The war against ISIL is changing, and how its opponents adapt will be a key test of the group’s ability to achieve its goals.
A string of attacks and counter-attacks over the course of this year so far signal a major shift in the way the group is conducting its military operations, leaning back on insurgency tactics it used when US troops were still present in Iraq.
The change comes amid widespread perception in western capitals that the group is now on the back foot. But it also follows a variety of crises – financial and political – that may cause deeper western involvement in the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts.
Last Sunday, the group launched an assault inside the city of Abu Ghraib, 15 kilometres from Baghdad International Airport. More than 50 people were killed and the attack was repelled. In the process, the militants reportedly controlled the grain silo in Khan Dhari and took with them a dozen lorries full of badly needed grain into besieged Fallujah, which is around 30 kilometres away.
The following day, an ISIL suicide bomber attacked the funeral of an Iraqi member of Hashd Al Shaabi, the pro-government paramilitary organisation, in the Iraqi city of Al Muqdadiyah, in Diyala. At least 27 people were killed, including prominent Hashd commanders. The attack follows similar ones in the same province in mid-January, when militants attacked a cafe and killed 40 people, causing sectarian reprisals that echo the sectarian violence in the same area after the civil war after 2005. On that day, ISIL also attacked a mall inside Baghdad, killing 18 people.
Those attacks in Shia-dominated areas happened despite heavy security measures taken by the government to prevent ISIL infiltration, including curfews and rigorous vetting of internally displaced persons.
Similarly, ISIL fighters swept through the northern Syrian city of Tal Abyad last Saturday in a clear hit-and-run blitz. Tal Abyad was seized by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG, eight months ago. Despite the fact that ISIL operates many kilometres from the city, the militants controlled a number of key landmarks and clashed with the YPG for several hours before they withdrew under “devastating precision bombing” by the US-led air forces, in the words of the special envoy Brett McGurk.
Policymakers in the West have long feared that the surge in such attacks would be a fallback strategy for the group when it is contained militarily. ISIL is compensating for its inability to conquer new areas, as it did before the air campaign started, by taking the fight to its enemies with devastating fatalities. It is a new challenge for which its local adversaries in Iraq and Syria do not seem to be prepared, including in the way they have been trained by international coalition forces.
Since ISIL’s large conquests in summer 2014, much of the training of security and fighting forces in the two countries has focused on conventional warfare, to improve the forces’ ability to repulse attacks by a group that often operated as a conventional army and to hold territory. The ISIL assaults in 2014 onwards differed from its previous mode of fighting as an insurgent group during the American military presence in Iraq, when training of Iraqi security forces largely focused on counter-insurgency. So the Iraqi army failed to adapt to the much more agile enemy.
Lately, training by western countries has also accounted for ISIL’s versatile capabilities and sought to improve the adaptability of Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga. But training will have a limited effect on preventing ISIL from launching deadly attacks in well-defended cities and towns. The rate of such raids will probably increase in the coming weeks and months, especially as talk of offensives against the group in Mosul and Raqqa continues to come up.
Hit-and-run tactics are ISIL’s way of diverting the attention of its enemies and causing steady damage in Iraq, Syria and beyond. Such raids are a huge challenge for the US-led coalition, as calls for urgent help come not from a front line but from random areas anywhere in Syria and Iraq.
As these attacks tend to be random, targeted and brief, more vigilance and concentration of forces will be required to minimise their effect, which means deeper US commitment in terms of air strikes and operatives on the ground will be needed. The fact that ISIL has taken a hit due to the air strikes does not necessarily mean that its enemies are better off. Both Baghdad and Erbil in Iraq suffer profound financial and political crises that could undermine the effort to fully defeat ISIL. Its enemies are also tired and, in some cases, their growing strength is producing new challenges that might lead to new conflicts, such as the rise of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and the YPG in northeastern Syria. ISIL’s changing tactics add new challenges to the fight against it.
All those factors mean the US will undoubtedly get sucked further into Iraq and the Syrian conflict to shore up its allies and contain the threat of ISIL.
Hassan Hassan is a resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a think tank in Washington, DC, and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror
On Twitter: @hxhassan
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
SPECS
Toyota land Cruiser 2020 5.7L VXR
Engine: 5.7-litre V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 362hp
Torque: 530Nm
Price: Dh329,000 (base model 4.0L EXR Dh215,900)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ETwig%20Solutions%20(with%20trade%20name%20Twig)%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EChafic%20Idriss%2C%20Karam%20El%20Dik%20and%20Rayan%20Antonios%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Ebootstrapped%20(undisclosed)%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E13%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Epre-seed%20%E2%80%94%20closing%20the%20round%20as%20we%20speak%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20senior%20executives%20from%20the%20GCC%20financial%20services%20industry%20and%20global%20family%20offices%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The biog
Marital status: Separated with two young daughters
Education: Master's degree from American Univeristy of Cairo
Favourite book: That Is How They Defeat Despair by Salwa Aladian
Favourite Motto: Their happiness is your happiness
Goal: For Nefsy to become his legacy long after he is gon
The%20specs
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ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars;
- energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes,
- many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
The five pillars of Islam
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
SPECS
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Two-litre%20four-cylinder%20turbo%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E235hp%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E350Nm%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Nine-speed%20automatic%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFrom%20Dh167%2C500%20(%2445%2C000)%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5