Flash Update: Fallujah Liberated

ISIS has been driven completely out of Fallujah, and mop-up operations have begun to clear the highways between Fallujah and Ramadi. But ISIS troops there have nowhere to hide, and the Iraqi Army has the numerical and mechanical advantage. It should take a few weeks.

What's quite amazing is that Fallujah actually had 4,000 ISIS troops, and the Iraqi Army dealt with them pretty quickly once they punched in. It's an amazing victory and shows that the spear tip of the Iraqi Army is quite sharp. Well-done.

After that mop-up, the road to Mosul is clear.

I'm getting updates from here, by the way: http://isis.liveuamap.com/en/2016/25-june-iraqisf-soldiers-have-raised-the-iraqi-flag-in-the

Manbij is taking much longer than I thought, in part because my troop counts weren't up to snuff. The Kurds are slowly working their way to the edge of the city, and keep repelling ISIS counter-attacks.

In a way, this is good: the Kurds are quite stiff of spine, and have so much territory around Manbij surrounded that, if they are successful, they will likely destroy the 2,000+ unit in the city. So it will take some time, but momentum is definitely in the hands of the Kurds and SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces).

Stay tuned for more updates.

US Strategy in Syria is Just Insane

As I've been writing my other book, I've been taking breaks and reading a lot about Syria and Iraq because I keep hoping we're going to do something different.

We're not.

I'm not going to talk here about why the US might be choosing such a terrible strategy, but simply outline the ways in which it is so terrible in light of surprisingly limited criticism.

(It has helped me to replace "President Obama" with "President Bush" whenever I read articles about Syria to get a sense of how the public would be reacting if it was making stronger connections to the initial Iraq invasion and that goofy Texan everyone loves to hate.)

So let's tell the Syrian story in some context.

The Arab Spring

Early 2011, a whole bunch of countries in the Arab World start protesting their heavy-handed secular governments. These protesters tended to be some combination of:

• Western-looking, clean-shaven, tee-shirt wearing liberals (not "progressives" but "liberal" in the sense of "a liberal democracy") that wanted a liberal democracy of their own
• Oppressed ethno-religious minorities or majorities
• Hard-core Islamists that wanted to replace these very secular regimes with some form of Sharia

(First, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which of these groups are most and least likely to form powerful, long-term militias if anarchy begins in the state.)

Western media mostly portrayed the protests of the first group in places like Benghazi, Homs, Cairo. The protests of ethno-religious minorities in places like Bahrain that were put down by Saudi military action got much less attention.

Libya

In 2011, Qaddafi decided to put down the protests before they could become a rebellion, so he began a pacification campaign from Sirte going east towards Benghazi.

The US and some of its EU allies decided to intervene with air support to keep tanks from rolling in and slaughtering Benghazi, which seemed like a nice thing to do.

Scope creep took over, and the West decided that really the only way to keep the people  of Benghazi and elsewhere safe was to provide air support to militias to defeat the Libyan army and overthrow the regime.

That happened quite successfully, and Obama was clever enough to not get on a giant aircraft carrier with a "Mission Accomplished" banner because he is better at managing the media than Bush was, but the US decided we were done.

Immediately after Qaddafi fell, we left, and the militias that had fought against him looted army bases and armories as the army dissolved.

A democracy was formed, but it was plagued by well-armed militias and now-unemployed (and pariah) former army and government personnel. Violence and skirmishes plague the country for 3 years.

(Again, I encourage the reader to replace "Libya" with "Iraq" and "Qaddafi" with "Hussein.")

The story evolves a bit in 2014 as elections are won by Islamists who are pretty terrible, who then immediately get voted out but--oops--decide not to respect the election and use their militias to hold Tripoli. Libya dissolves into a (very slow) civil war between the new Libyan army and the Islamist militias. In the meantime, a whole bunch of different Islamist militias (called the Shura Council) take over half of Benghazi and the Islamic State decide to move in because the place is such a mess that they can get a foothold in there; ISIS takes over Derna and Sirte. And then some other local militias, who are tired of everyone, carve out their own territories. There are now 6 groups fighting each other in Libya. 

(Libya also makes for strange bedfellows: the Tobruk gov't is supported by the US, Russia, UAE, Algeria, Jordan, and Egypt; the Islamist government in Tripoli is supported by Qatar, Sudan, and Turkey.) 

Wikipedia

It's been a stalemate for the past 2 years.

"Fogg, what does this have to do with Syria?"

While one could give the US the excuse of thinking that "the intervention in Syria will totally be different from Iraq because we're not putting boots on the ground and trying to run the show from Washington," the lessons from Libya leave no such excuse, even for so inexperienced a foreign policy team that led the State Department when the US got involved in Syria.

(When I say Libya's civil war is slow, I mean slow. About 5,000 people have died since the beginning of 2014. 

Syria, on the other hand, has led to probably 300,000 deaths, 130,000 captured or missing, 8 million internally displaced people, and 4 million refugees. )

The one thing that the US and Western allies did right in Libya was support the rebels decisively, which at least knocked Qaddafi out of the fight. This has led to far fewer deaths and a much more "soft" civil war. 

Syria

Syrian protests started in 2011 because Assad has ruled with an iron fist as a pretty terrible dude, oppressing the Arab majority, generally putting his cronies in charge, having a Gestapo-like secret police make people disappear, etc. 

Things really blew up when he decided to torture a kid that spraypainted some critical stuff on a wall. Homs quickly got basically taken over by protesters. Assad reacted just like Qaddafi would have, had the US and allies not provided decisive air support: he's been bombing the heck out of rebel strongholds to try to end the rebellion as quickly as possible, and sending in troops with that air support wherever he can.

So what are we doing in Syria? The US has been supporting "moderate rebels" since 2011. But the word "supporting" is an odd one. We are funneling some weapons and supplies to them (which we did in Libya), but we are not bombing Assad. This is probably to keep from open conflict with Russia. 

Just as a reminder, the US and allies like Germany have been steadfast that Assad has to go before any political settlement can be reached. The US considers a totally dysfunctional patchwork of Syrian rebel representatives to be the "government of Syria," which is at least as silly as insisting for 22 years that the Taipei exile government was the "legitimate government of China" and that the Communists were just upstarts that would go away someday. 

Back to Assad. Assad knows that if he "goes," he faces a chopping block, and so do his cronies. The West is too ideologically pure to cut a deal and say, "look, we'll buy you guys a sweet island and grant you immunity." Dictators like Assad face "justice." So the US has pretty explicitly said, "Assad, you have to win this war or you and your family will die."

So there's a lot of motivation for Assad to keep fighting, even as Syria crumbles.

The US' half-hearted supported for Syrian rebels is just enough to keep the fight going. They have enough armaments to keep shooting and not collapse.... at least as long as they're allied with the al-Nursa Front, who is literally al-Qaeda. These guys are the really intense, zealous fighters that are really sticking it to the Syrian regime. Also, just in case we forgot, ISIS was classified as "part of the rebels" early in the war and between 2011 and 2013 we were still arming them. 

Sure, we tried to train some new "moderate" Syrian rebels so that they'd be more powerful, but we managed to train four or five of them before giving up. 

So now we're basically allied with al-Qaeda against Assad, because the "moderate" rebels are really kindof just the hood ornament. 

Imagining Victory

Let's imagine for a moment that we provided air cover and gave the rebels enough support to actually topple Assad. (This is possible if we support the southern front of Rebels with serious air cover, knock out Syrian bases and air power and supply lines, etc.) We could have done this with the "red line" excuse: back in 2013, Obama promised a big thick red line of Assad used chemical weapons. He went ahead and used them about 17 times, and we said, "er, well," and kept up our current strategy.

Anyway. Let's say the Syrian regime collapses, and let's say it collapsed before ISIS took over half the country. You've got Kurds in the northeast that want their own country, and then you've got the moderate rebels that number 40,000-50,000, and a bunch of al-Qaeda-and-friends (which includes a lot of groups) that number between 100,000 and 160,000. 

They duke it out. Guess who wins?

Basically, I don't see how the US imagines any outcome of the collapse of the Syrian regime besides al-Qaeda or ISIS or both taking over Syria.

But Forget That, Because Victory Ain't Happenin'

The Syrian regime is very, very different from the Qaddafi government and the Hussein government: it has pretty broad popular support, decisively controls the fertile heartland of Syria, and has the steadfast support of heavy-hitters like Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia (who are willing to put troops on the ground and are willing to bomb the heck out of the rebels, unlike the West). So we're not the only guys parachuting weapons and providing intel: the Syrian government is getting it, too. This is an all-out proxy war, which was not the case in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan.

So these groups have been tearing each other to pieces. Guess who gets to step in and fight at their convenience wherever these two groups are weak? You guessed it: ISIS. Remember that Obama called ISIS "the JV team" of al-Qaeda and we grossly under-estimated their potential strength (which he later lied about). 

But now ISIS has taken over tons of oil resources and is actually constructing some semblance of a functional state--something that no radical Islamist militia has been able to do since the Taliban emerged out of US support for the mujaheddin back in '89.  Now that they've more or less decided not to mess with the Kurds (who are a very united force thanks to their long history of shared ethnic oppression), they get to pick their battles and operate with a great deal of impunity.

The Syrian regime and the Rebels are too concerned fighting each other to be able to oppose ISIS with any serious fervor. Each hopes it's going to win and can then turn its attention against ISIS with united support from the international community. The Kurds aren't going to come in and save Syria--they have no interest in shedding their blood for that. 

(Wikipedia. Note the green "rebels" are the loose alliance of the "moderate" and Islamist rebels.)

The US and allies are bombing ISIS, yes, but ISIS is highly resilient. Remember when we bombed the Viet Cong and North Vietnam for 13 years and the North Vietnamese totally just gave up? Me neither.

So This is Officially Pretty Insane

The depth of delusion at the highest levels of the US government--and the utter refusal to learn and adapt--is frustrating and frankly mind-boggling. 

To summarize:

• The US is half-heartedly supporting rebel troops just enough to extend a war, but definitely not win it, which gives ISIS plenty of room to grow
• Oh right, we also armed ISIS for a few years
• The US is currently allied with al-Qaeda and a bunch of other Islamist groups and that totally won't be just like the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan 
• If the US decided to whole-heartedly take down the Syrian regime, al-Qaeda-and-friends would almost certainly smother the fractured moderate rebels and take over the country

All scenarios here lead to utter disaster, for decades.

The only way one can support the Syrian rebels and even hope for them to come out on top is to commit Iraq-level troops and support for probably just as long and just as bloody a conflict. And even then, you might just end up with the same kind of corrupt, fractured government that you have in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

But what we're doing right now is just terrible.

Enter Russia

Before I get started, readers should know by now that I'm generally extremely critical of Russia's foreign policy and territory-grabbing, to the point where I sometimes have to re-write posts to keep my frustration to a minimum.

At the UN, basically looking right through to the US Ambassador towards the White House, Putin says, "Do you now realize what you've done?"

For once, I've got to hand it to the guy. 

Russia has actually decided to end the war. It's putting troops in Syria and providing air cover to help Assad's troops carve back territory from rebels and ISIS alike. Russia's aim is to keep Assad in power, yes, but ending the war decisively will bring the nightmare of Syria to an end. 

Russia is actually the best opportunity the US has to get out of this. I know I said I wouldn't speculate on why we insist on such a stupid Syrian policy, but I think some of it is an attempt to "be consistent" and generally save face: we're not going to suddenly start supporting our named "bad guy" in the fight. And we've already backed down once on a line we drew in the sand (chemical weapons). We're probably resistant to coming out and admitting we're wrong.

But we're wrong, and it's killing lots of people.

Russia has proposed a political solution: the rebels ally with Assad to take out ISIS, and in 2 years after everything has settled a bit (which is pretty ambitious), you have elections. If the Syrian people want Assad, he stays, even if he's awful.

"Erik, are you saying we should change policy and prop up Assad?" Absolutely. We should have done it years ago, before each army was beat to snot, but while the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the 2nd best time is now.

The way out is to work together with Russia and Iran, withdraw our support for the Syrian rebels, and tell them they get no more weapons or air cover unless they stop fighting Assad and turn all their guns on ISIS, full-stop. Any group that doesn't becomes our enemy.

It would be embarrassing to admit. But diplomacy is weird: everyone can know we're doing something stupid, but we somehow save face by not admitting it.

But what we're doing in Syria is immoral. 300,000 people have died, the country is a giant pile of rubble, 12 million people have left their homes (only 1/3 of which have made it to the tent-camps of other countries). The moral move in Syria is to end the war. The only way to do that--excepting an Iraq-style commitment that risks direct conflict with Russia--is to support Assad. Full-stop. 

This is Way, Way Worse than Iraq

Hopefully you have been reading this with my instruction to draw parallels to Bush and Iraq.

Syria's worse. Way worse. It has led to the deaths of maybe half of Iraq's 600,000 (and led to the deaths of more than 3x Afghanistan's 100,000) body count, but Iraq also has twice the population of Syria--so in much less time, as much of the country has been killed. Far more have lost their homes.

And unlike Iraq, there is absolutely no end in sight, and the destruction of Syria has been far more thorough than the destruction if Iraq. Iraq has cities, and an economy. Its GDP per capita (PPP) is about $15,000 per year and has been growing every year since the Hussein regime fell. Syria's GDP per capita (PPP) has dropped to maybe $2,000 after having lost more than 60% of its economic output (without the war, it would probably be about $7.000). Its HDI is hard to measure, but basically imagine that everyone in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Derna, Idlib, Palmyra, etc, is living in bombed-out concrete husks without access to basic supplies, and 10% of the population is stuck under ISIS. 

The Syrian war's human toll--and long-term consequences--make Iraq pale in comparison. And it's the way it is because of US policy since 2011.

The Controversy over Syrian Refugees is Comically Depressing

The outrage over some in the US not wanting to take 10,000 Syrian refugees is not wrong, but it's completely misplaced. The idea that our moral duty here is primarily to 10,000 people currently in Turkish or German or Greek camps, and not to the 17,000,000 Syrians we're subjecting to a protracted, nightmarish war so the current administration can try to save face, is absurd.

Why the same Americans that protested Iraq aren't in the streets now protesting Syria is beyond me, but my current guess is that the guys in charge are wearing the Blue Team jersey rather than the Red Team jersey.

Screed over.

Iraq Surrounds Anbar--and Might Actually Succeed in its Offensive

I'll continue to contend that the Iraqis are much better on offense than they are on defense: even with ISIS well dug-into a city and planting bombs everywhere, the Iraqis can slowly slog forward, in part because they're confident they're unlikely to get captured and tortured by ISIS troops when the Iraqi troops have managed to surround a city and besiege it.

Ramadi will be like Tikrit: Iraqi forces have surrounded the city completely, and are working on shoring up supply/reinforcement lines, positioning troops, and training local volunteers before moving in. The Shiite militias, who might otherwise pose a major problem in the occupation of Ramadi, are staying on the outskirts to block ISIS reinforcements and prevent retreating ISIS troops from getting away to launch a counter-attack. In part, they'll stand "at the back of" Iraqi regulars and Sunni militiamen.

Unlike Tikrit, US airstrikes will be involved from the start. These airstrikes made the capture of Tall Abyad (Syria) and Baiji (north on the map below) much quicker. Recall that the airstrikes also ended the very stalled siege of Tikrit.

Note as well that Iraqi troops are holding al-Baghdadi and Haditha, which means that reinforcements from Syria would have to go through miles of Iraqi checkpoints, and retreat from Ramadi into Syria would be difficult--again, a good sign for preventing a counter-attack in the future.

The Iraqis are also working on surrounding Fallujah. The map here is actually a bit out of date: the Iraqis claim they've captured the dam and secured the river south of the city, and are "at the gates" of Fallujah. Trying to take both cities at once will be a meat grinder, but it's important: if only one was attacked and the other left open, ISIS troops could retreat from one to the other, only to counter-attack later. Besieging both means that ISIS troops in both cities are isolated (this tactic was used to great effect by the Communist Chinese forces against the Nationalists), and the Iraqis can take their time, advance slowly, and strike where ISIS has been softened up by airstrikes.

In Anbar, time is on the Iraqis' side. Because they're training local militiamen--in large part to keep the peace after the fighting as credible local forces--they may even stretch out the operation, as painful as it seems to consider. Forces from al-Baghdadi may also advance towards Hit and try to guarantee no safe haven for ISIS troops after the Ramadi and Fallujah assaults.

This is a case where Iraq's strategy is to accept the hard fight, take the American's help, and try to eliminate (rather than simply dislodge) ISIS forces in Anbar. Doing so will mean that fewer troops will have to stay behind to garrison Anbar (and many fewer will need to garrison surrounding Baghdad, which remains under threat from ISIS' presence in Fallujah), and thus that more can be committed to the final brutal push towards Mosul.

Expect fighting in both cities to start up within the week.

The Kurds' Strategic Chokehold of ISIS

The Kurds are moving so fast that the venerable Wikipedia article map on the ISIS war hasn't caught up yet. Enjoy your well-deserved vacation, user/editor Eratosthenian.

After taking Tall Abyad, the Kurds pushed south to secure Ain Issa and the nearby Brigade 93 army base. First, I'll draw it on the Wikipedia map I've been using for some time to give general context.

Looks like a march to al-Raqqah! Don't get too excited: the Kurds have no intentions of assaulting the city. But there's still very good news afoot: the Kurds are setting up their final choking of ISIS, which will assist the war efforts in both Iraq and Syria even if the Kurds sit around doing a whole lot of not-much once they regain Kurdish territory.

Let's look at a map with some roads for context--I doodled on Google Maps to get the idea across. The lines aren't that accurate mile-by-mile, but bear with me.

In the lower-right of the map we see al-Raqqah. Route 6 goes north to Tall Abyad, which is the closest crossing out of ISIS territory, to Turkey. We know that for some time, people, goods, and arms were flowing out of Turkey into Syria from the border crossing there. Now they're not. Already ISIS-held territory is seeing a spike in the price of food and other basic goods (according to the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights), which means shortages could loom if they're not able to establish another supply line elsewhere: the Euphrates has limited agricultural capacity and most domestic food comes from the West, which is not under ISIS control (and Syria is a net importer of many staple goods, like wheat). ISIS may be facing food shortages in the future, which could cripple the regime far faster than airstrikes.

Why is Ain Issa (the red-black marker on the map north of al-Raqqah) significant? Ultimately, it blocks ISIS from having access to the M4, which means the Kurdish rear is secure for an assault on Manbij. To get West from al-Raqqah, ISIS must travel along route 4 to the south of the Euphrates. Expect the Kurds to be regrouping quickly from the Tall Abyad assault, consolidating Samin, and then racing across the Euphrates via the M4 to take Manbij and Al Bab, both of which are heavily-settled Kurdish areas. Given recent Kurdish success so close to al-Raqqah and their new-found positioning advantage from taking Ain Issa, I expect the Kurds' chances are good.

The Kurds' final push in Syria will be to link up with their forces in the northwest and establish a secure front just north of Aleppo and across the Turkish border. Once they do this, they'll control all border crossings to Turkey, cutting ISIS off completely from foreign trade or smuggling. Securing al-Hasakah will also cut ISIS off from a concentrated area of arable land.

(I've included USDA agricultural maps of Syria and Iraq below to emphasize that ISIS' holdings are largely a bunch of non-arable desert).

 ISIS has been funded primarily through plunder and extortion, rather than production: without places to trade, their (admittedly vast) reserves of cash will become far less valuable. It will become very hard, very quickly, to get access to foreign fighters, weapons and ammunition, and food. The Kurds completing their conquests of northwestern Syria and the areas around al-Hasakah will complete a trade, recruitment, and agricultural choke-hold of ISIS, meaning time will no longer be on ISIS' side. And that's a really, really big deal.

Kurds Close the Gap in the North

The Kurds have, in a few days, closed the gap around Tall Abyad and pushed south of the river in the east towards Hasakah. In a series of Middle Eastern wars that have chugged along with agonizing sluggishness, this arena has moved shockingly quickly.

In Tall Abyad, fighting continues, but Kurdish forces made sure to surround Tall Abyad from the south, creating pockets to squeeze in on and eliminate the ISIS forces there, rather than letting them flee towards all-Raqqah, which should dampen the risk of a major counter-offensive.

Via @kairbdamoyd, on Twitter

The Syrians will be grateful for the closing of the Tall Abyad border crossing. This will mean a bit of long-term relief from ISIS so they can focus on killing each other instead.

In the east, the offensive to the east of Hasakah will make inaccessible both Route 1 and Route 47 that head to Mosul.

This would essentially cut off Mosul from ISIS reinforcements in Syria, where they're strongest. To get to Mosul, ISIS would have to run convoys through the desert and well away from major metropolitan areas, making them easy pickings for coalition jets. The Iraqis will be grateful.

In the medium-term, if the Kurds can hold off any ISIS counter-attacks (which seems likely--Syrian ISIS are bogged down in the west), they'll move west to take Manbij and close the gap between their central forces and their forces hanging out in the northwest of Syria, which would make the Kurds in control of all predominantly Kurdish territory in both Syria and Iraq.

The Kurds are likely hoping for at least an autonomous zone in Syria, like they have in Iraq--and depending on how long/damaging the Syrian civil war is, they might just be able to break off and form their own country. They're showing a capacity to defend and govern in Syria, where the Assad and rebel governments have not. The expansion of Kurdish territory in Iraq is likely to also expand Kurdish governance in those areas in the long-term, though the Iraqi government is not so broken-apart that they'll allow the Kurds to break away entirely.

Iraq & Kurds on Lightning Offensive in ISIS Weak Spots

This war is a roller-coaster ride: ups-and-downs, victories and defeats. Today we get to focus on some good news.

ISIS seems to have weakened itself in some areas in order to launch offensives in others. According to CIA estimates it only has a few tens of thousands of troops (20-30k), and it's trying to fight over a vast territory. It's bound to have weak spots.

We also know that Iraq is much better at offensives than on the defense: being able to pound targets with artillery and US airstrikes and assault once they're "softened" is much easier than trying to hold out by standing around, waiting for a bunch of nearby cars to all blow up at once.

Iraqi Shiite militias are also about as tough as the Kurds, so in areas where Iraq can employ them (in the east), they also tend to have greater successes.

Such has been at the root of a recent decisive territorial gain by Iraq.

Iraq

Iraq counter-attacked not in Ramadi to try to dislodge ISIS there, but in Baiji, north of Tikrit. In about a day they were able to move in and take the city center and refinery, and are now mopping up suburbs, engaged around the entire area. If it's anything like post-Tikrit, we should expect that whole area to be red in a week.

It sets the Iraqis up to be able to push north towards Mosul, which they may do next rather than getting too entangled in Anbar in their march to break the back of ISIS.

Kurdish Syria

Over the past two weeks the Kurds have been ripping across ISIS-held territory, liberating hundreds of villages. They're looking just weeks away from closing the gap in the north and linking up at Tall Abyad.

Some quick detail on the map, from left to right:

1) The Kobane forces--hardened, reinforced, and supported by US airstrikes--are pushing east after consolidating territory to the south. 

2) Forces from the east are pushing west to link up with them, though a bit more slowly. They're showing no signs of stopping right now.

3) After being bottled up for months at the Tall Tamer river crossing, the Kurds broke through and have liberated a densely-populated Kurdish population there, securing the west side of Hasakah.

4) We can see Kurdish forces have also broken through the river at Tall Brak, and are pushing south, likely to surround ISIS forces in Hasakah and secure the border crossing into Iraq from the other side.

If the Kurds are successful, they'll make their next push west, towards Manaj, and secure a line towards Aleppo. This would cover all heavily-Kurdish territory in the north, so the Kurds would slow down (or stop expanding entirely), but very good news will stem from their success:

1) It will stop the flow of fighters and arms coming from Turkey into Syria, so it will be harder for ISIS to refill its ranks and supplies in Syria.

2) It will mean the continued killing of ISIS troops.

3) It will make it harder for ISIS to reinforce Mosul--they'll be down to one highway in the desert (they won't be able to sneak north through more populated areas) so their supply trains will be highly vulnerable to airstrikes if they attempt reinforcement and resupply during the Iraqi/US assault.

Dark and Bright Spots on the Middle Eastern War Maps

Over the past few weeks, ISIS has made a major comeback in Iraq and has gained significant ground in all the non-Kurdish parts of Syria. They're expanding territory in eastern Libya amid the renewed civil war there, and hold almost all of eastern Yemen. It's looking bad. The American/Jordanian-led air campaigns are just not enough to keep them bottled up.

In Anbar (Iraq) and northern Syria, there are a few bright spots that are worth highlighting.

Iraq

Ramadi fell to ISIS a few weeks back, despite a significant numerical advantage on the part of Iraqi forces. US command says the Iraqi forces lost their will to fight, which is surprising, given the number of attacks they'd repelled in the previous weeks. 

Iraq is responding by sending in the Shiite militias, though right now it seems that they're working on surrounding Fallujah rather than Ramadi, which suggests that ISIS forces had been dispatched from Fallujah to take and hold Ramadi, leaving Fallujah open to attack. Shiite militias in Sunni-dominated Anbar will doubtless be a major problem, but Iraq is stuck choosing between bad options if its regular forces turn tail when attacked.

Syria

In all non-Kurdish territory, ISIS keeps pushing south and west. They've taken Palmyra and are now holding positions near both Damascus and Daraa. I'm thinking that the best hope to end the war is that ISIS threatens Damascus and other major population centers like Daraa and Homs so much that the rebels and gov't form a deal to deal with them.

The one bright spot is that the Kurds have gone on a major offensive. They finally crossed the river in the northeast to reclaim hundreds of villages that ISIS held, and they're moving fast. They've alleviated pressure on Qamishli and are surrounding Hasakah from the west. From Kobane, they're moving east towards Tall Abyad, albeit more slowly--this crossing is an important supply line from Turkey for ISIS and they'll fight for it. But the Kurds are looking poised to link up in the north. I also anticipate they'll keep moving south from Qamishli to surround Hasakah from the east... but they'll probably stop there and hold, as liberating al-Raqqah (ISIS' capital) is not on their agenda. They're looking out for their own.

Yemen

In Yemen, the government forces are so pressed by Houthi forces in the west that their eastern backyard has been almost entirely taken over by ISIS. There's little in the way of good news there, and the stalemate--like in Syria and Libya--just means more room for ISIS to maneuver. Saudi Arabia and Syria are more concerned with the Houthis than ISIS right now, so ISIS gets to roam free.

Libya

Similarly, stalemate here means ISIS gets room to play. The Tobruk government just can't bottle ISIS up in the east, and they're taking control of population centers. Ansar al-Sharia, an ISIS ally for the moment, holds parts of Benghazi. It looks like the government offensive towards Tripoli has stalled out completely. What's odd about this conflict is just how little fighting is actually happening. Looking at the Wikipedia article gives a sense of how oddly quiet the past few months have been, and how few casualties there are. I'm not sure why it's slowed down, particularly in the east (although gov't forces are still fighting in Benghazi).

Finally, a bit of good news. An ISIS member took a selfie at a big Syrian ISIS HQ, posted it with a location to the Internet, and that gave the US the intel necessary to bomb the HQ, destroying it completely. 

Tides Reversing in Middle Eastern Wars

Looking at maps is my way of procrastinating, so I get to find the seemingly little changes going on week-to-week in the Middle Eastern conflicts in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Go check our most recent post on these wars that show progress by US-supported forces.

For clarification, the US supports:

• In Libya: the Tobruk government (red)
• In Syria: the "moderate" rebels (green)
• In Iraq: the government & allies (red)
• In Yemen: government forces (red)

Here's the update:

Libya

Libya Dawn (Tripoli government) has broken the siege of Tripoli and is pushing back. The Tobruk government's attack is floundering.

If we look to the south, we see some angry Tuaregs (who I imagine as pretty hardened mountain-fighters) have managed to capture a large swath of Libya for themselves and are challenging Tobruk's power there. I'm not sure what their goal is: maybe power-sharing, maybe independence.

Other unaffiliated local groups in Bani Walid and Tawergha have taken control from Libya Dawn--I believe they're actually old Gaddafi loyalists who are uninterested in either group. 

In general, we're seeing the fighting between Tripoli and Tobruk, meaning doors are left wide open in their own backyards for smaller groups to start some form of self-rule/splintering, which is going to be a recurring theme.

Iraq

The attempt to surround Ramadi is failing right now, and I'm not sure what the heck the Iraqi forces are doing with themselves--they should be able to outnumber and overwhelm Ramadi, but it may be the case that without Shiite militias, they're going to continue to struggle. In the past weeks, they had taken some of this territory and pushed deeper into Ramadi, along with repelling ISIS counter-attacks. But the once-imminent surrounding of Ramadi has been held up at best. Let's see if Iraqi forces reinforce further to finish off the fight. 

If Ramadi is taken, Iraqi forces would be able to comfortably cut off Fallujah for a protracted siege.

Syria

"Moderate" rebel advances in the south along the border with Israel have been pushed back. Slogging north that way would have given the rebels plausible access to Damascus that wouldn't involve taking Daraa--if they fail here, they'll be quite bottled up.

Another option for the rebel forces appears to be trying to link up between Inkhil and Tubna to cut off Daraa and besiege the city, but their forces seem to be committed to the north and in Umam Walad.

Yemen

The Houthis have made a major counter-assault in Ma'rib and Tai'zz, taking back Tai'zz and surrounding Ma'rib. They've also pushed back in Ataq and halted the southern coastal advance by government forces. It's looking increasingly bleak for government forces.

We're seeing, of course, that forces committed to red/green battle lines are allowing ISIS to make advances in ignored areas, so they've managed to pop up in the middle there, which will prove hugely frustrating (in addition to just terrible for the people of Yemen).

For the sake of beating ISIS, decisiveness--one way or another--is key in these civil wars. The continuing ambiguity is going to give them space to grow.

Quick Update on Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen

There's been moderate but notable movement in the past few weeks across war fronts in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen; I'll highlight them below.


Libya:
After having been initially repelled, army troops (loyal to the elected government) have moved to encircle Tripoli with support from Zintan militias. They've also moved into Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad from the east, taking those towns back from ISIS.

Iraq:

Government reinforcements have almost surrounded Ramadi, and will counter-siege the ISIS troops in the city. If they take it, expect the government to attempt to similarly encircle Fallujah, just to the east.

Northern Syria:
Kurdish troops are making very slow progress across the Nar al Khabur river into a densely-populated area of Kurdish villages under the control of ISIS. They're battling desperately to take these villages back after finding mass graves in the area.

Southern Syria:
Free Syrian Army troops are making agonizingly slow progress against Syrian government troops in the south, around Daraa. They've recently taken the Nassib crossing and reinforced the Quintera crossing. Closing off Daraa has been attempted and repelled a few times, but would give the FSA access to the highway going north towards Damascus, their final target. They may attempt to circle in from the west, near Quinteria, to link up with pockets of troops to the southwest of Damascus.

Yemen:
The Saudi coalition's air campaign has reversed the Houthi tide, and government troops are making some gains. They're barely holding on to Aden, and are trying to relieve pressure by taking surrounding areas to the west, northwest, and north of the city. They've also moved west from Madrib and are attempting to use Saudi air support to seriously threaten Sana'a.

And, because it will make everyone's day: ISIS and the Taliban have declared jihad against each other.


Sources: All images from Wikipedia:

• ISIS War
• Yemeni Civil War
• Libyan Civil War

How the Battle Lines Against ISIS in Iraq Have Moved Over Time

To show progress against ISIS in Iraq, the Pentagon put out a graphic that is somewhat comically difficult to understand. But after the Pentagon's disastrous Powerpoint slide on Afghanistan, we've come to expect little else.

So I decided I'd work with the fine folks in Wikipedia (thanks, guys!) to make a GIF that shows how the battle lines have moved since the ISIS offensive with a few pointers about key events. It's not perfect, but I think it's a big improvement.

Enjoy, and feel free to share or put in your own content.

(Click here for an even larger size.)

And in case you want to look at the photos individually below:

Infographic: Major Conflicts in the Middle East

I decided to try my hand at an infographic to get everyone caught up in all the major mayhem in the Middle East currently going on.

If everyone likes it, more will come to try to give the big picture on some individual conflicts.

Enjoy! (Click here for bigger version of the infographic)

Tikrit Falls to Iraqi Forces; US Solidifies Role as Leader Against ISIS

Tikrit has fallen.

Mop-up operations are underway, but the Iraqi national flag now flies over the city, and ISIS is broken.

Iraqi forces should be moving quickly north to secure the Baji road and oil refinery before securing, regrouping, and supporting Ramadi to make sure the ISIS advance there is halted. And then, of course, there will be a few-months' ramp-up to take Mosul.

Key Takeaways:

The advance into Tikrit was halted around March 6th as the army/Shiite militias faced heavy sniper fire and dug-in pockets of resistance.

US airstrikes started up just under a week ago after the Iraqi government requested the support to break ISIS resistance. Those airstrikes prompted most of the 20,000 Shiite militiamen--who generally don't like the US and see themselves as more closely aligned with Iranian interests--to boycott the siege and go home, leaving about 3,000 Iraqi Army troops, 1,000 Sunni fighters, and about 2,000 Shiite fighters. It left a lot of glaring holes in the siege.

But the airstrikes proved decisive.

After softening ISIS targets (which had probably thought themselves unlikely to have to face such airstrikes), the US suspended its operations and the Shiite militias quickly came back to launch the final assault.

The city fell one day after the air campaign, after 3 weeks of no progress.

The US is gloating a bit, and with good reason. US officials are taking the opportunity to show that Iran can't alone support the Iraqi advance. This is a precedent-setting kind of event: the US was "snubbed" last month when Iraq's government moved into Tikrit with Shiite militias and Iranian ground support, without informing the US or requesting support.

Giving in to request the support was a sign the Iraqis had realized they need it. The fact that the city was taken so quickly after the strikes cements the US' future role.

This means one of two things: either the US and Iran will work more closely together, or the Iranians will have a much-reduced role in the Iraqi offensives in the future.

This cementing also means that the US is going to be leading the assault on Mosul, which is about 20x larger than Tikrit and has many more ISIS fighters dug in. It's clear that the Mosul operation is a non-starter without that air support.

Shiite militias will make a lot of noise about not needing the US, but I do believe that Tikrit will be weighing heavily on their minds when they are planning the Mosul advance, and that despite the high tensions, the militias will begrudgingly go in with US air support.

It's worth noting: Tikrit probably had far more than the 2,000 ISIS fighters initially estimated--the Iraqi government cites about 13,000, but this is probably inflated. The good news is that this means the Iraqis have shown that they can win with about 2:1 odds, rather than the 10:1 or 15:1 previously thought. Mosul also has about 12,000 ISIS fighters, so the fight will not be an order-of-magnitude difference (though will obviously take much longer and be more complicated due to Mosul being about 20x larger in land mass).

But ongoing US airstrikes are making it hard for ISIS to dig in as deeply as it would like, and the ISIS governor ("Prince of Mosul") and Mosul's top ISIS military commander have both been killed by airstrikes.

Middle East War Update: Libyan Civil War Back On; Saudis Attack Yemen

Libya:

The key bit of news for Libya is that as of March 20^th, the Libyan civil war is back on in full swing, and Tobruk government forces are quickly moving to surround Tripoli. They seem to have caught Libya Dawn—who has been focused on fighting ISIS—off guard.

A Quick Reminder of the Players:

·         Tobruk Government: the newly-elected parliament (House of Representatives) and Presidential Council. Backed by the army. Generally considered the legitimate government due to having won the most recent elections.

·         Libya Dawn: the greater Islamist umbrella siding with the “New General National Council,” which was the General National Council until they were defeated in elections and refused to step down. Also called just the “Islamist Government” due to being an alliance of Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood to Ansar al-Sharia (and the electorally-defeated New GNC is highly Islamist).

More in my recent post on Libya, here.

Quick 2015 Timeline:

·         January 16^th:  Libya Dawn and Tobruk Government ceasefire. Unity Government talks launched.

Jan 21 Map Post-Ceasefire. From Wikipedia. Red = Tobruk Gov't; Green = Libya Dawn; Grey/Black = ISIS.

·         Interregnum period: lots of fighting with ISIS.

·         Feburary 20^th: Tobruk Government’s House of Representatives votes to cut off talks with Libya Dawn  / New GNC.

March 20^th Map: Greatest Extent of ISIS Control

·         March 20^th: Tobruk government re-launches hostilities against Libya Dawn to take Tripoli

·         March 23^rd: Tripoli attacked under siege

March 22^nd Map With Tobruk Gov’t Assault. Note ISIS Positions Contracting. Note white = Ansar al-Sharia.

The fact that Tobruk Government forces were so quick to make progress to surround Tripoli suggests they were able to conceal the size and position of their forces.

(This is often why military groups are wary of ceasefires, by the way: they give the other side breathing room to regroup, resupply, and reposition. It’s why Ukraine was so bloody upset after Minsk I.)

Despite being beaten back in the past 2 months, ISIS is likely to make a comeback as Libya Dawn and Tobruk focus on each other.

Yemen:

With Iran-backed Shiite Houthis pressing down on Aden (the last major stronghold of elected-government forces), on March 25th Saudi Arabia decided to (at the behest of Yemen’s President) launch a military operation to push the Houthis back and restore the government. They’re claiming currently that they have a 10-country Arab (probably all Sunni-controlled) coalition, and they have amassed heavy weapons and troops along the border, just north of the Houthi’s strongest presence.

The Saudis have launched airstrikes to get things started, likely as they organize for a ground assault with the rest of the coalition. Egypt is sending ships to the area right now for support.

What finally spurred the Saudi intervention was the very rapid advance of Houthi forces towards Aden over the past 4 days--if Aden falls and the President is captured, the government comes very close to being booted out of the war entirely:

 March 22nd. Red = Gov't forces. Green = Houthis. Yellow = South Yemen Separatists. Grey = ISIS/Al-Qaeda.

March 26th

Yemen is the hottest spot right now for the ongoing Sunni-Shiite regional war and the Iranian/Arab regional war, which have very high overlap. Syria’s civil war is the secondary battleground, though outside nations are not committed to invading directly and are wary enough of the strength of ISIS that they are taking a break of sorts. In Iraq, all parties seem so dedicated to beating ISIS that the hottest parts of the Sunni-Shiite fighting have been put aside almost entirely.

Iran will probably not respond militarily here other than to try to beef up Houthi forces; at this point neither the Gulf States nor Iran want all-out war--expect their conflict to continue as a series of proxy wars.

Iraqi Forces Enter Tikrit; Victory Looks Certain

Iraqi forces have Tikrit surrounded, after a week-long slog of clearing out bombs and snipers along the roads leading into the city.

They are entering the city from all sides now, attempting to squeeze out (and ideally eliminate during retreat) ISIS forces holed up inside. I believe at this point that victory is fairly inevitable, and that they'll move on next to clear ISIS forces currently combating government / Shiite troops in Baji. Expect the area below to become quite red after ISIS forces break.

The going will be slow now that they're in the city: ISIS predicted this was coming and scattered snipers and booby traps throughout the city, in the hopes of causing enough casualties to break the spirits of government troops.

(Twitter user @PetoLucem has a great chronological progression of government advances in Tikrit over the past few weeks, via Stratfor)

But it won't happen. The most important part of this offensive is that Iraqi forces do not break and run, and I suspect they won't. Iraq has hand-picked more reliable forces for this offensive, and the backing of very zealous Shiite militiamen and Iranian Quds forces is going to keep morale high as they demonstrate high morale and relative courage in the fighting. The total forces assaulting the city number a staggering 30,000, which likely outnumbers ISIS forces by about 10:1. There are just so many weapons pointed at ISIS forces that they will eventually get squeezed into defeat.

Expect the city to be cleared in 1-2 weeks as forces very slowly and carefully move house-to-house, hoping to minimize casualties. Baji will fall more quickly after that; it has many fewer ISIS fighters and government forces are already in the city, which will prevent the kind of entrenchment that ISIS was able to manage in Tikrit.

Implications
ISIS' days in Iraq are numbered, I think. Tikrit will be the victory the Iraqis need to build the morale and template for taking Mosul, which will allow them to turn their attention to Ramadi and Fallujah--those will be the hardest fights they have, but they'll have momentum on their side: Iraqi forces will inherit ISIS' air of inevitability.

ISIS' aura of inevitability and terror is starting to fizzle as they begin to lose to superior firepower, numbers, and training. That loss will hurt long-term recruiting, which means they'll actually be ground down to the point that they'll have to revert to asymmetric warfare (they set of 12 simultaneous car/suicide bombs in Ramadi and one bomb in Baghdad to try to disrupt the assault on Tikrit, for example). But because ISIS is claiming to be a caliphate, their authority erodes if they don't hold territory.

With victory coming, the most important factor in this advance is making sure that Shiite militiamen don't use this opportunity to carry out sectarian revenge killings. If they're able to keep their cool (and so far it's looking like they are, but the hard part will be after the main fighting ends) and leave Sunni civilians alone, the prospects for Fallujah and Ramadi will improve as Sunni civilians there begin to hope that government forces are a viable alternative to ISIS (they had previously probably helped ISIS to take hold there because they were so frustrated with Shiite rule in Iraq, but ISIS became more than they had bargained for).

Meanwhile, the Kurds in Syria continue a slow, steady slog towards the Tall Abyad border crossing with Turkey, which would close down a supply and reinforcement route (for foreign fighters) into Syria.