The top Briton fighting Isil
As the international coalition declares its capture of Raqqa, Maj Gen Rupert Jones tells Joe Shute how we will defeat the terrorist group
On July 23, Major General Rupert Jones stood on the sun-baked steps of Raqqa Civil Council and vowed to win back the city from Isil. “The liberation of Raqqa, as with Mosul, is not the end,” he said to the crowd over the hum of a generator. “It is actually the start. The real healing starts once the fighting is over.” Now it seems that longawaited process is upon us.
In recent days, the coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared control over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s capital, which the terrorist group first seized in 2014. Al-naim square, where public executions that horrified the world took place, has been recaptured, with just a few dozen jihadists remaining.
After 13 months as the most senior British commander in the coalition fighting the militants, Maj Gen Jones is mindful of any premature celebration. All the same, he knows victory is within his grasp, as the group known as Daesh are squeezed into an ever diminishing swathe of territory.
“What we are seeing is the enemy collapsing,” he tells me over the phone. “Our mission is to defeat Daesh. I’m confident we can and will do that. They are under enormous pressure now.” Though he warns, “putting a time limit on it is a fool’s game”.
Tonight Maj Gen Jones appears in a new BBC documentary, Army: Behind the New Frontlines, following him in his role as deputy commander of the Combined Joint Task Force helping to lead the liberation of Mosul this summer, after eight months of bitter fighting.
The three-part series examines the modern-day role of our Armed Forces post Afghanistan, at a time when the land army is at its smallest since the Oliver Cromwell era. While following 48-year-old Maj Gen Jones, it also offers a revealing glimpse into the complexity and frustrations of attempting to wield soft power: seeking to influence a coalition of 30 other countries while also taking a back seat to Iraqi and Syrian partners.
He may have been prevented from putting boots on the ground, but when we speak he is keen to talk up Britain’s involvement and denies such a war by coalition indicates our diminished standing on the international stage. Britain is the second most significant contributor (after the US), with 600 troops helping train 16,000 Iraqi security forces while conducting 1,600 air strikes and surveillance efforts.
“The defeat of Daesh in Iraq has been built on the training ground. We took Iraqi security forces who were on their knees in 2014 and rebuilt them – the British have been central to that.”
Maj Gen Jones is now back home enjoying a spell of leave with his wife and three children aged between 13 and 17. But the war has followed him.
Last week it was revealed that Sally Jones – the British Isil recruiter known as the White Widow – and her son, 12, were killed in a drone strike in June after fleeing Raqqa. Maj Gen Jones echoes Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, when he insists she was a legitimate target. While security forces have allowed local militants to leave Raqqa, foreign fighters have been hemmed in during the advance.
“If you are a British national and you go to Iraq or Syria to fight for Daesh – an illegal organisation seeking to inspire or direct attacks against our homeland – you are a legitimate target and you should expect to be killed,” Maj Gen Jones says.
The experience of fighting Isil has proved deeply disturbing. The group’s ferocity and barbarism has shocked even a seasoned commander like Maj Gen Jones, who first joined the Army in 1990 and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I have never seen an enemy so brutal and, frankly, I don’t think any of us have,” he says. “They have no humanity as an enemy.”
During the liberation of Mosul, Amnesty International criticised the
‘If you are British and you go to Iraq or Syria to fight for Daesh, expect to be killed’
excessive shelling in a city with 1.75million civilians. But Maj Gen Jones dismisses this as “naive” and failing to take into account Isil’s tactics of embedding itself in the civilian population. One example he cites is herding civilians into a building wired with explosives then placing a lone Isil sniper on the roof in the hope the coalition forces will accidentally blow it up.
“You can’t liberate cities like Mosul and Raqqa without, tragically, some civilians suffering,” he says. “Our challenge is to keep that to an absolute minimum. But, sadly, what Daesh are doing is using civilians in a manner which goes beyond human shields. They are murdering them in large numbers anyway, but then they use them in absolutely devious ways to try to draw us into traps.”
The number of civilian casualties incurred – the exact number remains unknown – hangs heavy. “We hold ourselves to the highest standards. Soldiers carry the weight of civilian lives on our shoulders, frankly, more than anybody,” he says.
Maj Gen Jones grew up in the shadow of war. His father, Lt Col Herbert Jones, was the most highprofile casualty of the Falklands War. He was killed in 1982 leading a charge on an Argentinian trench at Goose Green during the first land battle of the conflict, and awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously.
Jones was 13 when his father died and signed up the Army eight years later. “We are all products of our upbringing,” he says. “If I wanted to avoid all parallels I would have gone to be a bank manager. I can’t escape his legacy and nor do I want to. I’m extraordinarily proud of it.”
He says he often contemplates what his father would have done when devising his strategies. Yet the stark difference from the wars his father fought to those of his own is the difficulty of claiming a clear victory.
It has been a “long hard fight” dismantling the caliphate and no number of bombs can prevent Isil’s poisonous ideologies enduring long after the rubble has been cleared.
“This is about much more than a military defeat,” he says. “It is about ideology and extremism.” He points to a 75per cent reduction in the propaganda output of Isil in the past year as a signal that the forces of moderation and tolerance are drowning out those of hatred. “People are rejecting what they are saying,” he says.
In the Falklands, the white flag was flown over Port Stanley and the war was won.
The black flag of the caliphate may have been torn down, but the general is under no illusions about the scale of the fight still ahead.
Army: Behind the New Frontlines begins tonight on BBC Two, 9pm