ISIS uses ‘exhausting mobilization’ strategy in Iraq similar to ‘harvesting soldiers’

Mouaz Mohammad

ISIS has carried out nearly a hundred operations in separate areas in Iraq in recent weeks, including in the provinces of Diyala, Tigris, Kirkuk, Salahuddin, Anbar, Nineveh, Jazeera and Fallujah, resulting in 176 people killed and injured, confirming that the organization is currently seeking to implement a strategy of “exhausting mobilization” similar to “harvesting soldiers” that its followers were ordered to in April 2019.

What is exhausting mobilization?

The strategy of “exhausting mobilization” is to force the opponent to mobilize all the time in all regions and to keep him on permanent alert, which helps to weaken morale and cause exhaustion and then collapse.

In this strategy, ISIS is trying to preoccupy the opponent with operations, no matter how simple, and not allow him to rest, while changing their frequency in terms of time and intensity in order to keep him in a state of permanent shock and unable to anticipate the location and time of future attacks.

In November 2019, ISIS presented a detailed description of this tactic, explaining that it is represented in preparing the mujahideen for their strikes by monitoring the enemy’s positions and determining how to strike, and then withdrawing to safe places to rest and prepare themselves for the next blow.

This strategy works according to the guerrilla style of warfare, which includes the implementation of assassinations and planting explosive devices and car bombs, in addition to targeting economic sites, agricultural crops and energy resources, which the organization has done since its recent return, taking advantage of governments’ preoccupation with the corona pandemic.

In spite of the Iraqi forces launching Operation Black Desert to track ISIS elements in a number of governorates, Iraqi researcher Hesham al-Hashemi considered it merely a demonstrative reaction, confirming in a statement to the Reference that it will not eliminate or eradicate terrorism from its roots, nor will it prevent terrorist operations again.

The “exhausting mobilization” strategy is very similar to its “harvesting soldiers” strategy, which its followers ordered to in April 2019 and focused on causing the greatest losses in the ranks of the regular Iraqi forces and the popular Shiite and Sunni tribal forces until these forces collapse and the organization returns to attack the prisons where its members are held and then take control of Iraqi cities, as happened in 2014.

Trying to gain pledge of allegiance

ISIS seeks to ensure that the organization will take control again of the Iraqi lands it lost in 2017 in an attempt to gain allegiance for ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi by branches of al-Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Afghan Taliban by promoting that it is the only jihadist party in the world.