ISIS: Remaining and Expanding

[Magda Hassan]

The US were training ISIS to do their thing in Syria. Acknowledged since 2012.

I just heard that Syria has joined the fight against ISIS and they will be bombing them. I wonder how the US will spin this? ::

[Albert Doyle]

This is a way to sick Al Qaeda on the arabs to keep them tied up. Eventually I imagine when the US wants to make a move they'll back some form of this movement when it takes down another targted leader or nation and then blame internal local conflicts.

[David Guyatt]

[David Guyatt]

Golly gosh. Well I never. A mainstream newspaper letting the cat out of the bag.

Syria conflict exclusive: Western aid going to help territory held by Isis militants



Food aid and medicines sent by governments, NGOs and the UN are arriving in towns such as Raqqa, Manbij and Jarablus, which have witnessed beheadings and crucifixions since the terrorist group took over early this year

ISABEL HUNTER

GAZIANTEP, ON THE TURKISH BORDER

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Western governments are sending millions of pounds of aid to areas held by the radical Islamic group Isis in northern Syria, The Independent can reveal.

The aid, which is paid for by the UK, European and US governments, consists of food, medicine and hygiene kits. It is brought into the country through the war-torn north from the two last remaining border posts open with Turkey in Reyhanli and Kilis.
Western groups such as Mercy Corps International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision, the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations World Food Programme provide supplies to hundreds of thousands of people every month across the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
This includes towns such as Raqqa, Manbij and Jarablus, which have witnessed beheadings, crucifixions and other draconian interpretations of sharia since Isis took over early this year.
"We have lots of direct shipments into Isis-held areas. Nearly all of our trucks go through the Turkish border post near Kilis. Sometimes they get stuck en route, and we have to wait two or three weeks for them to get there if they get held up by fighting or another opposition group which isn't happy that we're sending aid through an Isis checkpoint," said a Western aid worker. Aid groups say their aim is to help vulnerable people, not to support the rule of Isis. Mercy Corps, which has headquarters in the UK and the US, has received £27.3m from the UK Department for International Development for humanitarian activities in Syria.

A spokeswoman for Mercy Corps said: "We have been delivering essential aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians in need on all sides of the conflict, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation as an independent, impartial humanitarian organisation, that is our mandate."
Isis uses social media to demonstrate the brutality with which it treats its enemies and those who break its laws. But it uses the same media to show it distributing aid and administering healthcare to people under its rule.
Its ability to deliver free aid and free fuel has been a major factor in persuading residents of recently conquered towns such as Mosul to accept its rule.
A spokesman for Dfid said it did not supply aid to Isis directly: "We supply life-saving aid to people who need it, in line with international humanitarian principles including impartiality."
Bashar al-Assad, who was sworn in for a third term today, said states that have supported terrorism will pay the price and that he would fight insurgents until security was restored to the country.
"Soon we will see that the Arab, regional and Western states that supported terrorism will pay a high price," he told his supporters at the presidential palace.
Local civilians queue for aid administered by Isis. Since it declared a caliphate the group has increasingly been delivering services such as healthcare, and distributing aid and free fuel
Meanwhile in warehouses and industrial parks along Turkey's southern border, there are shipping containers waiting to be unloaded. Workers unload unmarked boxes which are then loaded on to commercial trucks. The food includes wheat, rice, tinned tomatoes, sugar and oil. The medical supplies are basic items that do not require cold storage such as bandages and basic drugs.
The trucks are then driven across the border to areas precariously held by Syrian opposition forces and Islamist groups including Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qa'ida's official branch in Syria, which is also fighting against Isis.
Isis, reinforced by US military supplies taken from defeated Iraqi forces, has renewed its assaults against Syrian non-government forces including Kurds and Western-backed groups such as the Free Syrian Army.
Although Isis is officially fighting Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic Front and the Free Syrian Army, humanitarian aid and commercial goods are more often than not allowed to cross the "border" to Isis areas.
The aid is then distributed and monitored by civilian Syrian relief committees, many of which were in place before Isis took over, according to aid workers who operate out of Turkey's southern city of Gaziantep.
Aid workers say Isis, which has kidnapped Western journalists and workers in the past, lets them work mostly without interference. "They're happy to let us work on the large part without preconditions," said one Western aid worker.
Isis is designated a terrorist group by the United State which also offers a reward of $10m (£5.8m) for information leading to the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared himself caliph in imitation of the companions of Mohamed who set up a caliphate in the Middle East and North Africa in the seventh century.
In addition to international aid, Isis-controlled areas of Raqqa and Deir Ezzour are very fertile and produce a vast amount of the region's wheat. Deir Ezzour also has some of the biggest oilfields in Syria.
Fighters from ISIS marching in Raqqa, Syria
Isis is also luring doctors and nurses with large salaries in return for their loyalty, a Syrian doctor working for a Norwegian medical NGO in Raqqa told The Independent.
"They are buying people one by one they are offering doctors up to 100,000 Syrian pounds a month (£390), which is a fortune there now.
"At the beginning they would take any aid they didn't have to pay for, but since they announced the establishment of the caliphate, they are running their own services so that it can become more like a state."

[Magda Hassan]

ISIS Captures Iraq's Biggest Dam: Baghdad Water Supply In Jeopardy

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/03/2014 15:00 -0400






With the world's attention focused on the ongoing death and destruction in Gaza most have forgotten that just two months ago a vicious Al-Qaeda spinoff, after taking over the north of Iraq and a third of Syria's territory including its oil production facilities, proclaimed the creation of an Islamic State caliphate a few hundred kilometers north of Baghdad. The reason why the ISIS story fell off the front pages is that while the jihadists were consolidating their power in the caliphate region, it was believed that they have no chance of advancing onto Baghdad and the energy-rich Iraq regions south of Baghdad (and thus have little impact on the price of Brent). And yet there was one major "weakest link" - recall that a month ago we reported that "Baghdad May Lose Its Drinking Water As ISIS Approaches Dam", an outcome which would put Iraq's capital, and its 8 million residents, at the mercy of ISIS.
According to Al Arabia it is this "weakest link" that is now in play after ISIS took over Iraq's biggest dam unopposed by Kurdish fighters, who also lost three towns and an oilfield on Sunday to the Sunni militant group, witnesses said cited by Reuters.

Iraqi security officials said Wednesday that fighters for the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were advancing on the Haditha Dam, the
second-largest in Iraq.

VOA confirms:

Islamic State fighters seized control of Iraq's biggest dam, an oilfield and two more towns on Sunday after inflicting their first major defeat on Kurdish forces since sweeping through the region in June

Local officials said militants with the extremist group Islamic State took control of the towns of Zumar and Sinjar near the city of Mosul on Sunday, waging fierce clashes with Kurdish forces.

The French news agency AFP quoted a United Nations spokesman saying 200,000 people have fled Sinjar and said there are grave concerns for their safety.

It gets worse: control of the dam could give ISIS, which has threatened to march on Baghdad, the ability to flood major cities. This in turn will merely serve to further facilitate the expansion of ISIS as it approaches Baghdad from the north...

Meanwhile, ISIS also seized two small towns in northern Iraq after driving out Kurdish security forces, officials and residents said, according to the Associated Press.

The fresh gains by the Sunni extremist militants have forced dozens of residents to flee from the religiously mixed towns of Zumar and Sinjar, near the militant-held city of Mosul, to the northern self-ruled Kurdish region.

Earlier on Sunday, ISIS militants have successfully captured an oil field close to the Iraqi town of Zumar after fighting with Kurdish forces who had control of the area.

ISIS, which had a lightning advance through northern Iraq in June, warned residents in nearby villages along the border with Syria to leave their homes, suggesting they were planning an assault, witnesses said. ISIS fighters killed 16 Kurdish troops in attacks in northern Iraq, while 30 pro-government forces died battling the jihadists on other frontlines, officials said Saturday.

Zumar is a small Kurdish-majority outpost northwest of Mosul, which used to be under federal government control but was taken over by the Peshmerga in June.

In other attacks on Saturday, five would-be volunteer fighters were killed and 16 wounded in a suicide car bomb attack on a Shiite militia recruitment center in the town of Balad, north of Baghdad, police said.

... and from the south.

In equally intense overnight fighting on the main front south of Baghdad, at least 23 pro-government forces were killed by relentless mortar shelling of their positions in Jurf al-Sakhr.

ISIS militants began attacking the town late Friday, killing 11 soldiers and 12 members of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, an officer and army medic said.

Another seven soldiers were wounded during a subsequent government operation against jihadist fighters in Jurf al-Sakhr, Al-Hamya and Latifiya, the sources said, claiming 37 IS fighters were killed.

Using the western city of Fallujah as a rear base, jihadists have repeatedly attacked Jurf al-Sakhr, where pro-government forces are keen to prevent a foray that would expose the nearby holy Shiite city of Karbala and further encircle Baghdad by cutting the main road to the south.

And if Baghdad does indeed fall, all those recent Crude shorts will be less than happy.
Finally, here is a visual summary of all the most recent clashes as ISIS approaches Baghdad, courtesy of the ISW:

[Lauren Johnson]

[Lauren Johnson]

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"The problem is, the Pentagon's proxies are evaporating."
The rise of the Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria has flipped the script on U.S. proxy war policies in the region, and may ultimately bring down the royal oil states whose survival is indispensable to American hegemony in the world. At the foot soldier level, the imperial proxy strategy has already collapsed with the disintegration of the (always ephemeral) "moderate" armed opposition to the Syrian government and the defection to the Caliphate of formerly U.S.-financed Sunni fighters in Iraq.

The $500 million President Obama has requested for Syria has been rendered moot by the Caliphate's stunning political and military victories; no amount of money can create an army out of phantoms. The most active Syrian insurgents have flocked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State formerly known as ISIS, whose leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, served notice on Washington: "You should know, you defender of the cross, that getting others to fight on your behalf will not do for you in Syria as it will not do for you in Iraq."

The U.S. corporate media were more interested in the rest of al-Baghdadi's message, in which he warned Washington that "soon enough, you will be in direct confrontation forced to do so, God willing. And the sons of Islam have prepared themselves for this day. So wait, and we will be waiting, too." For most self-obsessed Americans, this was received as a threat to attack "the Homeland." However, downtown Manhattan is not on the Caliphate leader's map. Al-Baghdadi meant that the American strategy of financing Muslim muppets to fight imperialism's wars is kaput, and that the Pentagon will soon have to do its own dirty work, dressed in "Crusader" uniform.

Accordingly, the U.S. is sending additional hundreds of "non-combat" troops to northern Iraq as if Marines and Special Forces are anything but combat soldiers to join the 1,000 or so American military and "security" personnel already there, by official count. Contrary to what many Americans on the Left believe, U.S. planners are not itching to send large American units to Arab lands (the Kurds are not Arabs), since their presence is counter-productive in the extreme. The problem is, the Pentagon's proxies are evaporating, in flight, or in the case of Arab Iraq growing even more dependent on Iran and (who would have predicted it?) Russia, which is assisting in reconstituting the Iraqi air force.

"Downtown Manhattan is not on the Caliphate leader's map."
Some leftists in the U.S. even imagine that Washington has achieved some kind of victory with the imminent departure of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the veteran American stooge. But, Maliki's ouster was also backed by Iran, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani (who mobilized millions demanding an end to the U.S. occupation), Muqtada al-Sadr (whose militia fought two wars against the occupation), and even much of Maliki's own Dawa Party. Only the Kurds remain in Washington's (and Israel's) pocket and this matter of convenience, too, may pass as the neighborhood changes all around Kurdistan.

By that, I mean the larger neighborhood, encompassing Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Turkey and Jordan. The Caliphate's al-Baghdadi had a message for them, his erstwhile financiers, back in late June: "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas." Thousands of the Islamic State's fighters and, just as importantly, its fundamentalist Wahhabist worldview are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula. That's why journalist Patrick Cockburn, in his new book, excerpted inCounterpunch, concluded that, "For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of Isis and the Caliphate is the ultimate disaster...."

The Caliphate's victories resonate far beyond the Sunni Arab population of Iraq and Syria. Saudi Arabia's political legitimacy is based on its role as protector of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina and the Old Time Religion. But its royal family, like the rest of the hereditary potentates of the region, is debauched and infinitely corrupted by wealth. The Saudis (and, in no less lethal form, the Qataris) export jihad against Shia and secularists while hoping to control it at home. The Caliphate has taken the ideology to its logical and ghastly conclusion, and dares to challenge the legitimacy of its former funders, staunch allies of the "Crusader."

Cockburn puts it this way:

"The resurgence of al-Qa'ida-type groups is not a threat confined to Syria, Iraq, and their near neighbors. 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."

"All 1.6 billion Muslims, almost a quarter of the world's people, will be increasingly affected."
The consequences are, of course, most dire to those Muslims (including but not limited to Shia) labeled heretics by the takfiris of the expanding Caliphate, and for all religious minorities and secular forces within their reach. But, the Salafist chickens are coming back home to roost on the peninsula which is why the Saudis are, at this late date, frantically attempting to put the jihadist genie back in the bottle. As Cockburn writes, "Fearful of what they've helped create, the Saudis are now veering in the other direction, arresting jihadi volunteers rather than turning a blind eye as they go to Syria and Iraq, but it may be too late."

It is certainly too late for the U.S. to salvage a critical element of its foreign policy in the Muslim world: war by proxy. It has been a long and bloody ride since the late Seventies, when the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan invented the global jihadist network almost from scratch, to give the Soviets a black eye in Afghanistan. The Islamists provided the foot soldiers for America's own imperial jihad in Muslim lands.
In 2011, it was jihadists to the rescue after popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt threw the imperial pack into panic. The U.S. and its NATO allies mounted a monstrous assault on Libya a kind of Shock and Awe providing air cover for a jihadist army largely financed by Arab oil royals. When regime change was accomplished, Libyan fighters joined their Salafist comrades in the rampage in Syria, already underway.

Today, with Libya in utter chaos, and Assad's government still standing in Syria, the Caliphate has declared independence from its western and royal godmothers as we at BAR predicted three years ago.

Imperialism has let loose a plague upon the world, that will sooner, rather than later consume the kings, emirs and sultans the U.S. depends on to keep the empire's oil safe. The pace of imperial decline just got quicker.

[Danny Jarman]

If ISIS were the real deal they'd be attacking the Saudi's and Israel

Another CIA mob

[Lauren Johnson]

If ISIS were the real deal they'd be attacking the Saudi's and Israel

Another CIA mob

Remember when we were supposed to believe that the Bin Laden videos were real when at least one that I can recall was an obvious fake?

Now we have the James Foley beheading video, which is critical evidence of how dangerous ISIS is. Jesus. Where have we heard this before.

Here is the video. Something is really wrong about it.

Scott Creighton thinks it's faked. For sure, thinks they're all faked. This time he's got something. Read what he says about the fake knife. Damn. He's right.

[Tracy Riddle]

The video seems fake to me. The guy in red doesn't even look like Foley, who is more slender, darker and nice-looking. The guy in the video looks like an ugly Navy Seal type.
And how do you make someone spout all kinds of propaganda they don't believe in, when they know they're going to be killed in a few seconds anyway?

One commenter points out:
"The production value seems pretty high. A multiple camera shoot. Good sound editing. the props at the end. it's all pretty high. the only problem is, the creation of a wound on an exposed skin surface is very difficult to produce realistically especially in natural lighting. that's why they didn't even try it."