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ANALISIS OF MILITARY TACTICS

DEVELOPED BY ISLAMIC
FUNDAMENTALIST GROUPS
Federico Caprari

“If the enemy is superior in strength, evade him.

If his forces are united, separate them.

Attack him where he is unprepared; appear

where you are not expected.”
- Sun Zu, the Art of War

Terrorism and security threats in the euro-atlantic world

Master of Translatlantic Studies
INDEX
Historical background. Islam in the doctrines of war ................................................................... 1
Arab armies: organization and inoperability................................................................................. 2
Case studies ................................................................................................................................... 4
1. Mujahidin in the soviet-afghan war. The power of asymmetric warfare ......................... 4
2. Insurgency in Iraq after the US-led invasion. .................................................................... 5
- The birth of the Islamic State. ....................................................................................... 5
- Fall of Mosul .................................................................................................................. 6
3. Syrian civil war and tactics developed by ISIS. .................................................................. 7
4. Other conflict zones ........................................................................................................ 11
Terrorist attacks outside the middle-east, a call for foreign troops on the ground. .................. 11
Bibliography and articles of interest ........................................................................................... 12

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 Historical background. Islam in the doctrines of war
It may seem impressive the vast territory that organizations like the Islamic State have
managed to conquer in less than 3 years, but taking a historical perspective of the
expansion of Islam through-out the region we can appreciate that the amount of
territory conquered and influenced was superior, and indeed, in less amount of time (At
least until the Ottoman empire)

So, what made those quick expansions possible after all? Besides the religious
explanations of the willing of God, military tactics were applied and they are showcased
in the later rhetoric of fundamental Islamic groups.

1. Maneuverability: A key aspect for performing quick strikes were the vast use of
horses, light armours, decentralized command of units and the lack of a strong
opposing power, which facilitated the initial expansion of Mahoma and the
Caliphas.
2. Cohesion: A common religion and territorial goal were set in order to unite tribes
and different groups. The important part is not to renounce to a tribal heritage,
but instead add a superior layer of loyalty which is given by religion. Also
increasing tribal alliances.
 3. Brutality, compensated with rules: Indeed, Islamic warriors were brutal in
battlefield, which granted them the submission of tribes, the more victories they
achieved, the more tribes and groups pledged alliances by a fear factor. But on
the other hand, Islamic rule of the territory was innovative, they ensured a
common law for its subjects and also developed new discoveries in science, arts,
and created a long-lasting stability in a very diverse and previously chaotically
divided region.
4. Constant expansion: Religion aims to expand by considering unexploited regions
and subjects ignorants of the real faith, or if they tend to revolt from conquering,
infidels and misbelievers. Also, huge societies based on war tend to acquire more
and more territory, not only for resources, but also for personal interests among
rulers and subjects. War seems as a progressing opportunity (this was also seen
under the social system developed during the Roman Empire).

These aspects are fundamental to understanding the claims and objectives of the
fundamentalist groups, who usually dream of ruling the same territory once conquered
by Mahoma, Caliphas and the Ottoman empire. However, if in the past the reasons for
expanding were based on the spreading of religion, nowadays the focus is set on
“freeing” this Muslim societies from perverted ideologies and states that keep them
constantly in a submissive position, in contrast to the glorious times of the rule of
religious laws and social development.

Arab armies: organization and inoperability

Fast-forwarding a bit in history to the 20th century, the middle east is dominated mostly
by national-states of the panarabic movement (Egypt, Syria and Iraq as main
representatives) and theocracies (Saudi Arabia, Iran). This type of regimes had in
common an authoritarian influence in society, where the army can be also a key political
actor by adding or removing the rulers of the country.
In such a fragile balance of internal politics, the rule of the army is also to prevent
popular uprisings that may overthrow the status-quo. Therefore an army hypertrophy
takes place in order to control all the aspects of society.

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Leadership is also carefully selected, military merits don’t count as much as loyalty, so
negligent commanders that show to be more loyal to the regime than capable ones have
higher chances of progressing in the chain of command.

In this situation is easy to predict how such organization may react in a conflict, and in
fact, previous historical wars help us in this task: In the 6-day war, Israel achieved
superiority with de-moralization of the ground troops of Egypt after their aircraft was
destroyed in a preventive attack. Arab logistics were poor by not taking into serious
considerations the enlisted soldiers necessities, objectives were not clearly set and
crucial information of battleplans were held in few officers that refused to share it with
their companions in order to gain more value to the commanders. In top of all,
battlefield tactics require quick responses and strikes, where small organizational units
such as platoons have a huge role in winning battles. The system of the arab armies
required a constant supervision and approval of high commanding officers who were
bound to the political leaders, which slowed down dramatically the decision-making
process.

Cohesion inside the units of the army was also very low, with middle-range officers
endorsed in a promoting competition and generals focused more on political goals,
ground troops had low-morale and were mostly kept by fear-factors such as severe
repression and control by small fanatic units (Fedayeen Sadam in Iraq’s army during
Hussein’s rule, for instance). And in the hence of combat many choose to defect to the
enemy if they see the possibility of an increasing safety. Other important aspects are the
use of sophisticated arms without proper crew and maintenance service and the focus
on massive armoured-infantry based operations that are used to provide pride to the
nation’s military power abilities but in fact leaves little to no space for units to perform
tactical and clear assaults. Other issues affect the composing of the army itself, with
different divisions and units that have a duplication of functions due to the mistrust from
the leadership to its generals, causing a massive de-coordination in maneuvers and
ultimately, defeat.

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 Case studies
1. Mujahidin in the soviet-afghan war. The power of asymmetric warfare
From 1979 to 1989 the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan in order to provide stability
to the new socialist government by clearing their internal disputes and ensuring control
of the country against the traditional movements and ethnicities uprisings.

The Red Army encountered several problems when trying to defeat the Mujahidin, a
conglomerate of Islamic groups that sought to free Afghanistan from the invaders, which
were considered infidels by their secularization policies. Many foreign fighters arrived
from around the arab countries to provide assistance to this new islamist movement,
one of them the famously-known Bin Laden.

So, how did the mujahidin defeat the Red Army, considered to be the best ground force
of its time? In fact, the mujahidin lost most of the major battles, but kept constantly
harassing the soviet forces with quick attacks, camouflage against civilians and by
crossing the Afghan-pakistani border through the mountains. The Red Army stablished
outposts and search and destroy missions. However, they were mostly unsuccessful to
stop the fundamentalist uprising. If 1 mujahidin were killed, his family relatives joined
the movement based on revenge, increasing constantly the growth of the force with
subjects prone to be further radicalized in certain islamist doctrines. Also, soviet
infrastructure projects were severely attacked, leaving many regions isolated where
traditional movements always had a certain presence, conferring therefore a strong
population support for the mujahidin. On top of all, the situation became unsustainable
after the provision of high tech antiaircraft missiles by the US to the Mujahidin, who
then countered the Soviet air superiority and made the soviet logistics in the mountains,
where other valuable supplies were smuggled through Pakistan, almost impossible.

Overall the victory of the Mujahidin and later of the Taliban against the other religious
groups was possible by uniting different tribes with a common goal (expel the invader
and apply religious law in contrast with modernization policies) which gained them a
strong support of the population on the regions they operated combined with an
impressive maneuverability for performing quick attacks in inaccessible areas that
caused a mass attrition to the Red Army, leading to its eventual retirement.

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 2. Insurgency in Iraq after the US-led invasion.
Overthrowing Saddam Hussein from power was a fairly easy task for the US-led coalition,
in fact, in battle engagements the Iraqi soldiers opposed a significant small resistance
and defected with ease. The only real force that stood against the coalition was made
by the Fedayeen Saddam in a form of guerrilla warfare and some units of the Republican
Guard.

The main concerns of Saddam Hussein at the moment of the invasion was an internal
uprising of the Shias and the possible influence of Iran over it, therefore ordering the
loyal militias to prevent at all cost any type of revolt, in fact, Saddam was thinking in a
long-term stay on power, which focused him more on the internal affairs rather in the
external overthrow of power he was about to live.

- The birth of the Islamic State.

Now, at this point is where the situation gets complex. Islamic sunni movements were
already been developed in Iraq with the Faith Campaign of Hussein in 1993 with the
objective of diminishing the shia’s power. Some terrorist organizations have also been
organized in Iraq to perform foreign activities (those who had claims against the order
or Saddam were persecuted) and where the central authoritarian power of the Baath
party finished, chaos took place.

The policy conducted by the US was to give assistance to a shia government since they
represented the majority of the population. However, sunni tribes had been hugely
benefited during Saddam’s rule, and saw this new political overcome as a threat to their
own custom, creating religious based insurrection movements. Moreover, many citizens
were employed in the Baathist institutions (manly the army and police and secret
services) and with the new anti-baathist law, which forbidden former baath party
members to take part of any public service, many became unemployed and saw a good
opportunity in using their previously acquired abilities to the services of the new
insurgents, who then gradually radicalized its members into Salafism and other radical
doctrines of islam. By the same part, shia movements began to organize with the help
of Iran, some in support of the US-backed government and other refusing to accept the
foreign influence in the country. Sectarian war was already set, and it’s outcome
generate a massive chaos. Many weapons from the arsenal of the baath army were

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stolen by insurgent groups, who also relied on old tribal alliances and religious
background to expel both the other religious-ethnic groups and the foreign powers and
guided government. One of this groups was the Islamic State of Iraq, composed by
former Iraqi officials, foreign fighters and radical sunni members who were already
present in the country. The organization during this years wasn’t as powerful as others
such as Al-Qaeda, but eventually became noticeable after entering the Syrian conflict to
evade the decisive strikes of the US policy against terrorist organizations in Iraq that
diminished their operational power.

- Fall of Mosul
Fast-forwarding a bit and with the background events of the Syrian conflict and the
conquests done by the Islamic state there (which will be covered with further detail later
on) it’s time for merging the previous parts of this essay with the perfect example of a
military inoperability, asymmetric warfare and religious aspects all together: The fall of
Mosul under ISIS.

The second largest city of Iraq, composed mostly by sunni arabs was supposed to be
defended by 30.000 iraqi army soldiers plus police agents and armoured vehicles.

Because of the operations conducted by the army around the province of Ambar to fight
against the recent territory gained by ISIL, many units (especially heavy armoured
vehicles) where diverted, leaving the city defended by several infantry outposts around
it. Reports say that in fact, the number of soldiers defending the city was far below than
30.000, since many used a common bribery practice to their commanders to avoid
reporting for duty. After the misbelieving that ISIL will not perform any attack on the city
due to the killing of one of its main commanders, the group assaulted the outposts on
the west side of Mosul with armoured pick-up trucks, imposing a huge superiority in
maneuverability against the lightly defended foot soldiers. The main command of the
city then formed a defense line in west mosul, having some strongly defended buildings
with elite forces to prevent the conquest of the city. However, 2 major key factors
allowed ISIS to quickly overrun this forces.

1: The use of heavily bomb-loaded suicide trucks to destroy the army strong positions in
the west of the city, creating a massive breach in the defence line.

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2: The moving of the Iraqi command base from the west of the city to the outside on the
east. When regular soldiers saw the command staff crossing the Tigris River they
immediately though that retreating was taking place, with a huge moral effect in the
defensive line.

When ISIL in fact started to gain control over the city, many Iraqi soldiers who had a Shia
background saw no reason for defending the vastly sunni populated city who were
hostile towards them due to the sectarian crimes conducted before. Other sunni soldiers
rejected to take arms against sunni groups like ISIS and quickly defected. Many others
took civilian ropes to camouflage themselves among the population and escape from
the brutality of ISIS against captured soldiers.

The main commanding decisions during the battle of Mosul were taken by chief-officers
appointed specially by their ties with president Maliki. In fact, the president had the
ultimate decisions of key aspects of the battle, such as allowing the kurds to intervene.
The policy conducted previously by the central government also helped to shape the
result of the battle, when the population also helped ISIS fighters to win after months of
shia-appointed police brutality in the sectarian war described previously.

The offensive allowed ISIS to acquire all the equipment left by the Iraqi army, which
mainly granted them with more powerful vehicles, artillery and even aircraft pieces, who
then where used to perform a much larger operation towards Baghdad and to support
the ongoing operations in Syria.

(for more detail on the developments of the fall of Mosul please check the Bibliography)

3. Syrian civil war and tactics developed by ISIS.

The Syrian scenario was slightly different than the Iraqi one in many aspects.

At the beginning of the popular uprising against the rule of Assad (from the alawite, shia
tribe) the regime made sure to polarize the political situation in order to justify strong
responses against the arab spring movement taking place in its country. In fact it did so
by releasing several sunni islamist fundamentalists that were kept in prison under his
rule, it also tacitly allowed Iraqis and foreign sunni organizations to operate in the
eastern part of Syria in order to reduce the influence of the Free Syrian Army.

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The Syrian Arab Army (regime’s force) was not prepared for asymmetrical warfare, since
its main purpose was historically set to a war against Israel, therefore the regime
adapted itself with the use of different weapons that could provide them superiority in
urban environments such as barrel bombs and chemical weapons. The main objective
was to discourage further resistance and to force the civilian population to move to
regime-controlled areas, crippling the manpower of the rebels, destroying their
resources and therefore making impossible for them to organize as an alternative rule
for the country. In some rural areas, the regime transferred several division to the urban
areas, leaving many parts of the country relatively unprotected or with some few army
strongholds that ensured the control of huge regions.

Although some defections occurred during the conflict, the Syrian army could stand on
itself based on tribal alliances, the use of militia local forces like the Shabiha and the
assistance of groups such as Hezbollah. The main alliance concept was to preserve the
Syrian institutions from fundamentalist rebels that could destroy the stability of the
country, and with the policy of radicalizing the opposition movements, this became a
reality.

Suddenly the moderate opposition movements were deeply influenced or displaced by

Islamic sunni radical ones, such as Al-Nusra. In fact, this new groups provided better
trained fighters, funding and equipment, which allowed them to conquer good portions
of the country, mostly rural areas already populated with sunni arabs, leaving some
urban areas controlled by the FSA, FSA+Al-Nusra, Kurdish fighters, Kurdish + FSA and in
general a huge amount of different alliances depending on local facts. Other regions
with a diversity tradition such as latakia or Damascus remained under full or partial
control of the FAA.

Now with this situation, the Islamic State enters syrian territory as a gateway from the
huge persecution they’re facing in Iraq with the killing of their leaders and the disputes
with other organizations such as Al-Qaeda. The most important fact to understand is
that the initial expansion of ISIS is not against the Syrian regime, since it supposed a
major opponent, but against other groups present in the region. ISIS gradually absorbed
many of their fellow Islamic fundamentalist fighters through contacts made during the
imprisonments in Iraq, Syria and during the sectarian conflict, and although it

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cooperated initially with stronger organizations such as Al-Nusra, it ended up actively
engaging them with the use of brutal battle tactics and a faster recruiting system that
simplified the religious theory and ideology taught to new members, allowing for a quick
expansion of the group specially after the acquisition of new territory, better rule of
sharia law based on brutality and increasing resources coming both from inside the
controlled areas and abroad.

After replacing Al-Nusra front as the main fundamental islamist group in the Syrian
conflict, ISIS focused on further expansion towards regime-controlled areas, relegating
Al-Nusra and other rebel groups to continue the fight in some cities but without major
expansion options. So far, Al Nusra was the organization that managed to conquer the
most among the rebel groups, this was done through maneuverability and the
mentioned lack of attention of the regime forces towards rural desertic areas as long as
vital resources were not threatened. The Islamic state, however, aimed further in this
expansion and started to build a significant state-alike infrastructure, not only by setting
taxes or trading the resources it possessed, but after the fall of Mosul and other
important cities they acquired significant military equipment and resources such as gold,
cash, treasuries and land that boosted the morale of their militants, increasing the
dreamed Caliphate with symbolic acts such as the elimination of “fake” borders (Syria-
Iraq) or the conquest of important places in the Islamic tradition (mosul mosk for
example).

With all this new power the military tactics were adapted but kept the main focus on
powerful strikes, speed/maneuverability and fear along the enemy. The FAA strongholds
that were previously untouched by other rebel groups fell under the suicide-driven
bombed trucks, that created major breaches in the defense lines and confusion in the
battles. For conquering small villages or for surrounding units, rapid vehicles with
machine guns were deployed. In the case of urban areas a vast use of snipers + suicide
bombers was used to decimate defending forces. This combination of tactics aimed to
have a quick control of areas that in fact took for surprise the regime forces, who were
focused on not losing large cities they’ve been besieging (or being besieged) for months.

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The response from the SAA was no other than an increased amount of airstrikes into ISIS
positions, combined with alliances with other groups such as the Kurdish democratic
army, since ISIS had created a big amount of enemies around its expansion.

The constant battles and the fear of sectarian war into society helped to keep the SAA
in cohesion, together with the increasing aid and eventual intervention of foreign
powers such as Iran and Russia.

On the other side, the ISIS rule was based on a brutal strict interpretation of the sharia
law, and battlefield tactics did not consider civilians as subjects to be worth defending,
therefore using human-shields or a mining tactic to slow-down the regime and allies
advance, causing mass destruction of villages and cities if they were not previously
destroyed enough by the bombing campaigns. In destroyed environments ISIS had
operational advantage over the other forces since their lack of heavy armoured vehicles
allowed them to move and re-conquer easily some urban positions, using snipers,
suicide bombers and mines to cause a general attrition into the defending forces.
2015

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 4. Other conflict zones
Now, the main focus has been in the main conflicts of the middle east. However, other
conflicts should also be taken into consideration for understanding asymmetry in
different environments and how it develops. For example, the Yemeni civil war, Boko
Haram in Nigeria or the chaos and multi-government situation in Libia reflect also the
military tactics explained above.

Terrorist attacks outside the middle-east, a call for foreign troops

on the ground.
Although the main battleground of terrorist organizations such as ISIS or AL-Qaeda have
been in the middle east for achieving the caliphate and freeing muslim communities
from governments that don’t follow the sharia law and clearing the perverting influence
of western societies values in the region, other attacks have been conducted outside the
main point of action, especially Europe, Turkey and the US had been stricken in order to
spread a feeling of fear among them to show their weaknesses. Also, this targeting
policies from the terrorist organizations has to do with ideological precepts, where
“apocalyptic battles will take place in the holy land and the evil will be defeated for once
and ever, allowing the message of the calipha to spread“. This indeed has to do with
forcing western powers to intervene in the region as a ground force, therefore
continuing the war and gathering more and more followers to strengthen the cohesion
of the radical Islamic movement and expanding it’s ruled territory. The fact is, the
greatest real enemy yihadists is not the western powers, but moderated islam, which is
constantly fought by increasing sectarian war inside the muslim communities. Corrupted
policies by governments that provide privileges of one tribe or clan over another and
generate mass poverty laying the ground for muslim charities to ensure basic social
assistance, foreign interference and funding of radical groups by regional powers such
as Saudi Arabia and Iran, foreign invasions and interference in regional aspects (US
invasion of Iraq, 2003) or the lack of them (moderated rebels expected US-NATO
assistance to overthrow Assad as it did with Gaddafi), the tight balance between
modernization and tradition make the middle east a very complex, sometimes volatile,
region, where every single decision has to be carefully meditated, since every small
alteration of the order can have deep consequences in future developments.

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 Bibliography and articles of interest
This are some interesting articles about the different topics discussed, they don’t
compose the full bibliography of the research process but help to provide more specific
details to the explanations of the essay.

1) Islam’s expansion:
 “The rise of Islamic empires and states” – Khan academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-
history/medieval-times/spread-of-islam/a/the-rise-of-islamic-
empires-and-states
2) Soviet-afghan war:
 “Soviet war in Afghanistan” -Alan Taylor (mostly pictures)
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/08/the-soviet-war-in-
afghanistan-1979-1989/100786/
 “The soviet-afghan war” -Feature History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDQLHFBp4aM
3) Birth of ISIS and Iraq sectarian war:
 “A Case Study of the Islamic State as the Saddam Regime’s Afterlife:
The Fedayeen Saddam” -Kyle Orton
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/a-case-study-of-
the-islamic-state-as-the-saddam-regimes-afterlife-the-fedayeen-
saddam/
4) Fall of Mosul:
 “Special Report: How Mosul fell - An Iraqi general disputes
Baghdad's story” -Ned Parker, Isabel Coles, Raheem Salman.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-gharawi-special-
report/special-report-how-mosul-fell-an-iraqi-general-disputes-
baghdads-story-idUSKCN0I30Z820141014
5) Syria:
 “In the Syria we don’t know” -Charles Glass
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/06/syria-we-dont-
know/
 “How assad is winning” – Charles Glass
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/02/23/how-assad-is-
winning/
 “The Syrian civil war, every day” -Lyrian Mapping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMKy0_RE9HM&t=247s
6) Terrorist attacks outside the middle east:
 “What ISIS really wants” – Graeme Woods.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-
really-wants/384980/

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