Washington: For months, Daesh militants rampaged across Syria and Iraq, seizing cities, taking hostages and terrorising all who dared to confront them.
The tide began to turn in mid-August, when US air strikes pushed them from key Iraqi battlegrounds. Then, on August 19, the group released a video that showed the beheading of American freelance journalist James Foley.
The pattern continued.
Within days of a military defeat, the group would release images of more beheadings — at least nine over six weeks — of Western journalists, aid workers and Muslim soldiers.
The tactic signals that even as Daesh suffers battlefield losses, it is holding on to its edge in the propaganda war. US officials say that’s the only way the militants can continue to maintain support and attract new recruits.
Last Friday, Daesh released a new video showing the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning after nearly two straight weeks of daily air strikes against their fighters.
“Certainly since the bombing campaign, the reverses, they’re no longer boasting of taking places — because they’re not taking places. They’re losing places,” Alberto Fernandez, who heads the State Department’s office for counterterrorism propaganda, said in a recent interview. “So what do they do? They boast about cutting people’s heads off. They’re trying to substitute that for military victory.”
That may be some propaganda by the US itself. But the trend still is frightening, considering Daesh is holding what US intelligence officials believe are as many as 20 hostages, including at least two Americans.
This past week, the militants suffered a series of setbacks, with US and allied air strikes on Friday hitting Syrian oil refineries and a training camp. Earlier strikes pushed militants back from some of their positions in Iraq.
But Daesh last week also besieged the Iraqi town of Hit and ambushed an Iraqi army unit north of Ramadi, kept its tight grip on Fallujah, and closed in on the Syrian town of Ain Al Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish.
In the video of Henning’s beheading, a masked militant warns the US that the gruesome attacks on individuals will continue as long as the air strikes do. He also threatened that an American hostage, identified as Peter Kassig, would be next. “It is only right that we continue to strike the neck of your people,” a masked militant said.
Terrorised residents
Violence has been a focal point of Daesh group propaganda, to show the militants’ might and recruit the thousands of foreign fighters who have rushed to join them. When they captured Mosul, Iraq, in June, they beheaded security forces, raped women and terrorised residents into following a strict interpretation of Sharia.
But the group had held Western hostages for months and, in some cases, even years. Not until the air strikes began, weakening the group’s momentum, did the extremists start beheading the white Westerners.
In the Foley video, an unidentified fighter warned that American journalist Steven Sotloff would be next if the US campaign did not stop. The air strikes continued, and Sotloff was beheaded in a video released on September 2, two days after the US helped force Daesh from Amirli, Iraq.
From September 7-9, US air strikes pounded militant positions around Haditha, Iraq. On September 11, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that his government was considering using air power against Daesh in Syria.
Paying the price
On September 13, Daesh released a video of the beheading of British humanitarian aid worker David Haines. The unidentified killer said Haines was paying the price for Britain’s decision to supply weapons to Kurdish peshmerga fighters, and he mentioned the Haditha strikes.
The group has released videos or pictures of beheadings of Kurdish fighters, including several recently captured in clashes near the Syria-Turkey border. All the images came out after Daesh was attacked or suffered setbacks in Kurdish areas in northern Iraq and Syria.
The group “wants to create the impression of victory and demoralise its Kurdish enemies,” the Clarion Project, a Washington-based organisation that tries to counter Islamist extremism, said in an August 28 alert about the beheading of a Kurdish soldier.
The militants also claim to have beheaded two Lebanese soldiers kidnapped during a raid of the Lebanese border town of Arsal in August. One of the victims was a Sunni, which is important because it belies Daesh propaganda that it is creating a religious empire, or caliphate, for faithful Sunnis.
The group is trying to turn some of its tactical defeats into strategic victories.
By highlighting the air strikes’ reported civilian casualties, the militants are trying to rally Syrian Sunnis who have suffered during the civil war. Much of Daesh propaganda notes that the United States and the West have not helped Sunnis in Syria or in Iraq, where they were sidelined from power and in some cases targeted by the Shiite government of former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
In a September 22 statement, the day after the first US air strikes on Syria, the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission called on Daesh to release Henning but also urged Muslim leaders “not to forget the many innocents who continue to be slaughtered on a daily basis.”
Juan Zarate, a deputy national security adviser on counterterrorism to President George W. Bush, said it was “a very difficult balance” for the US and its allies as they weigh the safety of their kidnapped citizens against continued attacks on the militants.
“What you try to do is find ways to accelerate potential releases, or acquisition of where [the hostages] are, and have that as part of your battle plan considerations,” Zarate said. “But once you’ve made the decision to engage the enemy, and they have your citizens, you’re taking a risk. And lives are going to be lost.”