Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) deployed continuously to Iraq from March 2003 to December 2011 as part of Operations IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) and NEW DAWN. After a three-year respite, ARSOF returned to Iraq in mid-2014 for Operation INHERENT RESOLVE (OIR), the campaign to destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Despite similarities with previous operations in Iraq, defeating ISIS required a new approach. The counter-ISIS coalition’s chosen tactics pushed ARSOF to the forefront, based on their expertise in training, advising, and assisting partner forces.
The Rise of ISIS
The U.S., its allies, and their Iraqi partners made great strides toward improving the overall security situation by the end of OIF in mid-2010. In the process, they defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), once the most feared extremist group in Iraq. The subsequent Operation NEW DAWN focused on transitioning responsibility to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). When the U.S. departed Iraq in 2011, U.S. President Barack H. Obama heralded it as a great day for both nations.
Meanwhile, in early 2011, a spontaneous wave of anti-authoritarian popular revolts, collectively known as the “Arab Spring,” swept over the Middle East and North Africa. The Republic of Syria was one of the nations impacted, and the uprising threatened the regime of President Bashar Al-Asad. Longstanding sectarian tensions in Syria erupted into a multi-sided civil war in 2012.
In the ensuing chaos, the remnants of AQI saw an opening. After rebranding themselves as ISIS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and abbreviated as Daesh in Arabic, they began seizing territory in remote areas of western Syria. Despite the name change, ISIS used the same brutal tactics they had employed in Iraq a decade earlier while operating as AQI. Gaining strength with each victory, ISIS prepared to avenge past defeats on their way to establishing a caliphate.
Although not directly imperiled by Arab Spring protests, Iraq grappled with internal challenges following the U.S. departure. Sectarianism tainted both the Iraqi Government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the ISF. Complicating matters further, Iraq’s neighbor to the west, Iran, sought to expand its influence in Iraq, unsettling Iraq’s Sunni minority. This provided opportunity for ISIS.
Through 2013, ISIS gained support from disaffected Sunni Arabs in Iraq and Syria. Once strong enough, it went on the attack. The speed and brutality of the ISIS offensive in the first half of 2014 shocked the world. By June, the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Mosul, and Tikrit, each wrested from AQI at great cost during OIF, were under ISIS control and the Iraqi capital of Baghdad was in ISIS’s crosshairs.
The World Responds
Alarmed by ISIS’s rapid advance, and the ineffectual Iraqi response, President Obama ordered 300 special operations soldiers to Iraq in June 2014. The U.S. then set about building an international military coalition to counter ISIS, which commenced operations on June 15, 2014. Of the administration’s nine counter-ISIS lines of effort, several fell within the purview of ARSOF. Among these were denying ISIS safe haven, building partner capacity, enhancing intelligence collection on ISIS, exposing ISIS’s true nature, and disrupting the flow of foreign fighters.
On June 24, 2014, U.S. Army, Central, assumed the role of Joint Forces Land Component Command (JFLCC) for operations in Iraq. Based at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, JFLCC included a special operations command, Special Operations Joint Task Force – Iraq (SOJTF-I). The SOJTF-I mission centered on instructing and advising Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) forces and helping to organize Sunni tribal resistance to ISIS. Undeterred, ISIS announced the establishment of a caliphate five days later, on June 29, 2014.
An early test for the counter-ISIS coalition came in August 2014, when ISIS threatened to overrun and massacre Yazidi civilians trapped on Sinjar Mountain in northern Iraq. Coalition airstrikes ultimately forced ISIS to retreat from Sinjar, preventing a likely genocide. From September 2014 to January 2015, the Coalition and its Kurdish allies repulsed the ISIS attack on Kobani, Syria, inflicting a high cost on the attackers. Liberating territory already under ISIS control would require more than airpower, though; a reliable and capable partner force was needed.
With the battle for Kobani ongoing, the Department of Defense established Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) on October 17, 2014. Its mission was to work with partners to defeat ISIS throughout Iraq and Syria and set conditions for post-conflict regional stability. Over time, CJTF-OIR encompassed the contributions of more than sixty partners. In Iraq, the CTS proved to be the most capable partner force, having been trained and mentored by U.S. Army Special Forces during OIF. In Syria, there was no equivalent of the CTS, only a collection of Kurdish and Sunni Arab groups united in their opposition to both the Assad Regime and ISIS. However, vetting these groups in accordance with official U.S. government policy, a precursor to partnering with them, proved challenging.
After President Obama suspended the ineffective New Syrian Forces training program in October 2015, CJTF-OIR set out to identify and train a new Syrian partner force. The Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” (YPG) had proven itself in combat at Kobani and elsewhere, and it, alongside the makeshift Syrian Arab Coalition, provided the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). By year’s end, 50 USSOF advisors were in Syria supporting the SDF.
Throughout 2015, USSOF counter-ISIS efforts expanded beyond its advise and assist role. For instance, SOF raided the home of the ISIS oil minister, created PSYOP leaflets in support of counter oil-smuggling operations, and participated in the assault on an ISIS-operated prison. The latter action, occurring on October 22, 2015, yielded the first Medal of Honor awarded during OIR, to Sergeant 1st Class Thomas P. Payne, but it also resulted in the first U.S. combat death of the conflict, Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler. Both Payne and Wheeler were ARSOF soldiers.
A New SOF Headquarters
In January 2016, 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Fort Liberty since 2023), formally stood up SOJTF-OIR as the division-level SOF component of CJTF-OIR to coordinate and direct all SOF train, advise, assist, and accompany operations with partner forces in Syria and Iraq. Commanded by Maj. Gen. James E. Kraft, Jr., SOJTF-OIR fielded around 2,000 U.S. troops by late 2017. These forces assisted their Syrian and Iraqi partners as trainers, combat advisers, and forward air controllers. They also provided access to cutting-edge communications technology that enhanced their partners’ ability to operate on the battlefield.
An early SOJTF-OIR success came in March 2016, when ARSOF helped Vetted Syrian Opposition (VSO) fighters capture Al-Tanf, a village located near the juncture of the Iraq-Jordan-Syria borders. This outpost, previously occupied by ISIS, would serve as a train-and-equip facility for the coalition-aligned fighters for years to come.
By mid-2017, SOJTF-OIR partner forces, consisting of approximately 50,000 VSO soldiers, had liberated approximately 35,000 square miles from ISIS, including the Syrian cities of Tabqah, Manbij, and Shaddadi. In Iraq, ISF and their SOJTF-OIR advisors had liberated approximately 70 cities, including Tikrit, Haditha, Ramadi, Fallujah, Hit, and Mosul. Following each success in Syria and Iraq, CJTF-OIR-trained security forces moved into the areas cleared of ISIS, enabling military formations to focus on the next objective.
Supported by SOJTF-OIR and Coalition airpower, the SDF launched their attack on the ISIS capital of Raqqa, one of the last remaining ISIS strongholds, in June 2017. Despite heavy resistance from ISIS defenders, the SDF secured it in October 2017. Coalition forces and their partners spent most of 2018 consolidating control of liberated areas and rooting out remaining pockets of resistance in the Euphrates River Valley. Sensing that the U.S. mission in Syria had concluded, U.S. President Donald J. Trump announced his intention to withdraw the remaining American forces in Syria on December 19, 2018.
On March 23, 2019, the SDF pronounced the “destruction of the so-called Islamic State organization” after clearing the last ISIS stronghold in Baghouz in southern Syria. Later that year, on October 26, U.S. Special Operations Forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi near Idlib, Syria. Despite the destruction of the caliphate, the drawdown of U.S. forces, and the killing of Al-Baghdadi, OIR continues to this day.
Still, a 2021 U.S. Army Center of Military History study found that the indigenous, “by-with-through” approach to fighting the Islamic State precluded the need for significant U.S. combat troop deployments, reduced the financial cost of the campaign, and kept coalition casualties to a minimum. ARSOF soldiers of SOJTF-OIR can rightly claim to have been the lynchpin of that successful strategy, along with their Iraqi and Syrian partners, most notably the CTS and SDF. However, no victory comes without a cost. Of the 13 U.S. Army Soldiers killed in action during OIR between 2014 and 2019, seven belonged to ARSOF. This article is dedicated to their memory.
· Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, Headquarters, USASOC, October 22, 2015
· Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), November 4, 2016
· Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), November 4, 2016
· Sergeant 1st Class Matthew C. Lewellen, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), November 4, 2016
· Master Sgt. Jonathan J. Dunbar, Headquarters, USASOC, March 30, 2018
· Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), August 20, 2018
· Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan Farmer, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), January 16, 2019
For more information, see The Conflict with ISIS: Operations INHERENT RESOLVE, June 2014-January 2020. For more on the ARSOF Fallen of OIR, see Tribute our Fallen: U.S. Army Special Operations (arsof-history.org).
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