Wednesday, 21 June 2017 00:44

Russia beheading ISIS: PR or fake news? Featured

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On the 16th of June Russian Ministry of Defense announced that according to preliminary data Russian air force liquidated the leader of ISIS Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi on the 28th of May in the Southern suburbs of Raqqa. The message hit headlines worldwide and Russian politicians and several mainstream experts declared that they had no doubts in professionalism of Russian military and believed that no one else but them should eliminate the leader of the hydra.

The author of this material has a great respect for Russian military who risk their lives following orders in Syria, and understands that counter terrorism is not a public affair but is still a crucial matter from political point of view. Hopefully, Russian Ministry of Defense will soon present a video evidence and comment its messages, so everybody, and those who have doubts in particular, could know for sure how “on the 28th of May SU-35 and SU-34 planes eliminated high-ranking leaders of the terrorist group who were members of so-called Military council of ISIS, 30 middle rank field commanders and up to 300 their guards”. Supposedly among them were “Raqqa’s emir Abu Al-Haji Al-Mysri, emir Ibrahim An-Naef akm-Hajj, who controlled the territory between Raqqa and As-Suhne, ISIS head of security Suleiman Al-Shauah" and probably Al-Baghdadi.

As this evidence is not published yet, allow me to enter the camp of those who have doubts and believe that this declaration should be treated as an element of information confrontation between Russia and the US, without even mentioning its evident targeting at internal electorate before the elections of 2018. And that is why.

Location

The declaration was made two weeks after the supposed strike and several days after Syrian television reported about the elimination of Al-Baghdadi in Raqqa (while in April Russian spetsnaz was already trying to catch fleeing Al-Baghdadi). And of course, it is unclear why the delay is so long - in 2016 when Russia and the US were divvying up the head of ISIS speaker and cheif of international operations Al-Adnani, the messages in both countries were aired with several hours in between (according to the information from Syria, Al-Adnani was bombed in his car as a result of internal feuds in ISIS).

In the web there is a video from “official” media of jihadists Amaq News Agency dated 28 May, where one can see the demolished buildings shown on the photo of Russian Ministry of Defense. This video demonstrates around 10 bloody corpses being buried in a single grave. All the resources documenting the strikes of both coalitions in Syria report strikes of Western coalition that caused 18 deaths (according, for instance, to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is not much loved in Russia but has a network of local informants).

The Western coalition also reports strikes near Raqqa on 27 and 28 May. However, Russian airstrike on Raqqa is still possible – some strikes were launched in this city from time to time.

But regardless who made the strike… Jihadi resources (“official” and partisan ones) always immediately inform about a death of an emir. Neither the author, nor experts from the US and the Middle East familiar to him did not note any messages about deaths of such high-ranking officials in the end of May.

Who are the leaders?

It is noticeable that such large gathering of militants (and even of the military council) as Russian military ministry reports, took place several dozen kilometers from the combat line with Kurdish-Arab alliance “Syrian Democracy Forces”. It is unclear why the meetings should be carried out in the buildings under the heavy bombardments of both coalitions, but not underground, while ISIS intensively uses underground communication during combat in urban areas and in desert villages.

Firstly, there is information (from intercepted Islamists’ documents) that ISIS started preparing for loosing big cities, Mosul in particular, back in 2015. Foreseeing these events they have restructured their management hierarchy – Shoura Council, military council, security and reconnaissance council were evacuated into the network of underground shelters on the Syrian-Iraqi border, and Al-Adnani killed in 2016 became the head of a parallel managing structure.

Secondly, the military council was relatively small even in the better times for ISIS in order to protect it from outsiders and agents of special services, so there is even no available information on its several members (Shoura council counts approximately 9-11 persons). Hypothetically, the strikes that demolished several buildings (according to the photos presented by Russian defense ministry) would have eliminated the whole military leadership, not only Raqqa’s emir, who could be in fact responsible for the defense of the province in case of death of certain directions’ commanders. By the way, the head of security service (Amniyat) does not have to be a member of military council.

Thirdly, the names of the presumably eliminated leaders are not known for researchers, though is is not an argument. I shall clarify that.

For a long time Raqqa’s emir was Abu Luqman (Ali Moussa al-Hawikh) who was freed from prison in 2011 by Syrian government under an amnesty. He presumably had conflict with speaker Al-Adnani (and eliminated him) and was considered a possible successor to Al-Baghdadi. According to certain information, Abu Lukman was still in charge as the province’s emir in 2015 (though the media in 2015 claimed that ISIS had concealed his death). During the assassination of Al-Adnani (30 August 2016) he was already an ex-governor, though he was still alive. It is still unclear who replaced him on his post. However, as we have mentioned before, the death of emir of the central province in May 2017 was unlikely to remain unnoticed. For example, the Kurds eliminated far less significant emir Abu Khattab al-Tunisi and seven jihadists near Raqqa in 11 June and their photos immediately appeared in the “special resources”. On the 26th of March Tabqa’s (Raqqa province) emir, jihadist from Germany, was eliminated and on the 21st of March ex Nusra’s emir in Raqqa Abo Al-Abbas was killed in Idlib. Both deaths immediately became public.

The only publicly available information about the emir who controlled the region between Raqqa and As-Suhne is that opposition Syrian journalists claim that Ibrahim An-Naef Al-Hajj is a real As-Suhne local, but he was killed by an air strike back on the 24th of May in the age of 60 and had no affiliation to ISIS.

Regarding the head of Amnyat, a single name is repeated in the jihadists’ documents – “Dr. Samir” (according to some sources Abu Ali, to others – Abu Sulayman al-Faransi (from France), to third – Abu Ahmed of Belgian-Moroccan origin). It is hard to say, whether it is a single person or several ones. For instance, commander Abdurrahman Mustafa Al-Kaduli who was close to Bahdadi and was killed in 2016, had around seven names.

Thus, yes, Russian strike on the designated area is theoretically possible, but it is extremely difficult to check whether the bombardment really took place as well as to clarify the numbers and names of killed leaders. Within the framework of information warfare with the US it is a rather successful move that was mentioned by all media worldwide and provoked a desirable information noise. However, there is one nuance: if Western official institutions and media may spread evident disinformation and are still believed, in case with Russia it works differently and most often has a negative impact.

What if everybody is really killed?

Islamic state is a military quasi state with strict hierarchy in every sphere. During its existence its leadership has greatly changed, and even though a loss of a charismatic leader inflicts some damage to the organization, ISIS has learnt how to survive and manages to do it rather successfully.

Former members of Saddam Husein’s army and special services together with foreign “specialists” were replaced by a new generation. For instance, the place of Al-Adnani was taken by Abu Sufyan al-Sulami who is a well-known preacher from Bahrain with good connections in the Arab world. It were Al-Adnani and his successor who made the landmark declarations of 2016 about the continuation of fight after the “loss of Raqqa and Mosul”, probable return to the “initial existence” in these countries (underground on the Iraqi-Syrian border) and expansion of the “caliphate” to other countries of the world.

The Islamic State as its predecessor Al Qaeda has adapted to the loss of leaders, its units can act rather autonomously. As it happens now in Iraq were sabotages and suicide bombings occur even in the liberated areas. Or in Iran - in March 2017 the official resources of ISIS called the existing cells to form their own Shoura council and to elect a “minister of war” due to their autonomous existence (though according to ISIS administrative territorial the “Perisan lands” are mainly included in Iraqi “Wilayat Diyal” (does not overlap with the official borders of Diyala province)).

So, even the unproven death of the leaders does not bear much influence on the combat readiness of ISIS units while they are able to restructure in the conditions of ethnic and confessional misbalance particularly if their operatives and preachers are still active.

However, there is a weak point in ISIS ideology – it is the “caliph”. Hypothetically, the leader of Shoura council Abu Arkan Al-Amiri, a truly mythical person (no one knows where he is from, how he looks like, etc.), can take “caliph’s” place if he is killed or arrested, and Shoura council will elect its new leader.

ISIS propaganda devoted much attention to the personality of Al-Baghdadi, his education in the Islamic law and his “chosenness” (he is presumably a member of Quraysh tribe to which prophet Mohammed belonged, etc.) and never mentioned the possibility of having a successor. So, in case his death is proven and if the Islamist propaganda is not ready for it, “caliphate” may fall into disarray as it will be unclear to which “caliph” the whole “Muslim Umma” should pledge allegiance. The Islamic state should understand that.

Photo: RIA News/Evgeniy Epanchincev

Read 3623 times Last modified on Wednesday, 21 June 2017 16:37