Islamist Wave 2015 - News & Discussion

10 posts

Angocachi

More White Western men joining anti-ISIS militias in Iraq and Syria.

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A former British nightclub bouncer and construction firm owner quit his job and joined a militia to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) rebels in Iraq, UK-based newspaper the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.

After selling his house and quitting his work positions, Tim Locks travelled to Iraq to join a Christian militant group called Dwekh Nawsha, meaning in Assyrian “the self-sacrificers.”

Locks, 38, decided to fight against ISIS in August last year, after seeing the desperate fate of members of the Yazidi minority forced to flee to Mount Sinjar.

“I just thought I have a great life, job, beautiful house and I thought it is time to help someone else,” Locks told the Daily Mail.

Although not religious, Locks said that he did not have a problem fighting alongside a group with Christian values.

“I had no specific wishes to join a specific group. I just wanted to help people out here. Any society which kills people, cuts people's heads off needs to be challenged,” he said.

After spending months selling his house and planning his departure, Locks left to Iraq in the middle of February with a friend he met online, flying to the southern Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah, then making his way to the Iraqi province of Nineveh.

Locks said he joined the little-known group Dwekh Nawsha group because of rumors he had heard that some groups make foreign fighters hand over their passports as a condition of membership.

The group also has a rigorous recruitment process, only taking on veterans or people with valued skills such as construction – meaning Locks fit the bill.

“I have a big construction background and that is a massive skill out here for building bases and repairing homes,” he said.

Locks told the Daily Mail that he has no immediate plans to return to his homeland. But when ISIS “is eradicated from the earth, then I will return to the UK.”

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/per...bouncer-joins-fight-against-ISIS-in-Iraq.html

Angocachi
ISIS Could Cost Italy Billions In Libyan Oil Profits

Historically, Italy and Libya have had a cozy relationship, but as Libya unravels under the threat of ISIS, their bond with Italy is unraveling too. Billions of dollars in oil profits are caught in the crossfire.
ROME — Italy and Libya’s codependent relationship goes back to the Roman Empire, when Libyan-born Septimius Severus became the empire’s first African emperor. A massive triumphal arch bearing his name still towers over the ruins of the Roman Forum. Libya was under Italy’s colonial rule from 1910 to 1947, and after that, the two countries built a cozy alliance that further flourished in 1959 when Italy helped develop Libya’s oil industry, of which Italian companies still have stakes worth billions of euro.

In 2008, Berlusconi and Gaddafi signed an “eternal friendship” pact between the two nations, whereby Italy would be forgiven for massacring thousands of Libyans during colonial rule in exchange for an investment of $5 billion for Libyan’s infrastructure, including building a highway that would span across the desert from Tunisia to Egypt. Of course, Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gadaffi were much more than just political partners . After all, Berlusconi’s bunga-bunga rituals were said to come straight out of Gadaffi’s playbook.

At the time of the 2008 treaty, Italy relied on Libya for 25 percent of its oil and gas needs, importing some 1.6 million barrels of oil a day. A few years later, Italian oil company Eni promised to invest $25 billion in their extensive oil operations. Under Gaddafi, the Libyan government even made an offer to buy a stake in Eni.

In 2011, as Gaddafi fell and Arab Spring raged, Italy was forced to turn its back on Libya, instead siding with its European allies. The relationship continues to falter in response to the growing unrest in Libya. Italy has been slowly decreasing its import levels and has turned to Russia and the Ukraine to meet their other oil and gas needs.

Still, Italy continues to have much to lose in Libya, and Eni remains heavily invested in the country. On Friday, Eni announced that the last of its Italian nationals would be brought back to Italy amid concerns that ISIS will take Italian workers hostage. Only Eni’s offshore oil platforms are currently staffed by Italian staff, and those are still producing oil. Many of the oil fields in the Libyan desert are ceasing production either due to attacks on the pipelines or out of concern that ISIS fighters will take over, which costs Eni millions of euro every day. The oil fields remain heavily guarded despite a string of strikes by the security guards who complain that their salaries have not been paid in months.

Italy also has other investments in Libya to worry about. In 2009, Italy’s aerospace and defense company Finmeccanica entered into a lucrative €250 million deal to cooperate on aerospace projects in the Middle East and Africa . The deal has fallen by the wayside, but Finmeccanica still has considerable money and assets tied up in the country, including a factory built in 2013 to set up a satellite surveillance system meant to help monitor Libyan borders. The project was meant to launch by the end of 2014, which obviously has not happened.

The current chaos may be bad for Italy, but the damage goes both ways. Without Italian import income, the Libyan oil industry stands to suffer. Writing in Il Sole 24, Alberto Negri asks the question , “Can we do without Libya? Let’s try once to ask the opposite question: can Libya do without us?”

Negri says that because Italy is the largest oil importer from Libya, an attack or break from Europe would mean a stop in oil revenue, no matter who is controlling the oil industry because the pipelines go straight to Italy.

“This should be one of the concerns of the Libyan factions if they want to count on safe revenues to continue their conflict,” he says. “Even the jihadists close to the Caliphate may find it difficult to do in Libya what ISIS has done in Syria, taking control of the wells in the east and exporting oil through clandestine pipelines in Turkey and Iraq.” He says that just isn’t feasible in Libya.

There is also the matter of €2 billion worth of Gadaffi’s frozen assets in Italy, including a fleet of luxury cars, villas and land in islands of Sardinia and Pantelleria, lavish apartments in Milan and Rome and shares in Fiat, Finmeccanica, Eni, Unicredit, Ubae, ABC International Bank, Bank of Emilia Romagna and the Juventus soccer team that is owned by the Agnelli dynasty.

After the International Criminal Court in the Hague ordered Italy to seize the assets after Gaddafi’s death in October 2011, Italy’s constitutional court is now looking at the matter to determine if they should be liquidated and, if so, what to do with the money. Last June, the court ruled that the assets should go to the Libyan government, but the Italian foreign ministry said that since there is no legitimate representative of the Libyan government to collect the money and assets, they remain in limbo. Italy’s foreign ministry said in recent statement to The Daily Beast, “No person is entitled to collect the treasure of Gaddafi in Italy.”

It remains to be seen how long Italy is entitled to its treasures in Libya.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ost-italy-billions-in-libyan-oil-profits.html

Antonius Blockhead
Angocachi

Michael Scheuer on the only way ISIS will fail.

In summary, Al Qaeda has had a step-by-step plan;
1. Force the US and other foreign powers out of the Muslim world via terrorist attacks on their homelands and insurgencies against them in Muslim countries.
2. Topple anti-Islamic proxy regimes by riding and leading popular uprisings.
3. Begin wars on the Shia with a unified Caliphate established on Sunni consensus.
4. Begin wars on non-Muslims occupying Muslim populations and lands; Israel, India, Russia, China, etc. (Scheuer doesn't mention this but I'm familiar with it from reading Al Qaeda statements)

ISIS is, from Al Qaeda's perspective, attempting to do it all at once and so it is impossible for it to succeed. Scheuer notes that trying to war with the Shia before the unislamic proxy regimes are toppled will only strengthen those regimes (and invite Western intervention on their behalf) because the monarchs and juntas can present themselves to their Sunni public and Western patrons as the only viable defense against the Shia and their allies... thereby receiving their full support. This would not only doom a Sunni popular revolt to failure but abort it before it begins. It would throw water on the anti-Western fire that is Sunni public opinion as well by making NATO & MNNA vital overt friends against the Shia. Nor can ISIS secure consensus for it's Caliphate before these regimes are toppled because they're paying off scholars, clerics and other militants to oppose it, thereby precluding ISIS from any popular uprising even if one were to erupt.

This is all early 2014 thinking however and I think Scheuer has gotten so deep into the Osama Bin Laden - Ayman Al Zawahiri brain that he's not noted the lessons learned in the past year.
As Zarqawi himself countered when Zawahiri bid him not to fight the Shia and Iran; the Shia have started the fight and the only Sunni groups and governments who will remain in good standing with Sunni public opinion will be those who fight the Shia earliest and hardest. Warring with the Shia while the monarchs and juntas sit on their hands, and Hamas actually takes money and weapons from them, has earned ISIS the most praise and approval. If it were not an active vanguard against the Shia, ISIS would have never been welcome in its current Mashriqi stronghold.
Western intervention doesn't hurt ISIS, either. To be seen fighting the US has boosted ISIS perhaps every bit as much as it has boosted them to be seen fighting the Shia.
Rather than the US coming to the aid of the monarchs and juntas against the Shia, the US has ignored the pleas of Israel and the regional proxy kings & generals in a shameless effort to appease Iran and the Shia in Iraq, and the US has stepped back from making war with Assad... because of ISIS.

Al Qaeda's focus on patience, popularity, consensus have gotten it the opposite of what they intended. Meanwhile ISIS has exploded and achieved in a short couple of years what Al Qaeda's thinkers and strategists believed was beyond their lifetimes.

Here's his article...

"For the West, it’s time to learn from Osama bin Laden
By mike | Published: February 17, 2015

Despair for America’s future security is a difficult sentiment to subdue as events in the Middle East continue unfolding. The U.S. military can neither win wars – hopefully because of political restraint — nor effectively train Arab armies. The leaders of both U.S. political parties refuse to recognize that ISIS, al-Qaeda, and like organizations are indeed — according to 20-years of their own public words and a quick check of the Koran — waging an increasingly popular religious war against the United States, in large part as a response to Washington’s relentless intervention in the Muslim world. The same political leaders and President Obama and his administration have set themselves up as expert Islamic theologians to endlessly assert that the Islamists are madmen and nihilists who have nothing to do with Islam, which is, more than anything else, a signal that they are determined to help the United States commit suicide by refusing to level with Americans and tell them that they are up to their hips in a deadly religious war in which their own government is the enemy’s main motivator.

Since 2002, I have written four books dealing with Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and the Islamist movement in general. Each of them is primarily based on the words of writings of bin Laden, his lieutenants, and other important Islamist fighters and leaders. One of the goals of each book was to correlate the convergence of the Islamists’ words and deeds; that is, did bin Laden et al. do what they said they were going to do. Each book found a very high correlation between words and deeds; indeed, it seems likely that the United States has never had an enemy that was and is so willing to tell us in advance what he is going to do, why he is going to do it, and what ends he means to attain. Because of this reality, the Islamist enemy is not at all difficult to understand. When Western political leaders speak of what a complex problem we are facing in the war the Islamists are waging, you can be sure they have either not read what the enemy has publicly said and taken it seriously — a repeat of their predecessors’ catastrophic failure to take Mein Kampf seriously — or that for reasons of political necessity, ideology, or, most likely, faulty educations they simply cannot credit the idea that anyone would be willing to fight and die for their faith in the “enlightened” 21st century.

Because the Islamist leaders have detailed their movement’s motivation, and have then proceeded to do what they said they would do, there is no such thing as “unintended consequences” in this war. The impact of every major post-2001 action taken by both sides in this war was perfectly predictable. For the West that means each of its decisions and actions have yielded perfectly predictable negative consequences. Those consequences could be detailed at length, but it is enough to say that the Islamists’ war against the United States and the West is largely motivated by their interventionist policies and actions in the Muslim world, and the U.S. and Western response to the war the Islamists started has been increased intervention undertaken without any intention of winning and with a willingness to curtail civil liberties in the West in the name of internal security — a response quietly predicted in the speeches and writings of bin Laden. The West, in essence, has followed to the letter a script written for its demise, one that has been easily available for reading by all Western leaders since late-summer 1996.

While it is quite late in the game it is worth recalling what bin Laden believed was the one factor that could derail the Islamists’ war against the United States, and perhaps their whole agenda. Bin Laden was very clear that the strategy the mujhaedin had to follow to victory could be divided into three parts. First, to cause enough human and especially economic pain to the casualty-averse, legally hamstrung, and radically impatient United States to drive it as far as possible out of the Islamic world. Second, to thereafter focus on destroying the Arab tyrannies and Israel. Third, to settle the scores with the Shia Muslim heretics. Today, driving the United States from the Islamic world is goal that is close to being accomplished; America has lost two wars there, will lose Obama’s re-intervention in Iraq, and anti-U.S.-Government hatred has grown across the region. On the second point, several of the Arab tyrannies, with U.S., UN, and EU help, are gone, and Jordan and Lebanon probably will be the next to go. These Western-aided victories for the Islamists — and the ones to come — have substantially eroded Israel’s security and yielded a steady flow of new fighters and enormous quantities of modern weapons from the tyrants’ emptied arsenals. Third, in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon it appears that a regional Sunni-Shia sectarian war is being kindled. And that fact would be the great and deeply troubling rub for bin Laden if he was still alive.

For the three-part strategy described above to succeed, bin Laden argued, the parts had to be accomplished seriatim, not in parallel. In short, the al-Qaeda chief believed that the Arab tyrants’ power and ability to rule depended on them continuing their half-century-plus de facto alliance with the United States and its European allies. Thus, the Islamists should push the United States as far out of the region as possible and then turn and work to destroy the Arab tyrannies and Israel. The first part of the strategy is largely complete, and the second is now underway and, I suspect, is further along than the mujahedin themselves can believe.

Notwithstanding this astonishing success, the problem that bin Laden appeared to fear most and believed could be fatal to the Islamists — taking two steps in the strategy at the same time — also is now underway. Bin Laden constantly preached that settling scores with the Shia had to wait until America was driven from the region and Israel and the Arab tyrannies were destroyed. His words of warning took on substance in 2005-2006 when al-Qaeda’s commander in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, began a campaign that focused on indiscriminately murdering Iraq’s Shia, as well some Sunnis, especially those who worked for the U.S.-led occupation and others who would not obey Zarqawi’s orders. Zarqawi’s murderous behavior — including videotaped decapitation — earned him and al-Qaeda enormous enmity from much of the Sunni Muslim world; indeed, the negative Muslim reaction to Zarqawi’s actions has been the only serious strategic threat to al-Qaeda since 2001, for more dangerous than any action that the United States and its allies have been able to generate against it. Fortunately for al-Qaeda, U.S. forces killed Zarqawi. They saved al-Qaeda from having to do so, and allowed bin Laden and his lieutenants to begin a remedial campaign to retrieve Muslim sympathies and support. ( NB : It is important to note, I think, that there has been very little outcry in the Sunni Muslim world about the ISIS attacks on Shias in Iraq. There has been much Muslim gnashing of teeth and weeping over the beheading/burning of Western prisoners and the Jordanian pilot — some part of it posturing to placate the West — but nothing similar to the protests that greeted Zarqawi’s binge of Shia slaughter a decade ago. Perhaps times have changed, perhaps ISIS has deliberately refrained from killing Sunnis at the pace practiced by Zarqawi, or perhaps there is support in the Sunni world for finally eradicating Islam’s hated heretics.)

Today, as noted above, the fire has been lit — and lit by Muslims — for a Sunni-Shia war that has been a millennium in the making and will be far larger than anything Zarqawi could have managed. Bin Laden believed that such a sectarian war would derail the jihad against the United States and its allies because: (a) Sunni fighters — especially Salafis and Wahhabis– consider the killing of Shia heretics as an extraordinarily worthy and Allah-pleasing endeavor, and (b) the Sunni Arab governments would become the much-needed sources of the funds, armaments, and safe havens for the Islamist groups fighting the Shia, something that the tyrants are as much in favor of as the mujahedin. These two factors, bin Laden knew, would turn Muslim eyes, efforts, and resources inward toward the Islamic world and so could leave the Arab tyrannies intact and perhaps stronger and even popular if their support allowed the Sunni Islamists to prevail.

Given the combination of the West’s inability to recognize the obvious, that there can be nothing but a military solution to the religious war started by bin Laden and the Islamists, and bin Laden’s well-grounded fear of the mujahedin moving against the Shia while still at war with the West, Israel, and the Arab tyrants, the developing Sunni-Shia war may well be a God-send for the security of the United States and the West. President Obama momentarily slowed the development of the war by re-intervening in Iraq in 2014, but a second chance has now appeared in Yemen, just as ISIS has resumed its offensive. The Sunni mujahedin and the Sunni Gulf tyrannies will not tolerate a Shia state in Yemen. And Iran, while knowing that the Houthis – crammed in northwestern Yemen and only a third of Yemen’s population — will eventually be destroyed, will now have to bear the cost of its rhetoric about being the protector of Shia by supporting an undeniably lost cause in Yemen (along with those in Iraq and Syria).

The stage is thus set for a regional sectarian war, which after nearly twenty years of U.S. and Western Islamist-motivating intervention accompanied by military, diplomatic, and political incompetence, may be the best near-term means for improving U.S. and Western security. For now, the U.S. and NATO governments ought to step aside, let the Sunni-Shia sectarian war take its course, and urgently address the pathetic and steadily worsening mess they have made of civil liberties and domestic security in the United States, Canada, and Europe."
http://non-intervention.com/

Fitz Endicott Peabody President Camacho

Angocachi
ISIS Kidnaps 30 Shia in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Gunmen in southern Afghanistan kidnapped 30 members of the Hazara ethnic community, authorities said Tuesday.

The 30 people were kidnapped from two vehicles on a major road in Zabul province, provincial Gov. Mohammad Ashraf said. He said authorities were trying to find those kidnapped, some of whom may be government officials.

Though no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack nor demanded a ransom, deputy police chief in Zabul province told CBS News that militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( ISIS ) were behind the abductions, which he said took place on the Kabul-Kandahar highway on Monday night.

Deputy police chief Ghulam Jilani Farahi told CBS News' Ahmad Mukhtar over the phone that ISIS fighters "stopped two passenger buses traveling from Kandahar to Kabul and took 11 people from one bus and 20 people from the second bus."

He said all of those abducted were Hazara Shiite Muslims.

Farahi said a search and rescue operation was underway in the Zabul province.

Abdul Khaliq Ayubi, a local government official, said the gunmen all wore black clothing and black masks.

"We contacted the Taliban through tribal elders but Taliban said they are not behind this kidnapping," Ayubi told CBS News.

He said the drivers of both buses had told authorities that the kidnappers spoke in a foreign language.

"We believe they are Daesh (ISIS)," Ayubi said, adding that he had received reports of ISIS activity in his district recently and had reported it to provincial leaders.

If it's confirmed that ISIS was behind the abductions, the bus passengers would be the first hostages held by the group in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials only confirmed in January that ISIS was operating in southern parts of the country. The following month, a drone strike killed the top recruiter for ISIS in Afghanistan , according to local officials, marking the first such attack on the extremist group in a volatile country where it has a small but growing following.

U.S. officials said a total of eight people were killed in the drone strike, but could not confirm the ISIS recruiter's death. The deputy governor of the southern Helmand province identified the recruiter as Abdul Rauf, saying he and others were killed when a drone-fired missile struck their car.

Afghan tribal leaders and Western intelligence analysts told The Associated Press in January that Abdul Rauf was the top ISIS recruiter in Helmand. Rauf had previously been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba for his involvement with the Taliban.

The Hazara, some 9 percent of Afghanistan's population, are a largely Shiite ethnic minority in predominantly Sunni Afghanistan. The group has been targeted by the Taliban and other Sunni extremists in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

The predominantly ethnic Pashtun Taliban persecuted the Hazara minority during their five-year rule that imposed a radical interpretation of Islamic law.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-reportedly-kidnaps-30-hazara-shiites-in-afghanistan-zabul-province/
Angocachi
You're not anybody in the near-east until an American & Israeli agent accuses you of being an American & Israeli agent.

Fatah Member: How Come ISIS Does Not Attack Israel?

Fatah Central Committee member claims in interview that ISIS's conduct is "an extension of the Zionist enterprise."

A senior official in Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement wondered in a recent television interview why the Islamic State (ISIS) is not attacking Israel.

The answer, according to Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu Al-Einein, is simple: the conduct of ISIS is "an extension of the Zionist enterprise".

Al-Einein’s comments were made in an interview which aired on February 5 on the Lebanese NBN TV channel. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the interview.

“I consider [ISIS’s] conduct to be an extension of the Zionist enterprise. I really don’t get it. If these people claim that the Israelis are the enemies of Allah...in Quneitra, they are situated along a 12 km border with the occupied Golan, but they have not shot and killed a single Israeli. Not even once,” said Al-Einein.

“Their wounded receive treatment from the Israelis,” he continued. “Where did this love story come from? Does Israel support at least some of them? How? Why?”

It should be noted that the West often praises Fatah as a “moderate peace partner” of Israel, distinguishing it from Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist group by some Western countries.

Nevertheless, Fatah continues to incite to terrorism against Israel, as well as advocate for its destruction.

In November, after several stabbings and "car rampages" murdering Israelis near the Jerusalem light rail, Fatah took to Facebook to publish a slew of cartoons, videos, and other media praising the attacks and calling for more terrorism against Israelis and Jews.

Days earlier, the ruling faction of the PA called for a "day of rage" against Israel on its page after Israeli security forces killed Mu'taz Ibrahim Khalil Hijazi, the terrorist behind the Yehuda Glick assassination attempt.

Senior Fatah member Jibril Rajoub has in the past said that Jews deserved the genocide inflicted on them by the Nazis. He previously declared that if the PA had a nuclear bomb, it would use it against Israel.

Al-Einein himself was documented on PA TV expressing his support for the terrorist murder of Israeli man Evyatar Borovsky .

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/191697#.VO2Xmi7zKUk

ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are each accused by their enemies of working for their enemies. Characters in the Afghani and Pakistani governments pass accusations of support for the Taliban because the Taliban attacks both while keeping refuge in both. The Pentagon, White House, and Neocons often made accusations that Assad and Iran were supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban in part because Syria and Iran were Al Qaeda routes into and out of Iraq and also because they wanted to build a case for war on Iran and Assad. For a long while ISIS has been accused of working with Assad in Syria to break down the FSA in a sort of Hitler-Stalin Pact against Poland or Mao-Japan against the Chinese Nationalists. All the while Russian media, Iran, and their Shia allies have been alleging that ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are the creations of and continued agents of the US, Arab Monarchs, Pakistan, and Israel.

None of these notions have any proof. There's no evidence that Iran and Assad are behind ISIS, Al Qaeda, or the Taliban or have ever been. Nor is it so that the US, the Arab monarchs, Pakistan, or Israel created them or have been behind them.

It is openly acknowledged by the parties involved that the US has been courting Iran to drop it's nuclear weapons program in return for an alliance against ISIS. It's openly acknowledged that Iran and the US collaborated to oust the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. It's openly acknowledged by Hamas, an Iranian proxy, and Fatah, an American proxy, that they crackdown on any Al Qaeda or ISIS related activity in Palestine. Hezbollah and Assad boast the same.

It's undeniably true that the US, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Arab monarchs and juntas each actively kill and imprison Al Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS members in numbers indicating nothing less than a thorough policy against... rather than for said groups.

The reason ISIS hasn't attacked inside Israel is the same reason it hasn't attacked inside Russia or Iran... it doesn't have a presence there. Why? Because Fatah, Hezbollah, and Hamas have so far kept it out. Egypt does what it can to keep ISIS off the Israeli border, and Jordan is currently acting as the buffer between ISIS in the Mashriq and Israel's eastern border. All of these states and groups are overt proxies of either the US or Iran. And so it is America and Iran that have kept ISIS out of Israel.

What's more, if Israel is behind ISIS it's the worst move they've made since 2006. ISIS in Iraq has the US aiding the Iranian-run Shia government and offering Netanyahu-opposed olive branches to the Ayatollah. ISIS in Syria has NATO refusing to topple Assad. Furthermore ISIS has become the biggest threat to the survival of the Jordani and Egyptian regimes... Israel's geopolitical bodyguards.
Angocachi
GOP senators blast Obama for leaking Islamic State attack plan to reporters

Sen. John McCain, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, lashed out at President Obama Friday after a Pentagon official made public plans to attack the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq.

Mr. McCain demanded in a letter that Mr. Obama provide the name of the official who described to reporters Thursday how the Pentagon planned to send a force of 20,000 to 25,000 Iraqi security forces, Kurdish fighters and regional police to Mosul to weed out the city’s 1,000 to 2,000 Islamic State militants.

The Arizona Republican also called for Mr. Obama to say whether the White House had given that official permission to discuss the war plans. Committee member Lindsay Graham, South Carolina Republican, co-signed the letter.

“These disclosures not only risk the success of our mission, but could also cost the lives of U.S., Iraqi and coalition forces,” the senators said in the letter. “Given the serious impact of these disclosures, we want to know who at U.S. Central Command was responsible for this briefing, and whether they had prior approval from the White House to divulge this information. Those responsible have jeopardized our national security interests and must be held accountable.”

The official, who works for U.S. Central Command, the branch of the U.S. military that plans and conducts operations in the Middle East, divulged details about how and when the large-scale attack would be launched during a teleconference with major news networks and regional trade publications.

“The mark on the wall that we are still shooting for is the April/May time frame ,” the official said. “There’s still a lot of things that need to come together and as we dialogue with our Iraqi counterparts, we want them to go in that time frame because if you get into Ramadan in the summer in the heat, it becomes problematic if it goes much later than that.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...obama-leaking-isis-attack-plan/#ixzz3SkinS67L


Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to Host American Run Anti-ISIS Training Camps

The Pentagon let slip that one of its training camps to help fight Islamic State terrorists is in Jordan — information the pro-U.S. kingdom had specifically requested be kept private, and the latest gaffe in a series of sensitive leaks coming out of the Department of Defense.

In order to hide its flub, which was first announced to reporters during a briefing last week, the Pentagon has scrubbed its public transcripts of any mention of the training camp.

Pentagon officials acknowledged Monday that one of its officers, who was briefing reporters on condition of anonymity last week, likely made the mistake. The Pentagon ’s policy is to discuss only the contributions its partner nations are making to its operations against extremists in Iraq and Syria only after those partner nations have publicly spoken about those contributions.

In Jordan ’s case, that did not happen, a senior Pentagon official said.

Security analysts are befuddled by the high-level operational “screw-up.”

“Either the official made a mistake or is deliberately leaking information to put the administration’s plans for Syria in a better light in an attempt to defuse criticism that the administration has bungled efforts to aid Syrian rebels,” said James Phillips , a national security analyst at The Heritage Foundation.

The latest information leak comes as the Obama administration is under fire from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for revealing too much information at the Pentagon ’s briefing last week of an upcoming military plan to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL.

It was at that briefing where the U.S. military revealed the information about Jordan , which fears retaliation, analysts say, if it’s seen as being too close to the U.S. or getting too involved in neighboring Syria .

Pentagon officials on Thursday gave defense reporters details about the planned operation, which raised the ire of Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said the information jeopardized U.S. success in the region.

Even a Democratic lawmaker said she was “mind-boggled” at the level of detail made publicly available about such a high-risk mission.

“I was similarly mind-boggled, and didn’t understand at all, how this could be part of a strategic plan in what they’re talking about,” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a captain in the Hawaii Army National Guard and an Iraq War veteran, said on CNN. “That you’re not only outlining the timeline, which is troubling, but you’re also talking about specifically how many troops, how many brigades, where they’re coming from and what they’re going to be doing.”

Security analysts are equally befuddled.

“I was really surprised by that briefing,” said Kenneth Pollack, a scholar on Middle Eastern political-military affairs and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It went way beyond what I expected any uniformed military officer to say. I was in Iraq last month. I got ‘backgrounded’ by the U.S. military and Iraqi military, and they told me most of that — not all of that, but most of it. And they swore me to secrecy.”

In addition to providing the details of the mission, the military official also let slip Jordan was making demonstrable progress toward being ready to train the Syrian rebels, and its training site would be up and running before most of the other nations involved in the plan.

“ Saudi Arabia ’s site will take somewhere between 30 and 90 days to fully bring online,” the official said last week. “So it will come into the picture shortly after Jordan and Turkey are there. And then Qatar has also offered a site, but that one is going to take probably six to nine months to bring it up and get it fully online.”

In the edited transcript, released Thursday, Jordan was nowhere to be seen.

“The four sites are coming online, specifically the site in [edited], a turnkey facility is ready to go,” the transcript states. “We’re working through some final technical agreements with them that we anticipate being signed any day, if it has not already been signed. The site in Turkey is also nearly a turnkey facility, and that technical agreement with Turkey was actually just signed today. Saudi Arabia ’s site will take somewhere between 30 and 90 days to fully bring online. So it will come — come into the picture shortly after [edited] and Turkey are there.”

The Jordanian Embassy in Washington did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The operational flub now exposes Jordan to potential threats.

Jordan , a key ally in the multinational Operation Inherent Resolve coalition, is one of four Arab partner nations that has been dropping bombs on Islamic State militants in Syria .

The Islamist group recently captured a Jordanian pilot who had crashed his warplane in Syria and killed him by burning him alive inside a cage, prompting the Hashemite kingdom to swear vengeance on the Islamic State and — among other things — post a picture of King Abdullah II in combat fatigues.

But to avoid further attacks and perils posed by neighbor Syria , Jordan has been trying to conceal some of its interactions with the U.S. military , analysts say.

In addition, Jordanians are still undecided about whether the Syrian rebel groups are trustworthy and are concerned that training them before Syrian President Bashar Assad has been unseated and replaced could threaten Jordan , said Nick Heras, a research associate for the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American Security.

“If Assad is removed, then you could have issues with the jihadists taking over in Syria , where they’re using Syria for a base of attacks that could further destabilize Jordan ,” he said.

Each of the countries participating in bombing raids over Syria has submitted various special requests to the U.S. military in an effort to shield themselves from the wrath of the Syrian government and other neighbor nations, said a second senior Pentagon official.

“A lot of the coalition partners have had their caveats and sensitivities, and they’ve basically said, ‘Hey, don’t go there,’” the official said.

The Pentagon has been doing its best to honor the various requests of the ally nations, the first official said.

“It’s our policy to only discuss the contributions that our partner nations make after those partner nations have publicly spoken about those contributions,” the official said. “So if Saudi Arabia has publicly said ‘We’re going to host training sites,’ then that’s our signal to publicly talk about training in Saudi Arabia .”

But that policy appeared to change Thursday, when a military official unveiled a plethora of information to reporters and bucked that trend.

Now that the U.S. military has made public its plans to use Jordan as a training site, that information serves as a double-edged sword against the war ally, Mr. Phillips said.

Jordan may be feeling belligerent after launching a frenzied bombing campaign on the Islamic State after the group killed the Jordanian pilot, but the nation remains a target of opportunity to the terrorists, Mr. Phillips said.

“It may make that training more of a lightning rod for attacks by the Assad regime or ISIS,” he said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...lamic-state-fight-leake/?page=3#ixzz3SkkOwRRc
Angocachi
18 year old Korean found to have joined ISIS in Syria

A Korean teenager who went missing in Turkey in January is receiving training in an ISIS boot camp, the National Intelligence Service told the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The NIS says it contacted the Islamist terror group through an overseas intelligence intermediary with a request to send him home, but ISIS refused.

The NIS argued the 18-year-old, who reportedly has some mental problems, would not be of much use to the group, which holds large swathes of Syria and Iraq in a barbaric stranglehold.

ISIS has proved a baffling draw for many youngsters from East and West, mainly thanks to its slick and violent propaganda, with three teenage girls from Britain being their latest headline-grabbing catch.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/02/25/2015022501047.html
Angocachi
White Australian Killed Fighting for Marxists Against ISIS in Iraq

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'He was a good man who never complained and was always positive': Close friend honours Australian mercenary, 28, the first westerner killed fighting AGAINST the evil ISIS regime alongside Kurdish soldiers in Iraq
  • A young Australian has reportedly been killed in Iraq whilst fighting ISIS
  • He was allegedly fighting for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG)
  • He is YPG's first foreign casualty of the war against Islamic State
  • Unconfirmed reports a second YPG foreigner was also killed this week
  • The YPG paid tribute to the man they call Heval Bagok Serhed
  • The Australian Department of Defence has confirmed he was a former Australian Army Reserve member
An Australian mercenary has been described by a close friend as a 'good man' who was always positive after he was reportedly killed while fighting against ISIS.

The man - named only as Ashley on social media - reportedly died on February 24 in a small village near Shingal in Iraq, close to the border with Syrian Kurdistan.

The 28-year-old mercenary became the first foreign casualty from the Kurdish People's Protection Unit (YPG) after becoming outnumbered when a truck he was travelling in broke down.

'Ashley was a good man who never complained and was always positive,' his friend Aram Ebrahimkhas told Daily Mail Australia.

'He came to defend his country even when his country labelled him a criminal for doing so and before his country was willing to defend itself.

'I consider it a honour to have known and served with him. He was my dear brother.’

A Defence spokesperson confirmed Ashley was a former Australian Army Reserve member. He is believed to have served in the armed forces for seven years.

We the YPG regretfully inform you of the death of one of our bravest western fighters Heval Bagok Serhed. He is the first western fighter to be martyred fighting the evil of ISIS. Rest in Peace our Brother,' a statement on The Lions Of Rojava' Facebook page said on Thursday.
The Lions of Rojava are a band of volunteers that help recruit soldiers to the YPG.

The armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party said they could not disclose the Australian's real identity as of yet for security reasons but in his fighting group in Rojava 'he went by the name of Heval Bagok Serhed'. They also posted a photo of the man they say has been killed.

The YPG are in conflict with ISIS fanatics in Iraq and Syria. The militants claim that they are working to stop the advance of the destructive Islamic State and protect the Kurdish people.

A YPG spokesman Redur Xelîl is expected to make a statement to the media in due course.

'What we can disclose is his story of heroism and self-sacrifice for the Kurdish people. Throughout his time in Kurdistan he had a positive impact on my people's lives though his humility and kindness to everyone he met ,'The Lions Of Rojava said.

'He was taken from us in a heroic assault on ISIS positions in a small village near Shingal. His squad of eight fighters were in a truck which had broken down and it was critical that they dislodge ISIS from their positions so they pushed on fearlessly with little regard for their own safety.

They were massively outnumbered and outgunned but fearless in the face of this as they knew another ISIS death meant saving the lives of countless civilians. He was a fearless and exceptional soldier as well a great man,' the Facebook statement read.
In a touching tribute to the Australian, the group said: 'Please keep his family and loved ones in your prayers and remember him and his heroic actions, which saved his comrades. He has given his life in the line of duty for his brothers in arms and for humanity in riding this world of the greatest evil of the 21st century. ISIS.

'Long live the resistance of the YPG/YPJ and long live the memory of Heval bagok serhed!! Kurdish People will never forget you and you will live in our heart forever.' There are unconfirmed reports that a second YPG foreign fighter has also been killed. The nationality of the second casualty is not known.

A Defence spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'Defence is aware that a former Australian Army Reserve member is believed to have been killed in northern Iraq while allegedly fighting with Peshmerga forces against Daesh.

'Due to the provisions of the Privacy Act, Defence will not release further information about the former member's military service or their personal details.'

The spokesperson added: 'Current and former members of the Australian Defence Force, like all Australian citizens, are subject to Australian law under which it is an offence to participate in military activities in a foreign country.'

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia told Daily Mail Australia: 'We are aware of reports that an Australian male has reportedly been killed in northern Syria (on Tuesday 24 Feb). The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that an Australian volunteer fighting with Kurdish forces against Da'esh (Islamic State) militia was killed in Syria.'

'The Australian Government's capacity to confirm reports of deaths in either Syria or Iraq is extremely limited,' DFAT said.

'Due to the extremely dangerous security situation, consular assistance is no longer available within Syria. Australians who become involved in overseas conflicts are putting their own lives in mortal danger.

'Any Australians fighting with non-state militia in Syria or Iraq should end their involvement in the conflict now and leave the conflict zone. Australians are strongly advised not to travel to Syria or Iraq; any Australians in either country should leave immediately. For further information, please see www.smartraveller.gov.au .'

The young man's sister was reportedly notified of his death on Tuesday, according to Kurdish journalist Cesur Milsuoy.

'Reliable sources confirmed to SOHR that the foreign fighter in YPG ranks who died yesterday in clashes with IS militants… is from Australia,' The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

John Foxx, an American claiming to be one of the Australian's fellow mercenaries, posted a tribute on Facebook.

'Received some terrible news this morning... K.I.A. Ash, Bagok. Rest Easy, brother,' he wrote, accompanied by a photo purportedly of the Australian victim.

A woman named Kader Kandandir, thought to be involved in the recruitment of foreign fighters, also posted a series of photos in tribute to Ashley.

It is understood that the mystery woman runs the 'Lions of Rojava' Facebook page, which is a significant recruitment tool.

Ms Kandandir also posted text that she claims was written by Heval Bagok Serhed.

In the article he allegedly writes: 'Vital info for people interested in coming here to help the Kurdish people. I spent 7 years in my country's Army reserve (Rifleman and section level combat medic), I only deployed on peacekeeping operations and though I enjoyed my time in the Army it was mostly pretty uneventful.'

The note continues: 'I am writing this because in my short time here so far I am absolutely disgusted by the amount of westerners that feel the need to either inflate or completely bulls**t their resumé.

'There are a good number of people here with actual military experience from all over the globe that CAN AND WILL immediately spot you as a fake (all the COD in the world won't hide you're complete lack of basic soldiering).

'If you have no military experience yet have skills that can be utilised and the right attitude then don't worry, be honest and the guys here will glady get you up to speed as best they can. Lieing about yourself over here is not only selfish but incredibly stupid.

'The Kurdish people are some of the most kind and trusting people I've ever met and your lies will get people killed. 'This isn't a playground to live some fantasty/play soldier...it's a f**king war torn region with countless people suffering, dieing and being displaced.

'Coming here full of bulls**t and for selfish reasons is a waste of everyone's time, effort and money and will simply get you a kick in the a*** back to the airport.'

They YPG proclaim themselves to be 'a natural partner in a coalition the United States is trying to assemble to fight Islamic State militants.'

In an interview with Vanity Fair , an American revealed an Australian fighter was lightly injured when a mortar 'landed in our faces'.

Under Australian law, it is illegal to join either side of the conflict in Syria, meaning those joining the fight with YPG are committing a criminal offence.

'If you fight illegally in overseas conflicts, you face up to life in prison upon your return to Australia,' a spokesperson for Attorney-General George Brandis said in January.

'It is illegal to fight in Syria for either side of the conflict. It is illegal to fight for a terrorist organisation anywhere, including in Iraq.'

Around 90 Australians are understood to have travelled to the Middle East to join militant causes.

Australians may only fight for a government's legitimate armed force and the Kurds are not recognised as operating in an official capacity for Iraq.

Kurdish fighters are thought to be using social media to recruit Westerners to travel to the Middle East.

There are several international mercenaries who have travelled to the Middle East from all corners of the world to confront the bloodthirsty Islamic State.

Last week, an American man called Matthew Kawolski was injured when fighting alongside the Chappies.

Kawolski, who was apparently wounded in combat, is now believed to be recovering from his injuries.

Also pictured alongside Kawolski on the Lions of Rojava page is Jordan Matson, a 28-year-old food packaging worker from Sturtevant, Wisconsin. He is a former U.S. Army soldier, but it is believed he had never served overseas.

Last week, a British soldier who left to fight alongside militants described ISIS as little more than 'office workers and villagers' who are high on drugs because they are so terrified.

Jamie Read from Lanarkshire, Scotland, served in the British Army for four years before travelling to Syria in 2014 to join the battle against Islamic State extremists.

Last August, a hairdresser from south London, known as Mama Kurda, 26, from Croydon, was reported to be the first Briton to travel to fight alongside Kurdish forces.

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.

In early February a Dutch citizen, Richard Jansen, who went to fight with Kurdish forces was seriously injured in a fight against IS militants.

He reportedly suffered 'a very serious injury sustained during heavy fighting against ISIL'.

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

A notorious motorcycle gang from the Netherlands were also told they had not committed any crime by travelling to Kobani to join the fight against ISIS.

Former Northern Territory Labor Party official Matthew Gardiner recently left Australia to fight with Kurdish military.

He held the roles of secretary of the United Voice union and president of the NT branch of the Labor party.

Labor party leader Bill Shorten said that although it was clear Gardiner felt strongly about fighting the Islamic State, fleeing to the conflict was not the right approach.

The Australian Federal Police has confirmed it is investigating the case after the former NT union official and senior NT Labor Party figure fled without telling colleagues or his family.

It is understood the 43-year-old, who recently resigned as NT United Voice union secretary, was heading for Iraq or Syria where he plans to join Kurdish militants.

Gardiner, who has an army background, was allowed to leave the country because he was not on any watch list, ABC reported.

The AFP would only confirm Gardiner was the subject of an active investigation.

'The AFP is aware of this matter,' an AFP spokesperson said on Sunday.

'As this matter is part of an ongoing investigation it is not appropriate to comment further.'

A union spokesperson would only confirm Mr Gardiner had recently resigned, and said any further questions should be put the AFP.

Mr Gardiner is also head of the NT Labor Party, though his status in this role remains unclear.
A federal Labor spokesman said opposition leader Bill Shorten was aware of reports regarding Mr Gardiner, but no statement would be made until they were confirmed.

Mr Gardiner, 43, reportedly served as an Australian Army combat engineer in Somalia in the early 1990s.

Attorney General George Brandis has received an AFP brief on the Gardiner case.

A spokesperson for Mr Brandis said Australians who join militant causes overseas face imprisonment should they survive and return.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...alongside-Kurdish-soldiers.html#ixzz3Sq1xjLGE
Angocachi
A fantastic article explaining in brief the military strategy being employed by ISIS in Iraq with a summary of events.

Flurry of IS attacks divert Iraqi army's attention

"Contradiction prevails in official announcements regarding the course of the battles against the Islamic State (IS) and the group's movements on the ground. When Iraqis were expecting a Mosul liberation battle, IS rushed to send additional fighters to Anbar, Salahuddin and Kirkuk in a bid to open new fronts, with the aim of putting Iraqi forces on the defensive.
Between Jan. 30 and Feb. 18, IS opened several fronts that were both different and distant. IS attacked Kirkuk on Jan. 30 and reached sensitive areas in the city, including the Khabbaz oil field, before it was forced to withdraw after additional peshmerga troops arrived from Mosul.

The IS attack on Kirkuk came only a day after a Jan. 29 IS attack on the peshmerga strongholds in Tal Afar and Sinjar, northwest of Mosul. As IS distracted the peshmerga by opening different fronts on the western, eastern and northern borders of Mosul, it also opened new fronts in Anbar and Salahuddin, south of Mosul.

On Feb. 12, IS attacked Anbar's al-Baghdadi region , which is home to Ain al-Assad, an important military base where dozens of US advisers and trainers are stationed.

As the peshmerga moved toward Kirkuk, IS launched an attack Feb. 17 on the Makhmour area , west of Erbil — the closest military point of contact with the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

On Feb. 13, IS attacked areas north of Samarra and occupied the town of Mukashafah, south of Tikrit, before withdrawing from it days later.

Although the organization managed to occupy al-Baghdadi for two days and executed many residents, it was unable to break into the fortified Ain al-Assad base. This front only began to calm down Feb. 22, when the Iraqi army and police forces managed — after the arrival of supplies from Baghdad — to open a safe passage to a residential complex, which IS then besieged for 10 days.

All these moves, along with others in areas north of Baghdad in Diyala, were designed to confuse the plans to liberate Tikrit and Mosul . IS knows full well that the psychological preparation for the liberation of Mosul — an important and complex strategic target — intensified at the beginning of 2015. Over the past two months, US leaders have stepped up their remarks about the approach of the battle to liberate Mosul and provided details as to the time of this operation, before US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter denied these details.

The popular mobilization forces also set a time frame for the Tikrit liberation operation . Over the past several weeks, news circulated on how groups of the popular mobilization forces and the army had indeed approached Tikrit to start the liberation process.

IS is generally aware of the potential of its enemies. In past months, it has demonstrated a kind of realism on the battlefield. For example, when controlling certain areas — like in Diyala, Jalawla, Saadia and Muqdadiyah — became impossible due to the size of the attacking forces, it gradually backed down and chose to carry out distracting attacks.

Up until this day, IS still retains the major cities it occupied in June 2014, namely Mosul, Tikrit, Hawija, Qaim and parts of Ramadi, in addition to the city of Fallujah, which it occupied in January 2014. However, the Iraqi army, peshmerga and popular mobilization forces have defeated IS in dozens of villages along these cities' borders. IS did not back down, since it sought to prove that it was planning for a long presence in the cities, yet it began to sense that the Iraqi and international efforts to restore these cities were serious.

What has always been clear about IS’ military potential — and this is a point that the organization's leaders are well aware of — is its limited ability to confront an organized attack, supported by aircraft, from large and well-equipped military groups.

In contrast, IS’ strength lies in its ability to mobilize small groups of 100 to 200 fighters — including suicide bombers — with equipment sufficient for a short period of time in order to attack different targets along a broad front. This front can extend along hundreds of kilometers and contains dozens of contact points in towns and villages that are both scattered and difficult to defend all at once.

In the coming months, IS will most likely seek to thwart the ability of Iraq and the international coalition to mobilize sufficient fighters (between 20,000 and 40,000 individuals) to attack the IS-controlled cities. This will require IS to engage more troops to widen the gap on the front between it and the Iraqi and peshmerga forces, by attacking weaker points on the Iraqi side.

The dispersion of fronts, as well as their transformation into zonal fronts divided among the peshmerga, the popular mobilization fronts, the Iraqi army and the tribes, prevents the mobilization of the necessary forces to liberate IS-controlled cities.

A clear example of this is Kirkuk, where it took the Kurdish leaders and the leaders of the popular mobilization forces two days to decide on the type of force to face IS.

The same applies to Mosul and Anbar’s liberation efforts, which are still pending the training of troops made up of the city's residents.

The political differences, the partisan gridlock and the social division have been direct causes of Iraq's failure to produce a common vision and a unified leadership in the war on IS. IS understands this weakness and thus continues to open additional fronts to distract troops with battles that only delay the liberation of cities."

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/iraq-islamic-state-distraction-fronts-army-peshmerga.html#ixzz3SqmxYQR

This strategy by ISIS isn't sustainable. Eventually there will be enough forces massed for a Mosul assault and diversionary attacks to broaden the front and force enemy units to dance around the map won't make a difference.

The Kurds recently cut Mosul and ISIS in Northern Iraq from their supply route into Syria-Turkey. It has more southerly routes but they're more exposed to air power, take longer, and are more expensive.

Mosul will be stormed.
Angocachi
Details regarding the morale of Peshmerga and ISIS fighters on the Iraqi front line;

-ISIS fighters are...
...operating under constant fear of airstrikes, particularly French warplanes
...taking heavy casualties
...consistently evicted shortly after taking an area
...eavesdropped on by Peshmerga commanders

-Peshmerga fighters are...
...resentful of their commanders for fleeing battles and leaving their men behind to be overrun by ISIS
...reluctant to pay the heavy price to take Sunni Arab inhabited territory because they know it'll be handed over to the Iraqi government afterward
...terribly under armed and under supplied
...afraid of being captured and beheaded

Kurdish peshmerga, IS reach stalemate

MULA ABDULA, Iraq — "How are the skies?" a gruff voice asks in Iraqi Arabic dialect. "The skies are clear," is the reply, after a crackle of static on the walkie-talkie through which a Kurdish major is listening to the conversation between two Islamic State (IS) militants on the other side of this front line, southwest of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq.

An irrigation canal no wider than 10 meters (33 feet) separates the lightly armed Kurdish peshmerga forces from the extremist militants in Mula Abdula, where Maj. Aziz Ahmad stands behind a defensive berm, holding the walkie-talkie up to intercept the enemy’s communications.

“They change the frequency regularly and it is not easy to intercept,” he told Al-Monitor. "IS is terrified of bomber aircraft, especially the French.”

With the help of coalition airstrikes, Kurdish forces have reclaimed most of the area they lost to IS in August 2014, driving the militants out of 15,000 square km (9,300 square miles) they consider historically their own. But the peshmerga forces have neither the will nor the means to advance much further into Sunni Arab areas .

The front line at Mula Abdula, 25 km (15.5 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, has not moved since June 2014, when the militants overran Mosul and other Sunni-majority areas including Hawija 35 km (22 miles) away.

“Why should we shed Kurdish blood for Hawija when we know the Iraqi government will claim it back once the IS threat is gone?” responded Capt. Rebwar Mala Ali when Al-Monitor asked whether there were any plans to cross the canal and attack IS on its own turf.

The Kurds’ reluctance to move forward and desire to avoid inflaming sectarianism by deploying Shiite militia forces to those areas means IS has not been dislodged from any of Iraq’s Sunni heartland. Efforts to reconstitute the several army divisions that collapsed last summer are proceeding slowly, and the “spring offensive” touted by some Iraqi and US officials to retake Mosul seems increasingly unlikely.

In the village of Mula Abdula, a flock of blackbirds and starlings alights on the remains of a pillar that used to sustain a house recently smashed by airstrikes. Thick columns of smoke belch from two oil wells, set on fire by IS militants when they were driven out of the area after briefly overrunning it on Jan. 29.

Although the militants have not made any gains in Northern Iraq since the airstrikes began in August 2014, they are still attacking peshmerga forces regularly and mounted a major offensive around Kirkuk in January, shortly after suffering humiliating defeats in the Syrian town of Kobani and near the Mosul Dam.

Taking advantage of dense fog, the militants managed to cross the canal, killing at least 30 peshmerga fighters, including two generals, before Kurdish reinforcements, including an elite counterterrorism squad, drove them back.

"We kept shooting at them but they kept coming," said Goran Nasraddin, one of the few peshmerga fighters from his unit to have survived the assault, in which he sustained multiple injuries. "I counted around eight IS fighters who fell as I fired my gun, but nothing stopped them.”

When Nasraddin realized all his co-fighters had fallen, he hid in a cesspit for 12 hours until IS militants were pushed back. "I immediately put my phone on silent. I knew I would be beheaded if they captured me alive," Nasraddin told Al-Monitor. By the time he emerged, his parents had already given him up for dead and dug a grave for him on a hill surrounded by pine trees in his village.

The bodies of at least 70 IS militants were recovered from the battlefield, but Kurds say over 200 militants were killed in the battle.

Defending Kirkuk proves difficult

The Kurds took full control of Kirkuk in June 2014, meeting no resistance as the Iraqi army melted away. But the oil-rich city is proving less easy to defend.

Since January’s attack, the peshmerga forces have destroyed all but one of the bridges crossing the canal to hinder any future attack. Lack of weaponry and communication equipment has also made Kurdish forces vulnerable to IS attacks. "In this unit, we only have two old rocket-propelled grenades and the rest is old light arms," Ahmad said. "We are fighting this group on behalf of the world, but we have no weapons to do so."

The force also suffers from internal weaknesses. Several peshmerga fighters on the front line speak scathingly of their commanders, many of whom they accuse of running away in the heat of battle.

Mala Ali, who retired due to injuries in 2005, has more than 20 years of experience as a peshmerga fighter and returned to duty when IS advanced on Kurdish areas in June 2014. He has fought IS as a sniper volunteer from Jalawla in Diyala province to Tuz Khormato in Salahuddin province and now across the Kirkuk front line . He told Al-Monitor that when IS attacked on the night of Jan. 29, he saw commanders run from the battlefield, leaving their men behind, saying, “It was by the grace of God that we were not caught.”

He added, "When I saw them that night, I shouted at the commanders and called them cowards for leaving their men behind."

As the two adversaries face off across the canal, bewildered Sunni residents caught in between try to make sense of the mayhem around them in Mula Abdula. Farmer and father of three Ahmad Salim told Al-Monitor, "Our problems started when IS emerged. We came back to the village because no one wants us. The residents of other villages don't let us in and Kurdish security forces don't allow us to enter the Kurdish areas.”

Across the canal, the IS militants have more pressing issues at hand as the roar of warplanes reverberates overhead. "Watch out, a warplane is approaching," an IS militant can be heard saying through the major’s walkie-talkie.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...shmerga-wait-islamic-state.html#ixzz3SvO558y5