Paris attacks: Isis has created a new kind of warfare

[Jefferson23]

For the first time urban terrorism, guerrilla tactics and conventional fighting have been combined in a lethal blend

Patrick Cockburn

Sunday 15 November 2015 11:33 BST

snip* But there is a further reason why Isis may be intent on showing that it can strike anywhere in the world: for the first time in two years, a period during which Isis has created its own state in western Iraq and eastern Syria, it is being driven back by military pressure on a number of fronts.

In the past, it would deal with its numerous but disunited enemies one after the other, but now it is facing attacks on a number of fronts at the same time. The Syrian army backed by Russian air strikes last week ended the siege by IS of Kweiris Airbase west of Aleppo. It was the biggest Syrian government victory for two years. The Syrian Kurds, in cooperation with the US air force, are advancing south around Hasaka, while the Iraqi Kurds, again with American air support, have captured Sinjar city west of Mosul. Isis will find it difficult to travel between Raqqa and Mosul and may lose its grip on the oilfields of north-east Syria, from which it has derived revenue.

These developments on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria may seem distant from the butchery in the heart of Paris. But it is important to understand that Isis is an effective fighting machine because its military skills, evolved during years of fighting, are a potent blend of urban terrorism, guerrilla tactics and conventional warfare. Its blitzkrieg advances in Iraq in the summer of 2014 were preceded by a wave of suicide bombings using vehicles packed with explosives in Shia districts of Baghdad and central Iraq. The aim was to keep its enemies frightened and off balance and to show to potential supporters that Isis was a power in the land.

Nobody in the outside world paid much attention to the thousands of Iraqi Shia who were killed then and have gone on dying because of Isis terrorist bombings in Iraq. The number of civilians killed in Iraq jumped from 4,623 in 2012 to 9,473 in 2013 and to 17,045 in 2014, according to Iraqi Body Count, an independent website; a high proportion of these killed were Shia victims of Isis bombers and executioners. This savagery is now being repeated in the streets of Paris and Ankara, where 102 demonstrators for peace were killed by two suicide bombers on 10 October.

snip*Isis is under unprecedented military pressure in Iraq and Syria, but this does not mean it is going to implode. It can fight defensively as well as offensively. It looks as if it will not fight to the finish in battles in which enemy ground troops are supported by the US or Russian air forces. Isis commanders are reported to believe that they made a mistake in fighting for so long at Kobani, where they may have lost more than 2,000 fighters to US air strikes. Instead, they will rely more on guerrilla tactics in Syria and Iraq and expand the zone of conflict by carrying out terrorist attacks abroad like those we have just seen in Paris.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attack-isis-has-created-a-new-kind-of-warfare-a6734701.html

[AuntPatsy]

1. An interesting and horrifying read, kicking...so many innocents slain we have all but ignored

[Hydra]

2. This isn't new or really unexpected

The real question is what response will be taken, and how that's going to affect the wider world. Interesting times.