The war against Daesh (self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has killed thousands of fighters and even some mid-level battlefield commanders, but the organisation’s senior leadership and nerve centre remain largely untouched, according to US military and intelligence officials.
These officials and other experts tracking the terror group tell us that Daesh’s Shura and Sharia councils, the advisory bodies that help inform the major decisions of the group’s leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, remain intact, notwithstanding one close call in November for Al Baghdadi. Although air strikes and military campaigns have killed several regional administrators and designated “governors” Daesh has quickly replaced them and maintains its command-and-control capabilities.
This assessment of progress against Daesh differs sharply from public statements by top Obama administration officials as recently as last month, including Secretary of State John Kerry and retired General John Allen, the president’s special coordinator for the coalition against Daesh. In February, Allen said that half the group’s leaders in Iraq had been killed. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference also in February, Kerry expanded that claim to account for the group’s leadership in Syria as well.
“We’ve disrupted their command structure, undermined its propaganda, taken out half of their senior leadership, squeezed its financing, damaged its supply networks, dispersed its personnel and forced them to think twice before they move in an open convoy,” Kerry said.
Kerry and Allen have not since repeated that claim about the group’s senior leadership. US military officials tell us no consensus intelligence estimate supports the claim that half the Daesh leadership has been eliminated.
When asked about Kerry’s 50 per cent claim, Army Captain John J. Moore, a spokesman for US Central Command, told us: “We currently don’t have a percentage attached to that statistic.”
Experts told us Kerry’s estimate is tough to understand, because defining the Daesh “leadership” is subjective. Cole Bunzel, a Princeton University scholar of Near Eastern Studies who closely follows Daesh, said its leadership structure is opaque and not much is known about the true membership of its Shura and Sharia councils, which play an important role in the organisation. When Daesh has announced major decisions, such as its decision to expand into Syria or declare itself a caliphate, said Bunzel, it has made clear that one or both of those councils were consulted by Al Baghdadi.
“I am very sceptical of the claim that the coalition has killed 50 per cent of the leadership of [Daesh], whatever that means,” said Bunzel. He later added: “[Daesh] has publicly announced when senior members of the group have been killed. But they have never talked about anyone in the core leadership being killed since 2010.”
Michael Smith, a principal of the counterterrorism consulting group Kronos Advisory LLC, told us there have been some reports of Daesh officials being killed in air strikes. The Lebanese journalist and documentary film-maker Ali Hashem reported that in mid-November, Al Baghdadi was injured in an air strike on his convoy.
But Smith said his group, which monitors Daesh’s official communications and social media accounts, has yet to come upon any acknowledgement that members of the group’s Shura Council have been killed. “[Terrorist] groups typically eulogise slain leaders,” he told us.
“If the administration is confident about these claims. It should name names. Because highlighting such kills demonstrates the efficacy of our counter-campaign and that can deter individuals from joining or supporting the Islamic State. But lying about our achievements plays right into [Daesh’s] P.R. game.”
Last week, Kerry was more cautious. At a Senate hearing last Wednesday, he acknowledged that Daesh was still picking up supporters and that its savage attacks continue. (Just last week the leaders of the Nigerian terrorist organisation, Boko Haram, declared their fealty to Al Baghdadi.)
But Kerry did not repeat his previous claim about the US killing half the group’s leadership or taking back territory it had captured. State Department officials said Kerry’s change of tone when talking about the effectiveness of the air strikes did not signify any change in his confidence that the mission was succeeding. One State Department official told us that Kerry’s claim that half the group’s leadership had been killed was based on internal State Department deliberations. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told us Kerry’s remarks about progress against Daesh at Munich and his statement about the same topic this week “are entirely consistent”.
Reliable statistics about the deaths of Daesh leaders are hard to come by in part because different elements of the government disagree on the definition of a “senior leader”.
For some inside the US intelligence community, senior leadership refers to members of the Shura council and other ministers who have been named for Daesh. Other analysts, however, consider regional commanders and local governors also to be senior leaders of the group. Daesh has given these regional leaders much autonomy. But these officials are easily replaced. As one US military official told us: “We’ve killed the emir of Mosul multiple times and he has been replaced multiple times.”
Another issue with the statistics on senior leadership is that the US is relying heavily on the Iraqi and Kurdish security services for intelligence, including the interrogation of captured Daesh fighters. “If we are getting a lot of our intelligence from the Iraqis, it’s probably inflated,” Bunzel said, “We should also remember that the Iraqis said for years that the leader of [Daesh] of Iraq was an actor playing a fictional character. This turned out not to be true.”
After six months of war, the US arguably would have made a much bigger and more verifiable dent in Daesh’s leadership if the Obama administration had been less reluctant to get involved on the ground in Syria. Members of the Syrian opposition and US officials say the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the loosely organised group of moderate brigades fighting Daesh, has been cut out of the process for selecting targets for US air strikes in Syria. The FSA’s leadership has complained that the US has ignored its offers to share intelligence.
Syria is where most of Daesh’s leaders are based. If the US really wants to kill them, there are a few Syrian rebels who are willing to help.
— Washington Post
Josh Rogin is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about national security and foreign affairs. Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about politics and foreign affairs.
