The fanatical jihadis seeking to topple the Iraqi government are methodical killers who catalog their murders, bombings and attacks in chilling detail — even preparing annual reports on the bloodshed, a new study reveals.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launched 9,540 operations in Iraq last year, committed 1,083 assassinations and planted 4,465 improvised explosive devices, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a DC-based think tank that analyzed ISIS’ reports from 2012 and 2013.
The 2013 report includes an infographic showing the number of attacks by type, with images of machine guns, mortars and bombs, and shows an unexpected degree of sophistication and organization, experts said.
“The repeated publication of consecutive annual reports indicates that the ISIS military command in Iraq has exercised command and control over a national theater since at least early 2012,” wrote Alex Bilger, an ISW analyst. ”ISIS in Iraq is willing and able to organize centralized reporting procedures and to publish the results of its performance.”
The 400-page 2013 version, written in Arabic and called al-Naba (The Report), also chronicled 551 car and motorcycle bombings, 238 suicide attacks by terrorists driving cars or wearing suicide vests, and 1,015 bomb or arson attacks on enemy dwellings.
The report also said that as of 2013, ISIS had at least 15,000 fighters – a number that had likely grown because of an influx of hardcore foreign jihadis from other Middle Eastern nations drawn to the battle for Syria and Iraq.
The analysis concluded that the Sunni terrorists’ immediate goal was the capture of the northern city of Mosul – Iraq’s second largest – which was accomplished last week. The report also said the group raised about $8 million from Sunni supporters in Mosul before operations started there.
“ISIS progress in its campaign to control territory in Iraq is visible in its reported statistics,” the Institute said. “The destruction of houses, establishment of checkpoints and claims to control cities speak directly to the control of territory.”
Nigel Inkster, former assistant chief of the British intelligence service MI6, compared the reports to those produced in industry.
“They produce [the reports] almost like a company, with details of martyrdom operations and targets. You have a clear overlay of structure, planning and strategy to the organization,” he told The Financial Times.
The fanatics are also fighting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad so they can establish an Islamist caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria that would be ruled under strict Sharia law.
And the report noted that an emboldened ISIS has changed tactics as it won greater success on the battlefield.
“The change in tactics, techniques and procedures from armed attacks to targeted killings and attacks, to demolition of houses, checkpoints, and control of cities, and possibly from there to Sharia law and governance, resembles the “Clear, Hold, Build” strategy of classic insurgency literature,” Bilger wrote in his analysis.
Meanwhile, US military brass confirmed Wednesday that Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki had formally requested US air strikes.
“We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a Senate hearing Wednesday morning.
But it was unclear if President Obama – who has ruled out a return of US troops to the war-torn country – would authorize air or drone strikes.
Many Republicans have rejected any return to Iraq.
“Where will it lead and will that be the beginning or the end?” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said when asked about possible U.S. airstrikes. “We don’t know that. This underlying conflict has been going on 1,500 years between the Shias and the Sunnis and their allies. And I think whatever we do, it’s not going to go away.”
The Islamists stunning advances in recent weeks – along with horrific videos of beheadings and executions posted on radical Web sites – have stoked international fears that the country is falling apart along ethnic and religious lines.
Kurdish fighters have seized control of their semi-autonomous region in the northeast, while the Sunnis have captured Mosul and other key cities in the north closer to the Syrian border.
Shiites have rallied around clerical leaders call to join militias in and around Baghdad and throughout the southern part of the country along the border with Sjiite-led Iran.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, had said that the administration would be “open to discussions” with Iran if it can help end the violence.
Tehran has reportedly dispatched elite Revolutionary Guards to Iraq, and Iranian officials and clerics have vowed to protect Shiite shrines and other holy places threatened by Sunni fighters.
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces battled insurgents who had taken control of the country’s main oil refinery in Baiji, and said they regained partial control of Tal Afar, a city near the Syrian border Wednesday.
In a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck an optimistic tone and vowed to teach the attackers a “lesson” — even though Iraqi soldiers abandoned their posts in the wake of the initial militant offensive.
“We have now started our counteroffensive, regaining the initiative and striking back,” al-Maliki said.
, Qasem Suleimani, to Baghdad to help the Iraqi government co-ordinate its campaign against the insurgents.
President Barack Obama – who is still considering an Iraqi request for US airstrikes – has said that about 275 military personnel could deploy to provide support and security for the US embassy and its staff in Baghdad.