The beginning of the end for Daesh

[Danny Jarman]

If we pretend for a minute that ISIS is, in fact, some sort of CIA/Mossad false flag organization

Pretend?

Their soldiers are treated in Israeli hospitals

[Drew Phipps]

A Daesh defector just revealed how the group could start to fracture

Jeremy Bender (jbender@businessinsider.com) Nov 19th 2015 2:00PM

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/19/an...1085020543


Disputes between different groups of foreign fighters could undermine Daesh, according to a defector from the group interviewed by The Daily Beast. The Daesh defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled, spoke with Michael Weiss at length in Istanbul, Turkey about Daesh and its internal operations. According to Abu Khaled, although Daesh relies upon foreign fighters, its leaders still fear that those militants might not be entirely loyal and are concerned that Daesh could fracture along national or ethnic lines.

Previously, Khaled told Weiss, foreign fighters would be organized into battalions based upon their origin for ease of communication and control. But this practice has been halted following the dissolution of a 750-strong Libyan brigade, known as al-Battar, that was deemed to be insufficiently loyal to Daesh' overall hierarchy. "Its men, Daesh found, were more loyal to their emir than they were to the organization," Weiss writes. "So al-Battar was disbanded."


This distrust of foreign fighters has now led Daesh to create battalions with fighters of mixed origin, even when some of those fighters aren't Arabic speakers. Abu Khaled told Weiss that Daesh officials in Raqqa, Syria denied his request to form a French-speaking battalion due to the earlier experience with the Libyans. "They told me, 'We had a problem before with the Libyans. We don't want the French in one katiba [battalion],'" Abu Khaled said.


Abu Khaled's description meshes with earlier reporting that battlefield setbacks have exposed fissures within the group. Chechen and Uzbek militants clashed after Daesh failed to take the strategic border city of Kobane in January, for example, with each blaming the other for the siege's failure, The Telegraph reports. Two senior Daesh officials were apparently killed during the infighting.


Tensions are also reportedly emerging between Daesh foreign fighters and local Syrians. These divisions undermine a key propaganda concept within Daesh namely, the unity of all practicing Muslims within its "caliphate." Foreigners in the organization can earn twice as much pay as local fighters. Foreign fighters also receive better living accommodations in Daesh-controlled cities and are less frequently deployed to the frontline than their Syrian or Iraqi counterparts, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"We're seeing basically a failure of the central tenet of Daesh ideology, which is to unify people of different origins under the caliphate," Lina Khatib, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told The Washington Post in March. "This is not working on the ground. It is making them less effective in governing and less effective in military operations."


Allegedly preferential treatment for foreign fighters has bred resentment within Daesh as Syrians feel they take a larger share of the group's military risk. The disparity has also sparked violence between the groups within Daesh: Foreign fighters and Syrian militants waged a shootout in the town of Abu Kamal on the Iraqi border following an order that deployed the Syrians to the Iraqi front line in March, The Post reports.

When disputes do arise within Daesh, Abu Khaled told Weiss, they escalate quickly and often violently. In one case, Abu Khaled described the extreme lengths an Daesh leader in Raqqa went to in order to protect himself from jihadists that were purportedly under his own control. "I was in Raqqa once, and there was five or six Chechens. They were mad about something. So they came to see the emir of Raqqa," Abu Khaled said. "He was so afraid, he ordered Daesh to deploy snipers to the roofs of buildings. He thought the Chechens would attack. The snipers stayed there for two hours."


Daesh's ground-level setbacks in Syria and Iraq and failure to take significant additional territory are likely to further tensions among the various groups fighting under the terrorist organization's umbrella. French jets have pounded Daesh positions in its de facto capital of Raqqa, the Syrian military broke a year-long Daesh siege of an airbase outside of Aleppo, and US-backed Kurdish forces just retook Sinjar, Iraq from Daesh, cutting off a supply route for the militants stretching between Iraq and Syria. Such losses may eventually add to the discontent within the organization. But in the near term, Daesh may continue to plan major attacks around the world in an attempt to distract supporters from its failures within the "caliphate's" borders.

[Drew Phipps]

Daesh: The word terrorists doesn't want you to say and why politicians are using it more than ever

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/wo...-1.2438861

Want to drive a terrorist into a frenzy? Try calling him the D-word. ("Daesh")


Western leaders most recently French President Francois Hollande have begun using a silly-sounding phonetic term for Islamic militants that apparently makes the madmen manic: Daesh. President Obama used the word earlier this week in a speech at the G-20 summit in Turkey. In the past month, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also dropped "Daesh" in speeches. On Wednesday, Hollande slipped it into his address about raids on terrorists, saying "Daesh is guilty" of last week's Paris massacre.


The group better known as ISIS, ISIL or the Islamic State reportedly hates "Daesh" so much that its brutes have threatened to cut out the tongue of anyone using it. So what's the deal with Daesh? The world's most feared terror group is already known by several names, which media and politicians use interchangeably. First, there's the Islamic State, which seems to be the favorite name of the radicals themselves, because it legitimizes their apocalyptic ambition of a bloody Islamic regime. The Islamic State name is often used in the group's propaganda videos.


Then there are two acronyms: ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, referring to an area near the Mediterranean shore). But then comes Daesh (die-EESH). It is also an acronym, short for take a deep breath Dawlat al-Islamiyah f'al-Iraq w Belaad al-Sham, which is the full Arabic term for what English speakers translate as the Islamic State. In other words, Daesh might as well be written as DAESH and understood the same way as the names ISIS or ISIL.


As Arabic translator Alice Guthrie explained in an exhaustive Free Word article this year, acronyms are rarely used at all in Arabic, so any acronym already sounds ridiculous to many Arabic speakers. Worse yet, the acronym Daesh is nearly identical to the Arabic word "dais," meaning something that crushes or tramples. That's an ominous definition on its own, but not the one this self-aggrandizing group wants in its quest for Islamic rule. But in the wake of the Paris massacre, the word now seems to be in its prime. With Obama, Hollande and other leaders using this verbal jab while holding the world's attention, Daesh just might be the new ISIS.

**********
My personal take on this is that if we quit using the word "Islamic" to define this group of cutthroats, then we ease the ability of real Muslims to differentiate themselves from it.

[Drew Phipps]

Russia says it has proof Turkey involved in Daesh oil trade

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/12/02/ru...-936310078

MARIA TSVETKOVA AND LIDIA KELLY Dec 2nd 2015 8:53AM


Russia's defence ministry said on Wednesday it had proof that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Daesh-held territory in Syria and Iraq. Moscow and Ankara have been locked in a war of words since last week when a Turkish air force jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian-Russian border, the most serious incident between Russia and a NATO state in half a century.

In a briefing in Moscow, defence ministry officials displayed satellite images which they said showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Daesh in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into neighbouring Turkey. The officials did not specify what direct evidence they had of the involvement of Erdogan and his family, an allegation that the Turkish president has vehemently denied. "Turkey is the main consumer of the oil stolen from its rightful owners, Syria and Iraq. According to information we've received, the senior political leadership of the country - President Erdogan and his family - are involved in this criminal business," said Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov. "Maybe I'm being too blunt, but one can only entrust control over this thieving business to one's closest associates."


"In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president's son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son has been appointed energy minister. What a marvellous family business!" "The cynicism of the Turkish leadership knows no limits. Look what they're doing. They went into someone else's country, they are robbing it without compunction," Antonov said. The ministry also alleged that the same criminal networks which were smuggling oil from Daesh-held areas into Turkey were also supplying weapons, equipment and training to the militant group.


Officials said that the Russian air force's bombing campaign had made a significant dent in Daesh's ability to produce, refine and sell oil. Erdogan last week denied that Turkey procures oil from anything but legitimate sources. He has said Ankara is taking active steps to prevent smuggling of fuel, and he challenged anyone who accused his government of collaborating with Daesh to prove their allegations.

*****
Comments:
1. I foresee a rush to nail a scapegoat. Middle management guys better run and hide.
2. Love the irony: Russia accusing someone of "going into someone else's country and robbing it?"

[Drew Phipps]

Daesh Says No. 2 Leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani Is Dead in Syria

by Robert Windrem and Tracy Connor
Aug 31 2016, 3:05 am ET

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-te...ad-n640171

The ISIS second-in-command who incited lone-wolf terrorist attacks on the West has been killed, the terror group's media arm announced Tuesday. The Pentagon said it could not yet confirm the death of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani but announced that coalition forces had carried out a "precision strike" targeting him near Al-Bab, a Syrian town near the Turkish border. "We are still assessing the results of the strike, but al-Adnani's removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to [ISIS]," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.


Al-Adnani was ISIS' charismatic director of external operations and its main propagandist. He served as its No. 2 leader but was at the top of the U.S.'s ISIS kill list, with a $5 million bounty on his head. Earlier in the day, a U.S. military intelligence official had told NBC News that al-Adnani was wounded several days ago and succumbed to his injuries in Al-Bab. It was not clear which country's forces killed him. Turkish air forces have been operating in the area, and the U.S. has been providing intelligence on targets to Turkey under a program called "Nomad Shadow," the military intelligence official said.


Al-Adnani was one of ISIS' longest-serving leaders, best known for issuing an edict for lone wolves to kill Westerners in September 2014. "If you can kill a disbelieving American or European especially the spiteful and filthy French or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be," he said in the audio recording. "Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him."


The exhortation helped propel him to the top of the list of ISIS leaders the U.S. wanted to kill. "There is a large amount of evidence suggesting that he was tremendously influential in terms of pushing individuals in Western countries to carry out homegrown terrorist attacks," said Evan Kohlmann of Flashpoint, an NBC terrorism analyst. "He is one of the top figures in ISIS. He is very closely associated with ISIS terrorist operations abroad."


Al-Adnani was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose U.S. Coalition Forces in Iraq after he crossed the border from his native Syria in 2003. He swore allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda in Iraq leader later killed by U.S. fighter-bombers. He reportedly was captured in 2005 and taken into custody at a camp run by the U.S. military, but was freed in 2010. After his release, he became the chief spokesman for ISIS, and by 2014 he had assumed a top operational role. The U.S. declared him a "specially designated global terrorist" in August 2014.


His death comes less than six months after two other top ISIS officials finance minister Haji Iman and No. 3 Omar al-Shishani were killed. "This is a really big blow for ISIS," said Laith Alkhouri, co-founder of Flashpoint. "It's not going to be what breaks its back but it could break the morale of fighters who idealized him so much."

emphasis added