They Seek Them Here, There, Everywhere

"The dynamics are somewhat different."
"Some of the targets in Libya were static, such as Gadhafi's infrastructure. ISIL is all over the place and proving troublesome."
Martin Shadwick, Defence analyst

"[ISIL has swiftly altered tactics making themselves less vulnerable to air attack] Instead of the columns of vehicles that you had previously seen with flags over the top ... they are a smart adversary."
"They have seen that that is not effective for their survival. So they are now dispersing themselves to allow themselves situations to be more survivable, if you will, which requires us to work harder to locate them and develop the situation to appropriately target them."
Maj.-Gen. Jeff Harrigian, U.S. air force assistant chief of staff for operations

"We brought Canadian forward air controllers that had been trained and experienced in Afghanistan, put them on board the Aurora, and the next thing you know they were controlling jets and conducting airstrikes [in Libya]."
Brig.-Gen. Derek Joyce

Above: An US AV-8B Harrier jet launching from the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island during flight operations in the Arabian Gulf   Picture: EPA

That was then, this is now. Surveillance equipment on board the Auroras back in 2011 proved useful in providing assessments of how much damage airstrikes inflicted on Libyan forces amounted to. Now, the hundreds of airstrikes on ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State groups results in the destruction of American-manufactured weapons and Hummers and instruments of war gained by defections and grabbing what fleeing Iraqi forces leave behind, to augment the weapons taken out of Libya.

But the successful initial strikes that targeted those self-laudatory, arrogant parades of black-flagged vehicles driven by jubilant fanatical jihadis are becoming few and far between. Some airstrike missions have returned to base, having found no targets to bomb. Islamic State fighters have gone underground, as why would they not, since even they don't appreciate being sitting ducks providing entertainment for foreign fighter aircrews.

Leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are adept at their type of guerrilla warfare requiring tactical alterations in their operational style, when called upon to do so. And the American aircraft that have been attacking them since August at various Iraqi sites, expanding strikes into Syria, are no longer as successful in finding their targets as handily as formerly was the case.

Aircraft from France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates Bahrain and Qatar may be filling the skies with their warning presence, but the most they can now accomplish is to see that Islamic State fighters fail to congregate in identifiable numbers to merit being bombed thus, as in Libya, giving a leg up in protection of the Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi military.

F/A-18C Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 87, preparing to launch from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) to conduct strike missions against ISIL targets in Syria   Picture: EPA/ROBERT BURCK/US NAVY/

 

They are intent in their collaboration with the United States, to prevent the Sunni Islamic State from overpowering completely the Shiite regimes in Iraq and Syria. Now that's a pretty pass for you. Added to which is Iran, working in solidarity with its Shiite dependents in Iraq and Syria, to reduce the Sunni threat from Al Nusra and Islamic State. Alliances reflecting a pact with the devil.

The aerial onslaught has reduced for the time being Islamic State's advance to a degree. A number of its headquarters have been bombed, and the oil refineries that had ensured them handsome financial wherewithal are now non-operational, but they don't lack for either recruits to the cause, nor funding from supporters. The war jets dispatched by the coalition are finding themselves having to be satisfied with meagre returns, on the other hand.

Royal Air Force jets on Tuesday, for example, attacked a mortar crew and a truck. A day later fighter jets destroyed two trucks. Some of the Royal Air Force pilots returned to their Cyprus base in a funk, without having been able to find any target worthy of attack. This time around, the targets are far different, more nimble and avoidance-skilled than those they found so obligingly vulnerable in the NATO Libyan campaign against Moammar Ghadaffi.