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The Evolution of ISIS - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
<a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/.../syria-islamic-state-iraq-sham-growth" rel="nofollow">www.al-monitor.com/.../syria-islamic-state-iraq-sham-growth</a>...Al‑MonitorLoading...The roots of ISIS go back to Oct. 15, 2006, when what is known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) was established. That groups was formed by uniting several ...Dig Deeper Into the Roots of ISIS | Alaa Milbes
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<a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2014/09/" rel="nofollow">www.activistpost.com/2014/09/</a>the-roots-of-isis.htmlSep 11, 2014 - The roots of ISIS are essential to understand, as it is the only chance not to be duped into another lengthy war - this time in Syria.The Roots of ISIS - The Imaginative Conservative
<a href="http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/11/" rel="nofollow">www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/11/</a>roots-isis.htmlNov 12, 2014 - If ISIS succeeds, it will most likely affect neither the supply, nor the price, of oil, because Wahabis cannot drink it—if they pump it, they have to ...The Roots of the Islamic State's Appeal — The Atlantic
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ISIS May Be Defeated, But Will Its Ideology?
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Obama calls on world to focus on roots of ISIS, al Qaeda ...
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From Bin Laden to Isis: Why the roots of jihadi ideology run ...
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The world's failure to address the root causes of al-Qaida ...
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Victimhood is very convenient because it allows you to escape responsibility and accountability. Since you are never guilty, someone else has to be at fault for causing all the problems. You unleash the media and blame the West on the grounds that they are racist, orientalist, imperialist, etc. and as a result, the citizenry of these states believe their destiny is not in their hands.March 6, 2015, Ömer Taşpınar
President Obama’s decision to expand the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) entered a new phase with the deployment of troops to Iraq. Although the president was reluctant to get involved in the Syrian conflict a year ago, the Islamic State’s advances and brutality galvanized him to act. This, as Secretary of State Kerry recently said the more than 1,000 airstrikes over Iraq and Syria have weakened the terrorist group. Brookings experts analyze the threat posed by Islamic State in Iraq and beyond.
The Sunni-Shia Divide
A CFR InfoGuide Presentation
Sectarian conflict is becoming entrenched in a growing number of Muslim countries and is threatening to fracture Iraq and Syria. Tensions between Sunnis and Shias, exploited by regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, could reshape the future Middle East.
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The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist army many thousand strong now rampaging through the Levant, embraces such an extreme, violent ideology that it makes even al Qaeda squeamish, argue many Western experts. On this reading, al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri was forced to distance himself from ISIS’s bloody practices. In reality, the notion that ISIS’s gory campaign turns the stomach even of an arch-terrorist, America’s public enemy number one, is colorful but inaccurate.
To be sure, ISIS—or the Islamic State, as it now calls itself—is an extremist movement, attracting militants from all over the world eager to help build the new caliphate. Given the thousands of foreigners—including Chechen snipers, Saudi car bombers, and Western misfits like American Douglas McAuthur McCain—who have signed on to fight alongside ISIS, security officials are right to fear that the United States will become an ISIS target. The group kidnaps and murders American journalists. It threatened the existence of the Yazidi community in Iraq, and it slaughtered at least 700 members of the Sheitat, a tribe in Syria, last month. It regularly employs the vicious hududpunishments to enforce sharia law in the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq.
None of this, however, is outside the norms of a region where governments regularly incite hatred of America and Israel, wage wars against their own populations, and kidnap, imprison, and kill foreign nationals. Cutting off the hands of criminals, as prescribed by sharia, is hardly out of the ordinary; the Islamic Republic of Iran hangs gay teenagers from construction cranes, and the legal authorities of Saudi Arabia—an American ally—regularly separate accused criminals from their heads in public executions in what is popularly known as Chop-Chop Square.
What’s extraordinary about ISIS is not the violence. Indeed, the reason Zawahiri denounced the group was not its cruelty but its refusal to follow his orders and merge with another extremist organization. In other words, the dispute between ISIS and al Qaeda was not about the conduct of the former but about who was in charge, a regular feature of regional power dynamics.
Nor are ISIS’s money-raising schemes especially novel in the Middle East. As the Wall Street Journalreported last week, the organization’s key source of income is oil, especially in the Syrian provinces of Deir al-Zour and Raqqa and the Iraqi province of Nineveh. “They sell it to opposition groups, to the tribes, back to the Syrian regime, or on the Iraqi black market,” says Faysal Itani, an ISIS expert at the Atlantic Council. The other main source of revenue is taxation, or rather, extortion. As one source in the city of Raqqa, ISIS’s so-called capital, explained to us, merchants pay 3,000 Syrian pounds (close to $20) every two months. The kidnapping of foreigners or wealthy Syrians for ransom also brings in millions.
And yet it’s true that ISIS is not exactly what we’ve become accustomed to seeing in the Middle East of late. “This is not a classic insurgency,” says Itani, “or a non-state actor. Rather, it’s a state-building organization.” ISIS’s effort right now is to secure borders and lines of communication. Comparing ISIS’s project with al Qaeda’s, Itani notes that bin Laden’s logic was to draw the United States into conflict with the Muslim world in the hope of making the people so disgusted with their regimes that al Qaeda could take over. ISIS is different: It aims to take territory, hold it, and build a state. That is, at a moment when much of the rest of the Middle East is moving toward chaos, the Islamic State is consolidating.
ISIS’s leader, Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri, is the self-proclaimed caliph, also known as Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, a 43-year-old jihadist from the Iraqi city of Samarra. During the American occupation, he was arrested on unclear charges, but deemed a low security threat and released after six months. Once out of jail, he joined Al Qaeda in Iraq, then under the leadership of the Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Long before he proclaimed his caliphate, Baghdadi came to understand something that was lost on Zarqawi. As a member of the Banu Badr clan, Baghdadi saw that he needed to court the tribesmen on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.
His strategy was greatly facilitated by the Obama administration’s December 2011 withdrawal from Iraq and the anti-Sunni policies pursued by the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. ISIS’s project was further aided by the Syrian uprising, which began in March 2011. Over the last three and half years, it has evolved into a civil war in which Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has slaughtered Sunnis. The White House and the rest of the international community have done nothing to stop him.
In other words, any policy addressing ISIS also has to address the root problem: What gave ISISroom to take hold and blossom is the Iranian-backed order of the Levant, consisting of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Nuri al-Maliki and his successor, Haidar al Abadi, in Iraq. All these are sustained by the Shiite Islamic revolutionary regime in Tehran. And the White House has virtually signed onto this regional security apparatus. It is the tacit agreement the Obama administration has made with Tehran that has not only galvanized ISIS but also made foes out of former allies. Sunni Arab tribes that sided with the United States during the surge to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq less than a decade ago are now joining the Sunni extremists of ISIS.
Western commentators often marvel that ISIS, unlike other terrorist organizations, is capable of mounting serious military campaigns. For instance, in a June 10 blitzkrieg, ISIS units stormed Iraqi military bases and police stations in the country’s second-largest city of Mosul. The fighters swept through Nineveh, most of Salaheddine, and parts of Diyala provinces. They linked up with tribal fighters from Anbar Province who had been in revolt against the government of Nuri al-Maliki for months. The reason ISIS and its allies seem to operate like a real army is that their military council is made up of former officers from an Arab army—Saddam Hussein’s.
Accordingly, it might be most useful to see the current sectarian conflagration tearing through the Middle East as an extension of the Iran-Iraq war. After that nearly decade-long conflict (1980-1988), Saddam Hussein, ever fearful of coups, liquidated senior army officers who’d emerged from the war as heroes. One such officer was his cousin, childhood friend, and brother-in-law, Defense Minister Adnan Khairallah Talfah. Having thus hollowed out the Iraqi army, Saddam built special units, like the Republican Guards and Fedayeen Saddam, that were well trained in espionage work and explosives. After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, some of these officers, along with others from Saddam’s M4 directorate of the Iraqi intelligence service, joined the insurgency against coalition forces and Iraq’s new Shiite-dominated ruling order, which from their perspective was a collaborative American and Iranian affair.
On the other side, Tehran’s first order of business in 2003 after Saddam had been toppled was to take revenge on the Iraqi military and intelligence personnel the Iranians had fought in the 1980s. Many of Iran’s allies in Iraq—including, some say, former prime minister Maliki—formed death squads to go after these officers. Saddam’s onetime officer corps went into hiding and used their expertise and money to wage war against the regime that had replaced them. When the United States, in partnership with major Sunni tribes, defeated the Sunni insurgency, American officials pleaded with Maliki to stop hunting the former Baathists and allow them to resettle peacefully in a post-Saddam Iraq. Maliki didn’t, nor did his allies. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers like Quds Force commander and Iran-Iraq war veteran Qassem Suleimani as well as Iranian-backed militias like Asa’ib ahl al-Haq continued to prosecute their war against Iraq’s Sunni community. Eventually the Sunnis came to see ISIS as one of their few lines of defense against this Shiite persecution.
Today, some of these former Iraqi officers constitute ISIS’s core military leadership. As the New York Times reported last week, the last two heads of ISIS’s military council were officers under Saddam, as was the current head of ISIS’s military operations, Adnan al-Sweidawi, also known as Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, who worked as a colonel in Saddam’s air defense intelligence unit. Other former Saddam loyalists have fought alongside ISIS. They include Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqah al-Naqshbandiyah (JRTN), a well-trained group of former Iraqi intelligence and army officers, led by Ibrahim Izzat al-Douri, a former high-level Baath party official. Douri was the king of clubs in the U.S.-led coalition’s deck of playing cards of most-wanted Iraqi officials, yet he evaded American forces. It was reportedly JRTNthat provided the main muscle in ISIS’s takeover of Mosul in June.
The other key players in the ISIS-led Sunni rebellion are the Arab tribes on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border. Indeed, the map of ISIS’s new caliphate, with its so-called capital in Raqqa and encompassing Deir al-Zour in Syria and Nineveh, Anbar, Salaheddine, and Diyala in Iraq, overlays a much older map of tribal lands forming a contiguous territory with a total area of around 168,000 square miles, bigger than Great Britain (143,000 square miles). To see how ISIS has succeeded, it is of paramount importance to understand the tribal politics behind its achievement.
ISIS’s first success in tribal politics was in Raqqa, which it snatched from the hands of the Assad regime and turned into its capital. Until the middle of 2013, Raqqa remained loyal to Assad. Although few Syrian security forces were present in the city, and the capital, Damascus, is nearly 300 miles away, making it virtually impossible to maintain communications and supply lines, Raqqa remained in Assad’s control because the city was run by the Sharabeen tribe.
In the tribal world, the Sharabeen are not part of the elite. They are a cattle-raising tribe, considerably less prestigious than, say, the camel-raising Shammar, one of the biggest tribes in the Middle East, whose members are known for their valor. When the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, defeated the Shammar in 1910, the tribe pledged allegiance to him. Even as the British and French forced Ibn Saud to relinquish much of the Shammar territory he’d won, the Saudi king issued many Shammar Saudi passports.
Former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar, well understood the significance of the ties between the Shammar and the Saudis. To counter Saudi influence in Raqqa, he propped up the Sharabeen, funding them, arming them, and giving them government jobs. All this came at the expense of the Shammar, many of whom picked up and moved to Saudi Arabia. When the anti-Assad rebellion erupted in 2011, Riyadh sent some Shammar tribal leaders back to Syria, like onetime head of the Syrian National Council Ahmed al-Jarba. The potential return of the powerful Shammar became a pressing concern not just for the Sharabeen, but for other tribal groups as well, which is what prompted 14 Raqqa clans to pledge allegiance to ISIS in November 2013. This is how Raqqa turned, quickly and peacefully, from an Assad stronghold into ISIS’s capital.
Baghdadi repeated the same exercise in Syrian border towns like Al-Qaim and Bou Kamal, as well as Al-Omar, which is Syria’s largest oil field, in Deir al-Zour Province. The Iraqi native had an even easier time with tribal politics on the Iraqi side of the border.
When British diplomat Gertrude Bell assembled modern Iraq, it was with an eye to securing a pipeline that linked the oil fields of Basra, in southern Iraq, to the Port of Haifa, in northern Palestine. This required integrating the Dulaim, an enormous tribe of around three million people today, and its territory, Dulaim Province, into Iraq. The Dulaimis would produce two Iraqi presidents, the last of whom was deposed by the Baathists, who changed the name of Dulaim Province to Anbar. Between 1993 and 1996, the CIA reportedly encouraged the Dulaimis to revolt against Saddam, which they did, and, losing, paid dearly. Nonetheless, one of the leading clans of the Dulaim, the Abu Risha, came to ally itself with the United States during the occupation, and without them, the coalition forces almost certainly would not have won the surge.
Maliki alienated the tribes that the surge had won over. He refused to share power with them. After the Obama administration’s December 2011 withdrawal, the tribes—including the Dulaim—defied Maliki by holding anti-government rallies inspired by the Arab Spring. When Maliki cracked down on protesters and his forces ejected Sunni leaders from the government, the tribes went into open revolt.
To be sure, not all the Iraqi tribes have pledged allegiance to the new caliph, though they are fighting government forces alongside ISIS. Even as Baghdadi tried to woo some clans from the Dulaim, the tribe’s leader, Sheikh Ali al-Hatem, a former Awakening Council member and a staunch opponent of the Iraqi government, stood up to Baghdadi and kept him out of most of Anbar’s towns, including the biggest, Ramadi.
Perhaps eventually, the various components of the Sunni rebellion—the Dulaim, the Shammar,JRTN, ISIS, and the rest—will turn on each other. Already clashes have erupted between them, over booty or territory. But it is still too early for them to fall into open conflict. With ISIS spearheading the effort, the Sunni rebellion will likely continue to grow.
Last week President Obama announced that the White House has no policy to deal with ISIS. The revelation came as no surprise since it was the administration’s handling of Iraq and Syria that gaveISIS room to grow. Before tackling the problem of Sunni extremism, the administration needs to address the pro-Shiite, pro-Iranian extremism that led to it. Even if the administration wanted to address the root causes of the Sunni rebellion, it has little power to affect facts on the ground: It took its troops and went home in 2011. The Iranians, by contrast, through their allies and through the military assets they are willing to use, from Hezbollah to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, have lots of leverage. Iraq’s new prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi—named to the post by Quds Force commander Suleimani—is every bit as much an Iranian asset as Maliki was.
But the reality is that Obama doesn’t want to change the equation. As the president has explained in a series of interviews over the last year, he wants to build a new geopolitical equilibrium that would bring Iran back into the community of nations. And to do that, the White House has to respect Iranian regional interests—which amounts to signing off on Iranian hegemony across the Levant, at the expense of America’s traditional regional partners, the Sunnis.
What’s most extraordinary about the Middle East at present isn’t ISIS and the rest of the Sunni rebellion. Rather, it’s the Obama administration’s inability to formulate a policy that would protect American interests by pushing back against Iran’s project for the region. Instead, the White House is squared off against traditional American allies in a way we’ve never seen before—with the Sunnis now galvanized by a 4,000-year-old tribal code and led by a caliph.
This article appears in the September 8, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 48 issue of The Weekly Standard.
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Why Iran Believes ISIS is a U.S. Creation | TIME
The Evolution of ISIS - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
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On the Origin of ISIS - by Hussain Abdul-Hussain Lee Smith
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From Muhammad to ISIS: Iraq's Full Story | Wait But Why
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Iran Arab Spring on Twitter: "Roots of #ISIS in #Syria & #Iraq ...
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The Sunni-Shia Divide - Council on Foreign Relations
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The Russian Roots of ISIS - The New American
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The ISIS Threat in Iraq and Beyond | Brookings Institution
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- Former defence secretary to give speech warning of threats against UK
- He will describe 'greatest challenge to our collective security' for decades
- Putin's actions will be discussed as 'undermining' international security
- Mr Hammond is to make the comments at Royal United Services Institute
Published: 19:00 EST, 9 March 2015 | Updated: 19:00 EST, 9 March 2015
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Philip Hammond will describe the 'greatest challenge to our collective security for decades' today
Britain faces the ‘greatest challenge’ to national security in decades, the foreign secretary will warn today.
Philip Hammond will say evolving threats from a subversive Russia and the spread of Islamic extremism must be stopped before they harm the UK.
In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, the former defence secretary will say no-one can ‘confidently and accurately’ predict the source of the next major threat the UK faces.
But intelligence agencies must be able to secretly identify, monitor and act against the range of threats in order to thwart terror plots and uncover clandestine weapons systems under development by the enemy.
In a damning assessment of the dangers facing Britain, Mr Hammond will say: ‘…the sheer number and range of cases, old and new, amounts to the greatest challenge to our collective security for decades and places unprecedented demands on those charged with keeping us safe.’
He will say the country is now faced with a Russian leader ‘bent’ on subverting the international rules-based system which keeps the peace between nations.
‘President Putin’s actions… fundamentally undermine the security of sovereign nations in Eastern Europe’, he will say.
Britain is being forced to cope with a greater range of threats, from state-sponsored aggression, to international terrorist organisations, to ‘lone wolf’ self-radicalised terrorists with the intent on damaging UK national security.
The emergence of groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and Libya serves to underline the ‘pace’ with which the threats to Britain’s safety and security are ‘evolving’, he will claim.
Mr Hammond will throw his weight behind plans for new laws to force internet companies to store email, web and social media records so they can be accessed by the security and intelligence agencies.
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The former defence secretary will describe Putin's actions as having 'undermined' the security of sovereign nations
He will say: ‘We must respond decisively and positively to the public and parliamentary debate about the powers required by our intelligence agencies to do their job in a changed technological environment – and in doing so draw a line under that debate so that the agencies can get on with the job of keeping this country safe.’
The security services warn that the law is failing to keep up with changing technology so their ability to track terrorists online is constantly diminishing.
He will add: ‘As the range of threats gets bigger, so the pace of technological change with which the Agencies must keep up is getting faster, making their central task of keeping us safe ever more demanding.’
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He will also speak of 'warped' view human rights activists have taken on the case of jihadi Mohammed Emwazi
The clandestine nature of some of the threats launched against us ‘require that we maintain a highly effective, secret capability to identify, monitor, and act against these threats before they can do us harm’, he will say.
These include ‘the weapons systems that are developed in secrecy to threaten our national security.... and the great lengths that individual terrorists or terrorist organisations go to in order to try and keep their plots from being uncovered’.
The head of the MI5, Andrew Parker, has warned that ‘if parts of the radar go dark’ and terrorists are beyond the reach of his agency, Britain would be more vulnerable to attack.
Tory plans for new laws to require firms to store data on internet communications, so they can be accessed as part of an investigation, were blocked by the Lib Dems who brand them a ‘snoopers’ charter’. But David Cameron has pledged to revive them if this Tories are re-elected.
Intelligence gathered by the UK security services has already been instrumental in helping the UK counter the threat from extremists and identifying targets for building effective sanctions against Russia, Mr Hammond will say.
He will also use the speech to criticise the ‘warped’ human rights organisation Cage, which sparked outrage after one of its research directors described Mohammed Emwazi as a ‘beautiful young’ man, and praise the ‘dedication’ and ‘brilliance’ of intelligence officers.
He is expected to say: ‘The responsibility for acts of terror rests with those who commit them.
‘But a huge burden of responsibility also lies with those who act as apologists for them.’
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A member of al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham watches men in a "tug of war" contest during an Islamic quiz and games contest in a public square in Raqqa, Sept. 25, 2013. (photo by REUTERS)
Author: assafir Posted Kasım 1, 2013
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has succeeded in imposing itself as a key player in the complex Syrian equation in a relatively short time, which some consider a record time. That would be the case had ISIS been a new organization, but in fact the only thing new about it is its name. One cannot understand how ISIS has surpassed the other armed organizations in Syria that preceded it without understanding that ISIS, under a different name, is in fact older than the other groups and older than the Syrian crisis itself.
Summary⎙ YAZDIR
The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, appeared only recently in Syria but has been able to quickly eclipse other groups.
Author Suhaib Anjarini Posted Kasım 1, 2013
The roots of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
The roots of ISIS go back to Oct. 15, 2006, when what is known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) was established. That groups was formed by uniting several groups, most notably al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Mujahedeen Shura Council in Iraq, and Jund al-Sahhaba [Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions].
ISI took Baquba, Iraq, as its capital and swore allegiance to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as the group’s emir. Baghdadi’s real name is Hamed Dawood Mohammed Khalil al-Zawi; he was born in 1959. He used to work in the Iraqi security corps, then left after he embraced Salafist ideology in 1985. He was one of the most prominent promoters of Salafist ideology. He was made head of Jaish al-Taefa al-Mansoura then swore allegiance to al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which later formed, with other groups, the Mujahedeen Shura Council in Iraq.
After Zarqawi was killed, Baghdadi was appointed as that council’s emir under the name of Abu Abdullah al-Rashed al-Baghdadi. He was then made head of ISI. In 2010, the ISI’s ministry of Sharia matters announced that Baghdadi had been killed. Afterward, the Mujahedeen Shura Council swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as ISI’s emir.
ISI spreads to Syria
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi played a key role in establishing Jabhat al-Nusra. But he considered Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Nusra’s leader, to be his subordinate with a duty to obey him. So Baghdadi announced the dissolution of Jabhat al-Nusra and the integration of its members into ISI, with the new organization being called the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.
Golani refused the order, but ISIS appeared on the scene with strength anyway. ISIS quickly announced its areas of operations publicly and took control of wide areas without facing much resistance, benefitting from the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters who defected to ISIS.
Some estimates suggest that about 65% of Jabhat al-Nusra elements quickly declared their allegiance to ISIS. Most of those were non-Syrian jihadists. Entire brigades joined ISIS, among them was the Mujahedeen Shura Council led by Abu al-Atheer, whom ISIS appointed emir of Aleppo, and Jaish al-Muhajireen and al-Ansar, led by Omar al-Chechani.
Those defections allowed ISIS to take Jabhat al-Nusra’s place in controlling several regions and posts, most notably in Raqqa, parts of the Aleppo countryside, and parts of Aleppo city. Jabhat al-Nusra’s latest withdrawal was from its headquarters at the Children’s Hospital toward the old transportation building in Aleppo. ISIS also seized the headquarters of other groups in Manbaj, al-Bab and Azaz. Jabhat al-Nusra’s small posts were replaced by a large ISIS headquarters.
It should be noted that until now, ISIS has not engaged in a physical confrontation with the Syrian army, but rather fought battles with the “opposition” armed factions. “Jihadist” sources attribute that to “ISIS being at the stage of establishing and strengthening itself so that the jihad against the regime happens on solid foundations.” ISIS opened the door for new members without checking the quality of the new members. ISIS started paying $200 a month for each fighter, and thousands of men in ISIS’s area of control joined the group.
The dispute between Golani and Baghdadi
A “jihadist” source told As-Safir that the reasons behind the dispute between the two men are “purely intellectual,” whereby “Baghdadi’s approach greatly differs from that of Golani’s. Baghdadi believes in the necessity of declaring the emirate, or Islamic state, immediately and declaring its emir as its leader who alone [makes decisions], and for the mujahedeen to swear allegiance to that Islamic state in the territories [it controls], be they Syrian or non-Syrian, and by not recognizing the Sharia committee judges who come from other Islamic factions. There should be no law but ISIS’s law. Also, all Islamic factions should swear allegiance to the ISIS emir or be considered outside of God’s authority. Military cooperation happens only with the battalions that declare exclusive allegiance [to ISIS]. And ISIS preachers (mosque preachers) have the right to replace the local preachers in all mosques. Moreover, all the spoils and financial resources belong to the ISIS’s treasury. The other factions, whether or not they are Islamic, have no right to that money.”
But another “jihadist” source told As-Safir, “The difference in approach is nothing more than an indirect reason. Golani and Baghdadi were in agreement on the strategies followed by Jabhat al-Nusra. Even though Baghdadi was not in full agreement with [those strategies], he agreed to temporarily adopt them because Golani held that [those strategies] would be more acceptable to the Syrian people.”
The source added, “The main cause behind the disagreement is an old personal dispute between Golani and Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who was identified as the ISIS spokesman. Then there was news that Baghdadi appointed him emir for the Syrian branch of ISIS.”
On that, the source points to a number of statements made by Adnani where he “described Jabhat al-Nusra as defectors from ISIS. And he accused Golani and his group of being disobeyers who betrayed their pledge of allegiance to Baghdadi. On another occasion, [Adnani] asserted that all the reasons for a fight between Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS are present.”
ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda
Loyalty to al-Qaeda may be the common denominator between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra. ISIS has been under al-Qaeda’s banner since ISI was founded and inspired by the approach of Zarqawi, and from the jihadist doctrine stipulating “the loyalty of the branch is from the loyalty of the main [organization].” Therefore, ISIS’s loyalty is to al-Qaeda as long as [ISIS’s] emir Baghdadi “didn’t invalidate the allegiance” in an open manner. It should be noted that Baghdadi had refused to implement the decision of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri to dissolve ISIS while maintaining Jabhat al-Nusra and ISI intact.
On the other hand, Jabhat al-Nusra pledged allegiance to Zawahri in response to Baghdadi’s announcement about dissolving Jabhat al-Nusra. Golani denounced that decision the next day and declared that his “allegiance is only to al-Qaeda’s emir Ayman al-Zawahri as the supreme commander,” in a move that apparently was intended to use Zawahri in Jabhat al-Nusra’s dispute with Baghdadi.
Read More: <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/11/syria-islamic-state-iraq-sham-growth.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/11/syria-islamic-state-iraq-sham-growth.html</a>
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· · · · ·
21 November 2014 issue
Cover story: The deep roots of Isis
Karen Armstrong on Wahhabism - how Saudi Arabia’s extreme form of Islam led to the rise of jihad in the Middle East
Plus
Jeremy Bowen’s Syria Notebook: How Bashar al-Assad looks more comfortable than ever – and why I tweet pictures of food from warzones
Special report on prostitution: Lucy Fisher meets the male punters who believe it is their ‘right’ to buy sex
Former Europhile Mehdi Hasan turns against the EU: “We were wrong then, let’s not be wrong now”
George Eaton on the political advantages of minority government and the possibility of a second election in 2015
Football agent Jon Holmes: Fifa is now plumbing new depths of comic-book villainy
Books special: Simon Heffer on a glut of Waterloo histories
Anoosh Chakelian: how the Labour safe seat of Holborn and St Pancras became a Green target
Fiction’s religious turn: Philip Maughan on the novelists challenging the New Atheist consensus
In this extended essay, the author and religious commentator Karen Armstrong argues that “although Islamic State is certainly an Islamic movement, it is neither typical nor mired in the distant past” because Isis’s roots are in radical Wahhabism, which emerged in Saudi Arabia only in the 18thcentury. Armstrong explains how this religiously conservative movement was exported from Saudi Arabia and how its values are now embedded in much of the Muslim world:
The soaring oil price created by the 1973 embargo – when Arab petroleum producers cut off supplies to the US to protest against the Americans’ military support for Israel – gave the kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] all the petrodollars it needed to export its idiosyncratic form of Islam. The old military jihad to spread the faith was now replaced by a cultural offensive. The Saudi-based Muslim World League opened offices in every region inhabited by Muslims, and the Saudi ministry of religion printed and distributed Wahhabi translations of the Quran, Wahhabi doctrinal texts and the writings of modern thinkers whom the Saudis found congenial, such as Sayyids Abul-A’la Maududi and Qutb, to Muslim communities throughout the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, the United States and Europe. In all these places, they funded the building of Saudi-style mosques with Wahhabi preachers and established madrasas that provided free education for the poor, with, of course, a Wahhabi curriculum. At the same time, young men from the poorer Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Pakistan, who had felt compelled to find work in the Gulf to support their families, associated their relative affluence with Wahhabism and brought this faith back home with them, living in new neighbourhoods with Saudi mosques and shopping malls that segregated the sexes. The Saudis demanded religious conformity in return for their munificence, so Wahhabi rejection of all other forms of Islam as well as other faiths would reach as deeply into Bradford, England, and Buffalo, New York, as into Pakistan, Jordan or Syria: everywhere gravely undermining Islam’s traditional pluralism.
A whole generation of Muslims, therefore, has grown up with a maverick form of Islam that has given them a negative view of other faiths and an intolerantly sectarian understanding of their own.
Understanding that Islamic State is not a remnant of a primitive past but a product of modernity is key to dealing with the threat, Armstrong warns. She believes the movement might finally be running out of steam:
IS may have overreached itself; its policies may not be sustainable and it faces determined opposition from Sunni and Shia Muslims alike. Interestingly Saudi Arabia, with its impressive counterterrorist resources, has already thwarted IS attempts to launch a series of attacks in the kingdom and may be the only regional power capable of bringing it down.
The BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, reports from Damascus as the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad begins to regain his grip:
The big conclusion I take away from ten days in Damascus is that the regime of Bashar al-Assad seems more comfortable than at any time since the war started in 2011. On one level, that doesn’t seem logical. The Syrian president has lost control of large parts of the country. The jihadists of Islamic State and the Nusra Front, which is an al-Qaeda affiliate, are on the rise. Groups that include the Free Syrian Army are more than holding their own in the south.
But in Damascus, the war seems to have receded. The city no longer shakes quite so much from the cracks and booms of outgoing artillery fire. The Syrian armed forces have taken ground around the capital, and negotiated local ceasefires. Rebels are still fighting and plenty of people are still dying. Syria’s war has pulled in all its neighbours, in one way or another. But President Assad appears to have more possibilities now.
Bowen also explains how he is using Twitter to convey something of daily life in a warzone – but not everybody approves:
Recently, as well as reporting on what’s happening for the BBC, I have taken to tweeting pictures of food. I’ve sent plenty from Damascus. That’s partly because I think food tells you a lot about a society. But also because it is important to show how people live as well as how they die. I have had a quite a severe trolling from those who disapprove, on the grounds that anything other than the horror of war is a distortion and a distraction. I disagree. If you don’t like it, trolls, don’t look at the pictures
The NS politics editor, George Eaton, asks if the age of coalitions is now over with both main parties seemingly reconciled to the prospect of a minority administration:
One senior Conservative backbencher told me that having promised Tory MPs a vote on a second deal with the Lib Dems, David Cameron would “struggle” to win their approval. The Prime Minister, he argued, should run a minority administration (an option many believe he should have pursued in 2010) and seek parliamentary support for populist measures such as an EU referendum on an individual basis. This would culminate in a snap election aimed at securing a majority.
Labour is even less amenable to the prospect of coalition than the Conservatives. Four years on from the election, most MPs maintain an undiminished tribal loathing of the Lib Dems. One shadow cabinet minister told me: “Clegg or no Clegg, I wouldn’t enter government with them.”
Eaton finds that not all Liberal Democrats are averse to the idea of minority rule either:
The Lib Dems have long threatened to bring down any party that has the “arrogance” (in the words of one strategist) to try to rule without a majority. But some can see the advantage of a period outside of government to allow their war-weary party to convalesce. Significantly, Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president and the most likely successor to Clegg, told me that his party “should not rule out” the option of tolerating a minority administration
The NS reporter-at-large Lucy Fisher asks why so little attention is paid to the male punters whose demand for sex fuels prostitution:
If prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, then punting is the oldest consumer activity. Yet it remains broadly unexamined, perhaps because the questions it raises – about male desire and power, about society – are too uncomfortable.
Fisher takes to the online forum PunterNet to find out who these men are and their views, if any, about the ethics and legality of the behaviour they engage in:
The posts on the PunterNet site range from obscenely violent and misogynistic descriptions of experiences with prostitutes to mundane notes on the easy availability of off-road parking.
[ . . .]
The prevailing view of the punters I contacted for this article was that, in one way or another, a man always “pays” for sex. Many viewed marriage and relationships as intrinsically economic relationships, in which the man provided financial security in return for sex, among other rewards. Some justified their use of prostitutes as merely an equivalent transaction. One man notes: “The question shouldn’t be, ‘Why pay for sex?’ It should be: ‘Why not pay for sex?’ We pay for lots of things in life. Sex is just another commodity.”
[ . . .]
Many punters offer justifications akin to that of a sweatshop boss: they hold the economic and social power, and they believe the exploitation of that power – using it over another person – is legitimate. If a woman is poor and “wants” to sell her body, they see nothing wrong with purchasing it for sex. As one punter says: “Some of them on PunterNet talk about women like they’re a commodity, that’s true. I don’t think it makes any difference as long as you treat the lady well. At the end of the day, it is a business.”
A tweet from Eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan promoting a Wrong Then, Wrong Now video promptsMehdi Hasan to recall with embarrassment the days of his “wild-eyed teenage Europhilia”. Hasan finds it increasingly difficult to defend the EU project:
Today, Europe is only marginally more popular with the public than ebola; hard-right parties are sweeping to victory in European elections in the UK, France and Denmark; and the eurozone has only narrowly dodged a triple-dip recession. With all this going on, it’s pretty difficult to mount a credible defence of the single currency or, for that matter, the EU itself.
Hasan asks where all the progressive critics of the EU have gone:
The left across Europe has been seduced by the EU’s promise of workers’ rights – forgetting that you can’t enjoy those rights if you don’t have a job to begin with. Mass unemployment is now a fact of life across swaths of the EU and, especially, the eurozone. More than half of young people are jobless in both Greece and Spain, yet unelected Eurocrats still want more growth-choking austerity.
This is a political and economic scandal, not to mention a human tragedy. And progressives should be saying so. But the left in the UK has ceded all the Eurosceptic terrain to the xenophobes and the “Little Englanders”, to Ukip and the Tory right. We were wrong then. Let’s not be wrong now.
Jason Cowley is disappointed but not surprised to discover that Pope Francis’s liberalism and humanity do not extend to life-changing advances in science:
There is so much to admire about Pope Francis, the Argentine Jesuit who has become a talisman for many on the left. He lives modestly and has great humility. He scourges inequality and global poverty. He has courageously intervened in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which becomes ever more hopeless with each new atrocity committed. Yet his reported remarks condemning in vitro fertilisation – or “the scientific production of a child” – and embryonic stem cell research were dismaying, if not altogether surprising. He is, after all, the Pope and not some kind of Latin American bandit-revolutionary, as some would have it.
Cowley asks if the beautiful game has the leader it deserves in Sepp Blatter who, at 78, is seeking election for another term as Fifa president:
Fifa’s report into the World Cup bidding process has hilariously exonerated Russia and Qatar of any duplicity but condemned England for breaking the rules. Fortunately, Michael Garcia, the American lawyer hired by Fifa to investigate corruption, has condemned the way his report has been misrepresented by Blatter. Football is a fabulously simple game debased by those who control and seek to profit from it.
The NS editor reflects on the career of Clive James when he travels to the Cambridge Union Chamber to hear the poet, novelist and TV presenter discuss his latest book:
What we were treated to was a virtuoso one-man show. “Here I am making another final performance!” he joked.
This was a reference to his chronic illnesses. James has emphysema, “reward for a lifetime’s smoking”, and leukaemia, which has been in remission since 2010. Modern medicine (“the meds”) and the dedication of Addenbrookes Hospital have prolonged his life beyond what even he imagined was possible. When you are living under a death sentence, one course of action, he said, was “inaction”. The other was “to go on working, as if you have all the time in the world”, which is what he says he has been doing. In truth, the poems he has published recently, several of them in the NS, are mostly about the period of his long, drawn out dying. These late works offer a kind of extended leave-taking. They are about memory and forgetting and about what will soon be lost for ever: yet the tone is resigned, not bitter. And, because this is James, there is sardonic humour.
Plus
Letter from Kosovo: Melanie McDonagh reports from Pristina on the country’s constitutional and economic crisis
Helen Lewis on Blackfish, human arrogance and the horrors of the marine amusement park
Sophie McBain meets the convention-defying surgeon, writer and indie-rock lover Atul Gawande
NS Critic Mark Lawson on TV’s Amazon age: why conventional broadcasting is as fragile as a house of cards
Will Self laments losing his library libido on a visit to the Bibliothèque Nationale
Drink critic Nina Caplan: how I overcame my fear of the absinthe fairy
Commons Confidential: Kevin Maguire shares his latest gossip from Westminster
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· · · · · · · · · · ·
After Ferguson, the Senate report on the CIA use of “torture” in interrogating terrorists, is likely producing more glee in the Kremlin. KGB old-timers expect that like the famous Pike Repot in the mid-1970’s, it will be injurious to the CIA´s organizational mission. Some legislators are demanding CIA Director John Brennan´s resignation. But Putin and the Russian press should be careful about criticizing the U.S. Former NSA Condoleezza Rice recalls a meeting with Putin, in which, feigning concern for inmates of Guantanamo,he stated, “You have to treat them humanly.” Wrote Condi, “I could hardly keep down my dinner thinking of what the KGB officer had undoubtedly done to people vastly more innocent than residents of Guantanamo.”
Kremlin’s Washington watchers would also notice that the presentation of the damaging report on the CIA, organized by the White House and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D), occurred on the same day as the televised, Obamacare testimony of the new Dr. Strangelove, Professor Jonathan Gruber. The testimony of this co-conspirator in the big lies about Orwellian Obamacare is hugely damaging to the Democratic Party. A newsworthy distraction was necessary and the Senate report surely provided it.
Putin himself, an old KGB operator, would likely agree with the three former CIA Directors, George Tenet, Mikhail Hayden and Porter Goss, who rebutted the Senate report, arguing that, “The Senate Intelligence Committee fails to recognize the CIA was not acting alone. There were extensive consultations with the National Security advisor, Deputy NSA, White House Counsel and Justice Department.” As General Hayden noted, the President approved the program, as did key legislators in the Intelligence committees of both houses. The Attorney General “deemed it legal.” Hayden also pointed to the report as an “unrelenting, prosecutorial document” by senators, who did not interview a single witness-- interrogators, case officers and chiefs of stations.
Surely the Kremlin has already concluded that the report and its rebuttal by the new GOP majority leaders and the CIA, is opening a new fault line in the great divide of the Washington establishment. Amidst calls for punishing, and threats of revenge by the head choppers, some like former Vice President, Dick Cheney, have adamantly stood their ground. “We were right!” they affirm, disagreeing with our national war hero, Senator John McCain, that torture techniques do not work and provide only fabricated information. They assert that, in the face of possible nuclear holocaust, the methods have proved both effective and necessary.
Former NSA Condoleezza Rice has written that, “Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al Qaida affiliate, created the Al Qaida manual on resisting interrogation tactics," but that his capture and the use of such techniques led to the capture of Khhalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM).” In fact, there is nothing to indicate that she really disagreed with how information from him was obtained. Moreover, her memoir illustrates that George Tenet regularly reported to her about capturing and interrogating prominent terrorists. Why is she so quiet now?
The testimonies of outrage against the torture as well as the passionate defense of it by some, show that there is confusion at a high level of government over what is legal and in accordance with American principles as well as whether torture even is effective. One admires Senator McCain for speaking to the immorality of torture, but many doubt his premise that it is always ineffective. Does the fact that terrorists do not fall within the purview of the Geneva Convention mean that torture is any more acceptable? Is torture acceptable if it saves thousands of lives? Can other methods of interrogation be used? How do you balance policy with risk?
What Putin should appreciate, however, is that this kind of ruthless self-examination is going on in America, a country which is not infallible, but which seeks to live up to its principles. It would never happen in Russia! The key in U.S. foreign policy is not to repeat the mistake of the past -- in the mid -70’s-- when the repeated blame game undermined our national security as the Russian´s, together with Cuba, invaded Angola and Ethiopia and thereafter, alone, Afghanistan. (Of course, Russia should recall that America recouped and helped to defeat Soviet interventionism.)
The investigation of the CIA on interrogation tactics, and the resultant loss of morale and élan, could once again be detrimental to our efforts to preserve the independence of the Ukraine as well as our war against ISIS. Does President Obama realize that his own administration can be accused of pursuing illegal drone attacks with collateral damage? Is that why he´s keeping quiet? Agreeing with Senator McCain that torture is morally unacceptable, we do caution that balance is necessary and that excesses in investigation could be as detrimental as they were in the mid-1970’s.
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Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
As the United States and NATO gear up for the second attempt at drumming up popular support for airstrikes against Syria, the narrative of ISIS and justifications for invading the sovereign nation have become so convoluted in the mainstream media that a casual observer can scarcely keep track of the narrative spun by Western governments and their media mouthpieces. Unfortunately, that is part of the plan – to keep the general public so confused as to what is actually occurring overseas that, eventually, with their opinions formed for them on social media, television shows, and interspersed nightly news clips, they rely on the media to do their thinking for them. Their opinions are not their own but those of the world oligarchy.
Real men do not desire war and “average” people have nothing to gain from it.
Still, the general population, with the right amount of propaganda, can be convinced to sacrifice the lives of countless others based on a foolish masculinity contest or the idiocy of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. The vast majority, of course, will continue to stare off listlessly into their television screens with no opinion formed whatsoever.
Still, on the eve of Obama’s announcement regarding his strategy against ISIS, it is important to remember the true narrative of that fighting group.
There Is No Moderate Opposition
According to the Associated Press
, “Obama has told congressional lawmakers that he has the authority to proceed with much of his plan without their formal approval. However, he is seeking authorization from Congress for the train-and-equip operation for Syrian rebels, a request he first made earlier this summer.”
In reality, the so-called “opposition” in Syria is anything but moderate. As Tony Cartalucci wrote in his article, “
In Syria, There Are No Moderates
,”
. . . . . there were never, nor are there any "moderates" operating in Syria. The West has intentionally armed and funded Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremists since as early as 2007 in preparation for an engineered sectarian bloodbath serving US-Saudi-Israeli interests. This latest bid to portray the terrorists operating along and within Syria's borders as "divided" along extremists/moderate lines is a ploy to justify the continued flow of Western cash and arms into Syria to perpetuate the conflict, as well as create conditions along Syria's borders with which Western partners, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey, can justify direct military intervention.
Indeed, even the New York Times has been forced to admit that there are, as Cartalucci expertly argues in his article, no moderates in the ranks of the Syrian death squads.
As Ben Hubbard wrote in April, 2013
,
In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.
Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.
Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of. [emphasis added]
Even one of the FSA commanders, Bassel Idriss, recently admitted to openly collaborating with ISIS and al-Nusra, revealing yet another example of the fact that the “moderate rebels” are not moderate at all.
In an interview with the Daily Star of Lebanon
, Idriss stated “We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in . . . Qalamoun . . . . Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values.”
Idriss also admitted that many FSA fighters had pledged allegiance to ISIS. He said, “[ISIS] wanted to enhance its presence in the Western Qalamoun area. After the fall of Yabroud and the FSA’s retreat into the hills [around Arsal], many units pledged allegiance [to ISIS]”.
Abu Fidaa, a retired Syrian Army Colonel who is now a part of the Revolutionary Council in the Qalamoun, corroborated Idrisss’ statements by saying that “A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra. In the end, people want to eat, they want to live, and the Islamic State has everything.”
Not only the FSA, but also the Syrian Revolutionary Front has also openly admitted to working with Nusra and al-Qaeda. The leader of the SRF, Jamaal Maarouf
admitted that his brigades
coordinate with Nusra and al-Qaeda regularly.
ISIS Is Controlled By The U.S. And NATO
It is important to point out that the Islamic State is not some shadowy force that emerged from the caves of Afghanistan to form an effective military force that is funded by Twitter donations and murky secretive finance deals. IS is entirely the
creation of NATO
and the West and it
remains in control of the organization
.
As Tony Cartalucci writes in his article “
Implausible Deniability: West’s ISIS Terror Hordes In Iraq
,”
Beginning in 2011 - and actually even as early as 2007 - the United States has been arming, funding, and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and a myriad of armed terrorist organizations to overthrow the government of Syria, fight Hezbollah in Lebanon, and undermine the power and influence of Iran, which of course includes any other government or group in the MENA region friendly toward Tehran.
Billions in cash have been funneled into the hands of terrorist groups including Al Nusra, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and what is now being called "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria" or ISIS. One can see clearly by any map of ISIS held territory that it butts up directly against Turkey's borders with defined corridors ISIS uses to invade southward - this is because it is precisely from NATO territory this terrorist scourge originated.
ISIS was harbored on NATO territory, armed and funded by US CIA agents with cash and weapons brought in from the Saudis, Qataris, and NATO members themselves. The "non-lethal aid" the US and British sent including the vehicles we now see ISIS driving around in.
They didn't "take" this gear from "moderates." There were never any moderates to begin with. The deadly sectarian genocide we now see unfolding was long ago predicted by those in the Pentagon - current and former officials - interviewed in 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran journalist Seymour Hersh.< Hersh's 9-page 2007 report, "The Redirection" states explicitly:To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."Extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam" and are "sympathetic to Al Qaeda" - is a verbatim definition of what ISIS is today. Clearly the words of Hersh were as prophetic as they were factually informed, grounded in the reality of a regional conflict already engineered and taking shape as early as 2007. Hersh's report would also forewarn the sectarian nature of the coming conflict, and in particular mention the region's Christians who were admittedly being protected by Hezbollah.
While Hersh’s report was written in 2007, knowledge of the plan to use death squads to target Middle Eastern countries, particularly Syria, had been reported on even as far back as 2005 by Michael Hirsh and John Barry for Newsweek in an article entitled “
The Salvador Option
.”
Regardless, Cartalucci states in a separate article, “
NATO’s Terror Hordes In Iraq A Pretext For Syria Invasion
,”
In actuality, ISIS is the product of a joint NATO-GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] conspiracy stretching back as far as 2007 where US-Saudi policymakers sought to ignite a region-wide sectarian war to purge the Middle East of Iran's arch of influence stretching from its borders, across Syria and Iraq, and as far west as Lebanon and the coast of the Mediterranean. ISIS has been harbored, trained, armed, and extensively funded by a coalition of NATO and Persian Gulf states within Turkey's (NATO territory) borders and has launched invasions into northern Syria with, at times, both Turkish artillery and air cover. The most recent example of this was the cross-border invasion by Al Qaeda into Kasab village, Latikia province in northwest Syria.
Cartalucci is referring to a
cross-border invasion
that was
coordinated with NATO, Turkey, Israel, and the death squads
where Israel acted as air force cover while Turkey facilitated the death squad invasion from inside its own borders.
Keep in mind also that, prior to the rapid appearance and seizure of territory by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, European media outlets like
Der Spiegel reported
that hundreds of fighters were being trained in Jordan by Western intelligence and military personnel for the purpose of deployment in Syria to fight against Assad. The numbers were said to be expected to reach about 10,000 fighters when the reports were issued in March, 2013. Although Western and European media outlets would try to spin the operation as the training of “moderate rebels,” subsequent reports revealed that these fighters
were actually ISIS fighters
.
Western media outlets have also gone to great lengths to spin the fact that ISIS is operating in both Syria and Iraq with an alarming number of American weapons and equipment.
As Business Insider
stated, “The report [study by the London-based small arms research organization Conflict Armament Research] said the jihadists disposed of ‘significant quantities’ of US-made small arms including M16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings ‘Property of US Govt.’” The article also acknowledged that a large number of the weapons used by ISIS were provided by Saudi Arabia, a close American ally.
ISIS Attack On Taqba Airbase – The Precursor To A NATO Attack On Syria
Keeping in mind that ISIS is controlled and directed by NATO and Western intelligence, the fact that the death squads have recently focused on the
Taqba Airbase in Raqqa province
is significant. Particularly when viewed in context of the recent “debate” taking place in front of the American public by the Obama administration on whether or not to engage in targeted airstrikes inside Syria.
For those who may not
see the pattern
– while the United States and NATO deliberated engaging in targeted airstrikes in Syria and the Syrian government subsequently states its opposition to those attacks and its intentions to shoot down the planes delivering those strikes if they do not coordinate with the Syrian government, death squads have effectively eliminated the air defense capability of the Syrian government in the east of the country.
After all, the Pentagon even stated that
one of the biggest threats
to an airstrike operation in Syria is the Syrian government’s air defenses. Thanks to ISIS, those air defenses no longer exist in the east of Syria.
This was the end game of the ISIS battle to take over Taqba from the start – eliminate air defenses so that the NATO powers can launch airstrikes against the Syrian military and thus freeing up a launching pad for the terrorists to conduct attacks even deeper into Syria.
ISIS IS Al-Qaeda
It is important to remember that the so-called leader of ISIS is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
As Voltaire Net describes Baghdadi
,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is an Iraqi who joined Al-Qaeda to fight against President Saddam Hussein. During the U.S. invasion, he distinguished himself by engaging in several actions against Shiites and Christians (including the taking of the Baghdad Cathedral) and by ushering in an Islamist reign of terror (he presided over an Islamic court which sentenced many Iraqis to be slaughtered in public). After the departure of Paul Bremer III, al-Baghdadi was arrested and incarcerated at Camp Bucca from 2005 to 2009. This period saw the dissolution of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose fighters merged into a group of tribal resistance, the Islamic Emirate of Iraq.
On 16 May 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named emir of the IEI, which was in the process of disintegration. After the departure of U.S. troops, he staged operations against the government al-Maliki, accused of being at the service of Iran. In 2013, after vowing allegiance to Al-Qaeda, he took off with his group to continue the jihad in Syria, rebaptizing it Islamic Emirate of Iraq and the Levant. In doing so, he challenged the privileges that Ayman al-Zawahiri had previously granted, on behalf of Al-Qaeda, to theAl-Nusra Front in Syria, which was originally nothing more than an extension of the IEI.
Regardless, false assumptions surrounding the true leadership of ISIS would be called into question in January of 2014 when Al-Arabiya, a Saudi-owned and operated news agency, published an article as well as a video of an interrogation of an ISIS fighter who had
been captured while operating
inside Syria.
When asked why ISIS was following the
movement of the Free Syrian Army
and who had given him the orders to do so, the fighter stated that he did not know why he was ordered to monitor the FSA’s movement but that the orders had come from Abu Faisal, also known as Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal of the Saudi Royal Family.
An
excerpt from the relevant section of the interrogation
reads as follows:
Interrogator: Why do you (ISIS) monitor the movement of the Free Syrian Army?
ISIS Detainee: I don’t know exactly why but we received orders from ISIS command.
Interrogator: Who among ISIS gave the orders?
ISIS Detainee: Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal, who is also known as Abu Faisal.
Such revelations, of course, will only be shocking news to those who have been unaware of the
levels to which
the Saudis have
been involved
with the
funding, training, and directing
of death squad forces deployed in Syria. Indeed, the Saudis have even
openly admitted to the Russian government
that they do, in fact, a number of varied terrorist organizations across the world.
Even tired mainstream media organizations such as
Newsweek (aka The Daily Beast)
can no longer ignore the facts surrounding the Saudis’ involvement with the organization of terrorist groups across the world.
Note also that Voltaire Net describes al-Nusra, a documented al-Qaeda connected group, as merely an extension of the IEI (Islamic Emirate of Iraq) which itself was nothing more than a version of Al-Qaeda In Iraq. Thus, from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, came the IEI, which then became the Islamic Emirate of Iraq and the Levant. IEIL then became ISIS/ISIL which is now often referred to as IS.
In other words, Nusra=Al-Qaeda-IEI=IEIL=ISIL=ISIS=IS.
With the information presented above regarding the nature of the Free Syrian Army and the so-called “moderate rebels,” it would be entirely fair to add these “moderate” groups to the list as well.
Although too lengthy of a study to be presented in this article, it is important to point out that al-Qaeda is entirely a creation of the West, created for the purpose of
drawing the Soviets into Afghanistan in the 1970s
and a host of other geopolitical goals in the middle east and around the world, 9/11 being the most memorable instance of Western intelligence al-Qaeda mobilization.[1]
Conclusion
With the James Foley beheading video being largely understood as a staged propaganda ploy as well the fact that ISIS and its related terrorist organizations are funded, directed, and trained by the United States and NATO, it is imperative that the American people speak out and oppose the impending strike on Syria.
So far, on this particular issue, American apathy has largely contributed to preventing a war. Unfortunately, with slightly more clever propaganda narratives, that apathy has been converted over to the benefit of the world oligarchy.
Thus, while apathy may have prevented the desire for a fight the first time around, that same apathy may well serve to allow one the second.
Notes:
[1] Tarpley, Webster Griffin.
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made In USA
. 5th Edition. Progressive Press. 2011.
Recently from Brandon Turbeville:
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius -- The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 300 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville's podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.
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The Roots of ISIS
Activist Post
by Brandon Turbeville
by Brandon Turbeville
As the United States and NATO gear up for the second attempt at drumming up popular support for airstrikes against Syria, the narrative of ISIS and justifications for invading the sovereign nation have become so convoluted in the mainstream media that a casual observer can scarcely keep track of the narrative spun by Western governments and their media mouthpieces. Unfortunately, that is part of the plan – to keep the general public so confused as to what is actually occurring overseas that, eventually, with their opinions formed for them on social media, television shows, and interspersed nightly news clips, they rely on the media to do their thinking for them. Their opinions are not their own but those of the world oligarchy.
Real men do not desire war and “average” people have nothing to gain from it.
Still, the general population, with the right amount of propaganda, can be convinced to sacrifice the lives of countless others based on a foolish masculinity contest or the idiocy of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. The vast majority, of course, will continue to stare off listlessly into their television screens with no opinion formed whatsoever.
Still, on the eve of Obama’s announcement regarding his strategy against ISIS, it is important to remember the true narrative of that fighting group.
According to the Associated Press, “Obama has told congressional lawmakers that he has the authority to proceed with much of his plan without their formal approval. However, he is seeking authorization from Congress for the train-and-equip operation for Syrian rebels, a request he first made earlier this summer.”
In reality, the so-called “opposition” in Syria is anything but moderate. As Tony Cartalucci wrote in his article, “In Syria, There Are No Moderates,”
. . . . . there were never, nor are there any “moderates” operating in Syria. The West has intentionally armed and funded Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremists since as early as 2007 in preparation for an engineered sectarian bloodbath serving US-Saudi-Israeli interests. This latest bid to portray the terrorists operating along and within Syria’s borders as “divided” along extremists/moderate lines is a ploy to justify the continued flow of Western cash and arms into Syria to perpetuate the conflict, as well as create conditions along Syria’s borders with which Western partners, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey, can justify direct military intervention.
Indeed, even the New York Times has been forced to admit that there are, as Cartalucci expertly argues in his article, no moderates in the ranks of the Syrian death squads. As Ben Hubbard wrote in April, 2013,
In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of. [emphasis added]
Even one of the FSA commanders, Bassel Idriss, recently admitted to openly collaborating with ISIS and al-Nusra, revealing yet another example of the fact that the “moderate rebels” are not moderate at all.
In an interview with the Daily Star of Lebanon, Idriss stated “We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in . . . Qalamoun . . . . Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values.”
Idriss also admitted that many FSA fighters had pledged allegiance to ISIS. He said, “[ISIS] wanted to enhance its presence in the Western Qalamoun area. After the fall of Yabroud and the FSA’s retreat into the hills [around Arsal], many units pledged allegiance [to ISIS]”.
Abu Fidaa, a retired Syrian Army Colonel who is now a part of the Revolutionary Council in the Qalamoun, corroborated Idrisss’ statements by saying that “A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra. In the end, people want to eat, they want to live, and the Islamic State has everything.”
Not only the FSA, but also the Syrian Revolutionary Front has also openly admitted to working with Nusra and al-Qaeda. The leader of the SRF, Jamaal Maarouf admitted that his brigades coordinate with Nusra and al-Qaeda regularly.
ISIS Is Controlled By The U.S. And NATO
It is important to point out that the Islamic State is not some shadowy force that emerged from the caves of Afghanistan to form an effective military force that is funded by Twitter donations and murky secretive finance deals. IS is entirely the creation of NATO and the West and it remains in control of the organization.
As Tony Cartalucci writes in his article “Implausible Deniability: West’s ISIS Terror Hordes In Iraq,”
Beginning in 2011 – and actually even as early as 2007 – the United States has been arming, funding, and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and a myriad of armed terrorist organizations to overthrow the government of Syria, fight Hezbollah in Lebanon, and undermine the power and influence of Iran, which of course includes any other government or group in the MENA region friendly toward Tehran.
Billions in cash have been funneled into the hands of terrorist groups including Al Nusra, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and what is now being called “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” or ISIS. One can see clearly by any map of ISIS held territory that it butts up directly against Turkey’s borders with defined corridors ISIS uses to invade southward – this is because it is precisely from NATO territory this terrorist scourge originated.
ISIS was harbored on NATO territory, armed and funded by US CIA agents with cash and weapons brought in from the Saudis, Qataris, and NATO members themselves. The “non-lethal aid” the US and British sent including the vehicles we now see ISIS driving around in.They didn’t “take” this gear from “moderates.” There were never any moderates to begin with. The deadly sectarian genocide we now see unfolding was long ago predicted by those in the Pentagon – current and former officials – interviewed in 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran journalist Seymour Hersh.< Hersh’s 9-page 2007 report, “The Redirection” states explicitly:To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.“Extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam” and are “sympathetic to Al Qaeda” – is a verbatim definition of what ISIS is today. Clearly the words of Hersh were as prophetic as they were factually informed, grounded in the reality of a regional conflict already engineered and taking shape as early as 2007. Hersh’s report would also forewarn the sectarian nature of the coming conflict, and in particular mention the region’s Christians who were admittedly being protected by Hezbollah.
While Hersh’s report was written in 2007, knowledge of the plan to use death squads to target Middle Eastern countries, particularly Syria, had been reported on even as far back as 2005 by Michael Hirsh and John Barry for Newsweek in an article entitled “The Salvador Option.”
Regardless, Cartalucci states in a separate article, “NATO’s Terror Hordes In Iraq A Pretext For Syria Invasion,”
In actuality, ISIS is the product of a joint NATO-GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] conspiracy stretching back as far as 2007 where US-Saudi policymakers sought to ignite a region-wide sectarian war to purge the Middle East of Iran’s arch of influence stretching from its borders, across Syria and Iraq, and as far west as Lebanon and the coast of the Mediterranean. ISIS has been harbored, trained, armed, and extensively funded by a coalition of NATO and Persian Gulf states within Turkey’s (NATO territory) borders and has launched invasions into northern Syria with, at times, both Turkish artillery and air cover. The most recent example of this was the cross-border invasion by Al Qaeda into Kasab village, Latikia province in northwest Syria.
Cartalucci is referring to a cross-border invasion that was coordinated with NATO, Turkey, Israel, and the death squads where Israel acted as air force cover while Turkey facilitated the death squad invasion from inside its own borders.
Keep in mind also that, prior to the rapid appearance and seizure of territory by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, European media outlets like Der Spiegel reported that hundreds of fighters were being trained in Jordan by Western intelligence and military personnel for the purpose of deployment in Syria to fight against Assad. The numbers were said to be expected to reach about 10,000 fighters when the reports were issued in March, 2013. Although Western and European media outlets would try to spin the operation as the training of “moderate rebels,” subsequent reports revealed that these fighterswere actually ISIS fighters.
Western media outlets have also gone to great lengths to spin the fact that ISIS is operating in both Syria and Iraq with an alarming number of American weapons and equipment. As Business Insiderstated, “The report [study by the London-based small arms research organization Conflict Armament Research] said the jihadists disposed of ‘significant quantities’ of US-made small arms including M16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings ‘Property of US Govt.’” The article also acknowledged that a large number of the weapons used by ISIS were provided by Saudi Arabia, a close American ally.
ISIS Attack On Taqba Airbase – The Precursor To A NATO Attack On Syria
Keeping in mind that ISIS is controlled and directed by NATO and Western intelligence, the fact that the death squads have recently focused on the Taqba Airbase in Raqqa province is significant. Particularly when viewed in context of the recent “debate” taking place in front of the American public by the Obama administration on whether or not to engage in targeted airstrikes inside Syria.
For those who may not see the pattern – while the United States and NATO deliberated engaging in targeted airstrikes in Syria and the Syrian government subsequently states its opposition to those attacks and its intentions to shoot down the planes delivering those strikes if they do not coordinate with the Syrian government, death squads have effectively eliminated the air defense capability of the Syrian government in the east of the country.
After all, the Pentagon even stated that one of the biggest threats to an airstrike operation in Syria is the Syrian government’s air defenses. Thanks to ISIS, those air defenses no longer exist in the east of Syria.
This was the end game of the ISIS battle to take over Taqba from the start – eliminate air defenses so that the NATO powers can launch airstrikes against the Syrian military and thus freeing up a launching pad for the terrorists to conduct attacks even deeper into Syria.
ISIS IS Al-Qaeda
It is important to remember that the so-called leader of ISIS is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. As Voltaire Net describes Baghdadi,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is an Iraqi who joined Al-Qaeda to fight against President Saddam Hussein. During the U.S. invasion, he distinguished himself by engaging in several actions against Shiites and Christians (including the taking of the Baghdad Cathedral) and by ushering in an Islamist reign of terror (he presided over an Islamic court which sentenced many Iraqis to be slaughtered in public). After the departure of Paul Bremer III, al-Baghdadi was arrested and incarcerated at Camp Bucca from 2005 to 2009. This period saw the dissolution of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose fighters merged into a group of tribal resistance, the Islamic Emirate of Iraq.
On 16 May 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named emir of the IEI, which was in the process of disintegration. After the departure of U.S. troops, he staged operations against the government al-Maliki, accused of being at the service of Iran. In 2013, after vowing allegiance to Al-Qaeda, he took off with his group to continue the jihad in Syria, rebaptizing it Islamic Emirate of Iraq and the Levant. In doing so, he challenged the privileges that Ayman al-Zawahiri had previously granted, on behalf of Al-Qaeda, to theAl-Nusra Front in Syria, which was originally nothing more than an extension of the IEI.
Regardless, false assumptions surrounding the true leadership of ISIS would be called into question in January of 2014 when Al-Arabiya, a Saudi-owned and operated news agency, published an article as well as a video of an interrogation of an ISIS fighter who had been captured while operating inside Syria.
When asked why ISIS was following the movement of the Free Syrian Army and who had given him the orders to do so, the fighter stated that he did not know why he was ordered to monitor the FSA’s movement but that the orders had come from Abu Faisal, also known as Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal of the Saudi Royal Family.
An excerpt from the relevant section of the interrogation reads as follows:
Interrogator: Why do you (ISIS) monitor the movement of the Free Syrian Army?ISIS Detainee: I don’t know exactly why but we received orders from ISIS command.Interrogator: Who among ISIS gave the orders?ISIS Detainee: Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal, who is also known as Abu Faisal.
Such revelations, of course, will only be shocking news to those who have been unaware of thelevels to which the Saudis have been involved with the funding, training, and directing of death squad forces deployed in Syria. Indeed, the Saudis have even openly admitted to the Russian governmentthat they do, in fact, a number of varied terrorist organizations across the world.
Even tired mainstream media organizations such as Newsweek (aka The Daily Beast) can no longer ignore the facts surrounding the Saudis’ involvement with the organization of terrorist groups across the world.
Note also that Voltaire Net describes al-Nusra, a documented al-Qaeda connected group, as merely an extension of the IEI (Islamic Emirate of Iraq) which itself was nothing more than a version of Al-Qaeda In Iraq. Thus, from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, came the IEI, which then became the Islamic Emirate of Iraq and the Levant. IEIL then became ISIS/ISIL which is now often referred to as IS.
In other words, Nusra=Al-Qaeda-IEI=IEIL=ISIL=ISIS=IS.
With the information presented above regarding the nature of the Free Syrian Army and the so-called “moderate rebels,” it would be entirely fair to add these “moderate” groups to the list as well.
Although too lengthy of a study to be presented in this article, it is important to point out that al-Qaeda is entirely a creation of the West, created for the purpose of drawing the Soviets into Afghanistan in the 1970s and a host of other geopolitical goals in the middle east and around the world, 9/11 being the most memorable instance of Western intelligence al-Qaeda mobilization.[1]
Conclusion
With the James Foley beheading video being largely understood as a staged propaganda ploy as well the fact that ISIS and its related terrorist organizations are funded, directed, and trained by the United States and NATO, it is imperative that the American people speak out and oppose the impending strike on Syria.
So far, on this particular issue, American apathy has largely contributed to preventing a war. Unfortunately, with slightly more clever propaganda narratives, that apathy has been converted over to the benefit of the world oligarchy.
Thus, while apathy may have prevented the desire for a fight the first time around, that same apathy may well serve to allow one the second.
Notes:
[1] Tarpley, Webster Griffin. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made In USA. 5th Edition. Progressive Press. 2011.
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8 July 2014 Last updated at 20:30 ET
The Georgian roots of Isis commander Omar al-Shishani
By Nina Akhmeteli BBC News, Birkiani
Winter 2014 | ITIC
This study is originally published by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. The study is an overall analysis of ISIS, also known as ISIL, Islamic State (or IS). The study is structured in nine sections,[1] which if read in conjunction with each other, draws a complete picture of ISIS. You can also download the study in PDF format here.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Left, from Al-Jazeera, July 8, 2006; right, <a href="http://Inbaa.com" rel="nofollow">Inbaa.com</a>)
Historical background
ISIS took root in the new era created in Iraq after the Americans took control of the country in 2003. The Second Gulf War led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the dismantling of the Iraqi army and the destruction of the existing governmental structure. As a result, a security and governmental vacuum was created and the country’s fragile social fabric (in the middle of which was the volatile Sunni-Shi’ite schism) was severely damaged.
During the almost nine years (2003 — 2011) the United States army was stationed in Iraq the Americans failed to establish effective Iraqi army and security forces to fill the newly-created security vacuum. While in Iraq, the Americans encouraged the establishment of what was supposed to be a democratic national Shi’ite regime headed by Nouri al-Maliki. However, the regime alienated the Sunni population, which had traditionally controlled the country, even though they were a minority (about 22% of the Iraqi population is Sunni Arabs — alongside the Kurds, who are also Sunnis — while about 60% of Iraqis are Shi’ites).
The branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, established in 2004, entered the security vacuum and took advantage of the increasing political-societal Sunni alienation: It became an important actor in the insurgent organizations fighting the American army, became stronger after the withdrawal of the American troops at the end of 2001, and spread to Syria after the civil war began in March 2011. The establishment of Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Iraq and Syria occurred in four stages:
- Stage One (2004-2006) — The establishment of the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and called “Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia:” It waged a terrorist-guerilla war against the American and coalition forces and against the Shi’ite population. The first stage ended when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an American targeted attack in June 2006.
- Stage Two (2006-2011) — Establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI): ISI served as an umbrella network for several jihadi organizations that continued waging a terrorist-guerilla campaign against the United States, its coalition allies and the Shi’ite population. ISI was weakened towards the end of the American presence in Iraq following successful American military moves and a wise foreign policy that supported the Sunni population and knew how to win their hearts and minds.
- Stage Three (2012-June 2014) — The strengthening of ISI and the founding of ISIS: After the American army withdrew from Iraq ISI became stronger. Following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war ISI established a branch in Syria called the Al-Nusra Front (“support front”). Dissension broke out between ISI and its Syrian branch, leading to a rift between ISI and Al-Qaeda and the establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).
- Stage Four (as of June 2014) — Dramatic ISIS military achievements: The most prominent was the takeover of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. At the same time ISIS established its control in eastern Syria where it set up a governmental center (its “capital city”) in Al-Raqqah. In the wake of its success, ISIS declared the establishment of an “Islamic State” (IS) (or “Islamic Caliphate”) headed by an ISIS leader named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In September 2014 the United States declared a comprehensive campaign against ISIS, which is currently waging a fierce struggle against its many enemies both at home and abroad.
In ITIC assessment, historically speaking there are similarities between the results of the American invasion of Iraq, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In all three instances the invading country failed to establish a new political order or to stabilize an effective, supportive regime. In effect all three invasions had a deleterious effect on the existing delicate politicalsocial fabric: in Afghanistan and Iraq they caused changes that contributed to the establishment of radical Sunni jihadi terrorist organizations and in Lebanon to a radical Shi’ite terrorist organization following Iranian ideology and receiving Iranian support. The terrorist organizations established in Iraq (the branch of Al-Qaeda), Afghanistan (Al-Qaeda) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) exist to this day. ISIS, which developed from a branch of Al-Qaeda, has become strong in Iraq and Syria and today threatens the order and stability of the Middle East and the entire world.
Establishment of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the beginning of the campaign against the United States and its allies
The establishment of Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in Iraq began when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian global jihad operative, went to Iraq in 2002 (before the entrance of the Americans). Al-Zarqawi (a nickname for Ahmad Fadil al-Nazal al-Khalayleh) was influenced by the Jordanian Salafist-jihadi movement headed by Abdullah Azzam, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada (all three of whom are of Palestinian origin). While in Afghanistan in 1989 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi underwent ideological indoctrination and operational training conducted by Abdullah Azzam (Osama bin Laden’s ideological mentor). Al-Zarqawi returned to Jordan in 1993 where he was detained and imprisoned in 1994 and released in 1999, at which point he went back to Afghanistan.
After September 11, 2001, al-Zarqawi fled from Afghanistan and sought refuge in Iran. In 2002, before the American entrance into Iraq, he went to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While there he collaborated with a Kurdish jihadi Islamist organization called Ansar al-Islam, established in September 2001 (which is still operative and belongs to the coalition in Iraq collaborating with ISIS). Al-Zarqawi later established his own Islamic jihadi organization, Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (“the oneness [of Allah] and jihad”). After the Americans invaded Iraq in March 2003 he joined the insurgents fighting the United States and became a prominent figure until he was killed in a targeted American attack.
In October 2004 al-Zarqawi’s organization joined Al-Qaeda. He swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and was declared the leader (emir) of Al-Qaeda in Iraq). (In Arabic al-qaeda fi bilad al-rafidayn, Al-Qaeda in the country of the two rivers, i.e., Mesopotamia). It was the first branch Al-Qaeda established beyond the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. With its founding, al-Zarqawi was no longer the leader of a local Islamic jihadi organization but rather had become the official representative of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and later one of the prominent terrorists among the global jihad networks. The jihad network al-Zarqawi established in Iraq, initially composed of operatives who had been affiliated with it in Pakistan and Afghanistan, later enlisted operatives from Iraq, Syria and other Arab countries.
As the emir of Al-Qaeda in Iraq al-Zarqawi formulated a strategy for the campaign against the United States. He had the following objectives: harm U.S. forces and its allies; discourage Iraqi collaboration by targeting government infrastructure and personnel; target reconstruction efforts in Iraq with attacks on Iraqi civilian contractors and aid workers; and draw the U.S. military into a sectarian Sunni-Shiite war by targeting Shiites.[6] The wave of terrorism he initiated against the Shi’ite population, the result of his strong anti-Shi’ite doctrine, was carried out by suicide bombers and the use of car bombs which caused many civilian casualties, sowed chaos throughout Iraq, made it difficult to stabilize the internal situation and added a murderous gene to the ISIS DNA.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s strategy, which stressed broad attacks on the Shi’ite population (and sometimes on Sunni civilians as well), was criticized by both Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. They were concerned that the indiscriminate killing of innocent Muslim civilians would erode public support for Al-Qaeda throughout the entire region. In July 2005 they criticized his strategy and instructed him to stop attacking Shi’ite religious and cultural sites. He refused, and his relations with the Al-Qaeda leadership deteriorated.[7] The dispute held the seeds of the tensions and rivalry between the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the central Al-Qaeda leadership, as it was manifested through ISIS’s independent actions and policy, and ISIS and the Al-Qaeda leadership headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The terrorist-guerilla campaign of the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq was mainly carried out in and around Baghdad and in western Iraq. The local Sunni population in those regions became hostile to the central Iraqi government and to the United States, and today forms ISIS’s societal and political power base. The most important city in the Sunni region was Fallujah. Fallujah is located in Al-Anbar, the largest province in the country, which became al-Zarqawi’s power base and symbolized the jihadi campaign against the American army. Al-Zarqawi’s main campaign was concentrated in Iraq, but he had made attempts to export jihadi terrorism to other Arab states, including Jordan, his country of origin (See below).
Ideologically, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi handed down to his heirs a radical Islamic, uncompromising legacy whose traces are evident in ISIS’s actions to this day. Noteworthy is its hostility toward Shi’ites in general and Iraqi Shi’ites in particular, whom he referred to in strong terms (“human scum,” “poisonous snakes,” “deadly poison”). He regarded the Shi’ites as a fifth column who, along with pro-American Sunnis, were trying to institute a new Shi’ite regime in Iraq, anti-Sunni and pro-American. That anti-Shi’ite legacy, based on Arabic Islamic sources from the Middle Ages, gave al-Zarqawi what he considered “Islamic legitimacy” to carry out mass-killing attacks on Shi’ites and the Shi’ite-affiliated central government. His objective was to instigate a Shi’ite-Sunni civil war that would destabilize public order, prevent the establishment of a Shi’ite regime and support Al-Qaeda’s takeover of Iraq. ISIS has continued its brutality towards the Shi’ite population in Iraq and Syria, implementing the legacy of al-Zarqawi who, after his death, became a revered figure and role model.[8]
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi turned into a role model: operatives in the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi camp. The banner reads, “ISIS – the camp named for the conqueror, the jihad fighter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – may Allah receive him (as a shaheed in paradise)”
The establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) and expanding the campaign against the United States and its allies
On June 7, 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an aerial targeted attack carried out by the American army on a house in the city of Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad. His position as head of the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq was inherited by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, aka Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, to this day considered by ISIS as one of its founding fathers, was an Al-Qaeda operative of Egyptian origin, born in 1968, and was close to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In 1982 he joined the Egyptian jihadi organization headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri and was sentenced to death by Egypt in 1994 (apparently in absentia). Between 2001 and 2002 he underwent training in Afghanistan where he met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He specialized in preparing IEDs used in Afghanistan and Iraq which caused the United States army many losses.
During the years Abu Hamza al-Muhajir headed the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (2006-2010), he maintained contact with Al-Qaeda operatives outside Iraq to receive support and to carry out terrorist attacks. He was involved in moving Al-Qaeda operatives from Syria to Iraq and in sending suicide bombing terrorists and car bombs to Al-Qaeda networks beyond Iraq’s borders. His name is on the list of terrorists wanted in Iraq issued by the United States Central Command (Centcom) in February 2005 and a price of $50,000 was put on his head.
On October 15, 2006, about four months after the death of al-Zarqawi, an umbrella network called the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) was established for Sunni jihadi organizations, dominated by the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq established by al-Zarqawi. The network was headed by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi jihadist operative, whose real name was Hamid Daoud Muhammad Khalil al-Zawi. In 1987, during the Saddam Hussein era, he was expelled from Iraq and joined jihad operatives in Afghanistan who were fighting the Russians. Between 2004 and 2005 he participated in the battles for Fallujah and received a head wound. He later had a senior role in the Al-Qaeda in Iraq leadership, retaining it until he was appointed to head the new umbrella network.
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (left), who inherited the leadership of the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq from al-Zarqawi, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (right), who was appointed leader of ISI. The pictures were made public by the Iraqi government after the two were killed in a targeted attack in April 2010.
The new umbrella network was composed of Sunni jihadi organizations which had fought the American army in Iraq. It was apparently established because of the blow Al-Qaeda suffered with the death of al-Zarqawi. To reestablish its power, the branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq joined forces with other organizations with a similar ideology. However, Al-Qaeda in Iraq was the dominant factor in the umbrella network and has continued in that role to this day in ISIS. Among the jihad organizations that joined the network were Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen, Jaish al-Fatihin, Jund al-Sahaba and Katibat Ansar al-Tawhid wal-Sunnah.
The ISI took root mainly in western Iraq, which had a tribal Sunni society (especially in Al-Anbar province, which extends to the Syrian border). The guerilla and terrorist activities the organization carried out after the death of al-Zarqawi peaked in 2006-2007 with many attacks against the United States and the Shi’ite-affiliated Iraqi government. At the same time it began establishing a civilian administration within the Sunni population in the area under its control, as an alternative to the central government.
Between 2008 and 2011 ISI’s power waned. That was mainly because of the American army’s extensive military campaign which began at the beginning of 2007, called the “surge.” The American forces were assisted by Sunni tribesmen in the campaign against the jihadi group, especially in Al-Anbar province, where the tribes despised the brutal practices of Al-Qaeda and the jihadi organizations. The tribesmen, who at the time received large financial incentives from the Americans, organized into groups called “awakening councils” or “awakening groups.”
However, as the date of the American withdrawal from Iraq approached, the amount of aid the councils received decreased and the security situation began to deteriorate. On the other hand, the Shi’ite al-Maliki regime, which became more sectarian, was enforced on the Sunnis. As a result the status of the awakening councils was eroded and the tribal heads, who had ruled under the aegis of the Iraqi administration, lost their status as well. That prepared the ground for the Sunni tribes to join the ranks of ISIS in the campaign against the Iraqi regime when it began some years later.
One of the more conspicuous successes of the American campaign against the jihadi networks in Iraq was the elimination of two prominent ISI figures in April 2010. The Iraqi security forces, in collaboration with the American forces, killed both Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. The leadership of ISI was inherited from Abu Omar al-Baghdadi by a prominent Iraqi jihadist named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who heads ISIS today.
While the military campaign in Iraq was being waged, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and after him ISI, constructed a covert operational infrastructure in Syria. Its objective was to provide logistic support for the armed jihad campaign in Iraq against the United States and the coalition; the Syrian regime turned a blind eye and did not take effective steps against it. According to the British Quilliam Foundation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi began constructing the jihadi infrastructure in Syria as early as 2000 by sending a number of jihadists veterans of his operations in Afghanistan, to Syria and Lebanon. They established “guesthouses” in Syria from which they recruited operatives to fight in Iraq.[9]
Thus during the campaign against the United States and the coalition in Iraq, Syria served as a way station for thousands of foreign Arab-Muslim jihadists en route to the fighting in Iraq. The direction has been reversed and during the Syrian civil war thousands of jihadists from ISIS have gone from Iraq to Syria and joined the ranks of the rebels against the Assad regime.
Rebuilding the force of the ISI and the increase in its activities after the withdrawal of the American army
The withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq in December 2011 left a military security vacuum, enabling ISI to rebuild and gather strength to renew its terrorist campaign against the Shi’ite population and the central Iraqi government. That was done to encourage a civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites. In addition, the civil war that broke out in Syria in March 2011 weakened the Assad regime and provided ISI with an opportunity to dispatch operatives to Syria and export its jihadi influence and ideology, until it managed, within a few years, to take over between a quarter and a third of Syria’s territory in the east and north.
In the three years since the withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq (2012-2014), ISI has waged an increasingly powerful terrorist-guerilla campaign against the Shi’ite population and the central Iraqi government. According to UN statistics, the total number of civilian casualties (including police) in 2013 was the highest since 2008, with 7,818 killed (6,787 in 2008) and 17,981 (20,178 in 2008) injured.[10]
The highlight of the ISIS attack on Iraqi regime institutions in 2013 was breaking into the Abu Ghraib prison, near Baghdad. The prison, the largest and best guarded in Iraq, notorious even during the Saddam Hussein regime, housed the rebels who fought the American army when it was in Iraq. After the American withdrawal it was used by the Iraqi government to imprison hundreds of Al-Qaeda operatives.
Abu Ghraib was broken into on July 21, 2013, according to a plan devised by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It began with artillery fire to soften resistance, after which the walls were breached by two car bombs. Fifty ISIS operatives entered the prison armed with machine guns and grenades, opened the cells and released about 500 Al-Qaeda operatives. The operation, which lasted about an hour, met with no significant resistance from the Iraqi prison guards, most of whom fled when ISIS began firing artillery. The operatives who were released were taken from the prison by waiting ISIS vehicles and driven to nearby Syria (<a href="http://Lisireport.worldpress.com" rel="nofollow">Lisireport.worldpress.com</a>, <a href="http://Alsharqiya.com" rel="nofollow">Alsharqiya.com</a>, YouTube, <a href="http://Time.com" rel="nofollow">Time.com</a>). The released operatives had extensive terrorist experience and provided significant reinforcements for ISIS (Note: Some of them were detained by the American army before it withdrew from Iraq). That apparently contributed greatly to ISIS’s later successes.
Abu Ghraib prison (<a href="http://Alsharqiya.com" rel="nofollow">Alsharqiya.com</a>)
Scene from a video showing the ISIS vehicles waiting for the prisoners who were broken out of Abu Ghraib (YouTube)
The year before the Abu Ghraib jailbreak ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi issued a audio cassette for his supporters reporting his plans to release prisoners. He called the campaign “Breaking Walls.” During a 12-month period ISIS conducted 24 complex attacks using car bombs. Its operatives broke into eight Iraqi prisons in addition to Abu Ghraib, and released dozens of Al-Qaeda operatives (<a href="http://Time.com" rel="nofollow">Time.com</a>, December 16, 2013).
From the video of the Abu Ghraib jailbreak (YouTube)
Dispatching suicide bombers: the operational trademark (in its various forms) of the Al-Qaeda branch in Iraq
The use of suicide bombers in Iraq has been the trademark of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq and currently of ISIS. At the end of the American invasion of Iraq Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command called on Iraqi civilians to carry out suicide bombing attacks to hurt the American invaders: “Use bombs wisely, not in forests and on hills…The enemy is scared primarily by fighting in the streets in cities…We emphasize the importance of suicide operations against the enemy”[11].
Bin Laden’s call did not fall on deaf ears. During the first two years of the American presence in Iraq, there were 18 suicide bombing attacks carried out by an estimated 270 suicide bombers. Some of the attacks were carried out by operatives belonging to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s organization, which had joined Al-Qaeda.[12] Others were carried out by operatives belonging to ISI, established after al-Zarqawi was killed. They targeted the forces of America and the coalition, the new central Iraqi administration established by the United States and Iraqi Shi’ites. In some instances the suicide bombers detonated the car bombs in military bases and government facilities (sometimes by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms as camouflage).
There were 98 suicide bombing attacks in Iraq in 2013 as opposed to 50 in Syria.[13] ISIS did not claim responsibility for several of those that caused many Shi’ite civilian casualties.[14] The mass-killing attacks undermined the al-Maliki regime (according to Time Magazine, in September-December 2013 more than 3,000 people were killed in Iraq by suicide bombing attacks). Nevertheless, Iran and the Shi’ite militias fighting the American army until its withdrawal preferred to send 7,000-8,000 Shi’ite operatives to Syria to defend the Assad regime, rather than to cope with ISI in Iraq, underestimating its potential threat.[15]
During 2014 ISIS-instigated suicide bombing attacks in Iraq continued. Prominent among them was a series of deadly attacks carried out throughout October 2014 in residential areas in Baghdad, mainly among the Shi’ite population. The attacks, which killed hundreds of people, can perhaps be considered as increased ISIS pressure on Baghdad in addition to the attacks on Al-Anbar province, possibly in preparation for a campaign against Baghdad (See below).
The expansion of ISI into Syrian territory, the establishment of ISIS and its growing strength
At the end of 2011 ISI sent Syrian and Iraqi jihadists skilled in guerilla warfare to Syria to participate in the campaign against the Assad regime. In January 2012 they covertly established the Al-Nusra Front (“support front”), a jihadi organization headed by Abu Muhammad al-Julani, thereby establishing an additional power base for ISI outside Iraq.[16] Al-Julani was appointed “emir” of Syria, i.e., the commander of the organization’s Syrian branch, and was initially subordinate to ISI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The gradual formation of the Al-Nusra Front as an independent jihadi organization was accompanied by a deepening rift with ISI, its parent organization. In an attempt to halt the process, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the unification of the two organizations under his leadership, changing the name of ISI to a new name that would express the unification, “The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria [al-Sham],” or ISIS[17] (April 9, 2013). However, Abu Muhammad al-Julani refused to subordinate himself to al-Baghdadi and quickly swore allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the developing rivalry between the two, Al-Zawahiri took sides and on June 10, 2014, announced the unification had been annulled. On January 3, 2014, al-Zawahiri announced he had severed all connections with ISIS and that ISIS was no longer a branch of Al-Qaeda.
In response, in February 2014 ISIS issued a public statement attacking the Al-Qaeda leadership and the Al-Nusra Front. Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a senior ISIS figure and its spokesman, accused the Al-Qaeda leadership of “straying from the correct path.” He said Al-Qaeda was no longer the foundation for jihad and that ISIS was the only jihadi organization operating according to the vision of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (YouTube, April 17, 2014). Thus the split between the Al-Qaeda leadership and ISIS became open. As a result, disputes between ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front and other rebel organizations in Syria worsened, leading to violent clashes between them. Since then the Al-Nusra Front has been operating in Syria independently, while ISIS also operates both in Syria and in Iraq, its home countries and power base (giving it an advantage over the Al-Nusra Front).
Since the public split between ISIS and the Al-Qaeda leadership, the jihad organizations have become polarized, each adopting its own modus operandi: ISIS has a reputation for conducting its relations with the population and its rivals in a strictly brutal fashion based on al-Zarqawi’s legacy, using force to implement Islamic religious law here and now in every region over which it has control. The Al-Nusra Front’s policies towards the population and its rivals are more pragmatic, enabling it to gain the support of the local residents and to actively cooperate with the other rebel organizations operating in Syria.
Documents dealing with the confrontation between ISIS and the Al-Qaeda leadership
Announcement from Ayman al-Zawahiri about Al-Qaeda’s rejection of ISIS, issued on January 3, 2014 on Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic forums (<a href="http://Muslim.org" rel="nofollow">Muslim.org</a>).
ISIS announcement attacking Al-Qaeda and the Al-Nusra Front, February 4, 2014 (<a href="http://Alplatformmedia.com" rel="nofollow">Alplatformmedia.com</a>).
In retrospect, it can be said that since the split ISIS has become stronger in Iraq and Syria and overshadowed the Al-Nusra Front. In ITIC assessment that is because of the attraction of its ideology (which increased after the self-declaration of the Islamic Caliphate); its brutality (which frightens its enemies); its military achievements (resulting, among other factors, from its ability to move forces and weapons to and from eastern Syria and western Iraq); and its many resources (weapons and money stockpiled during 2014). ISIS’s strengthening over the past year is expressed in many ways: commanders and entire units of the Al-Nusra Front and other rebel organizations have joined it; parts of the Sunni opposition in Iraq collaborate with it; foreign fighters, including those from Western countries, tend to join the ISIS’s ranks rather than those of the Al-Nusra Front; oaths of allegiance have been taken to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by jihad organizations beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria (moat notable so far was the Egyptian Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis).
[1] Links to all other nine sections:
You can read the overview — “ISIS: Portrait of a Jihadi Terrorist Organization” — here.
You can read section 2 — “ISIS’s ideology and vision, and their implementation” — here.
You can read section 3 — “ISIS’s military achievements in Iraq in the summer of 2014 and the establishment of its governmental systems” — here.
You can read section 4 — “ISIS establishes itself in eastern and northern Syria” — here.
You can read section 5 — “ISIS’s capabilities: the number of its operatives, control system, military strength, leadership, allies and financial capabilities” — here.
You can read section 6 — “Exporting terrorism and subversion to the West and the Arab world” —here.
You can read section 7 — “ISIS’s propaganda machine” — here.
You can read section 8 — “The American campaign against ISIS” — here.
You can read section 9 — “ISIS response to the American campaign (update to mid-November 2014)” — here.
Notes:
[6]Zachary Laub and Jonathan Masters, Council on Foreign Relations: “Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria,” June 12, 2014, updated August 8, 2014; cfr.org.
[7]Laub and Masters.
[8]For example, the ISIS training base in the Syrian city of Al-Raqqah is named after him. In Iraq and Syria, youth groups are nicknamed “al-Zarqawi’s [lion] cubs.”
[9] Noman Benotman and Roisin Blake “Jabhat al-Nusra, a Strategic Briefing.” quilliamfoundation. Also see the ITIC September 17, 2013 bulletin, “The Al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) is an Al-Qaeda Salafist-jihadi network, prominent in the rebel organizations in Syria.”
[11] Bin Laden tape: full text, <a href="http://www.bbc.com" rel="nofollow">www.bbc.com</a>, February 12, 2003, as cited in Yoram Schweitzer and Sari Goldstein Ferber, Al-Qaeda and the Internationalization of Suicide Terrorism, Memorandum 78, Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, November 2005, p. 78.
[12] Ibid.
[13] See the article by Yotam Rosner, Einav Yogev and Yoram Schweitzer, ” A Report on Suicide Bombings in 2013,” INSS Insight No. 507, January 14, 2014. (inss.org.il) According to the article, in 2013 there were 291 suicide bombing attacks carried out in 18 countries worldwide, causing the deaths of approximately 3,100 people. About 50% of the attacks (148 of the total) were carried out in the Middle East, most of them (98) in Iraq. The data thus indicate that the number of suicide bombing attacks carried out in Iraq during that period was greater than the number carried out in Syria, although international attention focused less on Iraq than on Syria.
[14] For example, on September 11, 2013, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Shi’ite Tamimi Mosque in a Husseiniya (a Shi’ite social-religious institution). It was carried out in the Shi’ite neighborhood of Al-A’zamiya. Forty Shi’ites were killed and dozens wounded. Despite the fact that ISIS did not claim responsibility for the attack, in ITIC assessment the organization was responsible. On September 21, 2013, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a car bomb in the Shi’ite Baghdad neighborhood of Madinat al-Sadr, killing eight people. In that case as well, ISIS did not claim responsibility but apparently it was nevertheless responsible.
[15] For further information see the March 18, 2014 bulletin “Shi’ite Foreign Fighters in Syria.)
[16] For further information see the September 17, 2013 bulletin “The Al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) is an Al-Qaeda Salafist-jihadi network, prominent in the rebel organizations in Syria. It seeks to overthrow the Assad regime and establish an Islamic Caliphate in Greater Syria, a center for regional and international terrorism and subversion.”
[17] It is sometimes called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). “Greater Syria” seems to be the more correct translation of the term al-sham, which is why the ITIC prefers ISIS and not ISIL.
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Published time: March 06, 2015 04:15
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The Islamic State (formerly ISIS) seems to have swept into Iraq and Syria out of nowhere, leaving death, destruction and fear in its wake. RT takes an in-depth look at where it came from, its financing and weaponry, and whether US involvement is needed.
“In the Middle East, one form of tyranny often replaces another,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. “When secular despots are overthrown, chaos ensues and radical Islam grows stronger.”
It was after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, the country’s long-time dictator, that the story of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) began.
Islamic State’s roots
The US invaded Iraq in 2003 and removed Hussein from power. The war destroyed the country’s infrastructure, installed a government that was not responsive to its people ‒ especially minorities ‒ and jailed thousands of men America deemed to be radicals, said RT’s Ben Swann. Then US troops left the destabilized, weak country with a destroyed infrastructure and huge amounts of surplus American military gear.
ISIS formed as a small insurgent group in 2006 that tried to create problems for the US military, but it had no money or ability to recruit. Largely unsuccessful in Iraq, the group turned to neighboring Syria in 2009. When civil war erupted there in 2011, ISIS was able to gain a foothold.
By 2013, the US and other countries began arming rebel groups battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And that’s when things began falling apart. Less than a year later, those coalition-provided weapons were in the hands of ISIS fighters as rebels began deserting the more moderate groups for ISIS. By June 2014, ISIS began crossing back into Iraq, exploding into the international consciousness due to their ruthlessness and threats of jihad.
Financing Terror
The Islamic States’ wealth comes from its seizing of oil fields in Iraq and Syria and selling the natural resource on the black market, Marin Katusa, the chief energy investment strategist at Casey Research, told RT. The latest reports show that the group is earning over $1 million a day from producing and smuggling oil. While the group can export 400,00 barrels of oil a day from the fields it controls, that’s a mere drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the legal oil market, which produces 92 million barrels a day.
The US and its coalition partners have responded by bombing those fields controlled by the Islamic State. But what happens when ISIS is defeated, Swann asked. “That’s just a horrible policy,” Katusa said.
“You can shut down these wells, and… let’s just say you scorch them and break down the pipeline, you know, depending on how bad you’ve demolished the infrastructure, you can get it back going in 90 to 120 days, depending,” he added. How long it takes depends on where the destruction occurs along the production and transportation process, and a port system could take up to six months to get back online, he said.
The airstrikes have lowered the Islamic State’s ability to make money off its oil sales, most of which are made to people and business in the region, RT’s Ameera David reported. The rest is smuggled into neighboring countries, making it difficult to track and know who is purchasing the resource from the terror group.
"We buy an oil tanker carrying around 26 to 28 tonnes [of oil] for $4,200. We sell it in Jordan for $15,000. Each smuggler takes around eight tankers a week," Sami Khalaf, an oil smuggler and former Iraqi intelligence officer under Saddam Hussein, told the Guardian. Khalaf, who lives in Jordan's capital, Amman, said smugglers typically paid corrupt border officials $650 to pass through each checkpoint.
IS vs. the Iraqi Army
When ISIS marched back to Iraq from Syria, they found that the Iraqi army, without the American troops who trained them serving as backup, was no challenge for them. They faced minimal resistance as they gobbled up large swathes of land and American-made materiel deserted by Iraqi troops on the retreat.
How could an entire army, funded at a cost of $25 billion to US taxpayers, simply fold to a relatively unknown group of Islamic militants, Swann asked. Was the Iraqi military set up to fail from the start?
When the US disbanded Hussein’s army in 2003, it rid the force of all its generals and experienced battlefield commanders who had fought in the Iran-Iraq War and the two Gulf Wars. Thus there was no established hierarchy to take control of security when US troops left the country.
Not only that, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was dogged by accusations of corruption and favoritism, alienating Sunni Muslims in favor of those from his own Shi’a sect.
“The Maliki government has spent a lot of time over the past five years alienating the Sunnis… and that’s not how you create an effective security force that has high morale,” Austin Long, a military advisor in Iraq in 2007-2008, told Al Jazeera in 2014. “It was a little bit of a rotten edifice to begin with.”
Bringing the two issues together, a headcount taken during an Iraq military payroll period last January revealed 50,000 “ghost soldiers” spread among four units who don’t work - or don’t even exist - but are paid, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi told the parliament.
“There are two kinds of ‘fadhaiyin,’” an Iraqi officer told AFP, using a term for fictitious soldiers crowding the payroll, which literally translates as “space men.”
“The first kind: each officer is allowed, for example, five guards. He’ll keep two, send three home and pocket their salary or an agreed percentage,” he said. “Then the second and bigger group is at the brigade level. A brigade commander usually has 30, 40 or more soldiers who stay at home or don’t exist.”
The other ghost soldiers are those who were killed or deserted, but their names were not reported to the military.
These factors allowed ISIS to sweep into the country, taking over Iraq’s biggest dam, stealing millions of dollars and seizing tons of US-made materiel, including rocket launchers, guns, tanks and armored vehicles. (When the US pulled out, it left behind 4 million pieces of equipment valued at $580 million. The US military said it saved $1 billion in shipping costs by leaving the weapons and vehicles in Iraq.)
“Today it’s been reported that the Iraqi army is, at best, half the size that it was when the US pulled out of the country,” RT’s Manuel Rapalo said, “reigniting the debate in Washington over whether or not US forces will once again step in.”
What Should the US Do About ISIS?
The leaders that the US deposed, such as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Ghadafi, came to power because they were the most brutal of their opponents, but they created functioning ‒ though repressed ‒ societies, Swann said. Without them, the power vacuum created leaves opportunities for new dictators or terrorist groups to seize control.
Jason Stapleton, a US special operations Marine veteran, believes that, while the Islamic State must be stopped and must be opposed, it is not really a threat to the United States.
“We created the mess,” Stapleton told RT. “But the problem is, if you look at US policy and what we’ve done so far in our nation-building campaign to first oust Saddam and then later Egypt (Mubarak) and then later Libya and Syria, we see that in every single case what we’ve done is create massive power vacuums, and it ‒ as you’ve correctly reported on over the course of your piece here ‒ what you’ve really created is the necessity of a US military in order to provide stability because there is no solid, stable foundation there.”
“And it doesn’t matter how long you’re there,” he continued. “We were 10 years in Iraq. It doesn’t matter how long you’re there. As soon as you pull out, as soon as you pull back, unless you’re going to take Iraq as a US province, as soon as you pull out, you’re going to see these militants come back in to try and secure power.”
Unlike previous times when winning a war meant taking control of a territory and governing it, hawks in the US seem to be advocating for constant warfare because the country is not leaving a functioning government behind it when Americans tire of the conflict and call for troops to be withdrawn.
“The problem is, they’re terrible at it,” Stapleton said. “If Iraq wasn’t a big enough education for us, then Egypt should have been, and if Egypt wasn’t, Libya should have been, and if Libya wasn’t, Syria should have been.”
Stapleton argues that the United States should let the countries figure things out for themselves, rather than constantly debate what military action or actions to take next to defeat the latest enemy in that country. Doing so, he said, would only continue the vicious cycle of preemption, nation-building, withdrawals and power vacuums for generations to come.
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Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, Western backed Islamists have been covered here at the blog previously. I will relink older posts at then bottom of this post.
RFEurope- US propaganda outfit-
makes news of this interview, for the sole purpose of discrediting the geographic/strategic role of Pankisi Gorge, Georgia in creating a very large stable of NATO backed Islamist fighters. A kind of Islamist french foreign legion. A Gladio B, if you wish? Through numerous western backed proponents of radical Islam hailing from Saudi Arabia & Turkey, the US/UK and Israel connived together, to create the Mujaheddin. Who fought in Afghanistan. Who formed the KLA. Who became Al Qaeda of wherever/whenever. Who became today, ISIS.
The modus operundi is always the same- Only the brands change/
The last paragraph provides the agenda of the entire article
‘One way that Russia has attempted to deal with the threat posed by IS, or at least with the way that threat is perceived by the public, has been to both to blame the phenomenon of Russian nationals joining Islamic State on outside forces. It is unlikely a coincidence, therefore, that the RG article also comes after a series of statements by Russian officials insisting that Chechen militants fighting with the IS group are not Russian citizens but "U.S. trained" Kists from Pankisi.”
So, you understand that according to the US propaganda mouthpiece. Russia, rather then dealing with the homegrown threat posed by ISIS suggest the IS groups are persons trained by the US and company through any number of agencies, schools, organizations in Pankisi Gorge and are not necessarily Russian citizens- Based on my knowledge of this subject- The Russian stance is far closer to the truth, then that which is presented by the propaganda organ of the US intelligence beast.
Of course we are limited to the available translate:
As "IG"(ISIS) recruit supporters in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge
Last Friday, Russia's Supreme Court promulgated the materials relating to the recognition of the "Islamic state" on the territory of Russia as a terrorist organization. The documents mention the name of the Armed Forces who came from Georgia's Pankisi gorge. Tarhan Batirashvili, one of the leaders of the "IG", which threatened to unleash a war against Russia on a video released on the Internet.
It is no secret that the ranks of the "IG" there fighting force Georgians, mostly natives of Pankisi Gorge, where ethnic Chechens - Kistinians.
For information on how to confront radical extremists, we talked with Timur Gaurgaevym, chairman of the Interregional Association of Public Associations "Caucasian Peace Forum", Chechen-Kistinians nationality.
Everyone knows that the Pankisi Gorge in the 2000s, is the focus of the activity of various terrorist groups. How is emerging situation with countering extremism in this region of Georgia?
Timur Gaurgaev: In the early 2000s, the Pankisi Gorge has become notorious. Then, on the territory of Georgia through the Chechen section of the Russian-Georgian border has passed several thousand refugees from Chechnya, among whom there were also militants, who had a weapon. The situation reached the point that in fact the Georgian law enforcement agencies for a certain period of time lost control over the Pankisi Gorge. There have been such negative facts as kidnapping, theft of motor vehicles. There was a time, during the reign of Shevardnadze, when the law enforcement agencies of Georgia refrain from visiting the Pankisi Gorge, where the actual situation was controlled by a few hundred fighters. This situation changed in 2003, that just coincided with the beginning of the reign of Saakashvili's regime. Then the Georgian side announced a counter-terrorist operation, prior to which the militants relocated, probably in agreement with the Georgian authorities. On the territory of the gorge was carried out cleaning, and for a while even have been exposed to military posts. However, with the same period there have been actively disseminated ideas of radical Islam.
Who?
Timur Gaurgaev: Nuts & Bolts. (??)It so happened that the older generation is substantially supported and did not support the idea of radical Islam. In the late 1990s - early 2000s, when militants crossed into the territory of the Pankisi Gorge, there were a lot of representatives of radical Islam from the Chechen Republic. Later, however, there were foreigners, including Arabs and Turks. Active preaching work was carried out since the beginning of the 2000s, arriving emissaries of various international Islamic organizations. Under their influence, many young people from the Pankisi Gorge began to leave for training in theological education in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East. Many of them returned with radical beliefs. A large outflow of young people took place in 2012-13 in Syria. This is of concern not only in the immediate family, but also the elders. In fact, they would like to see representatives of the Kist ethnic group took part in the conflicts on the territory of third countries. To a certain extent, probably, these problems are related to the fact that in the villages there are no jobs, the difficult financial situation does not allow to get a decent education. Against the background of Islamization Kist youth widespread radical movements.
What happened at the exit? Today, the so-called organization "Islamic State" are involved, according to official data, 100 citizens of Georgia. Of these, the vast majority - are residents of the Pankisi Gorge and 10-15 people, probably - the inhabitants of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara.
Officially, since the participation of the citizens of Georgia in the fighting in Syria and Iraq, killing ten people. This is according to the Georgian side.
Their relatives know about it? They returned the body?
Timur Gaurgaev: According to Islamic tradition, burial rites performed in Muslim cemeteries in the area where the person died. All of these ten people who were killed in Syria and Iraq, were buried in the same place and died. But this quickly learned, as well as among Kists highly developed communication. Because it is a very small diaspora. Everybody knows each other. Now, in the age of modern technology, constant communication.
Who join the ranks of fighters "IG" from among the residents of the gorge and what positions they were doing?
Timur Gaurgaev: All those who want to fight, had already left. And here's the paradox: there they advanced to the forefront and take an active part in the fighting factions. Many individuals led her division and cell. How Come? For many it remains a mystery. There is much talk about Tarkhan Batirashvili (General "red beard", a former Georgian soldier, which is characterized by extreme cruelty) He villager Birkiani. But he went there as a simple inhabitant. But became the leader. And is if I'm not mistaken, the commander of the northern front of the organization. Enters the inner circle of the leader of the "Islamic State" Al-Baghdadi. At present, there is a very strong backbone of ten people who are warlords first link. The most famous - it Batirashvili. There is another warlord - Murad Margoshvili having authority.
We know that he was still in the Chechen campaign.
The involvement of citizens in Georgia "Islamic state" is of concern among the Georgian society and the Georgian authorities. Just the other day it became known that the Georgian Parliament will consider the issue of criminal responsibility for participation in illegal armed groups abroad and promoting terrorist activities.
How to counter the radicalization of young people?
Timur Gaurgaev: Representatives of our organization, our supporters see a way not in any radical action. Just need more professional approach to the issues of theological education. Unfortunately, the radical group has no worthy opponents that could based on the Quran and Sunnah prove his innocence. Threats against Georgian Orthodox Church and unacceptable, and discredit the Muslim population in this country. All this destabilizes interfaith peace and harmony. Today, more than ever, Muslims not only Georgia, but the world must ensure that Islam is identified with terrorism and extremism. To the canonical foundations of Islam is not distorted for political purposes and interests. To do this, at least, must be competent in matters of theological education.
It turns out that now in the gorge there are no representatives of traditional Islam, who could act, as you say, as opponents?
Timur Gaurgaev: Mostly representatives of traditional Islam are the people of the older generation, who had in the Soviet period, the possibility to receive theological education.
What is the essence of all the problems? We - one people, Chechens, were separated by the Caucasus Mountains. We have problems of transportation, communications, therefore historically so happened that we Kistinians become a little detached from the native Chechen culture, the opportunity to receive education in their native language, study it, to take up the age-old national culture.
We are talking about those Kistinians who stayed in Georgia?
Timur Gaurgaev: Yes. Accordingly, there is a certain influence of Georgian culture. I have nothing bad in it do not see it very positive, but at the same time, we must not forget their ancestral traditions, customs and culture. If you call a spade a spade, so it turned out that his home among strangers - a stranger among his.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union to move freely between the two countries, it is necessary to obtain a visa. Our organization operates as a legal entity in March 2010. From 2013 - is inter-regional organization in the Russian Federation due to the fact that we have opened representative offices, except the Chechen Republic, Stavropol Territory, in the Republic of Dagestan and Ingushetia.
The band of like-minded, the core of which is the organization began its joint social activities in 2009. In the same year, by a group of like-minded people in Grozny, the Chechen-gathering was Kists to discuss issues connected with Kist Diaspora of the Czech Republic, which emerged in the aftermath of the Georgian-Ossetian war in 2008. They were due to the fact that the representatives of Kists having citizenship of Georgia, began to arise some problems, difficulties, including the crossing of the state border, in the legal regime stay in Chechnya and other issues that we discussed during this gathering.
According to the results, we decided to descent sent an official letter to the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov. Our appeal was considered, he decided to publish the results of treatment in the national print media, we were given a platform on national television "Grozny-Inform", held a "round table" where we discuss all the pressing problems that need to be addressed. Some of these problems were solved, global issues are currently in the process of resolution. Positive developments as a result of the beginning of our organization, we are already feeling.
How many now-Kists Chechens living in Georgia?
Timur Gaurgaev: Official data are not available. According to our organization, more than 10 thousand people. In the Pankisi Gorge Chechens Kistinians densely populated in eight villages. Small nationalities during the reign of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the early 1990s began to leave these places. But Kistinians, even if moving somewhere in big cities or abroad, trying to retain the land plots, land, because there are the graves of their ancestors, for a Muslim to a Chechen play more important role.
We know that after the departure of Saakashvili in Georgia has changed the internal political life can be compared situatsiya.Kak Kists under Saakashvili and after his departure, whether the Georgian leadership promotes problem-solving, or vice versa, there are stumbling blocks that can not be overcome?
Timur Gaurgaev: Unfortunately, until now the Pankisi Gorge is not gasified. A few months ago there came the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili and the gathering of citizens promised that the issues are resolved at the workplace. And, in particular, will address the issue with the gasification of the gorge, because the XXI century, and people are forced to heat the house with wood.
Electricity is?
Timur Gaurgaev: Yes, from the beginning of the 2000s, running smoothly. And before that, too, had big problems.
All citizens Georgian passports?
Timur Gaurgaev: Yes, the vast majority of citizens - citizens of Georgia. Although there are many persons with Russian citizenship, which remained in the valley since the early 2000s.
As Chechens Kistinians refer to the process of normalization of relations between Russia and Georgia?
Timur Gaurgaev: Among ordinary people in Georgia there are a great desire and will to develop good neighborly relations not only with the Chechen Republic, but with all the republics of the North Caucasus. Ordinary people realize that they better have a good relationship with a neighbor who is near, especially in the Caucasus for many centuries settled understanding that in the most difficult moments comes in it from a neighbor.
It seems Russia is working with the Chechens to counter the western radicalization process- That will be big job- The US and company have many years of destructive teachings to undo. Hopefully it can be done
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The Russian Roots of Terrorism
I learned about the passing of former Washington Times columnist John Lofton as I was looking through an old file of clippings and found a Lofton gem entitled, “Where terrorism is rooted,” from the July 5, 1985, issue of the paper. It’s a reminder of Lofton’s important style of writing and the fact that the Islamists we face today learned their style of warfare from the Soviets, who established the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as “the fulcrum of the Soviet Union’s strategic approach” to world revolution, especially control of the Middle East.
At the time, President Reagan was battling the Soviet empire, including its support for international terrorist groups. Lofton reminded his readers of many facts about the Soviet-supported international terrorist networks. These facts are extremely relevant today.
Lofton quoted from Marx and Lenin, establishing the fact that the communists were advocates of terror from the beginning. He cited evidence of Soviet sponsorship and support of terrorist groups and personalities from the PLO, to “Carlos the Jackal,” to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the African National Congress in South Africa.
One looks back on what Lofton wrote about and has to conclude that the modern-day Islamic terrorists we face today grew out of these communist networks that the Soviets sponsored.
Discussing the communist Sandinistas—who have retaken power in Nicaragua—Lofton noted, “The Sandinistas were trained in Cuba and by the PLO. In August 1979, the European representative of the Sandinistas, Jorge Mundi, spoke of these ties, saying: ‘We have long had close relations with the Palestinians. Many of the units belonging to the Sandinista movement were at Palestinian bases in Jordan. In the early 1970s, Nicaraguan and Palestinian blood was spilled together in Amman and in other places during the Black September (a terrorist group) battles … It is natural, therefore, that during our war against Somoza we received Palestinian support for our revolution in various forms.’”
What Lofton was describing was a concrete example of how the communists and the Arabs and Muslims were collaborating in terrorism.
What we have learned since that time is that PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was actually a trained KGB operative. The case of Carlos the Jackal, the KGB-trained Marxist terrorist, is perhaps more significant. He converted to Islam.
In his column, Lofton had faulted President Reagan for not being aggressive enough in fighting the Soviets and their agents. Our problem today is that we have a President who pretends not to recognize the enemy and authorizes a half-hearted effort to stop one particular Islamist group in the Middle East, while failing to support freedom fighters in Ukraine against the main enemy—Russia.
It is not fashionable to accuse the Russians of having any ties to Middle East terrorism today. Indeed, some conservatives seem to think the U.S. and Russia can work together to defeat radical Islam.
The analyst and author Jeff Nyquist asks, “When we learn that a leading commander in ISIL was born in the Soviet Union and trained in Russia, we ought to wonder what is really going on?” Omar al-Shishani, the Russian commander in ISIL (also known as ISIS or the Islamic State), has been reported to be the group’s overall military chief.
We have heard repeatedly about Americans and Europeans fighting for ISIL, but little attention is being devoted to the Russian-speaking foreign fighters that make up the group. Their numbers are estimated at 500 or more. Omar al-Shishani is usually described as a prominent Islamic State fighter who is Chechen. In fact, he was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and was trained there.
Some reports suggest these fighters are opposed to the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria and Russia itself. But if this is the case, then why is Russia opposed to U.S. bombing of these terrorists? NBC News reports that the Russian foreign minister says airstrikes “should only go forward with Syria’s consent.”
Coming from a country that violated international law when it invaded Ukraine, this attitude makes no rational sense.
In a story headlined, “Russia condemns U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria,” The Washington Post reported this interesting piece of information: “Although the Islamic State has gripped Russian news media, there is far less public pressure to get involved in eradicating the militant movement than in the United States, where videos of militants beheading captives, including two Americans, dealt a shock to the country.”
It is indeed fascinating that ISIL has been targeting Americans and that the state-run Russian media, always anxious to label the freedom fighters in Ukraine as Nazis or fascists, are not rallying the Russian people for action against ISIS. Why? Some experts are speculating that Moscow is seeking a U.S. deal with Syria’s Assadm and even the Iranian regime, to work together to defeat this suddenly new menace. That, in turn, could lead to a deal to reward Iran with its own nuclear weapons program, supposedly as a check on Sunni “extremism,” as Obama calls it.
Before we jump to conclusions that Russia is on our side in fighting ISIS, it might be wise to examine the history of international terrorism, its Soviet roots, and Russia’s ties to these networks today. President Obama told “60 Minutes” on Sunday that the U.S. intelligence community had “underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.” So what do we know about this mysterious entity called ISIS? Could Russia be playing both sides in this conflict as part of a geopolitical game to safeguard its Iranian client state?
It might be worthwhile to consider that former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, still in the hands of the Kremlin, might have helped thwart efforts by the U.S. intelligence community to learn the truth about ISIL. It would seem to be in Moscow’s interest to hide its hand in this terrorist threat.
The urgency of this matter is impressed upon us by the revelation that the Islamist who beheaded a woman in Moore, Oklahoma had a Facebook photo of Omar al-Shishani.
As we attempt to understand the intelligence failure that Obama himself admits, it would also be wise to go back and examine the writings of conservatives like John Lofton, who were reporting the facts about Soviet terror 30 years ago. Lofton spoke with clarity and passion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke eloquently on Monday about the “poisonous tree” that has given rise to groups like ISIS and Hamas.
That tree, the evidence shows, has its roots in Moscow. That’s where the PLO—and eventually Hamas—came from. In addition to supporting a Palestinian state that could threaten Israel’s existence, it is the Putin regime in Russia that is the major international sponsor of the Iranian terrorist regime today.
Our media think that because the Soviet Union died and a modern Russia supposedly emerged in its place, these issues are irrelevant. But the head of this new Russia is a former KGB spy who wants to reconstitute the former Soviet Union. He invaded Ukraine. Is it really too much to believe that the Kremlin has had a hand in the rise of ISIS?
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The JBS Blames the Origin of ISIS on .... Russia? - PrisonPlanet Forum
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The New American ( John Birch Society publication ) 09 March 2015. The Russian Roots of ISISDespite reports of Russia and ISIS being at ...Penny for your thoughts: Russian Interview: The roots of ISIS ...
ISIS may have roots in climate change - Daily Kos
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Russian officials denounced the anticipated arrival of U.S. troops for a training mission in Ukraine a “provocation” that could result in serious consequences for “Kiev authorities and the Ukrainian people.” The training exercise, first announced last August, was scheduled to begin this month. Colonel Michael Foster of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vincenza, Italy, announced last Monday that the United States would be sending just under a battalion of soldiers to Ukraine to train troops from the Ukrainian National Guard by the end of the week. But on Friday a spokesman for U.S. forces in Europe told the Reuters news service that the training mission had been on hold indefinitely while a ceasefire agreement, reached in Minsk last month between the Ukraine government and rebel forces, remains in place.
"The U.S. government would like to see the Minsk agreement fulfilled," according to a statement issued by U.S. Army Europe. "The training mission is currently on hold but Army Europe is prepared to carry out the mission if and when our government decides to move forward," the statement said.
The announcement came along with news last week that U.S. military exercises with Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which began last April, will expand through the coming summer, with the U.S. planning to send troops to Romania and Bulgaria and possibly Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Georgia, Russia’s southern neighbor.
New agreements with former Soviet satellite nations lay the groundwork for U.S. Air Force training missions in “countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and Estonia,” according to the Air Force Times. The missions will include the use F-15 and F-16 airlift aircraft, along with the A-10 fighter plane, to “show the military's force in the region,” the Air Force Times reported.
Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army Europe, said sending U.S. arms to the Ukraine could pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to end support for Ukraine’s rebels when “mothers start seeing sons come home dead.”
“U.S.-Ukrainian military drills in the western Ukrainian Lviv region threaten Russia's security,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement carried by Tass, Moscow’s official news agency. “It is evident that they are not trying to bring peace to the country,” Lukashevich said. “Kiev authorities and all the Ukrainian people should think about the possible consequences of such steps.” Deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations, he added, will be further damaged if “the citizens of Donbas start being killed with the use of the U.S. weapons.” Donbas is a region near the Ukrainian-Russian border where separatists fighting the Kiev government have captured territory and declared autonomous “people’s republics.”
The Moscow Times, meanwhile, cited a statement by Alexander Grushko, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, warning that Moscow would, the Times said, “take all measures, including the military-technical to neutralize [a] possible threat from [the] NATO presence in Ukraine.”
As tensions rise between Russia and the West over the fighting in the Ukraine, the second-highest ranking U.S. diplomat said continued attacks by the pro-Russian separatists could increase pressure in the United States to provide lethal weapons to the Ukrainian government. The United States has already begun supplying Kiev with non-lethal equipment, including $130 million worth of protective vests, night-vision goggles, and other equipment.
"But if the aggression continues, I think there will be more and more pressure to give them other means to protect themselves," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with German radio (DLF) Friday. That in turn will trigger a response from Moscow, he cautioned.
"And you know, it's certainly true that, were any of us to provide weapons to Ukraine, Russia could match that and then double that and triple that and quadruple that," he told German Radio (DLF). "But it's also important to have in mind that the Ukrainians should be able to defend themselves and we provided significant security assistance, defensive, non-lethal security assistance to Ukraine to do just that," he said.
Washington’s decision on sending lethal aid was temporarily put off after a ceasefire agreement was reached in Minsk on February 12. But with the Kiev government and the rebels accusing each other of violating the ceasefire, President Obama and European leaders are weighing further steps in response to fighting that has killed an estimated 6,000 people since April, Reuters reported.
The United States and allied nations coupled diplomatic efforts with economic sanctions after Russia annexed the former Russian annexed Crimea last year after voters in the former Russian province approved the union in a referendum. While the rebels in Ukraine seek ties with Russia and oppose the plans of the Kiev government to join NATO, Moscow insists it has sent no Russian troops or weapons into Ukraine, a claim disputed by the United States and other Western nations. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe, estimates Russia now has 29,000 troops in Crimea and 12,000 in eastern Ukraine. Hodges believes sending U.S. weapons to Ukraine would add “muscle” to diplomacy and put pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin to end his support for the separatists.
"When mothers start seeing sons come home dead, when that price goes up, then that domestic support begins to shrink," Hodges told the Associated Press. "If you don't have something that gives muscle to the diplomacy, to the economic aspect, then it's not going to be as effective," Hodges said. What Ukraine needs is “intelligence, counter-fire capability and something that can stop a Russian tank," he said. A new NATO rapid reaction force in Europe, created in response to Russian actions in Ukraine, will include some 220 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, Hodges said.
Col. Foster of the 173rd Airborne said the training mission in Eastern Europe, called Operation Atlantic Resolve, has now expanded into north and south components.
"So by the end of the summer, you could very well see an operation that stretches from the Baltics all the way down to the Black Sea," Foster said when speaking on March 2 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "As you connect countries, there is almost a line of US troops," he said.
"Our top concern is a resurgent Russia, a Russia attempting to exercise power and influence through the use of force and intimidation," Air Force General Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO supreme allied commander, said at a House Armed services Committee hearing on February 25. Christine Wormuth, U.S. Defense Department undersecretary for policy, told the committee, "Our U.S. footprint in Europe gives us the capability to defend our security interests, to enhance trans-Atlantic security, to reassure allies and deter aggression which, again, we certainly see in a very marked way in recent times." Warmouth also said that a continued U.S. military presence in Europe depends on stable funding and Congress blocking the return of sequestration next year, she noted.
“In a time of limited resources, however, the U.S, has to be more innovative and explore new posture arrangements by increasing our flexibility, our adaptability and our readiness," Warmouth said.
The words “limited resources” merit more than a fleeting mention and momentary consideration. Last month a panel of eight former military and national security officials issued a report calling for $3 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine, including anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees and radar to determine the location of enemy rocket and artillery fire. “The West needs to bolster deterrence in Ukraine by raising the risks and costs to Russia of any renewed major offensive,” the report said. “That requires providing direct military assistance — in far larger amounts than provided to date and including lethal defensive arms.”
But what about the risks and costs to the United States of a growing involvement in a conflict on the Russian border? What will likely follow if U.S. military advisors are sent to Ukraine and then killed in attacks on the Ukrainian forces they are training? Will it lead to more U.S. support troops and eventually entire combat units going into the Ukraine to protect the troops that are already there, a scenario we saw played out with such disastrous results in Vietnam?
The United States has endured a nearly decade-long war in Iraq and another war in Afghanistan lasting for more than 13 years — two wars costing trillions of dollars in addition to lost lives and maimed bodies. We are currently engaged in the beginning of an undeclared war with the Islamic State. Why should we now be spending billions on a war in Ukraine? What “security interests” of the United States would be served by confronting Russia with “a line of U.S. troops,” tanks, planes and arms, stretching “from the Baltics all the way down to the Black Sea"?
Russian military advisors are not, so far as we know, in Canada or Mexico. They were once in Cuba during a missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. So why are we now engaged in a new conflict with our old adversary?
The crisis in the Ukraine has roots in the November 21 European Union summit in Lithuania when then-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych rejected the EU’s offer of partial membership, choosing instead to join Russia’s Communion Union. The Ukraine president passed on an offer of $1.5 million from the International Monetary Fund that was contingent on IMF-mandated cuts in domestic spending. Another $850 million would be available from the World Bank if Kiev cooperated with the IMF. Yanukovych opted instead for Russia’s offer of $15 billion in loans, along with steep discounts on oil and gas.
The decision was not well received in the West, where European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso announced the European Union would not accept what he described as “Russia’s veto” of the EU offer to Ukraine. Victoria Nuland, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, said the United States had invested $5 billion and five years of work in promoting Ukraine’s “European aspirations.” In a meeting with Yanukovych, she made it “absolutely clear” to the sovereign head of state that the United States required “immediate steps” by Ukraine to “get back into conversation with Europe and the IMF.”
The political pressure sparked a rift between Europe–oriented citizens in the western part of Ukraine and the Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east who have ethnic and cultural ties to “Mother Russia.” Mostly young, pro-Western demonstrators filled Kiev’s Maidan Square, egged on by high-level U.S. visitors including Nuland and Senator John McCain. Western non-governmental organizations were also in Kiev organizing and encouraging the demonstrations. Prominent among them was the National Endowment for Democracy, a Reagan-era creation to promote political unrest against targeted regimes. Allen Weinstein, the original project director, said in 1991 that "a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." William F. Jasper reported at <a href="http://TheNewAmerica.com" rel="nofollow">TheNewAmerica.com</a> that left-wing billionaire George Soros of <a href="http://MoveOn.org" rel="nofollow">MoveOn.org</a> fame was also in on the action:
Many of the participants in Kiev’s “EuroMaidan” demonstrations were members of Soros-funded NGOs and/or were trained by the same NGOs in the many workshops and conferences sponsored by Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), and his various Open Society institutes and foundations. The IRF, founded and funded by Soros, boasts that it has given “more than any other donor organization” to “democratic transformation” of Ukraine.
When the protests grew violent — with demonstrators throwing up barricades, seizing government buildings and demanding the overthrow of the regime — Yanukovych sent in the police. Violence escalated after the imposition of new anti-protest laws in January 2014. Riots left 98 dead, 15,000 injured, and 100 missing. By the end of February 2014, the Parliament declared that Yanukovych, elected four years earlier, was no longer able to fulfill his duties. A new election was held on May 25 and Petro Poroshenko, running on a pro-European Union platform, won in a multi-candidate field, garnering more 50 percent of the vote.
Two days later, the Parliament issued a warrant for Yanukovych’s arrest for the "mass killing of civilians." The ex-president fled the country and is said to be living in Russia. Evidence of the U.S. role in bringing about his downfall includes a January 30, 2014 “Media Note" on the State Department's website announcing Nuland’s upcoming travel plans: “In Kyiv,” the note read, “Assistant Secretary Nuland will meet with government officials, opposition leaders, civil society and business leaders to encourage agreement on a new government and plan of action.”
“In other words,” wrote Renee Parsons at Counterpunch.org, “almost a month before President Yanukovych was ousted, the US was planning to rid the world of another independently elected President.” Further evidence of U.S. involvement in the “regime change” was discovered in a taped conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt regarding who should and should not be in the new government in Kiev. The conversation took place on February 4, 2014 — again, nearly a month before Yanukovych’s ouster.
“I think we’re in play,” Pyatt told Nuland. "The [Vitali] Klitsch piece is obviously the complicated electron here especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister.”
After more discussion about Klitsch and a few other names, Nuland told Pyatt: “I don’t think Klitsch should go into government. I don’t think its necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Economically, diplomatically, and militarily, it is clear the government of the United States is in the business of trying to govern the entire world. A look around the world suggests the project is not faring too well, though the men and women directing American foreign policy seem not to have noticed. Our nation’s “limited resources” are no match for their boundless vision of a “new world order.”
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Despite reports of Russia and ISIS being at odds with one another, further research points to Russian security services (FSB, successor to the Soviet KGB) and military intelligence (GRU) behind the very threat while ostensibly opposing it.
"The banner of Islam may lead into [the] struggle for liberation," declared Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) on February 23, 1981.
When Brezhnev said these words in his "Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVI Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" at the Kremlin, he had just finished exalting the recent Islamic Revolution in Iran as being "essentially an anti-imperialist revolution," and as a successful example of the many national liberation movements supported by the Soviet Union in its two-fold global objectives of building world communism and defeating Western "colonialism and imperialism." Brezhnev's Soviet policy of building communism under the guise of Islam eventually culminated in the Soviet creation of the USSR Islamic Revival Parties in the late 1980s.
In 1990, the inaugural congress of the Islamic Revival Party was hosted in Astrakhan, an oblast, or administrative division, in the lower Volga region of Russia bordering Kazakhstan. Around the same time, the USSR also authorized the establishment of Islamic Revival Parties in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR, now Tajikistan) and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR, now Uzbekistan). Rather than Marxism-Leninism, like the CPSU, which authorized the establishment of the Islamic Revival Parties, the Islamic Revival Parties proclaim a fundamental Islamist ideology.
In the book Islam V Astrakhanskom Regione (2008), which contains many copies of official documents issued by the Islamic Revival Party Congress, one particular Islamic Revival Party activist is quoted as saying, "We are labeled extremists. But this is not true; we simply support the purity of Islam and its precepts. We will have to revive our own religion throughout the whole world."
With the Soviet authorization of the Islamic Revival Parties in the Muslim-populated areas of the USSR, the CPSU had provided the more radicalized Muslims of the USSR with a political home from which to further voice their message at home and abroad throughout the Muslim world.
One of the early founders of the USSR Islamic Revival Party was the late Chechen terrorist and Wahhabist ideologue Supyan Abdullayev, originally born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. According to the daily Moscow-based newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets, formerly the periodical organ of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, "Abdullayev stood on the positions of radicalism well before the collapse of the USSR and the organization of the 'Islamic Revival Party'." The Moskovskij Komsomolets further reported:
According to some reports, back in the 1980s Abdullayev was recruited by the KGB. Since 1991, he actively participated the rebellions in Chechnya starting with the first Chechen campaign fought against federal troops. By 1996, he was appointed deputy commander of the famous "Islamic battalion." In August of the same year he participated in the attack on Grozny.
Then Aslan Maskhadov appointed Supyan Abdullayev to the position of deputy head of the Ministry of State Security Sharia (the equivalent of our FSB). [Translated from Russian.]
Aslan Maskhadov was the third president of the self-declared Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, until his death on March 8, 2005. And like Abdullayev, Maskhadov was also born in the Kazakh SSR. It was during Maskhadov's reign that Abdullayev rose to the rank of brigadier general. Abdullayev remained loyal to Maskhadov until his death.
Abdullayev then joined the Caucasian Emirate, where he again quickly rose through the ranks serving as one of their leading field commanders and chief ideologist for its leader Dokka Umarov. Originally organized as the Caucus Front or Caucasian Mujahadeen, the Caucasian Emirate is a separatist militant Salafist Jihadist terrorist organization allied with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the al-Nusra Front in Syria, and ISIS. In fact, Abu Omar al-Shishani, one of ISIS' top field commanders, admitted in an interview with the jihadist Russian-language website Beladusham.com that he arrived to fight in Syria "on the orders of Amir Abu Uthman (Dokka Umarov) and for a certain amount of time he has supported us financially." [Translated from Russian.]
In an interview with DELFI, a daily news website servicing Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine, former Chechen Prime Minister Akhmed Zakayev admitted that Umarov was in fact an asset of Russian security services, the FSB and GRU (Russian military intelligence):
We announced it many times. In 2007, Umarov declared war to America, Great Britain and Israel. Before this statement, Dokka was in the radar of Russian secret services, but was released by some miracle, and announced this statement. Umarov is under full command of Russian special services. To this day he was (and will be, I'm sure) performing the tasks assigned to him by these structures.
If this admission holds accurate, it would further corroborate that Russia is behind the very Islamic terrorism while ostensibly opposing it. Umarov's 2007 declaration of war against not only America and Great Britain, but also the Jewish state of Israel, would also be consistent with the KGB's historic role in fermenting Islamic terrorism under the guise of Muslim fears and hatred toward Israel.
In his book Disinformation (2013), former high-ranking Soviet-bloc defector Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa — who served as chief of the Securitate, the Department of State Security for Communist Romania — revealed Moscow and the KGB's role in exploiting and radicalizing Islamic anti-Semitism and terrorism against Israel in particular:
By 1972, Andropov's disinformation machinery was working around the clock to persuade the Islamic world that Israel and the United States intended to transform the rest of the world into a Zionist fiefdom. According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of American-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxism-Leninism thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The message was simple: The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology.
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was the longest serving chairman of the KGB, from 1967 to 1982, and briefly held the position of general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (GS-CPSU) from 1982 until his unexpected death in 1984. In Disinformation, Pacepa elaborated on how Andropov's KGB accomplished its anti-Semitic exploitation and radicalization of Muslims:
The Securitate's first major dezinformatsiya task in the new World War III was to help Moscow reignite anti-Semitism in Western Europe by spreading thousands of copies of an old Russian forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in that part of the world. It had to be done secretly, so no one would know the publications came from the Soviet bloc.
According to Pacepa, "The Protocols, which claimed that the Jews were plotting to take over the world, was a Russian forgery, compiled by a disinformation expert, Petr Ivanovich Rachovsky, who worked for the Okhrana (Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order) in the days of the tsar."
To this day copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, translated in Arabic and Farsi, are circulated throughout the Middle East and Muslim world and remain on the top reading lists for jihadists. In light of decades of Soviet sponsorship of international terrorism and aforementioned FSB connections to ISIS reported in this article, the Kremlin's role behind ISIS is becoming increasinly more evident.
Photo of the Kremlin: NVO
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