http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c6960aa-220f ... abdc0.html
Air strikes do little to impede progress of Isis in Iraq and Syria
By Sam Jones, Defence and Security Editor
An image taken from a propaganda video by Isis shows militants near the central Iraqi city of Tikrit©AFP
An image taken from a propaganda video by Isis shows militants near the central Iraqi city of Tikrit
US bombs may be falling once more on Iraq, but this week’s dramatic intervention belies a stark truth on the ground: the fightback against the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant, or Isis, has not begun. Indeed, it isn’t yet on the agenda.
Military analysts and the Pentagon itself admit that, while the use of military force two and a half years after the last American troops left Iraq, marks a turning point for the US, for the jihadist insurgency it barely marks a change in the direction of travel.
Around 20 strikes so far have achieved two short-term objectives: further advances by Isis into Kurdistan and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have been checked – although thousands of refugees remain stranded on a mountaintop – and Isis’ ability to manoeuvre freely without fear of the skies has been ended.
But the bigger questions over Isis’ growing power and how to curb it remain.
“We’ve had a very temporary effect,” lLieutenant-General Bill Mayville, director of operations at the US joint staff, said on Monday evening. “I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the threat posed by Isis.”
“They’re very well organised. They are very well equipped. They co-ordinate their operations. And they have thus far shown the ability to attack on multiple axes. This is not insignificant.”
The coming weeks and months will be critical in combating the Sunni insurgents. While the moves open to Baghdad and Washington are limited, the jihadis’ options are broad in range and scope.
Military analysts are beginning to parse Isis’ campaign objectives – many of which are well telegraphed in the group’s own internal propaganda materials, if not externally.
Isis’ attack on the Kurds – who only a month ago were described as a bastion of strength compared to the shambling, Baghdad-controlled regular army – fits a pattern of moves calculated to shock.
“Erbil was seen as a safe haven,” says John Drake, Iraq specialist at the private security and intelligence firm AKE. “It has a large foreign expatriate contingent; it has many oil industry workers and a large number of refugees. For Erbil to fall would not just be an embarrassment, it would be a disaster.”
Even for Erbil to be encroached upon, if not attacked, would cause “scenes of panic”, Mr Drake adds. And it is exactly such scenes that Isis’ past victories have in part depended on. “The psychological impact is very important to Isis in these battles. So many of their major gains have happened because their opponents have run away.”
Iraq map
But Isis’ Erbil offensive has not merely been about terror. It also fits into a broader objective of consolidating territory that has become the dominant driver of the group’s activities in the past two months.
“Isis is trying to establish a caliphate. And that caliphate has to have territorial integrity,” says Jessica Lewis, a former US military intelligence officer in Iraq and now research director at the Institute for the Study of War.
The offensive against the Kurds, Ms Lewis says, is designed to secure a deep hinterland for Isis around Mosul – the group’s financial and spiritual hub.
South-east of Mosul, the Great Zab river, which runs from the Iranian border into the Tigris, provides a natural boundary. Securing the two crossings at Kalak, on the road to Erbil, and Kuwayr, nearer the confluence with the Tigris, would be a boon to Isis’ geostrategic position. The group’s armour and new weaponry will be critical to this.
The group is now able to wield a large amount of sophisticated military equipment. Most of it has come from a string of victories in Syria, where Isis fighters have over-run several Syrian army bases, as well as from wiping out other rebel groups.
“Isis firepower has increased significantly,” says Ms Lewis – and the jihadis have displayed an ability to rapidly deploy it in concentrated amounts across their territory. “They are leveraging it immediately where they need it.”
"Isis is really good at attacking on one front to distract what they are doing or planning on another front"
- Jessica Lewis
Whether Isis’ Kurdish offensive succeeds or stalls, it is likely that the group’s leadership already has well-advanced plans for equally disruptive operations elsewhere across their sprawling territory.
“Isis is really good at attacking on one front to distract what they are doing or planning on another front,” notes Ms Lewis. He believes the group is operating at least seven “division-level” military systems independent of each other: Raqqa on the Euphrates in central Syria, eastern Syria, Anbar province in adjoining western Iraq, Mosul in northern Iraq, Baghdad in central Iraq, Diyala province in eastern Iraq, and southern Iraq.
In its broad, current strategy of consolidating ground, some objectives for those systems are clearer than others: only one significant Syrian army outpost now remains in Raqqa province, for example: the heavily fortified Tabqah air base.
In Iraq, meanwhile, Baghdad and other zones may come in for renewed attack.
“[Isis] follow a strategy of constant pressure,” according to one western intelligence official. “Just like AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq, Isis’ predecessor organisation]. Their thinking still shares a lot with them.”
AQI’s modus operandi was to operate and co-ordinate attacks in terms of rings.
For a more entrenched Isis, secure around its two main cities, Syrian Raqqa and Iraqi Mosul, the focus may once more return southawards to Baghdad, and the belt of sensitive Shia shrines surrounding it, not to mention the oil refinery at Baiji. All these sites would make for attractive targets – not least in seeking to exacerbate the vulnerabilities of prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi’s new and fragile coalition government
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Like the Romans..... 
