Is ISIL Changing Their Strategy?

There has been very little military gains by ISIL in Iraq since the U.S. and its allies committed its air power to stop their advance.  In fact the Turks and different tribal forces in Iraq have rolled back ISIL at several locations and Jordan and Egypt have entered the battle against them.

ISIL now seems to be changing their tactics because they know militarily they can not win.  Christians are more and more their target along with foreign kidnapping and now recently are bent on destroying ancient historical monuments in Iraq.  The news media rarely reports on their military power any more.

The latest reports puts Iraq's largest offensive with Iraqi troops and shiite militiamen in advancing to oust ISIL's military who are holding the town of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birth place.  Iraq and the Iranian backed shiite militia have about 30,000 men in their offensive to defeat ISIL at Tikrit.  There are fears among the U.S. and its allies that Iran is gaining more and more influence in Iraq and Iraqi decision making.  If Iraq can take back Tikrit, ISIL's military will pull back even more and try to find other means to make the middle east an Islamic state.  The next big military step for Iraq is to retake Mosul from ISIL control which will be launched in the near future according to reports.

Both operations will be a test of the Iraqi military and if they have what it takes to defend their own country.  As far as Iran gaining more influence in Iraq, this writer predicted several years ago in "PolitiDose" after the Iraq war started, that no matter how the war ended Iran would have more influence in Iraq and that the two nations would become allies.  When Saddam was alive both nations kept each other in check.  The Iraq war changed all that and not for the better.


This commentary written by Joe Lorio