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Abstract
Although it is a tenet of political science that the modern state possesses a ‘monopoly of violence’, governments have repeatedly used militias outside the formal chain of command of their armed forces when waging counterinsurgency (COIN), and in recent conflicts the USA, UK, and other Western powers have used irregular forces when fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. War-weariness and financial austerity is likely to encourage American and allied policymakers to rely on auxiliaries as proxies, despite the fact that historical experience demonstrates that the use of militias in COIN can have counterproductive consequences, not least for state stability. This article also concludes that the tendency of some Middle Eastern states (notably Iraq and Syria) to ‘coup-proof’ their militaries renders them even more dependent on militias in the face of a sustained internal revolt, as their regular armed forces collapse under the stress of combat. In this respect, there is a direct link between ‘coup-proofing’, dependence on irregular auxiliaries in civil war, and the erosion of the state’s integrity.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Alex Marshall for his invitation to the ‘Proxy Actors, Psyops and Irregular Warfare’ Workshop held at the University of Glasgow on 22–23 June 2015, and also to the participants for their feedback on an earlier version of this article. He also wishes to thank Christian Tripodi of the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, as some of the topics and ideas covered here are examined in their co-authored article ‘Anatomy of a Surrogate’. Nonetheless, the analysis, opinions, and conclusions expressed or implied in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, the Defence Academy, the MOD or any other UK government agency.
Notes
1. This insurgent/terrorist movement has also been dubbed ‘the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’ (ISIS), ‘the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL), and (using the Arabic acronym) Daesh. For this article, the author will use the term ‘Islamic State’ (IS). See Fromson and Simon, ‘ISIS’; Khalil, ‘Expansive Year’; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS; Wood, ‘What ISIS Really Wants’.
2. Catherine Philp, ‘Islamic Insurgents Push Baghdad to the Brink’, The Times (London), 12 June 2014; Vice News, ‘The Islamic State’; Knights, Long Haul, 6–9.
3. Tim Arango, ‘Sunni Extremists in Iraq Seize 3 Towns from Kurds and Threaten Major Dam’, New York Times (NY), 3 August 2014; Stansfield, ‘The Islamic State’, 1330–3, 1338.
4. Spyer, ‘Successor Story’; ‘UK Troops Training Kurdish Forces in Iraq, Says MOD’, BBC News, 12 October 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29586437, accessed 2 February 2015; Lale Sarlibrahimoglu, ‘Turkey, US Closer to Signing Agreement on Syrian Rebel Training’, Jane’s Defence Weekly (JDW) 52, no. 4, 28 January 2015.
5. ‘Confronting Islamic State: The Next War Against Global Jihadism’, The Economist (London), 13 September 2014; Cigar, Tribal Militias, 29–30.
6. Mitchell Prothero, ‘Baghdad Breakdown’, JDW 51, no. 31, 30 July 2014; Tim Ripley, ‘UK Puts Iraq Training Mission on Hold’, JDW 52, no. 4, 28 January 2015.
7. On the qualitative superiority of Kurdish forces over the Iraqi military, see Knights, Long Haul, 27. With reference to the YPG’s own combat performance, see Associated Press, ‘Kurdish Forces Seize Border Town of Tal Abyad, Cutting Off Key Isis Supply Line’, The Guardian (London), 16 June 2015.
8. In one recent documentary journalists asked a peshmerga commander: ‘What nickname would you give the Iraqi Army right now?’ He replied ‘I would call them cowards. They are full of fear and have no national loyalty’. Vice News, ‘Fighting back against ISIS’.
9. Lawson, ‘Syria’s Mutating Civil War’, 1352–8; ICG, Syria’s Kurds; ‘Kurdistan: Ever Closer to Independence’, The Economist, 21 February 2015.
10. There are evident differences between the KRG – which would welcome the presence of Western ground troops in the fight against IS – and the Iraqi government, which has made clear its opposition to the overt involvement of US and other allied forces. Al Jazeera (English), 24 January 2015, bulletin at 1100 (GMT).
11. ‘Syria’s Army Defectors: Cracks in the Army’, The Economist, 29 October 2011; ‘Syria’s Civil War: The Regime Digs In’, The Economist, 15 June 2013.
12. ICG, Syria’s Metastasising Conflicts, 15–16, 30; Blanford, ‘Qalamoun Offensive’, 8–13; Nicholas Blanford, ‘ISIS’ Iraq Offensive Could Trigger Hezbollah to Fill Gap Left in Syria’, The Daily Star (Beirut), 16 June 2014.
13. Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, 74–6. ICG, Iran in Iraq: How Much Influence?
14. Hugh Tomlinson, ‘Iran’s Special Forces Rush to Support Floundering Ally’, The Times, 12 June 2014; Leenders, ‘How the Syrian Regime’, 336–7.
15. The IRGC’s role in training the NDF was highlighted by footage captured by Syrian rebels and broadcast on Dutch TV in September 2013. See also BBC World News, ‘Iran’s Secret Army’; ‘Islamic State: The Pushback’, The Economist, 21 March 2015.
16. Hughes, ‘Syria and the Perils of Proxy Warfare’.
17. Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation’; Tilly, Formation of National States, 42; Dodge, ‘Can Iraq Be Saved?’, 10–11.
18. Ahram, Proxy Warriors; Bunker, Non-State Threats; Cigar, Tribal Militias; Giustozzi, Empires of Mud; Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Anatomy of a Surrogate’, passim; Vinci, Armed Groups.
19. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 1–2, 57; Cornish and Dorman, ‘SDSR 2015’.
20. Gray, War, Peace and International Relations, 236; Strandquist, ‘Local Defence Forces’, 91–2.
21. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 60–1; Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, 54.
22. Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Anatomy of a Surrogate’, 6. To take two examples from medieval Wales to the nineteenth-century Raj, see Rogers, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis’, 88, 92; and Johnson, Afghan Way of War, 182, 193, 198. With reference to French enlistment of local auxiliaries in COIN in Syria and Indochina during the 1920s and 1930s, see Thomas, Fight or Flight, 31, 33.
23. UK Ministry of Defence, Security and Stabilisation (JDP3-40), Section 5; US Department of the Army, Counterinsurgency (FM3-24), Chapter 6.
24. al-Marashi and Salama, Iraq’s Armed Forces, 201–5. Hashim, Insurgency, 92–9.
25. Wither, ‘Basra’s not Belfast’, 611–35; ICG, Where Is Iraq Heading?
26. Brian Brady, ‘Drugs and Desertion: How the UK Really Rates Afghan Police’, Independent on Sunday (London), 28 March 2010; ‘NATO’s Planned Offensive in Afghanistan: Get Out of the Way’, The Economist, 13 February 2010; Azam Ahmed, ‘Afghanistan on Edge as Taliban Take Back Ground’, New York Times, 24 October 2014.
27. Jones, ‘Community Defense in Afghanistan’, 9–15; Strandquist, ‘Local Defence Forces’, 93; Tariq, Tribal Security System.
28. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 66–7. ICG, Loose Ends, 25–7.
29. Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Anatomy of a Surrogate’, 2–4; Craig, Politics of the Prussian Army, 354–61, 373–81, 397–408. I am grateful to Mark Galeotti for his observations on the ambiguity of the ‘monopoly of violence’.
30. Marshall, ‘Turkfront’, 17.
31. Johnson, Afghan Way of War, 241–4.
32. Adrian Blomfield. ‘In the Front Line of Putin’s Secret War’, The Daily Telegraph (London), 27 March 2007; ‘Russia and Chechnya: The Warlord and the Spook’, The Economist, 31 May 2007.
33. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 39–45.
34. Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia, 202–16; Moorcraft and McLaughlin, The Rhodesian War, 155–6.
35. The Ethiopians have raised home guards to fight the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF): ‘The Ogaden’s Trickling Sands’, Africa Confidential 48, no. 19, 21 September 2007; Horton, ‘Causing Affront’, 12.
36. During the 1990s the Ugandan government recruited Acholi militias to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA): Vinci, Armed Groups, 91.
37. Jean-Philippe Remy, ‘Darfour: Les Arabes dans le piège janjawid’ (‘The Arabs in the janjawid trap’), Le Monde (Paris), 13 July 2007.
38. Gerwarth and Horne, War in Peace; Melander, ‘Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict’, 64–72; Silber and Little, Death of Yugoslavia, 134–46, 169–89, 244–57.
39. Taylor, Loyalists; Hubbard, ‘Militias in Iraq’, 345–62. In both these cases Northern Irish Catholics and Sunni Arabs did accuse (respectively) the British and Iraqi governments of colluding with Loyalist and Shiite militia atrocities.
40. Dolan, ‘The British Culture of Paramilitary Violence’.
41. Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia, 118–31.
42. Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa, 103.
43. Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, 179.
44. Thomas, Fight or Flight, 138; Anderson, ‘Surrogates of the State’.
45. Fall, Street Without Joy, 180, 184.
46. Kaiser, American Tragedy, 152; Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 183–4, 308.
47. Patrick Cockburn, ‘Turkey Reluctantly Prepares for Attack on Kurds’, Independent on Sunday, 28 October 2007.
48. Ives, US Special Forces.
49. Dalloz, War in Indochina, 109–11.
50. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, 97–8, 125–44.
51. Mark Franchetti, ‘Going in Hard with the Guerrilla Hunters of Chechnya’, The Sunday Times (London), 15 May 2005; Anna Politkovskaya, ‘Karatel’nii Sgovor’ (‘A Punitive Agreement’), Novaya Gazeta (Moscow), 28 September 2006.
52. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 13; Long, ‘Anbar Awakening’, 81–8; ‘Iraq: I Want to Kill You, but Not Today’, The Economist, 6 October 2007.
53. Bailey, The Wildest Province, 87–9, 285–315; Telegram from SOE mission to General Mihajlovic to Foreign Office (no date, sent in March 1943), HS5/929(NAUK).
54. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 96–102. Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 239–41.
55. Neumann, ‘Suspects into Collaborators’. Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 104–10, 144–9.
56. ICG, Rigged Cars and Barrel Bombs; ‘Syria’s Civil War: Advancing on Aleppo’, The Economist, 21 February 2015; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 194, 197–9, 218–21.
57. Kitson, Gangs and Counter-Gangs, passim. Kitson used the terms ‘counter’ and ‘pseudo-gang’ interchangeably in this memoir. Hughes and Tripodi argue that there is a difference between ‘counter-gangs’ discussed here, and ‘pseudo-gangs’ that deliberately pass themselves off as insurgents in order to infiltrate the latter over the long term, identify its cadres for the security forces, provoke internecine feuds, and perhaps also commit ‘false-flag’ atrocities against civilians, which are then blamed by the government on its internal foes. See ‘Anatomy of a Surrogate’, 16–22.
58. Tierney, Chasing Ghosts, 128–9.
59. Anglim, ‘Wingate and the Special Night Squads’, 28–41.
60. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 574–8; Dimitrakis, ‘Cyprus Insurgency’, 388; Kitson, Gangs and Counter-Gangs.
61. Moyar, Phoenix, 108–10, 166–9.
62. Ahram, Proxy Warriors, 14; Anderson, ‘Surrogates of the State’, passim. Gortzak, ‘Using Indigenous Forces’, 320–1.
63. The ‘population-centric’ approach is emphasised in both FM3-24 and AFM1-10, passim.
64. Kitson, Low Intensity Operations, 95–6.
65. To cite three historical examples; during the Palestinian revolt in 1936–1939, British officials realised that Arab and Jewish constables in the police could not be counted upon to act against militants within their own community, and were often in league with them. Memorandum from G.D.G. Hayman (War Office) to F.G. Lee (Colonial Office), 14 February 1939, WO106/5720(NAUK). During the insurgency in South Arabia the National Liberation Front was able to infiltrate and subvert the South Arabian Police and the Federal Regular Army, turning them against their British sponsors. Memorandum by D.J. McCarthy (Foreign Office), 20 November 1967, FCO8/41(NAUK). In Northern Ireland, the presence of Loyalist sympathisers within the Royal Ulster Constabulary was noted as far back as the early 1970s. Lt Col. David Ramsbotham, Visit by Chief of the General Staff to Northern Ireland, 28 September 1973, DEFE13/990(NAUK).
66. Col. Hugh Oldman (Defence Secretary to Sultan Qaboos bin Said) to Brig. John Graham (Commander, Sultan’s Armed Forces – CSAF), 9 January 1972, Graham Papers, GB165/0327 (Box 2, File 1), Middle East Centre Archive (MECA), St Antony’s College, Oxford. Maj-Gen. Tim Creasey (CSAF) to Qaboos, 4 January 1973, DEF11/759(NAUK). Oman Intelligence Report No. 56, 10 January 1974, FCO8/2022(NAUK).
67. Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 257–69, 284–90.
68. Tierney, Chasing Ghosts, 137–9; Cassidy, ‘The Long Small War’, 47–62.
69. Mark Moyar, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey, 159–60; Joes, Resisting Rebellion, 114–16.
70. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 42–3; Kitson, Bunch of Five, 294–5.
71. Okeowo, ‘Vigilante Fight Against Boko Haram’.
72. Connor, Ghost Force, 156–7; Memorandum by P. Westmacott (Middle Eastern Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office), 29 January 1973, FCO8/2022(NAUK).
73. Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla, 180–1; Jeapes, SAS Secret War, 39.
74. Joes, ‘Counterinsurgency in the Philippines’, 51; Hughes, ‘Dhofar’, 281–2.
75. Freedman, The Transformation of Strategic Affairs, 84; McCuen, The Art of Counter-revolutionary War, 56.
76. Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla, 177–83; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 68–78. ICG, Iraq after the Surge I.
77. Lawson, ‘Syria’s Mutating Civil War’, 1360; Pollack, ‘Iraq Faces the Brink Again’. The challenges of national reconciliation in Iraq were anticipated in the aftermath of the ‘Awakening’. See ICG, Iraq after the Surge II.
78. D-OPS/5, Record of the Final Meeting with the Iranian Forces Delegation Held at the Headquarters Dhofar Brigade, 16 April 1974, Annex B, DEFE11/655(NAUK).
79. LM/MO2/210/76, Notes on Visit to Oman by Col GS MO2 20–24 January 1974, Col. W. J. Reed (British Army), 30th January 1974, DEFE24/573(NAUK). P-OPS/4, Record of CSAF’s Audience of His Majesty the Sultan on 5th November 1974, 7 November 1974, DEFE11/658(NAUK).
80. DO9, CSAF’s Assessment of the Military Situation in Dhofar as at 14 February 1972, 17 February 1972, GB165/0327 (Box 2, File 1), MECA. D-OPS/5, Record of the Meeting held at Headquarters the Sultan’s Armed Forces on Saturday 13th April 1974, 14 April 1974, and Supporting Annexes, DEFE11/655(NAUK).
81. Minute by H. Blanks (MOD), 3 June 1974, DEFE11/737(NAUK). On the latter phases of the war, see Hughes, ‘Dhofar’, 284–9.
82. A-OPS/4, CSAF to Brigadier J. Akehurst (CO, Dhofar Brigade, SAF), Guidelines, 21 August 1974, DEFE11/656(NAUK). Yapp, Near East Since the First World War, 375.
83. For a more detailed discussion of the firqats and their role in this war, see Hughes, ‘Demythologising Dhofar’, 540–4.
84. Gortzak, ‘Using Indigenous Forces’, 330; Horne, Savage War, 255–7.
85. Ahram, Proxy Warriors, 78–82; Tripp, History of Iraq, 244–6, 256.
86. Kalyvas, Civil War, passim. French makes this point about the KHG in British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 149, 186, as does Thomas in Fight or Flight, 231. Cigar makes similar remarks about Yemen’s enlistment of auxiliaries in Tribal Militias, 40, 49.
87. Giustozzi, ‘Auxiliary Force or National Army?’; Synnott, Transforming Pakistan, 116. Al-Qaeda fighters were also reportedly able to escape in much the same manner after Operation Anaconda in March 2002. See Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, 489–91.
88. Johnson, Afghan Way of War, 270; Rashid, Descent into Chaos, 106.
89. This phenomenon is analysed in ICG, Afghan Local Police; Standquist, ‘Local Defence Forces’, 95, 105.
90. Channel 4, ‘Nigeria’s Hidden War’.
91. Grey, Operation Snake Bite, 55–60, 73–4, 174–7; Jerome Starkey, ‘Former Warlord Blames UK for Breakdown in Security’, The Independent (London), 9 June 2008.
92. Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 254–5; Kaiser, American Tragedy, 166–7, 204–5.
93. Marshall, ‘Managing Withdrawal’, 68–89; Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 53–6.
94. Mark Franchetti, ‘Rival on Run After Standoff with Chechen President’, The Sunday Times, 27 April 2008. ‘Russia and Chechnya: The Caucasian Connection’, The Economist, 14 March 2015.
95. Knights and Williams, The Calm before the Storm.
96. Clayton, Frontiersmen, 166–7; Leenders, ‘How the Syrian Regime’, 333–4.
97. Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, 247–52; Thomas, Fight or Flight, 233–4.
98. This is a point Bernard Fall makes in his introduction to Trinquier, Modern Warfare, viii. On the harkis, see Thomas, Fight or Flight, 289–90, 367–8.
99. Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 253–4.
100. Clayton, Frontiersmen, 197, 199; Gberie, A Dirty War, 14–5, 83–6.
101. Murray and Woods make this point in Iran-Iraq War, 3–4.
102. Brooks, Stability of Arab Regimes; Byman, ‘Friends Like These’, 104–5; Quinlivan, ‘Coup-Proofing’.
103. Pollack, Arabs at War, 359–60, 364; ‘Britain’s Demanding Ally in Tripoli’, Africa Confidential 50, no. 19, 25 September 2009.
104. Pollack, Arabs at War, 479–80; Ziadeh, Power and Policy in Syria, 23–4, 40, 47.
105. Woods et al., The Iraqi Perspectives Report, 39–71.
106. Sullivan, Maliki’s Authoritarian Regime, 10–12.
107. Jeremy Binnie, ‘SANG deploys to Yemeni border’, JDW 52, no. 18, 6 May 2015; Pollack, Arabs at War, 426–31; Quinlivan, ‘Coup-Proofing’, 142–4.
108. Pollack and Eisenstadt, ‘Armies of Snow’; Quinlivan, ‘Coup-Proofing’, 155–64.
109. Pollack, Arabs at War, 478–513, 523–51.
110. Ronen, Qadhafi’s Libya, 168–71; ‘Libya/Chad: A Fragile Peace’, Africa Confidential 28, no. 19, 23 September 1987.
111. Murray and Woods, Iran-Iraq War, passim; Woods, Iraqi Perspectives Report, passim.
112. Trofimov, Siege of Mecca; Ziadeh, Power and Policy in Syria, 146.
113. Stansfield, Iraq, 132–5; Tripp, History of Iraq, 254–9.
114. ‘Gadaffi Falls, Revolution Rises’, Africa Confidential 52, No. 17, 26 August 2011.
115. ICG, Yemen’s Civil War; Horton, ‘Indecisive Storm’, 38–9. ‘The War in Yemen: From Aden to Camp David’, The Economist, 16 May 2015.
116. ‘Iran’s Secret Army’, passim; Blanford, ‘Qalamoun Offensive’, 13.
117. Newsnight (BBC2), 23 September 2014. 22:30 GMT; ‘Iran in Iraq and Syria: Death of a general’, The Economist, 3 January 2015.
118. Adam Withnall, ‘Ramadi: Isis Secures Largest Military Victory for Almost a Year as Last Government Troops Flee Iraqi State Capital’, Independent on Sunday, 17 May 2015; Ayman Oghanna, ‘Iraq’s Finest Forces Died by the Hundred in Ramadi Bloodbath’; and ‘Defeat Was a Crippling Blow for Non-Sectarian Band of Brothers’, The Times, 25 May 2015.
119. Blanford, ‘Hollow Crown’; White and Alirifai, ‘Growing Rebel Capabilities’; Nicholas Blanford, ‘Syrian Army Pushed Back by New Militant Coalition’, JDW 52, no. 18, 6 May 2015; Ford, ‘The Assad Regime’.
120. Shapland, ‘Independent Thinking’; ICG, Arming Iraq’s Kurds; Thomas Seibert, ‘Turkey Plans to Invade Syria, But to Stop the Kurds, Not ISIS’, The Daily Beast, 28 June 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/28/turkey-plans-to-send-troops-into-syria-widening-the-war.html, accessed 30 June 2015.
121. Pollack, ‘Iraq Faces the Brink’; ICG, Falluja’s Faustian Bargain.
122. ‘Syria’s Civil War: The Country Formerly Known as Syria’, The Economist, 23 February 2013; ICG, Syria’s Metastasising Conflicts, 6, 24, 29, 31; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 134–7.
123. Vice News, ‘Peshmerga vs the Islamic State’; Lawson, ‘Syria’s Mutating Civil War’, 1361–2; Michael Weiss and Michael Pregent, ‘How Iran is Making It Impossible for the US to Beat ISIS’, The Daily Beast, 1 February 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/01/how-iran-is-making-it-impossible-for-the-us-to-beat-isis.html, accessed 18 February 2015; Knights, ‘Iraq’s Bekaa Valley’. The Badr Corps are the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), a proxy force of Iraqi Shiites established by Iran during the war with Iraq (1980–1988). See Stansfield, Iraq, 111, 132–3, 136–7.
124. Maj-Gen Ken Perkins (CSAF) to UK Chiefs of Staff, 28 December 1975, DEFE11/912(NAUK).
125. ICG, Falluja’s Faustian Bargain.
126. Long, ‘Anbar Awakening’, 81–2. Strandquist, ‘Local Defence Forces’, 100–4; Kaiser, American Tragedy, 346. ‘Iraq: Too Late to Keep the Peace?’, The Economist, 12 February 2010.
127. Jeremy Binnie, ‘US Sidelined from Tikrit Offensive’, JDW 52/10, 11 March 2015; Richard Spencer and Magdy Samaan, ‘Isil Jihadists Flee As Iraqi Forces Storm into Tikrit’, The Daily Telegraph, 11 March 2015. ‘Islamic State: The Pushback’, The Economist, 21 March 2015.
128. Michael B. Kelley, ‘The US and Iran are Closer in Iraq Than People Realize – and Things Are Getting Ugly’, Business Insider, 4 April 2015; Knights, The Long Haul, viii, 4, 60.
129. Cigar, Tribal Militias, 11, 13–14; Malkasian, ‘Did the United States Need More Forces in Iraq?’
130. Martin Chulov, ‘Iraq Disbands Sunni Militia That Helped Defeat Insurgents’, The Guardian, 2 April 2009; Cigar, Tribal Militias, 17–23, 33; ICG, Iraq’s Jihadi Jack-in-the-Box; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 81, 89–95.
131. Mark Perry, ‘George W. Bush Is Intervening in Iraq – Again’, Politico Magazine, 12 February 2015, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/george-w-bush-iraq-anbar-115155, accessed 18 February 2015; Weiss and Pregent, ‘Iran’.
132. Dominic Evans and Emma Gatten, ‘Assault on Tikrit: Iraqi Forces Move Against Isis to Retake Saddam Hussein’s City and Province of Salahuddin’, The Independent, 3 March 2015. Fromsen and Simon, ‘ISIS’, 11.
133. Bente Scheller, ‘Assad’s Trap for the West’, 6 January 2015, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, http://www.boell.de/en/2015/01/06assads-trap-west, accessed 3 March 2015; Von Drehle, ‘The War on ISIS’.
134. Catherine Philp, Ammar Shamary and David Taylor, ‘Baghdad Begs US for Air Power to Win Tikrit’, The Times, 17 March 2015.
135. Stansfield, ‘The Islamic State’, 1343–9; Michael Young, ‘Why Bashar Assad Appears So Smug’, The Daily Star (Beirut), 12 February 2015.