How ISIS FightsPub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0004
O. Ashour
{"title":"Reloads, but Implodes: How the ‘Islamic State’ Fights in Libya","authors":"O. Ashour","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides a historical overview of the birth of “Islamic State” in Libya, as of 22 June 2014. It aims to explain how the organisation was able to gradually develop their combat capacities in Libya since then. As a result of this, ISIS was able to take control of parts of Derna in October 2014, and the whole of Sirte by the end of May 2015. The occupations happened despite a lack of local support, state sponsorship or supportive geography. The chapter focuses on analysing the battlefronts of Derna and Sirte between June 2015 and December 2016, as a sample reflecting how IS fights in Libya. The chapter is partly based on interviews with soldiers and militiamen who fought against IS in the aforementioned battlefronts. It is also based on documents produced by ISIS in Libya, represented by two of its three former ‘provinces’: Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The chapter also relies on official documents released by the US government, and on other open-source materials. The chapter is composed of six sections. First, it overviews the military build-up of IS in Libya since June 2014. Then, it outlines the details of the battlefronts of Derna and Sirte within specific timeframes. After that, it analyses how IS fights in Libya, using empirical data and observations from the two battlefronts and elsewhere in Libya. Finally, the concluding section reflects on the future of IS insurgency in Libya, after losing territory and shifting back to guerrilla and terrorism ways of warfare.","PeriodicalId":329452,"journal":{"name":"How ISIS Fights","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123814548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How ISIS FightsPub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0005
O. Ashour
{"title":"Lures and Endures: How ‘Sinai Province’ Fights in Egypt","authors":"O. Ashour","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter focuses on the case of ISIS in Sinai (Sinai Province or SP) and its military capacities. It overviews the development of the predecessors of IS in Sinai, including Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM or Supports of Jerusalem) and al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad in Sinai (TJS or Monotheism and Struggle in Sinai). Despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, ISIS in Sinai and its predecessors have survived ten years of brutal counterinsurgency and conventional tactics (2011-2021). This makes the case of ISIS in Sinai perhaps the most puzzling. SP has limited resources, even compared with other ISIS provinces. Geographically, its strongholds in the Northeast are not rugged (the peninsula’s high mountains are located in South and Central Sinai). Moreover, SP has limited support among a small, divided population, and it is surrounded by hostile authorities (Egypt, Palestinian Hamas, and Israel). The chapter develops an explanation of SP’s endurance by focusing on its tactics and by drawing upon interviews with former Egyptian army officers and security officials, Sinaian tribal leaders. The chapter also analyzes the Battle of Sheikh Zuweid of July 2015, in which SP executed the most complex military operation conducted by an Egyptian armed nonstate actor in the last one hundred years.","PeriodicalId":329452,"journal":{"name":"How ISIS Fights","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116808083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How ISIS FightsPub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0006
O. Ashour
{"title":"Agency with a Tactical Edge","authors":"O. Ashour","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter outlines the research findings on how ISIS fights and what makes it unique in terms of relative combat effectiveness. It presents concluding observations for future research, with finding that a flexible shifting across three major types of strategies, 15 categories of tactics, and multiple operational approaches best explained ISIS success. Its strategic agility, operational adaptability and tactical innovations have made the difference and the chapter explains precisely how that works. The also chapter outlines how ISIS was able to build-up its combat capacities and how it effectively employed them to fight, expand, and endure in four countries. The level of tactical ingenuity and strategic adaptation of the organisation’s “provinces” and combat units is remarkable in comparison with other armed nonstate actors. In the Arab region, the combat effectiveness of ISIS surpasses that of many Arab armies, considering its limited resources. The chapter shows how the highlighted group of case-studies (represented by a sample of ISIS Provinces) poses challenges to some of the literature on military, insurgency and terrorism studies; as well as to some of the security policies employed in the region.","PeriodicalId":329452,"journal":{"name":"How ISIS Fights","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129710449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How ISIS FightsPub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0001
O. Ashour
{"title":"Is It Mainly Tactics?","authors":"O. Ashour","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter introduces the puzzle of the military endurance and combat effectiveness of ISIS/IS, though outnumbered and outgunned by substantially stronger state and nonstate militaries. Beginning with the academic study of insurgency dating back to Lawrence, Mao, Templar, Lansdale, Guevara, Galula, Hoffman and more recent scholars; this book explores traditional factors associated with insurgency success, such as the support of an external power, popular support from the disaffected population, sanctuary, geography or topography, regime type, or other factors, which might, individually or in combination, be explanatory of ISIS/IS endurance and expansion. Most of those factors are found not to be especially significant, so the chapter focuses on the military strategies and tactics employed by ISIS/IS and central to its successes. The chapter then argues that the military tactics employed by ISIS/IS in the four countries and elsewhere better explain their expansion and endurance. The chapter concludes by outlining a framework of analysis explaining ISIS/IS combat effectiveness in the four countries and beyond.","PeriodicalId":329452,"journal":{"name":"How ISIS Fights","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124945635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How ISIS FightsPub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0003
O. Ashour
{"title":"Explodes and Expands: How the ‘Islamic State’ Fights in Syria","authors":"O. Ashour","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides an overview of the birth and the military build-up of ISIS/IS in Syria, as of 9 April 2013. It aims to explain how ISIS/IS was able to gradually develop their combat capacities and the resulting combat and military effectiveness in Syria. The chapter then focuses on describing and analysing the battlefronts of Raqqa Governorate between 2013 and 2019. Raqqa City, the governorate’s provincial capital, was the first “capital” of the organisation. Arguably, ISIS/IS had shown its maximum combat capacities in Syria during its occupation of the governorate and in defence of its “capital.” The chapter is partly based on interviews with Syrian rebels and soldiers who fought against IS in eight Syrian governorates: Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia, Damascus, and Rif Dimashq. It is also based on documents, audio-visual and photographic releases produced by ISIS/IS in Syria. The chapter also relies on official documents released by the US government, Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), and other open-source materials. The chapter is composed of five sections. It overviews the military build-up of ISIS/IS in Syria since its establishment in April 2013. It then outlines the details of the battlefronts of Raqqa Governorates within specific timeframes. It analyses how IS fight in Syria, using data and observations from the Raqqa battlefronts as well as others, such as Deir Ezzor and Aleppo Governorates. Finally, it reflects on the future of IS insurgency in Syria after losing Raqqa and other territories and shifting back to mainly guerrilla and terrorism tactics.","PeriodicalId":329452,"journal":{"name":"How ISIS Fights","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115846277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How ISIS FightsPub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0002
O. Ashour
{"title":"Implodes but Expands: How the ‘Islamic State’ Fights in Iraq","authors":"O. Ashour","doi":"10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438216.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter is composed of seven sections. The second section overviews the military build-up of IS and its predecessors in Iraq from October 2002 – the date when the founding leader of its predecessor organizations, Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, arrived in the northeast of the country – to June 2014, the date of IS establishment and self-declaration as a “caliphate.” The third, fourth, and fifth sections outline the details of the three battlefronts of Fallujah, Mosul, and Ramadi, as a sample reflecting how ISIS/IS have fought in Iraq within specific timeframes. The sixth section of the chapter analyses how IS fights in Iraq, using empirical data and battlefield observations from the three battlefronts and elsewhere in Iraq. Finally, the concluding section focuses on the future of IS insurgency in Iraq, after losing territory and shifting back to guerrilla and terrorism strategies and tactics.","PeriodicalId":329452,"journal":{"name":"How ISIS Fights","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127847975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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