U.S. secures vast trove of intelligence on IS
WASHINGTON — The United States is poring over a vast trove of new intelligence about Islamic State fighters who have flowed into Syria and Iraq and some who then returned to their home countries, information that American officials say could help fight militants on the battlefield and prevent potential plotters from slipping into Europe.
American-backed Syrian Kurdish and Arab militias have seized more than 10,000 documents and 4.5 terabytes of digital data in recent weeks while fighting insurgents in Manbij in northern Syria, near the Turkish border, a major hub for IS fighters entering and leaving Syria, American officials said.
American officials Wednesday expressed confidence that the latest cache will yield similar insights.
“We are learning more about [IS] at all levels from this,” said Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the United States military in Iraq. “We think this is a big deal.
“We’ve learned about how they organize their governance structures to ensure they can completely control all aspects of daily life, from religious practice, to education to tax collection and management of central services.”
“We have a better understanding of how [IS] facilitates foreign fighter movements into and out of Syria and Iraq, which gives us valuable insight into stopping the flow of foreign fighters into the region,” Col. Garver said.
Col. Garver added that fighters also found evidence that IS has rewritten school textbooks to promote its violent ideology: “They found textbooks that have been rewritten by Daesh to reflect high-end math and science problems, but the word problems are written into pro-IS language.”
An initial American review of the material offers new clues about “foreign fighters, the networks, where they’re from,” according to Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama’s special envoy for combating IS. Other officials said the information included the fighters’ identities, countries of origin, routes into Syria and the illicit networks that recruited and ferried them to the region. Those details are being shared with allies to help stanch the flow of militants.
It is the largest single trove seized in the fight against IS since Delta Force commandos raided the home of a top IS financier in eastern Syria in May 2015.