ISIS struggles to maintain grasp in Iraq
Strained group must rely on young recruits with little experience
DIBAGA CAMP, Iraq — As the Islamic State group loses ground in Iraq, the militants are showing strains in their rule over areas they still control, growing more brutal, killing deserters and relying on younger and younger recruits, according to residents who fled battleground territories.
The accounts point to the difficulties the extremist group faces as Iraqi forces, backed by the United States, prepare for an assault on Mosul, the largest city still in the militants’ hands. For months, Iraqi troops, militias and Kurdish fighters have been clawing back territory town by town, making their way toward the northern city.
In the latest areas recaptured, Iraqi troops over the past month took a clump of villages near a key military base south of Mosul that they plan to use as a hub for the assault. Residents of the communities, which lie strung along bends in the Tigris River, say that in the preceding weeks, the militants ruling them had seemed to be scrambling to keep control.
In Qayara, which is the main town in the area and remains in ISIS hands, beheadings and extrajudicial killings that previously were occasional became commonplace in a hunt for spies and deserters, said Jarjis Muhammad Hajaj, who was among thousands of residents who fled fighting in the area and now live in the Dibaga Camp for displaced people in Kurdish-run territory.
“They started making raids on houses, arresting people and beheading them,” he said.
Hajaj said the group’s fighters appeared increasingly nervous as they watched news of ISIS losses elsewhere.
Their ranks also appeared to turn more to younger, less experienced men. At one point, almost all the militants guarding the streets were teenagers, he said. That, Hajaj said, was when he thought, “They’re collapsing. They’re finished.”
The reliance on younger fighters in smaller communities could be a sign of overstretched manpower as the group’s more veteran militants redeploy to Mosul or to neighboring Syria. Other factors could also be in play, like difficulties in finding new recruits and the effect of desertions, which Kurdish officials have said are on the rise.
Fighters as young as 13 or 14 were patrolling in the village of Awsaja on the other side of the river, said one resident, who asked to be identified by his nickname Abu Saleh for fear of reprisals against his family in areas still under ISIS rule. He said the militants killed seven people for trying to flee the village, displaying their bodies on a bridge as an example to others.
As Iraqi troops moved on Awsaja, the militants seemed confused on how to respond.
At one point, some ISIS fighters decided to retreat and ordered all the residents to come with them as human shields, Abu Saleh said. But that prompted an argument with others in the group who were remaining in the village to fight and wanted the residents to stay for their protection, said the 50-year-old psychologist, who fled with other residents and is now also in Dibaga Camp. Iraqi forces succeeded in retaking Awsaja in mid-July.
The area has been under ISIS rule for two years, ever since the Sunni militants overran much of western and northern Iraq, joining it to the territory they control in neighboring Syria in a self-declared “caliphate.”
U.S. and Iraqi officials say the final assault on Mosul is still weeks away as forces fight to retake territory around the city. From the Qayara military base, Iraqi troops are still some 40 miles from the city.
The towns and villages around Qayara recaptured from ISIS are still too close to the front lines and too rife with booby-traps and explosives for residents to return. When Iraqi forces retook the area, many of the ISIS fighters changed into civilian clothes and disappeared into the surrounding desert.
Hajaj, the Qayara resident, said people in the area will never allow them to regain a foothold.
“Now we know who they are, we will never let them return,” he said.