ISISISIS shows signs of strain under weight of battle defeats, other setbacks

The Islamic State (ISIS) seems to be facing setbacks as a result of attacks from a coalition of Iraqi and Kurdish government troops, as well as local non-ISIS fighters residing near the group’s territory.

There have also been reports of rising tensions between foreign and local ISIS fighters. According to activists living near the Syrian border with Iraq and Turkey, while Syrian fighters are required to serve in rural outposts more vulnerable to attacks, foreign fighters are allowed to live in cities where coalition airstrikes are rare because of the risk of civilian casualties. Just last week, Syrian ISIS fighters on the Syrian-Iraqi border town of Abu Kamal engaged in a shootout with foreign fighters led by a Kuwaiti commander who ordered them to deploy to the front lines in Iraq. The Syrian faction, led by Saddam Jamal, a former Free Syrian Army leader, remains in Abu Kamal, tense and skeptical of the foreign fighters.

The biggest threat to ISIS may come from within, said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “The key challenge facing ISIS right now is more internal than external,” she said. “We’re seeing basically a failure of the central tenet of ISIS ideology, which is to unify people of different origins under the caliphate. This is not working on the ground. It is making them less effective in governing and less effective in military operations.”

The Washington Post reports that in some instances, foreign fighters have tried to flee ISIS territory, only to be caught and killed by their ISIS commanders. Bodies of at least thirty men, many of whom appeared to be Asian, were found in February in the town of Tabqa in Raqqa, Syria. According to the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RSS), which monitors ISIS activities, the men were ISIS fighters who tried to flee. ISIS has even placed new restrictions on traveling in and out of areas under its control.

ISIS is also facing challenges posed by external factors, including Kurds in northern Syria, Kurds in northern Iraq, and the coalition of Iraqi army and Shiite militia fighters in the city of Tikrit. It should be noted that most of ISIS’s setbacks have come in non-Sunni areas, where the group has lost a great deal of land and fighters.

ISIS’s defeats and setbacks have slowed down its recruitment among Syrian men who, although fearful the group, were ready to fight alongside ISIS for as much as $800 a month in salary. ISIS “was never popular, but people supported them because they were scared or they needed money,” said Ahmed Mhidi, who is setting up an opposition group called DZGraph. “Now people want nothing to do with them, and if the Islamic State puts pressure on them, they just flee.” The group has, however, maintained its recruitment of foreigners.

In Raqqa, the city’s population has become somewhat cosmopolitan, with thousands of Europeans, Asians, Arabs, and Africans arriving to live in the Islamic State. Upon arrival, many are given cars and apartments, but it is uncertain how these new arrivals will contribute to ISIS’s military objectives. Many of the foreigners show little interest in fighting on the front lines, said Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, the pseudonym of one of the founders of RSS, who now lives in Turkey. “They just want to live in the Islamic State,” he said. “They didn’t come to fight.”