Steady advance key for Kurds
Middle East: Wily tactics of jihadist fighters impress and educate opponents
When Kurdish forces captured this strategic mountain ridge from Islamic State fighters last month in a lightning assault by infantry backed by heavy armour, they learned new lessons about their adaptable and formidable foe.
“They are sophisticated and very dangerous,” said Kemal Kerkuki, former speaker of the Kurdistan parliament who now commands 11 peshmerga generals fighting on the autonomous Iraqi region’s southern front.
This is partly because Iraqi security forces ran away last June rather than fight, as the jihadists raced triumphantly across a large swath of central Iraq.
During the space of 24 hours, the Iraqis abandoned an estimated $30 billion worth of military gear, much of it top-end equipment supplied by the U.S. as its forces left Iraq 40 months ago.
A lot of that outsized gift from American taxpayers has been fairly easy for coalition aircraft to identify, target and destroy. Attacking some of the more ingenious military kit the group has built has proved more difficult.
During a briefing in his headquarters in a quiet spot a few kilometres from the new front line, which has jumped 17 km to the west in this sector, Kerkuki led a slide show presentation of the kind much loved by many western military commanders.
As well as the usual brightly coloured maps showing where opposing forces used to be and now are, there were videos about what the Islamists had been up to when they controlled the area. There were images of tonnes of captured C-4 explosives and fuel, and big anti-tank mines they had buried underground and in farmers’ sheds. There were also pictures of a gargantuan homemade armoured bulldozer, and highly modified trucks, buses and trailers that looked straight out of a Mad Max film.
For armour, sheets of steel had been attached to the sides of the vehicles, with concrete in between them. The jury-rigged coverings could withstand rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.
Also discovered as Islamic State retreated were remotecontrol sniper rifles that used scopes whose imagery appeared on computer screens a safe distance from the guns so the shooters would not themselves get shot.
Several tunnels were uncovered, including an elaborate 170-metre-long one that ran directly under peshmerga lines. Smartly reinforced and with concrete walls, the underground passage was immaculate, had electricity cables running throughout, and included sleeping and meeting areas. The enemy was using homemade drones to spy on peshmerga positions, Kerkuki said with more than a trace of bewildered admiration.
At an outpost atop a craggy hill, dubbed “the ISIL castle” because it was so well defended and had a commanding view of the countryside, Brig.-Gen. Hussein Yadanpana said “the enemy still has lots of weapons and is still very active. He has money too, and regional support.”
Getting from Kharabaroot to Mosul, which is still in enemy hands, would take some time, Capt. Rafat Faqeeh predicted. “I participated in several of the battles around here and I can tell you, they are not bad fighters,” the burly infantryman said.
But the enemy was not vanquished. As the captain spoke, a jihadist fighter could be seen moving from house to house in a village perhaps a couple kilometres away.
For now, the peshmerga are proceeding methodically. The plan seems to be to muster their relatively meagre heavy power for specific assaults, seize the territory and then slowly consolidate control over it, before massing the heavy firepower again to move against a new patch somewhere else.
“It is better to go step by step,” said Brig.-Gen. Hazhar Ismail, who heads the office that coordinates meetings between the peshmerga and coalition liaison officers.
“What we do is attack a place, clean it and keep it.”
That was in contrast, he said, to the Iraqi security forces that were now the peshmerga’s partners in the war.
“The Iraqi forces have claimed to have captured Baiji 10 times, but then ISIL later regains control,” he said of a city that lies about halfway between Baghdad and Mosul. “We do not want the same happening to us. We must protect our rear before freeing new areas.”
While Mosul would be the big military push, the Kurds have already achieved their main strategic goal. By capturing Kharabaroot and the plain directly behind it, they have secured their hold on nearby Kirkuk, which has long been claimed by Kurds and Arabs.
“If ISIL had got Kirkuk, with its oil and gas and the important water dams and electricity plants around it, they would have been a regional power,” said Kerkuki, who is a powerful political force in the area.
“They somehow imagine their black flag flying one day over the UN and the White House. It is crazy, but that is their thinking.
“Their idea is to return to an era when there was the rule of the sword. But the Kurds have proven they can take care of themselves. Proof of that is that we now hold this area.”
However, he finished the interview with a warning. “Even when ISIL is defeated, there will be a new picture,” he said. “ISIL will still be there in another form.”