| ABC News | - |
As the U.S. strikes key targets held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in northern Iraq, policymakers are considering a military campaign into the parts of eastern Syria also held by the Sunni militant group. But while the strikes near ...
How Entrenched Is ISIS in Syria?
As the U.S. strikes key targets held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in northern Iraq, policymakers are considering a military campaign into the parts of eastern Syria also held by the Sunni militant group.
But while the strikes near Erbil, Iraq, have managed to help Kurdish
forces beat back ISIS fighters – and to retake precarious hold of
Iraq's strategic Mosul Dam – they have not managed to expel ISIS from
Iraq. Analysts say that moving the group out of its Syrian strongholds
will prove even more difficult. The longer ISIS keeps control of Syrian
territory from its de facto capital in Raqqa, they more entrenched they
could become.
"We have to take into account that ISIS can begin to build
foundations within the society and communities," says Abdullah Ali, a
fellow at Chatham House studying Syria and its neighbors.
We asked Emile Hokayem, Middle East
analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and
Haian Dukhan, a Syrian doctoral candidate and researcher studying
Syrian tribes and communities at the University of St. Andrews, to weigh
in on how ISIS has established itself at the local level – and how hard
it will be to boot them out.
Syria Deeply: How well entrenched is ISIS in Syria right now?
Emile Hokayem: The levels of entrenchment vary
considerably, depending on the region. There are areas where they
clearly have the upper hand because they made a lot of local [business]
deals. In other areas, especially in and around Deir Ezzor, their
military victories have been overwhelming, and their ability to beat a
few local tribes – in a bloody and public way – has really frightened
and terrified ISIS's potential defenders.
More to the north, going up towards [the border town of] Bab Hawa,
residents still have not adjusted to ISIS – it's only been there for
six, eight months – and we are seeing quite a pushback from local
communities.
Another dimension is that success begets success. Increasing numbers of
Syrian rebels, including those who were fighting ISIS until recently,
are now shifting sides, because they think the wind is blowing in ISIS's
way. This is slowly affecting the orientation of ISIS. With more Syrian
rebels joining, ISIS is likely to shift its priorities and to devote
more time and resources to the fight against Bashar al-Assad – even
though this was not its original priority.
Coming up, ISIS's revenue stream going to change – it's going to be
about exploitation, predation and racketeering. I suspect that ISIS not
only has a decentralized organization, it also has a relatively
decentralized financial and budgetary system. Its various groups are
expected to raise resources locally. And so it's going to be even more
gang-like in newly conquered regions of northwest Syria, engraining it
even further.
Haian Dukhan: The group is very well entrenched within
local communities in Syria. They're running schools and hospitals in
ways that are similar to a state. They're even paying salaries to the
fighters, taking into consideration that a fighter might have kids to
support. So a single fighter would get $400 per month, and then a
fighter who's a father would get an additional $100 per child, which
attracts more fighters to join – it gives them a way to provide for
their families back home, and makes it ok for them to leave those
families behind.
Acting as a state like this really entrenches them at the local level,
especially in the tribal communities. They have all of these oil
reserves [in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor], which were for decades taken and
monetized by the central government – leaving the people of these areas
impoverished. And now ISIS is also making money off the oil, but it
seems to be making an effort to spend some of these oil-given resources
on the local people – they are at the very least providing food and
basic necessities, like bread. So they're becoming economically
entrenched in various communities.
Since they arrived in Syria, they have also been working on "marriages
of alliance" in the tribal communities. They have been trying to arrange
marriages between ISIS fighters and girls from the tribes, which means
that in the long run those fighters would have a familial connection to
the tribes, making it difficult for any internationally led military
camapign to sift them out. The local community and the fighters would,
in certain areas, be one entity – making ISIS impossible to sift out.
One of the reasons they've been able to entrench themselves so well is
because local populations in Syria and Iraq have seen them as a way to
get rid of first the Assad regime, and more recently, Maliki.
Syria Deeply: Are they entrenched more deeply in Syria than in Iraq?
Dukhan: In Syria they are more entrenched than in Iraq,
mainly because the local Sunni community in Iraq does not feel assured
that if they start fighting against ISIS, which is Sunni, they will not
then be arrested by the government in Baghdad. Or that if ISIS
disappeared, they'd be left with a new, fair government, as opposed to
the old ways.
Syria Deeply: How do the tribes factor in?
Dukhan: Syrian and Iraqi tribes would make an alliance
with really anyone in order to get rid of the authoritarian regimes that
oppress them. The tribes on both sides of the border belong to the same
configuration, the same family of tribes.
ISIS's extreme Salafist ideology is unwelcome by tribal communities in
both Syria and Iraq. But when they are forced to choose between ISIS or
Assad and Maliki, they'll choose ISIS.
Syria Deeply: What's the solution? At this point, is there any way to uproot ISIS entirely?
Dukhan: The solution in Syria, and in Iraq, is not only
to fight ISIS to expand the political transition process. Sunnis need
to be reassured that they will be part of whatever new government, and
that they will have their share of their regions' natural resources, and
that they won't be marginalized.
In Syria, it will be very difficult to get the local population to fight
ISIS. They see hypocrisy, that the international community does not
seem to care about the brutality wrought by the Syrian regime, but they
do seem to care about the brutality wrought by ISIS.
Answers have been edited.
This article originally appeared
end quote from:
No comments:
Post a Comment