Guerrilla-style terrorist attacks on soft targets suit the organization’s depleted numbers and resources
ISSAM ABBAS Ameen, SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense
Careful monitoring of Daesh’s media operation will improve our understanding of this enemy that has been driven by bloodshed since its inception. Daesh uses cyberspace to promote its ideology, recruit, finance, wage psychological warfare and to document, archive and record its actions. The Daesh media archive has acted as both an asset and live ammunition for its followers for as long as it has been accessible by the simple push of a button.
In examining Daesh’s media content, we need to ask whether the group still poses a security threat to the region. In my opinion, the answer is clear and conclusive: Daesh plans to follow up its catastrophic military losses in places such as Mosul and Raqqa by engaging in guerrilla warfare and hit-and-run terrorist attacks.
In observing Daesh’s actions after its defeat in Mosul, we must determine the nature of current operations in the areas around Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninevah and Salah al-Din. The key to winning these wars and providing security lies in understanding the nature of such wars and identifying the changes taking place in the world around us.
Psychoanalyzing Daesh
As researchers specializing in Daesh media, our primary concern following the defeat of Daesh was to monitor the behavior of its leaders and intellectuals to observe how they dealt with their loss of power and prestige at the hands of Iraqi forces. If military defeat invalidates military doctrine, the intellectual underpinnings of that military doctrine suffer a similar fate. In other words, these doctrines, though written in peacetime, are tested in war.
When it comes to Daesh, it was clear that one of the primary methods used to excuse military defeat was denial. The school of psychoanalysis views denial as a behavior discernable in an individual patient. But it can also be employed to analyze the intellectual reaction within an ideologically motivated organization.
Before the battles of liberation, Daesh’s literature focused on victory. It has since shifted to talking about perseverance and placing faith in the unknowable will of God. The late Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi struck that note in his Wa Bashri As-Sabireena (Glad Tidings to Those Who are Patient) video when he emphasized that God sometimes makes his followers “taste tribulation” to test their resolve.
Baghdadi later concluded this thought by sidestepping the issue of victory in his April 2019 video Fi Diafat Amir al-Mu’minin (In the Hospitality of the Leader of the Faithful): “They should know that jihad will continue until the Day of Resurrection and that Almighty God commanded us to jihad and did not command us to be victorious.”
Around the same time, the Daesh-affiliated An-Naba newspaper announced the adoption of guerrilla-style terrorist operations to make up for the group’s weakness and depleted numbers.
“They fight with whatever Allah has made possible for them in numbers and weapons, using the methods of guerrilla warfare to strike and continually frustrate their enemy,” the article said.
This shift in military approach is a dangerous one. It is a declaration of the continuation of terrorist operations with whatever forces and weapons are available to the organization, particularly in areas where security is soft. This has been observed through Daesh terrorist operations on the outskirts of cities, and in the villages and countryside of Diyala, Kirkuk and Salah al-Din in particular.
In the period since the fall of Daesh in 2017, Iraq has remained the most important theater in the fight against these terrorists. This is reflected in dozens of articles and infographics in An-Naba. For example, An-Naba has promoted the tactic of “temporarily overthrowing cities as a course of action for the mujahedeen.” It was a bold challenge by Daesh because it publicly announced its intentions and dared Iraq security forces intervene.
One of the goals of the articles was to trick Iraqi military leaders into spreading forces too thinly, a well-known ploy in guerrilla warfare to make dispersed units more vulnerable to attack. Likewise, by “temporarily overthrowing cities,” Daesh could withdraw before Iraqi troops could respond in force.
Among the objectives of this guerrilla campaign were to collect spoils, free terrorist prisoners, break the spirit of Iraqi troops, and restore the power of Daesh. Because the intent of temporarily overthrowing cities is not to occupy territory, An-Naba included detailed explanations of withdrawal plans.
Conclusions
Since military operations have not led to the total elimination of Daesh, the group remains a threat even after its “caliphate” was dismantled. The shift to guerrilla warfare increases the risk that Daesh will launch brutal attacks on soft targets.
Its reliance on a strategy of attrition means greater human and material losses. Even with the limited number of fighters available to it, Daesh is still capable of implementing that strategy.
Because the articles on temporarily overthrowing cities was published online in An-Naba — the organization’s primary way of communicating central directives — this leads us to believe that all of Daesh’s commanders are familiar with these instructions.
The method of temporarily overthrowing cities would serve the objectives of Daesh because its implementation requires only small groups of fighters and the selection of weak targets on the periphery of cities or in the suburbs, villages and countryside. It would also achieve important objectives for Daesh, most notably helping it regain power and prestige, frustrating security forces and securing spoils.
One of the dangers of guerrilla warfare is that it encourages a security presence in all areas. Not only does this demand significant human resources, but dispersed security forces are more vulnerable military targets.
The nature of recent terrorist attacks shows Daesh is continuing to apply this method, especially since most operations take place outside of cities. Daesh’s current organizational structure — small armed groups hiding in the desert and Hamrin Mountains in northeastern Iraq— enables it to adopt a guerrilla strategy.
And an ideological doctrine that preaches a drawn-out conflict “until the day of resurrection” suggests they have adopted patience as a virtue.
For these reasons, Daesh remains a security challenge. This challenge could grow if Iraqi internal problems fester and we fail to understand the essence and nature of the war we are fighting. Daesh is a networked global terrorist organization that draws its strength from the use of sacred Muslim texts and the Islamic cultural heritage to manipulate minds through a continual process of brainwashing.
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