Anti-IS Coalition Running Out Of Airstrike Targets In Raqqa, IS hiding among Civilians 'Hamas' Style. (
IBTimes).
The U.S.-led coalition killed roughly 30 Islamic State group militants
with just one airstrike on the group’s Syrian headquarters of Raqqa on
Friday.
That was one of the heaviest single blows since President Barack
Obama announced last year that the coalition’s air campaign would
expand from Iraq into Syria.
Before Friday, strikes over Raqqa had
become sporadic and, sometimes, even ceased completely for weeks, making
up only 3 percent of total coalition strikes since December, according
to data compiled from daily coalition press releases.
The coalition is running out of appropriate targets and militants have
adapted to strikes, even learning to anticipate them. With limited
targets and the recent
withdrawal of the United Arab Emirates
from the group of nations conducting airstrikes, Raqqa highlights the
challenges of the air campaign in Syria designed, in Obama's words, to
“degrade and destroy” ISIS.
“
Raqqa is still populated. There’s some concern on the part of the
coalition that hitting civilians is not a good idea,” said Dr. Ivan
Eland, author of the "The Failure of Counterinsurgency: Why Hearts and
Minds Are Seldom Won." “You do run out of targets, because this is an
army rather than a terrorist group, but they’re still a primitive army
and run and hide among civilians.”
The coalition’s Joint Task Force selects and approves each
target using satellite data, information from drones and intelligence
from coalition members to ensure that the “strike minimizes the
potential for civilian casualties and damage to non-combatant
infrastructure,” a spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation
Inherent Resolve said. The process also adheres, he said, to
international laws that prohibit “striking religious, cultural,
historical institutions and medical facilities, among various other
structures and civilian meeting places.”
“If you’re fighting from the air, you’re losing because
you’re creating new terrorists,” said Eland. “You create more terrorists
in response to the strikes. Even though the civilian casualties are by
accident, the people are going to hold it against you. The best thing
would be to have good local ground forces.”
After releasing a gruesome video of al-Kaseasbeh’s
execution on Tuesday, ISIS ordered all of its leaders to evacuate bases
and move all prisoners out of Raqqa in preparation for airstrikes,
according to the anti-militant activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered
Silently.
“ISIS soldiers (are) trying to hide when it comes to
coalition aircraft, but they’re not hiding like when the strikes began
in September last year,” Abu Mohammed, one of the group’s founding
members, told IBTimes via Skype. “As time progresses, they become
accustomed to strikes and the timing. [Airstrikes] would not target the
city and would focus on the empty headquarters.”
ISIS has been
preparing for airstrikes
since the coalition first targeted Raqqa. Militants moved their wives
and children to safer suburban areas, avoided going out during the day
and blacked out the windows of their vehicles. Elsewhere in Syria, the
militants have been removing the ISIS flag from buildings and moving
certain operations underground.
“These are primitive people, and the more primitive the enemy, the less
the airstrikes are going to do against them. Even if they’re primitive
technologically they can be very sophisticated in figuring out how to
foil the airstrikes,” Eland said. “I knew these people were going to go
underground and then you run out of targets. Then what do you do? Either
you start hitting questionable targets or you have to find a ground
force.”
Hmmm.......Urban warfare will cost lots of men and material.....two words 'Dresden Firestorm'. Read the full story
here.
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