There will be ‘no military victory in the short term,’ chief of staff says; former US envoy to coalition advises more special forces deployment
Despite France and its allies stepping up their bombing campaign against the Islamic State, the country’s military chief on Sunday predicted that the battle against the radical group would not be a short one.
“There will be no military victory against Daesh in the short term,” chief of staff General Pierre de Villiers told the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
“In the military, we are used to the long term but people… want fast results. In Syria and Iraq, we are in the heart of that paradox. Everybody knows that in the end this conflict will be resolved through diplomatic and political channels,” he added, according to Reuters.
French President Francois Hollande has vowed to increase his country’s military response in the wake of a series of attacks, claimed by the Islamic State, that killed 130 people in Paris on November 13.
The US and its allies bombed 42 targets associated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Friday, including tactical units, fighting positions, command and control centers, and an oil collection facility, the US military said Saturday.
Meanwhile, officials across Europe, the Mideast and in Washington have been trying to determine how a network of primarily French and Belgian attackers with links to Islamic extremists in Syria plotted and carried out the attacks in France – the deadliest to hit the country in decades — and how many may still be on the run.
On Saturday, a former US special envoy said that if France wants to step up its military campaign against the Islamic State following the attacks, it should have coalition special forces soldiers attack the group’s leadership.
Retired Gen. John Allen, the former envoy to the US-led global coalition to defeat the Islamic State, spoke at Canada’s annual Halifax International Security Forum.
Allen, who left his post just last week, recommended a greater use of coalition special operations forces.
“There is substantial capacity in the context of our special operations that can be brought to bear,” said Allen, who has been reluctant to publicly discuss advice he’s offered to the Obama administration.
Allen noted an attack last year in which special forces killed the chief financial officer of the Islamic State, took prisoners and retrieved a large amount of data from computers. He said they attacked other targets within hours of exploiting that information.
“You get information that leads to more targets, which generate more operations. That up-tempo of special operations can become so great that you can gum up their capacity to make decisions and create some great demoralization within the system of command,” Allen said.
He said he would look within the coalition for a combined joint special operations force that could carry out direct attacks against IS leaders.
The Pentagon has been pressing European and Arab allies to provide more troops and support for the war against IS, hoping that the horror of the Paris attacks — and the fear more are coming — will compel them to get more deeply involved. The Obama administration announced last month that up to 50 special operations troops would be sent to assist Kurdish and Arab forces in northern Syria.
The French president’s office said Saturday that Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron would meet Monday to discuss the war and the threat posed by jihadists. Hollande is also set to meet this week with US President Barack Obama, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Allen said the coalition has to attack the Islamic State group militarily, financially and online. To ultimately defeat it, the West has to do a better job of contesting the message of hate and recruitment, he said.
“Daesh will not be dead as an entity until we’ve killed it in the information sphere, until we’ve killed the idea,” Allen said. “We must have a superior message to theirs.”
As reported by The Times of Israel