It's
been exactly a year since the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria began its
rampage through northern Iraq,
seizing Mosul and Tikrit in short order
as Iraqi security forces fled south. The group has proved its resilience
since, despite thousands of coalition airstrikes and multiple
battlefronts across a huge area.
ISIS' most recent successes have come hundreds of miles apart.
Its
capture of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria can be explained by its
tactics and structure, the weakness or exhaustion of opponents and the
support or acquiescence among enough Sunnis in both countries. It may
also have benefited, according to some analysts, from cynical power
plays in Baghdad.
Even so, taking
Ramadi and holding it are two different things. Evidence from previous
battles suggests that ISIS doesn't do defense as well as offense, and it
is still vastly outnumbered by Iraqi forces. But the longer ISIS
fighters are entrenched anywhere, the more difficult they are to expel,
and the Iraqi Security Forces clearly aren't capable of the task alone.
In
Syria, the seizure of Palmyra gives ISIS access to the main roads to
Homs and Damascus and nearby gas fields. It also confirms a shift by
ISIS to focus on territory held by the regime of Bashar al-Assad in
western and central Syria after a series of defeats at the hands of
Kurdish forces supported by coalition airpower in the north. Read more on cnn.
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