to change its way of thinking towards foreign policy and dealing with radical Islam. Our current strategy led by President George W. Bush, and carried forward by Obama has produced a stalemate on the global chessboard with the Islamic State (IS), and radical Islam. If we don t design and plan our own future it will be designed for us. The same way ISIS has been designing and defining their future in the Middle East in a post American Iraq. If one thing has proven out since September 11 th, 2001, it s that tolerance, and peace in the world will not be had with the current approach to radical Islamic ideology that promotes change through violent terror. This book presents new thinking on the issue. We don t claim to hold all the answers but we are prepared to lead a conversation towards new and unconventional strategic thought that is focused on long term solutions to wipe out violent terror as a popular movement.

11 Chapter Two: The Establishment Of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) [Figure 3] Strategy is the overall plan of action to achieve a measurable goal. It is the series of actions on a theater-wide scale that contributed toward victory or defeat. While ISIS has released several documents and videos giving some ideas of their strategy, even more can be determined by examining their targets, their actions in multiple spectrums of warfare, politics, and information, and their past history. ISIS goals have been stated in several places, including the recent propaganda video Flames of War. In the beginning of Flames, the narrator states, A mission that would herald the return to the khilafah (Caliphate) and revive the creed of tawheed (Monotheism/Islam). It was the establishment of the Islamic State nourished by the blood of the truthful mujahedeen to unite the ummah (referring to the entire Islamic religion) on one calling, one banner, one leader. 5 The goal of pretty much every violent Islamist group has been the establishment of an Islamic State. This was a stated goal of AQI before it became ISIS, and before it declared itself to have actually achieved the goal of creating such a state in 2014, when it changed its name again to simply the Islamic State, and declared Abu Bakr al Baghdadi 5 propaganda- video- transcript

12 to be Caliph Ibrahim, a direct descendent of the prophet Muhammed. (Although the man behind the kunyah (alias) of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is believed to have been born in Samarra, not Baghdad.) From , AQI/ISI was unable to go head-to-head with the conventional Coalition forces in Iraq. As a result, their strategy was limited by their logistics and available combat power. They attacked Coalition forces with mostly indirect fires and Improvised Explosive Devices, while simultaneously attacking infrastructure, conducting terror operations to both dissuade the populace from supporting the Coalition-backed Iraqi government and demonstrate the inadequacy of both that government and the Coalition forces to keep them safe, and attacking the Iraqi Security Forces and government officials in order to break down the government s resistance by way of terror and assassination. Improvised Explosive Devices (a fancy term for what have been called bombs for decades of terrorist attacks up until 2003 Iraq) began appearing, targeting American and British vehicles, shortly after the collapse of Saddam s Iraqi Army. Initially primarily constructed from the leftover military munitions that Saddam s people had cached all over the country, they were effective terror weapons that had a similar effect on Coalition forces as the booby traps employed by the Vietcong in Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s. In fact, some of them were set up identically; a report from 1967 described a Landing Zone near Da Nang that the VC had sown with 155mm artillery shells to be detonated by command wire. Most of the early IEDs were more 155mm artillery shells detonated on command by simple electrical detonators, triggered by an insurgent watching from nearby.

13 The IEDs, coupled with mortar and rocket attacks, all of which could be placed and triggered quickly, followed by the emplacers and triggermen getting away quickly and unencumbered, were designed to wear down the occupying forces. Without the combat power to defeat an adversary in a stand-up fight, the militant turns to bleeding him slowly. It is a death by a thousand cuts, with each cut being a dead or maimed soldier or Marine. The steady attrition, regardless of how high the actual body count might have been, served a moral and political purpose beyond simply killing kufars (infidels). The insurgents believed and history has generally shown them to be right that the steady diet of funerals and missing limbs would turn the distant American populace against the war. While Islamist propaganda tends to paint the Western reluctance to continue in the face of such casualties as softness and cowardice, their leadership likely didn t care, as long as it worked to drive Coalition forces out of the country. Not all IEDs were necessarily aimed at Coalition forces, either. Markets, government buildings, and Shi a mosques were all considered valid targets to the AQI bombers. In fact, AQI began such a focused campaign of violence aimed at Iraqi Shi a that he was rebuked by Osama Bin Laden himself, who remonstrated that the Shi a were still brother Muslims. While it is likely that this was largely due to an apparent alliance of convenience with Iran (most of the components for Explosively Formed Penetrators that were used in IEDs in Iraq increasingly around came from Iran, and Zarqawi

14 had actually worked out of Tehran for a time), the hatred between radical Sunni and Shi a has not abated much since the initial split. In fact, in early 2004, an Al Qaeda operative by the name of Hassan Ghul was captured on the Iraq-Iran border, bearing a letter from Zarqawi to Al Qaeda s leadership in Afghanistan, proposing the instigation of a Sunni-Shi a civil war to forestall elections in Iraq. 6 It is apparent that the organization has maintained that antipathy to the Shi a; even after the immediate goal of creating enough instability to frustrate the Coalition powers, their determination to fight the Shi a has only hardened, to the point of certain Salafist clerics in 2013 declaring that the Shi a are worse than infidels. How this fits in with the group s overall strategy will come later. Infrastructure was another major target during the occupation, with oil pipelines being hit repeatedly during late This had the dual purpose of hampering the fuel-intensive operations of the Coalition, but also contributed to the insecurity of the country and its income. The attacks spiked again in late But it wasn t just the oil infrastructure that was targeted. Water plants were sabotaged (though theft of parts, probably mostly for resale rather than insurgency, though the effect is the same, had just as much to do with the damage to water systems) and the electrical grid already quite fragile, as anyone who patrolled through the Iraqi countryside at the time could attest came under attack on multiple occasions, often coinciding with 6 Tactics of the Crescent Moon, H John Poole, 2004

15 elections. Again, all these attacks further disrupted everyday life, demoralized those of the populace that still cooperated with the Coalition and the Iraqi government, and further undermined the government. The Iraqi Security Forces couldn t secure vital infrastructure, so why back them? Finally, there was the factor of attacking the government and Iraqi Security Forces directly, usually through ambush, IEDs, and assassinations. Violence tended to increase near elections, with judges, politicians, and police chiefs being special targets, but constant, low-level attacks on any ISF continued regardless. In late 2005, a company of Iraqi Army soldiers, having left their weapons in their armory, headed home on leave in a bus. The bus was ambushed and all the soldiers killed. Just like all the rest of the terror and harassment attacks, this had a purpose beyond just killing people for wearing the IA uniform; it served as a warning to anyone who would work for the Coalition or the Iraqi government. It would be disingenuous to lay all of the Iraqi insurgency at the feet of AQI. At the time, there were a great many splinter organizations laying bombs and running ambushes. How much interplay there was between all the various insurgent groups would be hard to say, and many of them still fought amongst themselves, especially between the Sunni and Shi a groups. However, while Coalition forces remained in Iraq, the various groups still had a common cause; expel the Westerners from Iraq. This was the primary focus for AQI as well as the Shi a Sadrist militias and the various other Islamist organizations on both sides of the sectarian divide.

16 Following the rise of the Sawha militias in Al Anbar province, AQI s activity dwindled. Their attempt at governing in the Sunni Triangle backfired, as the tribal leaders rapidly became disillusioned with their heavy-handedness and turned against them. (The beginning of the Awakening actually had even more to do with disrespect shown toward the same tribal leaders by the Salafists than just their restrictive laws. While the tribes might not mind strict Shariah in fact, some might welcome it, especially when faced with the increasingly obvious corruption and sectarian/tribal favoritism coming from Baghdad the blatant disrespect shown in the murder of Sheikh Abu Jassim and the subsequent refusal to allow his burial was the breaking point.) The killing of Zarqawi by US airstrike in 2006 also caused the group to restructure, and the Islamic State in Iraq was born. However, while the tactics were changing, and the pressure from the Iraqi government, Coalition forces, and the Sawha militias was driving the group further underground, the strategy remained the same. It is possible that some of the reduction in violence was due to a perception that the US departure was imminent; there had been a great deal of political rhetoric in the United States for years about exit strategy, and Presidential candidates were already debating staying or pulling out. While it comes from Afghanistan, the saying The Americans have the watches, but we have the time, applies. All the insurgent has to really do is outwait the occupier. [Figure 4]

17 Whatever the perception in the United States, or Baghdad for that matter, just judging by ISIS propaganda, the 2012 withdrawal of all US military forces from Iraq was seen as a validation of the wait them out strategy. In fact, during the Vice News embed with ISIS in Raqqa, Syria, the ISIS Media Officer says, Don t be cowards and attack us with drones. Send your soldiers, the same soldiers we humiliated in Iraq. 7 Despite the fact that the insurgents didn t win most firefights (if any), the fact that they were still there and still fighting while Coalition forces were gone meant, to them, that they d won. The infidels were gone, and now it was time to move to the next stage in the strategy. At first, very little changed. It becomes apparent just how much damage was done to AQI by the Coalition forces, the Awakening, and the Iraqi Army in that it took over a year for much more movement to happen after US forces left. The bombings continued, as did the assassinations. Slowly, steadily, the campaign ramped back up. At first it was the same sort of low-level terror campaign as it had always been. Suicide bombers and small groups of gunmen predominated, hitting schools and police stations. It really began to intensify in April, 2013, however. During the same week as the Boston Bombing, in the lead-up to a new round of elections, ISI struck hard, killing almost three hundred people in a week. Thirteen candidates for the elections were killed, the top judge in Fallujah, Maarouf al Khubaisi, was assassinated in a market, and one of the Sawha leaders, Sheikh Majid Saad, was shot to death in his 7 islamic- state- full- length

18 own garden. 8 That week in 2013 was, if anything, the primary sign that the Iraqi Security Forces was not up to the challenge of dealing with ISI. The violence continued to escalate, and the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police were unable to stop it. It was a confidence booster for ISI, and a validation of the strategy of both eroding the effectiveness of the Iraqi Security Forces through terror and convincing the populace that the government could not protect them. It is apparent that during this period, ISI had, while continuing the terror campaign against the ISF and the population that sided with the government, turned toward increasing their numbers and building up their strength. Beginning in July, 2012, the group s emir, then going by the kunyah Abu Du a, announced the Destroying the Walls campaign, aimed at breaking as many jihadists out of Iraqi prisons as possible, while continuing the terror campaign aimed at the general populace and security forces. In his audiotaped statement, Abu Du a said, We give you glad tidings of the commencement of a new phase from the phases of our struggle, which we begin with a plan that we have dubbed, 'Destroying the Gates.' We remind you of your top priority, which is to release the Muslim prisoners everywhere, and making the pursuit, chase, and killing of their butchers from amongst the judges, detectives, and guard to be on top of the list." iraq- alive- and- well/ 9

19 The campaign, like most guerrilla warfare, didn t just focus on jailbreaks, though they were a central part of it. The first attacks occurred only two days after Abu Du a s message, and hit over twenty cities, killing over one hundred fifteen people. The first major jailbreak occurred in September, in Tikrit. The Tasfirat prison was attacked and over one hundred prisoners freed. In July, 2013, simultaneous attacks were launched on Taji and Abu Ghraib prisons, freeing another five hundred from Abu Ghraib, including several High Value Targets. As recently as September, 2014, more prison attacks took place, this time an abortive attempt to storm the Camp Justice prison in Kadhmiya in northern Baghdad. Attempting to free by force other terrorists has long been a common practice of terrorist and guerrilla organizations. If the op works, it is a good way to build up numerical strength, both by getting experienced, hardened terrorists back and by recruiting some of the criminal element that might be inclined to side with the group. The Qala-I Jangi uprising in 2001 in Afghanistan likely sprang from a similar plan. Many of the hostage situations during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s were aimed at forcing the release of prisoners. While continuing to escalate the level of violence in Iraq, ISI was aiding in the formation of a new Al Qaeda affiliate to join the growing civil war in Syria. Islamists were already beginning to coopt the Syrian opposition, including such organizations as Jund al Sham and Ahrar al Sham ( al Sham is Arabic for The Levant ), but so far Al Qaeda had had a minimal influence there. Jabhaat al Nusra (The Al Nusra Front) would change that.

20 However, shortly after Al Nusra s first successes in Syria, in April 2013, Abu Du a, now using the name Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, announced that since ISI had been instrumental in standing up Al Nusra, they were now merging as the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham. 10 Al Nusra s emir vehemently denied the claim, and petitioned Ayman al Zawahiri to intervene and determine that Al Nusra was in fact an independent Al Qaeda affiliate. However, ISIS had already begun to expand into Syria, taking advantage of the chaos in that country to establish itself. The bitter feud between Al Nusra, the rest of the jihadist organizations in Syria, and ISIS has continued, though ISIS has increasingly solidified its position. Now, along with the seizure of Fallujah 11 in January 2014, ISIS had shifted from primarily attacking the coherency of the government and civilian support for said government to actually beginning to hold territory. The resistance phase was now over, now the conquest phase began. Before delving into the expansion of ISIS territory in Syria and especially Iraq in 2014, it is worth looking at their strategies for holding ground in Syria. They learned a great deal from their mistakes in Iraq during the American occupation. Al Qaeda in Iraq became known for its brutality in dealing with the local populace, to the point of being admonished by core Al Qaeda to tone things down. 12 Some of their actions in Syria made it appear that they had learned from that experience al- nusra- commits- to- al- qaida- deny- iraq- branch- merger 11 isis- now- control- fallujah- ramadi/ 12 dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/ar html

21 Information operations and propaganda have long been integral to the jihadist movement from the beginning, and in fact are integral to any guerrilla effort. Mao Zedong s axiom that the guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the ocean means that the people have to have reason to support the guerrilla, whether through fear, ideology, or ethnic or sectarian loyalty. In recent years, ISIS has shown that they can manipulate all three factors. With the establishment of ISIS havens in Aleppo, Raqqa, and Deir al Zour governorates in Syria in 2013, ISIS began practicing some level of hearts and minds campaign in the course of their governance. The primary arm of this campaign appears to have been the dawa forums, where ISIS preachers met with townspeople in their havens and extolled the benefits of Shariah law, the bravery of the mujahideen, and the necessity of jihad. They have also pandered to children, providing sweets and presents at festivals, as well as teaching them Quranic passages and inculcating them with the evils of the Alawite regime in Syria. They also began distributing aid, stamped with their black flag, to refugees and protestors. The branding (and the aid, for that matter) could be construed as having been learned from another jihadist Syrian opposition group, Ahrar al Sham. Ahrar were some of the first Syrian rebels to publicize how they were getting aid to displaced people suffering from the civil war. 13 By socializing the people in their areas of control to Shariah and their governance, it appeared that ISIS was determined to avoid the problems, at least in Syria, that had 13 analysis/view/al- qaeda- in- syria- a- closer- look- at- isis- part- i

22 plagued them in Al Anbar. However, depending on where they faced resistance, they still have not been at all shy about applying terror as a means of control. Another facet of the Information Operations campaign has always been propaganda. Much of this is easily visible in any communique issued by ISIS leadership. The majority-shi a government of Iraq under Maliki is regularly referred to as the Safavids, referencing the Persian Shi a Muslim Empire that lasted from 1501 to Emphasizing the split between Sunni and Shi a has been a constant in the group s propaganda since its inception, along with referencing earlier Muslim history. While Yusuf al Qaradawi is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than ISIS, his declaration in June 2013 that Shi a are worse infidels than Christians or Jews aligned perfectly with ISIS rhetoric. 14 Demonizing their enemy (often disparagingly referred to as Nusayris, equating all Shi a with a particular splinter group whose beliefs are a blend of Islam, Gnosticism, and Christianity) works to harden the resolve of their fighters and supporters. It also tends to justify the intense violence visited upon enemy combatants and noncombatants alike. ISIS has also embraced a constant in jihadist propaganda, which is emulating the early history of Islam. By creating a connection between Muhammed and his followers and the group, the group in question, whether it s ISIS or any other jihadist organization, can present themselves as the true Muslims and therefore the true authority that the people must follow. Saddam Hussein did the same thing, albeit with somewhat more of a 14 m- Brotherhood- cleric- calls- for- Sunni- jihad- in- Syria.html

23 nationalist bent, equating himself to a new Saladin (who was, ironically, a Kurd). Certain references are extremely evocative to the devout Muslim; Abu Bakr, a common kunyah, was Muhammed s immediate successor, and a successful military commander. The Battle of Badr, in 624, when Muhammed and his followers routed his opponents among the Quraish, was of such importance to Muslim culture thereafter that multiple military units and jihadist organizations, of both Sunni and Shi a persuasions, have been named after it. Dates are also very significant in jihadist strategy, often chosen for symbolic purposes. Just as there is usually a resurgence of violence during Ramadan, as the jihadists seek to further purify themselves by killing infidels, so certain dates have notable significance. It is believed that Osama Bin Laden chose September 11 as the date for the attack on the World Trade Center as a symbolic date, September 11 having been the day in 1683 that the Ottoman Empire (the last Caliphate) was turned away from Vienna by Polish forces. ISIS, in keeping with its hardline Salafist/Takfiri ideology, has deliberately emulated as much of early Islamic history as possible. The Small Wars Journal has outlined a number of these parallels that might go otherwise unnoticed in the West, where grudges aren t held for thousands of years. Many of these parallels are not necessarily explicitly stated by ISIS or its spokesmen, but are actions that can be seen, in light of Wahhabi ideology, the Hadith, and the Tarikh al Tabari (The History of Prophets and Kings, one of the four elements of Islamic scripture along with the Quran, the Sira, and the Hadith) as conforming with the actions of Muhammed.

24 The choice of the emir s kunyah, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, ISW points out, is deliberate. Not only was Abu Bakr the immediate successor of Muhammed, especially to Sunni orthodoxy, but the al Baghdadi part intimates that the emir is in exile from his home, just as Muhammed was in exile from Mecca. The al Baghdadi title also connects ISIS with the Abbasid Caliphate, that was based in Baghdad from 750 to When he returned to Mecca, Muhammad cleansed the idols, removing the statues of the polytheistic gods from the Kaaba. Much like the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas, 6 th Century statues that had been erected on the Silk Road, as idols in March 2001, ISIS has begun cleansing their own territory of anything that smacks of idolatry, to include Christian and Shi a shrines. The tomb of Jonah was destroyed by ISIS in Mosul, and there are concerns about the remains of Nineveh and other pre-islamic sites in Iraq. The changing of the name from the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham to simply the Islamic State, and the declaration of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi as Khilafah Ibrahim or Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Quraishi is of course the ultimate statement of being the most legitimate of Islamic organizations. Not only is the emir declaring himself caliph, the ruler of all Muslims (Mullah Muhammad Omar, emir of the Taliban, accepted the title Commander of the Faithful, which amounted to the same thing), but he is claiming direct descent from Muhammad himself. 15 Of course, it is unlikely that ISIS actually believes that simply the declaration of a Caliphate would mean the entire Muslim world would rally to their banner (though a 15 Small Wars Journal, ISIS: Public Legitimacy Through the Reenactment of Islam s Early History

25 larger number than might have been hoped have done just that). The symbolism involved in their declarations does more to broadcast their intentions than it does to necessarily win recruits or converts, though their success has added to the weight of their claims. While the city of Raqqa in Syria was initially taken by the rest of the Syrian rebels, dominated by Jabhaat al Nusra, since early 2013, ISIS has solidified its hold on the city, eventually declaring it the current capitol of the new caliphate. Raqqa has, in a way, become ISIS testbed for their new model of hardline Takfiri governance, and also provides an interesting parallel to Mao Zedong s initial guerrilla campaign in China. After an abortive attempt at Jiangxi, Mao established a Soviet at Yan an, a remote rural city, where Chinese Communist governance was worked out, that acted as a base for further CPC expansion through the country, just as ISIS is using Raqqa. 16 ISIS has also utilized a combination of military action and terror, similar to Mao s guerrilla strategy against the Chinese Nationalists. To make an even closer parallel, the CPC tended to prefer to fight the Nationalists, avoiding the Japanese during World War II. ISIS, for all its announced antipathy to the Assad regime, has done very little direct fighting with Assad s forces. It has instead focused on consolidating control of regions already wrested away from Damascus, as well as fighting the Iraqi Army on the other side of the border. In early June 2014, a convoy of ISIS fighters entered Mosul and took the city. Estimates of the number of fighters ranged from four hundred to fifteen hundred. There was some fighting initially, with the Iraqi Army claiming to have killed upward of one hundred fifty 16 as- it- sounds- isil- has- plundered- maos- playbook

26 ISIS fighters, but by June 9, ISIS had seized the provincial government buildings, and the Iraqi Army had fled. A new phase had well and truly begun. Though there have been no appearances or statements to corroborate the stories, there were reports coming out of the city shortly after it fell that the Iraqi commanding general in Mosul had been one of Saddam s generals before the war, and that more Baathists had either accompanied the ISIS column into the city or turned their coats. What is without dispute is the fact that the majority of the upper leadership of the Iraqi Army in Mosul fled and either ordered their men to flee or left them to run or surrender. As such, a fiftytwo thousand-man Iraqi Army Division melted away in the face of between four and fifteen hundred ISIS fighters. Much like their seizure of Fallujah in 2013, ISIS took advantage of the growing split between Sunni and Shi a. Maliki s intense Shi a sectarianism in Baghdad had alienated the Sunni tribes in the north and west to the point that they no longer had any loyalty to the country left at all, and in fact, for some of them, ISIS couldn t be worse than Baghdad. The majority of the forces that took Fallujah were not, in fact, front-line ISIS jihadists, but rather tribal militias, likely from the Zobai and Fuhaylat sub tribes of the Abu Issa, who had previously supported AQI during the battle for the city in Similarly, it has been reported that the majority of the forces now controlling Mosul are in fact local tribal militias. ISIS, in similar fashion to Muhammad, has exploited the loyalties and grievances of the local tribes in order to cement their own control. They have fed on the age-old Sunni- Shi a divide, exacerbated it, and let Maliki and his partisans further exacerbate it in the 17 isis- now- control- fallujah- ramadi/

27 face of their own violence, in order to break a major portion of the country away from Baghdad. To further make up for numerical disparities, ISIS has had no qualms about using terror to discourage resistance. Shortly after taking Mosul, the majority of the Iraqi Army soldiers taken prisoner were led, their hands tied and bent over at the waist, to ditches where they were shot to death. The numbers given were on the order of seventeen hundred men executed in this manner in one incident. There were more to come. The execution of prisoners is not the only form this terror has taken. The videotaped executions of two Western journalists in August indicated a return to the political terrorism that was practiced by Zarqawi toward several Western powers that had forces in Iraq. The threats to hostages if certain actions are not taken appear to have worked in the case of Turkey. While Turkish airstrikes were reported in support of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters near Mosul Dam in July (an event of no little significance in and of itself, given the long standing antipathy between Turkey and not only its own Kurdish minority, but also the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan just over the border), following threats to the hostages taken in Mosul when the Turkish consulate was overrun, Turkey has withdrawn most support for combat operations against ISIS, to the point of refusing to allow US aircraft to fly out of Incirlik Air Base to strike at ISIS. 18 The terror campaign, particularly the mass executions near Mosul, is nothing new. Mass killing of prisoners was one of the methods used by Genghis Khan to discourage resistance to his own conquests. It has been noted that there were very few sieges during 18

28 the Great Khan s advance; this was because of those mass killings being used as a warning. While it may appear on the surface that the fighters of ISIS are just a pack of psychopaths enjoying the mass slaughter, it does in fact serve a strategic purpose. ISIS has also, as it has shifted from guerilla raids and terror bombings to overt military operations, focused on infrastructure. This time, unlike under Zarqawi during the US occupation, they are focused not so much on destroying the infrastructure as they are on capturing it. Mosul Dam was one of the most significant targets; while the pundits focused on the danger of the dam being breached and the possibility of ISIS using the resulting flood as a weapon of mass destruction, the dam also controls most of the water flow and electrical power for a great deal of northern Iraq. That alone made it a potent tool of control. Another target, which has not been secured due to stiff resistance, though it was reported to have fallen into ISIS hands several times in June, was the Bayji oil refinery. Bayji is the largest oil refinery in the country, and accounts for nearly one third of the domestic energy in northern Iraq. Aside from the financial cost of the loss of a refinery that processes over three hundred thousand barrels of oil per day, again, the energy control is a major strategic asset, which is why the city and refinery have been so hotly contested. 19 The more analysis that is done of ISIS strategy, the more evident it becomes that there is nothing especially new; they are using tried and true guerrilla warfare strategies, pioneered by leftist movements building on the earlier history of guerrilla warfare. The use of Maoist guerrilla strategy suggests that the leadership has studied extensively in preparation for the current campaign fight- for- iraqs- baiji- refinery/a

29 While Strategy is the roadmap to winning the war, Tactics are the steps taken to win the battles. Tactically, ISIS is still something of a mixed bag, showing considerable sophistication on an operational level; while on an individual and small unit level, they don t seem to have improved much since We ll examine the operational level first. Operationally, since the beginning of the conquest phase, ISIS has been using a combination of guerrilla raids and overt maneuver warfare. Even when confronting their enemies directly, they have attacked positions of weakness, avoided strengths, and when confronted with strength, they have fallen back. The move on Mosul in June was deliberately against a weakened opponent, in fact an opponent that was probably already compromised. There is no available first-hand information on what kind of reconnaissance or espionage was employed prior to the move, however, the apparent alliance with the northern Sunni tribal groups offers an explanation. ISIS didn t actually have to put any of its core fighters into Mosul to determine the lay of the land as far as the Iraqi Army leadership or the atmospherics of the populace. They simply had to talk to the tribal groups who had people in the city. From that, they were able to piece together a sufficient picture of the rot in the Iraqi Army in Mosul and the discontent with Baghdad to risk moving on the city with fewer than two thousand fighters. There were a number of voices at the time of Mosul s fall opining about the flight and/or turning of Iraqi generals in Mosul, up to and including Maliki, saying that there was a conspiracy to hand the city over to ISIS. In fact, a group called the Jaysh al Tariqa al Naqshbandiya, a Sunni militia that has in the past campaigned to end the Safavid occupation of Iraq, started putting up posters and videos suggesting that Izzat Ibrahim al

30 Douri, one of the most notorious of Saddam s Baathist Party loyalists, who was never captured, had led ISIS forces into Mosul, and was in fact going to be the new Ninewa provincial governor. These claims have proven to be nothing but propaganda (Al Douri has not appeared in Mosul to anyone s knowledge, and the video where he addressed the people of Mosul showed a frail, 70-year-old man struggling to read a prepared statement), but they are illustrative of how ISIS has used tribal alliances. The Al Naqshbandiya have not always been on good terms with ISIS, yet they are now allies. And while Al Douri may not have been directly involved, there are definitely Baathist elements involved in northern Iraq. 20 ISIS has therefore not only used maneuver warfare in taking Mosul, but has used tribal and sectarian proxies as force multipliers. ISIS has kept its field forces light; while it has captured plenty of Syrian and Iraqi armored vehicles in recent months (many of the Iraqi vehicles US-supplied), there have been few if any reports of them actually being used in frontline combat, at least in Iraq. The given figures for targets hit once the US airstrikes began in August include very little in the way of armored fighting vehicles. While most of the images of captured US and Russian armor were from parades in Raqqa, it appears that most of such vehicles have been pulled back to ISIS havens in Syria to be used to defend them against the Syrian regime and the group s rivals in the rebellion. 21 There is good reason for this. Keeping forces light makes the ISIS forces maneuverable and hard to spot and hit. Keeping to up-armored Humvees and pickup trucks with data/ force- remains- low- tech- dod-

31 mounted machine guns, heavy machine guns, or automatic grenade launchers means they can move with greater speed. Main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles can rarely manage much more than forty-five miles per hour on the road (in fact, the Abrams, of which ISIS captured quite a few, has an engine governor that keeps it from traveling faster than that). Even up-armored Humvees, most of which are likely fairly worn out by now, can manage close to sixty miles per hour. Another key to ISIS flexibility has been its logistics. The group has captured a great deal of its materiel, and fuel is no exception. Keeping to light, fast forces reduces the fuel requirements. A single Abrams requires five hundred gallons of jet fuel to cover two hundred sixty-five miles. A Toyota HiLux, by contrast, can cover about five hundred miles on one twenty-gallon tank of gasoline. Add in the considerable maintenance requirements of tracked armored vehicles, and the decision to keep to using technicals makes even more sense. In addition, whether planned for or not, once the air campaign began, ISIS light, fast operational profile enabled the group to scatter and go low-profile more easily when the jets came overhead. The veteran fighters have had plenty of experience hiding from American aircraft before 2012, and Syrian aircraft in the years since. In a country with plenty of small and mid-sized pickups on the roads, it is considerably easier to hide a pickup-centered force than it is to hide large armored vehicles. So the ISIS fighters are light and fast on the battlefield, and can exploit weaknesses quickly once identified. In maneuver warfare, the terms are gaps and surfaces. Gaps are weak points where an enemy s line of resistance can be penetrated, while surfaces are strong points. ISIS consistently avoids surfaces and goes for gaps.

32 ISIS initially avoided confronting the Kurdish Peshmerga after taking Mosul, preferring to launch attacks on the demoralized Iraqi Army. While they certainly exploited the Sunni/Shi a split and the unwillingness of Shi a troops to fight for Sunni cities in the north, the terror campaign exemplified by the mass executions of prisoners in Mosul was also calculated to break the Iraqi soldiers will to resist. With the sight of their fellow Iraqi Army soldiers having crumbled in the face of ISIS advance, and then seeing what happened to those who were taken alive, the effect on morale, and therefore the will to resist, was devastating. The fact that the prisoners who were marched to their deaths did so without a single sign of defiance toward their captors cannot have done anything but further drive home the message that ISIS was invincible. That in and of itself became a powerful weapon. When faced with stiffer resistance, however, the ISIS fighters did not show any difficulty with falling back. The Bayji oil refinery, being a major strategic asset, as already mentioned, became a target within days of the fall of Mosul. Initial reports said that the ISIS fighters had actually seized the refinery. However, when faced by an Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service counterattack, they faded. The importance of the refinery has led to continuous attacks in the weeks and months since, but as long as the Iraqis defend it with any kind of tenacity, the ISIS attackers continue to fall back. Once the drive against the Kurds began, primarily as ISIS went for Mosul Dam, their blitzkrieg-styled maneuver tactics became that much more obvious. As light and fast as the ISIS forces were, they were facing equally lightly-armed Peshmerga. The Peshmerga, for all their reputation for ferocity, are a lightweight mountain militia, and one that had been under-equipped for some time, thanks to political disputes with

33 Baghdad (Maliki had refused to pass on at least one major arms and munitions shipment intended for the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Peshmerga). The Peshmerga in the north were also not well situated. The majority of Peshmerga forces were concentrated near Kirkuk, which the Kurds moved quickly to occupy once the Iraqi Army fled the city in the opening days of the ISIS offensive in June. It should be noted that the two main political parties of Iraqi Kurdistan, the PUK and the KDP, are each run by the Talabani and Barzani families respectively, and those two families and parties have a long-standing feud with each other. No sooner had the US put up a no-fly zone over northern Iraq in the 90s, getting Saddam off their backs, than the PUK and KDP embarked on a five-year civil war. While the two parties have effectively united to form the Kurdistan Regional Government, the feud does remain, and each party runs its own half of the Peshmerga, which can damage the Peshmerga s cohesion; another weakness for ISIS to exploit. When ISIS turned its offensive against the Peshmerga, its fighters first advanced on Sinjar, reportedly attacking the city from three directions. They had already prepped the battlespace for weeks, attacking Peshmerga forces with complex ambushes and artillery, as well as destroying the Badush bridge in order to limit Peshmerga mobility. 22 While the Kurdish authorities denied that the Peshmerga had fled Sinjar without fighting on August 3, it is apparent that, given the attacks to degrade their position in the district, the Kurds did indeed break when the ISIS attack finally descended situation- report- august html

34 In the following days ISIS drove the Peshmerga from Makhmour, and finally took Gwer, fifteen miles from the Kurdistan Regional Government s capitol of Erbil. Reports indicated that, coupled with artillery bombardment, the fast, mobile ISIS forces were finding weak points in the Kurdish positions, driving through, and then attacking the Peshmerga from the flanks, if not shattering the defending unit with the penetration in the first place. (Reliable front-line reports have been difficult to obtain; both ISIS and the Kurds have a vested interest in pumping up their accomplishments, or saving face, depending on the situation. The Kurds have, for instance, made a great deal out of the shortages of ammunition when it comes to Kurdish forces withdrawing in the face of ISIS attacks. While certainly an issue, especially considering the efforts by the Maliki government to keep anyone not Shi a Arab/Persian disarmed, it is just as likely that the shortage provides a convenient excuse for cutting and running. Without eyes on the actual situation, it is difficult to be sure, but there have been notable examples of the Peshmerga overstating their own offensives.) ISIS has also consistently employed combined arms, in spite of their light, fast operational profile. While their inventory is unknown at the moment, and is changing daily depending on captures or losses, they are known to have mostly truck-based mortars and towed howitzers. They have captured several self-propelled artillery pieces, which they have shown in parades in Raqqa, but, like the tanks, they appear to be keeping them in safe havens in Syria rather than employing them on the front lines in Iraq. ISIS has used these supporting arms in Iraq for both harassing fire and direct support prep fires for attacks, both on the offensive as well as guerrilla raids within enemy-held territory. As recently as this writing, harassing attacks on checkpoints of a few mortar