Will the world beat Islamic State?

An Australian Islamic extremist killed fighting for Islamic State in Syria has been praised by friends.

Militants of Islamic State stand just before explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir hill near Turkish border. Source: AFP

THE Islamic State is holding firm after months of Coalition airstrikes. Paul Toohey examines whether more is needed to break the murderous insurgency.

It is too soon to declare the air strikes against the Islamic State a failure, but if victory appears distant, there may be good reason for it: this is one of the mildest air campaigns unleashed in modern warfare.

In Libya, in 2011, NATO air forces hit the Gaddafi regime with 21,000 sorties and almost 8000 missile strikes in five months.

In Syria and Iraq, to this point, after five months of bombing raids, there have only been around 1200 missile strikes. That is about the same amount NATO dropped on Bosnia in 21 days of intense strikes in 1995.

For its part, as of December 20, Australia had undertaken 180 sorties and deployed 113 bombs over three months.

COMMENT: Australian Major General Jim Molan (ret) says we haven't failed yet

UNDER THREAT: Australian IS recruits could be hanged

IS JIHADIST: Gives away his location on Twitter

Islamic State member ... Australian-born "Terror Nine" member Khaled Sharrouf who slipped out of the country unnoticed on his brother's passport. Source: Supplied

"In Gulf War number one, they did that in the first two minutes," says retired Air Commodore Mark Lax, a former RAAF F-111 pilot, base commander and, later, high-level defence policy strategist.

"It depends on the effort you put in. The US-led Coalition is taking this bit-by-bit, rather than going like a bull at a gate. They don't want boots on the ground because of the casualty rate, yet they want to be seen to be doing something through strikes on storage and ammo depots while avoiding civilian casualties.

"These guys (ISIL) are not in mass formations, they are ragtag bands. It's not force-on-force. You can't drop 500lb bombs on ones and twos. It's a matter of containment."

Giving insight ... Air Commodore Mark Lax, a member of the Australian Government Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal. Source: News Limited

Yet containment is not necessarily the first step to victory.

The case in point is Kobane, the Syrian town on the Turkish border that was invaded by ISIL in October. It has received more air-strike attention than any other location in Syria or Iraq, having been pounded by more than 400 missiles.

Yet ISIL remains embedded in Kobane.

Destroying cities ... an explosion rocks Syrian city of Kobane during a reported suicide car bomb attack by the militants of Islamic State. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

So far, public sentiment among participating nations has not revealed any great impatience with the way the war is being fought.

Apart from the untold number of deaths of Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian opponents, and the staged executions of ISIL-held hostages, there has been a negligible death toll among forces fighting from high in the air.

Heinous crimes ... David Haines, who was beheaded by an Islamic State fighter in Syria. Source: Supplied

Added to this, foreign forces are also located in bases or on ships far from the battle lines. While pilots take serious risks, as demonstrated by the Jordanian captured by ISIL last week, this Middle Eastern deployment does not give rise to the kind of public unease that comes with large-scale ground combat missions.

Citizens of cities thousands of kilometres from Iraq or Syria are more likely concerned about the unknowns among us committing murderous, attention-seeking stunts.

The war was never designed as a classic military operation, with jets attacking in waves followed immediately by ground forces. The strikes are designed to hold the spread of ISIL while Iraqi and Kurdish troops get organised.

Recruits ... Ginger Jihadi Abdullah Elmir in an Islamic State video. Source: YouTube

And there have been some successes. In the days before Christmas, Australian F/A-18F Super Hornets acted in concert with jets from other nations and advancing Kurdish ground forces with strikes on ISIL positions in the Mount Sinjar region, where thousands of Yezidi people have remained trapped for months.

This humanitarian intervention gave people a brief window to flee, yet it did not fully dislodge ISIL. Wherever it is hit, it reforms and moves elsewhere. Or it just stays put and sees it out, as it is doing in Kobane.

Leaders warned from the start it would take months, not weeks, but at the current rate it could take years, if unequivocal success comes at all.

Wreaking havoc ... Abdullah Elmir, a 17-year-old man who told his family that he was going on a fishing trip with a friend before leaving Australia to join the Islamic State. Source: Supplied

Major General John Cantwell, who led Australia's Middle Eastern and Afghanistan operations up until he left the military in 2011, says Iraq and the world should have been paying closer attention when ISIL stormed out of Syria earlier this year.

"When one thinks of the hideous expenditure of lives, limbs and money to try to build a secure Iraq, it is deeply disappointing to find that Iraq's politicians and its huge military machine were incapable of containing a bunch of reasonably well-organised thugs," says Cantwell.

"There is no doubt that Coalition air strikes have reduced the ability of ISIL extremists to move freely and carry out large-scale operations, but they've come a bit late.

"If the international community had reacted more quickly to the advance of ISIL across northern Iraq, the use of overwhelming air power might have proved decisive while ISIL forces were in the open and vulnerable to attack.

"Now we have a situation where ISIL targets are few and fleeting."

Coalition strikes ... an explosion rocks the Syrian city of Kobane during an airstrike led by the US. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

Cantwell says the air attacks have reduced ISIL boldness and given some opportunity for Iraqi and Kurdish troops to regain control. But they're not great soldiers.

"Given the poor track record of the local troops and their largely incompetent senior commanders, this is likely to take a very long time," says Cantwell.

"The question is how long the international community is prepared to wait for the Iraqi government and security forces to get their act together, while maintaining air forces in the region.

"The consensus remains that it is in our interests to reduce the threat to international security posed by ISIL; (but) it seems we are in for yet another drawn out struggle with few winners."

Being frank ... Former Commander of Australian forces in Afghanistan, Major General (ret) John Cantwell. Source: News Corp Australia

Maps depicting the current ISIL strongholds in Iraq are remarkable for the fact they follow no clean battleline logic: they are all over the country, beneath, adjacent to or above so-called Iraqi and Kurdish strongholds.

The US-led Coalition appears to lack the flow of reliable intelligence to bombard supply routes; and it is clear that ISIL is being assisted from within Iraq by Sunni extremists.

And this is without considering what is happening in Syria, from where the ISIL creature declared its caliphate in July.

According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Coalition has vastly underrated ISIL's temporary partner in Syria, the al Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra.

The ISW warned in a December report that Jabhat al-Nusra, or JN, was "no less dangerous than ISIL" and had quickly "developed into a serious and expanding threat both to the West and to the future of Syria".

JN is affiliated with the Khorosan group, which is pursuing worldwide global terror ambitions on behalf of al Qaeda.

Australia joins the US ... a Royal Australian Air Force pilot with a F/A18 Super Hornet in an undisclosed base in the Middle East. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: News Corp Australia

JN shares with the ISIL ambition of creating a caliphate, but its strategy is to attack the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, using highly effective squads of rebel fighters.

So far, JN and ISIL tolerate each other because their enemies are mutual. But JN is playing a clever game, winning the hearts and minds of Syrians who like neither ISIL nor the Coalition.

While all attention has been on ISIL, JN is positioning itself for what it hopes will become, after the inevitable fall of Assad, both a caliphate and the world's first al Qaeda-run country.

Making headway ...an explosion following an air-strike in the Syrian town of Kobani from near the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border. Picture: Kutluhan Cucel/Getty Images Source: Getty Images

"JN is engaged in a nuanced and carefully formulated state-building effort in Syria that is targeted to secure the long-term establishment of Sharia law in a post-Assad state," says the ISW.

It warns that to be effective in the region, the US-led Coalition "must neutralize JN's campaign to influence the population. This requires engagement with opposition forces, not simply air strikes against JN."

That means boots on the ground, foremost in Syria, to take out ISIL, JN and, indeed, whatever is left of the government of Assad. Many argued this was what US President Barack Obama should have done two years ago.

If ground troops were to storm Syria and cut ISIL and JN off at the head, this would give Iraq its best chance of destroying the remains of ISIL within Iraq.

A convoy of vehicles and fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters in Iraq's Anbar Province. Source: AP

But with no plans by the US to throw its troops into another ground war, and Turkey standing back, the policy of slow containment from the air will continue, even if there is as yet no hint of a clear result; and no clue as to where it might come from.

"You can't have a conventional war on one side and a guerilla war on the other," says Mark Lax. "How do you resolve that? I would think they will need boots."