Intelligence officials say the Islamic State group that marched relentlessly across swaths of Iraq this year has grown from a ragtag band of fighters into a formidable battlefield-tested military force with significant access to cash, high-tech hardware seized from its enemies and a stronghold in a volatile and sensitive part of the world.
A senior Pentagon official says the group possesses the ability to shoot down small planes, launch mortar attacks and mount ground assaults using tanks, armored personnel carriers and mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles.
Perhaps just as important as what the group has acquired is its technical know-how.
“The main fact is they are very smart and they probably read every manual that the U.S. has put out on air doctrine and special operations doctrine, so they know what’s coming,” said Theodore Karasik, a security and political affairs analyst at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
National security analysts and Pentagon officials agree that what separates the group from other Muslim extremists operating around the world is that they are well-organized and well-financed. The group poses a particular danger because of its growing membership and ability to recruit a breadth and depth of foreign fighters at an alarming rate.
According to a senior Iraqi intelligence official, more than 27,600 Islamic State fighters are believed to be operating in Iraq, about 2,600 of whom are foreigners. Most analysts, however, estimate the number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria to be about 20,000.
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“I think one of the strengths is that they have a substantial number of foreign fighters from an even greater number of countries than al Qaeda ever had,” said Dan Green, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Although the group has been successful at seizing parts of Iraq and Syria, some analysts say it is no unstoppable juggernaut. Lacking the major weaponry of an established military, it wields outsize influence through the fanaticism of a hard core of fighters, capitalizing on divisions among its rivals, and disseminating terrifying videos on social media.
“I think sometimes there’s been a tendency to sort of overestimate the technical sophistication of the Islamic State,” said Charles Lister, visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
Mr. Lister, like many other analysts, said much of the power of the Islamic State group — also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL — lies in its centralization of command and intense loyalty within the organization.
By contrast, the Iraqi military and police force are estimated at more than 1 million strong. The Syrian army is estimated to have 300,000 soldiers. There are believed to be more than 100,000 Syrian rebels, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the powerful Islamic Front rebel umbrella group, currently fighting the Islamic State group in Syria. Tens of thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga forces are fighting the group in Iraq.
The Pentagon on Wednesday revealed that a list of hardware destroyed during the course of a monthlong air campaign suggests the militants possess anti-aircraft artillery, mortar positions and improvised explosive devices.
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In addition, an Iraqi official who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to brief the media told The Associated Press that the group’s arsenal includes about 35 Iraqi military tanks, about 80 armored police vehicles and hundreds of Humvees.
The group has a few MiG 21s captured when it overran the Syrian army’s air base in Tabqa last month. Analysts say it is extremely unlikely that the fighters could get any of them off the ground at this point.
“It’s a very nice thing for them to be able to show in the video. But for now, we’re unlikely to see an Islamic State air force anytime soon, or even just one working jet,” Mr. Lister said.
The group earlier this year paraded in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa what appeared to be a Scud missile, although it is unclear whether the militants have the capability to launch it.
But weapons are not the only defining characteristic of the Islamic State.
Militants have waged an aggressive social media campaign.
The group’s global outreach poses threats of terrorist acts in a number of Western countries, said Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
“The slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Syrian and Iraqi civilians has shocked and united all civilized peoples, while the barbaric murders of two American journalists and the attack at a Jewish museum in Brussels have demonstrated that these terrorist threats are not confined to one part of the globe,” he said.
Disabling the group may prove difficult for the U.S. military.
Intelligence officials said just as crucial as marshaling military resources will be assembling political resistance.
First, the Sunni tribes must believe that they are fighting for a cause. The Iraqi government must take the lead because the operation against the Islamic State hinges on political reform in Iraq, said national security analysts and Pentagon officials.
“If they believe that they are fighting for a seat at the table of an inclusive national government, then I believe they will come onboard,” the senior Pentagon official said.
Mr. Green suggested that quashing the Islamic State will require the U.S. military to recycle the successful strategy it used to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq and have special operations forces work with Iraqi government and tribal militants in the area because each has strengths and weaknesses and cannot defeat the Islamic State on their own accord.
The Iraqi army has the firepower but not the willpower,” he said. “And at the other end of the spectrum, the tribes, they have the manpower and the willpower, but they don’t have the firepower.”
The Islamic State group’s greatest shortcoming is that it lacks the means to fight airpower, meaning U.S. airstrikes can go a long way in destroying the militants’ capabilities.
Another important aspect of degrading and defeating the Islamic State requires dismantling its financial resources, said David Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Mr. Cohen reiterated the role Treasury has been playing in targeting the external funding networks of the Islamic State and its predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq. In the past few months, the Treasury has sanctioned a senior Islamic State official and an Islamic State financier and facilitator, Mr. Cohen said.
The Islamic State also relies on significant funding derived from black market operations inside Syria and Iraq, Mr. Cohen said. The group makes money off of criminal conduct such as smuggling, extortion, ransoming hostages, committing robbery and selling Iraqi and Syrian oil, he said.
The Treasury, he said, “will continue to work with regional partners, particularly those in the [Persian] Gulf, to ensure that they have the tools in place to combat terrorist financing and that they use those tools effectively.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Maggie Ybarra can be reached at mybarra@washingtontimes.com.
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