The Spread of the Caliphate: The [Wannabe] Islamic State

This too shall pass.
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Re: How long befoe Iraq falls to Al Qaeda?

Post by Simple Minded »

Enki wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
Good to know that the supposed manly men of the Republicrat party still favour dropping nuclear weapons on civilians.
When it comes to waging war in the 21st century, Republicans are as weak as kittens compared to the Democrats of the 20th century!
Democrats are far more effective at it, but Republicans like it more.
welcome back bro.

I agree with the first part of your statement, the second part seems penned by someone who was still a teenager in the 1990s.
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Re: How long before Iraq falls to Al Qaeda?

Post by Doc »

Secular Iraq falls to ISIS

The question is no longer when. but "How far?" "How hard?" and "How long?"


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... tional_pop
Islamic extremist impose reign of terror on Iraq

By Anmar Al Shamary And Gilgamesh Nabeel | USA Today August 4 at 1:00 PM

BAGHDAD — Police cars have been repainted to say “Islamic police.” Women are forbidden from wearing bright colors and prints. The homes of Shiites and others have signs stating they are property of the Islamic State. And everyone walks in fear amid a new reign of terror.

That’s what life is like in Mosul, Tikrit and other cities in northern and western Iraq under the control of Islamic extremists after their lightning-fast military campaign that overwhelmed the Iraqi army in June.

The new normal for these residents means daily decrees about attire and raids to root out religious minorities in a campaign to impose strict Islamic rule in cities that tolerated multiple religions for centuries.

Residents chafe at the radical changes, and some are starting to rebel against the militants as they try to “cleanse” the region of anything — and anyone — deemed non-Islamic. As many Christians in Mosul have discovered, their only choice is fleeing.

“I was shocked when I heard the new decision forcing me to wear a veil and totally cover my face,” said Mais Mohamad, 25, a pharmacist in Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. “I can’t do that — I was always free to wear what I like. I can’t live the rest of my life with my face covered.”

The militants, an al-Qaida splinter group so radical that it was rejected even by al-Qaida, initially concentrated on providing services such as sanitation and restoring order. The group, which insists on being called the Islamic State, issued religious decrees soon after taking over the city but didn’t enforce them, residents said.

Over the past few weeks, the group has begun to crack down in an effort to fulfill its ambition to create an Islamic territory spanning Iraq and neighboring Syria.

“The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (the group’s original name) decided that anybody who utters their (old) name will get 70 lashes,” said Ghaida’a Al-Rasool, a doctor in Mosul. “Their new name is simply the Islamic State.”

The group has established Islamic courts controlled by muftis, or Muslim religious leaders. Fighters regularly drive through the streets in trucks using loudspeakers to inform residents about changes.

“They have told clothing merchants to sell what they have within 20 days and then only jubbas are allowed,” said Saad Al-Hayali, an engineer in Mosul, referring to flowing, one-piece robes worn by Muslims throughout the Middle East. “They have forbidden dressing rooms inside stores, too.”

More worrisome for residents is the Islamic State’s move to cleanse its strongholds. Christians and other minorities were given an ultimatum: Convert to Islam or face execution.

“I left from my home when we received the threat,” said Abir Gerges, 45, a Christian schoolteacher who fled to Irbil, a city in Kurdistan, a semiautonomous region of Iraq protected by its own military force.

“I told my husband, ‘We have to leave,’ ” said Gerges, a mother of three boys. “He hesitated, saying, ‘How can I leave the house I inherited from my parents?’ But I told him they might kill us and kill our sons in front of us. What are we going to do with a house if that happens? So he decided to listen to me, and we took our money and my jewelry and a bag of clothes and left.”

Gerges and her family quickly saw the scope of the militants’ rule when they came upon a checkpoint far outside Mosul.

“I put on a veil, trying to hide, but they asked if we were Christian,” she said. “We were afraid to lie to them, so we said yes. One of them — he was masked — advanced toward me and said, ‘You must remove all the jewelry you are wearing. Now it’s Islamic State property.’ Also they confiscated all my husband’s money. Afterward, they said, ‘Now you can go. That’s punishment for your refusal to be Muslim.’”

The new rulers are wiping out traces of churches and ancient shrines.

“The churches are closed,” said Al-Rasool, the Mosul doctor. “Yesterday, I saw an old church in the streets of the Ras al-Kur historic district. The doors of the church were walled off with cement and blocks.”

City Hall employees are expected to continue coming to work, but tolerance for non-Sunni Muslims is slight.

“They have reduced municipal employees’ salaries by half of their former amount, and they’ve told the Christians, Shiites and Shabak (minorities), ‘You are fired,’ ” Al-Rasool said.

The few Christians and Muslim minorities who remain live secretly, in fear of being discovered.

“I am still in Mosul, and I know for sure I will be dead if they know I am here,” said Hassan Ali, 55, a Turkmen Shiite and father of three daughters. “But what can I do? I can’t afford to move somewhere else. I prefer to die here rather than dying in refugee camps with no services and no food.”

It is left to underpaid Sunni workers to restore city services and repair electrical lines and water treatment facilities that were heavily bombarded by retreating government forces. Under the Islamic State, electricity is rationed, water pumps run dry, gas prices are spiking and shortages of daily necessities are common.

The new hardships of daily living are particularly difficult for women and children. Though women are not barred from walking alone outside, the atmosphere has prompted many to remain indoors, keeping their children close at hand because schools have shut down.

“They want all women to be veiled and not to go outside without a man,” said Omer Othman, 37, a shopkeeper. “This is a disaster for women. They used to perform half of the family’s daily tasks.”

The Islamic State on Sunday seized two more small towns in northern Iraq, Zumar and Sinjar, both religiously mixed, forcing thousands of residents to flee, the United Nations said.

But the extremists may have gone too far when they started blowing up revered tombs and mosques that did not conform to their religious views, such as the burial site of biblical prophet Jonah.

“It brought out the conscience of Mosul residents,” said Al-Rasool, the doctor, referring to Jonah’s tomb. “All people from all religions and ethnic groups revere this site — it is the guardian and heart of the city.”

Atheel Al-Nujaifi, the governor of Mosul, announced last week that a popular rebellion against the militants will start soon.

The Islamic State “behaved very nice at the beginning of the takeover of Mosul, but they start to uncover their ugly faces. They blew up three prophets’ graves, which opened my eyes,” said Othman, the shopkeeper. “I think people won’t be standing for these injustices, and they might rise up against them very soon.”
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: How long befoe Iraq falls to Al Qaeda?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Enki wrote: Democrats are far more effective at it,
After Truman (Korea) and Johnson (Vietnam)? No...
but Republicans like it more.
After "I'm good at killing people" obama? No...
Censorship isn't necessary
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Re: How long befoe Iraq falls to Al Qaeda?

Post by Doc »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Enki wrote: Democrats are far more effective at it,
After Truman (Korea) and Johnson (Vietnam)? No...
Don't forget Wilson and teh peace of Paris. Clinton and Rwanda. Roosevelt and Pearl harbor. Now there was a president highly effective at getting the US into war.
but Republicans like it more.
After "I'm good at killing people" obama? No...
Yep he doesn't even need a court. Also highly effective at spying on the other branches of government. I wonder what effect that had on the justice Roberts during the Obamacare decision when he switched his vote at the last minute?
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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The Spread of the Caliphate: The [Wannabe] Islamic State

Post by Parodite »

bsCZzpmbEcs
Gepubliceerd op 7 aug. 2014


Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News

The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced their intention to reestablish the caliphate and declared their leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during recent advances in Iraq, the Islamic State’s expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

Elsewhere in territory it has held for some time, the Islamic State has gone about consolidating power and setting up a government dictated by Sharia law. While the world may not recognize the Islamic State, in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group is already in the process of building a functioning regime.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings. In part one, Dairieh heads to the frontline in Raqqa, where Islamic State fighters are laying siege to the Syrian Army’s division 17 base.

Watch our 5 Part documentary 'The Battle for Iraq' - http://bit.ly/1nmit6C

Read Now: Total Chaos in Northern Iraq as Islamic State Takes Country's Largest Dam - http://bit.ly/1yaqbSO

Check out the VICE News beta for more: http://vicenews.com

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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Doc »

What I didn't see, at least in the first part is teh sher brutality of ISIS Ragga is considered crucifixion central in ISIS held territory

Syrian rebels crucified: Islamic extremists execute two men in the most public way for 'fighting against Muslims'

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced it had executed seven prisoners, including two by crucifixion
Group said it held the seven responsible for grenade attack this month
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... slims.html
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Parodite »

Doc wrote:What I didn't see, at least in the first part is teh sher brutality of ISIS Ragga is considered crucifixion central in ISIS held territory

Syrian rebels crucified: Islamic extremists execute two men in the most public way for 'fighting against Muslims'

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced it had executed seven prisoners, including two by crucifixion
Group said it held the seven responsible for grenade attack this month
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... slims.html
It's horrific. These guys are a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein, Pakistan and Taliban together. Totally mental.
Deep down I'm very superficial
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Parodite »

Deep down I'm very superficial
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Doc »

Parodite wrote:
Doc wrote:What I didn't see, at least in the first part is teh sher brutality of ISIS Ragga is considered crucifixion central in ISIS held territory

Syrian rebels crucified: Islamic extremists execute two men in the most public way for 'fighting against Muslims'

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant announced it had executed seven prisoners, including two by crucifixion
Group said it held the seven responsible for grenade attack this month
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... slims.html
It's horrific. These guys are a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein, Pakistan and Taliban together. Totally mental.
Yes apparently part of their strategy to win the war quickly. The idea is to terrorize the enemy and attack before it has a chance to regroup and put up a sustained fight.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Doc »

Most complete story I have seen to date

I have seen some reports saying that ISIS is not capable of keeping the Mosul dam from collapsing for more than one year. When it goes 100's of thousands may die. Otherwise I have highlighted the important parts.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 522#slide2
Barack Obama warns of ‘long-term’ Iraq strikes
Michael D Shear & Tim Arango,NYT News Service | Aug 9, 2014, 10.17 PM IST

WASHINGTON: Laying the groundwork for an extended air-strike campaign against Sunni militants in Iraq, President Obama, on Saturday said that the strikes that began the day before could continue for months as the Iraqis build a new government.

"I don't think we're going to solve this problem in weeks," Obama told reporters before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha's Vineyard. "This is going to be a long-term project."

The president repeated his insistence that the United States would not send ground combat troops back to Iraq. But he pledged that the United States and other countries would stand with Iraqi leaders against the militants if the leaders build an inclusive government in the months ahead.

READ ALSO: Full coverage of the crisis in Iraq

Prompted by the seizure of the dam by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, along with the dire circumstances of tens of thousands of civilians stranded in the mountains near Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, President Obama quickly ordered airdrops of humanitarian aid and air strikes on militant positions near the Kurdish capital, Erbil.

As ISIS consolidates its control of territory, it has acted brutally, carrying out executions and forcing out minority groups. But it has also displayed the intent to act strategically when it comes to natural resources, highlighted by the call on Saturday for engineers on the dam to get back to work.

Its control over the dam, however, also gives the group the ability to create a civilian catastrophe: A break in the fragile dam could unleash a tidal wave over the city of Mosul and cause flooding and countless deaths along the Tigris river south to Baghdad and beyond, experts have said.


An image taken from a video released by Welayat Nineveh Media office, allegedly shows the trademark Jihadits flag on top of a building at Mosul dam (AFP)

The ISIS order came as residents in Mosul reported that nearly two dozen bodies of ISIS fighters, said to be killed in American air strikes, arrived at the city's morgue, while at least 30 wounded fighters were being treated at a hospital.

In Baghdad, efforts by leaders to name a replacement for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shia, stalled, with Maliki clinging to power and rivals unable to decide on an alternative. A session of Parliament scheduled for Sunday — where leaders had been expected to nominate a new prime minister — was postponed until Monday, as some Shia leaders rushed to Iran, which holds enormous power in Iraq, and Sunni politicians visited Erbil to confer with the Kurds.

"Until this moment, nothing has changed," said Kamal al-Saadi, a member of Parliament from Maliki's bloc. "We are sticking with our only candidate, Maliki."

Earlier, Obama had suggested that wider American military support, including an expansion of the air strikes could come if Iraqi leaders formed a national unity government with meaningful roles for the country's two main minority groups, Sunnis and Kurds. Without saying so explicitly, American officials have been quietly working to replaceMr. Maliki because they believe that he is incapable of uniting the country to face the militant threat.

On Saturday, Obama said an inclusive Iraqi government would give all Iraqis a reason to believe that they were represented and help give Iraqi military forces a reason to fight back against the militants.

His announcement prompted immediate criticism from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who said in an interview by telephone from Vietnam that the president's vision for the campaign was insufficient to fight "the richest, most powerful terrorist organization in history".


Yazidi children rest at a camp of refugees fleeing from Islamic State forces, by a roadside in Dohuk, Iraq (New York Times photo)

The United States, on Saturday, continued its efforts to address the crisis in Iraq, as three American military cargo planes, escorted by Navy F-18 fighter jets, dropped more food and water on Mount Sinjar to help refugees who fled there under threat from the Sunni militants.

The humanitarian assistance came after a day of military strikes by Navy warplanes and Predator drones on ISIS artillery positions. The planes — one C-17 and two C-130s — dropped more than 28,000 ready-to-eat meals and more than 1,500 gallons of fresh drinking water, the Pentagon said. That brings the number of meals delivered to the refugees to 36,224 in the last two days.

In London, foreign secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement on television that Royal Air Force planes would begin humanitarian airdrops in northern Iraq "imminently".

Britain announced on Friday that it would support the American relief effort there but would avoid military action. Britain was a close ally of the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in operations in Afghanistan, but its appetite for overseas military deployments has faded. Last year, Parliament refused to authorize military action in Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons in the civil war there.

ISIS's advance northward over the last week appears to be a shift in strategy, as the group had previously announced its intent to march on Baghdad. That was stalled when Shia militias quickly mobilized to defend the capital.

While ISIS has been the most prominent fighting force of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, its gains could not have come without the support of other Sunni groups, experts say, including fighters aligned with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which is not sympathetic to the religious extremism of ISIS but is seen as more intent on taking the fight to Baghdad and trying to topple the central government.

In a recent statement, the Iraqi Baath Party condemned ISIS's attacks on the Kurdish region, suggesting emerging fissures in the alliance of Sunni resistance. "We categorically reject the fight against Kurdistan," the statement said. "Kurdistan and its government were a safe haven to all Iraqis."

The statement added, "We call on all military brigades to move on Baghdad instead."



Aircraft carrier George HW Bush, which has been assigned to support a mission in Iraq, in the Arabian Gulf (New York Times photo)

As ISIS went to work securing the Mosul Dam on Saturday, its fighters appeared to make progress in an battle for control of the Haditha Dam, Iraq's second largest, which sits on the Euphrates River farther south in Anbar Province. Security forces said militants had destroyed a strategic bridge near the town of Barwana, which government forces had been using to resupply fighting units.

Within ISIS-controlled territory, the new American involvement in Iraq has become a rallying cry. With the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has declared areas under his control in Iraq and Syria a new Islamic caliphate, calling for jihad against the United States, imams have called on citizens to fight the United States.

One preacher in Falluja, which has been under ISIS control since the end of last year, said at Friday Prayer: "We know there comes a day to fight the United States. We are ready to march towards Erbil and Baghdad. The Islamic State will not be defeated and we are willing to keep pursuing jihad, according to the plans."
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Terrible Things...

Post by monster_gardener »

Doc wrote:Most complete story I have seen to date

I have seen some reports saying that ISIS is not capable of keeping the Mosul dam from collapsing for more than one year. When it goes 100's of thousands may die. Otherwise I have highlighted the important parts.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 522#slide2
Barack Obama warns of ‘long-term’ Iraq strikes
Michael D Shear & Tim Arango,NYT News Service | Aug 9, 2014, 10.17 PM IST

WASHINGTON: Laying the groundwork for an extended air-strike campaign against Sunni militants in Iraq, President Obama, on Saturday said that the strikes that began the day before could continue for months as the Iraqis build a new government.

"I don't think we're going to solve this problem in weeks," Obama told reporters before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha's Vineyard. "This is going to be a long-term project."

The president repeated his insistence that the United States would not send ground combat troops back to Iraq. But he pledged that the United States and other countries would stand with Iraqi leaders against the militants if the leaders build an inclusive government in the months ahead.

READ ALSO: Full coverage of the crisis in Iraq

Prompted by the seizure of the dam by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, along with the dire circumstances of tens of thousands of civilians stranded in the mountains near Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, President Obama quickly ordered airdrops of humanitarian aid and air strikes on militant positions near the Kurdish capital, Erbil.

As ISIS consolidates its control of territory, it has acted brutally, carrying out executions and forcing out minority groups. But it has also displayed the intent to act strategically when it comes to natural resources, highlighted by the call on Saturday for engineers on the dam to get back to work.

Its control over the dam, however, also gives the group the ability to create a civilian catastrophe: A break in the fragile dam could unleash a tidal wave over the city of Mosul and cause flooding and countless deaths along the Tigris river south to Baghdad and beyond, experts have said.


An image taken from a video released by Welayat Nineveh Media office, allegedly shows the trademark Jihadits flag on top of a building at Mosul dam (AFP)

The ISIS order came as residents in Mosul reported that nearly two dozen bodies of ISIS fighters, said to be killed in American air strikes, arrived at the city's morgue, while at least 30 wounded fighters were being treated at a hospital.

In Baghdad, efforts by leaders to name a replacement for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shia, stalled, with Maliki clinging to power and rivals unable to decide on an alternative. A session of Parliament scheduled for Sunday — where leaders had been expected to nominate a new prime minister — was postponed until Monday, as some Shia leaders rushed to Iran, which holds enormous power in Iraq, and Sunni politicians visited Erbil to confer with the Kurds.

"Until this moment, nothing has changed," said Kamal al-Saadi, a member of Parliament from Maliki's bloc. "We are sticking with our only candidate, Maliki."

Earlier, Obama had suggested that wider American military support, including an expansion of the air strikes could come if Iraqi leaders formed a national unity government with meaningful roles for the country's two main minority groups, Sunnis and Kurds. Without saying so explicitly, American officials have been quietly working to replaceMr. Maliki because they believe that he is incapable of uniting the country to face the militant threat.

On Saturday, Obama said an inclusive Iraqi government would give all Iraqis a reason to believe that they were represented and help give Iraqi military forces a reason to fight back against the militants.

His announcement prompted immediate criticism from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who said in an interview by telephone from Vietnam that the president's vision for the campaign was insufficient to fight "the richest, most powerful terrorist organization in history".


Yazidi children rest at a camp of refugees fleeing from Islamic State forces, by a roadside in Dohuk, Iraq (New York Times photo)

The United States, on Saturday, continued its efforts to address the crisis in Iraq, as three American military cargo planes, escorted by Navy F-18 fighter jets, dropped more food and water on Mount Sinjar to help refugees who fled there under threat from the Sunni militants.

The humanitarian assistance came after a day of military strikes by Navy warplanes and Predator drones on ISIS artillery positions. The planes — one C-17 and two C-130s — dropped more than 28,000 ready-to-eat meals and more than 1,500 gallons of fresh drinking water, the Pentagon said. That brings the number of meals delivered to the refugees to 36,224 in the last two days.

In London, foreign secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement on television that Royal Air Force planes would begin humanitarian airdrops in northern Iraq "imminently".

Britain announced on Friday that it would support the American relief effort there but would avoid military action. Britain was a close ally of the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in operations in Afghanistan, but its appetite for overseas military deployments has faded. Last year, Parliament refused to authorize military action in Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons in the civil war there.

ISIS's advance northward over the last week appears to be a shift in strategy, as the group had previously announced its intent to march on Baghdad. That was stalled when Shia militias quickly mobilized to defend the capital.

While ISIS has been the most prominent fighting force of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, its gains could not have come without the support of other Sunni groups, experts say, including fighters aligned with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which is not sympathetic to the religious extremism of ISIS but is seen as more intent on taking the fight to Baghdad and trying to topple the central government.

In a recent statement, the Iraqi Baath Party condemned ISIS's attacks on the Kurdish region, suggesting emerging fissures in the alliance of Sunni resistance. "We categorically reject the fight against Kurdistan," the statement said. "Kurdistan and its government were a safe haven to all Iraqis."

The statement added, "We call on all military brigades to move on Baghdad instead."



Aircraft carrier George HW Bush, which has been assigned to support a mission in Iraq, in the Arabian Gulf (New York Times photo)

As ISIS went to work securing the Mosul Dam on Saturday, its fighters appeared to make progress in an battle for control of the Haditha Dam, Iraq's second largest, which sits on the Euphrates River farther south in Anbar Province. Security forces said militants had destroyed a strategic bridge near the town of Barwana, which government forces had been using to resupply fighting units.

Within ISIS-controlled territory, the new American involvement in Iraq has become a rallying cry. With the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has declared areas under his control in Iraq and Syria a new Islamic caliphate, calling for jihad against the United States, imams have called on citizens to fight the United States.

One preacher in Falluja, which has been under ISIS control since the end of last year, said at Friday Prayer: "We know there comes a day to fight the United States. We are ready to march towards Erbil and Baghdad. The Islamic State will not be defeated and we are willing to keep pursuing jihad, according to the plans."
Thank You VERY MUCH for your post, Doc.

"We know there comes a day to fight the United States. .............. The Islamic State will not be defeated and we are willing to keep pursuing jihad, according to the plans."

Last night I saw their mass executions and Vile brag that the EVIL Black Flag of the Caliphate would fly over the White House!

Similar has happened before to people who did NOT take Murderous Islamic Religious Fanatics like this seriously.....

Persian Empire...... :shock:

Byzantine Empire..... :shock:

It almost happened even when wise, brave, diligent and strong people did take these Killer Klowns From Islamic Space VERY seriously such as when Charles the Hammer stopped them at Tours in France and when King Jan Sobieski of Poland stopped them at the Gates of Vienna....

I think these Bad Boyz intend to be Third Time Lucky :shock: :roll:

I believe that unless the US and the West are very lucky, terrible things will be done to US & the West.....

Like 911 on Steroid....

And TERRIBLE Things may have to be done to prevent more of that.....

Have heard that there are hundreds of alleged Westerners fighting on the side of the Caliphate... :shock: :evil:

Something drastic needs to be done to assure that these traitors are stopped permanently before they do damage here....

IMHO going to need a President like Andrew Jackson instead of a Lying Son of a Bitch Eating Alleged Former Muslim Incompetent like obama who still loves the hear the caterwauling of the Muslim Mosque..... :roll:
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Doc »

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... story.html
Fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates to join Islamic State, U.S. officials say

Kashmiri demonstrators hold up Palestinian flags and a flag of the Islamic State during a demonstration against Israeli military operations in Gaza, in downtown Srinagar on July 18, 2014. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images)
By Greg Miller August 9 at 4:22 PM

U.S. spy agencies have begun to see groups of fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Africa to join the rival Islamist organization that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria and been targeted in American airstrikes, U.S. officials said.

The movements are seen by U.S. ­counterterrorism analysts as a worrisome indication of the expanding appeal of a group known as the Islamic State that has overwhelmed military forces in the region and may now see itself in direct conflict with the United States.

“Small groups from a number of al-Qaeda affiliates have defected to ISIS,” as the group is also known, said a U.S. official with access to classified intelligence assessments. “And this problem will probably become more acute as ISIS continues to rack up victories.”

The influx has strengthened an organization already regarded as a menacing force in the Middle East, one that has toppled a series of Iraqi cities by launching assaults so quickly and in so many directions that security forces caught in the group’s path have so far been unable to respond with anything but retreat.

U.S. officials attribute the Islamic State’s rapid emergence to factors both psychological and tactical. Its core group of fighters honed their skills against the armies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the United States when it occupied Iraq. The group has used raids and ransoms to stockpile weapons and cash. And its merciless reputation triggered rampant defections among Sunni members of Iraq’s security forces already disenchanted with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

Iraqi civilians fled as mass panic set in with the retreat of Kurdish forces from Islamic State militants. Meanwhile, President Obama approved humanitarian airdrops to besieged Iraqis escaping the Sunni extremists.
Aug. 9, 2014 Iraqi Christians who fled from the violence in their home towns rest at St. Joseph Church in Irbil, northern Iraq. Mohammed Jalil/European Pressphoto Agency

Even before its assault on Kurdish territories in northern Iraq this month, analysts said the Islamic State had shown an almost impulsive character in its pursuit of territory and recruits, with little patience for the elaborate and often time-consuming terror plots favored by al-Qaeda.

Counterterrorism analysts at the CIA and other agencies have so far seen no indication that an entire al-Qaeda node or any of its senior leaders are prepared to switch sides. But officials said they have begun watching for signs of such a development.

The launching of U.S. airstrikes has raised new questions, including whether the bombings will hurt the Islamic State’s ability to draw recruits or elevate its status among jihadists. “Does that increase the spigot or close it?” said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity and noted that U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere have crippled al-Qaeda but also served as rallying cries against the United States.

Longer-term, U.S. officials expressed concern that the Islamic State, which so far has been focused predominantly on its goal of reestablishing an Islamic caliphate, may now place greater emphasis on carrying out attacks against the United States and its allies.

President Obama was careful to depict the strikes as part of a humanitarian mission to protect endangered Iraqis, including members of a Christian sect, encircled with scant supplies on a northern Iraq mountaintop. Obama also referred to the presence of U.S. personnel in the region and stopped short of authorizing a broader assault against the Islamic State.

Still, the strikes triggered widespread calls for retaliation among militant groups online. A prominent figure on a well-known jihadist forum, Shumukh al-Islam, wrote Friday that the airstrikes should prompt fighters to unite against the United States.

“The mujahideen must strike and seek to execute proactive operations in their own home, America, to discipline America and its criminal soldiers,” the jihadist, Abu al-Ayna al-Khorasani, wrote, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant postings.
View Graphic

U.S. officials said the defections to the Islamic State have come primarily from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based group that has launched several bombing plots targeting the United States, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which had seized territory in northern Mali before facing strikes carried out by France last year.

“It’s not to the point where it’s causing splintering within the affiliates,” said the senior U.S. counterterrorism official. But the defections have accelerated in recent months, officials said, and also involve fighters from groups in Libya and elsewhere that are not formally part of al-Qaeda.

U.S. officials estimate that the Islamic State has as many as 10,000 fighters, including 3,000 to 5,000 from countries beyond its base in Iraq and Syria. Its ranks have swelled with the emergence of the civil war in Syria — a country relatively easy to reach from both in the Middle East and Europe — as a larger magnet for jihadis than Afghanistan or Iraq were. The group has also attracted critical support from disenfranchised Sunni residents in Mosul and other Iraqi cities, civilians who have lost patience with the government of Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki but may not embrace the hard-line agenda of the Islamic State.

The group has not been linked to any known plot against the United States, but Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. testified in January that the group “does have aspirations for attacks on the homeland.”

U.S. officials have said about 100 Americans have either traveled to Syria or tried to. Among them was a former Florida resident, Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who returned undetected to the United States for several months this year before departing again for Syria and detonating a suicide bomb. Abusalha was not tied to the Islamic State, but officials believe that as many as a dozen Americans have linked up with the group.

The Islamic State traces its origin to al-Qaeda in Iraq but broke from the terrorist network this year after being criticized for its tactics — including the slaughter of civilians — and refusing instructions to cede the fight in Syria to a separate al-Qaeda ally known as al-Nusra.

Since then, the Islamic State has amassed arms, cash, fighters and territory at a breathtaking rate. In July, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, took the pulpit at the largest mosque in Mosul, declaring himself the “caliph” of the Muslim world and urging followers to flock to his organization.

In doing so, Baghdadi fulfilled an ambition articulated by his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006. It also marked a significant departure from the al-Qaeda playbook.

Al-Qaeda’s commander in Yemen, Nasir al Wuhayshi, has written letters to subordinates cautioning against prematurely declaring Islamic rule even in small villages — in part out of fear that failing to hold territory or enforce Islamic law would lead the group to lose face with the local population.

Baghdadi’s lack of restraint appears to have expanded his appeal, according to U.S. officials who said the group’s expanding territory, aggressive reputation and roster of experienced fighters account for its momentum.

“They are demonstrating just how advantageous it is to a ­terrorist-insurgent group to be fighting in the field for years and years as they have been in Iraq and Syria,” said Daniel Benjamin, a professor at Dartmouth University who previously served as the top counterterrorism official at the State Department.

“Their skill at maneuver is really kind of extraordinary compared to groups you would compare them to,” including al-Qaeda’s affiliates in Yemen and Mali, Benjamin said. “They are not constrained by that fear of failure other al-Qaeda groups have shown,” he added, or the group’s tendency to “spend years preparing single attacks.”
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

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Freedom of speech... sure.
ISIS protesters call 'Death to Jews' in The Hague

Hundreds of Islamic State supporters call to murder and fight against the West, the Jews and the United States in a Holland rally.

Daniel Bettini
Published: 08.10.14, 22:13

A protest in Holland, that was approved by the Dutch government and meant to be a peaceful demonstration against Israel's Gaza operation and against the arrest of an Islamist operative, turned into a terrifying rally of hundreds of ISIS supporters.

The protesters marched in the streets of The Hague uninterrupted while waving the black ISIS flags, calling "Death to Jews" and shouting other slogans calling to murder and fight the West and specifically the United States.

3o443KJiBTU

The Dutch were shocked of the protest, and The Hague's mayor was called to resign after his staff were the ones to approve the protest without realizing the danger it poses.

The Dutch were also shocked to see pictures posted by ISIS recently that show a Muslim Dutch national alongside severed heads of Syrian soldiers he murdered in cold blood.

Analysts estimated that the extremist organization was using this protest rally to recruit youths to its religious war in European cities.

Some 3,000 European youths of Muslim descent are believed to have joined ISIS for fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of which have already returned home after having trained with ISIS and murdered many.

Over the weekend, hundreds of ISIS supporters attacked several hundreds of Yazidis, who were protesting in the German city of Herford against the slaughtering of their people in Iraq.
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How Do You Solve a Problem Like ISIS? Bash Them!

Post by monster_gardener »

Parodite wrote:Freedom of speech... sure.
ISIS protesters call 'Death to Jews' in The Hague

Hundreds of Islamic State supporters call to murder and fight against the West, the Jews and the United States in a Holland rally.

Daniel Bettini
Published: 08.10.14, 22:13

A protest in Holland, that was approved by the Dutch government and meant to be a peaceful demonstration against Israel's Gaza operation and against the arrest of an Islamist operative, turned into a terrifying rally of hundreds of ISIS supporters.

The protesters marched in the streets of The Hague uninterrupted while waving the black ISIS flags, calling "Death to Jews" and shouting other slogans calling to murder and fight the West and specifically the United States.

3o443KJiBTU

The Dutch were shocked of the protest, and The Hague's mayor was called to resign after his staff were the ones to approve the protest without realizing the danger it poses.

The Dutch were also shocked to see pictures posted by ISIS recently that show a Muslim Dutch national alongside severed heads of Syrian soldiers he murdered in cold blood.

Analysts estimated that the extremist organization was using this protest rally to recruit youths to its religious war in European cities.

Some 3,000 European youths of Muslim descent are believed to have joined ISIS for fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of which have already returned home after having trained with ISIS and murdered many.

Over the weekend, hundreds of ISIS supporters attacked several hundreds of Yazidis, who were protesting in the German city of Herford against the slaughtering of their people in Iraq.
Thank You VERY MUCH for your post, Rhapsody Parodite.

So it starts already....... :shock:

Really it started long ago.....

In Holland, at least back to the murders of Theo Van Gogh & Pym Fortuyn by Islamists and their Liberal Progressive allies...

Really back to Mohammed the Terrorist himself....

But the important question is what Non Muslims are going to do about it....
Some 3,000 European youths of Muslim descent are believed to have joined ISIS for fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of which have already returned home after having trained with ISIS and murdered many.
Are those traitors to Holland & the West going to be neutralized.....

By whatever means necessary.....

Before they do more assassinations......*

Maybe even several Belsan Schools.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_sch ... age_crisis

Or an Argentine Jewish Center Bombing style attack... (Be careful Rhap.....)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

Means could be just stripping citizenship from anyone who fought on the side of The Caliphate Formerly Known as ISIS and sending them back to the Evil Nation they have sworn allegiance to.......

Would suggest sending them back with a layover at Damascus Airport... ;) :twisted:

Hopefully Similar to what happened to Slime Man ;) oops I mean Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane would happen courtesy of the Good Doctor ;) :twisted: President BASHir ASSad who has defects but dealing over gently with deadly terrorist perps is NOT one of them... ;)

Like his father Hafez ;) , the Good Eye Doctor ;) BASHir tends see clearly ;) and so BASHes terrorists rather than doing a HalfA$$ed ;) job like the West & Israel too often do :roll:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slimane_Hadj_Abderrahmane




*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_G ... %29#Murder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn#Assassination

Amazing and WRONG that Pim's murderer was freed after only 12 years :roll:

At least that vile Muslim perp who did Van Gogh got Life Without Parole.... Danger being that hostages will be taken to get him released.....
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

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And the Beginning of a New Dark Age; The End of Iraq
by Patrick Cockburn
Iraq has disintegrated. Little is exchanged between its three great communities – Shia, Sunni and Kurd – except gunfire. The outside world hopes that a more inclusive government will change this but it is probably too late.

The main victor in the new war in Iraq is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) which wants to kill Shia rather than negotiate with them. Iraq is facing a civil war that could be as bloody as anything that we have seen in Syria and could go on for years.

The crucial date in this renewed conflict is 10 June, 2014 when Isis captured Iraq’s northern capital, Mosul, after three days’ fighting. The Iraqi government had an army with 350,000 soldiers on which $41.6bn (£25bn) had been spent in the three years from 2011, but this force melted away without significant resistance.

Discarded uniforms and equipment were found strewn along the roads leading to Kurdistan and safety. The flight was led by commanding officers, some of whom rapidly changed into civilian clothes as they abandoned their men. Given that Isis may have had as few as 1,300 fighters in its assault on Mosul this was one of the great military debacles in history.

Within two weeks those parts of northern and western Iraq outside Kurdish control were in the hands of Isis. By the end of the month the group had announced a caliphate straddling the Iraq-Syria border.

People in Baghdad are used to shocks after years of war, massacres, occupation and dictatorship, but when Mosul fell they could feel the ground shifting under their feet. Soon Isis fighters were only an hour’s drive north of a capital in which the streets, normally choked with traffic, grew quiet as people stayed at home because they thought it too dangerous to go out.

This was particularly true of Sunni districts such as al-Adhamiyah on the east bank of the Tigris River, where young men rightly believed that if they passed through a checkpoint they were likely to be arrested or worse. People watched television obsessively, nervously channel-hopping as they tried to tease out the truth from competing propaganda claims.

The sense of crisis was made worse by the main government channel broadcasting upbeat accounts of the latest victories, though the claims were seldom backed up by pictures. “Watch enough government television and pretty soon you would decide there is not a single member of Isis in the country,” said one observer.

The political geography of Iraq was changing before its people’s eyes and there were material signs of this everywhere. OR Book Going RougeBaghdadis cook on propane gas because the electricity supply is so unreliable but soon there was a chronic shortage of gas cylinders because they come from Kirkuk and the road from the north had been cut by Isis fighters. To hire a truck to come the 200 miles from the Kurdish capital Erbil to Baghdad now cost $10,000 for a single journey, compared to $500 a month earlier.

There were ominous signs that Iraqis feared a future filled with violence as weapons and ammunition soared in price. The cost of a bullet for an AK47 assault rifle quickly tripled to 3,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $2. Kalashnikovs were almost impossible to buy from arms dealers, though pistols could still be obtained at three times the price of the previous week. Suddenly, almost everybody had guns, including even Baghdad’s paunchy, white-shirted traffic police who began carrying sub-machine guns.

Many of the armed men who started appearing in the streets of Baghdad and other Shia cities were Shia militiamen, some from Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a splinter group from the movement of Shia populist and nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This organisation is partly controlled by the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and, it is generally assumed, by the Iranians. It was a measure of the collapse of the state security forces and the national army that the government was relying on a sectarian militia to defend the capital.

Ironically, one of Maliki’s few achievements as prime minister had been to face down the Shia militias in 2008, but now he was encouraging them to return to the streets. Soon dead bodies were being dumped at night. They were stripped of their ID cards but were assumed to be Sunni victims of the militia death squads. Iraq seemed to be slipping over the edge into an abyss in which sectarian massacres and counter-massacres rivalled those during the sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shia in 2006-07.

The renewed sectarian violence was very visible. There was an appalling video of Iraqi military cadets being machine-gunned near Tikrit by a line of Isis gunmen as they stood in front of a shallow open grave. It reminded me of pictures of the SS murdering Jews in Russia and Poland during the Second World War.

Human rights organisations using satellite pictures said they estimated the number of dead to be 170 though it might have been many more. Shia who were from the Turkoman ethnic group living in villages south of Kirkuk were driven from their homes and between 15 and 25 of them were murdered. It may be that the Shia will react in kind, but so far the killings have largely been of Shia by Isis.

Isis described its military strategy as “moving like a serpent between the rocks”, in other words using its forces as shock troops to take easy targets but not getting dragged into prolonged fighting in which its fighters would be tied down and suffer heavy casualties. It picked off government garrisons in Sunni-majority districts, and in the places it captured it did not necessarily leave many of its militants behind but rather relied on local allies. Many in Baghdad and in governments across the world hoped that these allies of Isis – local tribes and local Sunni leaders – could be persuaded to split from Isis because of its violence and primeval social agenda.

In the refinery town of Baiji local people said that Isis had been going from house to house asking for the names of married and unmarried women, sometimes demanding to see ID cards, which in Iraq specify marital status. They explained they were doing this because their unmarried fighters wanted to have wives. No doubt there will be a negative reaction to this sort of activity from the local Sunni communities, but a movement that is well organised and prepared to kill any opponent will not be easy to challenge.

The rise of Isis and its military successes has led to short-sighted euphoria in Sunni countries. People congratulate themselves that it is no longer only the Shia who are on the offensive. But in practice Isis’s seizure of a leadership position in Syria and Iraq’s communities will most likely prove to be a disaster for them. Isis is being used as a vanguard movement that will not allow itself to be easily displaced and, like the fascists in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, will seek to crush anybody who tries.

The Sunnis have ceded a commanding role to a movement that sees itself as divinely inspired and whose agenda involves endless and unwinnable wars against apostates and heretics. Iraq and Syria can be divided up, but they cannot be divided up cleanly and peacefully because too many minorities, like the million or more Sunni in Baghdad, are on the wrong side of any conceivable dividing line. At best, Syria and Iraq face years of intermittent civil war; at worst, the division of these countries will be like the partition of India in 1947 when massacre and fear of massacre established new demographic frontiers.

The fall of Mosul and the Isis-led Sunni revolt marks the end of a distinct period in Iraqi history that began with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the US and British invasion of March 2003. There was an attempt by the Iraqi opposition to the old regime and their foreign allies to create a new Iraq in which the three communities shared power in Baghdad. The experiment failed disastrously and it seems it will be impossible to resurrect it because the battle lines between Kurd, Sunni and Shia are now too stark and embittered.

The balance of power inside Iraq is changing. So too are the de facto frontiers of the state, with an expanded and increasingly independent Kurdistan – the Kurds having opportunistically used the crisis to secure territories they have always claimed – and the Iraq-Syrian border having ceased to exist. The impact of these events is being felt across the Middle East as governments take on board that Isis, an al-Qai’da-type group of the greatest ferocity and religious bigotry, has been able to claim the creation of a Sunni caliphate spanning much of Iraq and Syria.

This book focuses on several critical short- and long-term developments in the Middle East that are affecting or will soon affect the rest of the world. The most important of these is the resurgence of the al-Qa’ida-type movements that today rule a vast area in north and west Iraq and eastern and northern Syria. The area under their sway is several hundred times larger than any territory ever controlled by Osama bin Laden, the killing of whom in 2011 was supposed to be a major blow to world terrorism.

In fact, it is since bin Laden’s death that al-Qa’ida affiliates or clones have had their greatest successes, including the capture of Raqqa in the eastern part of Syria, the only provincial capital in that country to fall to the rebels, in March 2013. In January 2014, Isis took over Fallujah just 40 miles west of Baghdad, a city famously besieged and stormed by US marines 10 years earlier. Within a few months they had also captured Mosul and Tikrit.

The battle lines may continue to change, but the overall expansion of their power appears permanent. With their swift and multi-pronged assault across central and northern Iraq in June 2014, the Isis militants had superceded al-Qa’ida as the most powerful and effective jihadi group in the world.

These developments came as a shock to many in the West, including politicians and specialists whose view of what was happening often seemed outpaced by events. One reason for this was that it was too risky for journalists and outside observers to visit the areas where Isis was operating because of the extreme danger of being kidnapped or murdered. “Those who used to protect the foreign media can no longer protect themselves,” one intrepid correspondent told me, explaining why he would not be returning to rebel-held Syria.

The triumph of Isis in Iraq in 2013-14 came as a particular surprise because the western media had largely stopped reporting the country. This lack of coverage had been convenient for the US and other Western governments because it enabled them to play down the extent to which “the war on terror” had failed so catastrophically in the years since 9/11.

This failure is masked by deceptions and self-deceptions on the part of governments. Speaking at West Point on America’s role in the world on 28 May 28 2014, President Barack Obama said that the main threat to the United States no longer came from al-Qa’ida central but from “decentralised al-Qa’ida affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focused on the countries where they operate.” He added that “as the Syrian civil war spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened extremist groups to come after us only increases”.

This was true enough, but Obama’s solution to the danger was, as he put it, “to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists.” By June he was asking Congress for $500m to train and equip “appropriately vetted” members of the Syrian opposition. It is here that self-deception reigns, because the Syrian military opposition is dominated by Isis and by Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN), the official al-Qa’ida representative, in addition to other extreme jihadi groups. In reality, there is no dividing wall between them and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies.

An intelligence officer from a Middle East country neighbouring Syria told me that Isis members “say they are always pleased when sophisticated weapons are sent to anti-Assad groups of any kind because they can always get the arms off them by threats of force or cash payments.” Western support for the Syrian opposition may have failed to overthrow Assad, but it was successfully destabilising Iraq, as Iraqi politicians had long predicted.

The importance of Saudi Arabia in the rise and return of al-Qa’ida is often misunderstood and understated. Saudi Arabia is influential because its oil and vast wealth make it powerful in the Middle East and beyond. But it is not financial resources alone that make it such an important player. Another factor is its propagating of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist 18th-century version of Islam that imposes sharia law, relegates women to second-class citizens, and regards Shia and Sufi Muslims as heretics and apostates to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews.

This religious intolerance and political authoritarianism, which in its readiness to use violence has many similarities with European fascism in the 1930s, is getting worse rather than better. A Saudi who set up a liberal website on which clerics could be criticised was recently sentenced to a thousand lashes and seven years in prison.

. Critics of this new trend in Islam from elsewhere in the Muslim world do not survive long; they are forced to flee or murdered. Denouncing jihadi leaders in Kabul in 2003, an Afghan editor described them as “holy fascists”, who were misusing Islam as “an instrument to take over power”. Unsurprisingly, he was accused of insulting Islam and had to leave the country.

A striking development in the Islamic world in recent decades is the way in which Wahhabism is taking over mainstream Sunni Islam. In one country after another Saudi Arabia is putting up the money for the training of preachers and the building of mosques. A result of this is the spread of sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia. The latter find themselves targeted with unprecedented viciousness from Tunisia to Indonesia. Such sectarianism is not confined to country villages outside Aleppo or in the Punjab, it is poisoning relations between the two sects in every Islamic grouping. A Muslim friend in London told me: “Go through the address books of any Sunni or Shia in Britain and you will find very few names belonging to people outside their own community.”

The resurgence of al-Qa’ida-type groups is not a threat confined to Syria, Iraq, and their near neighbours. What is happening in these countries, combined with the increasing dominance of intolerant and exclusive Wahhabite beliefs within the worldwide Sunni community, means that all 1.6 billion Muslims, almost a quarter of the world’s people, will be increasingly affected. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that non-Muslim populations, including many in the West, will be untouched by the conflict. Today’s resurgent jihadism, which has shifted the political terrain in Iraq and Syria, is already having far-reaching effects on global politics with dire consequences for us all.
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

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Much like Libya, baramba dawdling has proved to be very costly. Not Commander in Chief material, never was.
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

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Mr. Perfect wrote:Much like Libya, baramba dawdling has proved to be very costly. Not Commander in Chief material, never was.
Mr P,

This was the way it was always going to go. Action and reaction; oldest couple in the universe.

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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

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Ronald Reagan just won things.
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Animal State

Post by Doc »

Image

Image
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1111554.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... 3836823001

My glimpse of the horror and despair on besieged mountain: By JONATHAN KROHN, the first Western journalist to reach Mount Sinjar where tens of thousands of Yazidis have taken refuge from ISIS fanatics

By Jonathan Krohn

Published: 18:00 EST, 10 August 2014 | Updated: 09:47 EST, 11 August 2014

Last week, some 40,000 Iraqi refugees were forced to face the prospect of starvation as they took on the harsh conditions of Mount Sinjar after being driven from their homes by ISIS militants.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis were forced to flee the town of Sinjar after the militants overran the area, with many taking refuge on the the barren mountain top.

There, they were left with the bleak choice of descending to risk being slaughtered, or hoping their attackers were defeated before they died of thirst or hunger.

Now, as foreign troops, including British RAF personnel, deliver aid into the area, American journalist Jonathan Krohn reports from the mountains after becoming the first reporter to reach the besieged region.


Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why.

‘Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,’ said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it.

On Sunday night, I became the first Western journalist to reach the mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have taken refuge from the Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar.

I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of refugees ran toward it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to make it to the mountain.

Scroll down for video
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar, ride in the trunk of a car as they make their way towards the Syrian border, on the outskirts of the Sinjar mountains

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Sinjar.htm
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

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What if Tinker/obama/Reverend Wright were wrong and American intervention is a force for good? What then? What if they were all wrong. All of them, all wrong.
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Animal State

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Deleted
Last edited by Doc on Tue Aug 12, 2014 4:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Animal State

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Mr. Perfect wrote:What if Tinker/obama/Reverend Wright were wrong and American intervention is a force for good? What then? What if they were all wrong. All of them, all wrong.
No it couldn't be....
Image
Flags: U.S. and Kurdish flags flutter in the wind while displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour bridge over the Tigris River at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... injar.html
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by kmich »

Would arming Syria’s rebels have stopped the Islamic State?

By Marc Lynch
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton made news this weekend by suggesting that the rise of the Islamic State might have been prevented had the Obama administration moved to more aggressively arm Syrian rebels in 2012. Variants of this narrative have been repeated so often by so many different people in so many venues that it’s easy to forget how implausible this policy option really was.

It’s easy to understand why desperate Syrians facing the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad hoped for Western support, especially by early 2012 as the conflict shifted inexorably from a civic uprising into an insurgency. It is less obvious that U.S. arms for the rebels would have actually helped them. Arming the rebels (including President Obama’s recent $500 million plan) was, from the start, a classic bureaucratic “Option C,” driven by a desire to be seen as doing something while understanding that there was no American appetite at all for more direct intervention. It also offered a way to get a first foot on the slippery slope; a wedge for demanding escalation of commitments down the road after it had failed.

There’s no way to know for sure what would have happened had the United States offered more support to Syrian rebels in the summer of 2012, of course. But there are pretty strong reasons for doubting that it would have been decisive. Even Sen. John McCain was pretty clear about this at the time, arguing that arming the rebels “alone will not be decisive” and that providing weapons in the absence of safe areas protected by U.S. airpower “may even just prolong [the conflict].” Clinton, despite the hyperventilating headlines, only suggested that providing such arms might have offered “some better insight into what was going on on the ground” and “helped in standing up a credible political opposition.” Thoughtful supporters of the policy proposed “managing the militarization” of the conflict and using a stronger Free Syrian Army as leverage to bring Assad to the bargaining table.

Would the United States providing more arms to the FSA have accomplished these goals? The academic literature is not encouraging. In general, external support for rebels almost always make wars longer, bloodier and harder to resolve (for more on this, see the proceedings of this Project on Middle East Political Science symposium in the free PDF download). Worse, as the University of Maryland’s David Cunningham has shown, Syria had most of the characteristics of the type of civil war in which external support for rebels is least effective. The University of Colorado’s Aysegul Aydin and Binghamton University’s Patrick Regan have suggested that external support for a rebel group could help when all the external powers backing a rebel group are on the same page and effectively cooperate in directing resources to a common end. Unfortunately, Syria was never that type of civil war.

Syria’s combination of a weak, fragmented collage of rebel organizations with a divided, competitive array of external sponsors was therefore the worst profile possible for effective external support. Clinton understands this. She effectively pinpoints the real problem when she notes that the rebels “were often armed in an indiscriminate way by other forces and we had no skin in the game that really enabled us to prevent this indiscriminate arming.” An effective strategy of arming the Syrian rebels would never have been easy, but to have any chance at all it would have required a unified approach by the rebels’ external backers, and a unified rebel organization to receive the aid. That would have meant staunching financial flows from its Gulf partners, or at least directing them in a coordinated fashion. Otherwise, U.S. aid to the FSA would be just another bucket of water in an ocean of cash and guns pouring into the conflict.

But such coordination was easier said than done. The Qatari-Saudi rivalry was playing out across the region, not only in Syria. Their intense struggles over the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt and the overall course of the Arab uprisings were peaking during the 2012–13 window during which arming the rebels was being discussed. Their competition largely precluded any unified Gulf strategy. Turkey and Qatar channeled money and support to a variety of Islamist groups. Meanwhile, U.S.-Saudi relations were also at their nadir, before fears of jihadist blowback began to concentrate Saudi minds. Riyadh showed no more interest in following the United States’ lead in Syria than it did on Egypt or Iranian nuclear talks. External backers of the rebels didn’t even agree on whether the goal was to protect civilians, overthrow Assad, bring the regime to the table, or to wage a region-wide sectarian war against Iran. It is difficult to see Gulf capitals embroiled in these regional battles becoming more receptive to American guidance just because the United States had some “skin in the game.”

Meanwhile, huge private donations from the Gulf flowed toward mostly Islamist-oriented groups. These were massive public mobilization campaigns, mostly led by popular and ambitious Islamist figures who framed support for Syria along religious and sectarian lines in increasingly extreme ways. (Incidentally, the magnitude of those campaigns reveals the absurdity of recent claims that Arabs had ignored Syria’s war compared to Gaza.) Kuwait became the key arena for collecting money, as other Gulf states more tightly controlled private donations for Syria, but Islamists from across the region and especially Saudi Arabia continued to play a prominent role in the campaigns. Fears of jihadist blowback have led Gulf states to crack down on these private efforts, including Kuwait’s recent stripping of the citizenship of Nabil al-Awadhy, one of the most prominent of these Syria campaigners. But at the time Clinton’s plan was under discussion, those campaigns were peaking, with massive public support built around Islamic and sectarian identity.

That intra-state competition and popular mobilization is the regional context within which U.S. efforts to arm the FSA would have unfolded. The FSA was always more fiction than reality, with a structure on paper masking the reality of highly localized and fragmented fighting groups on the ground. Charles Lister’s comprehensive recent survey of the current Syrian military battlefield should quickly dispense with the simpler versions of the conflict. Syria’s civil war has long been a dizzying array of local battles, with loose and rapidly shifting alliances driven more by self-interest and the desires of their external patrons than ideology. Even at the height of the conflict between the Islamic State and its more secular rivals, local affiliates fought side by side in other theaters of the war. No one should be surprised that, as Hassan Hassan reports, some U.S.-backed and vetted groups have aligned with the Islamic State.

The idea that these rebel groups could be vetted for moderation and entrusted with advanced weaponry made absolutely no sense given the realities of the conflict in Syria. These local groups frequently shifted sides and formed alliances of convenience as needed. As MIT’s Fotini Christia has documented in cases from Afghanistan to Bosnia, and the University of Virginia’s Jonah Shulhofer-Wohl has detailed in Syria, rebel groups that lack a legitimate and effective over-arching institutional structure almost always display these kinds of rapidly shifting alliances and “blue on blue” violence. A “moderate, vetted opposition” means little when alliances are this fluid and organizational structures so weak.

The murkiness of the “terrorist group” line in this context is apparent in these changing alliances and conflicts. For instance, the United States recently designated two key Kuwaiti Islamists as terror financiers, accusing them of channeling funds to Jubhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State. But both were better known as backers of Ahrar al-Sham, a large Salafist organization that then worked within the Saudi-backed Islamic Front. And as recently as June, when they were allegedly funding the Islamic State and al-Nusra, one of them was holding events with FSA commander Riad al-Assad. These complexities, so deeply familiar to everyone who studies the conflict, deeply undermine the assumptions underlying plans resting on identifying and supporting “moderate rebels.”

Many have argued that the United States might have changed all of this by offering more support for the FSA. But based upon his outstanding recent book “Networks of Rebellion,” the University of Chicago’s Paul Staniland urges caution. Initial organizational weaknesses have long-lasting implications. “Pumping material support” into them, he observes, “might buy some limited cooperation from factions that need help, but is unlikely to trigger deep organizational change. This means that foreign backing for undisciplined groups will not do much.” Syria’s famously fractured and ineffective opposition would not likely have been miraculously improved through a greater infusion of U.S. money or guns.

In short, then, discussion of U.S. support for Syria’s rebels overstates the extent to which such aid would matter given the diverse sources of support available. U.S. arms would have joined a crowded market and competed within an increasingly Islamist and sectarian environment. Even the argument that Islamist fighters would shave off beards and follow the money if the United States got involved is self-defeating, since it admits that they would just as easily flip back when a better offer comes along. Both state financing and the public campaigns exacerbated rebel fragmentation on the ground as each group jockeyed for access to lucrative external patrons. The United States had far less money to offer rebels compared with the Gulf states, and placed far more conditions. It might have been able to offer uniquely privileged access to advanced weaponry, which many rebels did dearly want. Anti-tank missiles did find their way to rebel groups anyway, of course, presumably with U.S. support. But it’s difficult to imagine any responsible U.S. official signing off on providing surface-to-air missiles, for reasons made graphically apparent by the shooting down of the Malaysian Flight MH17 over Ukraine.

Finally, the idea that more U.S. support for the FSA would have prevented the emergence of the Islamic State isn’t even remotely plausible. The open battlefield and nature of the struggle ensured that jihadists would find Syria’s war appealing. The Islamic State recovered steam inside of Iraq as part of a broad Sunni insurgency driven by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloody, ham-fisted crackdowns in Hawija and Fallujah, and more broadly because of the disaffection of key Sunni actors over Maliki’s sectarian authoritarianism. It is difficult to see how this would have been affected in the slightest by a U.S.-backed FSA (or, for that matter, by a residual U.S. military presence in Iraq, but that’s another debate for another day). There is certainly no reason to believe that the Islamic State and other extremist groups would have stayed away from such an ideal zone for jihad simply because Western-backed groups had additional guns and money.

Had the plan to arm Syria’s rebels been adopted back in 2012, the most likely scenario is that the war would still be raging and look much as it does today, except that the United States would be far more intimately and deeply involved. That’s a prospect that Clinton frankly acknowledged during her interview, but that somehow didn’t make it into the headline. As catastrophic as Syria’s war has been, and as alarming as the Islamic State has become, there has never been a plausible case to be made that more U.S. arms for Syrian rebels would have meaningfully altered their path.
Mr. Perfect
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Let's see a country that crushed the Axis powers and the Soviet Union now cannot figure out how to deploy into a small backward country with primitive weaponry.

So much for "yes we can".
Censorship isn't necessary
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Alexis
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Re: The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State

Post by Alexis »

Obama risks American lives to save the Yezidis. Why?

Having remarked the bizarre nature of that decision given the context, Dmitry Orlov reviews the possible explanations (please look up the link)

I paste the conclusion only :mrgreen:
I propose three alternative explanations for this truly bizarre behavior.
1. Obama is secretly a devil-worshiper (makes total sense, right?)
2. Obama is trying to cause as many international crises as he can to generate lots of excuses for the entire financial house of cards collapsing under its own weight and the US economy shutting down
3. Obama is an durian
Now I smiled when reading the above, because I strongly suspect that option 1. will be irresistibly attractive to some of the regular posters here :lol: ...

Yes, Mr P.... MG.... I'm thinking of you ;)

As for me, I would guess option 2.

But well, 3. also is a possibility I guess.
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