IS uses wooden tanks to fight Iraqi army in Mosul

The terrorist organization IS has used wooden replicas of tanks and Humvees to fool the US-led international coalition airstrikes in support of the Iraqi army, even using bearded mannequins to impersonate terrorists.

The Iraqi military said on November 14 that it had seized several wooden tanks and Humvees over the weekend from a terrorist training center during its recapture of northern Mosul, the last IS stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi army forces and Kurdish Peshmerga militia have so far surrounded almost all of Mosul.

Wooden tanks of the terrorist organization IS

When viewed up close, the models are revealed to be toys, but from a distance they resemble real tanks.

“When our army reached the areas we were supposed to liberate, IS used wooden tanks and combat vehicles to fool the military aircraft,” Major Abbas al Azaji, an Iraqi army commander, said on November 13.

IS uses mannequins and beards to impersonate terrorists

It is unclear how effectively the dummy weapons will help IS counter the coalition airstrikes that are crucial to Iraqi ground forces fighting to liberate the city, which was illegally seized by the terrorists in 2014.

Baghdad-based US Air Force spokesman General John Dorrian said the coalition has been monitoring IS using wooden combat vehicles for some time.

A plywood Humvee model of IS discovered by the Iraqi army

“We call it deception. ISIS is using it and it is certainly a tactic they want to use,” he said.

Also discovered at the rebel training facility were the remains of two IS heavy armored vehicles destroyed by the Iraqi army.

According to CAND