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Islamic State's Gains Reveal New Prowess on Battlefield

In late April, a commander for Islamic State said his forces were ready to launch an offensive to take Ramadi , and the group called for fighters to redeploy to Iraq from Syria .
Three weeks later, the jihadist group seized the capital of Anbar province after relentless waves of suicide bombings.
U.S. defense chief Ash Carter has blamed Ramadi's fall mainly on Iraqi forces' lack of will to fight. But Islamic State's battlefield performance suggests the terrorist group's tactical sophistication is growing--a development the Iraqis and the U.S.-led coalition have so far failed to counter, said Iraqi officials, former U.S. officials and military analysts studying the organization.
An examination of how Ramadi fell indicates that Islamic State commanders executed a complex battle plan that outwitted a greater force of Iraqi troops as well as the much-lauded, U.S.-trained special-operations force known as the Golden Division, which had been fighting for months to defend the city.
Islamic State commanders evaded surveillance and airstrikes to bring reinforcements to its front lines in western Iraq . The group displayed a high degree of operational security by silencing its social media and propaganda teams during the Ramadi surge.
The group also churned out dozens of formidable new weapons by converting captured U.S. military armored vehicles designed to be impervious to small-arms fire into megabombs with payloads equal to the force of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Over the three-day surge in Ramadi , Islamic State fighters launched at least 27 such vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or Vbieds, that destroyed Iraq security forces' defensive perimeters and crumbled multistory buildings.
Military analysts said the new formidable weapon was the latest development showing how the group appears to be learning from battlefield defeats like the one in Kobani, Syria , last summer in pursuit of its goal to control the Sunni-majority areas of Syria and Iraq .
"It's very frustrating," said Bill Roggio , senior fellow at the Defense of Democracies think tank and managing editor of the Long War Journal , which chronicles the U.S. war on terror. "These guys are showing a good degree of tactical awareness."
Some U.S. officials have described the performance of Iraqi forces in Ramadi as inadequate and chaotic because of a lack of overall command structure. Some government troops were Iraqi special forces, but the bulk were from the federal and local police. The Iraqi government said it was looking into who ordered the retreat.
Still, some U.S. officials have acknowledged in recent days that the Iraqis remained more organized and determined in Ramadi than they have elsewhere in recent months in the fight against Islamic State, and have also said the tactics and explosives used by Islamic State fighters in Ramadi were measurably more brutal and powerful.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi over the weekend said his forces had been overwhelmed by the enemy's weapons.
"They have the will to fight, but when they are faced with an onslaught by [Islamic State] from nowhere....With armored trucks packed with explosives, the effect of them is like a small nuclear bomb," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Long before Islamic State declared a caliphate last summer, its supporters fought in Iraq's Anbar province, piggybacking on local Iraqi Sunni grievances against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad . The organization controlled more than half of the territory around Ramadi , and by the start of 2015, it had captured more, U.S. officials said.
By mid-April, the long-static front lines in Ramadi's north and southeastern districts began tipping in favor of Islamic State forces, said Iraqi officials. At that stage, those lines were being defended by the Golden Division, as well as an Iraqi army division, federal police forces and a local tribal police force from Anbar province where Ramadi is based.
Islamic State hasn't announced the size or name of its militias or commanders fighting in Ramadi . U.S. officials say there is no precise intelligence on the force strength.
After the mid-April victories in the Albu Faraj and Sijariyah neighborhoods, an Islamic State commander told Islamic State's radio station, Al Bayan , on April 27 that the group was ready to embark on its ultimate goal of winning control of Ramadi's city center, said Dan Milton , a professor at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the U.S. Army's military academy.
On the same day, Islamic State distributed a military order hundreds of miles to the north in Aleppo, Syria , calling for a redeployment of the group's most devout fighters to the front lines in Anbar and Salahuddin provinces in Iraq . Written in the name of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi , the order called for expert and religiously dedicated fighters for a one-time assignment, implying they would be used in suicide missions, said Aymenn Al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who studies Islamic State's religious and administrative decrees.
By the end of April, officials in Anbar were reporting a surge of cars passing into Iraq from the Al Qaim border crossing--which Islamic State controls--near Syria . Officials in Ramadi said Islamic State fighters started arriving in groups of two or three in nondescript sedans, instead of the Toyota pickup trucks group members used to favor, in apparent efforts to blend in with civilian traffic and stay off radar of U.S. surveillance planes.
From early May, the group enforced a blackout of its own media posts from Ramadi . That was in contrast to other battlefields in the country, such as Beiji and Fallujah , where Islamic State supporters continued to post propaganda about battles, said Charlie Winter , a researcher who studies extremist groups at Quilliam, a London think tank.
"They displayed admirable operational security," said Mr. Winter. "They understand the element of surprise. And they understand how [the coalition] can track them."
On May 5 , Islamic State launched an attack on Ramadi's city center, but Iraqi helicopters and the Golden Division repulsed the advance, Iraqi state media reported. Running battles along the bridges across the Euphrates River separating Ramadi's southwestern Islamic State-held neighborhoods from the city center continued for days, with Iraqi forces holding their lines.
By May 13 , Islamic State had established a team of snipers closer to where Iraqi police and army units were based, said Iraqi soldiers and state media.
The next day, Islamic State launched its surge by sending a single armored bulldozer to the concrete barriers on the outskirts of the government lines. The bulldozer worked unimpeded for close to an hour, removing concrete walls, Iraqi officials said. Once the road was cleared, Islamic State fighters drove about six Vbieds, including an armored Humvee and armored dump truck, into the government complex, said Iraqi and U.S. officials.
"It was incredibly devastating, just horrific, gigantic explosions that took out entire city blocks," a senior U.S. official said.
Over the next 72 hours, the terrorist group set off at least another 20 Vbied and suicide bombs, U.S. officials said.
Islamic State took the government complex by May 15 . The group launched another wave of vehicle suicide attacks on May 17 , preventing Iraqi reinforcements from entering the city, said U.S. and Iraqi officials. The Golden Division, which had been cut off from the rest of the Iraqi forces, called for a retreat from town, said Iraqi security officials.
Once Islamic State's black flag began flying from Ramadi's city center, the group lifted its information blackout. It posted photos and eulogies for six suicide bombers it said were responsible for the initial wave of attacks.
One of the men was identified as a British Muslim who had once belonged to Syria's al Qaeda affiliate before joining Islamic State. The other five were also foreign fighters from Arab nations. Most were pictured holding U.S.-made weapons or standing in front of the U.S. military vehicles they allegedly used to blow themselves up.
Gordon Lubold , Dion Nissenbaum and Ali Nabhan contributed to this article.
Write to Margaret Coker at [e-mail]
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-25-15 1818ET
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