The first defeat: Kobane

Some signs of ISIS’ limitations showed early. In September 2014, five thousand ISIS fighters used tanks and artillery captured in Mosul to besiege half a million people in the Kurdish-majority city of Kobane, on northern Syria’s border with Turkey. The Kurdish YPG had only liberated the city from Nusra in 2013 after which the PYD had established its headquarters in the city. In October 2014, Turkey, which was initially accused by some of passivity as ISIS advanced on Kobane, opened its borders to let refugees into Turkey while allowing Iraqi Kurdish forces to cross into Syria to join the fight.[1] After four months of intense street fighting and artillery barrages, Kurdish forces—with increased US air support—inflicted heavy losses on ISIS and ultimately broke the siege.[2]

ISIS’ failure to take Kobane represented the group’s first major military defeat since its rapid expanse in the summer of 2014. With American air support, Kurdish forces pushed back against ISIS east of the Euphrates, recapturing Hasakeh in April 2015 and Tal Abyad in July that same year, before slowly moving towards ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa.[3]

Nevertheless, the international military campaign took time to gather steam, during which time ISIS continued to expand. In April 2015, it seized Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern suburbs of Damascus, and took control of the ancient city of Palmyra as well as gas fields in the surrounding area.[4] At that point, ISIS controlled roughly half of Syria’s territory, even if most of Syria’s extant population remained in areas controlled by Assad’s forces.[5] ISIS also captured Ramadi in Iraq.[6]

ISIS derived some benefits from the international attention. The military campaign made for good propaganda: through its sophisticated (social) media operation, the group claimed that this was further evidence of Sunni Muslim persecution; civilian casualties that occurred while the US-led coalition’s aerial campaign were portrayed through this lens as well.

Internationally, too, ISIS enjoyed success, with affiliates pledging loyalty in Nigeria and Libya; others, such as in Afghanistan, the Philippines and Somalia would soon follow. And between 2015 and 2016, it was able to organise high-profile terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, St. Petersburg, and Manchester, demonstrating a capacity to strike back. Even so, this only further strengthened the international resolve that ISIS had to be destroyed.

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