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Analysis

On the backfoot, ISIS uses old tactics to recoup losses

By AFP

Druze youth Muhannad Thakoun was executed by the 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' last week after he was abducted by the group along with dozens of other hostages from the village of al-Shabaki in Sweida province in southern Syria. [Photo circulated on social media]

Druze youth Muhannad Thakoun was executed by the 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' last week after he was abducted by the group along with dozens of other hostages from the village of al-Shabaki in Sweida province in southern Syria. [Photo circulated on social media]

The "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) is looking to recapture lost power by reverting to the grisly tactics that first propelled it to global notoriety, analysts say, including executions and kidnapping minorities.

ISIS last week beheaded a 19-year-old student, one of more than 30 Druze Syrians it kidnapped in late July during a spate of suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings in Syria's southern Sweida province.

While official ISIS media quickly claimed responsibility for the attacks, the propaganda channels have made no mention of the kidnappings.

Instead, local sources and war monitors say the extremists were in talks to swap the Druze hostages for ISIS commanders and other fighters held by Syria's government.

"On one hand they are publicly killing people, but then behind the scenes they can take hostages and swap," says Hassan Hassan, senior fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

"That is key -- the whole thing is part of an attempt to revive its cells, bring back some of its resources, and replenish some leadership and ranks with people who have been kidnapped or held in prisons," Hassan said.

ISIS has fallen far since declaring a so-called "caliphate" across Syria and Iraq in 2014, where it implemented its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, including public executions.

Last year, the group lost its twin seats of power -- Mosul and al-Raqa -- and a few months ago was ousted from its foothold in Syria's capital Damascus.

Many of its top commanders have been killed, and regime and coalition-backed forces are separately detaining ISIS members -- including its infamous foreign fighters -- across the country.

To make up some of these losses, ISIS will likely keep using "swift hit-and-runs to kidnap people", Hassan said.

'Crosses all red lines'

ISIS has used similar tactics in Iraq and in Syria's northeast, where in 2015 it abducted 220 Assyrian Christians that it ultimately traded for a large ransom.

Negotiations for the remaining Druze hostages -- 13 women and 15 children -- are taking place through Russian co-ordination with Syria's government, according to a top Druze religious leader.

The student beheaded by ISIS last week was taken hostage alongside his mother.

Relatives received footage of the young man speaking before he was killed, as well as his decapitation and images of his lifeless body.

Analysts say that brand of shock and terror has also long been a part of ISIS's modus operandi.

Perhaps ISIS's most infamous attack against a minority community was its raids against Iraq's Yazidis in 2014, when it forced tens of thousands from the tiny religious group to flee and captured girls and women as spoils of war.

Khattar Abou Diab, a Paris-based expert on Syria, said raids on the Druze evoked those dark times.

"The actions and abuses waged against the Druze civilians since that Black Wednesday (July 25th) very much resemble those carried out by ISIS against the Yazidis in Iraq," said Abou Diab.

"For this ancestral community, taking female hostages crosses all their red lines," he added.

'Create anarchy'

The Druze, who made up 3% of Syria's pre-war population, follow a secretive faith seen as an offshoot of Islam but cast by ISIS as heretical.

Their leaders have sought to maintain a precarious arrangement with the regime: in exchange for maintaining their loyalty, Druze men would not be conscripted and sent to fight far from home.

By targeting the Druze, ISIS wants to rupture that relationship, according to Pieter Van Ostaeyen, a Belgian expert on extremist groups.

"An attack on the Druze community in Sweida is aimed to create unrest, and an attempt to make them rebel against the regime," he says.

"After all, this is the old tactic of ISIS in all of its incarnations: to try to create anarchy, unrest and ultimately take control over the chaos."

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