GAZIANTEP,
Turkey — The fighters with the Free Syrian Army were expecting an
attack any day from the jihadists besieging the city of Minbej in
war-torn Syria, fortifying their base, once a carpet factory, with
concrete bomb-blast barriers.
But
they did not suspect the teenagers pushing a broken-down sedan past the
front gate. Then a boy who looked no older than 14 blew up the car and
himself, unleashing an assault that killed or wounded nearly 30 rebel
fighters and ultimately put all of Minbej under the control of the most
extremist jihadi group in the Syrian conflict.
“They
call us godless,” said Sheikh Hassan, the leader of the Free Syrian
Army brigade that came under attack. “They attack us from the front,
they attack us from the back.”
That
battle was one snapshot of the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria, or ISIS, a militant Sunni group whose thousands of fighters have
occupied crucial swatches of Syria and have now surged into northern
Iraq. The group has vowed to create a caliphate spanning the
Sunni-dominated sections of neighboring countries.
Map: Where ISIS Is Gaining Control in Iraq and Syria
In
doing so, it is simultaneously battling the Syrian and Iraqi
governments and Sunni rebels it considers insufficiently committed to
Islam. Having seized vast areas of Iraqi territory and several large and
strategic cities, including the country’s second-biggest, Mosul, it
controls territory greater than many countries and now rivals, and
perhaps overshadows, Al Qaeda as the world’s most powerful and active
jihadist group.
The
fighting in Minbej took place six months ago, but the methods the
Islamists used so effectively in northern Syria helped set the stage for
their blitzkrieg in Mosul, Tikrit and other important Iraqi cities this
week.
Detailed
descriptions from Sheikh Hassan and his men, along with several other
rebels who have been fighting the jihadists for the last six months,
paint an unsettling portrait of the formidable jihadist movement.
The
group is a magnet for militants from around the world. On videos,
Twitter and other media, the group showcases fighters from Chechnya,
Germany, Britain and the United States.
Its
members are better paid, better trained and better armed than even the
national armies of Syria and Iraq, Sheikh Hassan said.
Many
of the recruits are drawn by its extreme ideology. But others are lured
by the high salaries, as well as the group’s ability to consolidate
power, according to former members, civilians who have lived under its
rule in northern Syria and moderate rebels.
Other
rebel groups often squabble with one another while fighting the
government. But the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has stayed cohesive
while avoiding clashes with the military of President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria, who seems content to give the group a wide berth while
destroying the other rebel groups.
In
areas that fall under their control, the jihadists work carefully to
entrench their rule. They have attracted the most attention with their
draconian enforcement of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic
Shariah law, including the execution of Christians and Muslims deemed
kufar, or infidels.
On
a recent Sunday, a steady trickle of civilian refugees from Minbej
walked across the border to Turkey. “Thank God we’re free,” said a
teenage boy named Ahmed, who had escaped with his family. He was
relishing a cigarette, the first he had openly smoked in six months. But
he refused to give his family name, because “ISIS watches everything.”
But
the group is not only following a stone-age script. It also rapidly
establishes control of local resources and uses them to extend and
strengthen its grip.
It
has taken over oil fields in eastern Syria, for example, and according
to several rebel commanders and aid workers, has resumed pumping. It has
also secured revenue by selling electricity to the government from
captured power plants. In Iraq on Wednesday, the militants seized
control of Baiji, the site of Iraq’s largest oil refinery and power plant.
ISIS: Behind the Group Overrunning Iraq
Background on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Islamist group that gained control of the second-largest city in Iraq.
Video Credit By Christian Roman on
Publish Date June 10, 2014.
Image CreditUncredited/Militant Website, via Associated Press
In
Minbej, the jihadists initially left bakeries and humanitarian aid
groups alone, taking over their operations once they had established
military control of the city. The group takes a cut of all humanitarian
aid and commerce that passes through areas under its control.
One
of the first militia leaders to resist the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria, Abu Towfik from the Nouredin Zinky Brigade, said its
sophisticated tactics made its fighters hard to dislodge. Since last
year, the militant group has fought with tanks captured from the Iraqi
military.
Given
that tenacity, Abu Towfik said, its members will be hard to drive out
of the territory they now occupy in northern Syria and Iraq. “I am
afraid as time goes on they will spread their extreme ideology, and
we’ll have a regional war,” he added.
At
a meeting of rebel commanders at a Gaziantep Hotel cafe, Abou Sfouk,
head of the rebel Free Syrian Army’s Palestine Brigade, brought a prized
captive: a former jihadist named Mustafa.
At
the beginning of the uprising, Mustafa had fought with Abou Sfouk’s
brigade, but he joined the Islamist group early last year, when it
entered Syria from Iraq, because it offered to triple his salary,
starting him at $400 a month.
“Wherever
we took territory, we would declare people apostates and confiscate
their property,” Mustafa said. “We took cars and money from Christians,
and from Muslims we didn’t like.”
Mustafa,
a trained bulldozer mechanic, became the “emir of the motor pool.” But
he eventually came under suspicion when it became known that he had once
served under the kufar rebel army.
After
a summary trial before one of the group’s Islamic courts, Mustafa was
sentenced to death. A friend helped him escape, and he sought protection
with his old brigade commander.
“I would never trust him again,” said his old commander, Abou Sfouk. “But he has useful military information.”
The
defector has revealed the locations of Islamist prisons and the
identities of the group’s commanders. Many of the top leaders and
front-line soldiers come from abroad, but more than half of the
membership is made up of Syrian and Iraqi tribesmen, people well known
to their relatives and former neighbors now fighting against them.
“We
are moderate Muslims,” Sheikh Hassan said. “We will fight anyone who
covers themselves in Islam and tries to talk in the name of our
religion.”
A
graduate of Quranic studies from Damascus University, Sheikh Hassan
considers his own credentials impeccable. He learned to fight as a
foreign volunteer with Iraqi resistance fighters attacking American
soldiers a decade ago.
Now,
he said, he is desperate for more American help as he wages a war
against jihadists with whom he once shared a struggle. “There is a hole
between us,” he said with a shrug. “We will have to kill them. But we’re
humane. We won’t cut their throats; we will shoot them.”
Ben Hubbard contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabiaend quote from:
Thanassis Cambanis profiled ISIS's surprisingly cunning economic strategy
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