Tag Archives: ISIS

Egypt Air Force strikes ISIS of Libya at Derna

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Breaking news from Al Arabiya:

Egypt’s military said it bombed ISIS targets in Libya at dawn on Monday, following the execution of a group of Egyptian Copts by the militant group.

On Sunday, ISIS released a video purportedly showing the beheading of 21 Egyptians captured in Libya. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called an urgent meeting of Egypt’s top national security body after the video was released.

Sisi also gave a televised address, saying that Egypt and the world are facing “ferocious threats” hailing from radical militants, who are “devoid of any humane sense.”

He said his country reserved the right to “punish these murderers” as he called a meeting of security chiefs and declared seven days of mourning after the video was distributed by militants on social media.

 
You can read more on Sisi’s Right-to-Respond speech early Monday morning, from The Cairo Post. (Note: President Sisi, “elected” with nearly 100% of the vote in the elections following his 2013 military coup, is a conservative anti-Islamist militarist with a tight grip on local media.)

Most if not all of the airstrikes reported so far by people on the ground occurred in Derna. As Arsenal For Democracy explored in depth in our November 2014 article “Derna: ‘Islamic State’ proclaims 2nd ‘province’ in Libya”, the city of Derna was the beachhead for returning Libyan veteran fighters of the successful ISIS campaigns into Iraq in 2013 and 2014, and it has become the headquarters of the major ISIS affiliate in Libya. Since that post, however, at least two additional “ISIS provinces” have been proclaimed in the country’s historic three provinces. The group has staged attacks in Tripoli and elsewhere, but the execution of 21 Egyptian Copts at Sirte was the most brazen episode yet.

Road map showing ISIS-Libya positions (in Derna) relative to Tobruk and Benghazi within the greater Cyrenaica (Barqa) region of eastern Libya.

Road map showing ISIS-Libya positions (in Derna) relative to Tobruk and Benghazi within the greater Cyrenaica (Barqa) region of eastern Libya.

The executions may have provided Sisi’s pretext for a long-anticipated full-scale Egyptian military intervention in Libya, following non-admitted more limited/outsourced aerial engagements in Benghazi in October and its non-admitted assistance with the covert United Arab Emirates air operation in Libya in August. This is the first publicly confirmed operation by Egypt in its neighbor.

It may also put western Libyan pro-GNC Islamist militias that oppose ISIS in an awkward position. They vowed yesterday to begin operations against ISIS at Sirte, but they also oppose the faction Egypt has aggressively backed. A wider Egyptian intervention would be almost certainly directed at all Islamist groups, not just ISIS, much as Egypt’s internal military operations have been aimed equally at ISIS of Sinai as at the Muslim Brotherhood.

Back home in Egypt, the incident is likely to have a similar rallying effect to that seen in Jordan after its pilot was executed. However, there is an added religious dimension, as the regime is plainly exploiting existential fears of the minority Egyptian Coptic Christian community to compel them to rally to the regime despite its relative non-attention to their security. Returning the Al Arabiya article:

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox church said it was “confident” that those who purportedly beheaded a group of Egyptian Copts in Libya will be punished.

“The Orthodox church … is confident its homeland would not rest until the evil perpetrators get their fair retribution for their wicked crime,” the Coptic church said in a statement on its Facebook page.

 

On another front, in an unusually militaristic statement from the Italians — currently under a center-left government that is grappling with unpopular economic reforms under a very young leader and with a rising Libyan refugee crisis — Libya’s former colonial occupier formally called for an international military coalition against Libya’s jihadists and said it was “ready to lead” such a coalition. That’s probably the last thing Libya needs in the current climate there. Such an intervention would almost assuredly receive a much less warm welcome than the 2011 NATO air campaign in the country against Qaddafi.

The vastly more populous and heavily armed country of Yemen, embroiled in civil war, continues to garner substantially less coverage than massive oil producer, low-population Libya.

Jordan to re-enter the ISIS war, now in Iraq

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The Jordanian government was not messing around with its “Earth-Shattering” Response line to the execution of their pilot by ISIS. In addition to rejoining the reduced Syria coalition, huge air formations of Jordanian fighter-bombers will target ISIS positions inside Iraq, according to the Wall Street Journal:

The Royal Jordanian Air Force in recent days has begun rehearsals for a large-scale attack on Islamic State forces. But the initial wave of reprisal strikes, which will include Jordanian and U.S. warplanes, is being focused on targets in Syria, coalition officials said. Any strikes in Iraq would come later.
[…]
Jordan’s airstrikes have typically involved small formations of planes, while the reprisal for the killing of the pilot will involve as many as two dozen warplanes, officials said. In recent days, the U.S. has helped develop potential targets in Syria for Jordanian warplanes, coalition officials said.

Expanding into Iraq would allow the Jordanians to strike at more targets, coalition officials said. Iraqi officials weren’t available to comment, but the Shiite-led government so far has balked at allowing Sunni Arab nations such as Jordan to conduct operations.

 
It should be noted that a Jordanian air campaign in Iraq would probably be highly illegal under the current arrangement, because the government of Iraq explicitly opposes any Arab state bombing targets in Iraq (while it has invited Iran, US, Australia, Canada, and Europe to do so).

Of course, past Jordanian operations in Syria are also essentially illegal, since the government of Syria opposes non-cooperative air raids on its territory, even in reaction to attacks against Iraq (or Jordanians) staged on or from that Syrian territory. But there will probably be a good deal more controversy if Iraq rejects Jordanian bombing in Iraqi territory and then Jordan does it anyway.

Map of estimated ISIS control in western Iraq and eastern Syria on February 3, 2015, relative to Jordan and Saudi Arabia borders. Adapted by ArsenalForDemocracy.com from Wikimedia.

Map of estimated ISIS control in western Iraq and eastern Syria on February 3, 2015, relative to Jordan and Saudi Arabia borders. Adapted by ArsenalForDemocracy.com from Wikimedia.

Inherent Resolve: And then there was one?

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Tuesday night the news broke from U.S. government officials that the United Arab Emirates had quietly withdrawn participation in the U.S.-led air campaign in Syria, back in late December.

The United Arab Emirates, a crucial Arab ally in the American-led coalition against the Islamic State, suspended airstrikes against the Sunni extremist group in December, citing fears for its pilots’ safety after a Jordanian pilot was captured and who the extremists said had been burned to death, United States officials said Tuesday.

 
This suspension of UAE participation stands in stark contrast with their very bold statements about the necessity of entering the war against ISIS in the first place (as well as with their surprising covert bombing run in Libya last year). It particularly contradicts the country’s “bolder stance” that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has reportedly been trying to project as he acts on behalf of his brother, the president, who had a stroke last year.

But the apparent exit of the United Arab Emirates from the coalition could have a greater effect than a mere propaganda blow. It leaves the coalition essentially in tatters as far as the 6-member Syrian campaign was concerned.

That coalition, helmed by the United States, also consisted of five Arab states: the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Qatar — from the beginning in September 2014 — only participated in an undisclosed “support” role without flying any missions. Bahrain, according to reporting by the Boston Globe in November 2014, dropped out of flights after the first day of action over Syria. Just enough to count as a coalition member, I suppose. Jordan suspended flights after their pilot was captured at the end of December. Now we know the UAE did at about the same time.

That leaves only Saudi Arabia still participating (at least as far as we’re aware). Their resolve appears to be far stronger: a suicide attack that left three Saudi border troops dead in early January did not appear to bring a change in course. Nor did the recent death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

flag-of-saudi-arabia

True, the Royal Saudi Air Force is still probably the largest and most plentifully equipped air force of the five countries that joined the United States (or the four that were flying in the September air raids), but the Saudi contribution was already fairly minimal by most accounting. That same Boston Globe report that outed Bahrain’s non-participation found the United States had flown 75% of all missions from September 23, 2014 to mid-November 2014 in Syria and Iraq combined (i.e. even counting the European/Canadian/Australian air campaign participation in Iraq).

Plus, with Saudi Arabia being the biggest ideological force and financial accelerant behind the rise of global hardline Sunni extremism in the first place, it’s hardly comforting or useful to have them by our side in this fight against ISIS.

In any case, unless any of these dropout partners rejoin the fray — and it’s possible Jordan might do so, now that the hostage has been executed — these Syria bombing runs at the heart of the so-called Islamic State will be shouldered by the United States and trailed by an almost imperceptible coalition of one: Saudi Arabia. The irony of the name “Operation Inherent Resolve” could hardly be more obvious.

After the Battle of Kobani

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On January 25, John McCain attacked President Obama’s air campaign at Kobani as pointless and ineffective. A day later and some 700 airstrikes in, we got the news: “Kurds push Islamic State out of Kobani after four-month battle” (Reuters).

A week later, journalists were able to access the city at ground level and interview or photograph those re-entering and those who had remained the whole time. Here are two such feature articles I want to highlight…

“In Liberated Kobani, Kurds Take Pride Despite the Devastation” — The New York Times

Standing just inside the gate that separates Kobani from Turkey, Mohammed Jarada, a fighter guarding the post, savored the recent victory and shrugged off the costs. “This means that the Kurds exist,” he said. “We exist.”

 
See also: “Inside Kobani: Bodies of Isis militants lie in rubble on shattered streets [Graphic images]” — International Business Times / AFP Photos. The graphic images are blurred and you can skip past them. The rest of the photos are eerie but worth examining to see the catastrophic destruction of an obliterative siege. It’s a wasteland inside the city. Even World War II photos of bombed out cities don’t look this bad. People won’t be able to return for a long time (even if ISIS weren’t still right nearby in the outlying suburbs and villages) because of how much rubble there is and how many buildings have been destroyed.

A low-res close crop of the destruction inside Kobani, stretching toward the horizon, captured by AFP's Bulent Kilic. Full image at IB Times.

A low-res close crop of the destruction inside Kobani, stretching toward the horizon, captured by AFP’s Bulent Kilic. Full image at IB Times.

Flash back to September 18, 2014, when our blog began coverage before most outlets realized it was going to become a decisive stand that could break the momentum of ISIS: “ISIS tanks move on Kurdish enclave in Syria”

An armor-supported ISIS division in northern, central Syria has launched an offensive to seize territory from one of the three major Kurdish enclaves in Syria, which have been largely separate from the primary civil war for the past couple years.
[…]
ISIS tank units attacking Kurdish areas in northern, central Syria seem like a pretty tempting target for American-led coalition airstrikes on ISIS forces in Syria, once those begin in the coming weeks.

 

ISIS and Boko Haram are both playing us. Just differently.

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ISIS (Iraq and Syria) and Boko Haram (Nigeria) have superficially similar goals and a loose alliance with each other. But the former thrives on attention for global recruitment and to provoke Western military responses through antagonism (inciting further support for the cause), while the latter thrives on the West not caring enough (full story➚) to bother with most insurgencies in sub-Saharan Africa. Both are playing Americans in two very different ways.

In recent months, more than two thirds of the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno has fallen to or been destroyed by Boko Haram. Currently, the state capital of Borno, the city of Maiduguri, is coming under heavy attack nearly daily from Boko Haram. Maiduguri is widely believed by analysts to be high on the capture list as a relatively major city Boko Haram might be able to take … and hold. Its population is slightly larger than that of Mosul, Iraq, the city that became a tipping point prompting Western gaze to return to the insurgency under its new name of ISIS just over six months ago.

But even without Maiduguri, Boko Haram has already drawn even with or far surpassed ISIS on a number of factors. For example, the estimated 10,000-13,000 people Boko Haram killed in 2014 alone is more than twice if not three times larger Boko Haram’s own figures for the previous four years combined, as well as being several thousand greater than the ISIS killing rate for 2014, along with holding higher records for mass execution events.

Territorially, Boko Haram has made achievements similar to those of ISIS. As previously noted on this site:

TIME magazine reports this alarming development:

Boko Haram […] controls an estimated 30-35,000 square kilometers, roughly the same amount of terrain as Syria and Iraq’s Islamic State.

It’s pretty telling about U.S. priorities, over-reactions, and under-reactions in different parts of the world that the response to ISIS last year was sharply different — which is to say, not even on the same scale of magnitude — from the response to Boko Haram, even as they now control the same land area by size.

Mass executions by ISIS in Syria and Iraq have so far reportedly topped out at 700 people in a two week killing spree (although the total figures across incidents over the past year are significantly higher). If the civilian body count estimates coming out of north Borno state in northeast Nigeria prove correct, Boko Haram will have already significantly exceeded the August 2014 massacres by ISIS.

 

While Boko Haram certainly warrants more attention from the United States and Europe than it has gotten (although ideally it would be a more judicious and targeted attention than the hysteria ISIS has provoked), it is also important to remember that the differences in coverage and attention are at least partially a function of the radically different modus operandi of each group.
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US reports death of ISIS chemical weapons expert

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A former Iraqi chemical weapons engineer from the Saddam Hussein era — later a veteran insurgent styling himself as “Abu Malik” — has been killed in a coalition airstrike near Mosul, according to the United States. He was believed to be advising ISIS personnel on handling and use of chlorine weapons (which are not, incidentally, banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention).

By most accounts, both ISIS and the Syrian Armed Forces are using makeshift chlorine weapons for dramatic effect — though not necessarily for battlefield utility, as they are difficult to use effectively in improvised explosive devices.

ISIS combatants are believed to have used chemical IEDs in Iraq (New York Times, October 23, 2014):

Unconfirmed reports of improvised bombs made with chlorine gas and used by militants have arisen from time to time since the Islamic State began seizing territory in Iraq at the beginning of the year, raising concerns that Iraq’s old chemical weapons stores had fallen into the militants’ hands.

 
The weapons referred to above, as summarized here, are the really old rusty ones from before the first Gulf War. However, while largely unusable as intended, some of the ingredients in them can be re-purposed into IED additives. Additionally, chlorine (which was not discussed in the major Times investigation) is not just used in weapons and is thus far more readily available as an ingredient than other chemical weapons agents.

ISIS allegedly detonated a chlorine-filled IED in September against Iraqi police officers (Washington Post, October 23, 2014):

The police officers, all members of the Sunni Jabbour tribe, which has turned against the Islamic State, were guarding a line in the town’s north. After an exchange of fire, they said, they were surprised to see Islamic State fighters retreating from their position about 150 yards away.

Suddenly there was a boom in the area the extremists had just vacated, said Lt. Khairalla al-Jabbouri, 31, one of the survivors. “It was a strange explosion. We saw a yellow smoke in the sky,” he said. The wind carried the fog toward their lines. The men say it hung close to the ground, consistent with the properties of chlorine gas, which is heavier than air.

“I felt suffocated,” Jabbouri recalled. “I was throwing up and couldn’t breathe.”

Another officer, Ammer Jassim Mohammed, 31, who suffers from asthma, said he passed out within minutes.

 
Other minor ISIS chemical IED attacks in Iraq have also been reported. There are also allegations that ISIS used some other type of chemical agent in Kobani.

Aircraft participating in U.S.-led coalition airstrike missions in Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS. (Credit: Dept. of Defense via Wikimedia)

Aircraft participating in U.S.-led coalition airstrike missions in Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS. (Credit: Dept. of Defense via Wikimedia)

Syria for the Syrians – or for everyone else?

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From the very first days of the uprising in Syria, dictator Bashar al-Assad has maintained that foreign jihadists (his version of “outside agitators” I suppose) were dominating and leading the violence and preventing the return of peace for ordinary Syrians. It remains a standard line in the propaganda of those supporting Assad. As time has gone on, however, this initially dubious claim has increasingly seemed accurate, as foreign fighters have flooded the country by the thousands.

(To be sure, President Assad can hardly deflect the qualifying facts that he played host, for years before the war, to the Baathist command structure of the Iraqi insurgency that evolved into ISIS and then intentionally allowed hundreds of foreign jihadists to join ISIS in the first three years of the civil war.)

The currently heavy foreignness of the opposition now seems evident to most observers, whatever its original composition might have been. Although it remains difficult to get accurate counts to determine the relative balance of foreign insurgents to Syrian-born rebels, it is clear the both ISIS and Nusra Front are heavily dominated by non-Syrians, particularly at the leadership level. ISIS has had effective control of the eastern anti-government forces and territory since last summer, while Nusra Front now has effective control over the main western insurgency forces in the primary conflict arena.

What then are the consequences for native Syrians of flooding Syria’s civil war with foreign combatants?

Pictured: Destroyed Syrian Army tanks, August 2012, after the Battle of Azaz. (Credit: Christiaan Triebert via Wikipedia)

Pictured: Destroyed Syrian Army tanks, August 2012, after the Battle of Azaz. (Credit: Christiaan Triebert via Wikipedia)

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