US races against time to end Daesh threat
GIVEN 6 MONTHS, SCATTERED TERRORISTS COULD GO UNDERGROUND
AUS-backed ground offensive to wipe out the last pockets of Daesh fighters in eastern Syria has been reignited over the past month in an attempt to beat back the terrorists’ ability to wage guerrilla attacks.
The mission against Daesh also has been invigorated by the return of top Kurdish commanders, a surge in French commandos, the arrival of navy fighter jets and some secret sleuthing by Iraqi spies.
But the campaign may have only little more than six months to hunt down the few hundred fighters — not enough time to extinguish a threat that is quickly moving underground.
The new momentum remains imperilled by President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again threat to withdraw some 2,000 US troops in Syria, including hundreds of Special Operations advisers and commandos.
A force of allied Kurds and Arabs in Syria’s east has served as the United States’ most effective battleground ally against Daesh. But a spate of Turkish attacks last winter against other Kurds, in northwest Syria, prompted the Kurdish fighters to peel away from the US-led assault near the Iraqi border. Their absence allowed many of the remaining Daesh fighters to flee, regain scraps of territory and renew guerrilla attacks from hideouts across the country.
Guerrilla tactics
Trump administration officials said defence secretary Jim Mattis and top US commanders now have been given at least six months to stamp out Daesh in Syria’s east.
“Daesh has now shifted to guerrilla operations, increasing the likelihood that it will continue to operate in eastern Syria and western Iraq for years,” said Seth G. Jones, the director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Since the fall of Raqqa, Daesh’s self-proclaimed capital, late last year, allied warplanes have relied mainly on Syrian Kurdish militia to kill remaining insurgents, flush them out of their hideouts and fortified fighting positions, or pinpoint their locations. That served up targets for allied fighter-bombers.
But those militia fighters and their commanders started leaving eastern Syria in late January to defend other Kurds against Turkish attacks.
Kurdish constraints
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were the mainstay in routing Daesh from Raqqa and chasing insurgents fleeing south along the Euphrates River Valley to the Iraqi border. Without them, the remaining, less capable Syrian Arab militias struggled to contain the few hundred fighters left in two main pockets.
“Even if we take down these two pieces of real estate, there’s still a threat,” Don Bacon, the Republican representative from Nebraska, a retired air force general who served in Iraq, said at a recent hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee.
“They could reassert themselves at any point.”
That standoff began to shift after the Syrian Democratic Forces announced a new ground offensive on May 1, called Operation Roundup.
Backed by US-led air power, the allied Syrian militias in the past three weeks have cleared Daesh fighters near the IraqiSyrian border, military officials said.
US warplanes have attacked Daesh bunkers and command posts, killed operatives, destroyed buildings and equipment, and disrupted supply routes, they said.
In the meantime, Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria yesterday announced the capture of French militant Adrien Guihal, known as the voice that claimed 2016 attacks in France for Daesh.
Fighting has been fierce in a 15-mile swath of the Euphrates River Valley.
“Daesh has been using civilians as human shields preventing them from leaving, so it has been hard for us to call coalition air strikes,” Sherko Hasske, a senior Kurdish commander in charge of the ground operation, said in a WhatsApp interview.
Sense of urgency
The timing of the renewed campaign hinged on several factors, including an increasing sense of urgency that the fight was mired down at a pivotal time on the battlefield and as Trump’s ire toward US military entanglements in Syria boiled over.
Several Kurdish commanders, who provide battlefield leadership and coordination, returned from the failed fight against the Turks in the northwest.
US air commanders, aided by the arrival of fighter jets from the carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, ramped up strikes against Daesh targets, to 44 in the week ending May 24, from only three in the week ending April 5. Iraqi warplanes have also carried out several cross-border strikes against Daesh targets in Syria.
At the same time, Iraqi spies have infiltrated Daesh fighter cells in Syria, a senior Iraqi official said, relaying information back to Iraqi forces who have bolstered defences and coordinated efforts with Syrian militias.