It appears that President Obama’s focus on air strikes against the Islamic State (IS) is only an opening act, and by itself stands no chance of defeating the organization and arresting the tide of volunteers flocking to join its ranks. IS fighters blend into the urban environment, making it difficult for the coalition forces to identify them and seriously damage their capabilities. An aerial campaign without a ground offensive can, at most, impede the activity of IS forces. To win the campaign, it is necessary to persuade the...
Israel is not currently a top priority for Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, or even for ISIS. Yet in light of the situation described above, and since these organizations regard Israel as a partner in the Western coalition, they may choose to undertake action against it at an earlier stage than originally planned stage. Despite this risk, it is best for Israel to avoid initiating premature military measures against them, as long as it is not forced into an operation in order to thwart direct action against it. Israel should leave this task...
Social media discourse regarding the coalition forces’ operations in Syria criticizes and doubts the efficacy of the war on the Islamic State, while raising possible solutions for the ongoing conflict afflicting the country. Three possible solutions are discussed, as according to participants, by combining them the coalition may prevent strategic failure in its war on the Islamic State and possibly contribute to rehabilitating the war-riddled nation. One solution refers to eradicating the Islamic State, the second involves removing...
Refreshing one’s security concept is not a simple task, but Israel must undertake it, given the particularly complex regional changes. Israel must reassess its attitude toward sworn enemies. There is more than a little historical irony in the fact that Israel, a veteran of bitter ongoing conflict with the radical Shiite bloc, including Hizbollah, Iran, and the Alawite regime in Syria, now shares an interest with this radical bloc, also known as the axis of evil. As to stopping ISIS, Israel finds itself on the same side of the...
Several factors are at the base of the military success of ISIS and other jihadist organizations: the structural and functional weaknesses of Arab nation states; the organizations’ networked and decentralized structure, which makes it easier for them to operate and sustain themselves in the region; the ineffectiveness of the international community, first and foremost the United States, stemming from the lack of a solution to the problem and an unwillingness to become militarily involved; and the erosion of the United States’ image...
Recent events in Iraq are liable to give new impetus to the ideas and the path that ISIS represents, which are shared by many terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East and beyond. Its strong economic capacity could be exploited to support and acquire influence over the operations of terrorist organizations that share its ideas. In addition, enormous quantities of high quality weapons, many of them Western, have fallen into ISIS hands, and they will certainly find their way to terrorist organizations operating in combat...
The fall of major Iraqi cities to Sunni extremists belonging to the Sunni group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may well have implications beyond the borders of Iraq. Indeed, all of Iraq’s neighbors, as well as the United States, have cause for major worry about the immediate and long term implications of the recent developments. Paradoxically, a coalition of sorts has formed comprising countries that have an interest in nipping the ISIS territorial entrenchment in the bud. While the United States will need to take the leading...
The presence of foreign fighters in Syria and the danger posed by their return to their countries of origin could create a security problem for many countries inside and outside the region, if only because of the large number of combatants and the many different countries from which they come. There is already evidence of “Syrian alumni” becoming involved in terrorist activity in their countries of origin and in various combat zones in the Middle East. Moreover, Western security agencies have warned of the danger posed by the return...
In the recent incident in which an IDF patrol on the Golan Heights was struck by a roadside bomb, all signs point to the bomb’s having been placed by Hizbollah-backed forces, apparently with the knowledge and aid of Assad’s forces. Indeed, it is likely that all three incidents in March – two on the Syrian border, in territories controlled by the Assad regime and Assad loyalists, and the third in the area of Mount Dov, a Hizbollah stronghold – were Hizbollah attacks against Israel.
Since the beginning of the bloody civil war in Syria three years ago, Hizbollah’s political and security environment has grown far more complex, with the Lebanese Shiite organization involved in a prolonged civil war that has strong regional implications, and with its status within Lebanon increasingly contested. Thus while Hizbollah remains the single most powerful military organization in Lebanon, both its freedom of action and its capacity to project power have been constrained. Currently, Hizbollah must deal with challenges at...
The March 5, 2014 seizure of the Klos C is a blow to Iran, which clearly invested considerable effort and resources in organizing the weapons shipment and attempting to conceal the ship’s course and cargo. This was not the first time that Israel succeeded in intercepting such shipments, and it thus proved again that it has significant intelligence capability to penetrate the Iranian system, as well as the operational capacity to take targets by surprise and act hundreds of kilometers from Israel’s borders. Yet while the Klos C...
The processes that led to the Second Lebanon War and the events that took place during the war are analyzed six years after the war. The starting point for the analysis is the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, which, according to the analysis, was justified. However, from a broad perspective, it is evident that the overall processes since the withdrawal led to strategic choices that resulted in the IDF’s reduced operational preparedness. The article examines the decision making processes near the start of and during the course of the...
