A militant Islamist fighter uses a mobile to film his fellow fighters taking part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province. (2014/file)
VOA: Weakened IS May Find Havens in Rural Iraq, Syria
If expected military offensives rout the Islamic State group from the cities that are its strongholds in Syria and Iraq, military analysts and Kurdish commanders say the extremists would establish bases in rural areas to further their regional terrorism.
"When they run out of options, and soon they will, [IS fighters] will act more violently outside their areas of control,” said Radwan Badini, a politics professor at Salahaddin University in Irbil, in northern Iraq.
"In the countryside of rural provinces in Syria and Iraq, IS will continue to have an influence and it will try to use these areas as operation centers to stage attacks on their immediate enemies.”
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WNU Editor: This analysis is probably correct. When the Taliban were driven out of the cities in Afghanistan they either fled to the rural regions of Afghanistan and/or Pakistan.
3 comments:
It sounds like what would be needed would be enough forces to cut off entry into the cities and exit out of the cities. This way anyone attempting to flee can be cut off before they can flee and have a chance to regroup.
Part of the problem with both Iraq and Afghanistan is enough forces were not used to properly provide security. In the case of Iraq, probably one million or more military personnel would have been needed to 1.)remove the government from power, 2.)secure suspected WMD sites, 3.)secure the weapons depots, 4.)secure the oil facilities and pipelines, 4.)secure the nation's borders preventing insurgents from entering or leaving the country, and 5.)provide security for the population.
To have tried this with only 150,000 or so troops was absolutely nuts. If the proper force structure could not have been secured then the mission should have been called off and other ways sought to deal with Saddam Hussein. It seems as though people are poised to make the same mistake again. Some just never learn.
Well I do not see the situation as bad as it's pictured in the article above, but hey I'm no military analyst. Expecting IS to fight in other areas of Iraq after the liberation of Mosul is a natural consequence, and I do not really understand why some belive after Mosul, everything just will be fine. No, it's an important city that's true, mostly by it's size and population, but that's it, because it's previous main task as being a "logistical center" is already lost by the territory losses of this year. With Mosul, some problem will be solved but not as much as some in the news say.
However we still know very little about the offensive against Mosul, and I still think this November start is way far away from the real liberation. This city will be hard to take, and not because of IS, or of the state of the Iraqian forces, but just simply because of the city's size. For me as it's seems, this "confident" Iraqian moral build up, and "We will take Mosul", and "Mosul is next" just a simple part of the strategy, and to make IS question their defense possibilities/capabilities. They want IS belive it's worth to retreat forces from the city because those would be more usefull in other areas, and in the long run. The fact is that I would say 90%+ of the defending cases it's worth to stay inside such urbanised areas with the largest forces possible. Iraqian forces (but I could say SAA and Kurds too) are not able to take a heavily fortified city, and by distracting IS and make them pull out any forces from the city it's a gain. The question is does IS go this way, or not, and we not yet know the answer. Previously IS made some nicely organsied operation, but their defensive capabilities and tactics seems to be very limited, I wonder that they could pull this one. The possibility is there for them, that's no question.
About IS forces "disappearing" after their defeat, and will blend into the civilians and will continue an insurgency just like they did after 2003, I have my doubt about this scenario. First of all the current IS have a different rate of "origin" of their fighters. Sure many of them are from Syria and Iraq, but lots are from other countries, and while those who are fighting at homeground have a higher chance to remain undetected, Tunisians and other fighters will be easy to spot. Second, unlike in 2003 (and after), we are now living the great time of internet, and surveillance. The tons of videos uploaded by IS and other groups are a huge help for recognise personels, and with govermental inteligence forces list of possible collaborators and local interogriations made by "loyal" shia/police/military forces I have my doubt how many IS fighter could get away of their past. Adding to this the "no prisoners" style of handling IS collaborators/fighters, those who were taken away, well, I would not bet them seeing the sunlight again. Not in Iraq nor Syria the army or military groups would give a damn about the life and rights of IS fighters you can make sure of that. US had it's own policy of fighting, they have their own.
Iranian, Hezbollah, Shia militia, Russia & the SA play by a different rule book.
They can 'hide', but it won't work.
They will simply round up military age males and shoot them.
The mujahedden lasted as long as they did, because arms supplies kept getting ramped up. The Chinese kindly supplied man portable surface air missile, MANPADS. The Muj also had a safe area in Pakistan. Russia nearly won the in Afghanistan.
ISIS will have no safe area like Pakistan. They will die or catch a rat line.
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