The beginning of the end for Daesh

[Drew Phipps]

"Jihadi John"'s identity has been disclosed to be one Mohammed Emwazi. (here is a link to the details of that exposure):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...tages.html

Now, an ISIS "defector" has stepped forward to claim that "John" is the big boss.

Video here:

http://features.aol.com/video/isis-defec...d%3D625552

I don't find the defector particularly convincing, or remorseful. However, this may signal the beginning of the end for ISIS; after all, it will have to wrap up with someone taking the fall.

Edit: You might also take note of the fact that this defector claims that the executions were "rehearsed" several times so that the (unsuspecting) victim would be calm when the actual execution came. We can conclude from that, that ISIS routinely faked the execution process, and this particular guy (the "defector") was intimately involved with the fakery.

[David Guyatt]

Drew, the clip wasn't about Jihadi John at all but about an unpleasant woman hating Sheikh?

[Drew Phipps]

I just tried the links again and they work for me. Sorry.

[David Guyatt]

I just tried the links again and they work for me. Sorry.

Odd. Must be me.

[Drew Phipps]

Lemme cut and paste here and see if that won't fix whatever is up.

Quote begins:

"'Sorry mum': Jihadi John apologises to his family for having his identity revealed - but not for beheading western hostages

• Mohammed Emwazi has apologised to parents for bringing shame to family
  
• But he has not expressed any remorse for the barbaric killings of hostages
  
• Emwazi's family have been forced into hiding since identity was revealed
  
• His father told workmates his son was a 'dog' and hoped he would die
  
• But he has since claimed there is no evidence that Jihadi John is his son
  

By Amanda Williams for MailOnline
Published: 04:58 EST, 8 March 2015 | Updated: 07:23 EST, 8 March 2015

Mohammed Emwazi has apologised to his parents for bringing shame to the family after being unmasked as ISIS butcher 'Jihadi John'. But the 26-year-old executioner, who has murdered a number of western hostages, including two British aid workers, has not expressed any remorse for the barbaric killings.

Emwazi's family have been forced into hiding since his identity was revealed.
They were advised to leave their £600,000 council house for their own safety, and now his mother is living at a secret location under police protection along with four out of his five brothers and sisters. Meanwhile, his father and eldest sister are in Kuwait.

The Sunday Times reports that Emwazi had sent an apology via a third party for the 'problems and trouble the revelation of his identity has caused'. In the Islamic faith it is believed that those who disobey or disrespect their parents are more likely to go to hell. Kuwaiti MPs have told Emwazi's father, Jasem, to publicly distance himself from his son's actions by apologising or leave the country.

Kuwaitis have become increasingly frustrated with the mixed messages coming from 51-year-old British citizen Mr Emwazi, whose family are said to have cost the British tax-payer up to £400,000 in the 20 years they have lived in the UK. Last week, Mr Emwazi told former workmates his son was a 'dog' and hoped he would die. Just a few days later, lawyers acting for Mr Emwazi in Kuwait suggested there was 'no proof' that the masked executioner-in-chief was in fact Mohammed.

Mr Emwazi is believed to have been living in Kuwait with his eldest daughter Asma, 25, for the last two years. His wife Ghaneya and four other children remained in London and are now guarded by armed police in a hotel at a reported cost of £5,000 a day. It has also been reported that Westminster council is still paying the rent on the family's £600,000 flat - even though the rules say housing benefit should normally be stopped after 13 weeks.

As members of the stateless Bedoon ethnic group, the Emwazis were granted asylum in the UK, claiming to have fled Kuwait in fear of persecution. "

Quote Ends

That's the first story about his identity. It is interesting that the Brits are housing and protecting the family.

Here's the story about the "defector:"

Begin Quote:

ISIS defector: Jihadi John is the 'big boss'


An Islamic State defector has spoken exclusively to Sky News, describing the moment he saw the man known as Jihadi John kill Japanese hostage Kenji Goto. The defector asked only to be known as "Saleh" as he spoke to the British news agency in Turkey after fleeing Syria. Saleh also claims that Jihadi John, recently identified as Mohammed Emwazi, was clearly a boss among the militant group.

"Turkish man say 'put this camera there, change place there' but John [was] the big boss. All time, all time say to all 'fastly, fastly, fastly, we should finish'. So respect him. Only he talks orders others do," says Saleh.

End Quote

But you really got to watch the video to get a read on this masked "informant."

[David Guyatt]

Thanks Drew. You have to feel for the parents don't you.

Meanwhile, as seems to always be the case, Mohammed Emwazi was known to British intelligence years before he left to travel to Syria. This happens with such frequency that it leads one to ask questions:

As Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for New American Security, wrote on Twitter Thursday: "Mohammed Emwazi as a Rorschach test: Did the state radicalize him? Or did the state correctly ID a radical?"

I suppose the cynic in me would even ask a more penetrating question than the either/or posed above. But that's just me. But the following is what appears to have happened on his visit to Tanzania

But in 2009, he was detained in Tanzania, which by some accounts is what started him on a path to extremism.

He went to Tanzania, he said, for a safari vacation with friends. Britain's intelligence agency MI5, however, believed he was going to East Africa to join Al Shabab in Somalia.

Emwazi told CAGE, a British civil rights organization, that Tanzanian officials dragged him into a car and took him to a police station, where he was "thrown into a cell while officers tried to strip him to his underwear."

The next day he was flown to Amsterdam, where he was held by MI5. Emwazi claims after he was interrogated the agent tried to recruit him as an informant, according to asummary of his case posted by CAGE.

Emwazi was reportedly stopped and questioned repeatedly during his travels in the ensuing years and was eventually barred from visiting Kuwait, which he claims, forced him to lose his job and marriage.

Source

[Drew Phipps]

Iraq declares victory over Isis in Tikrit:

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/04/01/ir...d%3D637208

QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and SAMEER N. YACOUB Apr 1st 2015 10:00AM

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - Iraq declared a "magnificent victory" Wednesday over the Islamic State group in Tikrit, a key step in driving the militants out of their biggest strongholds. Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi made the pronouncement, saying security forces have "accomplished their mission" in the monthlong offensive to rid Saddam Hussein's hometown and the broader Salahuddin province of the militant group. "We have the pleasure, with all our pride, to announce the good news of a magnificent victory," Obeidi said in a video statement. "Here we come to you, Anbar! Here we come to you, Nineveh, and we say it with full resolution, confidence, and persistence," naming other provinces under the sway of the extremists.


Extremists from the Islamic State group seized Tikrit last summer during its advance across northern and western Iraq. The battle for Tikrit is seen as a key step toward eventually driving the militants out of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the provincial capital of Nineveh. Iraqi forces, including soldiers, police officers, Shiite militias and Sunni tribes, launched a large-scale operation to recapture Tikrit on March 2. Last week, the United States launched airstrikes on the embattled city at the request of the Iraqi government. Recapturing Tikrit would be the biggest win so far for Baghdad's Shiite-led government. The city is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad and lies on the road connecting the capital to Mosul. Retaking it will help Iraqi forces have a major supply link for any future operation against Mosul.


Earlier Wednesday, Iraqi security forces fired on snipers and searched homes for remaining militants. Soldiers fanned out in circles from the charred skeletal remains of the Salahuddin provincial government complex, captured the day before. Militant mortar fire, which had been intense over previous days, fell silent Wednesday, with commanders saying only a few militant snipers remained in the city. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations. The objective, Interior Minister Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban said Wednesday, is now to restore normalcy as quickly as possible. "After clearing the area from roadside bombs and car bombs, we will reopen police stations to restore normalcy in the city, and we will form committees to supervise the return of people displaced from their homes," al-Ghabban said. He said the government will help displaced residents return and that a civil defense unit will be combing the city for roadside bombs and car bombs.

"Daesh is completely defeated," he added, using an Arabic name for the group. During a visit to Tikrit, Iraqi Prime Minsiter Haider al-Abadi said that military engineering units still need more time to clear the city from booby traps. He also waved an Iraqi flag in photos posted on his social media accounts. "God's willing, there will be a fund to rebuild areas destroyed by Daesh and the war. Tikrit and Salahuddin areas will be covered by this fund," al-Abadi said. A satellite image of Tikrit, released in February by the United Nations, showed at least 536 buildings in the city have been affected by the fighting. Of those, at least 137 were completely destroyed and 241 were severely damaged. The current offensive also exacerbated previous damage, particularly in the south where clashes have been the most intense in recent days.

Iraq's parliament speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, called on the government to find the means to resettle residents from damaged Tikrit buildings. He said this "requires effort and support by the central government in order to financially support the people in rebuilding their houses." Aziz Jaber, a political science professor at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University, said retaking Tikrit could be seen as the "beginning of the end" for the Islamic State group in Iraq. "Daesh was very talented in psychological warfare, but not any more after its defeat in Tikrit," he said. "Now, the morale of the Iraqi forces is high, while that of Daesh is low."

Meanwhile, the U.N. mission to Iraq said Wednesday that violence claimed the lives of at least 997 people in March, a slight drop from the February death toll. UNAMI said in a statement that among them were 729 civilians while the rest were security forces. It said at least 2,172 people were wounded, including 1,785 civilians. The new U.N. envoy to Iraq, Jan Kubis, said he is shocked to see that Iraqis continue to "bear the brunt" of the ongoing violence in the country. Kubis also said Wednesday that the offensive in Tikrit is "a victory for all the Iraqi people," and that the U.N. was ready to assist the provincial and national authorities.

[Drew Phipps]

US Claims "Jihadi John" killed in air attack.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/13/br...1527790507

The United States targeted British Islamic State leader "Jihadi John" in an air attack in northern Syria which Britain said would "strike at the heart of Islamic State" if the militant's death is confirmed. British Prime Minister David Cameron said the death of Mohammed Emwazi, who was known as Jihadi John after appearing in videos showing the killings of U.S. and British hostages, could not yet be confirmed and the Pentagon said it was still assessing the effectiveness of the strike.


But a U.S. official said Thursday's attack in the town of Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital, probably killed Emwazi and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, quoted sources in Raqqa as saying he had been blown to pieces. "A car carrying four foreign Islamic State leaders, including one British Jihadi was hit by U.S. air strikes right after the governorate building in Raqqa city," Rami Abdulrahman, Director of the UK-based Observatory told Reuters. He initially quoted sources in Raqqi as saying the body of "an important British Jihadi" was in the town's hospital but later quoted them as saying Emwazi's body, and those of his three militant comrades, had been left in charred pieces.


Emwazi took part in videos showing the murders of U.S. journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and other hostages. Shown in the videos dressed entirely in black, a balaclava covering all but his eyes and the bridge of his nose, Jihadi John became a menacing symbol of Islamic State brutality and one of the world's most wanted men. He was born in Kuwait but brought up in Britain. The British government said it had "been working hand in glove with the Americans" to defeat Islamic State "and to hunt down those murdering Western hostages."

Speaking outside his Downing Street residence, Cameron described Emwazi as "a barbaric murderer" who "posed an ongoing and serious threat to innocent civilians, not only in Syria but around the world and in the United Kingdom too". "If this strike was successful -- and we still await confirmation of that -- it will be a strike at the heart of ISIL (Islamic State)," he said in comments shown live on television. "It will demonstrate to those who would do Britain, our people and our allies harm, we have a long reach, we have unwavering determination and we never forget about our citizens." He said the U.S. air strike resulted from a combined effort between Britain and the United States and was an act of self-defense: "It was the right thing to do".


U.S. President Barack Obama has promised justice after the deaths of American hostages and the United States is seeking to increase pressure on Islamic State fighters, who have seized parts of Syria and Iraq, and who Obama has vowed to defeat. The pressure includes U.S. plans to deploy dozens of special operations forces to Syria, deliver more weaponry to U.S.-backed Syrian fighters and to thicken U.S. air strikes against the militant group.

******
Funny that this happens the same week that "Hunting Hitler" airs. Here's another strange coincidence:

If we pretend for a minute that ISIS is, in fact, some sort of CIA/Mossad false flag organization, then to wrap the operation up successfully, you'd ideally want a) international consensus/support to wipe them out (via indiscriminate terror attacks against both Assad's allies and enemies); and b) a way to extract your operatives (possibly some staged bombing runs against ISIS facilities) combined with a convenient way to conceal the re-patriation of your covert agents out of the country (possibly by playing a shell game with deploying/re-patriating Special Forces).

Last edited by Drew Phipps; 11-02-2015 at 01:48 PM.

[Lauren Johnson]

Here's the first:



The second ...?

[Magda Hassan]

US Claims "Jihadi John" killed in air attack.

Again.

If we pretend for a minute that ISIS is, in fact, some sort of CIA/Mossad false flag organization, then to wrap the operation up successfully, you'd ideally want a) international consensus/support to wipe them out (via indiscriminate terror attacks against both Assad's allies and enemies); and b) a way to extract your operatives (possibly some staged bombing runs against ISIS facilities) combined with a convenient way to conceal the re-patriation of your covert agents out of the country (possibly by playing a shell game with deploying/re-patriating Special Forces).

Yes, indeed.