Terrorist monster does not give up
Despite the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council regarding the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the war officially declared by Washington on this terrorist monster, the latter not only retains its control over significant territories of Syria and Iraq, but continues its further expansion into Libya and other countries of the Middle East. Moreover, ISIL managed to establish very close cooperation with the Taliban movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Boko Haram and Al-Shabab in Africa, as well as carry out a number of terrorist attacks in European states.
The security agencies of Syria, Iraq, Libya were not able to cope with the gangs of this group on their own. The Islamists continue demonstrative mass executions of prisoners and hostages, threaten with new terrorist acts around the world and the invasion of the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus. In the ranks of ISIL and his ally groups today not only immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries, but also thousands of citizens from different countries of the world, including the USA, as well as the EU and CIS member states are fighting.
The effectiveness of countering ISIL is small. According to the Pentagon, over the past six months, the troops of the international coalition under the auspices of the United States, using missile and air strikes of the Air Force and the Kurdish militia, destroyed about 6 thousands of ISIL fighters and liberated approximately 1% of the occupied areas. Over the same period, tens of thousands of volunteers and mercenaries joined the ranks of ISIL, the group threatens Damascus and Baghdad directly. As most American military experts admit, the war against ISIS is protracted and with such strength and speed it can be fought for many years.
ISIS anatomy and the secret of its ISIS vitality was created by Salafi-Wahhabi organizations and through the channels of the intelligence services of the Persian Gulf monarchies based on one of the Al-Qaida cells in the Sunni triangle of Iraq as early as the occupation of this country by the United States and its allies in 2004 – 2006 years . The goals of the ISIL sponsors were to create a military-political counterweight to the new Arab-Shiite authorities in Baghdad and prevent Teheran from strengthening its position in Iraq and the region as a whole. Subsequently, ISIL significantly strengthened over 10 the military-political groups of former Ba'ath party functionaries, Iraqi military personnel and representatives of other security forces who fought against the occupation forces and the central government in Baghdad mainly by terrorist methods.
With the beginning of the civil war in Syria, ISIS extended its activities to the territory of this country and, first in alliance with other Islamist groups such as “Jabga al-Nusra”, and then independently, was able to establish control over a significant territory and important strategic objects (sections of state borders, cities, oil fields, etc.). The ranks of ISIL have joined the smaller Islamist groups of Syria, and even units of the opposition Free Syrian Army. Washington and its Western partners for a long time tried to ignore the growth of the military potential of ISIL in the hope of the active participation of this group in the fight against the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.
In the summer of 2014, taking advantage of the uprising of the eight Sunni provinces of Iraq, ISIL fighters practically without fighting went victoriously through the north-west, took the second most significant Iraqi city of Mosul and established control over the third territory of this country. Regular units of the Iraqi armed forces trained by American instructors could not provide any serious resistance to ISIL, fled in panic, leaving the militants with arsenals of the most modern heavy weapons. As early as July 2014, ISIS announced the creation in the occupied territories of Syria and Iraq of a new Sunni state - the Islamic Caliphate with Iraqi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the head. This man remained in the shadow for a long time, only that he had long been associated with radical Islamists, was considered a supporter of resistance to the occupying forces and even spent some time in a US prison in Iraq.
The leaders of ISIL, based on the Shari'a as a set of laws, immediately began to form new legislative and executive bodies of power, power structures and all other structures (education, health, life support). Financial investments of Wahhabi funds, trade weaponsoil and oil products, museum artifacts, hostages, extortion at the borders, bank robberies and other sources allowed the Islamists to form an annual budget of several tens of billions of dollars and not only cover their direct expenses, but also start paying wages and pensions to civilians. Today, according to the most approximate estimates, in the territories of Iraq and Syria controlled by ISIL live from 8 to 10 million people.
FIGHT DOES NOT GIVE RESULTS
Today, it can be stated that the scale and effectiveness of the fight against LIH clearly do not correspond to the level of the threat it poses to the region and the entire world community. By the beginning of 2015, this group had become the vanguard of international terrorism and the striking force of radical Islam, and its leader may well claim to be the new Osama bin Laden. It is becoming more and more obvious that with missile-bombing and ground operations alone, it is not possible to crush ISIL and liberate the territories it occupied only by the forces of the Kurdish militia. Common sense dictates that it is necessary to unite the efforts of all interested countries in the fight against this evil, but the reality is that the world turned out to be again, as it was on the eve of World War II, politically and ideologically split.
Washington is trying to fight ISIS, or rather, only to designate it within the framework of stereotypes and double standards. A serious omission is the categorical refusal of the United States and from its allies to cooperate in the fight against ISIS with the legally elected government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. It would be justified to continue efforts to bring together the positions of Damascus and the opposition in the framework of the Geneva talks in order to create a united front for the fight against radical Islamist groups. Bashar Assad and opposition leaders (most of them) express interest in this scenario, but external forces (Riyadh, Doha, Ankara, Washington, Brussels) still do not recognize the legitimacy of President Al-Assad and sabotage the continuation of peace talks in every way. It seems that the West and its allies have not yet refused the idea of using ISIS in the fight against Damascus.
The situation is not easy in Iraq. The policy of the American occupying forces and the puppet government of Nuri al-Maliki, which carried out a repressive policy towards Sunni Arabs for several years, led to the uprising of Sunni provinces and their support for ISIL. Heydar al-Abadi, who replaced Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister, has so far failed to restore the trust of his Sunni citizens. Moreover, his panicked appeals for help to Washington and Tehran only heightened the hatred of the Sunnis to the central authorities. The coalition air force missile strikes cause minor damage to ISIS manpower, but at the same time destroy infrastructure and lead to civilian casualties. Thus, the number of opponents of Baghdad and its allies in Iraq is only multiplying.
So far, Washington’s desire to initiate a peacekeeping operation (humanitarian intervention) within the framework of the UN mandate with a wider involvement in the coalition against ISIL of Russia, China, India and one of the key regional powers - Iran, is not visible. As before, the issue of cooperation with Iran in this direction is tied to the demand of the West to curtail Tehran’s nuclear program. It is difficult to fight ISIS and the “double game” of the monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Formally, they entered into a coalition and even signify their participation in Air Force raids on Islamist positions, but non-governmental organizations and various Wahhabi funds continue to fuel ISIS and recruit new militants around the world.
Thus, without debunking for many the attractive model and ideology of radical Islam, without stopping the influx of thousands of new jihadists from around the world, without depriving ISIS of the local Sunni population, without blocking military, financial, material and other assistance from outside, to achieve a decisive breakthrough in the fight against this terrorist monster is unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future. ISIS can be defeated only by the common efforts of all interested states and preferably under the auspices of the UN.
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