Islamist Wave 2013 - Overview & Updates

10 posts

Niccolo and Donkey
Angocachi

My father has long held that Uzbeks are the beacon of Jihadism in Turkistan. Their general public is more Islamist leaning than the rest of Turkistan and the Uzbek Muj find themselves in more conflicts, and farther flung, than just about any other Muslim ethnicity, save perhaps the Arabs.
Whatever regime is there will always have a good time making conflicting promises to Russia and NATO.

Angocachi
In other news, an FSA commander defects to Al Qaeda, accuses the FSA of being a NATO-GCC stooge to nip the Jihadists and Shariah in the bud on the West's and Arab Monarch's behalf.

In a farmhouse in eastern Syria, a group of men sat around a teapot observing it jiggle over a pile of burning paper bills. Lacking fuel, a charming rebel leader playfully told his comrades that he would make them tea by lighting Syrian pounds under the pot, a statement that soon turned into a dare. Minutes later, the 35-year-old man proudly poured black tea for his guests in small glass cups.

Saddam al-Jamal's friends narrate this anecdote, which they say took place a few months ago, to illustrate their commander's humour and free spirit. Jamal headed the Allahu Akbar Brigade, which was once one of the most effective groups fighting against President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the province of Deir Ezzor.

Its fighters operate under the loose umbrella of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA). Jamal was not only the leader of a battalion but also a top FSA commander for the whole of Syria's eastern region.

In November, however, he announced his "repentance" for his membership in the battalion and the FSA, dubbing them "apostates".
Wearing a brown leather jacket and a black-and-white scarf wrapped around his head, Jamal was filmed seated in front of al-Qaeda's black flag. He addressed his fighters, urging them to also abandon the FSA. The FSA calls for "killing of our IsIamist brethrens and prevents the rule of Allah from being established on Earth", he said in the video , released by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Jamal echoed claims that the ISIL and other Islamist fighter groups have been reiterating in recent months: that the "moderate" FSA is being groomed by the West and its Arab allies to point their weapons towards "extremist" groups upon the collapse of Assad's regime.

Switching sides

In the 32-minute-long recording, titled "Revealing the biggest conspiracy targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant", Jamal - who has now grown his beard - discussed at length how Arab and Western intelligence services dictated to the FSA how to fight and which battles to fight in Syria.

"As days passed we realised that it was a project that was funded by foreign countries, especially Qatar. But in general, the whole world's intelligence participate in the project," he said. "The Jordanian intelligence, the Saudi, the Emirati, the Qatari and obviously the West [the Americans, the British, the French]. In the meetings of the military command and the military councils, they all attend," he said.

Before switching sides, Jamal travelled back and forth between Syria and Turkey to receive ammunition and attend high-level meetings between the commander of the FSA, Salim Idriss, and representatives of funding states, he said in the video. Former aides to Jamal confirmed this claim to Al Jazeera.
Jamal's participation in the meetings and his leadership of successful battles against Assad forces increased arms funders' confidence in him. Jamal's group was credited for seizing control of his hometown, al-Bu Kamal, from government troops in the province of Deir Ezzor.

"While he lacked any type of intellectual background, Jamal had so much courage," said a writer and a journalist from Deir Ezzor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear for his and his family's lives. " Jamal ' s name shone and all funders wanted to give his group huge amounts of money. He grew in power and had tens of soldiers working under him. Once a simple man who worked in the smuggling of goods between al-Bu Kamal and Iraq before the uprising, his enthusiasm and good connections turned Jamal into the man of al-Bu Kamal. "

According to FSA figures provided to Al Jazeera in July, the Allahu Akbar battalion boasted more than 800 fighters.

Soon enough, accusations of corruption and misuse of funds against Jamal began to mount. "Power corrupts," a former aide to Jamal said. "Jamal became a mini-Bashar [al-Assad] in his hometown. He surrounded himself with his brothers, created cronies around him, and his men arrested any resident who opposed him."

Mohammad, an activist in al-Bu Kamal, said that while Jamal was initially highly respected there for his "heroic fighting" against Assad's forces, many began to resent him. "Even his own fighters became poor and weak because he was solely distributing the money among his brothers and close friends. They operated like a gang. It's exactly like how Bashar al-Assad made the Makhlouf family rich and the rest of the people poorer," Mohammad said.
But Jamal's story of wealth and power was soon to come to an end.

Rebel infighting

Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, was determined to hold its grip over the rebel-held parts of Deir Ezzor. They were under no condition going to join forces with Jamal and his fighters, who were losing popularity on the the ground and lacked an Islamist ideology.

Groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIL accuse FSA members of being secularists who do not want an Islamist state in Syria. But In fact, most FSA fighters - including Jamal's battalion - have no ideology at all. They often identify themselves simply as Muslims who want to topple Assad's regime. Nonetheless, amid the growing power of Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIL and the international community's dwindling support for the Free Syrian Army, FSA commanders such as Jamal have reportedly been pressured to switch groups and adopt Islamist rhetoric.

Tensions were already running high in Syria's east between rival rebel groups. In neighbouring al-Raqqa province, clashes between the ISIL and the FSA's Ahfad al-Rasoul ("Grandsons of the Prophet") Brigade, of which Jamal's brigade was part, took a deadly turn after ISIL stormed an Ahfad al-Rasoul base. "What happened between the ISIL and us in al-Raqqa had a role in increasing tensions between [Jabhat al-] Nusra and us in Deir Ezzor. They started calling us 'Ahfad al-Shaytan' ('Grandson of the Devil')," a fighter in Deir Ezzor told Al Jazeera.

A string of incidents in Deir Ezzor between Jamal's battalion and the ISIL soon led to armed clashes, resulting in heavy losses for Jamal. Two of his brothers were kidnapped, his brother's house was bombed, several of his fighters died and he himself narrowly escaped an assassination attempt after a man blew himself up at the headquarters Jamal had set up at a branch of the state bank.

"Besides the fact that his fighters were demoralised and demotivated as a result of the marginalisation by their leader, they were also not keen on raising arms against the jihadists. This is why Allahu Akbar Battalion lost," Jamal's former aide said. "In Deir Ezzor, it's common for one fighter to be from the Allahu Akbar battalion and his brother in [Jabhat al-] Nusra. It's a battle not worth fighting."

Within days, Jamal surrendered to Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIL. He had no other option, said the writer from Deir Ezzor. "It was a survival strategy for a pragmatic person with no Islamist ideology whatsoever."

But in the video released by the ISIL, Jamal voiced his support for the Islamist fighters' cause. "It's an honour to come to the ISIL and show repentance," he said in the video. "The world and FSA commanders always told us the ISIL are terrorists and takfiris [Muslims who accuse other Muslims of apostasy]. But after Allah granted me the honour of repentance, I found that all these claims are false and baseless."

Suspicious of the FSA

Jamal's former aide said his former boss' statements were exactly what the ISIL wanted to hear: That the FSA is an instrument of the West set up to serve its goals. He said the claims were exaggerated, but admitted that much of what Jamal said was true. He acknowledged that intelligence agents attended FSA meetings, that Ahfad al-Rasoul is mainly funded by Qatar, and that some FSA commanders received training in Jordan.

"But what is not true is that we were ordered to fight jihadi or Islamist groups," the aide said. "The funders are well aware that - no matter how much influence they have over the FSA - they can never force fighters on the ground to take up battles we are not convinced of. Our fight is not and will never be against jihadists. It is only against Assad."

Members of Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIL seem to think otherwise. Their heightened suspicion of the FSA can be traced back to an infamous meeting in Paris between FSA commanders and Western diplomats, an Ahfad al-Rasoul commander told Al Jazeera. In the meeting, which took place last September, Western diplomats expressed fears of al-Qaeda-linked groups' presence in Syria and asked whether the FSA would fight against them if Assad were to fall. Not a single FSA official pledged to do so, according to the commander.

"It seems that the ISIL learned about this meeting and hell broke loose afterward. That cursed meeting in France was the source of all our troubles with jihadists."

Back in al-Bu Kamal, the ISIL has now designated Jamal as a commander as a reward for turning himself in, a former comrade of Jamal told Al Jazeera. "But I am sure they themselves do not trust him. How can someone just turn into a jihadist just like that?" the fighter said.

The writer from Deir Ezzor told Al Jazeera that Jamal, who did not survive as the leader of the Allahu Akbar Brigade in al-Bu Kamal, will not survive as the leader of the ISIL in the city either. Al-Bu Kamal's tribal loyalties trump ideology, whether Islamist or other, he said. "Just as the people of al-Bu Kamal did not accept al-Jamal as a dictator, they will not accept him as an extremist."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fe...ts-qaeda-linked-group-201312158517493207.html
Angocachi
Bosnian Islamist militant jailed for 45 years over terrorist attack

Haris Causevic planted bomb at police station in 2010, killing one officer, hoping to destabilise country

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A screengrab of Haris Causevic during his trial in 2010. Photograph: Guardian

Reuters in Sarajevo

Friday 20 December 2013 17.47 GMT


A Bosnian court has sentenced an Islamist radical to 45 years in prison for a 2010 bomb attack on a police station in which one officer was killed and several injured.

The sentence handed down on Friday was the longest in Bosnia for an offence other than a war crime.

Haris Causevic planned, organised and carried out a terrorist act in the central town of Bugojno on 27 June 2010, aiming to intimidate the population, coerce the authorities and destabilise the country, said presiding judge of the state court, Goran Radevic.

"The council of judges has decided to jail Haris Causevic to a maximum prison term of 45 years to express the public condemnation of the act he committed," said Radevic.

Naser Palislamovic, who was accused along with Causevic over the attack, was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Causevic planted an improvised explosive device by the back wall of the police station that was detonated by slow fuse in the early hours. He was caught running away.

Six men were originally charged with the crime, three of them under terrorism laws. Three others were accused of assisting the attack but their trial has been delayed.

One of the three accused of terrorism made a deal with the prosecution to testify against Causevic and was sentenced to 14 years, last year.

All six men were members of the Wahhabi branch of Islam, which gained a foothold in Bosnia after the 1992-95 war. The bombing was one of the most serious security incidents in Bosnia since the war.

Last month, Bosnia's appeals court jailed an Islamist gunman for 15 years, for opening fire on the US embassy in 2011, seriously wounding a police officer.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/20/bosnia-islamist-militant-jailed-45-years-terrorist

@niccolo and donkey

The execution of an Islamist leader in Bangladesh ignited violent protests across the country Friday that have left at least three dead ahead of elections early next year.
Abdul Quader Mollah, 65, the leader of the opposition Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, was executed by hanging on Thursday for war crimes committed during Bagladesh’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. Supporters of Mollah attacked minority Hindus on Friday, burning homes and shops, torching cars and detonating several homemade bombs during the attack, the Associated Press reports.

A war crimes tribunal set up in 2010 convicted Mollah of killing a student and a family of 11. Many in Bangladesh say Pakistani soldiers were helped by local collaborators in killing at least 3 million and raping 200,000 women during the nine-month independence war.
Bangladesh: Execution of Islamist Sparks Violent Protests | TIME.com http://world.time.com/2013/12/13/execution-ignites-violent-protests-in-bangladesh/#ixzz2o6EK4GFA ​


Meanwhile in Egypt Morsi is charged with winning the election. Every week it becomes more clear to Islamists that politics is a deadend, and that OBL was right from the start.
Angocachi

WASHINGTON: More than two and a half years after US commandos shot dead Al Qaeda figurehead Osama bin Laden, the global extremist network is more dangerous than ever, American experts and counterterrorism officials warned this week.

Thanks notably to a flood of recruits flowing to join Al Qaeda-linked jihadist forces fighting in Syria’s civil war, the group is back on its feet, and securing territory from which it could once more threaten Europe and the United States.

Bin Laden’s former lieutenants in Al Qaeda’s historic leadership have been killed by US Special Forces or in drone strikes, or else are isolated and on the run in the tribal badlands on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

But armed groups in Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and West Africa have flocked to his banner and Al Qaeda is rebuilding its influence and recruiting fighters across the region.

“Their leadership has been hit very hard, but this brand is still growing.

And it’s growing from an increased number of safe havens,” said retired US Marine Corps general James Mattis.

Between 2010 and earlier this year, Mattis led US Central Command, in charge of prosecuting Washington’s long war against extremists in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and the Horn of Africa.

Now he has hung up his uniform, but admits the war is far from over, warning: “The congratulations that we heard two years ago on the demise of Al Qaeda were premature and are now discredited.” Speaking at the Jamestown Foundation’s annual conference on terrorism in Washington,
Mattis said: “Al Qaeda is resilient, they adapted. We have to think strategically before we act, not only act tactically.” Bin Laden’s death in May 2011 triggered a wave of optimism that the United States and its allies might have broken the back of the jihadist threat, but today officials here are under no illusions.

Since the audacious commando strike that took out Al Qaeda’s apparently largely symbolic chieftain, the black banner of his movement has been raised more widely than ever.

Militants inspired by or linked to Bin Laden’s brand of armed jihad have sacked a US consulate in Libya and stormed a shopping mall in Kenya.
Attacks are on the rise once again in Iraq, Al Qaeda has reportedly begun operating in Egypt’s Sinai desert and violent extremist groups are now the most powerful elements in the rebel coalition fighting in the Syrian civil war.

Bruce Hoffman, director of the Centre for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, told the Jamestown conference that collapsing states in the Middle East were opening up space for extremists.

“The oxygen that Al Qaeda depends on is access to sanctuaries and safe haven. And unfortunately over the past two years it gained greater access to more ungoverned spaces,” he said.

“The success of the attack in Nairobi and earlier in Mumbai suggests that this groups have now within their capacity the ability to fulfil one of Bin Laden’s last commands or operational desires, which was to stage Mumbai-style attacks in Europe.” For the experts gathered in Washington, Syria’s civil war — which has attracted Islamist volunteers from Muslim communities in Europe as well as Arab countries — has worked greatly to Al Qaeda’s advantage.

“The Al Qaeda affiliated groups have created an alliance which disposes of 45,000 guerrilla fighters across the country,” said David Kilcullen, a renowned counterinsurgency expert who has advised US forces in the field.

“It’s a very significant number, almost twice as many as we see in terms of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan,” he said. “We’re seeing a recovery on all fronts for Al Qaeda.” For Bruce Riedel, a three-decade CIA veteran who now works for the Brookings Institution, Al Qaeda’s resurgence is proof that it has managed to ride out and ultimately profit from the revolts that have roiled the Middle East and North Africa.

“Al Qaeda’s narrative was challenged in 2011 by the Arab Spring. Peaceful demonstrations succeeded in toppling dictators. Al Qaeda’s narrative was at risk. Terror had not produced change, Twitter had,” Riedel said.

“But today, everything is different. Al Qaeda’s narrative is validated in 2013, most notably in Egypt. The counterrevolution has succeeded, the army has overthrown the elected government. “For those who want to join Al Qaeda’s movement, events in Cairo, in Damascus have validated what they long said: Jihad is the only solution to the problem of change in the Muslim world today.”—AFP

http://www.dawn.com/news/1074177/al-qaeda-more-dangerous-than-ever

It's impressive to note that Al Qaeda was just a small militia with a handful of camps in Afghanistan in 2001 and has since opened camps and joined in armed conflicts across the Muslim world. It's then stunning to consider how few Jihadist fronts are open in addition to those Al Qaeda plays a dominant role. They've entered and perhaps have opened more Islamic flashpoints than any group in history. A truly Pan-Islamic organization, and one that has proven its name as Islamist by opening Shariah Courts wherever it has achieved administrative capacity.

Broseph
Ghosts.
Niccolo and Donkey
This occurred in Bugojno, two towns east of my own and is where the mosque I sneaked into is located. No doubt Causevic went there.
Bob Dylan Roof
Obongo authorizes airstrikes against ISIS

This is a huge shift in the Obongo administration's foreign policy, which had previously distinguished itself by providing direct and indirect military and economic aid to radical Sunnis and by drumming up flimsy pretext for war with secular nationalists and western Christian leaders like Assad and Putin. The public doesn't seem very hostile to his decision to intervene, either.

What kind of flak will the administration catch if they end up killing the frat bros and American gangsta bros in ISIS?
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https://ia902309.us.archive.org/0/items/mnhj-nbwh/minhaj.mp4
Angocachi
Obama has provided no aid to Jihadists but what they've captured, bought, and acquired by defection from their secularist rivals in the FSA. And by the Islamic Front's own admission, they hardly received any help from the GCC until they began fighting ISIS.

The conflation of Daash, Al Nusra, the FSA, and the Islamic Front as one NATO-GCC backed anti-Shia Salafist rebellion is the biggest, most common misconception of this conflict and is of the same foggy-eyed, anti-historical sort of notion as "The US created/supported the Taliban & Al Qaeda to fight the Soviets".



On to other news. There's now a campaign to boost support for war against the Islamic State in the West. Rather than trumpeting the great mass of Shia bodies Daash has piled up, as Westerners don't much care how many Shia are killed by Sunni, they're making up atrocities against Christians.







The article was fantastical, and I couldn't help feeling that I had seen the picture of the nude woman getting drained into a blood pan before. Ah, yes, there it is...

http://forum.goregrish.com/threads/muslim-woman-beheaded-because-she-married-a-christian.30459/

"Chinacannibal"

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Babies thrown out of incubators.


Then there's this one,




The article goes on to elaborate on the creepiness of the photo until a guy in comments calls bullshit.


Bronze Age Pervert

How is the latest ISIS problem not a miscalculation; if they had refrained from committing spectacular crimes, threatening genocide for no reason, etc., most people would have looked the other way to their establishing a state in Iraq-Syria. Now they've forced a reaction, and they're vulnerable.