Changing Under Pressure, IS ‘Potent’ as Ever

Nearly 10 months since the first U.S. airstrikes rained down on Islamic State (IS) targets in Iraq, the terror group has been subject to a persistent, if not relentless, assault on multiple fronts. Yet the campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy the self-declared caliphate appears to have done little to deter the militants from spreading terror throughout the Middle East and beyond.

“ISIL remains a potent force,” a U.S. intelligence official told VOA, using an acronym for the group. “These folks know how to take advantage of security postures and strike fear in the hearts of their enemy.”

Perhaps nowhere has that ability been more prominently on display than in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Iraq’s Anbar province. IS fighters took the city last week, despite being badly outnumbered, using a series of vehicle-borne explosive devices to ultimately scare Iraqi Security Forces into retreat.

“Battlefield setbacks and pressure from the coalition and other adversaries have forced the group to adjust its tactics,” the intelligence official said, adding it was “forcing ISIL to focus on targets of opportunity, compared to their land grab last year.”

Senior military officials also point out the terrorist organization appears to be largely focused on military victories that can quickly be turned into propaganda and say the group may not be capable of holding conquests like Ramadi, if that is even part of the plan.

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“Clearly this is a group that is on a bit of a downward trajectory,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They’re still extraordinarily dangerous, but they’re having increasing trouble taking and holding territory.”

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Pentagon officials say since airstrikes began last August, IS has lost control of at least 13,000 square kilometers, unable to move freely in up to a third of the areas it once held. But there are growing concerns that the terror group remains more than just a “potent” force.

Since August 8 of last year, the U.S.-led coalition has carried out more than 4,100 airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria, damaging or destroying more than 6,200 targets. And in a January interview with Al Arabiya, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Stuart Jones, said more than 6,000 IS militants, including top commanders, had been killed.

Based on U.S. intelligence estimates at the time, which put the size of the IS fighting force at between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters, such casualties should have gutted the group’s ability to fight. But it has not.

“Operationally, I see no evidence that these figures are accurate,” said Thomas Joscelyn, senior editor of The Long War Journal. “The Islamic State hadn't lost 20 to 30 percent of its operational capacity by January 2015. And it still hasn't.”

“While thousands of fighters and leaders have been killed since the beginning of the air campaign last year, the Islamic State's numbers have not dwindled significantly,” he said.

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