ISIS – The War of Attrition Campaign (attacks alongside psychological war):
Starting May 14, ISIS began a new terrorist campaign called the “War of Attrition”. The campaign spans throughout a number of countries, including Iraq, Syria (the emphasis being on the surroundings of Deir ez-Zor, Al -Mayadin, ar-Raqqah and southern Syria), northern Sinai (Egypt) etc. and is characterized with considerable bold actions.
An example of such bold actions can be seen in ISIS’s activities in the Deir ez-Zor area. While the combatants disguised themselves as Syrian military personnel and wore military uniforms, the organization manned checkpoints on the Damascus- Deir ez-Zor road, stopping vehicles, searching them for Assad’s military personnel and Iranian militias. During the course of the operation, 10 people associated with these forces were seized and executed. The campaign is combined with psychological warfare that is exhibited in the publication of harsh images and videos showing the results of the attacks and the executions. The purpose of the publications is meant to instill fear and terror and to remind all that ISIS is here to stay…
The Syrian army did not remain indifferent to the campaign and began a widespread search in the Syrian Desert areas, in an attempt to secure these areas from the presence of ISIS cells. On May 22 it was officially declared that two members of ISIS were killed in eastern Deir ez-Zor province. The two killed were: Ahmad Issa Ismail Ibrahim al-Zawi, known as Abu Ali al-Baghdadi, he served as the commander of the northern district of Baghdad, and Ahmed Abdel-Muhammed Hassan al-Jughaifi, known as Abu Ammar, a senior official in ISIS’s logistics department.
In southern Syria, the ISIS campaign was carried out by the Hauran district (an ISIS contingent), mainly in the Deraa province, and was characterized by the deploying of IED devices and the assassination of people affiliated with the Syrian regime, including members of the security forces.
Hauran district’s actions on the one hand and the popular protests against the regime on the other hand, brought Syrian army reinforcements to Deraa province, as stated in our article, “Syrian T-72s tanks and Russian Military Police are on the way to Deraa!”.
During the past week, Hauran district took responsibility for the elimination of six soldiers in eastern Daraa, in the Village of Shams and Khan Arnabah in four different incidents, the assassination of two military intelligence personnel, one in Al-Hara, the other in the Al-Jiza and another assassination of a regime official in Al-Harra.
In total, there have been eight terror attacks in southern Syria perpetrated by the Hauran district out of about a total of 70 terrorist attacks executed by ISIS in all arenas since the beginning of the current campaign.
ISIS started out as a guerrilla organization, evolved into a state entity and today returned to being a guerrilla organization. It appears that under the auspices of the Corona virus, ISIS is highly motivated to prove and demonstrate its continued survival, preservation, and even redevelopment.
At this point, ISIS is carrying out local tactical attacks within the arenas in which it is present. However, the question arises if and when will ISIS decide to step up its activity and carry out an attack against Israel?
On January 27, Abu Hamza al-Quraishi, ISIS spokesperson, released an audio tape (which we published in a separate article at the time). In it, Abu Hamza threatens and updates that ISIS initiated a new stage against Israel, calling among other things, on the soldiers of the Caliphate in Syria to launch rockets at Israel and conquer Israeli communities. The intention is to penetrate the border fence with Israel in southern Syria and reach an Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights. In this case, we assume that the intention will be to massacre civilians and not to take hostages.
At this time, our assessment, as already stated in our article on the threat of the ISIS spokesperson last January, has not changed. According to this assessment, the Hauran district has the potential to penetrate Israeli territory on the ground, but will have difficulty performing rocket fire.
Although the potential for a ground infiltration exists, we estimate that the likelihood of doing so is currently low, seeing that there is an improvement in ISIS’s situation as it seems to be busy preserving its survival, strengthened in some sense and managing to achieve its goals in the arenas where it is present. We estimate that if ISIS will recede power and be “pushed into the corner” the likelihood of an attack against Israel will increase.
