ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam (8 page)

In ISIS’s literalist view, beheading is not only accepted in Islam—it is mandated. For instance, Surah 8, verses 9-13 of the Koran command Muslims to “smite [slice] . . . unbelievers . . . above their necks.” Additionally, Surah 47 of the Koran states: “When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield,
strike off their heads
until you have crushed them completely; then bind the prisoners tightly [emphasis added].”

In ISIS’s view, there isn’t much wiggle room there—particularly above the collar. As we’ll explore further in
chapter four
, throughout history Islamic conquerors have put the above-mentioned beheading verses into action, using head-chopping as a means of terrorizing their enemies. It is an unpleasant fact that may make inside-the-Beltway strategists and network news honchos squeamish—but it is a fact nonetheless (with apologies to Imam Obama).

Thankfully, the American people are catching on to the danger ISIS represents. A November 2014 CNN/ORC poll found that most Americans believe ISIS poses a serious threat to the United States.
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And according to an October 2014 NBC News/
Wall Street Journal
poll, 41 percent of Americans believe that U.S. ground troops, and not just airstrikes, are needed to defeat the Islamic State.
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It’s likely that for some of those polled, the beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff were their introduction to ISIS—and the sight of two U.S. citizens clad in prison-style jumpsuits crudely murdered in the middle of the desert by a trash-talking jihadist didn’t go over well.

The Foley and Sotloff murders shifted the national conversation from striking ISIS in Iraq to extending the U.S. bombing campaign to ISIS safe havens in Syria—such as the city of Raqqa, the unofficial capital of the Islamic State caliphate. If President Obama really wanted to defeat ISIS, as he had vowed to do,
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then northern and eastern Syria, which make up a large chunk of the caliphate, were an ideal place to start. Yet when pressed by reporters about possibly striking ISIS in Syria following the Foley
beheading, the commander in chief admitted that his administration had not quite gotten that far—in fact, it had gotten nowhere:

          
“We don’t have a strategy yet,” Mr. Obama said of his plans for defeating the Islamic State in Syria. “We need to make sure that we’ve got clear plans. As our strategy develops, we will consult with Congress.”

                
. . . the president said he has ordered his military advisers to give him “a range of options.”

                
But Mr. Obama tried to tamp down the suggestion that his decision was imminent, saying “folks are getting a little further ahead of where we’re at than we currently are.”

                
“We need to make sure that we’ve got clear plans, that we’re developing them,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference. “There’s no point in me asking for action on the part of Congress before I know exactly what it is that is going to be required for us to get the job done.”
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By this time, it had been eight months since ISIS roared into Fallujah. In the ensuing months ISIS, using a bevy of Western recruits, had overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq, declared a caliphate, lopped off the head of an American citizen, and vowed to strike the United States. Yet, incredibly, President Obama still had not devised a strategy to counter the rapidly growing Islamic State. In his words, he had no “clear plans” and no idea of what was “required . . . to get the job done.” This was dereliction of duty, plain and simple. But it was not surprising.

Not only does President Obama have a stunning and potentially fatal misunderstanding of the Middle East (as we’ll see in
chapter eight
), he also has a profound lack of interest in national security issues, period. A damning report released by the Government Accountability Institute in September 2014 showed that the president had missed over half of his daily intelligence briefings during his second term in office.
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Indeed, an Obama
staffer admitted that the president hadn’t received regular in-person intel briefings since early 2009, preferring to get them in writing instead—an arrangement that, presumably, prevents him from picking the brains of his national security team and asking pointed questions as he would be able to do during an in-person meeting.
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One wonders if written briefings would be the norm if the topic of our national security were as near and dear to the president’s heart as, say, Obamacare.

President Obama may blow off his intel briefings, but he makes sure never to miss a date on the golf links, no matter how dire the circumstances. On August 20, 2014, just minutes after giving a somber speech vowing that justice would be done in the wake of ISIS’s beheading of James Foley, the president, along with an entourage that included former NBA star Alonzo Mourning, headed right to the golf course, where he spent the next few hours “laughing, fist-bumping his friends and driving a golf cart with Mourning in the passenger seat.”
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The president was roundly criticized afterward for his insensitivity—needless to say, yukking it up on the links immediately after addressing the brutal murder of an American citizen did not make for good optics, particularly in a mid-term election year. Despite the public relations disaster the golf outing created for the White House, at least we finally had a name for the president’s ISIS strategy.

Golf and Awe.

President Obama has vowed repeatedly that any U.S. military operations against ISIS “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”
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As of this writing, however, the president had authorized the return of up to three thousand U.S. soldiers to Iraq, albeit in noncombat roles. For now, they are supposed to be “limited to advising local commanders and retraining elements of Iraq’s army” while “confined to
military headquarters or training bases at four sites” around the country.
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How long that arrangement can last is uncertain. First, military experts across the board (and even former British Prime Minister Tony Blair)
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have argued that ISIS cannot be defeated through airstrikes alone. Second, ISIS may eventually drag some of those three thousand U.S. advisors into, at the very least, limited ground engagements whether the Obama administration likes it or not.

In December 2014, for instance, a contingent of over three hundred U.S. troops stationed at a base in Anbar province came under fire from Islamic State jihadists, who “repeatedly hit the base with artillery and rocket fire.”
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Thankfully, there were no American casualties in the attacks. But as more U.S. troops arrive in Iraq and are based in ISIS strongholds such as Anbar, they’ll become highly desirable targets. Imagine the propaganda value for the Islamic State if it were able to kill some American soldiers, or perhaps kidnap one to feature in a beheading video. All of a sudden, the Obama administration’s strict “no ground operations” policy would be nearly impossible to sustain.

For now, though, the strategy for Operation Inherent Resolve—as the U.S.-led military campaign against ISIS is known—remains limited to airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria (yes, after much golfing, the president ultimately decided to extend the bombing campaign to the other half of the caliphate). The strikes, which have also targeted the “Khorasan Group,” a contingent of senior al Qaeda members inside Syria, are being conducted by a coalition that includes the U.S., France, Great Britain, Australia, and Canada, as well as a handful of Muslim nations that are petrified of the new caliphate next door.

While it’s nice that Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain have offered some assistance—ISIS is conquering territory in their backyard, after all—America, predictably, is doing the heavy lifting and carrying out the overwhelming majority of the airstrikes.
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But as we’ll see in
chapter eight
, the Obama administration is eagerly seeking to enlist the help of none other than the terrorist regime in Iran to take some of the
pressure off—and American military hardware is falling into the hands of Iraqi Shia militias loyal to Tehran.
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Although boots on the ground are needed to truly cripple ISIS, even limited Coalition airstrikes have unquestionably had an effect. As of December 2014, some 1,100 ISIS jihadists had reportedly been killed in Syria.
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In Iraq, U.S. air cover had enabled Kurdish Peshmerga forces (who have begged for more American weaponry)
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to mount a counter-offensive and retake some northern towns from ISIS.
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In addition, a months-long ISIS siege of the Syrian town of Kobane, strategically located along the Turkish border, had stalled thanks to a combination of fierce Kurdish resistance and Coalition airstrikes.
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ISIS’s earlier successes in Mosul, Sinjar, and elsewhere can be attributed largely to its ability to surprise its opponents with lightning onslaughts and then continue to push forward relentlessly, pausing only briefly to consolidate its gains. If ISIS’s momentum is stunted in Iraq, look for it to potentially drive westward in an attempt to open up new fronts and keep some semblance of momentum going:

          
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As we saw in
chapter one
, Lebanon is clearly in the Islamic State’s crosshairs. In January 2014, the head of Lebanon’s main security apparatus said that “more than 1,000” ISIS fighters had already holed up inside the country near its border with Syria.
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Meanwhile, in December 2014, ISIS destroyed at least six Jordanian border control stations along that country’s boundary with Iraq.
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The following month, a group of ISIS jihadists (including one who detonated a suicide vest) killed three Saudi guards at Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia.
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The Saudis are now building a six-hundred-foot wall along their northern border with Iraq to keep ISIS out. The wall will feature “a ditch
and a triple-layered steel fence, with 40 watchtowers spread out along it.”
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As we’ll see in
chapter eight
, ISIS is also beginning to inch closer to Syria’s border with Israel, thanks in part to Syrian rebel groups in the region that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

American-led airstrikes may have helped slow ISIS’s momentum on the battlefield in certain areas of Iraq and Syria, but they have not been able to dampen enthusiasm for the Islamic State among radicalized Muslims around the world. According to one study, over six thousand new fighters have joined ISIS
since
the first American airstrikes began in August 2014.
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As of late October 2014, some one thousand foreign fighters were reportedly flowing into Syria to join the group each month, the same rate as before the airstrikes.
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As ISIS continues to draw fanatical young jihadists from six continents to its ranks, it has also gained the support of several regional jihadist organizations, stretching from South Asia to North Africa. These groups, some more significant than others, have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its caliph, providing ISIS with satellites (or
wilayats)
beyond the borders of the Islamic State. Among the most prominent:

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (ABM):
Based in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, ABM gives ISIS a strategic perch from which it can conduct attacks against both Israel and Egypt and coordinate with ISIS sympathizers in the nearby Gaza Strip. ABM is estimated to have anywhere between several hundred and a few thousand fighters that “have killed hundreds of members of Egypt’s security forces in a series of suicide bombings, drive-by shootings and assassinations” since July 2013 alone.
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They’ve also carried out attacks in Cairo and against targets in southern Israel and—in true ISIS fashion—have shown a fondness for beheading their hostages.
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