The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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The Devilishly Clever Kurds March South
by James Dunnigan
July 14, 2015
June 25, 2015: Unexpectedly ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) had its worst nightmare become reality as Kurdish forces (including some Christian militias and secular Arab FSA rebels) continued advancing south from Kobane (near the Turkish border).
ISIL took a major beating (thousands of casualties) from this combination in Kobane during a five month battle and wanted to avoid any more of that in Syria. Not only does fighting Kurds get a lot of ISIL fighters killed, but it discourages the rest. After pushing ISIL out of Kobane in January the Kurdish fighters continued advancing south. By February nearly half the 350 villages surrounding the market town of Kobane were retaken. In many cases ISIL fighters just abandoned villages they had occupied for months. The Kurds have a major advantage in that they can call in coalition air strikes. If the Kurds encounter ISIL resistance they can put a smart bomb onto the ISIL position (trenches or a building) and that usually breaks that instance of ISIL resistance. ISIL sent reinforcements to stop the Kurds and for several months thought they had succeeded. But the Kurds were just reinforcing the area around Kobane and training for another push. For that last month that offensive towards Raqqa has been underway.
Raqqa is 140 kilometers southeast of Kobane and now the Kurds are less than 50 kilometers from the ISIL “capital.” In response the defenses of Raqqa are being upgraded (more trenches and bunkers) and reinforced with ISIL gunmen from other parts of Syria. Despite that ISIL has reason to be pessimistic. Most of the remaining citizens of Raqqa hate their ISIL overlords. Most ISIL gunmen now know that fighting the Kurds is frustrating and usually fatal for ISIL personnel. All this has ISIL leadership worried. So worried that they have ordered pro-ISIL Kurds (there aren’t many of them) to leave Raqqa. ISIL also fears the attacksing Kurds will wait outside Raqqa and let ISIL attack them. That increases ISIL casualties and reduces Kurdish losses. The Kurds have confirmed that they will halt their advance in order to allow Arab Syrian rebels to assemble in sufficient numbers to lead the final advance into Raqqa. While most of the people in Raqqa are Arabs and don’t like ISIL they don’t like Kurds either.
To ISIL leaders all this appears devilishly clever of the Kurds and just one more reason to hate and fear them. Part of this fear is based on the fact that Arabs have persecuted Kurds for centuries and there have never been much goodwill between the two groups who share a common religion but are ethnically and culturally different (Arabs are Semitic while Kurds are Indo-European). Already there are rumors in Raqqa that the advancing Kurds have been chasing Arabs out of areas they have conquered.
In 2014 ISIL took the eastern Syria city of Raqqa (population 500,000) and turned it into an “Islamic city.” Strict lifestyle rules were imposed and local Christians have to pay an extra tax to avoid persecution. ISIL enforced many new lifestyle rules that even many of their fighters found uncomfortable (no cigarettes, for example) and most current Raqqa residents wish ISIL would just go away.
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