Selling the ISIS brand

[Michael Barwell]

Maybe they'll be offering free ponies next.

Yeah - in my dreams...
"Wassat? - free Guinness & Kendal Mintcake?" >Scoots< (I'm 'told' they'll even pay the airfare - true story).

[R.K. Locke]

[video=youtube_share;o6kdi1UXxhY]http://youtu.be/o6kdi1UXxhY[/video]

[R.K. Locke]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/pen...-608321312


Pentagon report says West, Gulf states and Turkey foresaw emergence of IS'

Nafeez Ahmed

Friday 29 May 2015 13:23 BST

A US intelligence report reveals that Western support for Syria's rebels aided and abetted the rise of the Islamic State' - and the Pentagon won't deny it


A newly declassified Pentagon report provides startling high-level confirmation that the US-led strategy in Syria contributed directly to the rise of the Islamic State (IS).

The secret US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document, obtained by Washington DC law firm Judicial Watch, reveals that the emergence of an "Islamic State" across Iraq and Syria was foreseen by the Pentagon, as early as three years ago.

According to the internal report, which was distributed throughout the US intelligence community, this was seen as a likely consequence of the West's efforts to destabilise Bashir al-Assad's regime in Syria.

Despite that, Western governments continued to coordinate financial, military and logistical support to largely Islamist militant rebel groups in Syria, through allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Turkey, among others.

A sectarian insurgency

Dated August 2012, the report states that the "major forces driving the insurgency in Syria" comprise "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq]."

Immediately after, the document states that these forces are being supported by a Western-led coalition: "The West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition."

Throughout, the document does not suggest a distinction between "moderate" Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels and Islamist militant groups, nor between the insurgency and the opposition.

Rather, the document shows that opposition forces engaged in fighting the Assad regime consisted of a combination of overlapping Islamist forces. Singling out al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the document says the terror group "supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning" due to its belief that Assad was "targeting Sunnis".

The report further describes the insurgency as a "sectarian uprising," whose increasingly sectarian character attracts "volunteers" from across the region to "support the Sunnis in Syria".

In the same month the DIA report was written, the BBC, Associated Press and other news outlets reported increasing incidents of sectarian atrocities against Shia civilians by FSA rebels, demonstrating the FSA's growing penetration by sectarian Islamist groups.

In his recent blog post, however, Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole denies that the document says the US "created" sectarian groups in Syria. This is beside the point the document affirms that despite awareness of the increasingly "sectarian direction" of an insurgency driven significantly by al-Qaeda, the US and its allies still supported it.

Western backing for al-Qaeda

Earlier the same year, CIA officials were in southern Turkey overseeing the supply of Turkish, Saudi and Qatari-financed weapons to purportedly "moderate" rebels. The CIA was "helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters" would receive arms.

By the following year, defence consultancy IHS Jane concluded based on Western intelligence estimates that nearly half of all Syrian rebels were Islamist jihadists, who shared al-Qaeda's outlook except for being focused on the Syrian conflict.

Cole scoffs at the idea that the US would "support al-Qaeda linked groups" and that the DIA document might internally acknowledge the same.

Yet that is exactly what the West's allies the Gulf states and Turkey were doing, under the close supervision of the CIA and MI6.

In 2014, a senior Qatari official revealed that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had for years provided economic and military assistance primarily to al-Qaeda's Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra, and to the IS precursor, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Prosecutor and witness testimony in court documents showed that in the same period, Turkey's state intelligence agency (MIT) was supplying weapons by truck to al-Qaeda and ISIS-controlled rebel areas in Syria.

Such Saudi, Qatari and Turkish support for al-Qaeda and ISIS was not news to US intelligence. Back in late 2012, classified US intelligence assessments made available to President Obama and senior policymakers showed that most Saudi and Qatari arms went to "hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups".

And despite official declarations of being able to certify support to "moderates" as opposed to extremists, last year the State Department was unable to identify a single "moderate" rebel group in receipt of Western support.

The failure of secular rebel groups "to secure regular arms supplies," reported the New York Times, "has allowed Islamists to fill the void and win supporters". Consequently, rebel-held areas across Syria were "dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics," who want to "infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government".

The strategy allowed Islamist militants to hijack the grassroots Syrian revolution and crushed all prospects of an inclusive, democratically elected government.

Who wanted a Salafist Principality' ?

By early 2013, al-Qaeda had taken control of Syrian government oil fields in Hasaka and Deir Ezzor, today the de facto IS capital.

The August 2012 DIA document reveals that the Pentagon anticipated this outcome, and spurred it forward. Noting that "the opposition forces are trying to control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Deir Ezzor)," the document observed how "Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts".

The report warned explicitly that a rebel conquest of Hasaka and Deir Ezzor would likely spawn a militant Islamist political entity in eastern Syria:

"If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasak and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)."

This extraordinary passage confirms that at least three years ago, the Pentagon anticipated the rise of a "Salafist Principality" as a direct consequence of its Syria strategy and that the "supporting powers" behind the rebels "wanted" this outcome "to isolate the Syrian regime," and weaken Shiite influence via Iraq and Iran.

Who were the "supporting powers?" According to Juan Cole, this refers to "those powers (e.g. Turkey and the Gulf monarchies) supporting the opposition." He adds: "It doesn't say the US or the West' wanted to see such a thing."

This is a selective, and false, reading. Cole ignores that the sentences of the report mentioning Turkey and the Gulf States as "supporting powers," all begin with "the West":

"The West, the Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition."

And three paragraphs before the mention of a "Salafist Principality": "Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts."

The clear import of this precise language in the DIA report is that the "West, the Gulf countries, and Turkey" were not acting in isolation, but as a single coalition under Western leadership.

Similarly, Robert Barsocchini speculates that "supporting powers" might refer to al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, the US intelligence community does not classify AQI or any other non-state terrorist network as a "power".

The use of the plural, "supporting powers," clarifies that the reference is to a group of powers supporting the rebels, not just one entity like AQI.

Barsocchini, like Cole, also suggests that Western governments would not admit to wanting a "Salafist Principality," even privately. This is incorrect. Declassified files since World War II prove that Western governments frequently and privately admit to cultivating Islamist extremism for geopolitical reasons.

In summary, the Pentagon report is absolutely clear that the West, the Gulf states and Turkey were supporting the Syrian opposition to attain a common goal: the emergence of a "Salafist" political entity in eastern Syria that would help "isolate" Assad.

Anticipating ISIS

The Pentagon document cautioned that if such an Islamist entity did appear in eastern Syria, it could have "dire consequences" for Iraq, providing "the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi," and a "renewed momentum" for a unified jihad "among Sunni Iraq and Syria".

Most strikingly, the report warned:

"ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory."

So in 2012, the US intelligence community knew that an al-Qaeda victory over Hasaka and Deir al-Zour would likely facilitate the installation of an Islamist-Salafist entity, that its own allies - at least - wanted exactly that outcome, and that this outcome would create "the ideal atmosphere" for "AQI" and "ISI" to expand and even "declare an Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria, that could fracture Iraq.

Subsidising ISIS

So what did the Pentagon do in response to this information?

It escalated the strategy.

Even assuming the validity of Cole's unilateral redaction of "the West" from the "supporting powers" behind the rebels, the implication is unchanged: in 2012, the Pentagon knew that its own allies, who were supplying arms to the rebels with CIA approval, wanted to see the emergence of an Islamist-Salafist political structure in eastern Syria.

Despite this, and despite ongoing intelligence updates proving that their allies were not funding "moderates" instead supporting their favoured Islamist terrorists US and European intelligence advisers on the ground simply continued on the same course.

No sooner had al-Qaeda and ISIS rebels conquered the eastern Syrian oil fields in Hasaka and Deir Ezzor in April 2013, they received direct Western financial support: the European Union voted to ease an embargo on Syria to allow the oil to be sold on international markets to European companies, with transactions approved by the FSA's political overseers, the Syrian National Coalition.

"The logical conclusion from this craziness is that Europe will be funding al-Qaeda," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.

Unsurprisingly, these al-Qaeda and ISIS inspired rebels supported by the Western-led coalition had an authoritarian theocratic agenda, distinct from the "many civilian activists, protesters and aid workers who had hoped the uprising would create a civil, democratic Syria."

By September 2014, the EU's ambassador to Iraq, Jana Hybaskova, complained to the Foreign Affairs Committee that "several EU member states have bought oil from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organisation that has been brutally conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria".

So from early 2013 to late 2014, the West was bankrolling the jihadist-run "Salafist Principality" in eastern Syria through oil imports, fully cognisant that this entity posed a "grave danger" of galvanising the rise of an Islamic State across Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon cannot pretend it didn't know the consequence of its strategy. Indeed, it doesn't.

When asked repeatedly by journalist and ex-US marine Brad Hoff to dispel claims that the West aligned itself with IS or ISIS at some point in Syria, the DIA's official response was telling: "No comment."

- Nafeez Ahmed PhD is an investigative journalist, international security scholar and bestselling author who tracks what he calls the 'crisis of civilization.' He is a winner of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian reporting on the intersection of global ecological, energy and economic crises with regional geopolitics and conflicts. He has also written for The Independent, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, New Internationalist. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner's Inquest.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

[R.K. Locke]

http://truthinmedia.com/us-trained-forei...oins-isis/


US-Trained Foreign Special Forces Commander Joins ISIS

May 29, 2015

By Ivan Plis


A special forces commander from Tajikistan, who has been missing since late April, appeared Thursday in an online video where he pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Gulmurod Khalimov is perhaps the highest-profile defector from the majority-Muslim ex-Soviet republic in central Asia. Since vanishing from duty in late April, he has sparked a search across Tajikistan, and endless speculation about his location and intentions.

Islamic State's propaganda often targets narrow demographics for recruitment. Russian speakers in central Asia are one of those groups: one preteen boy from Kazakhstan has been the star of several IS videos. (RELATED: New ISIS Video Features Kid Executioner)

In Thursday's video, Khalimov speaks in accented Russian while Tajik-language religious songs play. He identifies himself as a colonel in Tajikistan's special forces.

He claims he received training from Russian and American special forces in Moscow and in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He also boasts about training by the U.S. private military contractor Blackwater.


Addressing the many ethnic Tajiks who work as migrant workers in Russia, he says that living under a secular democratic government amounts to being "servants of infidels," when as Muslims they ought instead to be "servants of Allah." By this argument, he urges them repeatedly to "immigrate" to the jihadi group's purported state in Syria and Iraq: "if you were believers, you would have known to come here." (RELATED: Muslim Polygamy Is Russia's Hottest Political Debate)

Echoing the group's interpretation of Islam, he calls immigration to Islamic State a "religious duty," marveling at the diversity of nations represented in the jihadis' territory. The video, incidentally, was released shortly after a United Nations report saying that Islamic terrorist groups enjoy members from over 100 countries worldwide.

He taunts the government of Tajikistan which he recently served, saying that Islamic State is soon coming to reestablish Shariah there.

He also addresses "American swine," saying that in his three visits to the country he has "seen how you prepare soldiers to eliminate Muslims and Islam." He vows that in retribution, "we will come to your homes and we will kill you."

As though to prove his point, he places a tomato on a post, and shoots it with a sniper rifle from dozens of yards away.

Russia and its allies in central Asia have repeatedly raised the alarm over Islamist radicalization and unrest in the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Hundreds of central Asians have joined IS since it came to prominence in 2014.

[R.K. Locke]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/20...ake-ramadi



U.S. Saw Islamic State Coming, Let It Take Ramadi

By Eli Lake


The U.S. watched Islamic State fighters, vehicles and heavy equipment gather on the outskirts of Ramadi before the group retook the city in mid-May. But the U.S. did not order airstrikes against the convoys before the battle started. It left the fighting to Iraqi troops, who ultimately abandoned their positions.

U.S. intelligence and military officials told me recently, on the condition of anonymity, that the U.S. had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the U.S. military, it was an open secret even at the time.

The Islamic State had been contesting territory in and around Ramadi for more than a year and had spoken of the importance of recapturing the city. The U.S. intelligence community had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive on Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders. It surprised no one, one U.S. intelligence official told me.

Other observers were willing to speak on the record about how many had seen the Islamic State's assault on Ramadi coming. "The operations on Ramadi have been ongoing for 16 months," said Derek Harvey, a former intelligence adviser to David Petraeus when he commanded the counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. Harvey said many observers had seen the Islamic State's series of probing attacks and psychological operations aimed at the Iraqi army and local tribes: "Everyone knew that Ramadi for some reason was a major focus." He conceded that he did not know the exact timing of the Ramadi offensive beforehand and acknowledged that he was surprised at how effective the operations were.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, had also been warning in policy papers that the Islamic State had set its eyes on Ramadi. Kim Kagan, the think tank's president, told me her institute "assessed that ISIS would undertake tactical offensives in different areas of Iraq in April and May in order to disperse the Iraqi Security Forces and prevent them from consolidating their gains after the fall of Tikrit." She said that "ISIS began alternating attacks between Anbar and the Baiji oil refinery in mid-April," which prompted General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to say in Congressional testimony that the U.S. was prioritizing the defense of Baiji over Ramadi. Kagan said the Islamic State's attack on Ramadi was not a "strategic surprise."

A spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command declined to discuss any specific intelligence. But she did say the U.S.-led coalition provided both airstrikes and surveillance to the Iraqi Security Forces in support of the Ramadi defense. The U.S. has also flown airstrikes in the past against Islamic State forces in Ramadi.

" Conducting air operations in heavily populated areas where ISIL hides can present challenges," the spokeswoman, Genieve David, said. "Through our dynamic targeting process we carefully consider each target, in collaboration with our coalition partners and Iraqi forces, to ensure we do our best to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage"

But other observers said this dynamic targeting process was part of the problem. Dave Deptula, a retired general who was the first deputy chief of staff for the Air Force for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, told me that airmen flying sorties in Iraq "have to call back and ask, 'mother may I' before they can engage."

The restrictive rules of engagement for U.S. aircraft were explored this week in a devastating New York Times article that found that there are on average 15 airstrikes per day in Syria and Iraq in the new war, compared to 800 daily airstrikes in Iraq in 2003. Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, last week said only one in four air missions actually result in airstrikes in the current war.

"If the administration is only going to use airstrikes, they are going to have expand what constitutes a target," Representative Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told me. "I have been concerned for a long time that the limited number of targets would ultimately lead to the fall of many cities in Iraq. This didn't come as any surprise to me that Ramadi fell."

Deptula agreed. "The current rules of engagement are intentionally designed to restrict the effectiveness of air power to prevent potential collateral damage," he told me. "That results in ISIS getting the freedom of action so they can commit genocide against civilians. Does this make any sense?"

To be sure, the rules of engagement for U.S. airstrikes were not the only setback in the battle for Ramadi. The Iraqi military withdrew from its positions in the city. This prompted Defense Secretary Ash Carter over the weekend to tell CNN that the U.S. was surprised the Iraqis lacked the will to fight.

But the forces deployed in Ramadi also were not properly resupplied, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials. Harvey, the former Petraeus adviser, told me that "since September, Iraqi forces deployed to Anbar have had to purchase some weapons and ammunition on the black market because supplies are not getting to them."

Another problem in the battle was that although the U.S. special operations forces have been training Iraqi troops since the summer in bases, they are still not authorized to accompany the Iraqis into battle. This is standard procedure in Afghanistan and other theaters where the U.S. trains security forces.

"I am hearing a lot within the special operations community that we are leaving options on the table and not employing lower-risk capabilities that would make a difference," Harvey told me. Harvey added that these low-risk options included using U.S. personnel on the ground to select targets for airstrikes, conducting special operations raids on Islamic State targets in Iraq and embedding special operations forces with the Iraqi units they were training.

Harvey contrasted this approach to the surge in 2007 and 2008, when U.S. soldiers patrolled Iraqi cities and engaged in direct combat with al Qaeda and other insurgent groups. It's not clear whether Harvey's recommendations would violate President Obama's own red lines against authorizing ground combat operations in Iraq. What is clear is that while the U.S. is holding back from those measures nearly a year into Obama's new Iraq war, the Islamic State has been able to hold Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and has just taken the strategically important city of Ramadi.

[Drew Phipps]

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/06/11/pr...1294874734

Price tag for war on Islamic State is $2.7 billion

LOLITA C. BALDOR Jun 11th 2015 7:37PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. has spent more than $2.7 billion on the war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria since bombings began last August, and the average daily cost is now more than $9 million, the Pentagon said Thursday.Releasing a detailed breakdown of the costs for the first time, the Defense Department showed that the Air Force has borne two-thirds of the total spending, or more than $1.8 billion. The daily combat, reconnaissance and other flights eat up more than $5 million a day. The data also provided a rare look into the often secret special operations costs, which totaled more than $200 million since August.

The release of the spending totals came as Congress debated and rejected legislation Thursday that would have banned spending on the combat operations until lawmakers passed a new war powers resolution. Military operations cost have grown since airstrikes began in Iraq in August, and then expanded to Syria the following month. The bulk of the strikes has been in Iraq, as the U.S. and coalition strikes have tried to help Iraqi forces retake key and hold key cities.

Other total costs include $438 million for the Navy, including fighters and other ship support; $274 million for the Army, which has trainers and special forces troops on the ground; $16 million for military pay; $646 million for munitions; and $21 million for intelligence and surveillance operations.

[Magda Hassan]

Business is good. Lots of happy investors some where.

[Lauren Johnson]

And from my POV, it is a pretend war. Even better.

[Danny Jarman]

ISIS are an MK Ultra death cult

The perfect tool to wage war against Islam with

[Lauren Johnson]

ISIS are an MK Ultra death cult

The perfect tool to wage war against Islam with

You were saying? From the Independent

A man has reportedly been decapitated by suspected Isis supporters at a factory in France.The murdered man's head was found attached to a wire mesh fence surrounded by two black flags linked to the terrorist group near the entrance to the factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, police said.

According to Le Parisien newspaper, the man's face was covered in Arabic writing and there was speculation that he may have been murdered elsewhere and the body then taken to Air Products for the gruesome display.

A man named as Yassin Salhi, aged 35 and from Saint-Priest, near Lyon, was detained by a firefighter at the scene and has been arrested.
Authorities said he had previously been under security service surveillance after fears he had been radicalised and had links to extremists.

A "loud explosion" was heard at Air Products, a gas products firm, at 9.50am local time (8.50 BST) Le Dauphine Libre
reported.

Two men in a car had forced their way into the compound and after driving at speed within the factory grounds, they rammed a pile of gas cylinders, causing a small explosion.

At least one other person was hurt in the attack, although the extent of their injuries is not known.
Initial reports suggested neither the murder victim or attacker was an employee of the factory.

There is continued confusion over why initial reports said there were two attackers in the car, but only one man has been arrested.
French journalists have speculated that the second suspect could be among injured people and may be detained after treatment.

Speaking from Brussels before returning to France, President Francois Hollande said one person had been killed and two injured in what bore all the "hallmarks of a terrorist attack".

He said there was "no doubt" the terrorists, one man and an accomplice, meant to cause an explosion at the factory using gas cannisters.

"There is emotion but emotion cannot be the only response. There must also be action, prevention, dissuasion," the President added.

"It is vital to further our values, to never to give in and never, whatever the circumstances, create unnecessary division or intolerable suspicion.

"We will ensure that the French people are protected and eradicate the groups or individuals responsible for these acts."

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, is in Isère and spoke this afternoon, where he identified the suspect and said several other arrests have been made in relation to the investigation.

He said Salhi did not have a criminal record but had links to Salafists and was known to security forces since 2006, when they believed he had been radicalised. They stopped surveillance two years later.

A Downing Street spokesperson said David Cameron has expressed his condolences to President Hollande during EU talks in Brussels.
"He expressed his sympathies for what looks like an appalling incident," she added.

"Details are still emerging, so we wait to see those. But it clearly looks an extremely concerning situation and our thoughts are with all those affected by it."
Air Products is headquartered in the US but is an international corporation with facilities in several countries, including the UK, mostly selling gases and chemicals for industrial use.

A spokesperson did not confirm whether its staff were among the two people reported injured and one dead but said the site had been evacuated.
He added: "Our crisis and emergency response teams have been activated and are working closely with all relevant authorities."
France has been in a state of high alert since the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices and a Kosher supermarket in Paris.