How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt

How did ISIS a widely hated, massively outnumbered and ludicrously outgunned organisation manage to occupy over 120 cities, towns and villages from the Southern Philippines to Western Libya? Seeking to understand ISIS's combat effectiveness, Omar Ashour analyses the military and tactical innovations of ISIS and their predecessors in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. He shows how their capacity to mix conventional military tactics with innovative guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism strategies allowed ISIS to expand and endure beyond expectations.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Larry P. Goodson Acknowledgements List of Tables; List of Abbreviations Introduction: Is it Mainly Tactics? Implodes but Expands: How the ‘Islamic State’ Fights in Iraq Explodes and Expands: How the ‘Islamic State’ Fights in Syria Reloads but Implodes: How the ‘Islamic State’ Fights in Libya Lures and Endures: How ‘Sinai Province’ Fights in Egypt Conclusion: Agency with a Tactical Edge Bibliography; Index

About the Author :
Omar Ashour is a Professor of Security and Military Studies and the Founding Chair of the Critical Security Studies Programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He is the author of How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements (Routledge, 2009), as well as the editor of Bullets to Ballots: Collective De-Radicalisation of Armed Movements (Edinburgh University Press, 2021).

Review :
Ashour also describes the sequences of tactic implementation (operational level), allowing the reader to visualise the rationale behind the group’s combination of tactical actions and modi operandi. So, even if the reader is not familiar with military terminology, the author’s presentation makes it easy to understand how tactical and operational levels are the key to explaining the combat effectiveness of ISIS in each of the case studies, and to see the patterns and connections among them. [...] Another outstanding contribution of the book is the fifteen categories of tactics that provide an overview of the repertories that explain how ISIS fights on the ground. Throughout the book, Ashour's methodical analysis is brought to life by a range of sources and interviews, ensuring that it becomes required reading for a variety of courses. He poses his research question compellingly and answers it masterfully, waiting until the closing pages of the book to describe what is at stake: understanding how ISIS fights is critical for its ultimate defeat. How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt greatly enhances our understanding of the group by focusing on the hitherto neglected dimension of its remarkable – and, fortunately, ephmeral – tactical military successes. In a relatively short span of time, ISIS emerged as a major regional and then global threat. Omar Ashour masterfully explains ISIS's ways of war on battlefields that extended from Sirte to Mosul and from Raqqa to Sharm el-Sheikh. This is an important book that fills a conspicuous gap in the literature. A masterly work that actually manages to unravel this puzzle by a detailed, in-depth study of how a massively outgunned and ludicrously outnumbered IS fought, won rapid victories and continues to endure to this day … This study’s meticulous and detailed examination stands out among the many books that have been written on IS. By going narrow and deep in its discussion of tactics, How ISIS Fights is mandatory reading for all those studying and practicing urban warfare in the 21st century. Omar Ashour delivers an impressively detailed study of ISIS war tactics and strategy in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. He therefore helps us understand not only how the jihadi networks could sustain repeated assaults by formidable enemies, but also how they could survive their current "defeat" and soon strike back. Clearly, the Islamic State’s particular brand of brutality derives from the deeply dysfunctional and violent politics of the Arab states it has fought in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. The special irony, however, is that it proved far more adept than these foes at demonstrating strategic flexibility and at systematically instilling tactical autonomy, initiative, and unceasing offensive action among its fighters down to the lowest rank. Ashour’s excellent, methodical dissection of　this fluid interaction of strategy and tactics provides a compelling explanation of how Islamic State fighters repeatedly won and endured against overwhelming odds. This meticulous examination and careful analysis of how the Islamic State has conducted its military operations across the Middle East and North Africa helps significantly to explain how it endured against such overwhelming odds. This book will undoubtedly become a standard work for anyone interested in understanding how a small terrorist group can morph into a proto-state. How ISIS Fights is a no-nonsense, compact book that effectively bridges the scholar-practitioner divide in defense and security studies by filling a critical gap in ISIS threat characterization. Understanding the inner workings of a terrorist group is difficult for the most skilful of scholars – given the clandestine nature of their operations – but Omar Ashour certainly lives up to that challenge. [...] How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt is a well-researched and enlightening read.