Iraqi unrest, Syrian unrest, and ISIS/ISIL/Daesh

[Dotini]

IMO, defeating ISIS may well require the US to play nice with its erstwhile enemies Iran, Russia and Assad, and play rough with its erstwhile friends Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey and Jordan.

 

[nsaspook]

IMO, defeating ISIS may well require the US to play nice with its erstwhile enemies Iran, Russia and Assad, and play rough with its erstwhile friends Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey and Jordan.

It does and it makes be worry that the current US team might not be up to the challenge of managing the brutal tactics our 'friends' will use to defeat ISIS on the ground if we move beyond containment to eradication.

 

[Dotini]

It does and it makes be worry that the current US team might not be up to the challenge of managing the brutal tactics our 'friends' will use to defeat ISIS on the ground if we move beyond containment to eradication.

I have a great deal of admiration and respect for Chuck Hagel. Martin Dempsey I also like. Alas, I am worried about our State Department.

 

[nsaspook]

I'm 100% sure the DOD can handle any task given but I see the possible endgame for ISIS being very messy as we must attack ISIS fighters in Syria with US based weapons to destroy the cross-border supply lines and equipment to isolate the fighters in Iraq and then let Syria retake it's territory as a likely condition of any deal. When their line break and some are on the run don't expect people who have been brutalized by them to just let them go back home. The pictures won't be pretty.

 

[mheslep]

Russia has reigned in actions in Syria

I'm unaware of any reigning in by Russia. Can you name an example? Syria continues to gas people.

I'm aware of some slight reigning in of Syria by the U.S., namely the disposal of some chemical weapons.

 

[mheslep]

I'm 100% sure the DOD can handle any task given ...

Recent U.S. military record with guerrilla wars is mixed, not perfect. Military success in Iraq, yes. Afghanistan, not so much.

 

[nsaspook]

Recent U.S. military record with guerrilla wars is mixed, not perfect. Military success in Iraq, yes. Afghanistan, not so much.

This is not guerrilla warfare where they come out at night and disappear into the shadows freely mixing with non-combatants. In the cities its urban combat that our troops are very well trained for but I don't expect us to get much involved in that directly.

Afghanistan is a case where bombing them to the stone-age can't work because the Russians already did that in the 80s.

 

[nsaspook]

I'm unaware of any reigning in by Russia. Can you name an example? Syria continues to gas people.

As I said the limits on Assad are those that would cause another international response (like ISIS is doing now) that would threaten Russian interests in the area. Internal security matters including possible use of chlorine gas as a chemical agent (a pulmonary irritating agent instead of a explicit chemical weapon and deadly neurotoxin) IMO haven't reached that threshold.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is not guerrilla warfare where they come out at night and disappear into the shadows freely mixing with non-combatants. In the cities its urban combat that our troops are very well trained for but I don't expect us to get much involved in that directly.

If the US put troops forward to combat IS you can bet your bottom dollar it would become guerrilla warfare. Thousands of civilians have flocked to IS and given that they aren't a state army they can melt back into civilian life, or across the borders back into Syria. There's also the question of what US troops would actually achieve. If they halt this advance what's to stop IS coming back? Or other groups taking advantage of local dissatisfaction.

Afghanistan is a case where bombing them to the stone-age can't work because the Russians already did that in the 80s.

I really hope this is some sort of bad sense of humour because if not it doesn't reveal anything good about you. You realize that any sort of mass bombing is going to hugely affect the civilian population? Terrorist groups can easily jump borders and find shelter elsewhere. The people who live there: not so much. And if their infrastructure is "bombed to the Stone Age" then they are going to experience abject poverty. The sort which is a) horrific any human being should live through and b) a great way to radicalise people and create more terrorists.

 

[AlephZero]

Afghanistan is a case where bombing them to the stone-age can't work because the Russians already did that in the 80s.

I guess the Russians didn't learn anything from Vietnam in the 60s, which is where the quote came from. http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/authors/curtis_e_lemay_a001.htm

 

[nsaspook]

If the US put troops forward to combat IS you can bet your bottom dollar it would become guerrilla warfare. Thousands of civilians have flocked to IS and given that they aren't a state army they can melt back into civilian life, or across the borders back into Syria. There's also the question of what US troops would actually achieve. If they halt this advance what's to stop IS coming back? Or other groups taking advantage of local dissatisfaction.

I agree so there's little chance the US will send in regular troops to the front lines but our SF guys are there now and have been there since the beginning. Our attempt to rescue James Foley is a example.
Hopefully there won't be a way back to Syria if there is a unified front to destroy ISIS.

I really hope this is some sort of bad sense of humor because if not it doesn't reveal anything good about you. You realize that any sort of mass bombing is going to hugely affect the civilian population? Terrorist groups can easily jump borders and find shelter elsewhere. The people who live there: not so much. And if their infrastructure is "bombed to the Stone Age" then they are going to experience abject poverty. The sort which is a) horrific any human being should live through and b) a great way to radicalize people and create more terrorists.

No, it's not humor and I admit to not being a 'good' person when things got ugly.
I'm not advocating the mass bombing of the civilian population in this case or in Afghanistan as it's not 'total' war and was controversial even during WW2 but having spent several years near Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation I can tell you for a fact the USSR had no problem using a page out of LeMay's book to completely destroy the infrastructure of Afghanistan. Soviet attacks backed with massive firepower delivered from fixed-winged aircraft, helicopters, artillery, rocket launchers and tanks destroyed entire cities, villages, crops, irrigation, power plants, industrial facilities and they tried to kill literally anything that moved as SOP. It did radicalize people and create more terrorists for Islamic militancy and (with US providing arms to the Mujahideen) ultimately failed to stop the Mujahideen, created the extremism of the Taliban and the last 20 years of jihadist. This is the reality we face if we partner with people like Assad who use Soviet tactics to win wars. I don't think it's a good choice but it might be the only one we can make if we declare ISIS a 'clear and present' danger to the security of the US.

http://world.einnews.com/article/219924643/sfDTlxF01rdUgoYf

The Obama administration is considering seeking congressional authorization for military action against the Islamic State under a revamped counter­­terrorism strategy President Obama announced last year.

A mandate from Congress could provide domestic legal justification for the unlimited use of force against the Sunni Muslim group across Iraq and Syria, a senior administration official said. Congress last formally authorized such action in 2001, against al-Qaeda and its associates, and 2002, against Iraq under Saddam Hussei

 

[nsaspook]

Finding an ISIS camp in the Internet age

https://bellingcat.com/resources/ca...d-road-marches-finding-an-isis-training-camp/

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go through training as an ISIS terrorist? Or better yet, where you would go to find such advanced training? All you have to do to find the answer to these questions is turn to the nearest ISIS media twitter account and click on that bright blue Justpaste.it link. Let’s take a look at the photos posted in July showing one of the Islamic State’s training camps in Ninewa Province and see what we can learn.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.smh.com.au/world/rapper-...leys-executioner-reports-20140824-107w1i.html

British rapper suspected as Foley's executioner

London rapper Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary has been identified as the leading suspect in the beheading of US journalist James Foley, according to reports
...
British SAS forces are hunting Foley's killer, using a range of high-tech equipment to track him down and potentially free other hostages.

The SAS are a mean bunch, if they find him he's in for a world of hurt.

 

[mheslep]

US authorities should take similar responsibility for Americans gone rogue and fighting among those lunatics.

 

[lisab]

US authorities should take similar responsibility for Americans gone rogue and fighting among those lunatics.

Americans who join the opposition should be treated like any other combatant, IMO.

But it's quite noble of the Brits to feel it's their obligation to go get "their" guy :thumbs:.

 

[davenn]

had to post this from my mate's FB wall...
it sums up the general confusion that a lot of us have of the politics concerning the middle east...

Does this make it clear as mud? Are you confused by what is going on in the Middle East

Let me TRY to explain it to you in simple terms!.

We support the Iraqi government in the fight against ISIS.
We don’t like ISIS, but ISIS is supported by Saudi Arabia who we do like.
We don’t like Assad in Syria. We support the fight against him, but ISIS is also fighting against him.
We don’t like Iran, but Iran supports the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS.
So some of our friends support our enemies, some enemies are now our friends,
And some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies, who we want to lose,
But we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.
If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they could be replaced by people we like even less.
And all this was started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists
Who were not actually there until we went into drive them out.
It's quite simple, really.

Got it ??

 

[OmCheeto]

had to post this from my mate's FB wall...
it sums up the general confusion that a lot of us have of the politics concerning the middle east...

I didn't know the Saudis had supported ISIS. hmmmm...

Islamic State requires Saudi Arabia to rethink its support for extremism
The Saudi government may deny links to the group, but its promotion of hardline Islam is not something the west can ignore any longer
Nesrine Malik
theguardian.com, Friday 29 August 2014 06.38 EDT
...
But it seems even Saudis are beginning to see the foolhardiness of this arrangement. In a searing essay in the Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh last week, Hissa bint Ahmed bin Al al-Sheikh, a member of one of the most influential religious families in Saudi Arabia and a relative of the grand mufti, rails against the “farce of fatwas” in the kingdom, and records a litany of extremist measures introduced since the 1980s that have stifled public life and glorified a culture of “hatred and death” that she recognises in Isis. This is a culture disseminated via state media, the national curriculum and public order laws – legislation that many Saudi intellectuals warned against.
...

Live and learn.

I can't find an English translation of Hissa's essay, and the google translation is mostly gibberish.

 

[nsaspook]

The Saudi royal family helped to create this mess and personally I hope they reap what they have sown.

http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-begins-major-operation-free-jihadist-besieged-town-140421003.html

The drive to break the more than two-month siege of Amerli came as an NGO said that the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which has surrounded the Shiite Turkmen-majority town, sold at least 27 women in Syria after kidnapping them in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/dozens-yazidi-women-sold-marriage-jihadists-ngo-142525440.html

Both UN officials and Yazidis fleeing IS advances in Iraq have said fighters kidnapped women to be sold into forced marriages.

UN religious right monitor Heiner Beilefeldt warned earlier this month of reports of women being executed and kidnapped by IS militants.

"We have reports of women being executed and unverified reports that strongly suggest that hundreds of women and children have been kidnapped –- many of the teenagers have been sexually assaulted, and women have been assigned or sold to 'IS' fighters," she said.

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...0d9-11e4-9b98-848790384093_story.html?hpid=z1

“Everyone in Amerli saw the bombardment from their houses,” Mustafa Hassan Tayyeb, a resident of Amerli and colonel in the Iraqi army, said Sunday in a telephone interview.

He had been fighting the militants alongside his neighbors for about 80 days, he said, adding that the U.S. strikes were very accurate and had destroyed several of the militants’ vehicles.

“Our morale is very high. We resisted these people, and we won,” said Taqi, the politician, when reached by telephone after the siege was broken Sunday. “Now all we need is food and water.”

You can run but you can't hide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSBOu2O0zXs
Too bad they know what's coming. You can see how precise our weapons are and can be effectively used close to civilians without great harm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ppd09ATLaA

 

[Astronuc]

Unrest in Iraq and Syria

It is certainly a regional/cross-border matter, with ISIS/ISIL active in both nations.

The Islamic State group holds roughly a third of Iraq and Syria, including several strategically important cities like Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. It rules over a population of several million people with its strict interpretation of Islamic law. It also controls many of the roads linking the communities it has conquered — although much of the territory in between is sparsely populated desert.

It claims thousands of heavily armed fighters, and has set up its own civil administrations and judiciaries.

"It acts as a state in areas that don't have a state at the moment. It's effective because it provides services, it has a military presence, it speaks as a state," said Hassan Hassan, an analyst at The Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi.

https://news.yahoo.com/look-dangers-posed-islamic-state-group-175720845.html

The Islamic State group is a far superior threat today than al-Qaida was in 2001. It is richer, operates a modern, effective media arm and holds much more territory than al-Qaida ever did.

The United States had verified the authenticity of a video released Tuesday showing the beheading of freelance reporter Steven Sotloff.
http://news.yahoo.com/us-says-sotloff-beheading-video-authentic-083130265--politics.html

 

[nsaspook]

RIP Steven Sotloff. ISIS has become a playground for crazies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...e-islamic-states-beheading-of-steven-sotloff/

The Islamic State’s foreign fighters, who operated on the fringes in their home countries, account for a substantial portion of shocking acts of violence. Some of them were reportedly just criminals found to have psychotic tendencies.
...
The Soufan Group, an intelligence consultantcy, reported that because the Islamic State’s grip on territorial gains remains tenuous at best, its commitment to extreme violence makes it vulnerable. Its enemies list keeps growing. “Recent videos showing the massacre of over one hundred Syrian soldiers … and the apparent beheading of a Sunni Lebanese soldier produced more negative reactions than positive,” the group’s report stated.

 

[WhatIsGravity]

Americans who join the opposition should be treated like any other combatant, IMO.

I completely agree.

Having spent the past couple months in Kurdish Iraq, such sympathies and respect for the Kurdish people. They've been getting the business end of the stick from all sides, for a few thousand years.

 

[Astronuc]

Islamic State massacre survivor who faked death speaks about harrowing escape
http://news.yahoo.com/isis-isil-survivor-speaks-video-201355056.html

Sunni soldiers were allowed to repent, but Kadhim and the other Shiites were "marked for death" and lined up before a firing squad.

“I just pretended to be shot,” he said.

After realizing the bullet passed by his head, Kadhim fell forward into a ditch, where he stayed still for four hours. He eventually made it to a riverbank, where he ate insects and plants for three days alongside a badly injured soldier, who never made it out alive.

 

[Dotini]

I agree so there's little chance the US will send in regular troops to the front lines but our SF guys are there now and have been there since the beginning. Our attempt to rescue James Foley is a example.
Hopefully there won't be a way back to Syria if there is a unified front to destroy ISIS.

Here comes a great knight with his mighty army, armed with the blessing of his king to work with the US in ridding the world of the Islamic State (ISIS).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29079052#

 

[morteza]

Islam - terorism = Real Islam

 

[morteza]

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the Dash ..
I have to say they did not know the meaning of Islam ...
Nowhere in Islam is not violence advice ...

Islam - terrorism = Real Islam

With the help of the people in these animals (terrorists) will be destroyed.
If colonialist powers allow

 

[nsaspook]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29098099

Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have recaptured a strategically important mountain from Islamic State (IS) militants, helped by US air strikes.
...
The BBC's Jim Muir in Iraq says Mount Zartak was retaken in a short, sharp battle that left more than 30 IS fighters dead.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...n-broad-based-assault-isis-syria-barack-obama

"Everyone needs to cool the jet engines, almost literally," said one Whitehall source, with another saying: "It is a case of going slowly, slowly to catch a monkey."

Cameron said: "I think sometimes people think that there is no strategy unless it simply consists of air strikes. That is not the case. It needs a fully formed strategy to squeeze this from every angle and that is what you are getting from this Nato conference today."

I don't think we want to catch the monkey in this case, we should blast them into a corner and wipe them out.

WARNING graphic video from the US State Dept directed to Islamic audiences.

 

[Astronuc]

Arab League chief: Confront Islamic State group
http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-governor-wounded-during-islamic-state-clash-125328461.html

Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is "rapid" action.

"If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month," he said in remarks quoted on Saturday by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station.

"Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East," said the king. . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-king-warns-west-jihadists-next-target-093701543.html

Why does it seem that the world is going to hell in a hand basket?

So where are the peace makers?

 

[jim hardy]

Why does it seem that the world is going to hell in a hand basket?

Information overload.

This "information age" was supposed to make us all communicate and get along like the rational beings we are not .
But as Dr Moreau observed, "The Beast keeps creeping out."

I blame the computers..

 

[morteza]

Arab Lea

hi dear Astronuc
Excuseme
I'm not too fluent in English
The Dash is in possession of advanced weapons
Where provided weapons?
It comes equipped Dash King of plays ...
What do you think ...?

 

[lisab]

hi dear Astronuc
Excuseme
I'm not too fluent in English
The Dash is in possession of advanced weapons
Where provided weapons?
It comes equipped Dash King of plays ...
What do you think ...?

Hi morteza - welcome to PF.

I'm not sure what you mean by this - what is "The Dash"?

 

[Lisa!]

Hi morteza - welcome to PF.

I'm not sure what you mean by this - what is "The Dash"?

I think that's ISIS!

 

[Vanadium 50]

My question was even simpler - was the administration's position that this is a brand new war, or a continuation of an old war?

And we now have an answer: according to The Daily Beast, this is a continuation of an old war: specifically the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al Qaeda.

The article also points out the irony that ISIS/ISIL is an opponent of al Qaeda.

 

[Dotini]

And we now have an answer: according to The Daily Beast, this is a continuation of an old war: specifically the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al Qaeda.

The article also points out the irony that ISIS/ISIL is an opponent of al Qaeda.

According to what I recall of his speech, and what I have heard on TV, the only thing President Obama intends to ask Congress for is permission to arm and train the Syrian rebels.

 

[mheslep]

...You can run but you can't hide.

But of course they can, with a little luck, for years. The President's version yesterday was, "you will find no safe haven." Of course they do, and will. Bin Laden holed up for 11 years. Bin Laden's lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has not been caught and manages to continue releasing videos. A terrorist can't really fight the US in the field, but yes they can and do hide.