Australia has been part of America’s long war against terrorism since the war began in 2001. In the first stage (2001–02), al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was badly mauled in a quick special forces and airpower campaign. In the second stage (2003–12), al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, was killed, the group’s core sharply reduced and its Iraq affiliate crushed. In the third stage (from 2013), ISIS unexpectedly emerged from the remnants of that affiliate and rapidly captured large swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.
A fourth stage seems imminent. ISIS-held areas are being progressively (if slowly) recaptured. The group appears likely to go ‘underground’ in Sunni areas in Syria and Iraq, adopt guerrilla warfare tactics and try to survive until circumstances change and it can re-emerge. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda has restructured itself and dispersed across the greater Middle East. The Syrian franchise, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, is the most successful, with some 10,000 fighters, about a third of them foreign.
Across the Middle East, Australia has deployed more than 1,500 ADF personnel, who are undertaking train–advise–assist missions, special force activities, air combat operations and naval missions. The defeat of ISIS in Iraq won’t end the need for these deployed forces. Al-Qaeda and ISIS will remain active across the greater Middle East for a considerable time to come. Further deployments to Afghanistan are being considered, while the Trump administration is signalling that it would like the Australian train–advise–assist mission to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. This deployment may grow further to include a long-term presence in Syria.
Please click here to read the full “Trapped in a long war” article in The Strategist by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow, Dr Peter Layton.
