MESOP : US PSYCHOLOGICAL LEAFLEATS OVER IRAQ & SYRIA

The image is stark and bloody, like something out of a graphic novel. It depicts a monstrous-looking member of the Islamic State militant group urging a frightened young man to step forward, as another militant shoves a man head-first through a meat grinder. A sign overhead says “Daesh Recruiting Office,” making the case that those who join the militants are being fed into a machine in which they cannot survive.The graphic was on 60,000 leaflets dropped southwest of Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State’s de facto capital, on March 16, U.S. military officials with U.S. Central Command said Thursday. The military used a PDU-5B leaflet cannister dropped from an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet, Centcom officials said. U.S. officials have called that the cannister a “leaflet bomb” in the past, but steered clear of that Thursday, perhaps due to the sensitivity of the operation.The leaflet usage, first reported by USA Today, adds a new element to the Pentagon’s fight to curb militant influence in Iraq and Syria, U.S. military officials told The Washington Post. The Iraqi government dropped leaflets over Mosul, Iraq, earlier this month promising the city would soon be liberated from the militants, but this marks the first time that the U.S. military has acknowledged doing so against the Islamic State.Leaflet usage by the U.S. military is far from new, however. It dates back generations, and has been done in recent years over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Here’s one example in Iraq in 2008:

The PDU-5 — the PDU is short for Payload Delivery Unit or Pamphlet Dispenser Unit, depending on the military image — leaflet dispenser also has been used before, too. After the shell is dropped from the wing of an aircraft, it leaves a long stream of leaflets to flutter to the ground.