Islamic State Celebrates An Operative Who Tried to Disrupt the Battle of Mosul
Islamic State Celebrates An Operative Who Tried to Disrupt the Battle of Mosul
In the 352nd edition of Al-Naba, the Islamic State’s (IS) weekly newsletter, released on 18 August, there was a biography of Abu al-Zubayr al-Askari, a heretofore unknown jihadist, whose real name we still do not know. Abu al-Zubayr’s life touches on some important parts of the story in IS’s development, beginning with his birth—between mid-1995 and mid-1996—and his upbringing in a jihadist milieu, showing some of the changes that overcame Iraq in the last years of the old regime. Some parts of Abu al-Zubayr’s biography are template narratives IS uses—his purity of belief leading to a determination to be a suicide bomber and his military comrades beseeching him not to because they need his skills in battle; the extraordinary, borderline fantastical, acts of personal bravery—but the details about the diversionary raids he led during the battle for Mosul (October 2016 – July 2017), IS’s Iraqi “capital”, specifically some of the trickery used to capture villages and the poor condition of the Iraqi army and militias unless they were backed by American air power, are interesting and ring true.
“When Crusader America entered the land of Mesopotamia, the sons of Islam rose up to fight it”, Al-Naba begins, “and proved to the whole world that this deen [faith] has men who will defend it”. Jihadists emerged from many areas, but “one of the most famous areas in which jihad spread widely” was Mosul, according to Al-Naba, with the areas north and south of the city providing “brave soldiers and leaders” to the IS movement, “serving up cups of humiliation and ignominy to the enemies of God, and painting the roads with their blood and body parts”. Among those engaged in this enterprise “was our commando knight [farasna al-maghwar], Abu al-Zubayr al-Askari”, one of the lions of Wilayat Dijla (Tigris Province), the name IS gave to the area south of Mosul.
“Abu al-Zubayr was born in the village of Imam Gharbi, [near Qayyara, about an hour] south of Mosul, in the year 1416 AH [30 May 1995 – 17 May 1996], and he was raised in an environment that loved jihad and the mujahideen”, according to Al-Naba. The reason there was a jihadist infrastructure in Iraq in the mid-1990s traces to the evolution of Saddam Husayn’s regime, which in its last fifteen years and especially from the early 1990s onwards, turned increasingly to a form of Salafism in its governing practice, initially following and then intensifying a societal religious revival that was assisted by the misery under the sanctions—and by the regime’s efforts to evade them. By the time the regime came down, there was, alongside the “official” Salafist current, an underground Salafi Trend that Saddam, against the advice of his intelligence chief and others, maintained a de facto alliance with, even as these militant Salafists sought to use the space they were being given, partly by design and partly because of a collapse in state capacity, to supplant the regime. From this milieu that emerged some of IS’s most capable leaders, and the Mosul environs were indeed particularly notable, producing, among other crucial IS officials, Abdurrahman al-Qaduli (Abu Ali al-Anbari).
By Al-Naba’s account, Abu al-Zubayr was insistent on joining IS but “[a]t that time, he was not accepted into the camps because of his young age”. (This is presumably after 2003, but there were jihadist camps in Iraq during Saddam’s time, most notably in jihadist lore at Rawa.) Nonetheless, the boy persisted and eventually:
[H]is father presented him to one of the leaders of al-mafariz al-amniyat [the security detachments] in his area, who saw in him keenness and an acumen that qualified him for some tasks, so [the leader] accepted [Abu al-Zubayr] and entrusted him with the task of monitoring and photographing some targets, which he excelled at to the fullest. Abu al-Zubayr had no other concern but jihad against the enemies of the mila [religious community] and deen [faith], so he continued to fight them until God cursed him with captivity at their hands, where he remained until God released him, [at which point] he returned to the field of jihad and continued [his activities] there until he was captured again. He stayed [in prison] for a while and then left … [T]hen he left his family and home and became a mutaridan [pursuer] in the way of God. He kept going, until God opened Iraq for his mujahideen slaves.
There are no dates given by Al-Naba for this early phase of Abu al-Zubayr’s life, but he would have been about 8-years-old when Saddam fell: it seems unlikely IS would have allowed him to do even reconnaissance work at that age. The “cubs of the caliphate” program later, when IS had much more freedom of action, was aimed at children slightly older than that. By 2008, IS was under so much pressure that, as its then-emir put it, the group had “no place to stand for a quarter of an hour”; it is possible to imagine a 12-year-old spotter being used at that time. The timeline of Abu al-Zubayr’s two imprisonments is very hazy, though. Al-Naba pointedly does not say he was imprisoned by the Americans, a detail it is unlikely would have been omitted if it was true. The implication is that Abu al-Zubayr was imprisoned by the Iraqi government after the Americans left Iraq in December 2011, when he would have been 16 and older. By the time areas of Iraq were “opened” (or conquered: the word used is fath) and the caliphate was proclaimed in June 2014, Abu al-Zubayr would have been around 19.
After the caliphate declaration, Abu al-Zubayr “returned to the place of his youth in Wilayat Dijla, and remained there, moving between da’wa [proselytism, advocacy] and jihad, fighting the enemies of God at times and calling [people] to God at other times. Roaming with the da’wa convoys, using his melodious voice, he was always inciting Muslims to [join the] jihad, and al-amr bi al-maruf wal-nahee an al-munkar [‘enjoining good and forbidding evil’, or ‘promoting virtue and preventing vice’], leading to God guiding, via his hands, a group of youths [al-shabab] to join the mujahideen”, writes Al-Naba.
Soon after IS announced its caliphate, Abu al-Zubayr got married and had a child, named Zubayr (“Abu al-Zubayr” literally means “father of Zubayr”), but Al-Naba says “that did not stop him from continuing the duty of jihad. After [the birth of his son] he fought in the fiercest battles in Bayji [from October 2014 to October 2015] and the villages of Makhmur, Al-Nasr, Khirbardan, Kadeela, Al-Salihiya, Mahana, and Karmardi, [and] rather [than pulling back from the fighting] he wrote his name on the list for the processions of light [mawakeb al-nur] to carry out a martyrdom operation. His emir tried to turn back his request due to his brothers’ need for him in the field, because of his military skill, courage, and experience in combat, but Abu al-Zubayr insisted on his position [on the list].” This is a common trope in IS biographies: jihadists having such devotion to the ideology they want to kill themselves for it, but them being so capable in battle that their leaders and comrades beg them to stay alive to help in the fighting.
Al-Naba goes on:
When the Rafida [derog. “Shi’is”, i.e. Iraqi security forces] and [Kurdish] Peshmerga forces advanced towards the villages of Hajj Ali, Abu al-Zubayr got into his car, loaded with explosives, and sped towards a target. On the way, God decreed that the car would break down and stop moving. So, our knight returned to his brothers, upset at not being able to carry out the operation, but not in despair, asking for death at the appointed time. At this time, he joined the Inghimasiyeen Brigade and God decreed for him to be injured, going to the city of Mosul for treatment. During his treatment, the apostates cut off the road between Wilayat Kirkuk and a section of Wilayat Dijla from Wilayat Ninawa. Once Abu al-Zubayr got back to Wilayat Dijla, he was assigned to establish a security detachment to operate inside the villages controlled by the apostates, specifically the village of Imam Gharbi, his hometown, and the neighbouring villages.
Shortly after the [security] detachment was established and carried out several security operations in the area, Abu al-Zubayr began planning an incursion into the apostate-held village of Imam Gharbi. The plan of the incursion was that he and a group of mujahideen would sneak into the centre of the village, and divide into two qism [parts]: one part would bomb the roads, and the other part would enter two mosques in the center of the village to [shout] “takbir” and declare control, confusing the enemy. Meanwhile, another detachment outside the village would attack the barracks of the apostates. So it was. The clashes began, and after ten minutes, Abu al-Zubayr and those with him started shooting in the middle of the village and shouting “takbir” through the mosques’ loudspeakers, which they had taken control of in the village, and called on the people not flee because the roads were booby-trapped … [T]hey thought that the mujahideen’s armies had raided the village, so they fled, and the mujahideen took control of the village in only half-an-hour.
Before this trick to seize Imam Gharbi, Al-Naba says a lot of Iraqi soldiers and Tribal Hashd (Hashd al-Ashairi) had been killed, which had caused “the apostates to tighten their security measures around the village and add another barracks”, but Abu al-Zubayr managed to get an inghimasi fighter with a suicide vest through these defences, where he detonated “inside the largest headquarters of the Tribal Hashd in the area”.
Next, Abu al-Zubayr joined Liwa Abu Musa al-Ash’ari in Wilayat Dijla, where “he participated in most of the brigade’s battles against the apostates, the most important of which was the battle [in the village] of Kanous, which was a fierce attempt by the apostates to advance towards the positions of the mujahideen. He played a major role in repelling the attack, along with his brothers, and was [subsequently] appointed as a leader of the mujahideen in the villages of Kanous and Shari’a. [In this role] he intensified the raids on the [Iraqi military] barracks around Kanous, until he forced the apostates to withdraw from the outskirts of the village”. It was at this point that Abu al-Zubayr was made “general military commander” of Liwa Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari, so orchestrated numerous raids—leading attacks on the mountains of Makhul and Al-Khanukah, the “Sharqat II” operation, and incursions into numerous villages, including Al-Huriya and Al-Nahiya.
In the final days of the operations in Mosul in the summer of 2017, IS’s was reduced to a pocket in the old city, under a tight siege and relentless bombardment. “The mujahideen decided to launch an incursion from several axes on the apostate positions west of the Tigris River”, says Al-Naba, and it was Abu al-Zubayr who organised this attack, leading the prong of the incursion that went against the village of Imam Gharbi, “the focus of the attack”. Abu al-Zubayr’s group broke through the defences and into Imam Gharbi: the number of jihadists were “few” and they “only had light weapons”, according to Al-Naba, “and a fierce battle took place between the Soldiers of God and the Soldiers of Satan. Many of Abu al-Zubayr’s companions were wounded, and only thirteen mujahideen remained with him, among whom were wounded men holed up in three houses on the outskirts of the village.”
Anti-IS reinforcements arrives, but the clashes continued for days, with IS apparently holding out, despite only having a small number of operatives, and some of them being wounded. Sensing a dip in enemy strength, Al-Naba says Abu al-Zubayr ordered a counter-attack that took some territory and cut off the road between Shirqat and Qayyara for twenty days. The Hashd al-Shabi coming in on four axes were unable to break through IS’s lines until they were backed by American airpower, according to Al-Naba, which records the casualties of the diversionary raid that Abu al-Zubayr led at more than 300 “apostates” and eleven captured, plus a number of their vehicles destroyed; it seems likely there is some padding in these numbers.
Al-Naba next moves to what is also a stereotyped part of these biographies, namely the individual act of heroism:
One of the unique situations during this battle, showing the bravery of Abu al-Zubayr and his willingness to sacrifice for his brothers, is what happened when the apostates took control of the Najma Mountain range and deployed snipers on it. They [used that position and] advanced with a patrol of six armoured vehicles loaded with soldiers, besieging five mujahideen who were stationed in houses near the mountains. Violent clashes erupted until the five Mujahideen had almost ran out of ammunition. They could not withdraw because they were surrounded in an open area. They asked for help over the radio, and the lion Abu al-Zubayr immediately answered their call, after ordering the brothers with him not to follow him in order to protect them. … Abu Al-Zubayr plunged into the ranks of the enemies of God under a hail of bullets and mortar shells until he reached the apostates’ vehicles near his besieged brothers and in front of their eyes he fought alone against the apostates, who had six armoured vehicles. This courage stirred the fighting spirit of the besieged brothers, so they attacked the apostates’ vehicles and fought ferociously against them, killing and wounding a number of them, and damaging a Hummer vehicle. The apostates had to withdraw. Abu al-Zubayr was shot in the leg during the clashes, yet he was able to get back to safety with his brothers inside the village.
Abu al-Zubayr’s last act was in his hometown, Imam Gharbi, trying to hold off an advance by the Iraqi forces, supported with heavy American airstrikes. “As usual, Abu al-Zubayr and his heroic brothers fought with the enemy troops, repelled their advance, and burned three of their vehicles”, announces Al-Naba, “but God Almighty decreed this as the time for this knight to get off his horse”. Abu al-Zubayr was killed in an American airstrike, which, as Al-Naba charmingly puts it, “scattered his remains” in the village where he had started preaching. Al-Naba concludes by suggesting others use Abu al-Zubayr as a model and follow in his footsteps.