The world’s war against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and Jabhat Al Nusra — the offshoot of Al Qaida — is easier said than done. The Daesh militants in this war consist of more than 50,000 men in Syria and Iraq, aided by thousands of former Baathist soldiers and officers who were dismissed from the Iraqi Army by the United States-led occupation of Iraq. Al Qaida, which gave birth to Daesh, has more than 30,000 Arabs and non-Arabs among its ranks. Around 7,000 hail from Chechnya, which is a part of the Russian federation. In such a mix of toxic waste, there are thousands of western converts fighting alongside in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, there are sleeping and active cells all over the world to wreck the peace and national security of many countries, as witnessed by the carnage committed in Paris and cities across Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia and the US recently.
What makes these extremist groups very deadly for international security is their beastly and inhuman tactics and their willingness to use unconventional weapons of mass destruction if they have access to them as well as weapons of ‘mass disruption’, which can easily be made at home from material available in every country. Al Qaida tried, but failed four times to hit America with the so-called “dirty bomb”. This alone makes the absolute termination of Al Qaida and its toxic waste, Daesh, a priority of the world.
There are now two coalitions involved in the developments related to this war: One led by the US and comprising 60 other countries. It is a coalition that is employing air strikes only, with no effective ground troops, except for the Kurdish forces. The second is an Iranian-Syrian-Russian coalition that is employing air strikes, supported by ground troops provided by Syria and Iran, who are making good use of the very effective Russian strikes.
It is worthy to note in this context an advice in the Israeli daily Haaretz, to the US-led coalition, by Israeli columnist Amir Oren, who said: “In order for the war to be effective, the full military force of the United States and of Nato should be deployed. And it is vital to eradicate the impression that the West is waging war against Islam. After all, the direct military intervention of western powers in Iraq and Libya gave birth to [Daesh]”.
Air strikes by the US-Led coalition, of which the American sorties are the only ones effective, are very timid. The US is averaging 10 to 15 sorties per day, compared to 250 to 280 per day during Nato’s Kosovo bombings in 1990 and 110 to 150 sorties per day in Afghanistan in 2001. Western military commanders agree that air strikes without ground troops can never win a war. The western side badly needs effective ground troops, like the Kurdish forces, on their side. Turkey is bombing these Kurdish forces through its daily air strikes in the name of the war against Daesh! Recently, the US decided to send “Special Operations Force” to be on the ground in Iraq, but this force can only operate in Kurdish-held territories because the pro-Iran militia in Iraq vowed, a few days ago, to fight this American force.
Russia’s air strikes in Syria have recently crippled Daesh’s oil trade with Turkey by destroying 480 tankers on their way to the country. There are more than 20 million Muslims in the Russian federation, besides the many millions in the former states of the Soviet Union. Terrorists returning home from Syria and Iraq would wreck havoc in the Russian federation — on a scale much larger than the harm done in Paris recently.
The terrorists who falsely claim to be Christians, Jews or Muslims have created religiosities of their own to transform their beastly images.
Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia.