Life after ISIS: The Middle East faces an uncertain future as jihadists go underground
Islamic State has been defeated militarily, but sleeper cells continue to operate and the terror group’s evil ideology was yet to be extinguished. But there is fresh hope in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State has been defeated militarily, but sleeper cells continued to operate and the terror group’s evil ideology was yet to be fully stamped out, officials in the Iraqi capital Baghdad say.
News Corp has spoken to several counter-terrorism and military officials on the front line of the fight against Islamic State in Iraq, who said while the caliphate had been destroyed, the threat from the terror group remained.
Australia still has around 800 soldiers based in Iraq and another Middle Eastern hub, training and advising Iraqi troops and senior officials, with the international community aware of the need to stop the group regaining a foothold in Iraq or in Syria, where it is defending its last redoubt in Baghouz, near the Iraqi border.
General Yahya Rassool from the Joint Operations Command Centre said there had been a “military victory’’ against Islamic State, but it was important to ensure the security of the Iraqi/Syrian border, due to the continued presence of IS in Syria.
He said some Islamic State members who survived the war which drove them out in 2017 had fled to the remote mountains in Iraq including in the Hamrin area, and the valleys of Hawija.
“The geographical area, it’s tough terrain,’’ he said.
“They try to use them to hide in tough places. We are carrying out continual work, either by ground forces with air support, and through intelligence work and quality, surgical operations and air strikes.’’
COMPANION STORY: Four weddings in one day: the city that survived ISIS
Small groups of Islamic State loyalists have built “guesthouses’’ — underground bunkers hidden from view in the remote regions. The Iraqi military has been finding them, and destroying them with air strikes, mainly from the army’s air wing.
General Rassool said the Iraqi army was also working with its international training partners,
including Australia, the United States, the UK, Denmark, Italy, France and Spain to boost the capacity of the Iraqi army, border force and police.
“The Joint Operation Command … had an important role in the defeat of ISIS particularly through air strikes and intelligence and training,’’ he said.
“I worked with many Australian advisers and we are still doing that and we have a great
relationship.’’
Australia launched Operation Okra in August 2014, sending Super Hornet fighter jets to the Middle East to strike Islamic State targets in Iraq, and later in Syria, as well a command aircraft and a refueller. Special operations commandos were deployed, as well as hundreds of soldiers in an “advise and assist’’ role.
The spokesman for the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service, former army officer Sabah al-Numan, said Iraq and its international partners continued to share intelligence on Islamic State to ensure the group did not regain a foothold anywhere in their country.
“ISIS occupied 40 per cent of Iraqi land,’’ he said.
“So we had a military victory against them, and it was a grand defeat for ISIS because their members (numbers) were so large.
“Also defeating ISIS was really securing the entire region.
“Currently, that ISIS threat doesn’t exist anymore.
“There may be some small sleeper cells taking advantage of the difficult terrain between Anbar and Syria. We are trying to do operations to keep the pressure on.’’
RELATED CONTENT:
Prakash fights for freedom as damning photo exposed
ISIS nurse from SA pleads to return home
The apocalyptic prophecy that motivated ISIS
Mr al-Numan said the Counter-Terrorism Services, which was both an intelligence organisation and a combat force, had been hunting Islamic State hideouts in the remote regions, and sending teams of soldiers in by helicopter to destroy them.
“There are ISIS guesthouse (operations) happening even last month. Around 20 last month,’’ he said.
He said the Iraqi forces had emerged from the war against Islamic State with better experience, co-ordination and geographical distribution, making them more able to tackle Islamic State resistance.
Mr al-Numan disparaged the self-proclaimed leader of Islamic State, Iraqi-born Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi, who is thought to still be alive, potentially in Syria. He said he had effectively relinquished the Islamic State leadership when he lost the battle for Mosul in 2017, and that conflict between al-Baghdadi and rival factions was unsettling Islamic State.
“I think he lost the leadership. Even his followers, no-one has seen al-Baghdadi. He appeared for the first and last time (on video), ask anyone, they will not say they have seen him,’’ he said.
“This means in the terror organisation there is conflict for them, between the foreigners, Iraqi and Syrians. It affects their ability to stand up to regimes, whether Iraqi or Syrian forces.’’
He said he had read media reports that al-Baghdadi had narrowly survived a shootout with
disgruntled foreign fighters in Syria but did not know the truth of the claim.
“The information is conflicting. Between what the Russians say, what the Americans say, especially the Russians,’’ he said.
“The Russians say he’s in Baghouz area (in Syria) which is contained by SDF (Kurdish Syrian
Democratic Forces).
“The Americans say he is in border area between Iraq and Syria.
“Another theory has him north of Sinai between Egypt and Israel.
“Anyone will say, in all countries, he is no longer the godfather of this organisation as he was back in Iraq.
“He’s no longer the strongman.’’
One of CTS’ roles is developing counter-extremism programs, and Mr al-Numan said he was
interested in the case of Neil Prakash, the Australian jihadi currently serving 7.5 years jail in Turkey after being arrested trying to sneak across the border out of Syria in 2016. The Melbourne-born 27-year-old was a wannabe rap singer before he joined Islamic State.
“I was particularly interested in Prakash because it’s weird, why did a rap singer become a jihadi?’’Mr al-Numan asked.
“We analyse it, we study it to come up with programs meant to stop terror ideology on the new generations.’’
He said the challenge was to stop Iraqis being attracted to extremist ideology such as that espoused by Islamic State and other terror groups.
“As long as there is economical conflict, political conflict, this ideological threat will always be there,’’ he acknowledged.
He said the problem was larger than just Iraq, with foreign fighters being radicalised online and lured to Iraq under false pretences. Up to 30,000 foreign fighters are thought to have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the group.
“One of the troubles is the immigrants (foreign fighters) were all infected by the terrorist ideology abroad, on Facebook and social media,’’ he said.
“They come here and find many of them were under false impressions and there are consequences.
They may get killed or they can’t go back. They get held in detention or arrested or prosecuted or killed (executed). If they joined ISIS, preparing to become a terrorist, the fighters get the hardest penalty of all.
“(The penalty) is 15-20 years for being a member. Fighters are executed.’’
One Australian terrorist and another with strong links to Australia are currently on death row in Iraq after being convicted of being members of Islamic State. Ahmed Merhi, from Sydney, and his Lebanese cousin Tarek Khayat are both appealing their convictions and death penalties.
Major-General Saad Maan Ibraheem from the Interior Ministry said Islamic State, or DAESH, had a deliberate strategy to recruit foreign fighters.
“It helps them to push forward their strategy, just like a system of globalisation,’’ he said.
“It is proof that they are working in the right way. A pure European fighter is a kind of achievement for them.’’
Major-Gen. Maan said this also allowed the group to capitalise on the social media account and languages spoken by their foreign recruits, to get their messages out into different audiences.
“If they have several cultures they can use their lands and the benefits of their social media. It is a positive for them,’’ he said.
“Of course we still have to work on the ground (to wipe out Islamic State).
“We use intelligence and mutual co-operation with other countries.
“It is a problem for the whole of humanity.’’
Like western democracies such as Australia, Iraq is developing counter-extremist programs and rolling them out into schools and universities.
In the Interior Ministry’s media department, a team of people is monitoring mainstream media and terrorist channels, social media and websites, with 28 television screens on the wall in front of them and a bank of computers.
They send daily reports to Maj-Gen. Maan and to the ministries, advising on any uptick in terrorist propaganda.
They also have a Department of Moral Guidance and Psychological Operations — essentially a propaganda unit — which provides information to fighters and to civilians in conflict zones such as Mosul, Tikrit and Anbar.
Australia is proving an important partner for Iraq with its long-term commitment to training up the armed forces.
“One of the Australian advisers told me his mother always asks about me and not him because she has seen me on the TV,’’ Maj-Gen. Maan said.
“It’s very important to continue co-ordinating and co-operating with the international community against ISIS. It is true that ISIS has been defeated (militarily) but it is not yet finished.
“Really Iraq has fought against them on behalf of the whole world. The citizens (foreign fighters) if they go home can carry out attacks.
“The international community has an obligation to fight ISIS here.’’
“We don’t need foreign soldiers to be on Iraqi soil carrying a weapon against ISIS.
“We need to continue training and arming (supplies) to continue building up the capacity of the Iraqi security forces.
“I believe it’s important that we have a long-term relationship with the international community to build an army that is strong and professional and whose task is defensive, to defend the Iraqi people. That’s what we need.’’
TIMELINE OF TERROR
The rise and fall of Islamic State
2006: Following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a splinter group joins up with other, smaller Sunni groups, and calls itself Islamic State in Iraq. It is led by a man calling himself Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, thought to be an Iraqi Islamic scholar from Samarra, whose birth name is Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri.
2011: After the Syria civil war erupts in March, al-Baghdadi sends his jihadis over the border to capitalise on the power vacuum and start recruiting for his group there.
2013: al-Baghdadi severs all ties with al-Qaeda and moves to Syria, renaming his group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
2014: The group makes enormous military gains and takes Fallujah, Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq as well as Raqqa in Syria. On June 29, al-Baghdadi stands in the al-Nuri Mosque in the Mosul Old City, and declares the establishment of a worldwide caliphate, with himself as the leader, to be known as Caliph Ibrahim. He renamed his group again, this time calling it Islamic State.
2014: With Mosul as its Iraqi headquarters and Raqqa as its Syrian base, the group imposes strict sharia law, controlling populations by fear as they carry out medieval punishments such as public beheadings, throwing gay men from buildings to their deaths, enslaving minorities, raping women and girls, and forcing women to cover head to toe, while men are forced to wear regulation-length beards and follow strict dress codes. Minor breaches are met with fierce punishments, torture and death. Shia Muslims, Christians and Yazidis are targeted. Foreign fighters are recruited, with around 30,000 coming to Iraq and Syria to join Islamic State.
2015: By early in the year, Islamic State is at the height of its power, controlling vast swathes of Iraq and Syria, running government institution in cities including Mosul and Raqqa, and having around eight million people under it authority.
Late 2015: The United States starts building an international coalition to tackle Islamic State. It supports the Kurdish militias in Syria who are standing firm against Islamic State in the north of the country, and the Peshmerga and Kurdish groups in Iraq who were also holding the Islamic State out of the autonomous Kurdish areas there.
Eventually, the Global Coalition Against Daesh would have 79 partner countries, including Australia, and systematically targeted Islamic State with air strikes, support and arms for its enemies, travel restrictions, blocking its financial transactions and tough action to stem the flow of foreign fighters.
2016: The tides turns against Islamic State, with the Iraqi army taking back Fallujah and the Syrian Democratic Forces led by Kurdish fighters and backed by the US taking back Manbij in Syria.
2017: The caliphate crumbles. A nine-month operation involving the Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and international air strikes sees the Islamic State routed from Mosul in July. Towns and cities are taken back in Syria and in October, Raqqa is reclaimed by the Syrian government.
2018: Islamic State’s territory continues to shrink. The wave of terrorist attacks committed by Islamic State enthusiasts in the west, particularly in France, ease up. Most international partners have ended their direct military action, although thousands of foreign troops remain, mainly in Iraq, mostly in advisory and intelligence roles.
2019: Islamic State is cornered in its last redoubt in the Syrian village of Baghouz, on the banks of the Euphrates River near the Iraqi border. Tens of thousands of their women and children stream out, surrendering to SDF soldiers, as do some men, although many of the fighters remain making their last stand.
Reason ‘floating megabomb’ ship can’t dock
A “floating megabomb” ship has been turned away from ports throughout Europe – with some worried it could be a Trojan horse.
Terror group praises Aussie protests
The widely condemned terrorist cell shared photos from Australia’s pro-Palestinian rallies that were attended by thousands.