ISIS archive: ISIS great loss in Jarabulus

By Ethar Abdulhaq

(Zaman al-Wasl) Before sunset on 24 August 2016, groups from the Free Syrian Army, with clear Turkish support, tightened their grip on Jarablus city with that ending the Islamic State’s sole presence in the city for over two years and a half, and its entrenchment in the city for over 3 years at a time it was called the Islamic State of Iraq and then the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria… so what has the Islamic State lost in losing Jarablus?

Zaman al-Wasl tried to answer the question by returning to the special prototype of thousands of fighters coming from outside of Syria between 2012 and 2013 to join, and it is an archive our newspaper was the first media outlet around the world to publish a primary report about it and examples of it (see report…)

The archive reveals and in numbers that Islamic State’s retreat from Jarablus city has lost it a wide gate to recruit members, and even perhaps its widest gate available to it between all the border crossings it controls all over Syria and Iraq. 

And in the language of statistics that puts the language of prose aside, it becomes clear that the most mentioned border crossing in the archive in Jarablus, as it is mentioned around 4 thousand 700 times in contrast to the decreased repetition of the other border crossings, Azaz and al-Rai (repeated between 2500 and 2700 times), and this proves that Jarablus formed the harder and more important number of all the cities and border towns controlled by Islamic State at any point in time, and that its loss it a multi-dimensional blow to Islamic State. 

From one side, the Islamic State lost a its broadest gateway for fighters, and from a second perspective they lost their only border gate with Turkey (and automatically with the external world), and from another perspective the Islamic State’s presence in Aleppo’s countryside is contracting in an unprecedented manner, warning of its sinking control over the area entirely. 

Jarablus is considered one of the first Syrian areas that Islamic State initiated announcing an Imaret in, it was also the first of the Syrian cities that Islamic State sought to control completely and end the presence of revolutionary or jihadist factions in it, and this happened in reality after bitter and fierce fighting where the leadership of Islamic State demonstrated an excessive persistence to hold onto the city and not withdraw from it despite its members’ besiege and the revolutionary factions’ almost liberating the city at the start of 2014. 

The battle for Jarablus was not just an opportunity to reveal the Islamic State’s military tactics and its plans to take over Syrian areas from the rebels, but it was also the spark that initiated Islamic State’s real discourse towards the revels by describing them as sahawat, apostates, and agents, for these adjectives to hegemonize the Islamic State’s discourse and become a clause within its media war against all who criticize them or opposes them. 

The most important thing revealed in the battle for Jarablus was the dose of brutality that the Islamic State members unleashed against the revolutionary factions, as previous Islamic State had killed them or taken them as prisoners of war during those battles, and then it opened the door to policies of cutting off rebel’s heads, playing with them, and hanging them up. This door has not been closed until now, and it does not seem that it is possible to close it until Islamic State retreats from all Syrian territory.