Better in their words…

I don’t show the image, but doesn’t anyone (press?) find it interesting that the ‘Islamist militants’ always have their faces masked? Is it because they are so humble that they don’t want to take credit for the good they are doing?
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BAGHDAD—As Iraqi soldiers dug in three weeks ago to defend the northwestern city of Tel Afar, they were shocked to see waves of Islamist militants coming to battle in Iraqi military vehicles.

The line of Humvees, along with a number of powerful mortars, appeared to have been stolen by the insurgents only days earlier when they seized a sprawling base near the northern city of Mosul, said Ammar Tuma, a member of parliament’s Security and Defense Committee who received regular updates from the battle.

Since the group that calls itself Islamic State began its rapid takeover of large parts of Iraq on June 10, military officials and other witnesses have seen stolen government-issued weapons in battles and military parades in Iraq and Syria, where the group formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, also controls stretches of land.

Most are Humvees, but antiaircraft launchers and mortars gave also been spotted. A pivotal question is how much weaponry insurgents have pilfered from Iraq’s U.S.-trained and supplied army. Another question is how sophisticated are those stolen weapons.

After the haul seized from a large military base near Mosul and other smaller installations, military experts say the militants’ arsenal could more closely resemble that of a conventional army than an insurgency. “You lost approximately three divisions worth of equipment and probably at least three depots in that area,” said Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What they almost certainly do have now is enough ammunition to support a major campaign and enough small arms and vehicles to move quickly,” he added.

The Iraqi military on Sunday remained engaged in a week-long battle to retake the town of Tikrit about 100 miles north of Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office said government airstrikes over the past day struck militant targets in Tel Afar and three other areas.

Amid the haul are expensive, powerful weapons such as helicopters and tanks. But these items are less likely to be used by the fighters because they require expertise, constant maintenance and a ready supply of spare parts, said Mr. Cordesman and other experts.

The insurgents have stockpiled weapons with an intensity that at times came at the expense of their relationships with other allied militant groups.

On Saturday, the head of the Islamic State made his first taped appearance in a video that was widely circulated on social media. Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who recently declared himself caliph over the group’s territory, delivered a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in Mosul, where he exhorted Muslims to pledge allegiance to him and his movement.

Because almost all of the Iraqi soldiers stationed in Mosul fled south almost as soon as the attack began, the vast majority of weaponry in that region is now believed to be in the hands of the Islamic State and its allies, local tribal fighters who threw their lot in with the insurgency or looters.

The insurgents, whose ranks are populated by former generals from Saddam Hussein’s army, probably have access to weapons expertise.  It even if some fighters are capable of driving an M1 Abrams tank—Iraq’s army has hundreds of them—they would be hard-pressed to keep up with the maintenance required to keep it operational.  Mr. Tuma said he believed the Iraqi army’s antiaircraft cannons, which are towed behind armored trucks, have become “the most effective weapon that Islamic State is using.”

But Peter Mansoor, a retired army colonel and professor of military history at Ohio State University, said such heavier artillery would probably be of little long-term use to the insurgents because they require so much maintenance.  The Islamic State has already moved many of the heavier weapons to Syria, where they have paraded trucks loaded with tanks through the streets of Raqqa province in grand shows of force. Besides their propaganda value, some of the heavier, more expensive weapons could be bartered to other militant outfits or simply stripped for parts. Explosive elements could go into improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, a favorite weapon of the insurgency.

Militants have also already made extensive use of mortars, which are easy to maintain, simple to use and highly effective even in untrained hands, said Col. Mansoor. But perhaps the most useful are heavily armed trucks and Humvees. During recent fighting in the town of Siniya, north of Baghdad. Mr. Tuma said the Iraqi military had to attack and burn “over 100 Humvees” that militants had stolen from the Iraqi army. While defending Iraq’s largest oil refinery at Beiji, Iraqi forces reported spotting dozens of their own Humvees deployed against them, Mr. Tuma said.

Equipped with Iraqi military uniforms and armored vehicles adorned with Iraqi flags, the militants could start disguising themselves as military personnel to attack Iraqi troops, said Mr. Mansoor. That happened in 2007, he said, when fighters for an Iranian-backed militia dressed up in Iraqi military uniforms and ambushed U.S. troops.

Write to Matt Bradley at matt.bradley@wsj.com

Insurgents in Iraq Seizing Advanced Weaponry – WSJ.