Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) - A Fresh Page


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This appears in the Atlantic.

"What ISIS Really Wants

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it."

It is thoughtful, informative and strategically analytical.

In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

Pretty arresting opening.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,

...on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations—upgrading his resolution from grainy to high-definition, and his position from hunted guerrilla to commander of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing.

The following paragraph is extremely revealing.

We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways. First, we tend to see jihadism as monolithic, and to apply the logic of al‑Qaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it. The Islamic State supporters I spoke with still refer to Osama bin Laden as “Sheikh Osama,” a title of honor. But jihadism has evolved since al-Qaeda’s heyday, from about 1998 to 2003, and many jihadists disdain the group’s priorities and current leadership.

Additionally,

...much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.

The author makes an important observation in that:

They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.

To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)

I always wondered why that direction always sounded "clanky" to me, yet it led to frustrated lone wolves that, according to this author, lashed out once the Caliph was appointed and they were stopped by passport confiscation, or, other reasons from immediately traveling to serve the Caliphate.

Moreover, they join to die. So rigid is their adherence to fundamental writing in the Koran and the Hadith that they adhere to “the Prophetic methodology.”

This knowledge provides us with a key insight into ISIS and the umma:

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

I was not aware of the key component of ISIS and why it is being accepted as the eighth Caliphate by the Salafist wing of Islam. The third key along with lineage to the tribe of the prophet and rigid Islamic [sharia Law] was territory:

The last caliphate was the Ottoman empire, which reached its peak in the 16th century and then experienced a long decline, until the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, euthanized it in 1924. But Cerantonio, like many supporters of the Islamic State, doesn’t acknowledge that caliphate as legitimate, because it didn’t fully enforce Islamic law, which requires stonings and slavery and amputations, and because its caliphs were not descended from the tribe of the Prophet, the Quraysh.

The new Caliph:

Baghdadi spoke at length of the importance of the caliphate in his Mosul sermon. He said that to revive the institution of the caliphate—which had not functioned except in name for about 1,000 years—was a communal obligation. He and his loyalists had “hastened to declare the caliphate and place an imam” at its head, he said. “This is a duty upon the Muslims—a duty that has been lost for centuries … The Muslims sin by losing it, and they must always seek to establish it.” Like bin Laden before him, Baghdadi spoke floridly, with frequent scriptural allusion and command of classical rhetoric. Unlike bin Laden, and unlike those false caliphs of the Ottoman empire, he is Qurayshi

Behold the new caliphate...

307796482.jpg

Control of territory is an essential precondition for the Islamic State’s authority in the eyes of its supporters. This map, adapted from the work of the Institute for the Study of War, shows the territory under the caliphate’s control as of January 15, along with areas it has attacked. Where it holds power, the state collects taxes, regulates prices, operates courts, and administers services ranging from health care and education to telecommunications.

There is much more depth and information in the article and I would suggest everyone read it.

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

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This sort of thing last seems to have popped up in the Sudan in the late 19th C. and the Brits crushed it. Today it's more defuse and decentralized but qua state it too will be crushed. It's what is left over that will be a long term problem. (In the meantime note the continuation of the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s now being fought in Iraq and Syria. Hussein is still with us, albeit de-secularized. It's Sunni vs Shia. It's mostly Shiites who are after Israel via Iranian proxies.)

As for ISIS's appeal it's fundamentally biological and tribal for young men to rally and fight. When this "caliphate" is crushed most of that will die too regardless of the religious aspect which only provides the glue holding this "state" together which attracts fighters like flypaper attracts flies. This is a cross-cultural, cross-political generalization. As cannon fodder doesn't like to think of itself as cannon fodder, all kinds of bullshit from secular to religious is layered into the sundry mixes. In the United States you fight for "freedom"--that's true, inside one's head--what is actually going on is quite another thing, which is why Lincoln had to turn to freeing the slaves propaganda to keep his war going and justify the slaughter. It's also why most people who "think" off of ignorant data "think" he's the greatest President with Washington number 2. It's quite true at least about Lincoln, btw, if you're celebrating state power. The real "Father of the Country," however, that makes sense of "these" became "the" United States of America, is Alexander Hamilton. Give him credit for Lincoln's bloody hands. (Burr was much, much too late.)

Two big problems being obscured by all the current noise--which includes Ukraine--is Iran and Pakistan and nuclear weaponry plus Jews concentrated in Israel. The eventual key to counter nuclear proliferation, which is likely inevitable, is dispersion, which the Israelis can't do. It's hard to believe this century will end without some major city badly damaged by a nuclear blast. As for a more general thermonuclear war, that's where the Ukraine situation might turn around and bite us in the ass.

--Brant

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Not quite as easily as you may have thought..."The Siege of Khartoum lasted from March 13, 1884 to January 26, 1885, and took place during the Mahdist War (1881-1899)."

This sort of thing last seems to have popped up in the Sudan in the late 19th C. and the Brits crushed it.

This was Gordon, his 7,000 soldiers and 9 gunboats who defended Khartoum a Muslim city set on a strip of land between the Blue and White Nile.

Muhammad Ahmad, Mahdi, the redeemer of Islam, had 50,000 [approximately] warriors.

The end for Gordon happened soon after Christmas in 1885:

Moving forward on the night of January 25-26, both columns quickly overwhelmed the exhausted defenders. Swarming through the city, the Mahdists massacred the garrison and around 4,000 of Khartoum's residents. Though the Mahdi had expressly ordered that Gordon be taken alive, he was struck down in the fighting. Accounts of his death vary with some reports stating he was killed at the governor's palace, while others claim he was shot in the street while trying to escape to the Austrian consulate. In either case, Gordon's body was decapitated and taken to the Mahdi on a pike.

The result:

Siege of Khartoum - Aftermath:

In the fighting at Khartoum, Gordon's entire 7,000-man garrison was killed. Mahdist casualties are not known. Driving south, Wolseley's relief force reached Khartoum two days after the city's fall. With no reason to remain, he ordered his men to return to Egypt, leaving Sudan to the Mahdi. It remained under Mahdist control until 1898 when Major General Herbert Kitchener defeated them at the Battle of Omdurman. Though a search was made for Gordon's remains after Khartoum was retaken, they were never found. Acclaimed by the public, Gordon's death was blamed on Gladstone who delayed forming a relief expedition. The resulting outcry led his government to fall in March 1885 and he was formally rebuked by Queen Victoria.

Beheadings are signature statements.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/warsofthebritishempire/p/Mahdist-War-Siege-Of-Khartoum.htm

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Interesting article from the Huffington crowd in support of the Atlantic article.

The Praxis article is entitled "How Islamic Is ISIS?"

The author quotes from the Atlantic article:

“Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. ‘Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,’ Haykel said. ‘They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.’ He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. ‘People want to absolve Islam,’ he said. ‘It’s this “Islam is a religion of peace” mantra. As if there is such a thing as “Islam”! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts ... And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.’ "

If Islam is "a religion of peace," we should know how "peace" is defined Islamically.

Peace in Islam means submission to Allah. The ultimate meaning of Islamic peace is all of us living in Dar-al-Islam—the house of submission. This is not a “radical” interpretation. Modern-day Islamic scholar, Ibrahim Sulaiman, says submission and peace can be very different concepts, even if a form of peace is often brought about through forcing others into submission. “Jihad is not inhumane, despite its necessary violence and bloodshed, its ultimate desire is peace which is protected and enhanced by the rule of law.” Armed responses are only permitted when all peaceful possibilities have failed. And once armed resistance begins it doesn’t stop “until the war lays down its burden” as Allah has mentioned in the Qur’an 47.

This "living in" is the critical concept behind the caliphate, and, the caliph who justifies "allegiance."

So, it is accurate to say that Islam is a religion of "peace."

However, that becomes a meaningless statement because of the meaning of "peace" in Islam.

Now that is what needs to be clear to the American citizen.

Additionally, this different "meaning" must be at the front of any conversation in America and it is not.

The late Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb, a prolific,well-respected author whose works are quoted in the Muslim world and influenced members of the Muslim Brotherhood has written

“The theory that our religion is a peaceful and loving religion is a wrong theory. The Holy war as it is known in Islamic jurisprudence is basically an offensive war, and it is the duty of all Muslims of every age…because our prophet Muhammad said that he is ordered by Allah to fight all people until they say ‘No God but Allah,’ and he is his messenger.”

This article appeared in the Canadian Free Press. It is written by:

Diane Weber Bederman is a blogger for Times of Israel, a contributor to Convivium, a national magazine about faith in our community, and also writes about family issues and mental illness. She is a multi-faith endorsed hospital trained chaplain.

I have no clue what a "multi-faith" "endorsed" "hospital trained chaplain" means, or, why that qualifies a person as an expert.

However, the author appears to be quite precise in her knowledge of Islamic texts.

http://bigthink.com/praxis/how-islamic-is-isis

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This "living in" is the critical concept behind the caliphate, and, the caliph who justifies "allegiance."

So, it is accurate to say that Islam is a religion of "peace."

However, that becomes a meaningless statement because of the meaning of "peace" in Islam.

Now that is what needs to be clear to the American citizen.

Additionally, this different "meaning" must be at the front of any conversation in America and it is not.

The local Islamic community has partnered with the local United churches for a series of get-togethers and mutual event-making. I attended the first of them. In a later community dinner, lots of hijab ladies brought in a whack of ethnic foods and welcomed the broader community to tuck in at the prayer centre.

The first event wasn't a religious seminar, and it wasn't a live-zoo, it was just locals getting to know each other -- and asking and answering questions. I was surprised to learn how much 'community service' is done by the Islamic community, and how easily the two believer communities mingled. It seemed to me that the prototypical Canadian virtues of hospitality, mutual-aid, tolerance and peaceful order were in play.

34611whiterockinterfaithmeeting.jpg

Edited by william.scherk
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Of course.

Since about 8, my father would take me to Mosques, primarily in Brooklyn.

Everywhere I have lived I have worked with my community. They have ranged from Muslim to Quaker to biker to gay.

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Now I feel guilty about fire-bombing the local mosque when I was four years old.

--Brant

thx, guys

No problem we brought marshmallows...

cooking.gif

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This is the umma, defined as:

. By contrast, citizenship in the ummah very much involves commitment to a particular religion. To the Muslim way of thinking, the only ummah that counts is the Ummah Islamiyyah, the Islamic Community, an entity that theoretically comprises all Muslims throughout the world, whatever their national origin. In Islamic thought, "The Ummah" represents a universal world order, ruled by an Islamic government (the Caliph) in accordance with the "Law of God" (the Shariah, Islamic religious law), and patterned after the community founded by Muhammad at Medina in 622 AD; it even includes Jews and Christians living within its territory as separate (and inferior) communities.

Behold...

863px-Islam_percent_population_in_each_n

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Islam_percent_population_in_each_nation_World_Map_Muslim_data_by_Pew_Research.svg

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is not a good sign and apparently, US sources were made aware in February that this was in the works.

These submissions of public fidelity are perfect prophesy propaganda.

Shekau addresses Baghdadi as Caliph Ibrahim, the name Baghdadi assumed after declaring last year that his organization was now a caliphate. “[W]e announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims…and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah,” Shekau says.

Continuing along the psychotic semantic of the prophesy, Shekau cries out that...

“We call on Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Caliph and support him, as obedience to Allah and as their application of the absent duty of the era,” Shekau adds. The emir of Boko Haram goes on to explain that he has pledged allegiance to Baghdadi “because there is no cure [for] the dissimilarity” in the Ummah [community of worldwide Muslims] “except the Caliphate.” He adds that should other Muslims pledge allegiance to Baghdadi it will only “enrage the enemy of Allah.”

The Long War Journal notes that...

...Online jihadists have noted that the videos look increasingly polished, especially when compared to Boko Haram’s amateurish productions of the past. Even Shekau, a notorious thug, appeared to be more composed in videos released this year. Shekau’s organization has also begun calling itself the “Islamic State in West Africa.” And the SITE Intelligence Group reported in February that Boko Haram had released a statement saying its shura council was evaluating a potential oath of fealty. [see LWJ report, Jihadist divisions grow in Nigeria.]

Shekau is the highest profile jihadist to swear allegiance to Baghdadi on behalf of his group thus far. The Islamic State’s international network has been growing, but its growth has been fueled by lesser-known jihadist personalities. On Nov. 10, 2014, jihadist groups in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen all committed to Baghdadi in a coordinated show of support for the self-proclaimed Caliph. Baghdadi recognized the pledges three days later on Nov. 13. But none of the pledges came from well-known jihadists. Even the jihadist from Ansar Bayt al Maqdis (ABM) who pledged to follow Baghdadi was unidentified. ABM was quickly rebranded as a “province” of the Islamic State and remains a prolific source of terror in Egypt.

This siege of Tikrit is tailor made for the fulfillment of the prophesy.

As they lose ground and withdraw to, apparently Jerusalem, in order to be surrounded and down to 5,000 true believers they get closer to a key part of the fulfillment.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/03/boko-haram-leader-pledges-allegiance-to-the-islamic-state.php

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In many ways, this is a smart approach.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was confident that Iraq would ultimately defeat the Sunni militants in Tikrit, a largely Sunni city northwest of Baghdad. He said the group’s fighters number only in the hundreds there, while the force of Iraqi troops and Iranian-backed militia fighters advancing on the city stands around 23,000.

However, it could also work as their "Alamo" narrative.

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This is not a good sign. Adnani the leader of the caliphate released a half hour speech where he publicly accepted and thanked the leader of Boca Haram for his pledge of fealty.

In his speech, he makes a powerful argument for the true believer...utopia on earth...where all men are the same...

According to SITE’s translation, Adnani continues by saying there “is no polytheism or paganism or nationalism or patriotism or polytheist democracy or disbelieving secularism” in the caliphate. “There is no difference between an Arab and a non-Arab, nor between black and white. Here, the American fraternizes with the Arab, and the African with the European, and the Eastern with the Western.” Adnani promises would-be recruits that they will have the opportunity to live under sharia law if they join the Islamic State’s cause.

In fact,

In its propaganda this past week, the Islamic State portrayed Boko Haram’s decision to join the self-declared “caliphate” as a major boost for the group. At a time when Baghdadi’s forces are taking on enemies from nearly every direction, Boko Haram’s announcement was seen as a major coup. Before Adnani’s speech was made public, the Islamic State released several videos from followers and members in Raqqa and elsewhere praising Shekau’s announcement. (A screen shot from one of the messages can be seen at the beginning of this article.)

Indeed, with Boko Haram in its camp, the Islamic State can now plausibly claim to control significant territory in both the heart of the Middle East and West Africa.

Remember, the caliphate must control under Sharia Law the territory.

This helps Adnani make his case as the One to flock to.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/03/islamic-state-publicly-accepts-boko-harams-allegiance.php

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Just another lunchbox day at the jihad.

 

 

"A number of our hero army members were assassinated this morning by the Islamic State in the Nawfaliyah area," said Osama Abu Naji, a senior official in the Tripoli-based government, referring to a town southeast of Sirte.

 

"The victims were assassinated, it was not confrontation," he told reporters, without elaborating.

 

Strangely enough this happened in one of the successes of the President's foreign policy...

 

Libya...

 

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Just another lunchbox day at the jihad.

"A number of our hero army members were assassinated this morning by the Islamic State in the Nawfaliyah area," said Osama Abu Naji, a senior official in the Tripoli-based government, referring to a town southeast of Sirte.

"The victims were assassinated, it was not confrontation," he told reporters, without elaborating.

Strangely enough this happened in one of the successes of the President's foreign policy...

Libya...

Yeah that's a real Vince Foster knee slapper Evita...

Four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is divided, with the official premier Abdullah al-Thinni working from the east since a rival faction seized Tripoli in August, reinstating a previous parliament and setting up a rival administration.

There were also heavy clashes between Islamist fighters and forces allied to the recognized government in the eastern city of Benghazi on Wednesday, residents said. That fighting has been ongoing for a year.

Militants loyal to Islamic State have claimed several high-profile attacks in the past two months including the storming of Tripoli's luxury Corinthia hotel and the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts from Sirte.

Interesting...Benghazi ...

That seems so familiar somehow and I think Evita was involved in that one also.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-libya-security-idUSKBN0ME26320150318?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

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  • 2 weeks later...

Apparently, we have a new super weapon that will turn the tide in the Caliphate...

It will work perfectly with a philosophy of death as a goal and path to heavenly perfection...

isisleaflet.jpg?w=812&h=526

The jet dropped some 60,000 copies of the leaflet, which depicts Islamic State recruiters as ghouls leading their rookie soldiers toward a quick, bloody death, according to a statement by Cmdr. Elissa Smith that accompanied the image’s release by the Pentagon Thursday.

The sign above the line of young men reads “Daesh Recruiting Office,” referring to an alternate name for the Islamic State militant group. The meat grinder is labeled “Daesh” and the television screen in the top right corner reads “now serving 6001,” which is the number on the ticket dropped by the man at the front of the line.

The utter stupidity of this amazes me...

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Everyone in America should start thanking Egypt's President Al-Sisi, he is making changes:

Indeed, that instability may have been one of the reasons that Sisi has sought to defuse tensions with Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is helping fight al-Shabab in Somalia, and Sisi cited mutual counterterrorism goals in his address to Parliament. At the same time, the Houthi offensive in Yemen has sparked concerns about security off the coast of Yemen, including the key chokepoint at Bab el-Mandeb. That is particularly worrying for Cairo, which has ambitious and costly plans to expand the Suez Canal and turn it into the linchpin of future economic development. On Thursday, Sisi said in a statement that his air force and navy had already joined the fighting, and that he was ready to deploy ground troops “if necessary.”

Analysts at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, or SWP, suggested that the diplomatic breakthrough over the dam could be due in large part to Egypt’s growing security headaches, especially around the future safety of the Suez Canal and its seaborne approaches.

“[A]bove all Egypt possesses a strong strategic interest in the security situation in the southern Red Sea,” wrote SWP analysts Tobias von Lossow and Stephan Roll in February. “Especially in light of the latest developments in Yemen, Egypt appears to possess almost no alternative to closing ranks with Ethiopia, as the only regional power in East Africa with an effective army,” they wrote, concluding that security played a “decisive role” in Sisi’s change of tack on the dam negotiations.

An Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian, Saudi Arabian and other states in the Umma creating a containing circle of Muslim troops not connected with Iran would be a treaty organization with mutual advantages in their common security interests, as well as their common economic interests.

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Great Michigan Oklahoma game - David Latin's relative, "son" is playing.

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Not sure if this is the monthly virgin parade or not, however these gals are from the Khansaa Brigade:

Women_in_Raqqa.jpg

March 25, 2015

The Islamic State's all-female Khansaa Brigade, formed in early 2014 and charged with policing the public morality of women in A-Raqqa city, has captured the attention of the Western news media with details of the group's woman-on-woman violence.

Khansaa is a famous personality from early Islamic history, a poet who embraced Islam and later lost four of her sons in battle. When Khansaa received news of their deaths, she reportedly said, “thanks to God who honored me with their martyrdom.”

I think she won Mom of the year against some really stiff competition.

All the women in A-Raqqa city wear the niqab that IS imposed on them. If IS wants to arrest a woman, it turns the matter of her arrest over to the Khansaa Brigade and does not entrust men with her arrest, because A-Raqqa is a tribal area, and men detaining women could lead to bloody problems. So by using women to arrest women, they bring the tribes over to their side.

Yo, Sandra Fluke! Follow your upturned nose and smell the real War on Women.

http://syriadirect.org/main/30-reports/1938-how-the-islamic-state-uses-women-to-control-women

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  • 2 weeks later...

It’s getting hard to escape the feeling that the Sanaa bombing might be the Middle East’s “assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand” moment — the literal gunshot that has come to serve, if incompletely, as an answer to the question: “How did World War I begin?” (It should be noted that the assassin’s cause, which was more or less independence for Yugoslavia, was more or less achieved as a result of the ensuing war.)

Very interesting article.

Four fundamental questions arising from this chain of events illuminate the strategic and intelligence challenge ahead for any country that is invested in the fight against the Islamic State.

Was the Islamic State in any way responsible for the bombings?

Did the Islamic State order this specific attack, or more generally exhort attacks on Houthis?

Does the Islamic State have the capacity to command and control forces outside its territory? ****very important question

Was the Sanaa attack carried out with the specific intention of escalating Yemen’s civil war into a regional conflict?

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/08/the-middle-easts-franz-ferdinand-moment-yemen-saudi-arabia-iran-isis/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Editors%20Picks&utm_campaign=USC_Nation_Branding_PromoRS4%2F8

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It’s getting hard to escape the feeling that the Sanaa bombing might be the Middle East’s “assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand” moment — the literal gunshot that has come to serve, if incompletely, as an answer to the question: “How did World War I begin?” (It should be noted that the assassin’s cause, which was more or less independence for Yugoslavia, was more or less achieved as a result of the ensuing war.)

Very interesting article.

Thanks for posting it. My heart is sick at the Yemen situation. Every single actor is weighed down with Yemen history, which seems like a slumbering fire of sectarian/cultural discrimination, authoritarian rule, unresponsive and corrupt government, violent extremists, meddling neighbours (in Iran and Saudi) and so on. The details are maddening -- they make the state of forces in Bosnia/Austro-Hungary in 1914 seem like a simple soccer game.

Here's one article you might like to read, Glinda:

Yemen Tensions at the Tipping Point

-- it dates from early summer 2011.

My own opinions on the hideous conflict are mixed: I cannot support the Saudi-coalition bombing strikes. They have, like the bombing strikes by Assad's air force in the Syrian war, killed civilians disproportionately, and increased the anger of those who Saudi would like to extirpate (the Saudis are Sunni, the Houthis are Zaydis (Shia 'fivers' with Sunni admixtures).

Pinning or hingeing the current Yemen horror on Islamic State works only to increase their negative 'charisma' in a way. It bears noting that the Saudi regime resembles nothing so much as the Islamic State: change the colour of their flag to black from green, and the flag is little different from IS's standard.

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  • 1 month later...

It is now a little over a year since the Coalition of 60 countries pledged to stop ISIS/ISIL/alphabet central, the Islamic Fascists from taking Ramadi.

The Chinese used this tactic in Korea I believe.

The Moro for sure.

Similar to Japanese Samurai

Particularly against fixed fortifications. Patton said fixed fortifications were a monument to man's stupidity.

The Islamic State opened its attack by using armored bulldozers to remove concrete barriers that blocked the road to the government center, according to Al Jazeera. Suicide bombers then targeted the entrance to the government compound, a military Humvee, and the Health Ministry. Three more suicide bombers targeted the Anbar Operations Command on the northwestern edge of the city. The suicide bombings were reportedly led by a British suicide bomber known as “Abu Musa Britani.”

Exploit the breach...

Jihadists then stormed the breach and battled with Iraqi forces before taking control of the complex and raising the Islamic State flag over one of the buildings.

Ramadi is now falling into ISIS's possession, or, fallen into their orbit.

The exact number of Iraqi military, Awakening, and Islamic State fighters killed or wounded has not been disclosed. An Iraqi police major told The Washington Post that more than 60 police officers were killed in the fighting. Photographs of the bodies of 10 Iraqi security personnel have been posted online; one of the bodies had a shirt with the logo of Iraq’s Special Forces Paratroopers (the images are too graphic to publish). An Iraqi security official told Al Baghdadiyah News that Coalition aircraft killed 16 jihadists, including “leading figure Akram Muhammad Ali al Farraji,” in an airstrike in the At Ta’mim district in Ramadi.

The Islamic State advanced on the government center despite Coalition air support. US Central Command, which manages Operation Inherent Resolve, the mission to “degrade and defeat” the Islamist group, launched two airstrikes near Ramadi that targeted an Islamic State “tactical unit” and a “fighting position” over the past 24 hours.

This is not going well at all...

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/05/islamic-state-seizes-government-center-in-ramadi.php

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Bob:

We don't need a nuke for these "ants," they just lined up for us in Anbar.

575x320xisis-parade-anbar-575x320.jpg.pa

Hell, you and I could have piloted the drones from New Jersey!!

How many innocent lives would be saved if all of these "ants" had been fried?

So, WTF is going on that this road is not a burning strip of burnt out wreckage.

They are playing out the prophetic Koranic interpretation of their Caliph.

A...

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Half-assed air campaign. And while air is not enough to fight these guys, after 8-9 months something ain't workin'.

--Brant

Brant:

Did our military "see" this caravan taking shape?

If it did, would you as the commander, with authority to act, not take them out?

A...

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