Senior Isis leaders have been forced to accept that they will lose their caliphate in Syria and Iraq and see terrorist attacks in the West as the way forward for jihad, according to foreign fighters who are abandoning the Islamist group as it faces an onslaught in Mosul and an impending attack on Raqqa.
The killings of some of their best commanders, divisions and fear of treachery have contributed to Isis steadily losing territory, according to two Belgian Muslims who recently deserted and fled to Turkey. At the same time, destruction of munitions has led to the group depending more and more on light weapons, suicide bomb cars and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) to try and stem the offensives being launched against it.
“When Daesh [Isis] went into Iraq and took the armour and Humvees from the Iraqi army, it was a big success because it allowed them to move forward very fast. But once the bombing started by the Americans a lot of these armoured cars and Humvees just got smashed; moving around in them just made you a big target,” said Rachid, 27, who used to work as a mechanic in Belgium before his journey to Syria.
“Now the Daesh leaders talk about ribat, which means defending territory, not going forward, so it is a different kind of warfare. Daesh have [surface-to-air] missiles, sure. They have even built their own but how many planes have they brought down? Very few, it is not so easy with modern planes,” he continued. “They still have very good bombmakers and suicide cars are very good because they are effective and really make the enemy afraid. But when the Americans and the Russians started their air strikes these cars were getting blown up before they got to the enemy, so not so effective now and also numbers of people volunteering to be suicide bombers has fallen.
