World Unites in Fight Against Daesh in 2015

The Islamic State jihadist group, known in Arabic as Daesh, has galvanized the international community this year in condemning it as a growing threat to global peace and stability.

MOSCOW, December 15 (Sputnik) – Formally declared a caliphate in Syria and Iraq by its leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi in June 2014, Daesh’s tentacles extend to Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and Egypt. Cells of the Sunni fundamentalist group are known to be spread across Europe and the United States.

Daesh has claimed responsibility for terrorist acts in France, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Mali and Tunisia, among other countries, in 2015.

Its killings have prompted world leaders to join forces in their efforts against terrorism and brutality.

Recruitment, Online and on the Ground

Daesh's online presence is thought to have persisted, if not grown, in the face of regular account bans by Twitter and an online war waged against Daesh by the Anonymous hacking collective.

A Brookings Institution think tank report, published in March, identified between 46,000 and 90,000 Twitter accounts as being used by Daesh supporters at the time.

In a February interview with Sputnik, the US Council of Muslim Organizations' (USCMO) secretary general, Oussama Jammal, argued in favor of raising awareness of Daesh's use of social media to deceive, lure and radicalize young Muslims to limit its effectiveness.

Intelligence security firm The Soufan Group's (TSG) December report estimated that the radical group had more than doubled its ranks of foreign fighters despite international airstrikes and national forces fighting on the ground.

Out of some 31,000 foreign fighters thought to be in Iraq and Syria, 5,000 are believed to have come from Western Europe, while slightly less, some 4,700, are estimated to have traveled from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In descending order, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey and Jordan are the five largest contributors of foreign fighters to Daesh, according to TSG.

Local estimates put the number of Syrian children recruited by Daesh in the first quarter of 2015 at around 400, a figure confirmed by a UN special representative for children and armed conflict in mid-November. Over 1,100 children under the age of 16 were believed to have joined the "cubs of the caliphate" by mid-2015, dozens of whom have subsequently died on the battlefield.

Daesh has published a series of photographs this year depicting children launching short-range rockets, as well as shooting and beheading their victims.

Local Threat

Following Daesh's advances on Syrian and Iraqi towns and villages, thousands of religious minorities have been displaced and hundreds taken hostage, including religious leaders, women and children.

The "death cult" released a video in February depicting the execution of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. Days later, Daesh burned 45 Iraqis to death, including members of the country's security forces.

Its fighters kidnapped hundreds of Assyrian Christians from villages in northeast Syria that same month, and scores more in northwest Syria in April. In July, it abducted nearly 200 children, many as young as 10 years old, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The jihadists were said to have executed 2,000 Mosul residents in the first few days of August, and to have abducted over 100 more children. By mid-July, over 3,000 people, mostly civilians, were said to have been executed by Daesh in Syria alone.

Sexual abuse, including rape, enslavement and forced marriages, is believed to be widespread in Syria and Iraq. In late August, the UN Security Council condemned sexual violence toward women as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Media and watchdog reports accused the terrorist organization of using banned chemical weapons in early and mid-2015 attacks on Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Syria and Iraq.

In an interview with Sputnik in August, a Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) spokesman, Malik Ellahi, warned that Daesh's possession of chemical weapons posed a global threat.

Terrorist attacks continue to claim lives throughout the territories held by Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Suicide blasts and mass shootings, most notably in Turkey and Lebanon, have shaken security structures in dozens of neighboring countries, as well as across the Middle East and North Africa.

Threat to Europe

Europe has not escaped Daesh's long shadow — with fears that the migrant crisis as well as European nationals returning from combat in Syria and Iraq could pose a terrorist threat, in addition to homegrown extremism stoked by Daesh propaganda.

On January 7, 2015, two gunmen entered the editorial office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris after the publication of Prophet Muhammad caricatures, killing at least 12 people. A gunman thought to have links to Daesh shot a police officer near Paris the next day, before killing four people at a Kosher supermarket on the third day of the attacks.

Daesh later claimed its "soldiers of the caliphate" had carried out the three deadly terrorist acts.

In mid-February, a gunman with reported ties to the terrorist group opened fire during a free speech seminar and again at a synagogue in Denmark's capital, Copenhagen, killing two civilians, before being shot dead by Danish police.

A shooting spree at a Tunisian museum, for which Daesh claimed responsibility, took the lives of 23 people, including 20 foreign tourists. In late June, mostly British, German and Belgian nationals fell victim to another mass shooting at a Tunisian resort that killed 39 tourists.

Daesh, which issued a call for attacks against "infidels" during the holy month of Ramadan, claimed the act was carried out by one of its fighters. The fundamentalists' call is believed to have inspired a "lone wolf"-style attack in France, where a man decapitated a driver of a car before driving it into a US-owned gas factory warehouse in Lyon, France.

On November 13, several Daesh militants, armed with assault rifles and wearing suicide belts, killed 130 people and injured over 350 near a football stadium, at a concert hall and in restaurants in a series of coordinated attacks across Paris.

An investigation into the attacks uncovered a European-wide network of extremists stretching beyond France to Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Following the massacre, France, part of an existing US-led coalition, dramatically increased its airstrikes against the extremist group in Syria, with French President Francois Hollande declaring the terrorist attack an "act of war."

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom approved airstrikes in Syria in early December in the wake of the Paris attacks. Likewise in Germany, lawmakers approved a military campaign in Syria, committing up to 1,200 troops, six surveillance planes, a refueling aircraft and a frigate to support France's flagship aircraft carrier, which had previously been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean.

Yet despite the efforts of these European governments, the same TSG report listed 1,800 fighters as having arrived to Iraq and Syria from France, 760 each from the United Kingdom and Germany, and 470 from Belgium, to fight alongside Daesh.

Failed US Strategy

Daesh continues to gain ground in the two crisis-torn countries nearly a year and a half after a coalition of 62 countries, led by the United States, started airstrikes against its positions.

Early in July 2015, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that Washington's $500-million train and equip program had produced just 60 out of the planned 7,000 vetted opposition fighters for the anti-Daesh campaign.

By mid-September the number of fighters has dwindled to single digits, "four or five" according to US Central Command Commander Lloyd Austin. Austin said the Pentagon were concerned that the trainees may have defected to join Daesh and other extremist groups.

In early October, the Pentagon announced the suspension of the program after reports emerged of US-trained fighters being overrun and surrendering US-issued weapons to Nusra Front terrorists.

In early December, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that roughly 40 percent of US sorties returned each day without having struck any Daesh targets.

The coalition airstrikes were scaled back considerably in October after Russia launched its own anti-terrorist air campaign in Syria at the request of President Bashar Assad.

US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said early in October that Russia has carried out more military operations in Syria since the end of September than the United States had managed to do in nearly a year and a half.

The US-led campaign is being carried out without a UN Security Council mandate or permission from the Syrian government.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that over 150 US nationals have succeeded in joining Daesh in Syria. FBI Director James Comey said in October that his agency continues to identify individuals who seek to join the ranks of foreign fighters in the terrorist organization.

Homegrown Terrorists, Lone Wolf Attacks in US

Despite President Barack Obama’s pledges to combat terrorism not only abroad but also at home, US House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul noted in December that a sharp uptick in extremist activity has made 2015 "the single most active year for homegrown terror we have ever seen."

A record number of 56 individuals suspected of Daesh-related activities have been arrested in the US as of December 1, bringing the tally since March 2014 to 71, according to a George Washington University Program on Extremism report. It was noted in the same report that at least 900 active investigations were ongoing against Daesh sympathizers in all 50 US states amid monthly reports of US citizens facing arrests and convictions for intending to join the jihadist group.

Monitoring groups have long warned of "lone wolf" terrorist attacks on US soil inspired by Daesh, adept at online recruitment and incitement.

The jihadist group claimed credit for a May 4 armed attack on a controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest exhibit in Garland, Texas. The suspected gunmen are believed to have self-radicalized through online propaganda, carrying out the attack after been inspired by calls for jihad.

On December 2, a heavily armed US citizen of Pakistani origin and his wife opened fire at a San Bernardino, California, center for people with development disabilities, killing 14 people.

Investigators uncovered a three-year history of planned and abandoned terrorist plots.

Tashfeen Malik, wife of Syed Rizwan Farook, was found to have pledged allegiance to Daesh in a Facebook post under an alias.

The terrorist act shifted US rhetoric beyond the Paris attacks, which had already prompted over half of US state governors to declare their opposition to accepting Syrian refugees over fears of extremist infiltration.

Russian Anti-Daesh Campaign in Syria

On September 30, the upper house of the Russian parliament approved unanimously the use of the country's air force in Syria to combat terrorism a year after the US-led coalition launched its mission. The limited-scope operation was requested by Syrian President Bashar Assad, and a Baghdad Information Center was established to coordinate the aerial campaign between Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has regularly ruled out the deployment of Russian ground forces in the anti-Daesh campaign.

Simultaneous to launching the airstrikes, Russia submitted a UN Security Council resolution to coordinate anti-terrorist efforts. The resolution was adopted unanimously after its second submission on November 20.

In over two months of the airstrikes, Russian combat jets have struck over 3,000 terrorist targets, including command posts, ammunition and fuel depots, supply routes and underground bunkers. Russian jets have destroyed thousands of crude oil tankers, oil storage facilities and oil refineries in Syria since the start of the campaign.

The air campaign involves Sukhoi Su-25, Su-24M and Su-34 attack aircraft, with the support of Su-30 jets, Tu-95MS, Tu-160 and Tu-22M3 bombers, as well as four of the Caspian Sea Flotilla's destroyers.

The United States opened deconfliction lines of communication with Russia ahead of the airstrikes to avoid potential "misjudgment and miscalculation" in Syrian airspace.

The Syrian Armed Forces have repeatedly hailed the Russian air campaign, saying the airstrikes have inflicted irreparable damage on the terrorists in Syria.

Daesh Threat to Russia

On October 31, the Russia-owned Kogalymavia airliner crashed in the Sinai Peninsula en route from an Egyptian resort to St. Petersburg, leaving no survivors among the 224 passengers and crew.

Daesh's affiliate known as the Sinai Province claimed responsibility for the crash.

The Russian Federal Security Service later confirmed that a bomb had caused the Airbus A321 to break apart in midair, leading to the deadliest disaster in the history of Russian civil aviation.

Following the tragedy, Russian forces doubled the number of their airstrikes to include strategic bombers in a newly devised campaign and President Vladimir Putin reinforced calls for joint efforts in the fight against terrorism. In his December 3 state of the nation address, the Russian leader urged his counterparts worldwide to cast aside all arguments and differences to create a united counterterrorism effort that would act on the basis of international law and under the auspices of the UN.

In September, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for New Challenges and Threats said the United States continues to block Russia's proposal to include Daesh as an independent entity on the UN Security Council's sanctions list. Over 300 individuals and entities associated with terrorism figure on the UN Security Council's regularly updated "Al-Qaida Sanctions List."

Daesh is outlawed in Russia as a terrorist organization.

State Sponsors

An IHS analysis, published in December, estimates that Daesh generates about $80 million in monthly revenues, 43 percent of which it derives from oil smuggling. Around half its income is netted through taxation and confiscation. Drug smuggling, electricity sales and donations account for the rest, according to the study.

In February, Russia submitted a draft resolution to cut off sources of funding going to Daesh, which the UN Security Council adopted unanimously.

In June, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the UN Security Council to create an extra mechanism to identify entities that buy oil from the radical group.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Turkey, as far back as April 2014, of providing direct logistical and military support to terrorist groups operating in northern Syria.

At a meeting with French President Francois Hollande on November 26, Putin spoke about the "industrial-scale" oil supplies being transported from Syrian territories occupied by Daesh to Turkey, with the implicit support of the political leadership in Ankara.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly denied accusations of his or his family's direct involvement in the illicit Daesh oil trade. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov derided Erdogan's denials, claiming he would continue to refute the allegations "even if his face is smeared with smuggled oil."

On December 2, at a Russian Defense Ministry briefing for international media, Russia provided satellite images of hundreds of oil trucks amassed on the Syrian-Turkish border and identified the three main illegal oil routes into Turkey.

General Staff Chief of Main Operational Directorate Lt.Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said space reconnaissance discovered no less than 8,500 trucks transporting up to 200,000 barrels of Daesh oil daily, most of them entering Turkey from Iraq.

Lavrov vowed that day to formally present the evidence to the United Nations and other interested parties.

UN Security Council Resolution 2249, adopted on November 21, defines Daesh's illicit oil trade, along with its attacks and destruction, as constituting a "global and unprecedented" threat to international peace and security.

Outlook

Though it remains to be seen whether global efforts will contribute to the defeat of Daesh in 2016, state leaders are seen to be coalescing to bring an end to its atrocities.

With growing acknowledgment that the current migrant crisis and terror threats largely stem from the Syrian conflict, world and regional leaders convened in Vienna late in 2015 to search for a means to end the nearly five-year war.

The 20 negotiators, known as the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), agreed that government and opposition forces would hold UN-sponsored negotiations by January 1, 2016.

Russia, which held several talks with Syrian opposition delegates in Moscow this summer and fall in addition to intra-Syrian talks this spring and winter, has expressed hope that the Vienna talks would produce a unified list of terrorist groups operating in Syria. Jordan has been tasked with coordinating the development of a common understanding of groups and individuals to be classified as terrorist.

Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin has indicated that an expanded UN Security Council sanctions regime, targeting terrorist funding, might be introduced by December 18.