Islamic State Readies For A Resurgence - Syria Is Fertile Ground For IS’ Exploitative Sectarian Tactics
Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights
Jan 16,
2021
Baghouz,
a day after the Islamic State was declared defeated there in March 2019 [Getty]
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Though many
took Trump’s triumphalist hyperbole on his administration’s victory over the
Islamic State group (IS) last year with a pinch of salt, the status of the
group in Syria has slipped almost out of sight in western media and political
discourse.
Despite
earlier reports the group had been vanquished in all areas of Syria controlled
by the Assad regime, it has survived and even thrives west of the Euphrates,
with particular successes in the Hama region of the Syrian desert.
Just this
week the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the ‘strong
comeback’ of the group there, and journalists on the ground corroborate reports
it seized control of regime-held positions in Hama. Though Assad-Iran-Russia
were, like Trump, quick to declare victory over IS, the reality is that the
fight against the Salafi-jihadist group has never been over in these desert
areas.
According
to the SOHR, IS has recently advanced forcefully in Al-Shakusiyah and
al-Rahjan, defeating pro-Assad ground forces despite heavy air cover from
Russia. This presents a major new escalation in the capabilities of the group,
but not an unexpected one.
IS has, for
most of its existence in Iraq and Syria, survived and even flourished as an
entity that doesn’t require fixed territory. Its self-proclaimed status as a
“caliphate” in 2014 runs contrary to the history of the group as guerrilla
insurgents.
Since the
end of the destruction of its caliphate, IS has mostly carried out ambush
attacks and waged guerrilla warfare against its enemies.
In a repeat
of Assad’s early policies that tactically ignored IS, this has granted them an
essentially open field in which to operate
These kinds
of attacks have recently been ramping up in Syria, with the group carrying out
its deadliest post-caliphate attack on 30 December, killing 37 regime soldiers
in a well-planned ambush on a military convoy in the area straddling Deir
az-Zour and Homs. This was followed by another major ambush just days later on
3 January, with at least 15 people, including civilians but mostly pro-regime
fighters, were killed in the Wazi al-Azib area of Hama.
These
attacks demonstrate the increasing confidence and military sophistication of
IS, as well as its growing reach, but the ability to wage ground offensives
ought to be an ominous red line.
Assad and
his backers were always going to struggle to contain IS. Though it seems to be
a lesson not learned, raw power and state terror run contrary to an effective
“counterinsurgency” policy.
Given
history appears to be almost repeating itself, it’s worth looking back to a
time when the forces that would become IS were truly at death’s door; when the
Iraqi government embraced non-sectarian policies to fight them.
In a break
with using sectarian militias and aerial bombings, Iraq and the US funded the
Sunni Awakening Movements (Sahwah) as a force comprised of locals, to rid their
cities, towns and neighbourhoods of the extremist menace.
It was a
major success, until Iraq went down a path of discriminatory sectarian policies
that meant defunding the Sahwah. This, along with the civil war in Syria, was a
major shot in the arm to the then dwindling numbers of violent extremists.
Parallels
with the situation today are possibly even more relevant than with the initial
rise of Islamic State. Not only do Sunni populations in areas conquered by
Assad find themselves at the mercy of sectarian foreign forces allied to a
regime hell-bent on the brutal collective punishment of locals, but their
precarity is made even worse by the socioeconomic devastation caused by years
of war, and now Covid-19.
Moreover,
the Syrian regime simply doesn’t have the manpower or resources to police the
vast desert regions that IS is successfully navigating, as military resources
have been prioritised for the final conquest of Idlib – the last liberated
province of Syria. In a repeat of Assad’s early policies that tactically
ignored IS, this has granted them an essentially open field in which to
operate.
With
traumatised populations threatened by state terror, living often in towns and
neighbourhoods reduced to rubble by Russian and coalition bombing, as well as
the economic crisis engendering starvation and extreme poverty, Syria is
fertile ground for IS’ exploitative sectarian tactics. It’s no wonder that they
have managed to move beyond survival to expansion.
This
exposes the fundamental flaw at the heart of the coalition strategy of focusing
solely on IS and allowing Assad-Iran-Russia to get away with slaughtering rebel
forces and populations, that are the natural vanguard against IS.
The Syrian
regime simply doesn’t have the manpower or resources to police the vast desert
regions that IS is successfully navigating
With the US
ravaged by Covid-19 and consumed by the crisis of Trump’s bitter attempts to
subvert democracy, the threat of an IS resurgence might currently be far from
the top of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda. But that’s where it ought to be.
The area
controlled east of the Euphrates by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces
(SDF), and which hosts US troops, has also seen an uptick in IS activity in
recent months. Trump’s blind
triumphalism regarding IS in Syria pointed only to his disinterest and will to
abandon the SDF. This has emboldened the return of IS, while it has also set up
Biden to inevitably clash with his NATO ally, Turkey, if he looks like
reinvigorating the SDF, which Turkey deems an enemy terrorist group.
But Assad
remains the biggest open question for the US.
Though it’s extremely unrealistic that any US president would at this
point call for regime change, it is hoped that Biden would recognise on a
policy level that Assad’s state terror and terminal instability is not just an
evil in itself, but one that begets more evil – in the form of IS.
It was
Obama and Biden who first decided to abandon the Syrian rebels to focus on
fighting IS, with the logic of protecting their regional allies and stopping
attacks launched on the West. But the root causes of IS in Syria were never
adequately addressed. Today, only the end of Assad’s brutal war and the
liberation of Syrians will definitively drain the swamp within which IS lurks.
Original Headline:
https://www.syriahr.com/en/200671/
Source: Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/islamic-state-readies-resurgence-syria/d/124091
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