Current Status March 2016
Introduction
This blog proposes a five-point strategy for the defeat of ISIL:
• Military action
• Cut off cash flow
• Stop up supply routes
• Degrade Cyber effectiveness
• Negotiate a final peace treaty
Today, I am addressing the current status in Iraq and Syria including the U. S. announcement that the attack against Mosul and Raqqa has begun.
War Against ISIL—Current Status
ISIL is notorious for its videos of beheadings–of soldiers, civilians, journalists and aid workers, and for the destruction of cultural heritage sites. ISIL has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the European Union and 60 countries which are directly or indirectly waging war against ISIL.
The number of fighters the group commands in Iraq and Syria, is estimated at 30,000 up to 80,000 as of the beginning of 2016. Iraqi and Syrian nationals account for around two thirds of ISIL’s military.
Today ISIL controls an estimated third of the territory of Iraq and between a quarter and a third of Syria, the vast area, is home to approximately five to six million people.
Several important cities are in the ISIL-controlled region, among them Mosul (the second largest city in Iraq), Fallujah (symbol of the struggle against the United States) and Raqqa (the ISIL “capital city” in northern Syria).
A relatively small number of ISIL soldiers control a lot of territory. ISIL uses local supporters and allies, and is making an effort to enlist members from Syria, Iraq and abroad using social networking techniques as described in our blog on Cyber warfare.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the leader of ISIL since May 2010. On July 5, 2014, he delivered a Ramadan sermon declaring the first caliphate in generations—upgrading his position from guerrilla to worldwide leader of all Muslims. The announcement succeeded in bringing many new recruits to ISIL armies.
Most of the foreign fighters come from the Arab-Muslim world. They usually arrive in Syria via Turkey, are given short military training by ISIL and then either sent to the battle front or back home. During their stay in Syria they gain military capabilities and receive jihadi indoctrination. They pose a security threat to their countries of origin and to a certain extent to Israel.
ISIL has a large arsenal of weapons, most of them plundered from the Syrian and Iraqi armies. They include light arms, various types of rockets and mortars, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. In addition, ISIL possesses heavy arms and the advanced technologies usually found only in regular national armies: artillery, tanks and armored vehicles, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and drones. It has used mustard gas a number of times in Syria and Iraq and may have other types of chemical weapons, such as chlorine gas.
In June 2014 ISIL began a military campaign in Iraq whose objective was to take over most of the territory of northern and western Iraq to launch an attack on Baghdad. At the same time, it waged campaigns for the control of various districts in eastern and northern Syria and to weaken its rivals and enemies (the Syrian regime, the Al-Nusra Front, the Kurdish militias and the other rebel organizations). Its military achievements so far have enabled it to create a supranational territorial continuum of the vast area under its control, where it is actively working to establish the rule of its self-declared Islamic Caliphate.
ISIL’s documentation of its military infrastructure, divide the military army into seven parts:
• infantry,
• snipers,
• air defense,
• special forces,
• artillery forces,
• the army of adversity
• the Caliphate Army ISIL’s special forces
Each ISIL province is equipped with soldiers who fit into most categories, with the exception of the Caliphate Army.
ISIL’s military structure was built on blueprints from Hussein’s dictatorship, which put emphasis on the need for a small, loyal group of leaders who did not answer to anyone. Each province has its own leaders and councils, but this smaller group presided over the entire territory. It was a way to confuse outsiders trying to figure out who was actually running the show.
The Battle for Mosul Has Begun
FEBRUARY 29, 2016 BY KEVIN BARON; Defense One
WASHINGTON — The battle for Mosul ultimately will be the biggest U.S. operation in Iraq since the end of the last war.
(Kevin Baron is executive editor of Defense One. He is also national security/military analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. Baron has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress and politics for Foreign Policy, National Journal, and Stars and Stripes.)
“Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, announced this week that multinational forces have begun to cut off the Mosul’s supply and communications lines, and to encircle and isolate ISIL fighters with cyber and air and ground attacks. Some coalition forces are already going after ISIL inside Mosul, and the final thrust to retake it should be expected sooner than the distant future, Dunford said.”
“Carter and Dunford spoke just a few days after President Barack Obama said he directed the military to continue to “accelerate” the war against ISIL “on all fronts.”
“U.S. leaders say Mosul, along with the Syrian city of Raqqa, is the heart and headquarters of ISIL. Coalition assaults on these cities, and replacing ISIL with local, vetted leaders, will break the group’s grip on Iraqi territory and end its ability to inspire or direct terrorist attacks abroad.”
“Rather than sending brigades of U.S. forces to reinvade Mosul, the Obama administration has deployed special operators to target ISIL leaders and dispatched thousands of advisors, who have spent months preparing Iraqi, Kurd, and other local forces to do the job. The strategy has drawn blistering criticism from seasoned diplomats, former generals, and Republican leaders and presidential candidates, who have argued that greater U.S. military intervention could have broken ISIL sooner and saved innocents.”
Still, the push into Mosul will require more American forces than were involved in the recent retaking of the southern Iraqi city of Ramadi, and will be shaped by lessons from that earlier campaign. Carter said he expected Americans to provide more logistics and “bridging” forces; Dunford said U.S. and Iraqi troops are preparing logistics and resupply points for Iraqi fighters as they make their way into the city.”
“The operations against Mosul have already started,” Dunford said at the Pentagon on Monday. “In other words, you know, we’re isolating Mosul, even as we speak—the same thing with Raqqa. So it is not something that will happen in the deep, deep future.”
“Carter said the fight is being affected by the additional “expeditionary targeting force” of special operators the Pentagon deployed last year, but declined to say how. The group was sent to to conduct specialized raids, kill high-ranking terrorists, free hostages, and “seize places and people.” At the time, U.S. officials said the group’s missions would remain largely secret; virtually no information has since been released. On Monday, CNN reported only that the U.S. Army’s Delta Force had begun operations.”
“The only thing I’ll say is the ETF is in position, it is having an effect and operating, and I expect it to be a very effective part of our acceleration campaign. I don’t have any more on that,” said Carter.
“Momentum is now on our side and not on ISIL’s.” Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
“Meanwhile, U.S. forces are waging a cyber offensive to cut or spy on ISIL communications in Mosul. Carter said cyber-attacks are being used “to interrupt [and] disrupt ISIL’s command and control, to cause them to lose confidence in their networks, to overload their network so that they can’t function, and do all of these things that will interrupt their ability to command and control forces there, control the population and the economy.”
U.S. officials do not want ISIL to be able to tell, for example, whether service disruptions are being caused by American cyber-attacks or merely reflect the vagaries of everyday Internet usage.
Recapture of Raqqa, ISIL Capital, Is Next
We are focused on eliminating the enemy in Raqqa every single day. We’re doing airstrikes there constantly. BRETT MCGURK, SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR THE GLOBAL COALITION TO COUNTER ISIL.
“We know more now than we ever did before, and we’re beginning to constrict ISIL’s hold on Raqqa.”
Carter called Shadadi “a critical node for ISIL training and logistics, as well as for its oil enterprise. As our partners take control of Shadadi, I believe we will learn a great deal more about ISIL’s criminal networks, its criminal enterprise, and what it does to sustain them.”
Fresh troops from the 82nd Airborne Division already are rotating into Iraq, Carter said.
Conclusion
ISIL now has almost total control of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. The U.S. and their allies have started the next step in our strategy to defeat ISIL with the invasion of Mosul. The western coalition is using military resources from Kurdish fighters, Iraqi fighters and some coalition forces from other parts of the Middle East.
The U S is supplying special forces in relatively small numbers to assist in these battles but they are supplying helicopters, cyber management assistance, weapons and ammunition.
Raqqa, the capital of the ISIL forces, is next in our list of targets for recapture.
According to U. S. Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, momentum is on our side, not on the side of ISIL.
My prediction for this blog is that we will recapture both Mosul and Raqqa by the end of 2016.
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