Vera Mironova (@vera_mironov), an Associate with the Belfer Center’s International Security Program, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about ISIS’s drug and alcohol problem, her experience embedded in combat zones, and how insurgents shop around for the best job opportunities.

Vera Mironova (@vera_mironov), an Associate with the Belfer Center’s International Security Program, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about ISIS’s drug and alcohol problem, her experience embedded in combat zones, and how insurgents shop around for the best job opportunities.

"In Iraq, the war of weapons is over, but the war of information is not. First of all, many of the most experienced and dedicated Emni members were able to escape when ISIS fell. Compared to ISIS fighters, they enjoyed relative freedom of movement, so when the Iraqi operation in Mosul started, many agents moved to liberated territories, from which they updated ISIS on the movement of Iraqi forces. Even now, their presence is no secret to local civilians."

"Belfer Center Newsmakers" highlights members of the Belfer Center community who have been featured recently in the news.

"In the places where governments cannot fulfill their duties to provide for and protect civilians, not only can a relatively well armed group easily take control, the local population, tired of bad government, will not resist a takeover. Often, people even welcome it. In a 2016 survey of post-Islamic State territory in Iraq that I conducted, 30 percent of civilian respondents said security and policing actually improved under the Islamic State, compared with only 5 percent who said that it had become worse. The extremist group was not only strong enough to take the territory, it was also capable of governing it — and in some places, still is."

"...[D]espite the disparities in military training before arriving in Syria, Chechens in Syria will now leave with significant experience. Right now, the Kadyrovtsy that remain in Chechnya have the upper hand because most of the main opposition has left for Syria. But that could change as the bulk of foreign fighters trickle back home."

"Mironova trained as a mathematician, game theorist and behavioural economist....she is one of few researchers to venture directly into combat zones to examine the roots of jihadist terror. Her work has been funded variously by the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the United Nations and the World Bank."

"Although noms de guerre have been a common practice in combat for centuries, fighters in Syria and Iraq have turned them into an art, stringing together elements that identify a great deal, real and imagined, about the fighter. Unlike the short pseudonyms of other conflicts, Syrian pseudonyms are long, with elements that vary between the groups."

The six-month Mosul operation will soon come to an end. Civilians and soldiers alike are eager to turn over a new page after years of ISIS control over the city. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this will come to pass. The security problems that will follow are already visible in other Iraqi cities of Iraq, such as Falluja and Ramadi, which had been liberated from ISIS prior to the Mosul operation.