Military Skill And Terrorist Technique Fuel Success Of ISIS -- New York Times
BAGHDAD — As fighters for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria continue to seize territory, the group has quietly built an effective management structure of mostly middle-aged Iraqis overseeing departments of finance, arms, local governance, military operations and recruitment.
At the top the organization is the self-declared leader of all Muslims, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a radical chief executive officer of sorts, who handpicked many of his deputies from among the men he met while a prisoner in American custody at the Camp Bucca detention center a decade ago.
He had a preference for military men, and so his leadership team includes many officers from Saddam Hussein’s long-disbanded army.
They include former Iraqi officers like Fadel al-Hayali, the top deputy for Iraq, who once served Mr. Hussein as a lieutenant colonel, and Adnan al-Sweidawi, a former lieutenant colonel who now heads the group’s military council.
The pedigree of its leadership, outlined by an Iraqi who has seen documents seized by the Iraqi military, as well as by American intelligence officials, helps explain its battlefield successes: Its leaders augmented traditional military skill with terrorist techniques refined through years of fighting American troops, while also having deep local knowledge and contacts. ISIS is in effect a hybrid of terrorists and an army.
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My Comment: In today's White House statement President Obama said .... "They have no ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people". But after reading this New York Times analysis on ISIS .... you will realize that they are far more than just that.
2 comments:
reportedly ex soviet professionals of chechen extraction are involved in isis. I can definitely recognize the same style of the set up as in Donbas. Conditions permitted, off course: it is a different terrain
The terrain is different .... but the Islamic State is motivated by religion .... and it is because of religion that they are getting international support. In Donbas, it is mostly nationalism .... and much of it is fighting for your own home town. As for the set-up .... most insurgencies employ the same tactics.
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