IS stands out in its ability to conduct multiple battles simultaneously, Iraqi army Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi said. Depriving the terrorist group of its finances (beyond oilfields and infrastructure, which are no longer ISIS’s major source of revenue) would be an appropriate place to begin. In the first week of the month, the group released a video purporting to show the killing of 16 men it described as spies by drowning them in a cage lowered to the bottom of a pool, decapitating them with explosives or firing a rocket-propelled grenade at a auto they were forced into.
Advertisement
Another is to invoke those causes that could resonate with not only the Sunni segments of the Iraqi and Syrian populations, but also a good number of Sunni Arabs (including the disgruntled but highly experienced Ba’athist supporters of the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein) and fellow Muslims around the world. Veteran jihadis with combat experience in Afghanistan, Chechnya or Somalia have also brought valuable experience, both in planning and as role models to younger fighters.
Foreigners joining IS often end up as suicide bombers.
“Fallujah is where the PMUs know they can lead because leading the fight for Ramadi was never going to be an option for them”, said Michael Knights, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In September of previous year, after the group beheaded two American hostages, President Barack Obama promised to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Islamic State. Shortly thereafter, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” spanning its territory in Iraq and Syria. “However, there are direction action-type missions, other ways of using our military forces in conjunction with certain Iraqi forces to remove ISIS from the area, without the consequences that would exist doing it in other ways”.
Islamic State is a terrorist movement that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria.
Last month, one Canadian military spokesperson called ISIL’s capture of Ramadi a “small setback”.
Since U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have hampered the group’s movements, IS has lost ground.
Advertisement
Near the Jordanian border, where Syrian militiamen are helping hold the line. “”ISIS could argue in that jihad-meaning joining ISIS-is compulsory of all Muslims, so the civilians” refusal qualifies them for execution as apostates”, Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for the Clarion Project, told FoxNews.com. The AP article concludes by mentioning their lack of an air force-not that Obama’s desultory get-off-my-back bombing campaign has been slowing them down much-and they are vulnerable to espionage due to their diffuse organizational structure and appetite for foreign recruits. Al-Saadi defied his own Iraqi military commanders who demanded a fast assault to retake Beiji.
