The military of ISIL is the fighting force of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The total force size has been estimated from tens of thousands to over two hundred thousand. ISIL's armed forces grew quickly during 2014. The ISIL military, including groups incorporated into it in 2014, openly operates and controls territory in Syria, multiple cities in Libya, and Nigeria. In October 2016, it conquered the city of Qandala in Puntland, Somalia. It also has had border clashes with and made incursions into Lebanon, Iran, and Jordan. ISIL-linked groups operate in Algeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and in West Africa (Cameroon, Niger, and Chad). In January 2015, ISIL was also confirmed to have a military presence in Afghanistan and in Yemen.
Their military is based on mobile units using light vehicles such as gun-equipped pick-up trucks (technicals), motorbikes and buses for fast advances. They also use artillery, tanks and armored vehicles captured from the Iraqi and Syrian Armies. The Islamic State also captured some aircraft.
ISIL has a long history of using truck and car bombs, suicide bombers, and IEDs. They have also deployed chemical weapons in Iraq and Syrian Kurdistan. Other terror tactics include genocide, mass executions (including beheadings), psychological operations through sophisticated propaganda, widespread torture of prisoners, and organized sexual violence and slavery.
Video Military activity of ISIL
Command structure
According to the Institute for the Study of War, ISIL's 2013 annual report reveals a metrics-driven military command, which is "a strong indication of a unified, coherent leadership structure that commands from the top down". Middle East Forum's Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi said, "They are highly skilled in urban guerrilla warfare while the new Iraqi Army simply lacks tactical competence."
ISIL's Military Council is made up of numerous former military officers from the Saddam Hussein era. Commanders have included Haji Bakr, a colonel; Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, a captain; and Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, a lieutenant colonel, who all graduated from the same Iraqi military academy. Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, al-Baghdadi's former deputy, was a Directorate of General Military Intelligence lieutenant colonel. All these men spent time detained in Camp Bucca during the American occupation of Iraq Abu Omar al-Shishani, who served in the Georgian Army before leading an ISIL unit in Syria, also became a prominent commander.
ISIL's fighters are reportedly organised into seven branches: infantry, snipers, air defence, special forces, artillery forces, the "army of adversity", and the Caliphate Army. This force structure is largely replicated in each of its designated provinces, with the most skilled fighters and military strategists in each area serving in the special forces unit, which is not allowed to redeploy to other provinces. Parallel to this structure is the Caliphate Army, which is directed by ISIL's central command rather than its provincial leadership. Made up overwhelmingly of foreign fighters, it is deployed to assist in battles across the Islamic State. There is also an all-female Al-Khansaa Brigade tasked with policing religious laws. According to battle reports, ISIL often operates in small mobile fighting units.
The group also operates outside areas it largely controls using a clandestine cell system. An ISIL-linked senior militant commander in Sinai told Reuters; "They [ISIL] teach us how to carry out operations. We communicate through the internet, ... they teach us how to create secret cells, consisting of five people. Only one person has contact with other cells. They are teaching us how to attack security forces, the element of surprise. They told us to plant bombs then wait 12 hours so that the man planting the device has enough time to escape from the town he is in."
Maps Military activity of ISIL
Troops
Troops in Iraq and Syria
In June 2014, ISIL had at least 4,000 fighters in Iraq. The CIA estimated in September 2014 that it had 20,000-31,500 fighters in Iraq and Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that the force numbers around 80,000-100,000 total (up to 50,000 in Syria and 30,000 in Iraq). Reuters quoted "jihadist ideologues" as claiming that ISIL has 40,000 fighters and 60,000 supporters, while a Kurdish leader estimated in November 2014 that ISIL's military had 200,000 fighters. 85-600 Iraqi Kurds may have joined ISIS.
Some Syrian rebel factions have defected to ISIL, including the 1,000-strong Dawud Brigade in July 2014. In addition to jihadists and other volunteers, ISIL is known for forcing other rebel groups to fight for it, as well as conscripting individuals.
Foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria
There are many foreign fighters in ISIL's ranks. In June 2014, The Economist reported that "ISIS may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000-5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners; nearly a thousand are reported to hail from Chechnya and perhaps 500 or so more from France, Britain and elsewhere in Europe." Chechen leader Abu Omar al-Shishani, for example, was made commander of the northern sector of ISIL in Syria in 2013. According to The New York Times, in September 2014 there were more than 2,000 Europeans and 100 Americans among ISIL's foreign fighters. As of mid-September 2014, around 1,000 Turks had joined ISIL, and as of October 2014, 2,400-3,000 Tunisians had joined the group. An ISIL deserter alleged that foreign recruits were treated with less respect than Arabic-speaking Muslims by ISIL commanders and were placed in suicide units if they lacked otherwise useful skills. According to a UN report, an estimated 15,000 fighters from nearly 70 countries have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join militant groups, including ISIL.
Reuters has stated that according to jihadist ideologues, 10 percent of ISIL's fighters in Iraq and 70 percent of its fighters in Syria are from outside those countries.
As of September 29, 2015, the CIA estimated that 30,000 foreign fighters had come to the Islamic State. As of October 2015, 21% came from Europe, 50% from Western Asia or North Africa, and 29% from elsewhere; according to the Global Terrorism Index and other sources, they were of the following nationalities:
List of nationalities of foreign fighters in ISIL
This is a list of nationalities of foreign fighters in ISIL. This list does not include citizens of Syria, or Iraq.
Allegiance to ISIL from groups outside Iraq and Syria
- Wilayat Algeria formed from the Algerian Jund al-Khilafah after it pledged allegiance to ISIL.
- Wilayat Barqa and others formed from the allegiance of Libyan militants like the Shura Council of Islamic Youth, and defectors formerly associated with Ansar al-Sharia in Libya
- Wilayat Sinai formed from the majority of the membership of Egypt's Ansar Bait al-Maqdis
- Wilayat Yemen formed from militants in Yemen, including defectors from Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
- Wilayat Najd and others formed from unidentified militants in Saudi Arabia
- Wilayat Khorasan formed from the allegiance of militants from groups based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including Jundallah, Tehreek-e-Khilafat, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and dissident commanders formerly associated with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
- Wilayat Gharb Afriqiya formed from Boko Haram pledging allegiance to ISIL.
- Wilayat al-Qawqaz formed from dissident militants of the Caucasus Emirate in Chechnya and Dagestan who switched their allegiance to ISIL.
- Militants of the group Army of the Islamic State (Palestinian Territories) pledged allegiance to ISIL.
- Militants of the group Abu Sayyaf under Isnilon Totoni Hapilon and Radullan Sahiron (Philippines, Malaysia). pledged allegiance to ISIL.
- Militants of the group Sons of the Call for Tawhid and Jihad (Jordan) pledged allegiance to ISIL.
- Militants of the group Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade (Lebanon) pledged allegiance to ISIL
- The group Islamic State of the Maldives pledged allegiance to ISIL in July 2014.
- Members of Ansar Khalifah Philippines pledged allegiance to ISIL. And they start using ISIL props in their training.
- Some Bangladeshi terrorist cells pledged allegiance to ISIL and starts attacking civilians and bloggers.
- Some members of Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid, including leader Abu Bakar Baasyir and Mujahidin Indonesia Timur pledged allegiance.
- Abnaa ul-Calipha was formed by some Al-Shabaab dissidents in Puntland, led by Abdul Qadir Mumin, who pledged allegiance to ISIL in 2015. Since then, Al-Shabaab has unsuccessfully attempted to kill these defectors.
- Jabha East Africa, an Islamist group operating in Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and Uganda, defected from Al-Qaeda and pledged allegiance to ISIL.
- In 2016, Abu-Walid al-Sahraoui and dissidents from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb pledged allegiance to ISIL creating the group known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, the group operates in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso
- Katibat Salman Al-Farisi (Salman Al-Farisi Battalion) was formed by a group of Iranian ISIL fighters in Iran, to fight the Iranian government.
- The City of Monotheism and Monotheists group, operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has plegded allegiance to ISIL.
- ISIL claimed their first ever attack in Kashmir Valley that left one police officer dead, following this event, a video recently surfaced of an ISIL soldier named Abu-al-Baraa al-Kashmiri pledging allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant under the name of Wilayat Kashmir Abu al-Baraa al-Kashmiri is propably the leader of the group, in the video Abu al-Baraa called on muslims in the Kashmir Valley to fight the Pakistani and the Indian governments and has criticized the islamic movement of Hizb-Lashkar-Jaish-Tehreek where he stated that he dissociated from the group and waged war against it, and then he called on element of the other insurgent groups operating in Kashmir and labelled them as "brothers" to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Abu-al-Baraa has continued on accusing the other insurgent groups for working for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and Abu-al-Baraa continued on calling the group of Ansar-Gazwat-ul-Hind and its leader Zakir Musa to pledge allegiance to ISIL.
Child soldiers
ISIL is reported to employ child soldiers, for both combat and propaganda purposes.
Weapons
Conventional weapons
The most common weapons used against US and other Coalition forces during the Iraq insurgency were those taken from Saddam Hussein's weapon stockpiles around the country. These included AKM variant assault rifles, PK machine guns and RPG-7s. ISIL has been able to strengthen its military capability by capturing large quantities and varieties of weaponry during the Syrian Civil War and Post-US Iraqi insurgency. These weapons seizures have improved the group's capacity to carry out successful subsequent operations and obtain more equipment. Weaponry that ISIL has reportedly captured and employed include SA-7 and Stinger surface-to-air missiles, M79 Osa, HJ-8 and AT-4 Spigot anti-tank weapons, Type 59 field guns and M198 howitzers, Humvees, T-54/55, T-72, and M1 Abrams main battle tanks, M1117 armoured cars, truck-mounted DShK guns, ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns, BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers, and at least one Scud missile.
ISIL shot down an Iraqi helicopter in October 2014, and claims to have shot down "several other" helicopters in 2014. Observers fear that they have "advanced surface-to-air missile systems" such as the Chinese-made FN-6, which are thought to have been provided to Syrian rebels by Qatar and/or Saudi Arabia, and purchased or captured by ISIL.
Aircraft
ISIL also captured fighter aircraft in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported in October 2014 that former Iraqi pilots were training ISIL militants to fly captured Syrian jets. Witnesses reported that MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets were flying over al-Jarrah military airport, but the US Central Command said it was not aware of flights by ISIL-operated aircraft in Syria or elsewhere. On 21 October, the Syrian Air Force claimed that it had shot down two of these aircraft over al-Jarrah air base while they were landing.
Non-conventional
ISIL captured nuclear materials from Mosul University in July 2014. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said that the materials had been kept at the university and "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction". Nuclear experts regarded the threat as insignificant. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that the seized materials were "low grade and would not present a significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk".
Reports suggest that ISIL captured Saddam era chemical weapons from an Iraqi military base and has deployed chlorine gas based chemical weapons against Iraqi Government forces, Syrian Government and Syrian Opposition Forces, and unidentified chemical weapons against Kurds in Kobanî, Syria.
ISIL has a long history of using truck and car bombs, suicide bombers, and IEDs.
See also
- Military equipment of ISIL
- List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War
- List of armed groups in the Iraqi Civil War
- Human rights violations during the Syrian Civil War
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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