Posted on 02/09/2015 9:53:35 AM PST by aimhigh
Estimates of the number of fighters in the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are extraordinarily wide-ranging. On the low end of things, CNN’s Barbara Starr recently reported that “U.S. intelligence estimates that ISIL has a total force of somewhere between 9,000 to 18,000 fighters.” In late 2014, the CIA’s estimate of ISIL’s numbers was slightly higher, as its analysts assessed that the group had between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters between its Iraq and Syria holdings.
Other estimates are far higher. Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has said that ISIL has more than 50,000 fighters in Syria alone. The chief of the Russian General Staff recently said that Russia estimates ISIL to have “70,000 gunmen of various nationalities.” In late August of 2014, Baghdad-based security expert Hisham al-Hashimi claimed that ISIL’s total membership could be close to 100,000. By November, Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, told Patrick Cockburn of The Independent that the CIA’s estimates were far too low, and that ISIL had at least 200,000 fighters.
Given this range of estimates, questions naturally arise: Who is right? Which estimate is closest to ISIL’s true numbers? To assess these questions, it’s necessary to consider which parts of ISIL’s force the estimates are attempting to count, the total amount of territory ISIL is occupying, and the attrition that coalition forces have inflicted upon ISIL. Bearing in mind all of these factors, it becomes clear not only that the high-end figures are plausible, but also that they are far more likely than the unrealistically low numbers propounded by U.S. intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at counterjihadreport.com ...
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IS is losing a few hundred per week, either by execution, defection or combat.
They’ll need to maintain an aggressive kidnapping/recruitment campaign to keep up their number of combatants.
A lot more than there are Christians willing to fight for theirs...
With brutal terror, that relatively small group of ISLAMISTS and ISLAMIC TERRORISTS can keep a much larger civilian population in check! That’s how a small percentage of these terrorists are able to control large populations ... in a way that Western governments find impossible to do themselves!
It’s pretty big J-Vee team by any standards.
What does it matter? They are the J V team.
U.S. Military: ‘Okay, Langley, we’ve had a problem here.’
CIA: ‘This is Langley. Say again please.’
U.S. Military: ‘Langley, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.’
CIA: ‘Say what?’
U.S. Military: ‘We don’t know how many fighters ISIL actually has.’
CIA: ‘Okay, that sucks, neither do we.’
U.S. Military: ‘Okay, Langley, that’s your job.’
CIA: ‘That sucks even more.’
Counting the ones in the White House?
If they only had 9-18,000 fighters they would have been quickly wiped out by the alleged airstrikes.
Part of the problem is what constitutes a fighter. Is every young, male Sunni from Mosul an ISIS fighter? They’ve been getting a couple hundred recruits per week, as they’ve had a couple hundred fighters killed per week. Is that really holding steady? Or are they replacing trained terrorists with no fear of death with losers who will panic the moment they realize that those are real bullets?
It’s hard to say ,how many of their own did they kill today ,LOL
Great post! What constitutes a regular army in a “state” such as ISIL/ISIS?
Boots on the ground would answer a lot of these questions. I’m no soldier, but I would think battlefield observations would go pretty far to get some solid answers.
Maybe the Jordanians will tell us.
Here’s some unofficial intel. I regularly visit my local convenience store (its a cliche, but whatever), and have made acquaintance with a Jordanian working at the store and living here in the states to get his accounting degree. He happens to be from a town on the Syrian border and his relatives are telling him that 10,000 Jordanian troops are massed there ready to cross the border and attack. I know they’ve had a military presence on the border with Syria and have had clashes there, but apparently the troop strength has increased significantly in the past week.
It’s sort of like asking what is the military strength of U.S. ground forces / infantry?
Is it just active duty Army and Marines? Add in Reserves and National Guard? Add in anyone who is a former member of same? Add in anyone in the unorganized militia who owns an AR or AK or similar, and has run a few hundred rounds through it?
Given that they have a recruiting pool of over 600 million, I wouldn’t worry about how many fighters they have. Any losses will be recouped almost instantly.
I’d look at their finances and supply. Cut the flow of money and supplies and ISIS will perish.
100 to 150 million. They just are not all in theater at this time.
I suppose you also have to ask who the adversary is in order to gauge the effectiveness of troop strength. Our “force” against ISIL “force” would not be the same as Jordanian “force” vs. ISIL force.
Numbers matter, however, and who in Iraq and Syria has joined them? How many are moving across the border to join them? What is their recruitment base - take that number, multiply by two and respond accordingly?
I’ve been reading a bit about Spartacus and part of the problem the Romans faced was they kept underestimating his numbers due to the fact that his army kept growing exponentially and unpredictably as he passed through regions and slaves joined his army. It’s a major reason he was so successful. That’s why Crassus did an overkill.
Not counting Obama?
I don’t know how accurate this is, but it’s an amazing claim:
http://nypost.com/2015/02/09/isis-head-on-the-run-frightened-for-his-life/
It says Jordan claims to have killed 7,000 ISIS combatants over the weekend.
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