Daesh or the permanent insurgency in Syria and Iraq (Part 2)
In 2014, the Daesh terrorist organisation began its violent trajectory on a large scale, until it was finally expelled from its last Syrian stronghold in Baghuz in 2019.
Far from disappearing, the organisation continued its violent activity and has continued the line of death that has always characterised its organisation. This time no longer from its caliphate but from the permanent insurgency.
Syria and Iraq have not lived together in peace since the territorial defeat of Daesh in 2019. The permanent insurgency provoked by the terrorist organisation has led to a situation of intermittent violence in both countries, in which armies and militias fight the insurgency of a terrorist organisation that has turned the authorities upside down.
At the time of writing this article, the terrorist organisation had carried out an assault on the Syrian prison of Hasaka, with a high participation of jihadist militants, where a desperate attempt was made to free thousands of the organisation's prisoners, although it is not yet known how many jihadist prisoners managed to escape with certainty, among them many minors1 .
After more than a week of fighting inside and outside the prison against the Daesh jihadists, the Kurds of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) managed to control the situation and capture part of the escapees, but not without suffering a large number of casualties along with the Kurdish Asayish, the organisation in charge of protection and security in the territories controlled by the Kurdish Supreme Committee.
This meant an escalation in the actions of the terrorist organisation that was far from being a typical counter-insurgency ambush, it was an action in which there was going to be a direct armed combat between the permanent insurgency embodied in Daesh and the armed counter-insurgency embodied in the SDF2.
Numerous media outlets have spoken of the resurgence of Daesh as if it had been a terrorist organisation that had ended in 2019 with the capture of the last cities where it was still present. To speak of the resurgence of Daesh as such would not be accurate, because the organisation was never completely disbanded.
Daesh at the end of 2019 found itself with hardly any territory and without its former leader, al-Baghdadi. The former's replacement, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was not well known among jihadist experts, but in 2014 he played a crucial role in the mass killings of the Yazidi3 minority .
Al-Qurashi was tracked down on a farm in Syria's Idlib province, surrounded by US special forces on 3 February 2022, and killed himself with an explosive belt attached to his waist, killing several children who accompanied him. Thus ended the career of this brutal and enigmatic Daesh leader, who never publicly exposed himself as his predecessor al-Baghdadi did.
It was striking that it was in Idlib again, the area where the last Daesh leader was captured, just as it happened in 2019 with al-Baghdadi. As is known, Idlib is a region whose capital and part of its surroundings are controlled by the jihadist group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS)4, led by Mohamed al-Golani and outside the control of the Syrian authorities, most of whose fighters were part of the Al-Nusra Front, a satellite of Al-Qaeda, which, once dissolved, created HTS.
In a statement, the organisation led by Al-Golani said it had no knowledge of the operation but would prevent Daesh from using areas under HTS control against any target. It is strange that the two top leaders of Daesh have not been detected by Al-Golani's organisation.
Daesh suffered a major setback with the death of its leader, but it continued to operate, and Al-Quarashi's death did not bring it to a halt, just as the territorial defeat of 2019 or the death of Al-Baghdadi did not stop it. Its members continued their activity against their adversaries from the places where they were hiding.
The jihadists moved in areas that were difficult to access, such as the desert, an area they knew well and where government troops and counterinsurgent militias could penetrate with difficulty, which they used for ambushes. The small villages, farthest from the protection of the army and militias, were the hardest hit by the jihadist organisation. Their inhabitants, mostly farmers, were threatened to pay the zakat or tax5, in order to avoid being harmed. But it was not only farmers who were attacked, but also workers in agricultural factories and oil installations, resulting in ambushes and numerous casualties.
Daesh cells in Syria were mainly located in the desert from Homs to Palmyra and in the area around Deir Ezzor7, where most of the attacks were carried out. In Iraq they were located in the Hamrin mountains.
When the Syrian Army, the SDF, local militias and international coalition forces territorially defeated Daesh, the bulk of its forces, both north of the SDF-controlled Euphrates and in the Syrian Army-controlled south, remained in place for a time to secure the victory. But as experienced government troops and their allies dwindled, the remnants of Daesh grew stronger, carrying out heinous attacks, not to mention the global chaos brought on by the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which, when it reached Syria and Iraq, led to the relocation of troops8 being reconsidered.
Most of the deaths were caused by attacks against the Syrian and Iraqi army, the SDF, security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga, ambushes in desert areas or on desert roads, and attacks in crowded civilian areas such as markets and Shia neighbourhoods. There were also attacks on checkpoints and kidnappings of regime collaborators, which ended in the worst possible way.
Daesh was capable of committing serious attacks such as the one on 30 December 2020 in the outskirts of Deir Ezzor, when a convoy of buses full of Syrian soldiers returning home for the Christmas holidays was ambushed, killing 39 of them9 , in addition to those that took place a few days earlier in Qara Salem on the outskirts of Kirkuk, attacking a Kurdish post, killing five Peshmerga10 , and on 2 December 2021, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in Deir Ezzor, Daesh killed nine oil company workers travelling by bus.
The insurgency carried out by Daesh was the cause of a large number of civilian and military casualties, and it can be considered that the presence in certain desert areas of Syria and the Syrian-Iraqi border was constant, which the Jihadists took advantage of to plan ambushes, as in October 2021, on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor against soldiers of the fourth division of the Syrian army, who were travelling by bus, killing 13 of them12 .
Everything written up to this point demonstrates the organisation's capacity to carry out a war of attrition, even taking small villages such as Luhaiban in northern Iraq in December 2021, which was set on fire and recovered the following day by the Kurdish Peshmerga13 .
The inevitable presence of Daesh is also present in the internment camps of Roj and Al-Hol14 where the women of the jihadists were held, and prisons such as Hasaka where nearly 5,000 Daesh members, including minors, were interned and which suffered a horrifying assault in which there were hundreds of deaths and decapitations15 , among the guards captured by the terrorist organisation.
On the night of 20 January, two suicide drivers16 crashed their explosives-laden vehicles into the entrances of the Al-Sina prison in Hasaka, causing chaos inside, which many of the jihadist inmates took advantage of to flee while others disarmed their guards. All of them were supported by numerous armed Daesh jihadists, who were distributed inside the prison, in the surrounding area and in nearby neighbourhoods in order to hinder the reaction of the SDF.
Everything suggested that this type of action would not be the result of improvisation. The release of thousands of prisoners from Hasaka prison, including minors, would be necessary for Daesh in order to recruit future members. A very risky act in which they could lose hundreds of men, but it was the price to pay if they could free thousands.
Finally, and after more than six days of combat, the situation was brought under control, but not without having caused the death of almost 120 SDF17 militiamen who were fighting the Jihadists, who, with this assault, made a qualitative and quantitative leap in their insurgency. It is not known how many prisoners of the terrorist organisation and minors managed to escape.
Another point to note about the internment camps is that they are places where dissidence was not allowed, as was the case in Al-Hol, where any distancing from the organisation was persecuted and punished. In these places it is as if shadow Daesh governments had been set up, where even those who did not comply with the strictest Shari'a law were killed, which had disturbed many European countries from which some European converts originated and which in most cases had not allowed their return, citing a question of national security18.
As can be seen, Daesh's ideology did not rest, whether in prisons, internment camps or in its most violent version of insurgency.
It is at this point that a number of clarifications are in order. The definition of insurgency as such is very varied, but for the specific case we are dealing with and similar ones would be the most appropriate: an organisation that, from within the state, attempts to violently overthrow a government, in most cases legitimate, and to establish a different political system.
When discussing the insurgency suffered by some states, some go so far as to describe the intensity as low or high. Many focus on the factors or parameters that characterise violent insurgency within a state, but when rating the intensity of insurgency, it is necessary to explain why. It would therefore be necessary to create a tool that would provide a simple way of rating the intensity of violent insurgency in the form of a table.
The creation of this table is intended to support the task of classifying the intensity of violent or armed insurgency of the Daesh terrorist organisation in Syria, choosing this country because it is the one where insurgent activity has intensified the most. In this table, seven parameters of interpretation have been established, and more could be established, but as the aim is to make the rating as simple as possible, these seven have been chosen.
This table would be necessary to understand how to establish the type of intensity. It explains in a simple and basic way why a specific score is given to the intensity of armed insurgency (very low, low, medium, high, high, very high), with an explanatory summary of the final score at the end.
In terms of methodology, the seven parameters would first be scored one by one on a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 reflecting no capacity, 1 very low, 2 low, 3 medium, 4 high and 5 very high.
At the last parameter, the scores of all the parameters would be added up to give us the total, and this would give us, according to the threshold established between 0 and 29 points, the level of intensity of the insurgency in the country:
- 0 to 5 points. Insurgency of very low or non-existent intensity
- 06 to 11 points. Insurgency of low intensity
- 12 to 17 points. Medium intensity insurgency
- 18 to 23 points. High Intensity Insurgency
- 24 to 29 points. Very high intensity insurgency
Once the total sum and the intensity have been established, a final report of results will be given.
| 1- Daesh's ability to establish a permanent foothold in certain areas of Syria. |
3 |
| 2- Current capacity that Daesh would have to expand territorially. | 1 |
| 3- Ability of the organisation to commit major terrorist acts. | 2 |
| 4- Organisation's capability to employ heavy weapons. | 2 |
| 5- Support from the civilian population. | 1 |
| 6- Capacity to recruit among the civilian population. | 1 |
| 7- Ability to violently expel the government from the country | 0 |
| Total | 10 |
When the seven parameters are rated and the scores for all of them are added together, the level of insurgency of the Daesh terrorist organisation in Syria would be of low intensity, although it would be almost at its highest point, given that in recent months terrorist actions have intensified, causing numerous casualties among the Syrian army and SDF militiamen. With regard to the parameters mentioned above, the score given to each of them will be explained below, starting with the first of them:
1º. Daesh is present in many parts of Syria, but has mainly established itself in certain areas of the Badiya desert (Deir Ezzor) and on the Iraqi-Syrian border, also depending on counter-insurgency pressure.
2º. Parameter 1 has a significant impact on parameter 2, as its territorial extension capacity is low, since its scope is only limited to desert areas and areas that are difficult to access, but not to urban centres as in its period of expansion, due to the constant vigilance of the counter-insurgency.
3º. In terms of major actions, the assault on Hasaka prison should be given a score of 4 (high). Daesh used numerous jihadists to break into Hasaka prison, after exploding two vehicle bombs at the entrances, freeing thousands of prisoners, albeit with a large number of casualties. So far they have only carried out this major action, the rest of the actions they have carried out have been mostly ambushes that require little preparation, just waiting, therefore, the parameter score was 2.
4º. As for Daesh's arsenal, the organisation does not have the heavy weapons it had in its expansion period, although it has carried out attacks with missiles, grenade launchers and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
5º. Daesh does not have the support of the civilian population that it had in its first years of expansion, especially after much of the Syrian people learned first-hand what the caliphate of terror meant, although it must be borne in mind that Daesh makes very good use of its propaganda apparatus and sometimes they record videos handing out clothes and food to the civilian population. The only thing that brings this population closer to the terrorist organisation would be necessity or fear.
6º. This parameter would be closely linked to parameter 5, as Daesh's ability to recruit the population would be linked to possible economic exclusion due to not having basic needs covered, which the terrorist organisation would take advantage of to offer young people a promising future. In this way, many of them could fall into the nets of the terrorist organisation, as has already happened.
7º. Daesh would not now have the capacity to violently oust the Syrian government. Counter-insurgent units have been pursuing the remnants of the terrorist organisation since 2019, inflicting heavy casualties on them, leaving Daesh with only guerrilla warfare.
To make it easier to interpret the outcome of the Daesh insurgency in Syria, it can be compared to the Taliban insurgency over the past five years, until they ousted the legitimate government of Ashraf Ghani from power. The Taliban insurgency would have been rated with a high or very high level of intensity, most of the seven parameters to be rated (except for the support and recruitment of the civilian population) would have been scored between 4 and 5, mainly parameter 7 or the ability to violently oust the government, which would have received the highest score, which could be seen in August 2021, in the way they came to power.
In view of what has been analysed, Daesh will not have the military capacity it had in its expansion phase, among other reasons because now it will not face an Iraqi army in disarray as happened in Mosul in 2014, since its commanders at the time knew that thousands of its men were part of the terrorist organisation in Iraq, who had left Saddam Hussein's army, which was dismantled in 2003 after the fall of Saddam's regime19.
In 2022, Iraq has a more experienced and organised military force, which would not allow Daesh to spread beyond the desert and its hiding places.
As for the Syrian army, the reasons were different. In 2011, in the wake of the so-called "Arab Spring" and the anti-government demonstrations against the Syrian regime, the Syrian Army troops loyal to Shiite President Bashar al-Assad began a civil war against the opposition forces of the so-called "Syrian National Army" and the so-called "Army of Conquest", the latter made up of a whole conglomerate of Sunni Jihadist organisations, including the Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda).
The weakening of Bashar's army after years of war was remarkable, which Daesh took advantage of to begin its expansion into Syria in 2014. The war was at such a point in 2015 that Daesh occupied almost half of the country, which was the turning point for Bashar's and Putin's government to agree to Russian support in the conflict, especially with advice and air support, which ultimately tipped the balance in favour of Bashar's loyalist army in the war against Daesh. As Grigory Lukyanov, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, said, 'Without Russian intervention, the Syrian state as such would no longer exist and Bashar al-Assad would no longer be in office'.20 Daesh would not have the capacity to fight Da'esh.
Daesh would not have the warfare capability of yesteryear, but it does have the capacity to attack Syrian and Iraqi troops stationed in any major Syrian capital. The terrorist organisation has carried out bloody suicide attacks and some "inghimasi "21 style attacks in major Syrian and Iraqi cities such as Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, Homs, Aleppo, Palmyra, Erbil, Kirkuk, Mosul, etc. It has even assaulted the Syrian army and Iraqi troops stationed in any major Syrian and Iraqi capital.
It has also managed to storm small towns to demonstrate that it is an actor to be reckoned with in terms of its military capacity and preparedness. As for the Hasaka prison action, the Kurdish security authorities believe that they had informers in and around the prison22 .
If 2021 ended with bloody attacks, 2022 began as it ended the previous year, with an attack on members of the Syrian army who were travelling by bus through the desert in the centre of the country, being hit by a missile launched by Daesh, killing five soldiers23 . It is worth noting that Syria, having a more fragile territorial stability as a state, suffers more than Iraq from the violence of the jihadist insurgency.
In those lands, peace is won day by day, which is why one cannot lower one's guard for a moment due to the characteristics of the enemy in the desert, because the suffering citizens of those lands, still afraid that one day Daesh might return, know that, if they had the slightest chance, they would be plunged back into terror. We should therefore remember Machiavelli's dictum:
"He who controls the fear of the people, becomes the master of their souls".
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Luis Montero Molina, contributor to the Terrorism and Armed Conflict area of Sec2Crime. Political scientist. Master in International Geostrategy and Jihadist Terrorism.