A secret to IS success: Troops willing to die
The IS calls them
"Inghemasiyoun," Arabic for "those who immerse themselves." The elite
shock troops are possibly the deadliest weapon in the extremist group's
arsenal: Fanatical and disciplined, they infiltrate their targets,
unleash mayhem and fight to the death, wearing explosives belts to blow
themselves up among their opponents if they face defeat. They are
credited with many of the group's stunning battlefield successes —
including the capture of al-Sukhna in May after the scene shown in an
online video released by the group.
"They
cause chaos and then their main ground offensive begins," said Redur
Khalil, spokesman of the U.S.-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units,
which have taken the lead in a string of military successes against the
IS in Syria.
Though best known for its horrific brutalities — from
its grotesque killings of captives to enslavement of women — the
Islamic State group has proved to be a highly organized and flexible
fighting force, according to senior Iraqi military and intelligence
officials and Syrian Kurdish commanders on the front lines.
Its
tactics are often creative, whether it's using a sandstorm as cover for
an assault or a lone sniper tying himself to the top of a palm tree to
pick off troops below. Its forces nimbly move between conventional and
guerrilla warfare, using the latter to wear down their opponents before
massed fighters backed by armored vehicles, Humvees and sometimes even
artillery move to take over territory. The fighters incorporate suicide
bombings as a fearsome battlefield tactic to break through lines and
demoralize enemies, and they are constantly honing them to make them
more effective. Recently, they beefed up the front armor of the vehicles
used in those attacks to prevent gunfire from killing the driver or
detonating explosives prematurely.
Those
strategies are being carried over into new fronts, appearing in Egypt
in last week's dramatic attack by an IS-linked militant group against
the military in the Sinai Peninsula.
Andreas Krieg, a professor at
King's College London who embedded with Iraqi Kurdish fighters last
fall, said IS local commanders are given leeway to operate as they see
fit. They "have overall orders on strategy and are expected to come up
with the most efficient ways of adapting it," he said. The group "is
very much success oriented, results oriented." That's a strong contrast
to the rigid, inefficient and corrupt hierarchies of the Iraqi and
Syrian militaries, where officers often fear taking any action without
direct approval from higher up.
IS
fighters are highly disciplined — swift execution is the punishment for
deserting battle or falling asleep on guard duty, Iraqi officers said.
The group is also flush with weaponry looted from Iraqi forces that fled
its blitzkrieg a year ago, when IS overtook the northern city of Mosul
and other areas. Much of the heavy weapons it holds — including
artillery and tanks — have hardly been used, apparently on reserve for a
future battle.
Iraqi army Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi said IS stands out in its ability to conduct multiple battles simultaneously.
"In
the Iraqi army, we can only run one big battle at a time," said
al-Saadi, who was wounded twice in the past year as he led forces that
retook the key cities of Beiji and Tikrit from IS.
Even
the group's atrocities are in part a tactic, aimed at terrorizing its
enemies and depicting itself as an unstoppable juggernaut. In June 2014,
the group boasted of killing hundreds of Shiites in Iraq's security
forces, issuing photos of the massacre. It regularly beheads captured
soldiers, releasing videos of the killings online. It is increasing the
shock value: Recent videos showed it lowering captives in a cage into a
pool to drown and blowing off the heads of others with explosive wire
around their necks.
The number of IS fighters
in Iraq and Syria is estimated between 30,000 to 60,000, according to
the Iraqi officers. Former army officers of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein have helped the group organize its fighters, a diverse mix from
Europe, the United States and Arab and Central Asian nations. 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.
"They tend
to use their foreign fighters as suicide bombers," said Patrick
Skinner, a former CIA officer who now directs special operations for The
Soufan Group, a private geopolitical risk assessment company. "People
go to the Islamic State looking to die, and the Islamic State is happy
to help them."
The group's
tactics carried it to an overwhelming sweep of northern and western Iraq
a year ago, capturing Mosul, Iraq's second-biggest city. Shortly
thereafter, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate"
spanning its territory in Iraq and Syria.
In May, it captured
Ramadi, capital of Iraq's vast western Anbar province, in a humiliation
for Iraqi forces. In Syria, it seized the central city of Palmyra.The elite shock troops were crucial in the capture of Ramadi. First came a wave of more than a dozen suicide bombings that hammered the military's positions in the city, then the fighters moved in during a sandstorm. Iraqi troops crumbled and fled as a larger IS force marched in.
"The way they took Ramadi
will be studied for a while," Skinner said. "They have the ability to
jump back and forth between traditional (military operations) and
terrorism." He said a similar combination of suicide bombings ahead of
ground forces was used in last week's Sinai attacks in Egypt.
Since
US-led airstrikes in Syria and Iraq have made it more difficult for the
group's forces to advance, IS has lost ground. Iraqi troops and Shiite
militiamen retook areas to the south and northeast of Baghdad, the oil
refinery city of Beiji and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit north of
the capital.
In Syria,
Kurdish fighters backed by heavy U.S. airstrikes wrested the border town
of Kobani from the IS after weeks of devastating battles. More
recently, IS lost Tal Abyad, another Syrian town on the Turkish border.
Despite
that loss, IS shock troops attacked Kobani last month. Around 70 of
them infiltrated and battled a much larger Kurdish force for two days,
apparently on a mission not to retake the town but to cause chaos.They were all slain, but not before killing more than 250 civilians, including roughly 100 children, and more than 30 Kurdish fighters. At the same time, they attacked the northeast Syrian city of Hassakeh, driving out thousands of people and still holding out in parts of the city despite continued fighting. Last week, they carried out a bloody incursion into Tal Abyad, again fighting until they were all killed but demonstrating their relentlessness.
"We are still nursing our
wounds in Kobani," said Ghalia Nehme, a Syrian Kurdish commander who
fought in last month's battle. "From what we saw, they weren't planning
to leave alive. It seems they were longing for heaven," she said.
The
use of suicide bombings has forced IS's opponents to adapt. Al-Saadi
defied his own Iraqi military commanders who demanded a fast assault to
retake Beiji. Instead, he adopted a slow, methodical march from a base
near Tikrit, moving only a few miles each day while clearing roads of
explosives and setting up barriers against suicide attacks. It took him
three weeks to go 25 miles to Beiji, fighting the whole way and fending
off more than two dozen suicide attacks, then another week to take
Beiji, but he succeeded with minimal casualties.
IS
also has adapted, and recently began using remote controlled aircraft
fitted with cameras to film enemy positions. It is believed to have
agents within the military. It also has superior communications
equipment, using two-way radios with a longer range than the Iraqi
military's, said Maj. Gen. Ali Omran, commander of Iraq's 5th Division.
Omran
said that when the extremists figured out the military was listening in
on its radio frequencies, it switched to more secure lines but
continued using the infiltrated frequencies to feed the military false
information.Even IS supply chains are robust. Its fighters' rations often include grilled meat kebabs and chicken, better than what Iraqi troops eat, Omran said.
But IS has its vulnerabilities, noted Skinner. It has no air force. And its open, state-like organization gives an opportunity for spies to infiltrate, something the group clearly fears given the many killings of people it suspects of espionage. It also faces internal strains, trying to control and direct its multi-national personnel.
"We
think of them as this spooky faceless organization that runs
seamlessly," Skinner said. "I imagine it's probably the hardest
organization to run, because it's staffed with unstable, violent
people."
___
Mroue
reported from Beirut, Lebanon. AP correspondents Lori Hinnant in Paris
and John-Thor Dahlberg in Brussels, Belgium contributed to this report.
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