Raw: Iraqi Troops Battle Islamic State Militants
Gone are the
days when IS was able to seize territory in both countries with relative
ease. Its newfound problems, including a loss of oil revenue, raise
questions about the extent to which it will be able to continue
recruiting fighters who want to be with a winner.
"ISIS
has run a very effective psychological campaign to intimidate its
rivals and attract support and recruits," said Faysal Itani, a resident
fellow at the Atlantic Council, using an acronym for the extremists. But
now, he said, the need to maintain its reputation is limiting the
group's options.
This is
particularly true in Kobani, where a pre-emptive IS withdrawal in the
face of U.S.-led bombings from the sky and ethnic Kurdish fighters on
the ground could prove too costly.
"They
have invested a lot in this battle, and people are noticing. They will
soon start asking what's going on?" said Ayed, a Turkey-based Syrian
activist who travels back and forth to the group's stronghold in the
Syrian city of Raqqa. He declined to give his full name.
The
prolonged fighting in Kobani is also distracting IS from more
strategically important areas in Syria and Iraq where the militant
extremists are already stretched on multiple fronts.
Nearly two months after IS
launched its lightning assault on the Kurdish-dominated town near
Turkish border, the group is bogged down in an increasingly entrenched
and costly battle.
Syrian and
Kurdish activists estimate nearly 600 Islamic State fighters have been
killed — its heaviest losses since taking over large parts of Syria and
Iraq in a summer blitz.
Kurdish residents say the group appears to
be struggling with personnel, bringing in inexperienced fighters and
new recruits to reinforce the town. These include members of the IS
police force known as Hisba, reassigned from nearby towns and cities,
such as Raqqa and Manbij, under the group's control."Many Hisba members have left Raqqa in the past two weeks, telling people they were headed to Kobani," Ayed said. They are not fighters."
Kobani residents say recent U.S. airstrikes targeting IS in Kobani have inflicted heavy damage. "Their bodies are left for days rotting in the street without anyone picking them up," said Farhad Shami, a Kobani-based activist.
In a move that some
observers interpreted as a sign of weakness, the Islamic State group
recently released a video showing a captive British photojournalist
"reporting" from a place identified as Kobani. In the video, he says the
battle for Kobani "is coming to an end" and IS is "mopping up."
But
despite seven weeks of fierce fighting and the reinforcements on both
sides, fighting positions around Kobani remain much the same as they did
several weeks ago, with IS controlling about 40 percent of the town,
according to Syrian and Kurdish activists and observers.
IS
has also recently suffered losses on several fronts in Iraq, where it
is fighting government forces, peshmerga and Shiite militias aided by
Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group.
Last
week, Iraqi forces recaptured the town of Jurf al-Sakher. IS also lost
Rabia, Mahmoudiyah and Zumar, a string of towns near the Syrian border,
last month. Besieged Iraqi troops have also managed to maintain control
of Iraq's largest oil refinery outside the town of Beiji north of
Baghdad, despite numerous attempts by the Islamic State group to capture
it.
The group's diminishing
returns in Iraq partly reflects the fact that it already controls so
much of the territory populated by minority Sunnis. It would have a much
harder time conquering areas populated by Shiites.
But even in Sunni areas,
IS is having to contend with dissent. Over the past few days, the group
has massacred more than 200 Sunni tribesmen from the Al Bu Nimr tribe in
what is likely to be revenge for the tribe's siding with Iraqi security
forces. The killings, in which the militants lined up and shot the men,
suggest IS fighters now view them as a threat.
The
group's difficulties are striking considering the relative ease with
which it seized other towns and cities in Iraq and Syria this past
summer. In Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, Iraqi security forces
quickly abandoned their positions and weapons in the face of the
marauding militants, melting away quickly in humiliating defeat.
Most
other towns in northern and western Iraq saw a widespread
disintegration of the security forces, mostly because of the Islamic
State group's reputation alone in addition to grievances among the Sunni
population that the militants were able to exploit.
In
Syria, the group was able to capitalize on the chaos of the civil war
to seize towns and villages abandoned by the government, routing out
rival fighters in quick succession.
By
the time it got to Kobani in mid-September, IS was stretched on
multiple fronts. Riding on the momentum, however, it captured dozens of
Kurdish villages and a third of the town in lightning advances that sent
waves of civilians fleeing across the border into Turkey. Expectations
were that the town would fall to the militants within days.
But unlike in Iraq where
the militants already had a substantial, years-long presence, the IS
fighters in Kobani found themselves in an alien environment and
unfamiliar terrain, fighting against highly motivated and surprisingly
resilient Kurdish fighters, according to Syria observers as well as
Syrian and Kurdish activists.
"The
Iraqi army was a severely demoralized force that didn't see a purpose
in fighting for a central government whose credibility they questioned,"
said Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at Royal United Services
Institute, a British think tank.
The Kurds, on the other hand, "are fighting a truly existential battle," he said.
A
group of 150 Iraqi Kurdish forces known as peshmerga deployed last week
to Kobani with more advanced weapons including anti-tank missiles and
artillery to help bolster their Syrian brethren defending the town. They
have provided artillery cover for fellow Kurdish fighters, but it is
too early to say whether this has already made any difference on the
ground.
Bayan Jabr, an Iraqi
cabinet minister, said IS was simply fighting too many battles. He
predicted a Sunni uprising in Anbar province following the massacres
targeting the Al Bu Nimr tribe.
"I think Daesh is starting to fade," he said, using the Arab acronym for the group.
___
Associated Press writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report from Irbil, Iraq.
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