“Combat engineers have already been vital in the long struggle to dislodge ISIS from the region. The fighting “style” of the jihadists has often required the unique skills of engineers on the front lines.”
After major victories for the Western coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the strategy of the US and its partners is quickly shifting to solidifying the peace and rebuilding war-torn cities. Alliances are now being determined not by who will help the most in the fighting, but rather by who will be the most effective in bringing lasting rehabilitation to the region. Many of the big Middle East players are now firmly committed to putting together a “Marshall Plan” type program to re-constitute ruined towns and cities, with Kuwait promising to host a “reconstruction conference” early next year.
This change of focus has brought to the fore the new needs that the region is looking for its Western friends to provide in the post-ISIS era. The role of participating militaries is altering from fighting to restoration forces. Nowhere is this more highlighted than in the evolving contribution of the coalition engineering corps on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
Engineering Stability
Combat engineers have already been vital in the long struggle to dislodge ISIS from the region. The fighting “style” of the jihadists has often required the unique skills of engineers on the front lines. The disarming of IEDs, car bombs, and booby traps left by militants quickly became a top priority in the war against Islamic State. ISIS took advantage of the confined urban arena many battles were waged in. At times, progress to root out remaining ISIS strongholds in liberated cities went at a sluggish rate due to the obstacle of mine-laden streets.
For a number of years, the Israeli Defense Forces Engineer Corps has maintained its Yahalom, or Diamond unit — a special operations unit tasked with a variety of missions, including surgical demolition, and enemy tunnel destruction.
The role of the combat engineer in the fight against ISIS really underscores a broader trend in the War on Terror. ISIS is not the only enemy that has been using these tactics. Other jihadist groups have implemented similar strategies to level the asymmetric playing field. The dreaded roadside IEDs that have levied a heavy toll on American and coalition troops in Afghanistan and Iraq serve as a poignant example. As explosives technology and the means to create obstacles has become cheaper and more accessible, engineers have had to become increasingly involved at a tactical level in many international theaters.
The global trend of specialized engineering units is a direct result of this phenomenon. The United States Army, for instance, trains and deploys Special Forces Engineer Sergeants — men with a wide skill set in explosives, deactivating, and clearance that can be attached to some of the most elite warfighting units. For a number of years, the Israeli Defense Forces Engineer Corps has maintained its Yahalom, or Diamond unit — a special operations unit tasked with a variety of missions, including surgical demolition, and enemy tunnel destruction. The elite Alpini Corps of the Italian military, the oldest mountain infantry unit in the world, have long incorporated engineering tasks in their repertoire of special operation. The list goes on.
Zooming in on the Levant in the aftermath of ISIS, engineers are now being called upon to use their skills to be part of a large, often daunting, recovery effort. And it’s not just the US bearing the brunt of this new job.
Several partnering nations, some surprisingly unexpected, have begun to pour in their engineering resources to help.
UK media recently reported that an important focus of British forces in Iraq is to assist the country’s military in identifying and disarming the IEDs littering the country following the ISIS retreat from many cities and towns.
Two weeks ago, Canada began sending a contingency of 20 combat engineers to train Iraqi troops in dismantling the roadside bombs and booby traps left behind by retreating ISIS fighters.
Russia has deployed its “Mine Action Center” to clear large swaths of what were once residential areas, rendered uninhabitable by numerous explosive traps hidden by ISIS members in homes and throughout neighborhoods. According to reports, the Center has identified and destroyed hundreds of devices in the past several months — it has allowed residents to return to their homes to resume some level of normalcy.
There are a few particularly good things about the rebuilding effort that is underway.
First, it opens a less “controversial” option for countries who want to lend a hand to the regions recovering from ISIS rule. Canada for instance, is withholding its 200 special forces troops in Iraq from operations due to the ongoing Kurdish controversy, but is more than happy to teach Iraqis how to disarm abandoned car bombs.
It also gives less-than-friendly countries an avenue through which to collaborate. Post-ISIS rehabilitation is one of the few things Western nations may be able to work on hand-in-hand with Russia.
A Growing Effort
The effort to reconstitute former ISIS territory will continue to attract more countries. For a country like Syria, which has seen much of its infrastructure destroyed in the fighting with Islamic state, the need for international assistance to make-over these war zones will continue to mount.
However, what makes this reconstruction project unique is that it is being undertaken while the conflict is occurring — while certainly having died down, it is not exactly over. Trying to bring normalcy to liberated areas in a region that is still very much ensconced in war is no easy task. It is why the ones primarily overseeing reconstruction are combat engineers and not civil engineers. Western military presence in both Syria and Iraq, in areas formerly under ISIS control, will continue for the foreseeable future, primarily to help guarantee militants stay out of the retaken territory.
There is no doubt that the regional ground war against the Islamic State has hit a new stage. Hopefully it is one that will continue to garner more international cooperation.
