London: With its two biggest victories in nearly a year in Iraq and Syria, Daesh has energised its fighters, littered the streets of two cities with the bodies of its enemies and forced Washington to re-examine its strategy.
The near simultaneous capture this month of Ramadi west of Baghdad and Palmyra northeast of Damascus has reinforced the sway of the terrorist group.
But although the fighters sound triumphant on YouTube, vowing to press on to Baghdad and Damascus, there appears to be little room for them to expand their territory much further -- at least for now.
In both Iraq and Syria they have lost ground in recent months as well as gained it. The weakest targets are already in their grasp, and they will have to devote as much effort to holding and administering the areas that they already control as to attempting to extend their onslaught.
In Iraq, Daesh fighters already hold most of the Sunni majority areas. The Shiite-led government has responded to the loss of Ramadi in the Euphrates River valley by dispatching Iran-backed Shiite militia, fresh from beating Daesh fighters in the valley of Iraq’s other great river, the Tigris.
In Syria, rival rebel groups, once seen as feeble in comparison with Daesh, have drawn support from Arab countries and grown stronger, expanding their own territory at the expense of the government of President Bashar Al Assad.
In both countries, Daesh has also suffered defeats at the hands of Kurds.
But even if there are limits to how far Daesh can expand its territory for now, the victories this month give it crucial momentum, important for maintaining the support of people in the places it rules over.
“The priority for Daesh now is to capitalise on the momentum that is gained from taking control of Ramadi and Palmyra because this war has been about momentum shifts,” said Ahmad Ali, senior fellow at Washington D.C.’s Education for Peace in Iraq Centre.
“Up until (when) Daesh was able to take control of Ramadi, the momentum was against Daesh. Now this is a prime opportunity for Daesh to keep pushing, because it’s trying to regain its reputation as this invincible force.”
In Iraq, after the army collapsed last year and Daesh seized much of the north of the country in a lightning advance, the government and its allied Shiite militia rallied to halt the offensive before the gates of Baghdad.
Daesh fighters fell short of their objective of seizing Samarra north of the capital, site of one of the most revered Shiite shrines, which they had pledged to destroy.
The government and its militia allies are now firmly in control of the majority-Shiite capital itself, and have so far prevented Daesh from securing strong footholds in Sunni farmland on its southern and western outskirts, territory known as the “triangle of death” during the 2003-2011 US occupation.
In March, government forces and the militia advanced north of Baghdad into the Tigris valley, recapturing former dictator Saddam Hussain’s home town Tikrit.
The Shiite militia, with Iranian funds, weapons and advisors, have proven a particularly capable force on the battlefield, although Washington is worried that their presence will exacerbate sectarian tensions.
Until now, the government had kept the Shiite militia out of the overwhelmingly Sunni Euphrates valley west of the capital. But the fall of Ramadi has forced Baghdad to dispatch them, meaning Daesh will now face a more formidable foe.
Washington’s fear is that the presence of the Shiite militiamen will drive local tribes to embrace Daesh.
The Pentagon described as “unhelpful” a decision by the Shiite militia to give their advance a sectarian slogan as a code name.
But just as in 2006 and 2007, when the brutality of Daesh’s Al Qaida predecessors drove many Sunni tribesmen to make peace with hated US Marines, the fighters’ extreme violence means some locals may tolerate even the feared Shiites.
Daesh fighters contacted by Reuters in Iraq say their main task for now is combatting the “awakenings” -- Sunni tribesmen who have resisted their rule.
They have killed hundreds of shaikhs and local tribal leaders in the Euphrates valley. But that sort of violence brings blood feuds that in the past made their rule short-lived.
Michael Knights, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute, said that with the capture of Ramadi, the fighters had reached the natural boundaries of a state to rule Sunni territory.
Although they could still launch attacks on Baghdad itself, those would more likely be isolated attacks rather than a campaign to seize the city.
“In Iraq, Daesh is still losing ground, not gaining it, regardless of tactical gambits like Ramadi,” he said. “Daesh is only capable of tinkering at the peripheries of the areas it already holds.”
Syria, where Al Assad’s government has been on the back foot in recent months, offers greater potential opportunities for Daesh to advance further. Unlike in Iraq, Sunnis are the majority across the country, so a group seeking to rule over Sunnis faces fewer natural limits to its expansion.
While Washington supports the Iraqi government and has used its air power to fight Daesh in Iraq in conjunction with Baghdad, in Syria it remains opposed to Al Assad and has no strong allies on the ground.
“On the Syria side, it’s a completely different dynamic because Daesh there does not have a formidable force in front of it,” said Ali.
“It’s able to attack Syrian government forces and we have seen so far that the Syrian government forces have been retreating in front of Daesh attacks. So Syria might actually be more of an objective ... than Iraq.” Nevertheless, unlike in Iraq, Daesh in Syria is only one of a number of ‘rebel’ groups, which run the gamut from hardcore Islamist militants like the Al Qaida-linked Nusra Front to comparatively secular nationalists.
When Daesh was surging into Iraq last year and bringing advanced weaponry seized there back into Syria, it seemed like many of those other Sunni groups would fade into irrelevance.
But in recent months, Sunni groups that have resisted joining Daesh have been receiving more weapons and funds from US-allied Arab states and possibly Turkey.
They have become more potent, inflicting defeats on Al Assad’s troops and allies in the heavily populated southwest and northwest, and have remained more united than in the past.
