Islamist Wave 2015 - News & Discussion

Byssus Sunday 15 Feb 2015

In the twentieth century, two non-Indo-European irruptions into Europe, Jewry and the Finns, were disproportionate producers of Bolshevik ringleaders — for the same reasons as here.

Sam Spade Monday 16 Feb 2015

This is quite long, but worth reading, even if you don't agree with all of it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Angocachi Tuesday 17 Feb 2015

The best thing he had to say was in quoting Orwell on Hitler.

Fascism, Orwell continued, is

psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life … Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them, “I offer you struggle, danger, and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet … We ought not to underrate its emotional appeal. Nor, in the case of the Islamic State, its religious or intellectual appeal. That the Islamic State holds the imminent fulfillment of prophecy as a matter of dogma at least tells us the mettle of our opponent. It is ready to cheer its own near-obliteration, and to remain confident, even when surrounded, that it will receive divine succor if it stays true to the Prophetic model.

Everything else he had to say was a clumsy chronology, condemning others for failing to understand, and emphasizing how unconventional ISIS is.

When ISIS was first having its split with Al Qaeda as a result of Zawahiri's calculated but blundering decision to back Al Nusra's autonomy, I remember thinking that the schism could end the international Salafist revolution or it would enter into the world a thing unseen in our lifetimes.

I agree with the opportunist portrayal of Baghdadi and of Zarqawi. They joined AQ for the benefits such affiliation provides, but once they were on their own feet... doing their own financing, recruiting, training, etc... they outgrew their need for the promotion, management, and connections offered to them by the agency out of Waziristan. That was not a problem by itself, but when Zawahiri started giving orders contrary to AQ in Iraq's agenda, in the case of Zarqawi and Baghdadi, he was ignored.
Zawahiri is looking at the bigger picture; he's against open conflict with Iran, genocide against Shia and Christians, and attacks that kill Muslim civilians. His mind is 100% focused on bringing down Western client regimes, repulsing/deterring Western interventions made on behalf of those regimes' behalf, discrediting Islamist Democrats, uniting disparate Sunni Jihadist groups, and portraying AQ as protagonists to the Muslim street.
AQ in Iraq has repeatedly taken Zawahiri off course, but it simply must. AQ in Iraq can't exist as anything other than a purposefully horrific, massacre machine against the Shia. It can't tolerate differing opinions, it can't compromise to make friends, it can't be a PR safe, hero's story. There is no niche in Iraq for AQ to be anything other... and what's more, it doesn't have to be.

I sympathize with the ISIS because they get the job done, they open Shariah courts and wage an effective guerilla campaign simultaneously. Also, they're not afraid of fighting the whole world just to stand on principle. However, Zawahiri's long view, international view, can't be dismissed. What good does establishing an Islamic Statelet do if it is soon swallowed by its enemies because it wasn't calculating and slick?
Zawahiri himself believes in a world that snuffs out the fools. ISIS is headstrong, bold, and resilient... where they are in a year or so will be the proof of whether they were fools who ignored a wise old warrior's bidding, or the stuff of vigor and fire that made the elder eat his foot.

-March 1, 2014

Something like the Sunni's Hitler has been born, and it is potent and eerie and unrelenting. As Michael Scheuer is warning over on his blog (nobody interviews him since he got fired for advising America to cut the life support on Israel) ISIS can't be stopped by the United States unless it is willing to suffer massively in a WW2 level fight. The only other option is to stay out of it. The best thing the United States can do for ISIS is to engage short of throwing everything into the effort. ISIS feeds on being seen fighting the US, and if the US pushes its proxies to do the fighting instead, then those proxies only out themselves in the face of their people as American puppets on the wrong side of the conflict... hastening their overthrow and replacement by ISIS.

The more enemies ISIS collects the more divine and revolutionary it appears in the eyes of the Sunni world. They offer the greatest adventure any Sunni man can have in perfect sync with his religion. I myself knew they had pushed Al Qaeda aside in the hearts of Jihadists when they made reluctant allies out of the GCC-NATO Axis and Team Shia. This is the gold medal for a Sunni Jihadist group and beats even their erasure of Sykes-Picot as a geopolitical accomplishment.

Longface Thursday 19 Feb 2015

Today’s Top 7 Myths about Daesh/ ISIL

The second point is important. Daesh are not revolutionaries.

The self-styled ‘Islamic State’ Group (ISIS or ISIL), the Arabic acronym for which is Daesh, is increasingly haunting the nightmares of Western journalists and security analysts. I keep seeing some assertions about it that strike me as exaggerated or as just incorrect.

1. It isn’t possible to determine whether Daesh a mainstream Muslim organization, since Muslim practice varies by time and place. I disagree. There is a center of gravity to any religion such that observers can tell when something is deviant. Aum Shinrikyo isn’t your run of the mill Buddhism, though it probably is on the fringes of the Buddhist tradition (it released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995). Like Aum Shinrikyo, Daesh is a fringe cult. There is nothing in formal Islam that would authorize summarily executing 21 Christians. The Qur’an says that Christians are closest in love to the Muslims, and that if they have faith and do good works, Christians need have no fear in the afterlife. Christians are people of the book and allowed religious freedom by Islamic law from the earliest times. Muslims haven’t always lived up to this ideal, but Christians were a big part of most Muslim states in the Middle East (in the early Abbasid Empire the Egyptian and Iraqi Christians were the majority). They obviously weren’t being taken out and beheaded on a regular basis. They did gradually largely convert to Islam, but we historians don’t find good evidence that they were coerced into it. Because they paid an extra poll tax, Christians had economic reasons to declare themselves Muslims.

We all know that Kentucky snake handlers are a Christian cult and that snake handling isn’t typical of the Christian tradition. Why pretend that we can’t judge when modern Muslim movements depart so far from the modern mainstream as to be a cult?

2. Daesh fighters are pious. Some may be. But very large numbers are just criminals who mouth pious slogans. The volunteers from other countries often have a gang past. They engage in drug and other smuggling and in human trafficking and delight in mass murder. They are criminals and sociopaths. Lots of religious cults authorize criminality.

3. Massive numbers of fighters have gone to join Daesh since last summer. Actually, the numbers are quite small proportionally. British PM David Cameron ominously warned that 400 British Muslim youth had gone off to fight in Syria. But there are like 3.7 million Muslims in the UK now! So .01 percent .000027 of the community volunteered. They are often teens, some are on the lam from petty criminal charges, and many come back disillusioned. You could get 400 people to believe almost anything. It isn’t a significant statistic. Most terrorism in Europe is committed by European separatist groups– only about 3% is by Muslims. Cameron is just trying to use such rhetoric to avoid being outflanked on his right by the nationalist UKIP. One of the most active Daesh Twitter feeds turns out to be run by an Indian worker in a grocery chain in Bangalore who lived in his parents’ basement and professed himself unable to volunteer for Syria because of his care giving chores. Daesh is smoke and mirrors.

4. Ibrahim Samarra’i’s ‘caliphate’ is widely taken seriously. No, it isn’t. It is a laughing matter in Egypt, the largest Arab country. There are a small band of smugglers and terrorists in Sinai who declared for Samarra’i, but that kind of person used to declare for Usama Bin Laden. It doesn’t mean anything. Egypt, with 83 million people, is in the throes of a reaction against political Islam, in favor of nationalism. It has become a little dangerous to wear a beard, the typical fashion of the Muslim fundamentalsit. Likewise, Tunisia voted in a secular government.

5. Daesh holds territory in increasing numbers of countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. But outside of Syria and Iraq, Daesh is just a brand, not an organization. A handful of Taliban have switched allegiance to Daesh or have announced that they have. It has no more than symbolic significance in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These converts are tiny in number. They are not significant. And they were already radicals of some sort. Daesh has no command and control among them. Indeed, the self-styled ‘caliph’, Ibrahim Samarrai, was hit by a US air strike and is bed ridden in Raqqah, Syria. I doubt he is up to command and control. The Pakistani and Afghan governments have a new agreement to roll up the radicals, and Pakistan is aerially bombing them.

Even in Syria and Iraq, Daesh holds territory only because the states have collapsed. I remember people would do this with al-Qaeda, saying it had branches in 64 countries. But for the most part it was 4 guys in each of those countries. This kind of octopus imagery is taken advantage of by Daesh to make itself seem important, but we shouldn’t fall for it.

6. Only US ground troops can defeat Daesh and the USA must commit to a third Iraq War. The US had 150,000 troops or so in Iraq for 8 1/2 years! But they left the country a mess. Why in the world would anybody assume that another round of US military occupation of Iraq would work, given the disaster that was the last one? A whole civil war was fought between Sunnis and Shiites that displaced a million people and left 3000 civilians dead a month in 2006-2007, right under the noses of US commanders.

In fact, US air power can halt Daesh expansion into Kurdistan or Baghdad. US air power was crucial to the Kurdish defense of Kobane in northern Syria. It helped the Peshmerga paramilitary of Iraqi Kurdistan take back Mt. Sinjar. It helped an Iraqi army unit take back the refinery town of Beiji. The US ought not to have to be there at all. But if Washington has to intervene, it can contain the threat from the air. Politicians should just stop promising to extirpate the group. Brands can’t be destroyed, and Daesh is just a brand for the most part.

7. Daesh is said to have 9 million subjects. I don’t understand where this number comes from. They have Raqqah Province in Syria, which had 800,000 people before the civil war. But the north of Raqqah is heavily Kurdish and some 300,000 Kurds fled from there to Turkey. Some have now come back to Kobane. But likely at most Daesh has 500,000 subjects there. Their other holdings in Syria are sparsely populated. I figure Iraq’s population at about 32 million and Sunnis there at 17%, i.e. 5.5 million or so. You have to subtract the million or more Sunnis who live in Baghdad and Samarra, which Daesh does not control. Although most of the rest Sunni Iraq has fallen to Daesh, very large numbers of Sunnis have fled from them. Thus, of Mosul’s 2 million, 500,000 voted with their feet last summer when Daesh came in. Given the massive numbers of refugees from Daesh territory, and given that they don’t have Baghdad, I’d be surprised if over all they have more than about 3-4 million people living under them. And this is all likely temporary. Plans are being made to kick them right back out of Mosul.

Angocachi Thursday 19 Feb 2015

ISIS is in sync with most Sunni Muslims, especially Mashriqi Arabs, on religion. Its unpopularity with religious Sunnis is only in its brutality, and even those who find it objectionable hold it as an almost justified response to Shia and non-Muslim brutality against Sunnis.
There is nothing beyond hadith and the Quran about ISIS. They adhere to both more intensely than any organization in modern times. That after all is the problem Islamic reformists and secularists have with Salafism, its rigid zeal and perfectionist, literalist, fundementalist loyalty to scripture.
Aum Shinrikyo took Buddhism and tacked on so much of its own theological inventions that it's a total heresy. ISIS is the opposite, scraping off every bit of non-Islamic or anti-Islamic crust until only the solid, Islamic core remains.

There is nothing in formal Islam that would authorize summarily executing 21 Christians. The Qur’an says that Christians are closest in love to the Muslims, and that if they have faith and do good works, Christians need have no fear in the afterlife. Christians are people of the book and allowed religious freedom by Islamic law from the earliest times. Muslims haven’t always lived up to this ideal, but Christians were a big part of most Muslim states in the Middle East (in the early Abbasid Empire the Egyptian and Iraqi Christians were the majority). They obviously weren’t being taken out and beheaded on a regular basis. They did gradually largely convert to Islam, but we historians don’t find good evidence that they were coerced into it. Because they paid an extra poll tax, Christians had economic reasons to declare themselves Muslims.

Yet Muhammed and the first Caliphs killed Christians.
Christians are protected under Islamic law, and the tax they pay to the state is in place of the tax Muslims pay to the state. However, Christians who war against the state can be executed just the same as Muslims who war against the state. This was Muhammed and the first Caliphs example and it is ISIS policy.

The problem with "mainstream" Islam is that there is no mainstream. There is Al Azhar University and Saudi clerics, there are Ayatollahs. They all disagree with each other. ISIS disregards them all as "scholars for dollars", state and private bought mouthpieces to pacify the Islamic masses.

ISIS fighters who've been to prison were, in general, there for anti-government, dissident, or Jihadist activity or suspicions. Unlike the American or Syrian military, they're not recruiting homies from LA.

3. Massive numbers of fighters have gone to join Daesh since last summer. Actually, the numbers are quite small proportionally. British PM David Cameron ominously warned that 400 British Muslim youth had gone off to fight in Syria. But there are like 3.7 million Muslims in the UK now! So .01 percent .000027 of the community volunteered. They are often teens, some are on the lam from petty criminal charges, and many come back disillusioned. You could get 400 people to believe almost anything. It isn’t a significant statistic. Most terrorism in Europe is committed by European separatist groups– only about 3% is by Muslims. Cameron is just trying to use such rhetoric to avoid being outflanked on his right by the nationalist UKIP. One of the most active Daesh Twitter feeds turns out to be run by an Indian worker in a grocery chain in Bangalore who lived in his parents’ basement and professed himself unable to volunteer for Syria because of his care giving chores. Daesh is smoke and mirrors.

Coupling leftist anti-European nationalist baloney with moderate Muslim apologetics baloney.
The number of Muslims in the UK is 2.7 million not 3.7 million. The number of men is less than half that, the number of men fit for service is less than half that (fit for service ratio in the UK is ~45%). The number of unmarried, fit for service men without dependents, children, elderly parents, sick relatives, etc that preclude them from leaving is much less than that. The number of such men who don't fear being arrested or barred from reentry is again much smaller. That 400 British Muslims have joined ISIS is incredible.
ISIS has drawn tens of thousands of foreign volunteers. Few groups in history can claim this and it's something on the level of the outpouring of volunteers that left Western Europe to go on the First Crusade, which was 35-40 thousand men. ISIS has at least 20,000 foreign volunteers in Iraq and Syria now. The Afghan-Soviet War lasted 10 years, ~35,000 foreign volunteers passed through in total and never more than 5,000 in the country at a given time.

The majority of Egyptians and certainly a plurality of Tunisians are Islamist. According to Pew 56% of Tunisians and 74% of Egyptians "favor making Shariah the law of the land". The only Arab country wherein a majority is anti-Shariah is Lebanon, and that's because it has the highest ratio of Christians and the Sunnis fear it'd be Ayatollah shariah. The only majority Muslim countries in the world where a majority are not pro-Shariah are the former Soviet Union, Albania, former Yugoslavia, and thanks to Atta Turk... Turkey despite electing Erdogan and being very Islamist east of Istanbul.
If it's a little dangerous to wear a beard in Egypt it's regime political and religious suppression, not popular anti-Islamism. Morsi was ousted by the junta without popular approval and Islamists weren't given an option in the Tunisian elections.

5. Daesh holds territory in increasing numbers of countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. But outside of Syria and Iraq, Daesh is just a brand, not an organization. A handful of Taliban have switched allegiance to Daesh or have announced that they have. It has no more than symbolic significance in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These converts are tiny in number. They are not significant. And they were already radicals of some sort. Daesh has no command and control among them. Indeed, the self-styled ‘caliph’, Ibrahim Samarrai, was hit by a US air strike and is bed ridden in Raqqah, Syria. I doubt he is up to command and control. The Pakistani and Afghan governments have a new agreement to roll up the radicals, and Pakistan is aerially bombing them.

This "it's a symbolic brand, amorphous and meaningless" is the same line they ran on Al Qaeda.
Giving allegiance to the Caliph opens the line to IS funds, arms, fighters, media and leaders. Just as allegiance to Zawahiri opens the same but from Al Qaeda's sources. If they don't follow orders, they get cut off, just as IS was cut off from Al Qaeda for disregarding Zawahiri's command.
Not long ago Obama was dismissing IS in Iraq and Syria as Al Qaeda Junior Varsity. It's possible Afghan-Pakistani ISIS, Algerian ISIS, Caucasus ISIS, etc will be rolled up... or they'll take root and grow as Sinai and Libyan IS have. If they're strangled in their cradle it'd be the Caucasus Emirate, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc and not the local governments... which with the exception of Russia and Algeria have proven they're incapable of counter-insurgency.

Al Qaeda never claimed branches in 64 countries. Rather, it was very secretive about declaring its presence anywhere and intended to work covertly.
ISIS, certainly, is not declaring branches consisting of a handful of guys. It doesn't even consider for inclusion an application for admission any group that doesn't field a formidable number of men and have a territorial stronghold.
And to say IS only controls territory where the state has collapsed is misleading, as it's IS that caused the state to collapse in those places. Who ran the Iraqi military out of Mosul? It wasn't sitting unadministered or vacant.

That's true.

This is true, but he misses the problem Obama has. Air power coupled with ground forces can take ISIS territory. The Kurds and Shia offer the ground forces, the Arab Monarchs and US offer the air power. However, neither the Kurds, Shia, Arab Monarchs, or US are willing to commit ground forces to ISIS core territories, the Sunni Arab Mashriq; not in Iraq and especially not in Syria. That means Obama can keep IS out of Kurdistan and Shia Iraq, but he can't do anything to finish off the Islamic State.

7. Daesh is said to have 9 million subjects. I don’t understand where this number comes from. They have Raqqah Province in Syria, which had 800,000 people before the civil war. But the north of Raqqah is heavily Kurdish and some 300,000 Kurds fled from there to Turkey. Some have now come back to Kobane. But likely at most Daesh has 500,000 subjects there. Their other holdings in Syria are sparsely populated. I figure Iraq’s population at about 32 million and Sunnis there at 17%, i.e. 5.5 million or so. You have to subtract the million or more Sunnis who live in Baghdad and Samarra, which Daesh does not control. Although most of the rest Sunni Iraq has fallen to Daesh, very large numbers of Sunnis have fled from them. Thus, of Mosul’s 2 million, 500,000 voted with their feet last summer when Daesh came in. Given the massive numbers of refugees from Daesh territory, and given that they don’t have Baghdad, I’d be surprised if over all they have more than about 3-4 million people living under them.

The people who fled Mosul were in two categories; Iraqi government officials and collaborators fearing arrest and normal Sunnis fearing bombardment and siege by the Iraqi military.
As for the population of IS in the Mashriq, 1 million in Raqqa Governorate, 1.2 million in Deir ez Zhor Governorate. Let's say Mosul really is down to 1.5 million. Tal Afar City 200,000. Al Qaim City 250,000. That's a total population of 4,150,000 already and I've been rounding the numbers down, well above the author's maximum population that he'd be surprised if it were so. Add in the rest of IS Syrian territory, the other cities they hold in Iraq, the countryside, the neighborhoods they hold in cities that aren't under their full control and the population of ISIS is likely ~9 million.

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Plans are being made to kick them out of Mosul that nobody believes in.

Meanwhile in Libya, in a single month.
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President Camacho Thursday 19 Feb 2015

The Chaldean and Coptic Christians in Iraq and Egypt were "making war" on the ISIS state?

Angocachi Thursday 19 Feb 2015

Egypts Christians were a pillar of Mubarak and now of Sisi.
In this particular mass execution of Christians in Libya, IS cited two Egyptian Christian women who were murdered for converting to Islam.

Angocachi Friday 20 Feb 2015

ISIS in Libyan Coastal City of Sirte, Gadaffi's Hometown, February 18

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The governor of Libya’s Misrata District last week published a document calling on the district’s civilians and its military forces “to be on the highest alert alertness and readiness from now until further notice.” The country’s third-largest city, Misrata, was until recently considered Libya’s safest. Now it fears an invasion from the forces of ISIS (also known as the Islamic State or ISIL) in Libya.

Misrata operates as a city-state, with its own semiautonomous government. Most of its income comes from iron and cement factories, and it is a magnet for foreign investors. As such, Misrata also poses a temptation to ISIS, which seeks to expand its economic base for its operations in the Middle East and, like any economic institution, wants to diversify its sources of revenue.

But as in Syria, it is a challenge to draw the map of control of ISIS and the other Islamic organizations in Libya — with the exception of Darna, Sirte and parts of Benghazi, where ISIS has near-total control.

Two years ago, a coalition of Islamic militias came together in Misrata. Known as Libya Dawn, it supports the large religious organization Ansar al-Shariah, which controls parts of Benghazi. This coalition seeks to engage in battle the forces led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter. Hifter is one of the main supporters of the internationally recognized interim government, which sits in Tobruk — after being driven out of Tripoli, the capital, by a rival government.

Hifter may be considered a leftover of the erstwhile government of Muammar Gadhafi, but his powerful militia, that includes soldiers and officers from Gadhafi’s army, has made him acceptable to a West that has nearly given up on the Libyan army’s ability to act against the Islamic militias.

Herein lies the dilemma of the leadership in Misrata — whether to choose Hifter for now and support him against ISIS, or to form a coalition with ISIS and lose control of this important province, where mass protests were held this week against the Egyptian air strikes on Libya.

The airstrikes followed the release of an ISIS video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts in Libya.

This is also the conflict that is dividing Ansar al-Shariah, parts of which recently swore loyalty to ISIS. Late last month, Ansar al-Shariah said that its leader, Mohammad al-Zahawi had been killed. According to reports from Libya, he was executed by ISIS supporters after he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’ leader and self-proclaimed caliph. The execution was reportedly carried out by group of Libyans who had fought in Syria on behalf of ISIS and returned to establish the local branch of the organization in Libya.

The war between the numerous militias in the streets of Libya’s main cities and the absence of a unified leadership — the country has two rival governments — presents an impossible challenge to international forces trying to evaluate their options.

In a special session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday that was convened after the Egyptian airstrikes on Darna, which ISIS controls, Egypt proposed the creation of an international military coalition to fight ISIS in Libya as well as the removal of the arms embargo on Libya, in order to let the recognized government acquire the weapons it needs to fight the Islamic State.

But as in Syria, the United States is stuck in a position of waiting, and its policy is that there must be cooperation with UN special representative Bernardino Leon, of Spain, who is attempting to establish a national unity government. In other words, first a political solution for the Libyan government and only afterwards, maybe, weapons too.

The American position has no real support in Libya. The deep conflicts between the two governments and the rivalries between the various armed militias that support one of the governments, in addition to the tribal rivalries, have made a political solution seem far off. Italy, on the other hand, which sees itself as being on the front line against ISIS in Libya, is willing to send 5,000 soldiers to help the Libyan army, on condition of the approval of the United Nations.

Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, are conducting their own policy vis-a-vis Libya. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, who this week visited the air force from which the strike that killed 50 ISIS militants and civilians was launched, is willing to continue to attack in Libya as long as necessary. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry may have denied reports that Egypt sent commando forces into Libya that killed 150 ISIS militants, but Egyptian officials made it clear that if there is a need, “Egypt will not hesitate to act in every way to protect its citizens.”

An estimated two million Egyptians live in Libya, mainly due to the greater work opportunities there. They began trickling back into Egypt this week, with no guarantee of work in their homeland.

In the meantime, the Egyptian airstrikes led to a diplomatic row between Egypt and Qatar, which recalled its ambassador from Cairo after Egypt’s envoy to the Arab League accused Qatar of interfering in Egypt’s internal affairs and implied that Qatar supported terrorism. The envoy’s Qatari counterpart only expressed his reservations about the Egyptian operation, saying it constituted interference in Libyan domestic affairs.

It’s not that Qatar really cares about interference in Libya — it is bankrolling several religious militias there — but when Saudi Arabia accusesd Qatar of interfering in the affairs of Arab nations, it caused a break in diplomatic relations among Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The challenge is how to block the spread of ISIS to other parts of Libya and prevent it from expanding into other North African states such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

According to reports from Tunisia, ISIS activists are already at work there, and Tunisia has “exported” a few hundred militants to Libya, in addition to the 3,000 Tunisians who went to fight in Syria, who plan plan to return home to establish an ISIS bridgehead in Tunisia.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.643366

Antonius Blockhead Fitz Endicott Peabody

Angocachi Friday 20 Feb 2015

Florida Man Injured Fighting ISIS in Marxist YPG Ranks.

Matthew Kawolski was serving with the group of foreigners Lions of Rojava in the city of Sinjar near the border with Syrian Kurdistan
Kawolski is among a slew of Americans and other Westerners who've joined with the Kurds to fight the advance of ISIS
Kawolski, who was part of a unit called the Chappies within the Syria-based People's Protection Units (YPG), is now recovering from his injuries

A Florida man who traveled to Iraq to fight ISIS with a battalion of fellow Westerners last year has been injured in the town of Sinjar.

Matthew Kawolski was fighting alongside the Chappies--a unit of Westerners within the Syria-based People's Protection Units (YPG)--when he was apparently wounded in combat.

Kawolski, who is among a slew of foreigners fighting ISIS in the region, is now recovering from his injuries, according to a February 9 post on a Facebook page for the foreign fighters group the Lions of Rojava.

'His brothers are standing by him during his recovery and he will be returning to the city upon his recovery,' reads the post.

The post does not indicate the nature or extent of Kawolski's injuries.

It does, however, reveal a good deed the Florida man did upon his return to Sinjar.

'He purchased and delivered a soccer ball to the Yezidi children in the UN refugee camp to display his care and concern for them. His service has been selfless and brave. Stay Chappy my friend,' reads the post.

Pictured alongside Kowalski on the Lions of Rojava page is another American, one who made headlines when he left his country to serve in the fight against ISIS.

Jordan Matson, a 28-year-old food packaging worker from Sturtevant, Wisconsin, is a former U.S. Army soldier who never served overseas.

But he has been fighting with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) since last September.

After starting his adventure in Syria, the committed Christian is now in Iraq, where he fights against the jihadis of Islamic State wearing a tactical vest scribbled with the words 'Christ is Lord'.

'I'm not going back until the fight is finished and ISIS is crippled,' Mr Matson told the Associated Press.

'I decided that if my government wasn't going to do anything to help this country, especially Kurdish people who stood by us for 10 years and helped us out while we were in this country, then I was going to do something.'

Mr Matson and dozens of other Westerners now fight with the Kurds, spurred on by Kurdish social media campaigners and a sense of duty many feel after Iraq, the target of a decade-long U.S.-led military campaign, collapsed under an Islamic State group offensive within days last summer.

And while U.S. and its coalition allies bomb the extremists from the air, Kurds say they hope more Westerners will join them on the ground to fight.

They call themselves the Lions Of Rojava and boast: 'It is better to live one day as a Lion than a thousand days as a sheep.'

They are the foreign fighters who have travelled to Syria not for jihad, but to join the Kurds who are defending their communities against the advance of ISIS.

Just as hundreds of young Europeans have gone to fight for the radical Islamists of Islamic State, so increasing numbers are now travelling to fight for their avowed enemies, the Kurds.

Jordan Matson, a former US soldier now with the Kurdish People's Protection Unit (YPG), operates The Lions Of Rojava Facebook page openly calling for volunteers to travel to join the fight.

Just as many of the Islamic State's foreign volunteers have been drawn from the ranks of Sunni Muslim youth worldwide, many of the initial YPG volunteers have come from the Kurdish diaspora.

In August a hairdresser from south London was reported to be the first Briton to travel to fight alongside Kurdish forces.

Ethnic Kurd Mama Kurda from Croydon, 26, travelled to Iraq to join the Kurdish peshmerga as they desperately tried to halt Islamic State's lightning advance.

But since then many others have been inspired to take up arms against Islamic State, including fellow British soldier duo James Hughes, a 26-year-old from Malvern, Worcestershire and Jamie Read, 24, from Carlisle.

Last month it was reported that a currently serving British marine had been questioned by police who suspected he was travelling to fight with Kurdish militias during his leave.

The 22-year-old Royal Marine Commando was quizzed after he prepared to fly from California on a one-way ticket to Turkey. He was suspected of being in contact with Kurdish militant groups.

Two women, Canadian Jew Gill Rosenberg, 31, and Danish Kurd Joanna Palani, 20, have also reportedly travelled to fight with the Kurds, inspired perhaps by the images of female fighters on the front line against Islamic State terrorists.

It is perhaps the only place in the world where women are fighting on the front line of armed conflict.

There are also claims that a number of European biker gangs have travelled to Syria and are helping to assist the resistance.

Leaders of the Cologne-based Median Empire Motorcycle Club, which has strong Kurdish links, have posted images of their German riders posing in the city - some of them carrying weapons.

The news came just days after three members of a notorious motorcycle gang from the Netherlands were told they had not committed any crime by travelling to Kobani to join the fight against ISIS.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...sterners-injured-line-duty.html#ixzz3SL8f9dpj

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Angocachi Friday 20 Feb 2015

While Western White men are running into Iraq and Syria to volunteer with Marxist Kurds and Christian militias in anti-ISIS fight, Shia from around the world are being pumped into Syria and Iraq, in addition to Hezbollah's longstanding contribution.

Some 30,000 Indian Shia Muslims have submitted their passports and are ready to travel to Iraq to defend Shiite holy shrines from the advancing Sunni Islamist insurgents by any means available.

According to recruiters a further 100,000 have pledged support for the cause and are also willing to travel and defend their faith.

Shia Muslim organisations said many of the volunteers are well-educated, have filled out forms and are "ready to go any moment".

Syed Bilal Hussain Abidi, a senior Shia cleric said: "The volunteers are educated young men from different backgrounds. We do not plan to train them in arms. We will go there to fight them bare handed."

India is home to around 175 million people of Islamic faith. Although the majority of the country's Islamic population are Sunni, Shia Muslims are estimated to make up between 40 million and 50 million.

Apparently the aim is to build a volunteer corps of a million people who will "form a human chain around the holy shrines of Karbala and Najaf".

One of the organisations that recruits the "fighters" has said it plans to march to the Iraqi embassy in New Delhi to submit the visa applications.

"We could travel to Iraq to form a human chain to save people from being tortured. We could fetch water and donate blood and do anything to save our shrines," Abidi of Anjuman E Haideri, told Reuters.

Anjuman E Haideri, whose headquarters is located off Karbala Road in New Delhi, is only one of such organisations that recruit people in an unprecedented campaign to save the faith.

Earlier, the All India Shia Husaini Fund (AISHF) had said around 4,000 people volunteered to travel to Iraq and fight against the Isis militants.

However, the government of India has said it would not allow Indians to travel to Iraq because of security issues, and it's not clear how the Iraqi embassy in India will deal with the visa applications.

Moreover, the recruiters do not seem to have a clear idea about what the faith-driven fighters will do in Iraq.

AISHF Secretary General, Syed Hasan Mehdi, told IBTimes UK the "fighters" are amateurs and have been given no combat training. He said the volunteers would primarily be involved in aiding the efforts to rescue abducted Indians in Iraq and protect the holy Shiite shrines.

When pressed further whether the group was putting the lives of thousands in danger, Mehdi replied "Allah is with us."

Among those who signed up are engineers, police officers and students. They application form that they signed states: "I firmly believe that terrorism of all kinds including the one which is being inflicted by known terror groups in Iraq is not only a serious threat to innocent Iraqis (irrespective of their religious beliefs) but is also a threat to the entire humanity."

Syed Bahadur Abbas Naqvi, the general secretary Anjuman E Haideri, said they had to step in and send fighters to Iraq as the government of India did not have plans to send forces to Iraq.

"We have nearly 30,000 volunteers who have filled in the forms and given their passports and are ready to go any moment. Another hundred thousand have got in touch with us and have pledged their support. We are looking at a million volunteers to form a human chain around the holy shrines of Karbala and Najaf, in case the Isis attacks. We will do everything to stop the advance of the enemies," added Abidi, according to news portal Iraqi News.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/30000-indian-muslims-ready-fight-isis-bare-handed-iraq-1454415

Indian Shias on Mission Iraq: Over 6,000 seek visas for war-torn country 'to protect shrines and boost relief effort'

It's a new Iraq surge in the making, and it has nothing to do with the US Army.

Thousands of Indian Shias have applied for visas to Iraq, where a deadly sectarian conflict between the extreme Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the country's majority Shia population threatens all of West Asia.

There could be many thousands more waiting to do the same, and all the while our intelligence agencies piece together inputs on Indians fighting for ISIS.

The reason for 'Mission Iraq', most Indian Shias say, is to stand by their brethren, protect their holy shrines and help the relief effort.

Najaf and Karbala are two places in Iraq that are especially revered by Shias worldwide. In Najaf is the shrine of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet who the Shia believe is the righteous caliph. Karbala, on the other hand, has the shrine of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet.

After Mecca and Medina, Najaf is considered the holiest site by Shias.

Despite reports that India is a potential target for the extreme ISIS, more than 6,000 Indian Shias have applied for visas at the Embassy of Iraq.

Next week, a delegation of five persons representing the Shia community, including cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad and prominent lawyer Mahmood Pracha, is expected to travel to Iraq.

"A delegation will be going to Iraq to make an assessment of the requirements there so that our volunteers can visit the country soon and help. We have got visa approvals," Bahadur Abbas Naqvi, secretary of Anjuman-e-Haideri, a Shia organisation that intends to send volunteers to Iraq, told Mail Today.

Naqvi is among the five who will visit Iraq. Anjumane-Haideri vice-president Rais Abbas and joint secretary Shahzad Hussain are the two other members of the delegation.

ISIS terrorists have been targeting Shias in Iraq, and the dreaded group has overrun several key cities like Mosul and Tikrit.

While 46 nurses from Kerala, who were trapped in the conflict zone, have returned safely to India, 39 other Indian construction workers are still being held in Mosul by jihadists aligned with ISIS.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had recently visited Iraq, while Intelligence Bureau Director Syed Asif Ibrahim is said to have to gone to Saudi Arabia to facilitate the return of the nurses to India.

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the ISIS leader and self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State, has identified India as an enemy state and claimed it is one of the countries where Muslims do not have rights.

Sources in the security establishment are sceptical about Indians visiting Iraq, and that too for tasks like protecting shrines and supporting the Shia community.

While there have been intelligence alerts about Indians joining ISIS and fighting security forces, there are also concerns about India being a potential target of the dreaded terrorist group.

Sources said Shias from India visiting Iraq could be targeted by ISIS, since India is on radar of the Sunni terrorist group that has been on the rampage.

While a majority of the volunteers who intend to go to Iraq are Shias, there are also Sunnis and a small number of Hindus who are keen to visit Iraq to take part in relief works.

Most of the Shia volunteers are from Delhi and cities in Uttar Pradesh like Lucknow and Meerut.

The Anjuman-e-Haideri has plans to send at least 1,000 people to Iraq after the five-member delegation returns.

"The first batch includes doctors, nurses and engineers who can help in relief work. People who can protect the shrines will also be sent," Naqvi said.

The organisation has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh about its desire to send volunteers to Iraq. Naqvi claimed the Iraqi government does not have a problem with Indians going to Iraq to help.

"The Iraq government has welcomed us. The Iraqi Prime Minister has said he welcomes Indians helping in any manner," he said.

Government sources said background checks will be carried out on people volunteering to go to Iraq.

"We will coordinate with the Iraqi embassy and give them whatever information they need," said a government official.

The Anjuman-e-Haideri says it has already recruited 1 lakh people who want travel to Iraq to protect members of their sect.

Sources said the government does not want any of the Indians who visit Iraq to get involved in any illegal activity.

"We don't want any Indians to be involved in violence," one official said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahom...hrines-boost-relief-effort.html#ixzz3SLA2bzHV

Thousands of Afghan Shia Hazara Fighters in Syria
More than 150 people have been killed after two days of fighting in the Aleppo countryside, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). SOHR says that “70 members of the regime forces, NDF and the Shiite fighters from Iran and Afghanistan” were killed, along with “66 Syrian fighters from rebel and Islamic battalions … during clashes after the attack including 46 killed in the northern countryside and 20 killed on fronts in Aleppo city.” The “Islamic battalions” moniker refers to fighters from the Islamic Front, a powerful coalition of Islamist and jihadist groups that is allied to the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria.

The SOHR also said that 20 fighters from the Al Nusrah Front and the “al Muhajireen wal Ansar army” were killed. The latter group is Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar (JMA), which considers itself the Syrian branch of the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Caucasus Emirate . JMA, which is largely Chechen-led, is a staunch ally of the Al Nusrah Front.

The current fighting started when regime forces launched an offensive in various parts of northern Aleppo. According to SOHR , the offensive was intended to cut off supply routes to the rebels, as well as end the siege of Zahra and Nubl, two Shiite towns north of Aleppo city. Regime forces were able to retake two nearby villages, but according to the Daily Star Lebanon , the rebels have since regained control of the areas. The SOHR is reporting that fighting is still going on in the Bashkwi village, with the Syrian Army being reinforced by “Non-Syrian fighters, NDF [National Defense Force] and Hezbollah” fighters. As combat is still raging in the area, the death toll is likely to rise.

This offensive comes as regime forces, also backed by Hezbollah and non-Syrian fighters, launched another offensive in the southern Daraa province . While their veracity has not not been confirmed, several photos have emerged claiming to show Qassem Soleimani , the head of the Iranian Quds Force, with regime soldiers in Daraa. The Quds Force is the unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps tasked with external operations. Soleimani has been seen in various hot-spots in Iraq leading both Iraqi Security Forces personnel and Shia militias. Iran has deployed personnel to the fight in Syria, as well. In October, a Basij general was killed near Aleppo . The Basij is the volunteer-based paramilitary force that is subordinate to the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Additionally, a Revolutionary Guard Corps member was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Quneitra last month.

In both recent offensives by the Syrian Army, Afghan Hazaras have also been spotted fighting for the Assad regime. In May 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that “Iran has been recruiting thousands of Afghan refugees to fight in Syria, offering $500 a month and Iranian residency to help the Assad regime beat back rebel forces,” citing Western and Afghan security officials. The report goes on to say that the Revolutionary Guard Corps actively recruits these refugees in Afghanistan and has command over them in Syria.

Several jihadist groups have published videos showing their participation in the recent fighting in Aleppo. The Imam Bukhari Jamaat, an Uzbek group allied to Al Nusrah and loyal to Mullah Omar of the Taliban, released a video showing its fighters among several dead regime soldiers. Another Uzbek group, Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad , which is also allied to Al Nusrah, released a similar video. The Al Nusrah Front has also publicized its own footage, which includes appearances by Abu Ubaida al Madani, the emir of the Chechen unit within Nusrah . A Dutch fighter of Al Nusrah gives a speech in Arabic towards the end of the same video.

In addition, Jabhat al Shamiyya (Levant Front), a coalition of rebel groups in Aleppo, has released a video showing its fighters seizing a T-72 tank from regime forces. Ahrar al Sham, a powerful jihadist group within both the Islamic Front and Jabhat al Shamiyya (only within Aleppo city), as well as an al Qaeda ally, has also released a video showing its participation in the fighting. In the footage, Ahrar fighters are seeing using a tank and anti-air gun to target regime positions. Several pictures have also emerged from rebel groups in the area showing truck loads full of dead regime soldiers. In one photo, more than 20 bodies are packed into the bed of a pickup truck. Another image has emerged alleging to show an Ahrar al Sham commander with tens of regime captives who surrendered to the group. One Free Syrian Army group has released a photo showing the Iranian identification card of one dead fighter (this photo can be seen above.)

Photos from the fighting in Aleppo can be seen below:

A Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad fighter discussing the fighting:

Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad fighters targeting retreating regime soldiers:

An Imam Bukhari Jamaat fighter targeting regime soldiers with a light machine gun:

Abu Ubaida al Madani emir of the Chechen Sayfullah Shishani’s Jamaat of Al Nusrah can be seen below:

Abu Muhammad al Muhajir, a Dutch fighter of Al Nusrah, can be seen below:

A fighter from Jabhat al Shamiyya can be seen below with what appears to be an M16 while a tank is being operated in the background:

An Ahrar al Sham fighter using an anti-air weapon to target regime soldiers in a nearby building:

Fighters from the Sham Legion, a coalition of Islamist groups, seen with regime captives:

More regime fighters captured by the Sham Legion:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/02/over-150-killed-in-aleppo-fighting.php

Islamist Wave 2015 - News & Discussion

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