Syrian rebels seize trove of ISIS intelligence

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is exploiting an enormous amount of digital information about the Islamic State obtained by Syrian rebels fighting for control of the city of Manbij, a spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition said Wednesday.

Speaking by phone from Baghdad, Col. Christopher Garver told reporters at the Pentagon that it’s unclear how this trove of intelligence might affect the direction of the war, but he suggested it has been of considerable value.

“We think this is a big deal,” he said.

Garver also revealed that the U.S. for the first time has placed its military advisers at lower-level Iraqi army headquarters, a decision that places the Americans closer to the front lines.

The authority for that was approved by President Barack Obama in April. Before Obama gave the go-ahead, the U.S. military was not permitted to place advisers at echelons lower than division headquarters, which are farther from the front lines.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, speaking to soldiers of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C., referred to the intelligence trove while describing progress in Manbij. He said that city is one of the last junctions connecting the Islamic State’s self-declared capital of Raqqa, Syria, to the outside world and called it “a key transit point” for extremists plotting international attacks.

“And there, we’re already beginning to gain and exploit intelligence that’s helping us map their network of foreign fighters,” Carter said.

Garver said the intelligence has not yielded links to any of those involved in recent violent attacks in the West.

“It’s a lot of material. It’s going to take a lot to go through, then start connecting the dots,” he said.

The intelligence is on laptop computers and portable data storage devices such as thumb drives, Garver said, adding that it amounts to more than 4 terabytes of digital information. He said it sheds new light on how the Islamic State has used Manbij as a “strategic hub” for welcoming, training, indoctrinating and dispatching foreign fighters.

Garver said a small group of U.S. combat engineers on July 20 was attached to an Iraqi army battalion to provide advice on how to secure a temporary bridge the Iraqis had installed over the Tigris River. This is aimed at connecting a newly recaptured air base near Qayara with an Iraqi-controlled base on the east side of the river.

Garver said this will “greatly improve maneuverability and shorten lines of communication for the [Iraqi security forces] as they prepare for the eventual assault to liberate Mosul.”

In his remarks at Fort Bragg, Carter described in broad terms the U.S.-led coalition’s strategy for recapturing Mosul in northern Iraq. He said the Iraqi security forces will push from the south, along the Tigris River, and the Iraqi Kurdish militia, known as the Peshmerga, will push from the north.

He spoke to members of the 18th Airborne Corps because they are scheduled to deploy to Baghdad soon to serve as the higher headquarters for the coalition, under Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who will take over as the top U.S. commander there for Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland.

In Syria, the Islamic State claimed an attack Wednesday by a suicide bomber in the predominantly Kurdish town of Qamishli in northern Syria. The man was riding an empty livestock truck laden with explosives when he blew himself up in a crowded district, killing 44 people.

Residents and activists described a huge explosion in the western district of the town Kurds call the capital of their self-declared autonomous enclave in northern Syria.

Qamishli, near the Turkish border, is mainly controlled by Kurds, but Syrian government forces are present and control the town’s airport.

Beyond Iraq and Syria, the U.S. has voiced concerns over the extremist group’s presence in Afghanistan.

The Army general in charge of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the Islamic State’s presence in Afghanistan is directly linked to the parent organization in Iraq and Syria.

Gen. John Nicholson said Islamic State loyalists in Afghanistan have financial, communications and strategic connections with the main Islamic State leadership based in a self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

“This franchise of Daesh is connected to the parent organization,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

“They have applied for membership, they have been accepted, they had to meet certain tests, they have been publicized in Dabiq,” the magazine published by the Islamic State, he said.

Islamic State bases in the eastern province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, are currently being targeted by an Afghan military offensive, backed by U.S. troops.

The offensive, part of the Afghan army’s Operation Shafaq, began Saturday, hours after the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in the capital, Kabul, that killed about 80 people.

Until recently, Afghan and U.S. officials have insisted that Islamic State loyalists were disaffected Taliban weary that their own fight had failed to make headway, after 15 years, in their goal of overthrowing the Kabul government. This week, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Army Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, said Islamic State operatives in Afghanistan numbered between 1,000 and 3,000 loyalists — though probably closer to 1,500.

Afghan security forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes, have been targeting Islamic State fighters in their Nangarhar holdouts for several months.

Nicholson said the nine or 10 districts where the Islamic State had a significant presence had been reduced to three ahead of the current offensive. Information for this article was contributed by Lynne O’Donnell, Albert Aji and Sarah El Deeb of The Associated Press.