The ISIS Caliphate’s Coming Blitz of Baghdad -- Jamie Dettmer, Daily Beast
Analysts say the Islamic State is about to launch a major offensive—but one built around commando raids and suicide bombings rather than a frontal attack.
BEIRUT, Lebanon—When the minions of the self-anointed caliph in the self-declared Islamic State that now straddles Iraq and Syria blow up a mosque supposed to contain the remains of the prophet Jonah, or offer punctilious details about the kind of purdah to be imposed on women, the world takes brief notice. But the group’s military campaigns have made less news in recent weeks because they seemed to have stalled.
Now, according to Western military analysts, it’s time to start worrying again. Those studying the attacks by the group formerly known as ISIS see critical changes in the bombings and skirmishing by the caliph’s troops and their allies in and around Baghdad. Some experts warn that a blitzkrieg—a lightning attack—is imminent, and it will be one the beleaguered and squabbling politicians in the Iraqi capital are ill equipped to combat. But it is more likely to be a guerrilla and terrorist offensive than an all-out push along conventional military lines.
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My Comment: ISIS has been spending the past month consolidating their forces, gaining new recruits, assessing the Iraqi government's weaknesses. For the past few months I have been studying their tactics ..... and their nature of operations has always predictable .... attack and expand, consolidate, assess, and then launch another attack. They are now due to launch another attack .... my prediction .... they will grab the Sunni neighborhoods south of Baghdad and/or launch an attack against Baghdad itself with the goal seizing and consolidating their power in the Sunni neighborhoods.
Update: The above video is from CNN last month. It is very revealing in that it shows how undefended Baghdad really is.
18 comments:
You just described a plan–do–check–act (or plan–do–check–adjust) cycle (also Deming or Shewhart cycle).
I am underwhelmed.
But before anyone gets offended, it will be well to consider what a doctor once said. He said that often times doctors keeps looking for zebras, the rare disease, first instead of horses.
So many people at the state department parse their word, say they statements are so nuanced or that things are so esoteric, that they and people, who believe them miss the obvious. We know ISIS goals (roughly) and we know their material position. There should be no surprise. But the intonations of shock and dismay will be present in the voices of the teleprompter readers on the nightly newscasts.
So I expect an attack in the next 2 to 4 weeks. If 3 months go by and nothing happens, I deprecate the the decision making algorithm, but look for spoiling factors such as battle field reverses in Syria, Iranian pressure or American pressure.
I do agree with both of you, but instead of just focusing on Iraq, IS is now actually fighting on two front. When they started their campaign in Iraq, they frozen most of their operations in Syria, maybe Der-er-zor was the only place where they actually made offenses.
After the fall of mosul in Iraq, they sent many equipment and vehicle back to their "homeland" (Syria), but just a week ago they started to use them. As it's well known first with the gas field in east Homs province, then Raqqa, Hasakie and eastern Aleppo. Also as I heard from some SAA source they sent evacuation warning to the civilians in a district of Der-er-zor, because they will start a large scale offense there in the next few days.
Also IS already lost the Gas field, where they confirmedly used tanks, AA vehicles and a lot of lightly armored vehicle. SAA claim they destroyed 70 light vehicle (which in I don't belive). In Raqqa they failed to make big gains inside the 17th Base, Hasakie is the same. I have no any important gain from east Aleppo.
There should be a reason for these attacks, also because they were timed to the same day, but they just miscalculated themself or some kind of attention generating this all, I don't know. Even if they captured a lot of stuffs in Iraq but managing them well is not so easy.
I don't think IS is fear the Iraqian Army, but more like SAA, because even if they are fighting on many front, but those who are in the Syrian Army, are all war veterans, with a lot of experiance and knowladge about how the fighting going on.
I have no idea what could be the goals of IS in Iraq, because I mostly focus on Syria, but in Syria i'm sure it's the capture of 17th Base (and by that execute a whole Division and demoralise the SAA soldiers, that their leaders abandoned their soldiers), and the capture of Der-er-Zor, where the SAA only defending for about 2 year for now, and this is the only place in the east which stop IS to go directly to Damascus. But thats just my thoughts.
Your input is appreciated mlacix. Thank you.
You are welcome, thank you.
mlacix
I read your Analysis the fight at Army Base "Brigade 80". It was interesting.
Aizino Smith: Thank you, I thought noone ever read that article. Sadly while I made the Brigade Base 80 article I forgot to save and mention every source, so it's hard to say thats it's happened on tha way I wrote, but thats all I could do to documentate this important but small battle of the Syrian War. Even I wrote this back in November I got to forecast that it was the start of the encircle of Aleppo, which just finished two weeks ago (even if it's not cover every district).
Soon after I started to make that blog I got a job so I just put it on hold, but I may will write some analyse about the 17th Base battles, if there are someones who actually read them.
mlacix your thoughts and input is always appreciated here. This blog has had almost 4,000,000 visitors and over 6,000,000 page views since it first started about 6 years ago. I know that the readers here always appreciate comments and information that is not available from the regular news sources ... and for your input .... the readers of this blog include people from the Pentagon, the U.S. government, intelligence officials, well known actors and actresses, required reading in some corners in Moscow, scores of readers from other countries, fellow bloggers, news media reporters and correspondents .... and .... well .... you get the picture.
mlacix I forgot to mention that the biggest group of readers of this blog are regular people like me and you ... and lets face it .... we are the ones who count.
mlacix
I was especially interest in the tunnels that were mentioned.
Underground bunker systems really play havoc.
See Iwa Jima, Okimnawa ( I saw your post on Okinawa as well; you might want to read "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge if you have time with your programming studies), South Lebanon 2006, Waziristan, etc.
A layout of the tunnels was not mentioned. It would be hard to obtain I would think. What impressed me is that the SAA (or Hezbollah) were able to take the rebel positions and make use of or neutralize the tunnels.
H. John Poole makes a great deal of underground bunker systems in his book "Tactics of the Crescent Moon".After reading his book and "With the Old Breed" I was especially interested in the tunnel complex the rebels had dug.
I read Long War Journal, but you blog had detail I had not seen and do not believe I would get in a magazine like Time or Newsweek (I have not found Brigade 80 on the LWJ site). I liked the wikiamap. It worked much better than the google map. Although once I used the wikiamap I was able to find the base with google maps. I counted 6 kilometers off from the "Old Citadel" & 1 north of the airport. And I saw nothing and I felt like facepalming for not being able to see anything until I used wikiamap.
Aizino Smith:
About the tunnels I remember for something, but thats not 100% sure (it was almost a year ago). So there were not only one tunnel there. Some (unknown number) small and short tunnel were used to help to reinforce positions inside the Base 80, but not that was the most important. As far as I remember there were one or two main tunnel in the Base, and those lead to (probably)to the Factory on the North and/or to the buildins on the West.
As you can see in the SANA made video at 4:36, there is a tunnel that connect the eastern part of the Base with it's center. It's seem quiet small. I remember for an image whoch shoved the main tunnel entrace at the center of the Base. It was like the ones in Damascus, with the depth of 3-4 meter and the entrace diameter was about 2 meter.
Yes Wikimapia help a lot, really a lot. For example yesterday SAA captured two village in Hama province, and without thas site there is no way that anyone could find it ever.
WNU: Thanks the nice words.
During the night it's looks like the SAA with SAF support just evacuated the 17th Division base in Raqqa, which now fell into the hand of IS. As they claimed 120 officer and other 200 solder had been evacuated with helicopters to Al-Thawrah Air Base. Also the other base that IS attacked in eastern Aleppo was the Kwayres airbase, not so far away from Base 80. The latest news there was that IS retreated because of heavy shelling from SAA.
mlacix
When ISIS captured the Humvees and other armor and took them to Syria, I noticed they put them on trucks for transport. Of course they do not want to wear them out. No great powers of observation there.
What I would like to know is how long their fleet of Humvees are lasting or will last considering the spare marts, maintenance facilities, trained techs, operational tempo. Not sure if that is in your bailiwick.
I already have you blog bookmarked and will check it periodically. I realize you have your studies to take care of 1st. I would look forward to a blog post on maintenance or equipment degradation.
During the night it's looks like the SAA with SAF support just evacuated the 17th Division base in Raqqa, which now fell into the hand of IS. As they claimed 120 officer and other 200 solder had been evacuated with helicopters to Al-Thawrah Air Base.
Al-Thawrah in ISIS' hands helps clears the road for them south of Lake Assad on route 4 between Aleppo and ar-Raqqah.
Evacuating the troops is important. It helps morale. They have to fight hard and have to be made to fight hard, but throwing them away needlessly would hurt morale.
The SAF could always interdict route 4 or maybe mine could be laid.
The logistical system of IS sound interesting, but it's will be very hard to find anything on that subject. Anyway I will make some search, I have some idea where to start. For the blog I currently working on an article about the Improvised Vehicle Armours in Eastern Ukrainian Conflict, and how the sides using them (I have a lot of content on this).
About Raqqa. It's a great win that SAA evacuated all their forces from the 17th Base. I spent a lot of time to think on what SAA want to do in this battlefield. I think they have no plan/idea yet. The front here is static and thats all that SAA want. In the case if there will be attacks, I think Route 4 will not take that much of importance. I expect the SAA to cross the Assad Lake on the north side and to advance toward to the YPG controled areas. For this they could have two reason:
1. The terrain is more open, less populated, and less urbanised which help the mechanised forces on advance.
2. By that move SAA can cut the Turkish border/support lines of IS.
I only expect SAA to move toward Raqqa after they, made this move. But if IS don't make any move against SAA in that battlefield, I don't expect the SAA to do so, because of the encircle of Aleppo and to move toward North is more important for them now. But thats just my opinion.
mlacix
#1 & #2 make sense. In regards to number 1 to the west of 17th Division base it is open. So vehicle traffic could be interdicted by the SAF unless ISIS had Manpads, which they do.
Such interdiction would be spotty unless the SAF had surveillance drones and night capability for surveillance and attack.
Cutting the supply lines north of the lake makes sense, but I do not see how the SAA could be supplied except by air (or possible land bridge with a ferry across the lake). Not sure where the front lines are between Aleppo and the lake.
Here is a (mostly accurate) map about the current situation in Syria: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Syrian_civil_war.png
As far as I know SAA, they will not take too much risk, and will go on a safe way, on a way which is more conventional and focus on strategical goals (instead of fast gains). And going on that logic the capture of the IS territories East and North from Lake Assad would get the top priority. I can imagine a similar way but with a twist, that similar they already did in the past, and this is the desinformation of the enemy, by let them belive the SAA will go to capture Raqqa first (which is logical in some way, and by that it belivable), and by that move they can weaker other frontlines of IS.
SAA did the same when they started to spread the rummor after the fall of Al-Qussay, that they will going against Aleppo, and FSA suddenly called back few thousand of troops from Homs to defend Aleppo. As we know instead of Aleppo , SAA then went against Homs, which has been liberated a few months ago. About spreading the rummors, some sources which are close to SAA just saying that the next target is Raqqa and want to make everyone on belive it's true. An air or water bridge is too risky, but even SAF already did something similar in the past. As far as I remember when the rebels cut down all the land supply routes to Iblid only the SAF could bring supplies to the troops inside the city. So SAF could have the capability, and also could be the capacity, but it's risky and I think the will is missing.
About SAF and drones. SAF has a great capability, even greater then it's first seems. SAF confirmedly use different types of drones, in different parts of Syria. First they started to use it around Damascus (back in early 2013 or late 2012), to detect tunnel entraces in the suburbs and districs, but later on I heard the drones are being used in Eastern and Northern Syria, also IS already shot down one or two. These were unarmed drones, but there is no question, very usefull ones. Most (if not all) of the drones came from Iran (I have no information who controled them, but I can expect the Iranians sent their crew to gain experiance), also it was repoted that the newest large size Iranian drone were deployed in Syria just earlier this year.
About the AA capability of IS I don't know what to expect/think. They confirmedly looted some bases in Iraq and got some MANPAD, but since the fall of Mosul I not heard any plane being shot down in Syria ( I only heard about helicopter looses in Iraq). Even how could the SAF evacuatte more than 300 solder just 20-40 km deep inside enemy lines, even from the enemy's capital that they carry out this operation without casualties. In the gas fields of Estern Homs I also got no informations about plane/helicopter losses, while IS comfirmedly used AA vehicles (probably just ZSU-32-2 on a truck or technical).
I just want to tell you guys that I am enjoying this conversation. Thank you for taking the time to provide input to this platform.
WNU: I'm happy that you enjoy it.
mlacix
The map is awesome.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Syrian_civil_war.png
Now I just have to figure out how to get to it.
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