Operation Inherent Resolve: ISIS v SDF

Perhaps no other group is as closely associated with Hilux technicals as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known worldwide as ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), and commonly called Daesh – a transliteration of the “ISIS” acronym in Arabic, conjugated to mean “bigot” – across the Middle East. Convoys of hundreds of Hilux technicals overflowing with jihadists are indelible images from ISIS’ shocking takeover of major Iraqi cities in June 2014: Mosul (population about 1.3 million), Tikrit (population about 230,000), Fallujah (population about 300,000). 

It was ISIS’ association with the Toyota Hilux that made western nations ask how terrorist groups were acquiring them in the first place. Toyota does not intentionally profit from the use of the Hilux as a technical, nor do they sell vehicles in conflict zones. Addressing the issue directly in a blog post, Toyota UK emphatically states, “we do not want our vehicles to be used for military purposes without our knowledge and consent, and such use troubles us greatly.” Experts like Counter Extremism Project CEO Mark Wallace, former US ambassador to the United Nations, suggest black market sales were the primary source of ISIS’ Hiluxes. Middlemen likely bought from legitimate gulf state markets or overseas auctions to obscure the vehicles’ origins. Hilux pickups stolen in Australia and Europe also find their way to Middle Eastern militias.

To westerners, ISIS seemed to have come out of nowhere. Its origin dates to 1999, but ISIS gained international prominence in 2004, following the defeat of Saddam Hussein and collapse of Iraq by US-led Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the power vacuum that followed, the terrorist group al-Qaeda established itself in Iraq as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) with the intent of establishing a sectarian Sunni Islamic State. Nearly defeated by coalition forces, the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 at the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom allowed AQI to flourish. By 2014, renamed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the experienced, hardened terrorists, reinforced by mergers with other terrorist groups, foreign jihadists, and hundreds of freed insurgent prisoners, issued a jihad (holy war) against non-Muslims.

Puritanical, fanatical, and militant, ISIS tyrannized their subjects with an unforgiving interpretation of sharia, the set of principles derived from Islamic religious texts that guide the moral and legal aspects of a Muslim’s life. ISIS demanded complete submission from its subjects. Individuals under their rule had no rights. ISIS’ fanatical decrees were enforced by imprisonment, public beatings, beheadings, crucifixions, mass executions, torture, and other human rights abuses. Women were subjugated. The hisba, ISIS’ morality police, patrolled the streets of their conquered cities and arrested people for infractions as minor as smoking, improper dress, or not attending prayers. Not satisfied with executing nonbelievers, ISIS exploited centuries of theological divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, branding the minority Shia as infidels.

ISIS’ well-financed evil reign was funded primarily by taxes and tolls, and also black market oil exports, extortion, smuggling, looting, and kidnapping. Always at a numerical disadvantage, ISIS employed terrorism to great effect to wear down legitimate governments and coalition forces, and to turn the US public against the 2003-2011 US-Iraqi War.

Jihadists were easy to muster from the scores of disaffected young men in Iraq, Syria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and worldwide (including US jihadists). Slickly produced propaganda videos of ISIS atrocities captured the attention of recruits, fueling their resentments by exploiting their undeveloped grasp of Islam. Sold on fantasies of martyrdom, what these expendable foot soldiers lacked in training was made up for by fervent devotion to the cause. Suicide bombers behind the wheels of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) – vehicles like the Toyota Hilux, packed with explosives, used to breach defenses – could be rapidly replenished.

In 2014, ISIS easily captured large swaths of Iraq and neighboring Syria. The Iraqi Army crumbled in the face of ISIS, ditching their uniforms and abandoning their posts. Following brutal crackdowns of pro-democracy Arab Spring protesters in 2011, Syria was embroiled in civil war and was powerless to effectively defend its borders. ISIS called their conquered Iraqi and Syrian territories a new caliphate, demanded that Muslims worldwide swear allegiance, and began a savage rule over their proto state. At its peak, ISIS controlled 41,000 square miles (an area as large as the state of Ohio) encompassing over eight million people. 

War Against ISIS: Operation Inherent Resolve

The Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) was the US response to the international ISIS terrorist threat. Unwilling to resume an Iraqi occupation and cognizant of Russia’s involvement with Syria’s Assad regime, the US instead waged a proxy war against ISIS. The US, Great Britain, and France provided training, intelligence, equipment, and humanitarian assistance. They also provided overwhelming firepower from precision airstrikes, crucial to soften up ISIS forces before a direct ground assault. The operation’s name was, according to a US Department of Defense press release, “intended to reflect the unwavering resolve and deep commitment of the US and partner nations in the region and around the globe to eliminate the terrorist group ISIL and the threat they pose to Iraq, the region and the wider international community.” Much of the American public didn’t buy it, but CJTF-OIR was ultimately successful in defeating ISIS.

The US-led coalition was a complex organization of actors with conflicting goals and historic grievances. Ensuring the inclusivity of the various ethnic and religious groups within the coalition was crucial to the survival of the fragile alliance. The coalition was also a delicate geopolitical balance, with the US, Russia, and Iran all fighting ISIS to secure their own, often competing, interests. One notable group enlisted by the US was the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a multi-ethnic and multi-religious coalition formed in 2015. The SDF brought together multiple factions to establish a representative force. Officially secular (but largely Muslim), the SDF’s primary components included the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia; the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an all-female Kurdish militia; the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC), composed of Arab fighters; the Syriac Military Council (MFS) representing the Syrian-Assyrian Christian community; and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a politically perilous Kurdish militant group designated a terrorist organization by the US and Türkiye (its host country) which aided the SDF covertly. Supported by airstrikes, equipment, and intel from the US, Britain, and France, the coalition overcame sectarian and tribal loyalties to accomplish a shared goal – expelling ISIS from Syria. Contrast the diverse SDF coalition with ISIS’ strictly conservative patriarchate of extremist Sunni Muslims and its myopic worldview.

Maneuver Warfare

Maneuver warfare defines the tactics ISIS used with their Toyota Hilux fleet. As opposed to attrition warfare, which pits strength against strength and exhausts an opponent into acquiescence, maneuver warfare finds a weakness and exploits it. Germany developed maneuver warfare in World War I. By World War II, Germany’s perfected maneuver warfare tactics were practiced to devastating effect in their infamous blitzkrieg offenses. Maneuver warfare defines how to fight in the confusion of combat, and how to generate confusion to your advantage. 

Key to maneuver warfare is a four-step decision cycle: Observe, orient, decide, act (OODA). OODA generates and weaponizes confusion and uncertainty, disorienting the adversary and preventing them from responding effectively. The first stage, observe, gathers information about the battlefield environment, enemy positions, and other relevant factors. This information is analyzed in the next step, orient, taking into account one’s own capabilities and limitations as well as those of the enemy. In the decide phase, commanders formulate a course of action, implemented on the battlefield in the final step, act. The power of the OODA loop in maneuver warfare lies in its cyclical nature. By continuously moving through these four steps, a military force can adapt to changing circumstances faster than its adversary. This rapid cycling creates a tempo that the enemy struggles to match, forcing them into a reactive stance. The resulting confusion and uncertainty can be weaponized as the enemy finds itself perpetually one step behind, unable to predict or counter the next move effectively.

Maneuver warfare is characterized by speed over firepower. Adaptability is fostered by decentralized command structures that value initiative over obedience. Maneuver warfare tactics are non-linear, with dispersed forces avoiding the formation of a continuous frontline and avoiding direct confrontation with an adversary. Maneuver warfare integrates combat operations across different domains, like how coalition air support and intelligence informed the strategy in the battle for Raqqa. 

The Hilux’s speed and agility make it an ideal vehicle for maneuver warfare. An attacking force of Toyota Hilux technicals identifies weak points in a formation, drives through them, and attacks from the flanks and rear. On the defensive, maneuver warfare tactics draw in the enemy, setting them up for a counterattack ambush or encirclement.

Same Technical, Different Tactics: The Battle of Raqqa

Oil-rich Raqqa sits on the north bank of the Euphrates River in Syria, downstream from the strategic Tabqa Dam. Roman author Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century CE, likely apocryphally, that Raqqa was founded by Alexander the Great.

Raqqa was the first city to be captured by ISIS in 2014 and was declared the capital of their short-lived caliphate. In the chaos of the Syrian civil war, Raqqa was an open target. When ISIS initially swept in on fleets of Hilux transports bearing jihadist infantry, some of the predominantly Sunni Muslim population of Raqqa welcomed ISIS as enforcers of law and order even as 16,000 residents fled the city. As ABC News reported in 2015, “when ISIS soldiers paraded through the center of Raqqa, more than two-thirds of the vehicles were the familiar white Toyotas with the black emblems [the ISIS flag].” 

ISIS’ tactics involved overwhelming numbers of Hilux technicals as troop transports and weapons platforms. Their attacks were supported by well-organized logistics and effective low-tech communication networks. Along with the Hilux technicals so closely identified with them, ISIS’ vehicle inventory included Soviet-supplied vehicles seized from the Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War, and 2,300 US-supplied Humvees taken from the retreating Iraqi Army, along with tanks, light weapons, and great stores of fuel (ISIS lacked the training to operate and maintain captured heavy armor, and did not deploy it on the front lines). ISIS’ flexible, rapid attacks with light, mobile Hilux forces evaded coalition technology, and their tactical retreats in the face of stronger resistance maintained their numbers. Psychologically, their surprise attacks exploited their opponent’s lack of cohesion, lack of resistance, low morale, and fear of capture and execution when swarms of ISIS Hilux technicals descended on Raqqa.SDF was not equipped to launch a conventional attack against ISIS. They had no access to helmets or body armor, and no battle tanks or armored personnel carriers. They did, however, have the Hilux. Called duşkas (Kurdish for “technical”), these up-armored Hilux technicals were strategically vital to take back Raqqa. As Ed Nash and Alaric Searle write in Kurdish Armour Against ISIS, “assault vehicle, personnel carrier and logistics stalwart, the Hilux was the most numerous and, arguably, the most important vehicle in all YPG/SDF campaigns.” The pragmatic SDF also improvised tanks and transports based on civilian heavy trucks, construction machines, and agricultural tractors.

SDF’s tactics with Hilux technicals differed from their opponent. Technicals weren’t used in direct assaults. Instead, they served as fire support, a rapid-response, ground-based parallel to the devastating airstrikes provided by the US. SDF duşkas were equipped with heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, cannons, and rocket launchers of Russian, Chinese, and US origin. Used at a distance of 1-2 miles / 1-3 kilometers from a target, a spotter and gunner might aim for a specific building known to hold ISIS jihadists. From that distance, their aim was accurate enough to target jihadists through the windows of their hideouts.

The battle to retake Raqqa commenced on June 6, 2017. About 3,000 entrenched ISIS fighters commanded the narrow streets and shattered buildings of the city. Hilux technicals were critical to the forces of both ISIS and SDF, and were captured and recaptured throughout the conflict.Raqqa was liberated four months later after heavy coalition losses. The operation left Raqqa in ruins. City blocks were turned to rubble by airstrikes, roads were cratered, and buildings pancaked. The few remaining civilians, prisoners in their own homes, emerged dazed and malnourished. CJTF-OIR airstrikes ravaged ISIS positions, but only coalition infantry could clear Raqqa from ISIS occupiers. A force of 55,000 fighters and over 900 US advisors on the ground, armed with US-supplied small arms and ammunition, fought close-quarters, door-to-door battles and cleared the city of its jihadist infestation. It was the beginning of the end for ISIS.

Hilux Convoy to Hell: ISIS Retreats

The liberation of Raqqa saw action from Hilux technicals on both sides of the conflict. Each side used Hilux technicals to their advantage, ISIS for rapid attacks and retreats, and SDF as artillery and fire support to reduce the enemy’s defenses.

By 2015, as the work of administering occupied cities demanded their resources, ISIS lost its tactical advantage. They were a victim of their own battlefield success. Forced to switch from offensive maneuver warfare tactics to a conventional defense of their captured cities, ISIS’s Hilux technical tactics were made irrelevant. Coalition forces took the advantage, reinforced with constant, devastating airstrikes.

Following fierce battles, the major cities held hostage by ISIS were re-captured by coalition forces: Tikrit, in April 2015, Fallujah, in June 2016, and Mosul, in January 2017. In 2016, the demise of ISIS was put on display when an ISIS convoy of Hilux technicals and armored vehicles, retreating in defeat after the third battle of Fallujah, was demolished by US airstrikes. Around 250 ISIS fighters were killed and countless Hilux technicals were destroyed.

Ultimately, ISIS’ initial victories were the result of an ineffective Iraqi Army and ongoing Syrian civil war, regardless of their success with Hilux technicals. Having lost its capital and strongholds, ISIS was reduced to an underground insurgency. CJTF-OIR claimed victory in 2019, but Islamic terrorist insurgents (including ISIS offshoots) remain a global menace.

The Devastatingly Effective Hilux Technical

Chad M. Robichaux, BCPC, MBA, is a combat veteran, former Force Reconnaissance (FORECON) Marine, and Department of Defense contractor. In his stirring account of his time served in Afghanistan as part of a Joint Special Operations Command (SOC) Task Force, An Unfair Advantage: Victory in the Midst of Battle, Robichaux writes of first-hand experience with Toyota Hilux technicals. He describes the quintessential Hilux technical in an encounter:

So effective are Hilux technicals that US, British, and French Special Operations Forces have adopted them. Technicals are practical and discreet for transport or reconnaissance. Commercial firms that professionally up-armor Toyota Hilux pickups have made them standard in Middle East military deployments.