October 9, 2014 | Bloomberg

Islamic State Grooms Chechen Fighters Against Putin

Al-Shishani is the tactical mastermind behind Islamic State’s swift military gains on the ground in Iraq’s Anbar province, west of Baghdad, including an encirclement in which his forces killed as many as 500 Iraqi troops and captured 180 more near Fallujah, according to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“The group’s recent success in Anbar can be attributed primarily to one exceptional field commander and ISIL official, Abu Umar al-Shishani, who executed a series of brilliant tactical maneuvers,” he wrote today, using another form of al-Shishani’s name, for War on the Rocks, a website that provides analysis and news on military conflicts.

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