Islamist Wave 2014 - News & Discussion

9 posts

nuclear launch detected
Longface
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/w...-yazidi-plight-is-easing.html?ref=todayspaper

More on US exaggerations:
Fitz
Angocachi
In short the article says that the United States needs to pay "Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders" or mafia to fight the Islamic State.... Sahwa.
The United States already did this and it worked to take down the Shariah courts and push the Salafis underground. What brought the Sahwa down was;
- Being frozen out of the Iraqi government by the Shia
- America cutting off the funds
- Being thoroughly infiltrated by Salafi spies
- Being picked apart by Salafi assassins

The Sahwa have nothing to sign off to Anglo-American oil firms, they can neither pose a threat or neutralize a threat to Israel, and they don't have the funds to sign contracts with the American defense industry. For those three reasons they are invisible to Wasington DC. Only when IS threatens Anglo-American oil holdings in Iraqi Kurdistan (Chevron, Exxon, Genel, etc) and the American-hand in Syria (the FSA), and when it seems IS might move into Jordan and threaten the Israeli proxy monarch in Amman does Obama call in the air strikes.

If there seems to be no prospect of IS taking Iraqi Kurdistan or going into Jordan, the Sahwa will likely go without the support they need. They're up against Jihadists with tanks in control of territory the size of Taiwan. If the Northern Alliance couldn't handle the Taliban, the Sahwa will never oust IS.

IS is sitting on a swelling treasure chest and is taking in too many recruits to know what to do with. Getting bombed by America without having to revert to insurgency mode against an on the ground American troop presence is the best thing that could happen to them. Baghdadi is in Ho Chi Minh's shoes now, in that he's running a state under American bombardment and there's no possibility of marines sweeping him off his ass. America's fear of troop casualties has realy caught up to it. Here is Uncle Sam barking and drooling for war on an enemy that is opposite in everyway, but can't bring itself to really go to war.
Schmeisser

ISIS smashed the hopes for a Sahawat resurgence when they wiped out the entire leadership Ahrar al-Sham. That was a pretty amazing move. They all convene on how they're going to fight ISIS with the USA entering the war, and then they all explode and die. It actually highlights how merciful and long-suffering that Dawlah was toward Hassan Abboud. They probably could have done this earlier in the Fitna, but now, when USA was stepping up, enough was enough. Boom.

Fitz
Pakistani Taliban declare allegiance to Islamic State and global jihad

By Saud Mehsud and Maria Golovnina
DERA ISMAIL KHAN/ISLAMABAD Sat Oct 4, 2014 11:24am EDT

(Reuters) - The Pakistani Taliban declared allegiance to Islamic State on Saturday and ordered militants across the region to help the Middle Eastern jihadist group in its campaign to set up a global Islamic caliphate.

Islamic State, which controls swathes of land in Syria and Iraq , has been making inroads into South Asia, which has traditionally been dominated by local Taliban insurgencies against both the Pakistan and Afghanistan governments.

The announcement comes after a September move by al Qaeda chief, Ayman al-Zawahri, to name former Taliban commander Asim Umar as the "emir" of a new South Asia branch of the network that masterminded the 2001 attacks on the United States.

Although there is little evidence of a firm alliance yet between IS and al Qaeda-linked Taliban commanders, IS activists have been spotted recently in the Pakistani city of Peshawar distributing pamphlets praising the group.

IS flags have also been seen at street rallies in Indian-administered Kashmir. The trend has been of growing concern to global powers struggling to keep up with the fast-changing nature of the international Islamist insurgency.

In a message marking the Muslim holy festival of Eid al-Adha, the Pakistani Taliban said they fully supported IS goals.

"Oh our brothers, we are proud of you in your victories. We are with you in your happiness and your sorrow," Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement sent to Reuters by email from an unknown location.

"In these troubled days, we call for your patience and stability, especially now that all your enemies are united against you. Please put all your rivalries behind you ...

"All Muslims in the world have great expectations of you ... We are with you, we will provide you with Mujahideen (fighters) and with every possible support."

The statement, released in Urdu, Pashto and Arabic, was sent after Islamic State militants beheaded British aid worker Alan Henning in a video posted on Friday, triggering condemnation by the British and U.S. governments.

It also came despite recent speculation that the Taliban leadership, whose goal is to topple the government and set up a Sharia state, is actually wary of IS, which is driven by different ambitions that have little to do with South Asia.

The Pakistani Taliban, funded by local as well as foreign charity donations from wealthy supporters in the Gulf and elsewhere, operate separately from the Afghan insurgents of the same name, but are loosely aligned with them.

There are concerns about further turmoil in the region as most U.S.-led foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan this year, with groups like the Haqqani network likely to exploit the security vacuum to strengthen their hold on Afghan regions.

The Haqqani network, despite being based in Pakistan , is narrowly focused on its insurgency in Afghanistan and has not commented on IS-related developments.

The Pakistani Taliban have been beset by bitter internal rivalries over the past year, with the influential Mehsud tribal faction of the group refusing to accept the authority of Mullah Fazlullah, who came to power in late 2013.

IS, in an effort to extend its global reach, could exploit these rivalries to its advantage, wading into a region ripe with fierce anti-Western ideology and full of young unemployed men ready to take up guns and fight for Islam.
Angocachi


In short, many Syrians are confused that yesterday the Assad government was telling them that the US is backing the rebels and now the Assad government is telling them that it is backing and even helping the US in fighting against the rebels.

The conflation of rebel factions has been the single greatest cause of public confusion over this Syrian conflict. In an attempt to paint the whole rebellion as foreign Salafists, so to delegitimize the local secularist rebels, Russian, Iranian, Iraqi, Hezbollah, and Syrian state media have millions of people under the misconception that Al Qaeda = FSA = Ahrar al Sham = ISIS and that they are all backed by the US, Turkey, Saud, Qatar, UAE, etc indiscriminately. Westerners opposed to Obama on the grounds that he's a secret Muslim and conspiracy theorists convinced that everything is a CIA-Mossad false flag add to the nonsense.

When the Syrian conflict started it was a NATO-GCC attempt to oust Assad using secularist Sunni defectors from his own regime, the FSA.
Then Al Qaeda joined the conflict. It soon split between Nusra and ISIS.
With Turkish and Qatari backing Ikhwanis took over command of the FSA.
Between the growth of anti-Saudi ISIS & Nusra, and anti-Saudi Ikhwan in the FSA, Saud soon decided to back Ahrar Al Sham in a quickly flopping attempt to squash ISIS, steal Nusra from Al Qaeda, and eclipse Ikhwan in the fight for the reigns.
Now that ISIS and Nusra together block any attempt by NATO or the GCC to take command of the Syrian rebellion, now that ISIS has threatened Anglo-American oil in Iraqi Kurdistan, now that ISIS threatens to move into Jordan and inspire revolt in Saudi Arabia... Assad is being spared. More than spared, Assad and his Shia allies in Iraq and Iran are crawling up America's leg begging pardon and offering their help to defeat ISIS.


"They (the Assad government) have been telling us for three years that these youths are dying in a patriotic battle against the enemies that are backed by the US. Today, they are saying that the battles will continue in conjunction and coordination with the US. It means that the killings will continue, but this time in cooperation with the US and its allies. Isn’t this ironic?”

Supporters accuse Syrian regime of cooperating on airstrikes

TARTUS, Syria — Fear has started to spread among the Syrian government’s supporters following the Islamic State’s (IS) victories over regime forces in the northeast of the country, while violent battles against the armed opposition have intensified in the countryside of Hama and Quneitra . Priorities are changing with every turn of the Syrian war. Today, the air raids by the US-led coalition on IS positions in Syria have become a major topic of conversation among regime supporters, as many watch with caution and concern the developments in the ties between the Syrian regime and the Western coalition.

US President Barack Obama and other officials from the member countries of the coalition continue to deny any coordination with the Syrian regime, while stressing that the latter is excluded from any future plans to share influence and interests in the Middle East. At the same time, the Syrian regime’s media outlets state that the regime is a partner in the coalition and is coordinating with the United States, arguing that the international intervention is to its advantage.

The coastal city of Tartus is currently witnessing a lot of activity as locals prepare for Eid al-Adha — the small market there is filled with residents and displaced from various Syrian regions. Everything appears normal, except for the pictures of President Bashar al-Assad with slogans calling for the struggle against the Western conspiracy, and photos of hundreds of victims from the city, which remains one of the most stable and supportive of the regime.

A government employee from Tartus told Al-Monitor, “The US wouldn’t have dared to bombard [positions] inside Syria if it was not coordinating with the regime. Yet, it does not want to announce it to avoid embarrassment, as it has been demanding Assad to step down for three years now, while supporting the armed terrorist groups.”

He added, “How can the US accurately identify positions [inside Syria] to strike if it didn’t have information from the Syrian intelligence services? Would the US have carried out raids without Russian consent? Western countries have recently discovered that there is no alternative for Assad in Syria, but they cannot announce it now.”

In contrast to the confidence with which the government source speaks and which reflects the general loyalty to Assad spread in every corner of the city, others seem to be skeptical about this issue. A school professor residing in Homs, who came to Tartus to spend the holidays away from the battles and car explosions, told Al-Monitor, “The [regime’s] statements are contradictory, and the issue seems to be different this time. At a time when Syrian officials confirmed the coordination with the Western coalition, Russian officials said that the intervention without coordination with the Syrian government is a violation of international law. It seems that Syrian officials are making these statements only to reassure the Syrians.”

If true, do these statements succeed in reassuring the regime’s supporters? In Latakia, which is located 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of Tartus, violent battles are ongoing. A young man from Latakia told Al-Monitor that he has yet to hear from his friend who went missing during his military service at the Tabaqa military airport in the countryside of Raqqa after the IS attack. “Will all this put an end to the bloodshed of the Syrian army’s soldiers? Will it help reveal the fate of missing persons in IS-controlled areas? I don’t think so. I have definitively lost trust in the regime’s media outlets; they told us that the [army’s] withdrawal from the airport was organized and planned, and later on we discovered that hundreds of Syrian soldiers were killed and went missing there,” he said.

The photos of hundreds of youths who lost their lives in the battles against IS and armed opposition forces can be seen all over Latakia. “They have been telling us for three years that these youths are dying in a patriotic battle against the enemies that are backed by the US. Today, they are saying that the battles will continue in conjunction and coordination with the US. It means that the kilings will continue, but this time in cooperation with the US and its allies. Isn’t this ironic?” the young man said.

The involvement of Gulf states in the bombing of Syria has also provoked a strong sense of humiliation among regime supporters. “Shameful! Aircrafts from Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are bombing sites inside Syria, and the government says that the raids are in our favor. Where did national sovereignty go? Can we trust them? Won’t they resume their raids to destroy the whole country and bring down the regime?” the young man from Latakia said angrily.

Public views are diverging regarding the Western coalition’s intervention, amid confusion of the current state of the war. One of the reasons behind this confusion is the contradicting positions between the Syrian regime and its allies. While the Syrian government welcomed the raids, it seems that Iran and Hezbollah have taken a more critical stance.

Al-Monitor met with a soldier from the regime forces who was spending his leave in his small village in the Tartus countryside. Portraits of more than 15 young men who died in the battles lined the road we took to this village — a high number given that it is a small village. Slogans against the United States, its allies and others supportive of the regime could be read.

The soldier said, “I stand by the Syrian regime because it is an ally of the resistance in the first place. Today, Hezbollah’s stances seem more rational than those of the Syrian regime, because a US-led coalition cannot be trusted.”

He added, “We need to remember that oil wells and refineries, which the coalition is destroying in the northeast of the country, are the property of the Syrian people anyway. We must also remember that the Western coalition’s member countries continue to support the armed brigades under the title of supporting the moderate opposition, which, at the end of the day, is still hostile to us and the resistance.”

Although the United States is leading airstrikes against the radicals in Iraq and Syria, it has yet to find a partner to engage in ground operations against these terrorists in Syria. Although the Syrian regime is saying that it is the only potential partner , the coalition continues to refuse this partnership, leaving many in the regime camp uncertain about how the situation will unfold.
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Angocachi

An exhibition of anti-ISIS propaganda and the debunking, with some good commentary by ISIS and supporters.

Fitz
22 Libya soldiers killed in speedboat attack on oil ports

By Afp

Published: 06:19 GMT, 26 December 2014 | Updated: 06:20 GMT, 26 December 2014

Islamists killed at least 22 soldiers on Thursday after a surprise attack in which they used speedboats in a failed bid to seize some of Libya's main oil terminals, officials said.

The fighting in the oil-rich region came as pro-government forces lost ground to Islamist militias in the eastern city of Benghazi, where jihadists beheaded six people and killed 14 others, military officials said.

The militiamen belonging to the Fajr Libya, or Libya Dawn, launched the attack on Al-Sidra port by firing rockets from speedboats, setting an oil tank on fire, security sources said.

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A member of the Libyan army stands on a tank as heavy black smoke rises from the port in the background, after a fire broke out at a car tyre disposal plant during clashes with Islamist gunmen, in Benghazi, on December 23, 2014 ©Abdullah Doma (AFP/File)

Soldiers damaged three of the vessels before clashes in which the militants were eventually repelled.

"These speedboats had fired several rockets at the terminals of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra and one of them hit a tank south of Al-Sidra port which then caught fire," said Ali al-Hassi, security spokesman for the region.

Al-Sidra is in the "oil crescent" region that has been the scene of recent fighting between government forces and Fajr Libya.

The latest clashes pushed oil prices higher in Asia on Friday, with US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for February delivery rising 28 cents to $56.12, while Brent for February gained 13 cents to $60.37.

Witnesses said the attack was launched overnight, and reported seeing smoke from the burning oil tank.

Military and medical sources said 18 soldiers and a Fajr Libya fighter were killed in Sirte, and another four soldiers were slain in Al-Sidra.

Most of the dead soldiers belonged to the 136th battalion responsible for monitoring a power plant west of Sirte, the sources said.

- Oil production hit -

Since the clashes erupted on December 13, the country's oil production has dropped to nearly 350,000 barrels per day compared with 800,000 previously, according to industry experts.

"The armed forces on Thursday repelled an attack in which the Fajr Libya militia tried to seize the Al-Sidra oil terminal," said Hassi.

A medical source at Ibn Sina hospital in Sirte said earlier that the facility had received 18 bodies from the fighting.

The 136th battalion is affiliated with the military, and most its fighters are from a tribe loyal to former general Khalifa Haftar.

A military official said Haftar's forces and pro-government troops had lost several positions in Benghazi to Islamist militias in the past 24 hours.

"Islamist gunmen seized large parts of Al-Lithi in south-central Benghazi, setting fire to 45 homes of people linked to Haftar and pro-government forces," the official said.

The official, who declined to be named, said six people were beheaded and 14 others killed in the attacks.

Haftar's forces have been fighting alongside forces from the internationally recognised government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani to overrun Islamists from Benghazi.

In other violence on Thursday, three Fajr Libya men were killed in a raid in Tripoli, which Islamists seized in the summer after fierce fighting with nationalist forces.

On December 16, a warplane belonging to Fajr Libya fired missiles at a sector to the west of Al-Sidra, in the first such raid in the energy-rich region.
More than three years after dictator Moamer Kadhafi was toppled and killed in a NATO-backed revolt, Libya is still awash with weapons and powerful militias, and has rival parliaments as well as governments.

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Fighting in Libya ©V.Breschi/P.Defosseux (AFP)
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First lieutenant Mohammed Abdul Kafi speaks during a press conference in Tripoli on December 25, 2014 ©Mahmud Turkia (AFP)
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Members of a brigade headed by field commander Salah Bogheib and loyal to Khalifa Haftar hold up their guns as they fight alongside Libyan army troops against Islamist gunmen in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on December 17, 2014 ©Abdullah Doma (AFP/File)