The ISIS Solution

by Jack Murphy

  Sunni Shi’a (Institute for the Study of War)

  Whatever the perception in the United States, or in Baghdad, for that matter, just judging by ISIS propaganda, the 2012 withdrawal of all U.S. 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. Instead send your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq.”7 Despite the fact that the insurgents didn’t win most (if any) firefights, the fact that they were still there and still fighting while Coalition forces were gone meant, to them, that they’d won. Now that the infidels were gone, 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 when you consider that it took over a year for much more movement to occur after U.S. 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 that it had always been. Suicide bombers and small groups of gunmen predominated, hitting schools and police stations. It began to intensify, however, in April 2013.

  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 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 eroding the effectiveness of the Iraqi Security Forces through terror as well as convincing the populace that the government could not protect them.

  It is apparent that during this period, ISI, while continuing the terror campaign against the ISF and the population that sided with the government, had turned toward increasing its numbers and building up its 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 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.”9

  The campaign, like most guerrilla warfare, didn’t focus only 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 more than twenty cities, killing over one hundred fifteen people. The first major jailbreak occurred in September, in Tikrit. The Tasfirat prison was attacked and more than 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, including an abortive attempt to storm the Camp Justice prison in Kadhimiya 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, by both getting experienced, hardened terrorists back and 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 co-opt 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. Jabhat al-Nusra (the al-Nusra Front) would change that.

  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 to 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 taken advantage of the chaos in Syria to establish itself there. The bitter feud among al-Nusra, the rest of the jihadist organizations in Syria, and ISIS has continued, although ISIS has increasingly solidified its position. Now, along with the seizure of Fallujah in January 2014,11 ISIS had shifted from primarily attacking the coherency of the government and civilian support for said government to actually gaining territory. The resistance phase was over. Now the conquest phase began.

  Before delving into the expansion of ISIS’s territory in Syria and especially Iraq in 2014, it is worth looking at its strategies for holding ground in Syria. It learned a great deal from its 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

  Information operations and propaganda have been integral to the jihadist movement from the beginning, and in fact are integral to any guerrilla effort. Mao (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) Zedong’s axiom that “the guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea” means that the people have to have a reason to support the guerrillas, whether through fear, ideology, or ethnic or sectarian loyalty. In recent years, ISIS has shown that it can manipulate all three factors.

  With the establishment of ISIS havens in Aleppo, Raqqa, and Deir al-Zour in Syria in 2013, ISIS began a “hearts and minds” campaign in the course of its governance. The primary venue appears to have been the dawa forums, where ISIS preachers met with townspeople in their havens and extolled the benefits of sharia, the bravery of the mujahideen, and the necessity of jihad. They 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 their aid to displaced people suffering from the civil war.13

  By socializing the people in their areas of control to sharia and its governance, it appeared that ISIS was determined to avoid the problems, at least in Syria, that had plagued it in Anbar. However, depending on where ISIS faced resistance, it still is not at all reluctant to apply 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 communiqué issued by ISIS leadership. The majority-Shi’a government of Iraq under Nouri al-Maliki is regularly referred to as the Safavids, referencing the Persian Shi’a Muslim Empire that lasted from 1501 to 1722.

  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. Although Yusuf al Qaradawi is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than ISIS, his declaration in June 2013 that Shi’a are “worse infidels than Ch
ristians or Jews” aligned perfectly with ISIS rhetoric.14

  Demonizing their enemy (often disparagingly referred to as “Nusayris,” equating all Shi’a with a splinter group whose beliefs are a blend of Islam, gnosticism, and Christianity) hardens the resolve of 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—emulating the early history of Islam by creating a connection between Muhammad and his followers and the group. The group members, whether in 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 nationalist bent, equating himself with a new Saladin (who was, ironically, a Kurd). Certain references are extremely evocative to the devout Muslim; Abu Bakr, a common kunyah, was Muhammad’s immediate successor and a successful military commander. The Battle of Badr, in 624, when Muhammad and his followers routed his opponents among the Quraish, is of such importance to Muslim culture that multiple military units and jihadist organizations, both Sunni and Shi’a, have been named after it.

  Dates are also significant in jihadist strategy, often chosen for their symbolism. 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 because on that day in 1683 the Ottoman Empire (the last caliphate) was turned away from Vienna by Polish forces.

  ISIS, in keeping with its hard-line 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 Muhammad.

  The emir’s choice of the kunyah Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Small Wars Journal points out, is deliberate. Not only was Abu Bakr the immediate successor of Muhammad, especially to Sunni orthodoxy, but “al-Baghdadi” intimates that the emir is in exile from his home, just as Muhammad was in exile from Mecca. “Al-Baghdadi” also connects ISIS with the Abbasid caliphate, which was based in Baghdad from 750 to 1517.

  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, sixth-century statues that had been erected on the Silk Road, as “idols” in March 2001, ISIS has begun cleansing its own territory of anything that smacks of “idolatry,” including 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.

  Changing the name from the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham to simply the Islamic State, and declaring Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “Caliph Ibrahim” or “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Quraishi” is of course the ultimate statement of being the most legitimate Islamic organization. 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), he also is claiming direct descent from Muhammad himself.15

  Of course, it is unlikely that ISIS actually believes that simply declaring a caliphate would result in the entire Muslim world rallying to its banner (though a larger number than might have been hoped have done just that). The symbolism involved in the 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.

  Although the city of Raqqa in Syria was initially taken by the rest of the Syrian rebels, dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra, since early 2013, ISIS has solidified its hold on the city, eventually declaring it the current capital of the new caliphate. Raqqa has, in a way, become ISIS’s test bed for their new model of hard-line 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. An even closer parallel is the CPC’s preference for fighting 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 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.

  Although 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. In other words, a fifty-two-thousand-man Iraqi Army division melted away in the face of between four hundred and fifteen hundred ISIS fighters.

  Much like its 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 subtribes of the Abu Issa, which had previously supported AQI during the battle for the city in 2004.17 Similarly, it has been reported that the majority of the forces now controlling Mosul are local tribal militias.

  ISIS, in similar fashion to Muhammad, has exploited the loyalties and grievances of the local tribes in order to cement its own control. They have focused on the age-old Sunni-Shi’a divide and let Maliki and his partisans exacerbate it in the 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 five Western hostages in August, September, and October 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 air strikes were reported in support of 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 U.S. 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 the Great Khan’s advance; those mass killings were a powerful 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.

  As ISIS has shifted from guerrilla raids and terror bombings to overt military operations, it has also focused on infrastructure. This time, unlike under Zarqawi during the U.S. occupation, it is focused less on destroying the infrastructure than on capturing it. Mosul Dam was one of the most significant targets; while the pundits concentrated 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’s hands several times in June, is 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 more than three hundred thousand barrels of oil per day, energy control is a major strategic asset, which is why the city and refinery have been so hotly contested.19