ISIS Analysis: Kill and Conquer

by Breitbart News

Aug 23, 2014 6:37 AM PT

Adi Kochavi and Matan Gilat writing at Vocativ:

Any doubts about how ruthless and single-minded the Islamic State (commonly referred to as ISIS) had become were dispelled on Tuesday. A gruesome propaganda video began circulating that evening, showing the purported beheading of James Foley, an American journalist who disappeared in Syria in 2012. A masked ISIS executioner, speaking to the camera in a distinctly British accent, announces in the video that the murder is in response to American air strikes on ISIS in Iraq, ordered by President Obama 12 days earlier.

ISIS is becoming an increasingly ruthless and effective killing machine, one we can now quantify. For several years, as the organization evolved—moving between Iraq and Syria and changing its moniker—what we now know as ISIS has been cataloging its litany of vicious attacks in minute detail. Each event is labeled with the precise date, type and location of the attack. ISIS has, to date, released consistent reports on its operations only in Iraq; no such material is provided on Syria. Likewise, detailed information about the victims has been largely withheld, until the emergence of the video showing Foley’s murder.

Vocativ has discovered, collated and tabulated the available data from monthly reports posted in various online forums affiliated with ISIS. The reports detail every ISIS attack in chronological order (see embed below). The ISIS reports were published by what the organization calls its “media ministry.” These reports were provided only in Arabic, which suggests ISIS wasn’t targeting them for Western exposure, but rather to spread news of its achievements throughout the Arabic-speaking world to would-be recruits and supporters. It should also be noted that, as ISIS generated the reports, not all details can be corroborated. Regardless, the organization’s data provides a detailed picture of how ISIS views itself and what its shifting priorities are in the battlefield.

ISIS: A Caliphate, by the Numbers

One thing is abundantly clear: ISIS is a more potent force than ever before. Of particular note, given Tuesday’s gruesome beheading video, will be the gradual increase in assassinations (the red line in the graph below). ISIS has been tracking them since late 2011. We broke down the data into quarters, and in Q1 of 2011, ISIS counted 94 executions. Two years later, in Q1 of 2014, that number had more than quadrupled to 399 assassinations over a three-month period.

Sniper killings have also risen sharply. In the last three months of 2013, ISIS counted 37 sniper kills. In the first three months of 2014, that number had risen to 270.

Similarly huge spikes in improvised explosive device (IED), mortar and rocket attacks toward the end of 2013 show a rise in the types of strikes that require skill and financing, and it’s worth noting that the figures we present today stop in April 2014. That’s a full two months before ISIS raided the central bank in Mosul, making off with $425 million, and three months before it acquired an enormous stash of U.S.-donated military hardware from a base north of Mosul, from which Iraqi soldiers fled in fear. So while ISIS’ growth in late 2013 and early 2014 is clear from the reports, the figures don’t yet represent what the better funded, better equipped ISIS has been able to do since June (not to mention that it has reportedly attracted 6,000 new fighters to its ranks in July). Expect an even bigger spike in Q2 and Q3 of 2014.

Read the rest of the story at Vocativ.

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