ISIS: Remaining and Expanding

[Lauren Johnson]

I can't help but think there would be more than a little justice involved if God took the Iraq reward away from the WMD Bush people.

Albert,

Not that I can figure out just Who's on first, What's on second, remember that there are entities called cutouts and Hegelian dialectics that could be in play to create confusion and chaos. Secondly, I would guess Israel/USG/NATO are in this up to their collective chins. As you will no doubt recall, Al Qaeda associated groups have been our allies in Syria AND Libya and even more, we created it way back in the Afghan war against Russia. Oh, and I know full well you don't think Al Qaeda independently attacked us on 9/11.

My WAG is that this is just one more piece in play to create chaos around Russia and China to eventually cut them off and force them to submit to their eventual domination by global capital. How would this work, well both Russia and China have been reaching out to Iran of a Eurasian economic and ultimately security arrangement. I posted above Juan Cole's read on the situation. He sees a coming melting of tensions between Iran and the US as they both fight the common enemy ISIS -- which if I am correct, is a US/NATO/Israel/Saudi cutout.

Like I said, this is my current WAG (wild ass guess).

[Albert Doyle]

Or it could be the US arrogantly underestimated the will of the indigenous people to resist like they did in Viet Nam.

[Lauren Johnson]

Or it could be the US arrogantly underestimated the will of the indigenous people to resist like they did in Viet Nam.

That might be true if it weren't for the fact that this is no indigenous rising up of an oppressed people. This is a well equipped and trained military force. Somebody spent a lot of time and money creating them.

[Magda Hassan]

Iraq's "World Of Hurt"

The Jihadists of ISIS in cooperation with former Baathists continue their march onto Baghdad. Their recent surprise seizure of Mosul and further operations seem to have been well prepared for quite a long time:

"These groups were unified by the same goal, which is getting rid of this sectarian government, ending this corrupt army and negotiating to form the Sunni Region," said Abu Karam, a senior Baathist leader and a former high-ranking army officer, who said planning for the offensive had begun two years ago. "The decisive battle will be in northern Baghdad. These groups will not stop in Tikrit and will keep moving toward Baghdad."

The alliance between former Baathist and followers of the naqshbandiya Sufi order with the radical takfirirs of ISIS is a dangerous one. The former are professional militaries and as Pat Lang assesses:

The speed and effective direction of this offensive seems to me to show the participation of such officers as Sabr- Abd al-Aziz al-Douri. If that is the case, then Maliki's army is in a real "world of hurt."

It is not clear what "Maliki's army" actually is. The Iraqi army officers of the divisions near Mosul seem to have been bought off and changed sides. Some 90,000 security forces deserted.
But its is unlikely that the Sunni forces, the Baathist and ISIS, can take Baghdad or even hold the ground they have taken so far. "Maliki's army" will be unlike the "Iraqi army". There are loyal divisions in the Iraqi military and there are many Shia now joining voluntary forces. The Shia authority in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani, has issued a fatwa and called for war against the Sunni takfiris. Hundreds of thousand will follow that call.
Maliki's forces may be in a "world of hurt" for now but my guess it that they, in the end, will also win. They have more and better resources, access to the sea and support from Iran and likely also the United States. The Sunni positions have no defensible geographic features. The fight will be about cities on flat land and those can be starved and bombed into submission. Disunity within the Sunni forces will also evolve. In Syria ISIS did not do well with other anti-government forces, often fighting against them. The Sunni Sufi/Baathist followers of Izzat Ibrahim, a vice president under Saddam Hussein, will soon revolt against the radical life style ISIS will try to impose on the areas both groups hold. The more nasty force of those two will win internally only to be then stomped into ground by superior Shia forces.
As those two main groups struggle against each others the Kurds up north will be, for now, the laughing third. They already took Kirkuk, the oil-rich mixed Arab-Kurd city up north, and will not let it go without violence. They will be the next target when the Sunni Shia fight has been decided for either side.
All sides will bleed and, thanks to the U.S. war of terror, all Iraqis will contine to be in a "world of hurt" for years to come.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/

[Magda Hassan]

Two Arab countries fall apart

An extreme Islamist group that seeks to create a caliphate and spread jihad across the world has made dramatic advances on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border

Jun 14th 2014 |




WHOEVER chose the Twitter handle "Jihadi Spring" was prescient. Three years of turmoil in the region, on the back of unpopular American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have benefited extreme Islamists, none more so than the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), a group that outdoes even al-Qaeda in brutality and fanaticism. In the past year or so, as borders and government control have frayed across the region, ISIS has made gains across a swathe of territory encompassing much of eastern and northern Syria and western and northern Iraq. On June 10th it achieved its biggest prize to date by capturing Mosul, Iraq's second city, and most of the surrounding province of Nineveh. The next day it advanced south towards Baghdad, the capital, taking several towns on the way. Ministers in Iraq's government admitted that a catastrophe was in the making. A decade after the American invasion, the country looks as fragile, bloody and pitiful as ever.
After four days of fighting, Iraq's security forces abandoned their posts in Mosul as ISIS militiamen took over army bases, banks and government offices. The jihadists seized huge stores of American-supplied arms, ammunition and vehicles, apparently including six Black Hawk helicopters and 500 billion dinars ($430m) in freshly printed cash. Some 500,000 people fled in terror to areas beyond ISIS's sway.
In this section

• Two Arab countries fall apart
  
• A one-stater, at last
  
• Get it off, put it on
  
• Modern mind in a seat of tradition
  
• Much too fat
  

Reprints
Related topics

• Bashar Assad
  
• Mosul
  
• Al Qaeda
  
• Iraq war
  
• War and conflict
  

The scale of the attack on Mosul was particularly audacious. But it did not come out of the blue. In the past six months ISIS has captured and held Falluja, less than an hour's drive west of Baghdad; taken over parts of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province; and has battled for Samarra, a city north of Baghdad that boasts one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines. Virtually every day its fighters set off bombs in Baghdad, keeping people in a state of terror.
As The Economist went to press, it was reported to have taken Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, only 140km (87 miles) north-west of Baghdad. The speed of ISIS's advance suggested that it was co-operating with a network of Sunni remnants from Saddam's underground resistance who opposed the Americans after 2003 and have continued to fight against the Shia-dominated regime of Nuri al-Maliki since the Americans left at the end of 2011.

It was barely a year ago, in April 2013, that ISIS announced the expansion of its operations from Iraq into Syria. By changing its name from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) by adding the words "and al-Sham", translated as "the Levant" or "Greater Syria", it signified its quest to conquer a wider area than present-day Syria.
Run by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi jihadist, ISIS may have up to 6,000 fighters in Iraq and 3,000-5,000 in Syria, including perhaps 3,000 foreigners; nearly a thousand are reported to hail from Chechnya and perhaps 500 or so more from France, Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
It is ruthless, slaughtering Shia and other minorities, including Christians and Alawites, the offshoot to which Syria's president, Bashar Assad, belongs. It sacks churches and Shia shrines, dispatches suicide-bombers to market-places, and has no regard for civilian casualties.
Its recent advances would have been impossible without ISIS's control since January of the eastern Syrian town of Raqqa, a testing ground and stronghold from which it has made forays farther afield. It has seized and exploited Syrian oilfields in the area and raised cash by ransoming foreign hostages.
Rather than fight simply as a branch of al-Qaeda ("the base" in Arabic), as it did before 2011, it has aimed to control territory, dispensing its own brand of justice and imposing its own moral code: no smoking, football, music, or unveiled women, for example. And it imposes taxes in the parts of Syria and Iraq it has conquered.
In other words, it is creating a proto-state on the ungoverned territory straddling the borderlands between Syria and Iraq. "This is a new, more dangerous strategy since 2011," says Hassan Abu Haniyeh, a Jordanian expert on jihadist movements. If ISIS manages to hold onto its turf in Iraq, it will control an area the size of Jordan with roughly the same population (6m or so), stretching 500km from the countryside east of Aleppo in Syria into western Iraq.
It holds three border posts between Syria and Turkey and several more on Syria's border with Iraq. Raqqa's residents say Moroccan and Tunisian jihadists have brought their wives and children to settle in the city. Foreign preachers have been appointed to mosques. ISIS has also set up an intelligence service.
The regimes of Mr Assad in Syria and Mr Maliki in Iraq have played into ISIS's hands by stoking up sectarian resentment among Sunni Arabs, who are a majority of more than 70% in Syria and a minority of around a fifth in Iraq, where they had been dominant under Saddam Hussein. But Mr Assad has cannily left ISIS alone, rightly guessing it would start fighting against the more mainstream rebels, to the regime's advantage. And he has highlighted the horrors of ISIS to the West, as the spectre of what may come next were he to fall.
Two ogres versus a bunch of thugs
Mr Maliki has been less brutal but more crass than Mr Assad. By the end of 2011 American forces had almost eradicated ISI, as it still was, in Iraq. They did so by capturing or killing its leaders and, more crucially, by recruiting around 100,000 Sunni Iraqis to join the Sahwa, or Awakening, a largely tribal force to fight ISI, whose harsh rules in the areas they controlled had turned most of the people against it.
But after the Americans left, Mr Maliki disbanded the Sahwa militias, breaking a promise to integrate many of them into the regular army. He purged Sunnis from the government and cracked down on initially peaceful Sunni protests in Ramadi and Falluja at the end of last year. Anti-American rebels loyal to Saddam and even Sahwa people may have joined ISIS out of despair, feeling that Mr Maliki would never give them a fair deal. In 2012 Tariq al-Hashemi, the vice-president who was Iraq's top Sunni, fled abroad, and was sentenced to death in absentia. Sunnis feel they have no political representation, says Mr Haniyeh. "ISIS and al-Qaeda are taking advantage and appropriating Sunni Islam."
Some countries in the region, loathing Mr Assad's brutality against civilians and Mr Maliki's brand of Shia triumphalism, initially indulged ISIS. Turkey let a free flow of foreign fighters cross its borders into Syria until the end of last year. Some Gulf states, such as Kuwait and Qatar, were slow to clamp down on private citizens who have funded ISIS and at first tolerated or even applauded its sectarian ire.
Smoking will be punished: ISIS burns cigarettes in Raqqa
The carnage in Iraq, though not as numerically horrendous as in Syria, has been growing ferociously, leaving 5,400 people dead this year alone. According to some estimates, ISIS has been responsible for 75% to 95% of all the attacks. It has organised a number of prison breaks, such as one in 2013 from Abu Ghraib, whence several hundred jihadists escaped to join the fray; this week ISIS may have freed some 2,500 hardened fighters from jail in Mosul.
Whether in Iraq or Syria, ISIS has sought to terrify people into submission. On June 8th, as a typical warning to others, it crucified three young men in a town near Aleppo for co-operating with rival rebels. It has kidnapped scores of Kurdish students, journalists, aid workers and, more recently, some Turkish diplomats.
Even al-Qaeda has deemed ISIS too violent. Ayman Zawahiri, leader of the core group, has long disagreed with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS's leader, warning him that ISIS's habit of beheading its opponents and posting such atrocities on video was giving al-Qaeda a bad name.
So far ISIS has been effectively challenged only by fellow Sunnis. It is locked in battle with Jabhat al-Nusra, which al-Qaeda recognises as its affiliate in Syria. The two groups are tussling over Deir ez-Zor, a provincial capital between Raqqa and Anbar, leaving 600 fighters dead in the past six weeks. Since the start of the year, mainstream Syrian rebel groups, who at first welcomed ISIS for its fighting ability, have battled against it, forcing it out of areas in the north-western province of Idleb and the city of Aleppo. Kurdish forces in the north-east have done the same.
Some reckon that ISIS's recent push in Iraq may be intended to bolster its rearguard, enabling it to replenish its coffers and armoury, before striking back at the rebel opposition in Syria. The more moderate rebels are ill-equipped to fight for ever against ISIS; they say that half their forces have already been diverted from the fight against Mr Assad to hold ISIS at bay.
The forces best equipped to face down ISIS may be Kurdish ones: the Peshmerga guerrillas, who have protected Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region for the past two decades, and the People's Protection Units, better known as the YPG, the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which dominates north-eastern Syria. The Kurds' regional government in Iraq has mobilised its forces on the east side of the Tigris river, which runs through Mosul, and may well block ISIS from heading east and north into Kurdish territory; on June 12th the Kurds captured all of Kirkuk city from fleeing Iraqi forces. Yet Mr Maliki may have to call on the Kurds to help him out against ISIS.
Don't come back home
Western governments are fretting about the threat from some of their own citizens who have joined the likes of ISIS and may come home to make trouble. On May 28th Barack Obama asked for an additional $5 billion for counter-terrorism programmes. ISIS people have not hidden their intention to carry out attacks in the West in the name of jihad. The man accused of killing four men dead in Belgium's Jewish museum on May 24th was a veteran of Syria's war. ISIS runs training camps in the desert of eastern Syria. Jordan and Turkey are worried too.
But few governments, except perhaps Iran, are keen to arm Mr Maliki's increasingly nasty and incompetent regime. Last year the United States did agree to sell Iraq more weapons, including F-16 fighter jets. The threat of terrorism against the West may prod Western governments into giving more arms and help to the anti-ISIS Syrian rebels. But helping Mr Maliki more wholeheartedly is another matter. Mr Obama has refused to hit ISIS with drones.
In the long run the biggest hope for containing ISIS lies in its lack of a broadly popular base. After all, al-Qaeda itself dismally failed to capture Arab minds during the Arab spring. Most Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis do not wish to be ruled by extremists. Mosul and other areas may yet return to the hands of the government. Yet Syrians and Iraqis are both trapped between dictators on the one hand and extremists on the other. An unhappy choice.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-eas...had-across

[Magda Hassan]

Iraq Crisis: Created by Bush & Blair and Bankrolled by Saudi Arabia

Bush and Blair said Iraq was a war on Islamic fascism. They lost

by Robert Fisk
Young men in Baghdad chant slogans against Isis outside the main army recruiting centre yesterday, where they are volunteering to fight the extremist group. (Credit: Karin Kadim/AP)So after the grotesquerie of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, meet Saudi Arabia's latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit and Raqqa in Syria and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama.
From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis and by Kuwaiti oligarchs now rule thousands of square miles.
"Bush and Blair destroyed Saddam's regime to make the world safe and declared that Iraq was part of a titanic battle against 'Islamofascism.' Well, they lost."
Apart from Saudi Arabia's role in this catastrophe, what other stories are to be hidden from us in the coming days and weeks?
The story of Iraq and the story of Syria are the same politically, militarily and journalistically: two leaders, one Shia, the other Alawite, fighting for the existence of their regimes against the power of a growing Sunni Muslim international army.
While the Americans support the wretched Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his elected Shia government in Iraq, the same Americans still demand the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his regime, even though both leaders are now brothers-in-arms against the victors of Mosul and Tikrit.
The Croesus-like wealth of Qatar may soon be redirected away from the Muslim rebels of Syria and Iraq to the Assad regime, out of fear and deep hatred for its Sunni brothers in Saudi Arabia (which may invade Qatar if it becomes very angry).
We all know of the "deep concern" of Washington and London at the territorial victories of the Islamists and the utter destruction of all that America and Britain bled and died for in Iraq. No one, however, will feel as much of this "deep concern" as Shia Iran and Assad of Syria and Maliki of Iraq, who must regard the news from Mosul and Tikrit as a political and military disaster. Just when Syrian military forces were winning the war for Assad, tens of thousands of Iraqi-based militants may now turn on the Damascus government, before or after they choose to advance on Baghdad.
No one will care now how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been slaughtered since 2003 because of the fantasies of Bush and Blair. These two men destroyed Saddam's regime to make the world safe and declared that Iraq was part of a titanic battle against "Islamofascism." Well, they lost. Remember that the Americans captured and recaptured Mosul to crush the power of Islamist fighters. They fought for Fallujah twice. And both cities have now been lost again to the Islamists. The armies of Bush and Blair have long gone home, declaring victory.
Under Obama, Saudi Arabia will continue to be treated as a friendly "moderate" in the Arab world, even though its royal family is founded upon the Wahhabist convictions of the Sunni Islamists in Syria and Iraq and even though millions of its dollars are arming those same fighters. Thus does Saudi power both feed the monster in the deserts of Syria and Iraq and cosy up to the Western powers that protect it.
We should also remember that Maliki's military attempts to retake Mosul are likely to be ferocious and bloody, just as Assad's battles to retake cities have proved to be. The refugees fleeing Mosul are more frightened of Shia government revenge than they are of the Sunni jihadists who have captured their city.
We will all be told to regard the new armed "caliphate" as a "terror nation." Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, the Isis spokesman, is intelligent, warning against arrogance, talking of an advance on Baghdad when he may be thinking of Damascus. Isis is largely leaving the civilians of Mosul unharmed.
Finally, we will be invited to regard the future as a sectarian war when it will be a war between Muslim sectarians and Muslim non-sectarians. The "terror" bit will be provided by the arms we send to all sides.
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/13-7

[Magda Hassan]

Iran and the US new BFF

State Department: U.S., Iran Have a 'Shared Interest' in Stabilizing Iraq

U.S., Iran Haven't Discussed the Iraqi Crisis, Spokeswoman Says

By Jay Solomon
connect

June 13, 2014 4:17 p.m. ET
WASHINGTONThe U.S. and Iran have a "shared interest" in pushing back Islamist militants who have gained control of large territories in western Iraq, the State Department said Friday, but no direct discussions have occurred between Washington and Tehran on coordinating their efforts to stabilize the Iraqi government.
President Barack Obama said this week he is considering airstrikes in Iraq to weaken the al Qaeda-linked...

This will also bring Maliki, who the US supports, close to Assad, who the US does not support, because they have a shared enemy in ISIS. The US continues to support ISIS in Syria and thinks they are very very bad in Iraq.

[Lauren Johnson]

Magda, Much of what you posted comes from the POV of blowback from the imperial hubris of Bush and Blair. Even b from Moon of Alabama sees it this way as well. I'm not buying it. May have to, but not yet.

[Magda Hassan]

Of course there will be that, blow back. But there is more at play given the behaviour of the Iraqi military. A regional Shiite Sunni confrontation amongst others. Since the US and UK don't like Iran or Syria and have bankrolled the House of Saud for decades with arms for oil clearly they are supporting the Sunni. For now. The new affair with Iran will last long enough to drag them into the quagmire. I can't see that the Iraqi military, who seem to be collaborating with ISIS right now, I can't see them having too much to do with ISIS over the long term. A temporary marriage of convenience wont be convenient for too long. Kurds will be fucked over as usual.

[Lauren Johnson]

Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate

The Western media in chorus have described the unfolding conflict in Iraq as a "civil war" opposing the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham against the Armed forces of the Al-Maliki government.

(Also referred to as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS))
The conflict is casually described as "sectarian warfare" between Radical Sunni and Shia without addressing "who is behind the various factions". What is at stake is a carefully staged US military-intelligence agenda.

Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as "intelligence assets" since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.

The Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) re-emerged in April 2013 with a different name and acronym, commonly referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The formation of a terrorist entity encompassing both Iraq and Syria was part of a US intelligence agenda. It responded to geopolitical objectives. It also coincided with the advances of Syrian government forces against the US sponsored insurgency in Syria and the failures of both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various "opposition" terror brigades.

The decision was taken by Washington to channel its support (covertly) in favor of a terrorist entity which operates in both Syria and Iraq and which has logistical bases in both countries. The ISIS Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into three separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, and a Republic of Kurdistan.

Whereas the (US proxy) government in Baghdad purchases advanced weapons systems from the US including F16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham which is fighting Iraqi government forces is supported covertly by Western intelligence. The objective is to engineer a civil war in Iraq, in which both sides are controlled indirectly by US-NATO.

The scenario is to arm and equip them, on both sides, finance them with advanced weapons systems and then "let them fight".

US-NATO is involved in the recruitment, training and financing of ISIS death squads operating in both Iraq and Syria. ISIS operates through indirect channels in liaison with Western intelligence. In turn, corroborated by reports on Syria's insurgency, Western special forces and mercenaries integrate the ranks of ISIS.

US-NATO support to ISIS is channeled covertly through America's staunchest allies: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. According to London's Daily Express...
"They had money and arms supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia."
Through allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West [has] supported militant rebel groups which have since mutated into ISIS and other al‑Qaeda connected militias. ( Daily Telegraph, June 12, 2014)

While the media acknowledges that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting ISIS, it invariably fails to mention that both Doha and Riyadh are acting on behalf and in close liaison with Washington.

Under the banner of a civil war, an undercover war of aggression is being fought which essentially contributes to further destroying an entire country, its institutions, its economy. The undercover operation is part of an intelligence agenda, an engineered process which consists in transforming Iraq into an open territory.

Meanwhile, public opinion is led to believe that what is at stake is confrontation between Shia and Sunni.

America's military occupation of Iraq has been replaced by non-conventional forms of warfare. Realities are blurred. In a bitter irony, the aggressor nation is portrayed as coming to the rescue of a "sovereign Iraq".

An internal "civil war" between Shia and Sunni is fomented by US-NATO support to both the Al-Maliki government as well as to the Sunni ISIS rebels.

The break up of Iraq along sectarian lines is longstanding policy of the US and its allies.

"Supporting both Sides"
The "War on Terrorism" consists in creating Al Qaeda terrorist entities as part of an intelligence operation, as well as also coming to the rescue of governments which are the target of the terrorist insurgency. This process is carried out under the banner of counter-terrorism. It creates the pretext to intervene.

ISIS is a caliphate project of creating a Sunni Islamist state. It is not a project of the Sunni population of Iraq which is broadly committed to a secular forms of government. The caliphate project is part of a US intelligence operation.

In response to the advance of the ISIS rebels, Washington is envisaging the use of aerial bombings as well as drone attacks in support of the Baghdad government as part of a counter-terrorism operation. It is all for a good cause: to fight the terrorists, without of course acknowledging that these terrorists are the "foot soldiers" of the Western military alliance.
Needless to say, these developments contribute not only to destabilizing Iraq, but also to weakening the Iraqi resistance movement, which is one of major objectives of US-NATO.

The Islamic caliphate is supported covertly by the CIA in liaison with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkish intelligence. Israel is also involved in channeling support to both Al Qaeda rebels in Syria (out of the Golan Heights) as well to the Kurdish separatist movement in Syria and Iraq.

More broadly, the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) encompasses a consistent and diabolical logic: both sides namely the terrorists and the government are supported by the same military and intelligence actors, namely US-NATO.

While this pattern describes the current situation in Iraq, the structure of "supporting both sides" with a view to engineering sectarian conflict has been implemented time and again in numerous countries. Insurgencies integrated by Al Qaeda operatives (and supported by Western intelligence) prevail in a large number of countries including Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Mali, the Central African Republic, Pakistan. The endgame is to destabilize sovereign nation states and to transform countries into open territories (on behalf of so-called foreign investors).

The pretext to intervene on humanitarian grounds (e.g. in Mali, Nigeria or the Central African Republic) is predicated on the existence of terrorist forces. Yet these terrorist forces would not exist without covert US-NATO support.
The Capture of Mosul: US-NATO Covert Support to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Something unusual occurred in Mosul which cannot be explained in strictly military terms.

On June 10, the insurgent forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) captured Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, with a population of close to 1.5 million people. While these developments were "unexpected" according to the Obama administration, they were known to the Pentagon and US intelligence, which were not only providing weapons, logistics and financial support to the ISIS rebels, they were also coordinating, behind the scenes, the ISIS attack on the city of Mosul.

While ISIS is a well equipped and disciplined rebel army when compared to other Al Qaeda affiliated formations, the capture of Mosul, did not hinge upon ISIS's military capabilities. Quite the opposite: Iraqi forces which outnumbered the rebels by far, equipped with advanced weapons systems could have easily repelled the ISIS rebels.

There were 30,000 government forces in Mosul as opposed to 1000 ISIS rebels, according to reports. The Iraqi army chose not to intervene. The media reports explained without evidence that the decision of the Iraqi armed forces not to intervene was spontaneous characterized by mass defections.

Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers roughly 30,000 men simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq's second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting. (Guardian, June 12, 2014, emphasis added)

The reports point to the fact that Iraqi military commanders were sympathetic with the Sunni led ISIS insurgency:

Speaking from the Kurdish city of Erbil, the defectors accused their officers of cowardice and betrayal, saying generals in Mosul "handed over" the city over to Sunni insurgents, with whom they shared sectarian and historical ties. (Daily Telegraph, 13 June 2014)

What is important to understand, is that both sides, namely the regular Iraqi forces and the ISIS rebel army are supported by US-NATO. There were US military advisers and special forces including operatives from private military companies on location in Mosul working with Iraq's regular armed forces. In turn, there are Western special forces or mercenaries within ISIS (acting on contract to the CIA or the Pentagon) who are in liaison with US-NATO (e.g. through satellite phones).

Under these circumstances, with US intelligence amply involved, there would have been routine communication, coordination, logistics and exchange of intelligence between a US-NATO military and intelligence command center, US-NATO military advisers forces or private military contractors on the ground assigned to the Iraqi Army and Western special forces attached to the ISIS brigades. These Western special forces operating covertly within the ISIS could have been dispatched by a private security company on contract to US-NATO.

In this regard, the capture of Mosul appears to have been a carefully engineered operation, planned well in advance. With the exception of a few skirmishes, no fighting took place.

Entire divisions of the Iraqi National Army trained by the US military with advanced weapons systems at their disposal could have easily repelled the ISIS rebels. Reports suggest that they were ordered by their commanders not to intervene. According to witnesses, "Not a single shot was fired".

The forces that had been in Mosul have fled some of which abandoned their uniforms as well as their posts as the ISIS forces swarmed into the city.

Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants. http://hotair.com/archives/2014/06/10/mosul-falls-to-al-qaeda-as-us-trained-security-forces-flee/

A contingent of one thousand ISIS rebels take over a city of more than one million? Without prior knowledge that the US controlled Iraqi Army (30,000 strong) would not intervene, the Mosul operation would have fallen flat, the rebels would have been decimated.

Who was behind the decision to let the ISIS terrorists take control of Mosul?

Had the senior Iraqi commanders been instructed by their Western military advisers to hand over the city to the ISIS terrorists? Were they co-opted?

Was the handing over of Mosul to ISIS part of a US intelligence agenda?

Were the Iraqi military commanders manipulated or paid off into allowing the city to fall into the hands of the ISIS rebels without "a single shot being fired".

Shiite General Mehdi Sabih al-Gharawi who was in charge of the Mosul Army divisions "had left the city". Al Gharawi had worked hand in glove with the US military. He took over the command of Mosul in September 2011, from US Col Scott McKean. Had he been co-opted, instructed by his US counterparts to abandon his command?

(image left) U.S. Army Col. Scott McKean, right, commander, 4th Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Armored Division, talks with Iraqi police Maj. Gen. Mahdi Sabih al-Gharawi following a transfer of authority ceremony on September 4, 2011
US forces could have intervened. They had been instructed to let it happen. It was part of a carefully planned agenda to facilitate the advance of the ISIS rebel forces and the installation of the ISIS caliphate.

The whole operation appears to have been carefully staged.

In Mosul, government buildings, police stations, schools, hospitals, etc are formally now under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In turn, ISIS has taken control of military hardware including helicopters and tanks which were abandoned by the Iraqi armed forces. What is unfolding is the installation of a US sponsored Islamist ISIS caliphate alongside the rapid demise of the Baghdad government. Meanwhile, the Northern Kurdistan region has de facto declared its independence from Baghdad. Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces (which are supported by Israel) have taken control of the cities of Arbil and Kirkuk.

Concluding Remarks There were no Al Qaeda rebels in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. Moreover, Al Qaeda was non-existent in Syria until the outset of the US-NATO-Israeli supported insurgency in March 2011. The ISIS is not an independent entity. It is a creation of US intelligence. It is a US intelligence asset, an instrument of non-conventional warfare. The ultimate objective of this ongoing US-NATO engineered conflict opposing Maliki government forces to the ISIS insurgency is to destroy and destabilize Iraq as a Nation State. It is part of an intelligence operation, an engineered process of transforming countries into territories. The break up of Iraq along sectarian lines is a longstanding policy of the US and its allies.

The ISIS is a caliphate project of creating a Sunni Islamist state. It is not a project of the Sunni population of Iraq which historically has been committed to a secular system of government. The caliphate project is a US design. The advances of ISIS forces is intended to garnish broad support within the Sunni population directed against the Al Maliki government The division of Iraq along sectarian-ethnic lines has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 10 years.

The formation of the caliphate may be the first step towards a broader conflict in the Middle East, bearing in mind that Iran is supportive of the Al Maliki government and the US ploy may indeed be to encourage the intervention of Iran.

The proposed redivision of Iraq is broadly modeled on that of the Federation of Yugoslavia which was split up into seven "independent states" (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYRM), Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo).

According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, the re division of Iraq into three separate states is part of a broader process of redrawing the Map of the Middle East.

The above map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006). Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers". (See Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a "New Middle East" By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, November 2006)