Anti-Daesh strategy needed

Increased Western deployment of warplanes, ships and men to this region to counter Daesh is unlikely to be successful unless someone comes up with a strategy. Following the November 13 attacks on Paris by a Daesh cell, the French aircraft carrier “Charles de Gaulle” deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean, 10 French fighter planes bombed the Daesh capital of Raqqa, and 12 British aircraft entered the US-led air campaign in Syria. Germany pledged to send reconnaissance jets to Turkey, dispatch a naval frigate, and provide 1,200 troops to “train” Kurdish peshmerga who must be the most over-trained forces on the face of the planet.

The entry of an additional two dozen war planes, two naval vessels, and “trainers” is not going to make much difference in the half-hearted “war” against Daesh conducted by the US-led coalition over the past 16 months. Since September 2014, the coalition has mounted 3,000 strikes on Daesh targets in Syria, destroying or damaging 16,000, according to US military statistics. Ninety-five per cent of these strikes have been carried out by the US. That percentage can be expected to remain more or less the same despite the entry of French and British planes into the war. The US mounts 10-15 missions a day, the majority in Iraq rather than Syria. This number must be compared to 110 a day during the 2001 Afghan war.

By contrast, over the past two months, Russia has carried out more than 3,000 strikes, the overwhelming majority against Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra and allied fundamentalist groups fighting the government. Moscow has, however, increased attacks against Daesh since its Egyptian branch — Sinai Province — bombed a Russian civilian airliner on October 24 and it struck in Paris on November 13.

Combined US and Russian air strikes in Syria have contained Daesh but not driven the militarised cult from its strongholds. It has been deprived of earnings from the trade via Turkey in oil pumped from Syrian and Iraqi fields but the cult’s main source of revenue is taxes and other exactions collected from Syrians and Iraqis living in areas Daesh holds.

France, Britain and Germany have their own external and internal reasons for entering the Syrian theatre of the campaign against Daesh. France’s European partners and NATO allies, Britain and Germany have to demonstrate solidarity with France after the Paris attacks. The governments of all three have to show their own voters that they are taking the fight to Daesh in both Iraq and Syria in the probably vain hope that Daesh will not strike again in Europe. By taking part in the aerial campaign over Syria, the three governments are also staking claims to be at the negotiating table whenever the powers decide to plot the future of Syria.

Last week’s mass murder in California of 14 US citizens by a Pakistani couple, Sayid Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who claimed allegiance to Daesh, should have strengthened the motivation of the US to take seriously the threat posed by the cult which has called the pair its “followers” although they acted as “long wolf” operators. Instead of highlighting the Daesh connection, the US administration has treated the mass shooting as yet another incident of gun madness and urged Congress to, finally, take measures to restrict the availability of military-style semi-automatic weapons and regulate gun purchases. In spite of the dangers posed by Daesh, President Barack Obama still does not want the US military to become drawn into a new ground war in this region.

This could, however, be inevitable if Daesh forces are not rolled back in both Syria and Iraq soon. The current stalemate is not acceptable. While the fronts shift in Syria with government and insurgent forces advancing and then retreating, the Shiite-fundamentalist dominated Iraqi government is growing weaker and weaker vis-a-vis Daesh. The long awaited offensive against Daesh in Mosul has been postponed indefinitely because the Iraqi army is incapable of fighting. Shiite militias that previously took the battle to Daesh in Tikrit and elsewhere do not have the stomach to take on Daesh in Sunni areas, allowing Iraq to fall apart at a time the US and Europe seem to be coming together on resolving the Syrian crisis.

At Vienna last month they came up with a road map involving ceasefires between government forces and insurgent groups other than Daesh and Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra, a common front against these groups, talks between the government and opposition on January 1, formation of a transitional administration within six months, and elections in 18 months.

This plan cannot succeed if Iraq remains unable to deal with — ultimately crush — Daesh in its territory. If Daesh is squeezed in Syria, driven from Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, the cult’s fighters and camp followers will simply cross into Iraq if the Sunni-majority Anbar and Nineveh provinces remain under Daesh, which was, after all, originally Al Qaeda in Iraq and many of its leaders remain Iraqi rather than Syrian.

For Western and Arab governments, including that of Jordan, which are seriously committed to the fight against Daesh, the most worrying aspect of the cult’s rise is that, in spite of increased military pressure, it continues to attract thousands of recruits. According to the Soufan Group, fighters from this region number 8,240, followed by North Africa with 8,000,  Western Europe 5,000, Russia’s Muslim republics 4,700, Southeast Asia 900, the Balkans 875 and North America 280. The estimated 30,000 recruits are said to come from nearly 100 different countries.

The number from Russia has increased by 300 per cent, from Tunisia, the top nationality, from 3,000 to 6,000 and this region by nearly 300 per cent. Some 2,500 come from Saudi Arabia, 2,100 from Turkey, 2,000 from Jordan, 1,700 from France, 1,300 from Morocco, 900 from Lebanon, 760 from Germany, 760 from Britain, 700 from Indonesia, 600 from Egypt, and 470 from Belgium.

 If and when Daesh is driven from Syria and Iraq, a large proportion of these fighters will return to their home countries where they could mount punitive operations against their governments and fellow citizens or shift to countries where there are weak central governments or political vacuums where they can continue the struggle against the West and its partners.