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In Syria,
Locals Take the Fight Back to Islamic State
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Excerpt of an article originally published under the title
"Striking a Winning Formula as Locals Take the Fight Back to Islamic
State."
In late December, I travelled to northern Syria to take a closer look at
how things were working out. Is Islamic State being contained and eroded?
And if it is, who are the forces on the ground that are achieving this?
Kobane is a good place to start. This once anonymous Kurdish town on the
Syrian-Turkish border was the subject in 2014 of Islamic State's predatory
intentions. The jihadists wanted to remove the logistical irritation of a
Kurdish enclave poking into their domain. Abu Omar al-Shishani, the most
feared of the Islamic State commanders, declared that he would "drink
tea in Ayn al-Islam" (the name Islamic State gave the town). He came
close to achieving his objective.
By October 2014, the nearly surrounded Kurdish forces were preparing for
a last stand. The fighters of the YPG (the People's Protection Units of the
de facto Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria) were determined, but
outgunned.
Then something changed. The intervention of US power, partnering with
the lightly armed but determined Kurds, turned the tide and proved the
formula for success against Islamic State. More than 2000 jihadists died
inside the ruins of Kobane, under the relentless US air attacks and the
determined assaults of the YPG. In January, the group abandoned the attack.
Kobane had survived.
Western air power is partnering with
local ground forces across a broad front stretching from the
Syrian-Turkish border to Iraq.
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This formula for success — Western air power in partnership with
carefully selected and directed local ground partners — is now being
applied across a broad front stretching from Jarabulus on Syria's Turkish
border all the way to deep inside Iraq.
Kobane today bears fearful testimony to the awesome destructive capacity
of modern war. There is hardly a building that is not damaged. Roads are
ploughed up. Craters made by the bombs, filled with rainwater, offer mute
testimony to the fierceness of the fight. Once residential streets are now
just lines of damaged structures — rubble and masonry and foundation walls
rising like outstretched hands towards the sky.
But, importantly, the war is now far from here. Once the assault on
Kobane ended in January last year, the YPG and its US allies continued to
push the jihadists back: 196 villages and an area of 1362 sq km were
liberated from the jihadists. As of now, since the capture of Ain Issa, the
front lines at their most forward point are situated just 30km from Islamic
State's "capital" in Raqqa City.
196 villages have been liberated by
Syrian Kurdish forces in the past year.
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This has enabled life to begin tentatively to return to Kobane. About
40,000 people are now living in the town, although its reconstruction
remains in the opening stages. It has also set the stage for the current
phase of the war in which Islamic State is often no longer on the attack.
Rather, it is being slowly pushed back. What comes next, I asked Colonel
Talal Silu, spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, at a facility in
al-Hasakah city. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose existence was
announced in October last year, is the 40,000-strong military alliance with
which Western air power and special forces are partnering in the war
against Islamic State.
Silu, an ethnic Turkmen from northern Syria and a member of the Jaysh
al-Thuwar (Army of Revolutionaries), is a living example of the purpose of
the SDF.
The victories against Islamic State at Kobane and to its east were won
by the combination of determined Kurdish ground forces and US air power.
This partnership works militarily. Politically, however, it is
problematic.
The US is committed to the maintenance of Syria as a territorial unit.
The PYD (Democratic Union Party) in Syrian Kurdistan is a franchise of the
PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which is based in Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan
and is engaged in an armed conflict with Turkey. The PYD is widely believed
by Syrian Arabs to be seeking to secede from Syria. Yet, more
problematically, the PKK remains on the US and EU lists of terrorist
organisations. And the secular, leftist YPG in Syria is clearly the
creation of the PKK, though spokesmen deny formal links.
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Syrian
Kurds have taken the initiative in the war with Islamic State.
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The SDF, which brings in non-Kurdish organisations and fighters around
the nucleus of the 30,000-strong YPG, is intended to remedy this situation.
It serves a purpose for both Kurds and Americans. It enables the YPG to
present itself as an integral part of Syria. The US, meanwhile, can claim
to be working with a multi-ethnic alliance rather than a Kurdish
nationalist force.
This latter aspect is of particular importance because of Turkish
concerns. The Turks have warned the YPG not to cross west of the Euphrates
River. Ankara is concerned at Kurdish ambitions to acquire control of the
entire long border between Syria and Turkey. At present, an isolated
Kurdish canton in the area of Afrin in northwest Syria remains cut off from
the main area of Kurdish control. Areas of rebel and Islamic State control
separate the two.
Silu, however, is not interested in discussing the intricacies of Levantine
power politics on the morning that we met. What needs to come next, he
tells me, is heavy weapons. On October 14, the US dropped 50 tonnes of
ammunition to the SDF. This, the colonel says, is not enough. "What
they dropped was only enough to fight for two or three days. Not so
useful."
So, what would be useful? "Heavy weapons, tow missiles, anti-tank
missiles ... The Americans gave million to people who did nothing. Saudi
Arabia is supporting forces and providing high-quality weapons. But we are
the only force that is fighting Islamic State seriously."
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YPG
and YPJ fighters at the funeral of three comrades killed fighting Islamic
State.
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This sentiment is repeated again and again as we follow the SDF front
lines down south of al-Hasakah to the last forward positions before the
town of al- Shaddadah. The SDF liberated al-Hawl on November 16 and is now
pushing beyond it.
The remnants of Islamic State rule are plainly visible as we drive
through the town. "The Islamic Court in al-Hawl", one painted structure
proclaims grandly. But the building is ransacked and deserted, and someone
has painted a livid red YPG emblem above that of the former Islamist
rulers. Islamic State is on the retreat.
"If we had effective weapons, we could take Raqqa in a month,"
says Kemal Amuda, a short and energetic YPG commander on the front line
south of al-Hawl. "But the area is very large. And the airstrikes are
of limited use."
'If we had effective weapons, we could
take Raqqa in a month,' says YPG commander Kemal Amuda.
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What would help? Once again: "Anti-tank weapons, tanks, armoured
vehicles."
The reason the heavy weapons these commanders desire have not been
forthcoming may relate to the provisional nature of the alliance
underpinning the SDF.
The Western forces want to use this force as a battering ram against
Islamic State. But the Kurdish core of the force has other ambitions, which
include the unification of the cantons and acquiring control of the border.
The Western coalition may well prefer to neutralise Islamic State advantage
in heavy weapons by employing air power, rather than afford the Kurds an
independent capacity in this regard.
But despite the absence of such weapons and the political complications,
the SDF is proving a serviceable tool in the battle against Islamic State.
The strategy appears to be to slowly chip away at the areas surrounding
Raqqa City in order to weaken the jihadists' ability to mount a determined
defence of the city. The loss of al-Hawl meant Islamic State also lost
control of the Syrian section of Highway 47 from Raqqa City across the
Iraqi border to Mosul, Iraq's second city and the other jewel in the
Islamic State crown.
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The
SDF captured the Tishrin Dam on December 27.
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The conquest of the Tishrin Dam by the SDF on December 27 further
isolates Raqqa. The dam was the last bridge across the Euphrates controlled
by Islamic State. Its loss significantly increases the time it would take
for the jihadists to bring forces from Aleppo province on the western side
of the river to the aid of the city.
So the SDF, partnering with US air power, appears to be aiming to split
Islamic State in two, before attacking its most significant points.
The YPG component, which accounts for most of the SDF's fighting
strength, is an irregular force. It lacks the resources and the structure
of a regular army. The fighters have only the simplest of equipment. No
body armour. No helmets. Night vision equipment also appears to be absent.
Medical knowledge and supplies are basic.
Concerns have been raised regarding the high rate of attrition in this
force, including fighters who suffered wounds that ought not to have been
fatal had skilled medical attention been close at hand.
But despite all this, they appear to get results, and morale was clearly
high among the young combatants that I interviewed in the frontline areas
south of al-Hawl and al-Hasakah.
A particularly striking element was the constantly repeated refrain that
Islamic State fighters suffered from severe attrition and noticeably
declining motivation.
Islamic State fighters reportedly
suffer from severe attrition and declining motivation.
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As we pass through an eerily silent and seemingly deserted frontline
area close to al-Bassel Dam, 30km east of Shaddadah, I come across a group
of YPG men defending a position about 3km from the jihadists.
The officer commanding this group refuses to give his name or to be
recorded. "Journalists aren't really supposed to be around here,"
he remarks with a smile. Nevertheless, in the conversation that follows,
the commander gives a precise description of the changing tactics used by
the jihadists, and what in his view this portends for the fight against
Islamic State.
Once, the jihadists attacked en masse. The order, as described by the
commander, was that a number of "suicide cars" — vehicles filled
with explosives and intended to spread panic among the defenders — would
appear first, followed by suicide bombers on foot, who would try to enter
the positions of the defenders and detonate themselves. Then a mass of
ground fighters would follow behind, with the intention of breaking through
the shocked defenders.
These methods had been effective, but also very costly in terms of
manpower. Now, however, the jihadists are evidently seeking to preserve the
lives of their force. Their tactics have changed accordingly. They move in
smaller groups, preferring to leave only token forces to defend areas
subjected to determined attack.
The change, suggests the commander, derives from a dwindling flow of
eager recruits in comparison with mid-2014. "Formerly, they were
attractive as conquerors. Their power derived from intimidation and
imposing terror," he says. "This has now gone."
This decline in the stream of recruits for Islamic State probably
explains an amnesty for deserters announced last October, as revealed in a
recent trove of Islamic State documents leaked to British researcher Aymenn
Jawad al-Tamimi. The announcement suggests Islamic State can no longer
maintain in their entirety the ruthless and draconian methods that
characterised its early stages. The need for manpower precludes this.
The turn to international terrorism by Islamic State in recent months is
probably also explained by its loss of momentum in Iraq and Syria. The
group needs "achievements" to maintain its "brand". Its
slogan is "baqiya wa tatamaddad" (remaining and
expanding). But expansion of its territorial holdings is no longer taking
place. The downing of the Russian Metrojet passenger airliner on October
31, the coordinated attacks in Paris on November 13 and a series of attacks
in Turkey suggest action on the global stage may be a substitute for gains
on the battlefield closer to home.
What is most striking about the large swath of northern Syria now
administered by the Kurds is its atmosphere of near normality. This was not
always the case. This reporter first visited "Rojava", as the
Kurds call Syrian Kurdistan, in early 2013 — just a few months after the
Assad regime pulled out of most of northeast Syria. At that time, the
security structures put in place by the Kurds were rudimentary and somewhat
chaotic. And the remaining regime presence in the cities of al-Qamishli and
al-Hasakah was far more extensive.
By the end of last year, however, the rule of the PYD and its allies had
taken on a look of solidity. Pictures of martyrs are everywhere, testimony
to the high cost the maintenance of the enclave continues to exact. But the
YPG checkpoints and the presence of both the Asayish (paramilitary police)
and the "blue" police force established by the Kurds leaves no
doubt as to who is in control here.
Syrian Kurds have carved out an
enclave constituting more than 20 per cent of the country's territory.
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The US decision to partner with the Kurdish de facto force in this area
is an acknowledgment of this achievement. Finding physical evidence of the
American presence, however, is a challenge. YPG commanders interviewed by
me insisted the process of calling in airstrikes was handled by the YPG
alone, via a control room that was in contact with US forces. The
Americans, in this telling, were responsible only for advising and some
training of forces.
Yet it seems likely that the small complement of US special forces
committed to Syria (up to 50 operators, according to the official
announcement) are doing more than simply training and advising.
In neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan, evidence has already emerged of the
ground involvement of US special forces in operations against Islamic
State. Similar events are likely taking place in Syria, too.
According to a recent report in the regional newspaper al-Hayat,
plans are afoot to broaden the US presence, with the construction of a base
in which, according to a Western official quoted by the paper, "US
experts will reside and from which they will travel to battle lines".
The base, according to al-Hayat, is set to be built outside the town
of Derik (al-Malikiyah), deep in the heart of the Kurdish-controlled area
in northeast Syria. These reports, if they have substance, suggest a
deepening of the military alliance between the US and the Kurds of Syria.
...
But this war, in truth, looks nowhere close to conclusion. In the meantime,
the Syrian Kurds have carved out an enclave constituting more than 20 per
cent of the country's territory of the country and established at least a
semblance of normal life.
The jihadists are far from a spent force. On January 15, they launched a
ferocious counterattack against Assad regime forces in the Deir ez-Zor
area. A massacre of civilians followed. Islamic State's capacity for mass
murder should not be underestimated.
Still, as we crossed the Tigris River from northern Syria into Iraq, two
memories remained particularly vivid.
The first was of Kobane. As we entered the ruined city, a celebration
was taking place. About 100 young Kurds were dancing in an open area,
Kurdish music blaring from a primitive sound system, with the ruined,
macabre buildings casting their shapes all around.
The second was of a clump of strange mounds that we found by the
roadside in the desert south of al-Hawl. These, on closer inspection,
turned out to be the torn corpses of a group of Islamic State fighters —
killed perhaps in an airstrike. Their foes had covered them lightly with
earth before continuing south. The sightless eyes stared skyward.
The war against Islamic State and the larger war of which it is a part
are far from over. But on this front at least, the direction is clear. The
SDF is moving forward.
Jonathan Spyer is director of the
Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs and a fellow at the
Middle East Forum.
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