ISIS intelligence collapses: Four axes confuse terrorist organization in Iraq

Mohamed Shaat

ISIS is facing successive strikes, whether by targeting its hideouts, liquidating its members, or hunting down its leaders. In the latest of these operations, the Iraqi authorities announced the arrest of a senior ISIS leader in the capital, Baghdad, known as the “Wali (governor) of Tal Afar”.

According to the Iraqi Security Media Cell, Iraq’s intelligence agency, through accurate intelligence information and the cooperation of citizens, was able to arrest the Wali of Tal Afar in a security operation in Baghdad.

As part of targeting terrorist leaders, the Baghdad Operations Commander announced two weeks ago the killing of four terrorists belonging to ISIS, including the “Wali of Tarmiyah”.

New strategies

In special statements to the Reference, Iraqi military and strategic expert Alaa al-Nashou attributed the operations carried out against ISIS leaders to what he described as “new strategic plans” achieved by the intelligence effort, noting that these plans are built on the basis of completing the circles, in a security sense, by linking all areas of operations in which ISIS terrorist action is expected within the framework of proactive action through accurate information about the work of intelligence cells in the areas, with the presence of security awareness for the community that suffered from the policies of ISIS, so observation and monitoring of all suspicious movements was one of the most important priorities of intelligence work, in accordance with to the well-known principle of “make doubt a path to certainty.”

Nashou explained that the confrontation with ISIS has developed a lot, and there have been major transformations in terms of patterns, behavior, and security and military work. After the organization had the principle of attack and surprise in many of its terrorist operations, today it is turning to the principle of defense and even withdrawal to avoid losses at the level of individuals or moral and material capabilities, while narrowing the areas for operations that could be a suitable environment for work.

ISIS in security’s grip

Nashou stressed that this fear and apprehension on the part of ISIS members made them lose many of the security and combat characteristics that they had enjoyed, which made them more limited in their movement, weak in their performance, and easily fell into the grip of the security and intelligence forces, which have gained much experience in knowing the methods and movements of the terrorist organization and its leaders.

He added that through security and military research into all of the organization’s strategies and mobilization, ISIS is moving under different security and military theories that are subject to internal and external variables, and these variables greatly affected the performance of the work of the Iraqi security and intelligence services from 2014 until 2020, and after that the transformations in this performance began due to accumulations of international intelligence supporting Iraq in the war against ISIS.

Continuous training for security and intelligence personnel

According to Nashou, all of this comes in conjunction with the increase in continuous training of Iraqi security and intelligence personnel, which has made the confrontation with ISIS ongoing and has achieved fruitful and significant results in striking and destroying all active forces. The organization has also suffered major setbacks, especially at the level of suicide operations inside cities, its pursuit and destruction of its bases in remote areas, and turning to new pages of work, which is targeting the organization’s leaders and monitoring all their movements.

Four critical factors

Nashou believes that the above is the basis for reducing the terrorist organization’s power and eliminating it permanently, after cutting off all its resources and factors, which could be a new case for reorganization, especially some internal forces that are working to return Iraq to square one and with the help of some regional forces that are working for its interests, in addition to four decisive factors: the weakness and collapse of the intelligence system of ISIS, the weakness of the regional support that controlled the regions intelligence-wise due to international support for Iraq in possessing the security and military initiative, reaching important points in the structure of the terrorist organization and exposing its leadership, and conflicts and problems among ISIS leaders, which greatly influenced the performance of the organization’s work in Syria and Iraq.