A fusion
of U.S. special operations forces and local militia are about to bloody
the so-called Islamic State, and just possibly drive them out of their
de facto capital.
But no one expects a decisive victory against ISIS.
The commanders of those forces met in Tampa this past week near U.S.
Special Operations Command headquarters to share lessons learned, and
lament that the more they learn about ISIS, the longer and harder they
think this fight will be.
Only a
year ago, this conference floor was full of laments over being held back
by a timid White House. The administration has since ratcheted up its
campaign on ISIS, with an eye to legacy and a tacit acknowledgement that
the previous strategy wasn’t working. The Pentagon has deployed fifty
U.S. special operators to Syria to train and advise local forces, and
authorized up to 250 more, and also sent several hundred special
operators to a base in northern Iraq to target ISIS by air and by
ground, as well as roughly 4,000 conventional U.S. troops to help the
Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
The JSOC-run “expeditionary targeting force” as it’s known has already taken out some 40 ISIS operatives
linked to planning and facilitating overseas attacks, less than half of
the ISIS fighters JSOC has removed from the battlefield. Strikes inside
Iraq are done with the government of Iraq’s permission.
The
light U.S. footprint has meant an evolution of the teams fighting ISIS.
In previous campaigns like Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. counterterrorist
forces worked mostly separately from units like the Green Berets that
train locals. The teams fighting ISIS are mixed together, according to
Special Operations Command’s Thomas.
“It
is absolutely blended. I just came back from overseas. I had to ask
people who are you with. Who’s who in the zoo here, because it was that
well blended, that well orchestrated, which is a good thing,” he said.
Some of those troops were caught on camera, patrolling alongside their Kurdish fighting partners and sporting Kurdish combat patches
on their uniform – a sign of cooperation with their brothers in arms,
but one that sent Turkey into a diplomatic tailspin Friday. Ankara
believes those Kurdish fighting units have ties to separatists who
Turkey considers to be terrorists.
In
Africa, which faces an alphabet soup of dangerous extremists, local
troops are willing if not always able to fight. That helps to explain
why there are 96 special operations missions in some 22 African
countries, according to Army Green Beret Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who
heads Special Operations Command Africa.
“ISIL
is the most dominant violent extremist organization on the continent,”
Bolduc told the crowd, using the government’s preferred acronym for the
so-called Islamic State. “AQIM [al Qaeda in the Magreb] is the most
enduring. Boko Haram, the most deadly. Al Shabab is in our opinion the
most unpredictable, and demonstrates resiliency.”
He pointed to the weakened state of the Ugandan-spawned Lord’s Resistance Army
after four years hunted by local troops backed by foreign assistance as
proof of what 100 U.S. special operations advisors could accomplish.
“They bump up against our partners, and our partners take it to them,” Bolduc said.
The need to work through partners is changing how some special operations forces recruit, according to Navy SEAL Rear Adm. Brian Losey, who heads the SEALs in Coronado, Calif.
Losey
spoke of recruiting “warrior statesmen” capable of negotiating with
locals, and working with humanitarian groups to bring aid, as well as
they raid on the battlefield. He even welcomed women SEALs to the force,
should they make it through the selective training that was just opened
to all, as he said they would help communicate with more of the
population in conflict zones.
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