Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[OUTLAW 09]

The collectors, analysts, targeteers are doing exactly what needs to be done, considering a far broader set of constraints that they face. Those constraints are not the fault of the IC.

Interesting comment as the above comment concerning Desert Storm was in fact true---two on the desk and no databases to speak of thus the four month delay in targeting which was used to position the troops. All additional analysts had to be first found and then assigned thus no existing databases to speak of even existed.

When I read the same comment 24 years later and I know the depth of the current IC to include the defense contracting side-then the comment is correct regardless of anything else--yes everyone is doing their bit all in the so called targeting cycle --then if in fact the constraints are the political side then it needs to be said--there is an old statement---truth to power which the IC and military leadership tends to forget except for this interview by the JCoS which is blunt and to the point.

The JCoS comments from 21.8.2014 are in fact far more correct than the general public is being led to believe about the IS and I am not sure the public is ready again for an open ended war in Iraq and or Syria for another ten years because that is what it will take since we blew it the first time.

I go back to what I have said a number of times here since Iraq---we never understood what we were seeing and what did we the IC miss with al Baghdadi at Abu G and Bucca? Believe me we missed something and it was there if we had looked hard enough--but then again Abu G and Bucca were driven by numbers--number of detainees talked to per shift down to number of reports per shift per week.

We had young Army/AF/Navy trained interrogators that knew virtually nothing about insurgencies, insurgent tactics down to the use of one time pads and or understood the inherent AQI/IAI, 1920 and ASA organizational structures, or even anything about the Sunni Shia clash--- who struggled using quality interpreters, and simply were going through the motions with little or no support from national in order to get through their year or in the case of the AF/Navy their six months.

Virtually no support came from national--I let the leader of the IAI walk out of Abu G simply because five RFIs went unanswered regardless of follow ups and no biometric support which was asked for --never got responded to. With no evidence no charge, with no charge then parked for 4-12 months and then released out. He was out in three months.

We completely missed a phase two guerrilla war being fought by the Salafists and that included AQI from the mid 90s onward inside Iraq and we the IC never knew that fine point. So I am sorry if I take the IC to task--they blew it.

Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey at a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, August 21, 2014.

“This is an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision that will eventually have to be defeated,” General Martin E. Dempsey, U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, America's top military officer, told a press briefing this week that the mere existence of ISIS is clearly a problem that had to be addressed.

The question now is how.

Demspey noted that destroying ISIS will require " the application of all of the tools of [U.S.] national power — diplomatic, economic, information, military."

In fact, as counterterrorism expert Brian Fishman explained, truly defeating ISIS would require full-scale war that would involve fighting in both Iraq and Syria.

"Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no," Dempsey told reporters at the Pentagon.

That is where the real challenge lies for the Obama administration, which decided years ago that the U.S. was not going to “get in the middle of somebody else’s civil war.” ISIS has effectively blurred the border between Iraq and Syria, using the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa as a de facto capital while extending the terror group's reach in Iraq.

"The notion that the Iraq war can be separated from the Syrian civil war is pure fantasy," Shadi Hamid, an expert on Islamist groups at the Brookings Institution, told McClatchy. "This is what’s so worrying about the Obama administration’s approach. There is no plan. There is no vision on that front. There is no effort to talk about Syria in a different way."

A senior U.S. defense official also told McClatchy that there "is no policy" to confront ISIS in Syria.

[OUTLAW 09]

Rabat-ISIS beheads group of its top #Intelligence leaders incl Moroccan Ubaida Almaghribi for sharing intel online:https://twitter.com/2kdei/status/503...145729/photo/1

[JWing]

Just published my latest security report for Iraq for the 3rd week of August. Continued two week trend of drop in attacks, casualties actually dropped this time as well as fighting settled into a rough stalemate across Iraq for the week. Charts, figures on security incidents, car bombs, etc. across Iraq. Was a dip in car bombs in Baghdad which explains today's wave of attacks as a new by IS starts. Here's a link.

[OUTLAW 09]

The UK blogger bellingcat who identified the IS training camp in Mosul via open source materials as well as working the open source location ID for the US journalist killing has been hit by a massive DDoS attack all day---this is interesting for two reasons 1) the IS did not believe open source could be so effective and 2) his work was also used in the MH17 open source materials.

So he has two groups angry at him that has the IT abilities of a DDoS---the IS and the FSB.


bellingcat @bellingcat

Bellingcat is still being DDoS'd by *someone*, if you don't know what a DDoS attack you can learn more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack …

[davidbfpo]

Keeping up with the mapping of this conflict:

Note the cited article is about the Shia militia fighters on the frontline, so maybe of interest:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...hters-war-isis

[OUTLAW 09]

I have repeatedly said here in SWJ we truly never understood what we were seeing in Iraq from 2003 until 2010 and we wonder now what the heck happened to an "evidently" beaten AQI when it recreates itself as the IS.

Finally just maybe we con bury COIN with all of it's outliers and finally admit as a Force we just blew it as did the political leadership.

Not understanding an insurgency is one thing but not understanding guerrilla warfare is just sad.

This article in the entire length below from the US SOF community about the IS should rise some heads and create some deep questions of where the current civilian leadership together with the US military senior leadership wants to go with IS.

I have also said bombing the IS was and is not the way forward---especially in the light of say Ukrainian forces fighting actively with Russian military personnel who Russian now claims "just got lost". and somehow ended up in a fire fight inside the Ukraine when all along Russia has denied any Russians military inside the Ukraine.

Score one point for the blogging community after the massive release of Russian military IDs, photos, social media data--after that Russia was unable to maintain their blatant lies.

With the Obama White House left reeling from the "savage" slaughter of an American journalist held hostage by ISIS terrorists, military options are being considered against an adversary who officials say is growing in strength and is much more capable than the one faced when the group was called "al Qaeda-Iraq" during the U.S. war from 2003-2011.

ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has been making a "tactical withdrawal" in recent days in the face of withering U.S. airstrikes from areas around Erbil in northern Iraq and from the major dam just north of Mosul it controlled for two nail-biting weeks, according to military officials monitoring their movements.

"These guys aren't just bugging out, they're tactically withdrawing. Very professional, well trained, motivated and equipped. They operate like a state with a military," said one official who tracks ISIS closely. "These aren't the same guys we fought in OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) who would just scatter when you dropped a bomb near them."

ISIS appeared to have a sophisticated and well thought-out plan for establishing its "Islamic Caliphate" from northern Syria across the western and northern deserts of Iraq, many experts and officials have said, and support from hostage-taking, robbery and sympathetic donations to fund it. They use drones to gather overhead intel on targets and effectively commandeer captured military vehicles – including American Humvees -- and munitions.

"They tried to push out as far as they thought they could and were fully prepared to pull back a little bit when we beat them back with airstrikes around Erbil. And they were fine with that, and ready to hold all of the ground they have now," a second official told ABC News.

ISIS didn't necessarily count on holding Mosul Dam, officials said, but scored a major propaganda victory on social media when they hoisted the black flag of the group over the facility that provides electricity and water to a large swath of Iraq, or could drown millions if breached.

U.S. special operations forces under the Joint Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command keep close tabs on the military evolution of ISIS and both its combat and terrorism -- called "asymmetric" -- capabilities, officials told ABC News. A primary reason is in anticipation of possibly fighting them, which a full squadron of special mission unit operators did in the Independence Day raid on an ISIS camp in Raqqah, Syria.

"They're incredible fighters. ISIS teams in many places use special operations TTPs," said the second official, who has considerable combat experience, using the military term for "tactics, techniques and procedures."

In sobering press conference Friday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said ISIS has shown that it is “as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen.”

“They’re beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded,” he said. “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.”

Prior ISIS’s recent public successes, the former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, which just released a tenth anniversary report on the threat of terrorism currently facing the homeland, said he was shocked at how little seems to be known inside the U.S. intelligence community about the Islamist army brutalizing Iraq as it has Syria.

“I was appalled at the ignorance,” former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, who led the 9/11 Commission, told ABC News last week.

Kean, a Republican, who with vice chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, recently met with about 20 top intelligence officials in preparation of the commission’s latest threat report, said many officials seemed both blind-sided and alarmed by the group's rise, growth and competency.

“One official told me ‘I am more scared than at any time since 9/11,’” Kean recounted in a recent interview.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence defended the intelligence community’s tracking of ISIS, saying officials had “expressed concern” about the threat as far back as last year.

“The will to fight is inherently difficult to assess. Analysts must make assessments based on perceptions of command and control, leadership abilities, quality of experience, and discipline under fire -- none of which can be understood with certainty until the first shots are fired,” ODNI spokesperson Brian Hale said.

Where did ISIS learn such sophisticated military methods, shown clearly after the first shots were fired?

"Probably the Chechens," the one of the U.S. officials said.

A Chechen commander named Abu Omar al-Shishani -- who officials say may have been killed in fighting near Mosul -- is well known for commanding an international brigade within ISIS. Other Chechens have appeared within propaganda videos including one commander who was killed on video by an artillery burst near his SUV in Syria.

Earlier this year, ABC News reported on the secret history of U.S. special operations forces' experiences battling highly capable Chechen fighters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border since 2001. In addition, for decades Chechen separatists have waged asymmetric warfare against Russian forces for control of the Northern Caucasus.

The Secret Battles Between US Forces and Chechen Terrorists

In the battle against ISIS, many within American "SOF," a term that comprises operators from all branches of the military and intelligence, are frustrated at being relegated by the President only to enabling U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. They are eager to fight ISIS more directly in combat operations -- even if untethered, meaning unofficially and with little if any U.S. government support, according to some with close ties to the community.

"ISIS and their kind must be destroyed," said a senior counterterrorism official after journalist James Foley was beheaded on high-definition ISIS video, echoing strong-worded statements of high-level U.S. officials including Secretary of State John Kerry.

But asked when the Obama administration would attempt to confront ISIS, the official declined to answer.

Ben Rhodes, the President’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, told reporters Friday that Obama is currently focused on protecting American lives, “containing” ISIS where they are and supporting advances by Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

“Our military objectives in Iraq right now are limited to protecting our personnel and facilities and address the humanitarian crisis,” Rhodes said. The “ultimate goal,” Rhodes said however, was to “defeat” ISIS.

“We have to be clear that this is a deeply-rooted organization… It is going to take time, a long time, to fully evict them from the communities where they operate,” he said. “In the long term, we’ll be working with our partners to defeat this organization.”

[JWing]

My latest article is how Mosul, Baiji, Tikrit and Alam fell to the insurgents in June. Could tell that IS building up for a large summer offensive. Started with raids on Samarra, Baquba, and Anbar Univ in Ramadi. June 6 attack on Mosul started. Ninewa Operations Command and Baghdad did not take it seriously. When US tried to warn Baghdad that it was a much bigger attack and Kurds offered to send in peshmerga into Mosul to help Maliki wouldn't act because of his political dispute with Kurds. Were three major generals in Mosul during assault who bugged out which started desertions. ISF then given orders to withdraw but not where or how. Insurgents immediately headed south of after fall of Mosul. ISF in Baiji and Tikrit fled or gave up without a fight because spooked by stories of thousands of IS fighters heading their way. ISF had around 30,000 men in Mosul and another 5,000-6,000 in Tikrit vs maybe around 1000 insurgents. Camp Speicher outside of Tikrit gave up without fighting and most of the ISF there were massacred by IS which was posted by social media. Baghdad offered no defense and no orders to help Baiji or Tikrit. Alam outside of Tikrit only area that fought. Held out for 2 weeks before gave up. Massive failure of leadership by ISF commanders and Baghdad during whole debacle. Here's a link to the article.

[carl]

Where did ISIS learn such sophisticated military methods, shown clearly after the first shots were fired?

"Probably the Chechens," the one of the U.S. officials said.

A Chechen commander named Abu Omar al-Shishani -- who officials say may have been killed in fighting near Mosul -- is well known for commanding an international brigade within ISIS. Other Chechens have appeared within propaganda videos including one commander who was killed on video by an artillery burst near his SUV in Syria.

Earlier this year, ABC News reported on the secret history of U.S. special operations forces' experiences battling highly capable Chechen fighters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border since 2001. In addition, for decades Chechen separatists have waged asymmetric warfare against Russian forces for control of the Northern Caucasus.

The Secret Battles Between US Forces and Chechen Terrorists

The Chechens are coming! The Chechens are coming!

I think it is useful to remember that God seems to sprinkle military prowess at random throughout the human race. They are out there waiting to appear and a lot of them don't need much in the way of formal training. Alvero Obregon just sort of knew what to do and there are a whole bunch of others like him throughout history. Maybe IS has a few too. (Old one arm did need help with tech things like artillery though, and that's why God makes guys who will switch sides.)

(The quoted section was not said by Outlaw but apparently comes from another article.)