Source: Viral Alternative News: BREAKING: Putin Reveals ISIS Funded by 40 Countries, Including G20 Members
Category: ISIS
Paris is just the beginning. The devastating attacks claimed by ISIS that killed scores in the French capital last week are a sign of things to come and a clear indication that efforts to combat this scourge have been a failure thus far.
Abd al-Wahhab argued that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader (a Caliph, if there were one). Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. The list of apostates meriting death included the Shia, Sufis and other Muslim denominations, whom Abd al-Wahhab did not consider to be Muslim at all. There is nothing here that separates Wahhabism from ISIS.
No sooner am I settled in an interviewing room in the police station of Kirkuk, Iraq, than the first prisoner I am there to see is brought in, flanked by two policemen and in handcuffs.
Source: What I Discovered From Interviewing Imprisoned ISIS Fighters | The Nation
While some call for a militaristic response to the Paris attacks, there is wisdom in restraint – particularly in light of the nature of the challenge posed by extremist jihadism as represented by Daesh.
Those who claim that this destructive cult’s ideology reflects some essential aspect of Islam are obscuring its origins—in George W. Bush’s illegal war that destroyed Iraq and fomented sectarian extremism.
At least 128 people were killed in gun and bomb attacks in the French capital Friday, in what President Francois Hollande called “an act of war.”IS’s online clai
Source: Paris attacks reveal next stage of IS – Your Middle East
Analysis: The former UK prime minister used to claim the 2003 invasion would undermine jihadis. The 12 years since have proved how wrong he was
What led to the rise of ISIS? Watch this video:
Source: Someone Finally Explained How ISIS Was Created, and it Will Make You Question Everything
China will be helping out the Syrian government in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) by sending “military advisers,” media reports have claimed.
Source: China’s military advisers ‘heading to Syria to help fight ISIS’ – report — RT News
Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria have agreed to establish a joint information center in Baghdad to coordinate their operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) militants, according to sources.
Islamic State defectors have spoken out, including two Australians, shattering many of the myths about the I.S. and its fighters. Gerard May reports.
Source: New Report: Australian Islamic State defectors tell the true story
The sectarian terror group won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place
Women living under Islamic State’s control in Iraq and Syria are facing increasingly harsh restrictions on movement and dress, which are rigorously enforced by religious police and are leading to resentment and despair among moderate Muslims.
Residents of Mosul, Raqqa and Deir el-Zour have told the Guardian in interviews conducted by phone and Skype that women are forced to be accompanied by a male guardian, known as a mahram, at all times, and are compelled to wear double-layered veils, loose abayas and gloves.
Their testimonies follow the publication this month of an Isis “manifesto” to clarify the “realities of life and the hallowed existence of women in the Islamic State”. It said that girls could be married from the age of nine, and that women should only leave the house in exceptional circumstances and should remain “hidden and veiled”.
Sama Maher, 20, a resident of Raqqa who has been detained several times by Isis religious police, known as Hisbah, for violating Isis rules, said: “It is prohibited for a woman in Raqqa or Deir el-Zour to move anywhere outside without a mahram, a male guardian. It is a big problem as I do not have any, we are only five sisters.”
An Islamic State fighter waves a flag in Raqqa.
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An Islamic State fighter waves a flag in Raqqa. The group published a “manifesto” within weeks of taking control of the city. Photograph: Reuters
Isis has closed universities in areas under its control, she added. “I had to quit my university studies in Aleppo because I’m not allowed to cross the checkpoints without a mahram and leave the city by myself like before.”
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Male guardians are subject to punishment if women are not complying with the prescribed dress code. In Mosul, Isis published a charter within weeks of taking taking control of the city, restricting women’s movements and imposing dress requirements. Women were instructed to wear a Saudi-style black veil of two layers to conceal their eyes and a loose robe designed by Isis after it said some abayas revealed body outlines.
Many women initially objected to the Isis order but complied when they realised they could be beaten, humiliated and fined, and their husbands might be punished. Men are now forcing their wives and daughters to stay at home to avoid confrontations with Hisbah, which issues orders via the internet or by posting written statements at shops warning against violations of Islamic rules in the city.
“They forced women of all ages to wear a veil, even though the majority of the women in Mosul wear a hijab,” paediatrician Maha Saleh, 36, said. “The Hisbah would hit a woman on her head with a stick if she was not wearing a veil.
“At the beginning, some female doctors refused to wear veils and went on a strike by staying at home. Hisbah took ambulances and went to their houses and brought them by force to the hospital. One of my colleagues was alone in her clinic in the hospital and thought it was all right to strip off her veil. All of a sudden, two Hisbah broke in her room and reproached her for not wearing the veil and warned her not to do that again.”
In Raqqa, the Isis “capital” in Syria, women were initially ordered to wear a black abaya covering the entire body. Soon after, a command to wear a veil was issued, then a third ordered a shield on top of the abaya. Women are also instructed to wear only black, including gloves and shoes. Isis subsequently ordered women to hide their eyes, requiring a a double-layered veil.
I was shocked to see that women in labour were denied access to the hospital unless they put veils on
Mosul resident Sabah Nadiem said: “I went once with my wife to one of the old souqs to do some shopping, and after a short while I lost her among the crowd. The problem was that all the women were wearing veils and it was hard to know who was my wife. I was utterly scared to make a mistake and go for the wrong woman. It would be a disaster to fall into Hisbah hands. I could not even use my mobile as the network was down.” Nadiem said he called out his wife’s name loudly in the souq until she heard him and they were reunited.
Hisbah patrols tour Isis-controlled cities to ensure that women and men are behaving in accordance with Islamic rules. If they spot a woman in the street not wearing a shield or gloves, sometimes they offer her “Islamic dress” with a pair of gloves and advise her not to go out again without them, or they take her to Hisbah headquarters and keep her there until her mahram arrives. The mahram may be fined or could be subjected to lashes.
Children are not exempt from strict dress codes. When schools opened in Mosul last October, Samar Hadi, a mother of five, sent her two daughters – Hala, six, and Tiba, seven, – to school without a hijab, as she had the year before.
“After two days, the headmistress told them that they all have to wear the hijab when they come to school. So I made them wear the hijab. Then an Isis order came to stipulate that only girls in 4th, 5th and 6th class in primary school have to wear hijab, not 1st and 2nd classes.”
A veiled woman walks past a billboard urging women to wear a hijab
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A veiled woman walks past a billboard urging women to wear a hijab. Photograph: Reuters
In Deir el-Zour in Syria, the rules for female pupils and students appear to be stricter. “Little girls in primary schools have to wear an abaya until the 4th class, when they have to wear a veil too,” said Sali Issam, 15, a secondary school student. “Though all the teachers in girls’ schools are female, neither students nor teachers are allowed to lift the veil of their faces inside the classroom.”
Many families stopped sending their children to school after recent air strikes by the Syrian regime army, she added. “Families are scared of Hisbah and Assad’s warplanes.”
Women in labour in maternity hospitals in Mosul are forced to comply with dress codes. “When I was in labour, I went to the hospital wearing a veil though it was too hot. Isis Hisbah were at the front door of the hospital. I saw some women in labour who seemed to be in a panic and did not have time to wear a veil. I was shocked to see that they were denied access to the hospital unless they put veils on their faces,” said Salah.
Women over the age of 45 are exempted from the order to wear the veil, but often find themselves in difficulty. On a routine trip to Mosul University where she teaches, Saleh shared a taxi with an older woman who was not wearing a veil. “The taxi driver turned to the woman and said: ‘Why are not you wearing a veil?’ She told him that Isis said the veil was imposed on women who are less than 45. The driver answered: ‘I’m afraid if I have you in my car, Isis Hisbah will stop me at a checkpoint and fine me.’”
Buses are also stopped for passengers to be checked. If a woman is found without required dress or mahram, all passengers are forced to disembark and the bus is refused permission to proceed. “If Hisbah spot a woman without a mahram in a bus, the whole bus is evacuated and sent back because the driver accepted her,” said Maher.
In Mosul, single women are not allowed to be the last passenger on a bus, alone with the driver. Women are forced to get off buses before their destination if there are no other passengers present. Bassma Adel, 35, who works in a bank, had to get off a bus to avoid being alone with the driver even though she was not near her home.
I was fined $1,500 and got 10 lashes on the bottom of my feet
“I had to walk to my house though the distance was long in inclement weather. One of my male colleagues passed by his car and offered to give me a lift. We drove for a short distance before we were spotted by Hisbah. They asked us for a document that proves my colleague was a mahram to me. When we failed to do that, they reproached us for being together in the car and humiliated us and ordered me to step down.”
Hospitals in Raqqa are almost empty of female doctors, according to residents. The few female nurses are forbidden from lifting their veils or wearing anything but Islamic dress. All woman visiting doctors must be accompanied by a mahram, who has to wait outside the clinic. If Hisbah discovers a man inside a clinic, he will be arrested. A woman is permitted to be checked by a male doctor but is not allowed to lift her veil during examination.
Recently Isis ordered all female hairdressers to be shut down in Mosul. Samah Nasir, 43, had her own hairdressing shop for more than nine years – the only source of income for her three children as her husband is ill and unable to work. “I decided to reopen my shop despite the Isis embargo because I had nothing to feed my children and pay for my husband’s medications.”
Shortly after, Hisbah broke in her house and took her and her husband to a sharia court. “The judge ruled that I should pay $1,500 [£977] as a fine and get 10 lashes on the bottom of my feet in one of the rooms in the sharia court. I have not been in such a situation all my life.” Now Nasir rarely leaves her house.
Now I seem to remember that one of the reasons that John Howard refused to apologise to the stolen generation was that “we” weren’t personally responsible. Afterl all, none of “us” ever stole children so how could “we” apologise for something we didn’t do. And I seem to remember that the Murdoch Media was fairly supportive of this position.
But now I find that Mr. Murdoch embraces the notion of collective responsibility. If you’re a member of a particular group, then you’re responsible for the actions of all members of that group.
It’s an interesting concept.
Should perhaps all energy companies be fined for the actions of Enron?
Or all newspaper journalists be jailed for the phone hacking in Britain?
Of course, it’s be ridiculous to jail all journalists. I think just the ones who work for Murdoch would probably be enough.
But now we’ve established the notion of group responsibility. Here is my quick list of people who should apologise on behalf of their group:
- All police should apologise for the death in Ferguson.
- All bank employees should apologise for the GFC.
- All drivers should apologise for the car that cut me off the other day.
- All Dutch immigrants should apologise for Andrew Bolt.
- All teenagers should apologise for the popularity of “One Direction”.
- Alll Australians should apologise for the election of the Abbott government.
Ok, it’s only a quick list, and maybe an apology isn’t enough. Maybe like Rupert says until the people who are part of the group “recognise and destroy”…
Oooh, that sounds a bit nasty and threatening when put in another context. Gee, I certainly don’t want to suggest that any member of that group should “recognise and destroy” someone else in the group.
I mean, people reading this blog might get the wrong idea about what I mean and it would sound like I were inciting hatred and violence.
Lucky Rupert’s made himself a lot clearer about what he means by “recognise and destroy” and that the words won’t encourage such things!
Isis has enough weapons to carry on fighting for two years, UN warns
- Arsenal is sufficient enough to threaten region ‘even without territory’
- Much of Isis’s weapon stocks were stolen from US-backed Iraqi military
- Report recommends sanctions including seizing Isis oil tanker trucks
- Foreign jihadis flocking to Iraq and Syria on ‘unprecedented scale’
A new report prepared for the United Nations Security Council warns that the militant group known as the Islamic State (Isis) possesses sufficient reserves of small arms, ammunition and vehicles to wage its war for Syria and Iraq for up to two years.
The size and breadth of the Isis arsenal provides the group with durable mobility, range and a limited defense against low-flying aircraft. Even if the US-led bombing campaign continues to destroy the group’s vehicles and heavier weapons, the UN report states, it “cannot mitigate the effect of the significant volume of light weapons” Isis possesses.
Those weapons “are sufficient to allow [Isis] to continue fighting at current levels for six months to two years”, the UN report finds, making Isis not only the world’s best-funded terrorist group but among its best armed.
Isis, along with its former rival turned occasional tactical ally the Nusra Front, are sufficiently armed to threaten the region “even without territory”, the report concludes.
The report, months in the making, recommends the UN implement new steps to cut off Isis’s access to money and guns.
The Isis arsenal, according to the UN assessment, includes T-55 and T-72 tanks; US-manufactured Humvees; machine guns; short-range anti-aircraft artillery, including shoulder-mounted rockets captured from Iraqi and Syrian military stocks; and “extensive supplies of ammunition”. One member state, not named in the report, contends that Isis maintains a motor pool of 250 captured vehicles.
Much of the Isis weapons stocks, particularly “state of the art” weaponry stolen from the US-backed Iraqi military, was “unused” before Isis seized it, the report finds. But some of the relatively complex weapons “may be too much of a challenge” for Isis to effectively wield or maintain.
Earlier this year, speculation focussed on Isis’s potential ability to produce chemical weapons after it seized Iraqi facilities that had contributed to Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons programs, but the UN report casts doubt on the likelihood that Isis possesses the “capability to fully exploit material it might have seized”. Nor does the UN report believe that Isis can manufacture its own chemical or other weapons of mass destruction.
But at least one anonymous member state has provided information about “chemicals and poison-coated metal balls” placed inside Isis’s homemade bombs to maximize damage. In October, Kurdish forces defending the Syrian town of Kobani from Isis reported cases of skin blistering, burning eyes and difficulty breathing after the detonation of an Isis bomb.
The UN Security Council is expected to take up consideration of the report on Wednesday.
The report recommends the UN adopt new waves of sanctions designed to disrupt the well-financed Isis’s economic health. Significant among them is a call for states bordering Isis-controlled territory to “promptly seize all oil tanker trucks and their loads” coming in or going out.
While the report warns that Isis has alternate revenue sources, and does not predict that truck seizures can eliminate Isis’s oil smuggling money, it holds out hope that raising the costs to smuggling networks and trucking companies will deter them from bringing Isis oil to market.
To combat Isis’s ability to resupply its weapons stocks and launder money, the report recommends the UN mandate that no aircraft originating from Isis-held territory can land on airstrips in member states, and to prohibit flights into Isis-held territory. Exemptions would be made for humanitarian relief planes.
The report comes on the heels of an October report to the Security Council assessing that 15,000 fighters from 80 countries have flooded into Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Isis and other militant groups.
While still months off, the US has indicated it will intensify its fight against Isis, primarily in Iraq. After doubling the US troop commitment there, defense officials have said the US will bolster 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades, and may even join in the Iraqi fighting for key terrain, such as the borderlands between Syria and Iraq or the city of Mosul.
Unsubstantiated … Middle Eastern news service Al Arabiya is reporting the self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been ‘critically injured’ in an air strike. Source: Getty Source: Getty Images
MIDDLE Eastern media is reporting the leader of the Islamic State, self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been critically wounded in an air strike.
The Al Arabiya news channel is reporting sources have told it that the Caliph was “critically wounded” during an air attack in the Iraqi town of al-Qaim.
US officials have stated a convoy of up to 10 armed Islamic State vehicles, believed to be carrying Islamic State commanders, was hit yesterday Australian time.
“We cannot confirm if ISIL (Islamic State) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among those present,” a US military statement reads.
Islamic State affiliated Twitter accounts have rejected the reports.
THIRD AUSSIE KILLED: Another Australian has died fighting for ISIS
However, the US has confirmed it conducted a series of airstrikes targeting Islamic State leaders near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
The airstrikes yesterday destroyed a convoy of 10 armed trucks, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe military operations.
OF KNIGHTS AND CALIPHS: Understanding the Islamic State
Iraqi news services report an Anbar Province politician as saying the strike was conducted against a meeting of IS leaders in al-Qaim, which is west of the regional capital of Anbar.
Dozens of deaths and injuries have been reported.
“(It) caused severe confusion among ISIS members who then cut off all roads in Qaim in order to transport their wounded to the hospital that was packed with the wounded and body parts,” member of parliament Mohammed al-Karbouli reportedly said.
Reuters news agency quoted two witnesses as saying an air strike targeted a house where senior ISIS officers were meeting, near al-Qaim.
Witnesses said ISIS fighters had cleared a hospital so that their wounded could be treated. ISIS fighters then used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood.
Unconfirmed reports also state several other regional Islamic State leaders were killed or injured in the blasts
Al-Baghdadi has declared himself the caliph, or supreme leader, of the vast areas of territory in Iraq and Syria under IS control.
This is not the first time al-Baghdadi has been declared dead. In September social media circulated images of a body said to be that of the caliph. Then, as now, his death was supposed to have been the result of an air strike.
US PUTS MORE BOOTS ON THE GROUND
AUS-led coalition, which includes Australia, has been launching airstrikes on Islamic State militants and facilities in Iraq and Syria for months, as part of an effort to give Iraqi forces the time and space to mount a more effective offensive.
The Islamic State had gained ground across northern and western Iraq in a lightning advance in June and July, causing several of Iraq’s army and police divisions to fall into disarray.
CALIPH’S EUNUCHS: Will ISIS fighters get ‘the snip?’
Yesterday, US President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of up to 1500 more American troops to bolster Iraqi forces, including into Anbar province, where fighting with Islamic State militants has been fierce.
(Reuters) – When Sunni rebels rose up against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in 2011, Turkey reclassified its protégé as a pariah, expecting him to lose power within months and join the autocrats of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen on the scrap heap of the “Arab Spring”.
Assad, in contrast, shielded diplomatically by Russia and with military and financial support from Iran and its Shi’ite allies in Lebanon’s Hezbollah, warned that the fires of Syria’s sectarian war would burn its neighbors.
For Turkey, despite the confidence of Tayyip Erdogan, elected this summer to the presidency after 11 years as prime minister and three straight general election victories, Assad’s warning is starting to ring uncomfortably true.
Turkey’s foreign policy is in ruins. Its once shining image as a Muslim democracy and regional power in the NATO alliance and at the doors of the European Union is badly tarnished.
Amid a backlash against political Islam across the region Erdogan is still irritating his Arab neighbors by offering himself as a Sunni Islamist champion.
The world, meanwhile, is transfixed by the desperate siege of Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town just over Turkey’s border, under attack by extremist Sunni fighters of the Islamic State (IS) who are threatening to massacre its defenders.
Erdogan has enraged Turkey’s own Kurdish minority – about a fifth of the population and half of all Kurds across the region – by seeming to prefer that IS jihadis extend their territorial gains in Syria and Iraq rather than that Kurdish insurgents consolidate local power.
Turkey is thus caught between two fires: the possibility of the PKK-led Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey reviving because of Ankara’s policy towards the Syrian Kurds; and the risk that a more robust policy against IS will provoke reprisal attacks that could be damage its economy and the tourist industry that provides Turkey with around a tenth of its income.
Internationally, one veteran Turkish diplomat fears, IS “is acting as a catalyst legitimizing support for an independent Kurdish state not just in Syria but in Turkey” at a time when leading powers have started to question Turkey’s ideological and security affiliations with the West.
ISLAMIC State group fighters seized at least one cache of weapons air-dropped by US-led coalition forces that were meant to supply Kurdish militiamen battling the extremist group in a border
The cache of weapons included hand grenades, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, according to a video uploaded by a media group loyal to the Islamic State group.
In the wrong hands … The weaponry includes grenades, ammo and grenade launchers. Source: AP
The video appeared authentic and corresponded to the Associated Press’ reporting of the event. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which bases its information on a network of activists on the ground, said the militants had seized at least one cache.
But the lost weapons drop was more an embarrassment than a great strategic loss. The Islamic State militants already possess millions of dollars-worth of US weaponry that they captured from fleeing Iraqi soldiers when the group seized swathes of Iraq in a sudden sweep in June
Currently, IS is more of a marauding horde than functioning state. IS operates more like the Vandals or the Ostrogoths of European history rather than any historic caliphate. Its “citizens” are self-described warriors (jihadists) killing men, capturing women and grabbing booty as they go. Many of its fighters are foreigners from Europe, North America or other Middle Eastern countries, rather than locals who are the core citizenry for anything that can legitimately be called a state.
Beyond effective use of social media for recruitment, there appears to be little of the governance that makes this state a true state. IS’s goal is clear: “purifying” Islam through eliminating competing religious ideologies, whether they are held by other Muslims, such as the Shi’a, or practitioners of other religions, such as the Yazidi and Christians.
All previous caliphates relied on a special class of bureaucrats to provide stability and statesmanship. Those were eunuchs, who were unable to impregnate the women sequestered in the palace. Eunuchs were without family and dependent upon the caliph for support.
The number of women and eunuchs in the central palace during the various caliphates could be quite large. The Caliph al-Muqtadi (908-932) presided over a palace that contained 4000 women, 7000 eunuch guards and menial labourers, plus 4000 eunuch bureaucrats to administer the realm.
As long as IS persists in beheading rather than castrating the males it captures, it has little hope of resurrecting a historic caliphate. Granted IS is already acquiring women, but it has no-one to guard them for the caliph and no infertile functionaries to enact the authority of the state.
While it has been less than a century since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it is clear that a key concept for continuity with the great caliphates of the past has been lost. Simply stated, if the IS doesn’t build a deeply fortified city and start producing eunuch bureaucrats, it will never have the stability and endurance of historic caliphates. The best it can hope for is to be recognised as a 21st-century predatory horde.
It is an academic questions as to which is more barbaric: to behead (murder) or to castrate (mutilate). But of the two choices, if IS continues along its current path, it is likely to be remembered like the Vandals – that is, as murderous marauders who get brief mention in high school history classes.
There is no reason to believe that the state IS aims to develop will be less barbaric than its fighters’ current “jihad”. But al-Baghdadi will have to change how his followers process prisoners if he is sincere about getting his caliphate up and running.
Australia won’t send ground troops to fight Islamic State in Iraq, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says
Updated
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia will not be sending ground troops to fight against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq.
Ms Bishop has met with Iraqi officials to discuss Australia’s role in the US-led coalition against IS militants.
Speaking at a news conference alongside her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari in Baghdad, she said Australia is working with Iraq to see how best to provide further assistance in the region.
“We’ve not been asked and we’ve not offered to [send troops to Iraq]. So I do not envisage that being part of our arrangements with Iraq,” she said.
“We will only provide assistance at the invitation of and with the consent of the Iraqi government.”
Mr Jafaari reaffirmed Ms Bishop’s words and said Iraq considered sending in ground forces as “a red line”.
Last week, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Australia’s special forces had not yet been able to enter Iraq because the Baghdad government had not provided the necessary legal guarantees.
Mr Abbott wants the 200 Australian special operations troops to be offered indemnity from prosecution under Iraqi law, such as that offered to US soldiers.
Iraqi army and police score rare victory in the battle for Baghdad
A JOINT force of Iraqi army and police personnel have staged a brazen attack on an Islamic State staging post west of Baghdad killing 60 militants and providing some relief to locals in the Iraqi capital.
For days ISIS militants have been sweeping through the western province of Anbar toward Baghdad, sacking a number of towns and villages and seizing armaments from a military base the Iraqi army was forced to abandon.
But the joint local force stormed the militants camp in Jaberiya killing up to 60 militants while also killing a number of senior ISIS figures in a second fightback near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar region.
The rare success for local Iraqi forces has provided some relief to coalition forces — involved in Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq — that privately believed the Anbar province would be lost in a matter of days allowing ISIS forces an open back door into Baghdad. Reports the capital could be overrun by jihadists were scotched today.
Despite there having been yet another suicide bomb attack in eastern Baghdad yesterday, for the fourth day in a row the latest killing five civilians and three police at a police checkpoint, those in Baghdad maintain the capital has never been safer.
The Department of Foreign Affairs certainly has advised all Australians to get out of the city and the international airport while they could.
“This time a year ago about every seven days we were having a coordinated wave of attacks where 60, 70 or 80 people were killed, there would be eight or nine bombs that would go off all over Baghdad,” a government official in Baghdad told News Corp yesterday.
“Now there are maybe one or two incidents every couple of days so it’s certainly not nearly as dramatic as it was 12 months ago or even eight months ago but that is no cause for complacency that’s for sure. Robust security measures are in place.”
Baghdad remains a very much divided city with Sunni and Shia areas.
But most of the security forces are Shia so take it as in their interests to defend their city and the official said reports of Baghdad falling into imminent ISIS hands were completely overblown.
There are some 53,000 Iraqi military and police troops in the city.
“The level of violence in Baghdad has gone down in the past six months, the lowest its been in years and security has increased quite significantly in the past four to five months so the ability to undertake violence is reduced somewhat,” the official said.
“The closure of the (Baghdad) airport or something like this would be a major symbolic event and that would not happen. There is a lot (of forces) between us and them.”
Acting Chief of the Defence Force Ray Griggs agreed reports Baghdad was about to fall into ISIS hands was overblown.
THE Islamic State jihadist group says that it has given Yazidi women and children captured in northern Iraq to its fighters as spoils of war, boasting it has revived slavery.
The shocking development comes as researchers revealed thousands of Yazidi men in Iraq were murdered in scenes reminiscent of the Bosnian Srebrenica massacre when IS jihadists hit the Kurdish region in August.
Researchers have pieced together reports of attacks and have concluded that more than 5000 Yazidi were gunned down in a series of massacres by IS fighters, the Mail Online reports.
As the men were massacred, the IS captured and enslaved thousands of women and children.
Innocence destroyed … the IS group has admitted holding and selling Yazidi women and children as sex slaves. Picture: AFP
The latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq released on Sunday was the first clear admission by the organisation that it was holding and selling Yazidis as sex slaves.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis, a minority whose population is mostly confined to northern Iraq, have been displaced by the four-month-old jihadist offensive in the region.
Yazidi leaders and rights groups warned in August that the small community faced genocide and that threat was put forward by Washington as one of the main reasons for launching air strikes.
Thousands of Yazidis remained trapped on a mountain near their main hub of Sinjar for days in August, while others were massacred and the fate of hundreds of missing women and children remained unclear.
In an article entitled “The revival of slavery before the hour”, Dabiq argues that by enslaving people it claims hold deviant religious beliefs, IS has restored an aspect of Islamic sharia law to its original meaning.
NO ESCAPE: Teen girls recall horror being held captive by IS
PURE EVIL: IS leaves headless bodies on streets of Kobane
CLOSE TO HOME: IS magazine calls for “lone wolf” attacks in Australia
Aid … A RAAF plane prepares to drop 15 bundles of humanitarian aid to Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar in August. Source: Supplied
“After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations,” the article said.
“This large-scale enslavement of mushrik (polytheist) families is probably the first since the abandonment of this sharia law,” it said.
“The only other known case — albeit much smaller — is that of the enslavement of Christian women and children in the Philippines and Nigeria by the mujahedeen there.”
Dabiq argued that while the “people of the book” — or followers of monotheistic religions such as Christians or Jews — can be given the option of paying the “jizya” tax or convert, this did not apply to Yazidis.
INSIDE IS: Terror group a well-oiled and slick PR machine
The Yazidi faith is a unique blend of beliefs that draws from several religions and includes the worship of a devil figure they refer to as the Peacock Angel.
In a report also released on Sunday, Human Rights Watch said abducted Yazidi women were subjected to sexual assault and were being bought and sold by IS fighters.
“The systematic abduction and abuse of Yazidi civilians may amount to crimes against humanity,” the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.
According to interviews HRW conducted with dozens of displaced Yazidis in the autonomous region of Kurdistan last month and in early October, the jihadist group is holding at least 366 people.
Accounts by some of the Yazidi women who managed to escape and two who are still being held suggest the true number could be at least three times as high.
One 15-year-old girl who escaped on September 7 told HRW that the Palestinian fighter who bought her “told her with pride” that he had paid $1,000 for her.
She said the fighter took her to his flat in the city of Raqa, the group’s main hub in Syria, and sexually assaulted her.
Human Rights Watch said that the extent of the sexual abuse inflicted to enslaved Yazidi girls remained unclear but stressed that the stigma surrounding rape in Yazidi culture could explain the low number of first-hand accounts.
“When you ask them, they were never or rarely sexually assaulted. Simply put, they are scared of being killed by their own tribe,” Hanaa Edwar, a veteran Iraqi rights activist, told AFP.
“So much harm has been done. There needs to be a huge psychiatric campaign to deal with these victims,” she said.
In an article entitled “the revival of slavery”, published on behalf of “an official Islamic State spokesman”, the group appears to defend its enslavement of women.
It suggests enslaving families and “taking their women” is firmly established in the Koran, and suggestion otherwise would be anti-Islam and “mocking” towards the prophet.
The article threatens enemies that followers of IS will “enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted”, and details conquests in which “women and children were divided according to the Shari’ah among the fighters of the Islamic State”.
It goes on to highlight the disadvantages of abandoning slavery.
“The desertion of slavery have let to an increase in fahishah (adultery, fornication, etc.),” it says.
“This again is from the consequences of abandoning jihad.”
The disturbing messaging comes as humanitarian organisation Human Rights Watch has published a shocking report on Islamic State’s treatment of women and girls.
“The Islamic State’s litany of horrific crimes against the Yezidis in Iraq only keeps growing,” said Fred Abrahams, special adviser at Human Rights Watch.
“At this point of the crusade against the Islamic State, it is very important that attacks take place in every country that has entered into the alliance against the Islamic State, especially the US, UK, France, Australia and Germany,” it states.
“The citizens of crusader nations should be targeted wherever they can be found.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/islams-violent-tendencies/story-fni0ffxg-1227080641770
The man with bilge for brain gives yet another one of his interpretations of the history of the world. A thumbnail sketch that wouldn’t fit on the back of a stamp. Freedom had nothing to do with Christianity the concept of citizen was Greek the separation of church and state had a much greater impact. Bolt seems to have overlooked the influence of the French Revolution.
The idiot says the “the names of organizations tell the story” is he for real? Does the KKK spell Christian Racists? Did the Branch Davidians tell their stories? Did Jones Town represent Bolt’s Christian ‘s ideal of freedom? They and many others like them made claims to the true Christianity. Where was the freedom in any of it? The Church of Scientology according to Bolt it’s in the name. The Boers in South Africa justified the lack of freedom in their version of Christ message. So a mix Sunni radicals calling themselves Daesh, IS whatever they aren’t representative of Islam.
Oh ISIL claiming to have a mandate means fuck all crazies throughout history claim mandates shit Tony Abbott claims a mandate for all sorts of things strange who amongst the Islamic world believe IS has a mandate ” Some non-Muslims might believe they have a mandate and have converted. Some Muslims might as well however the majority don’t. Sunni and Shia in India aren’t slaughtering each other. In Indonesia homosexuals, transvestites and transgender persons aren’t killed or stoned to death. Women are educated run for the highest office in the land and run businesses more so than here.
Again Bolt’s fact three is totally meaningless. It’s strange that Bolt a professed non-Christian believes in and quotes the bible as fact. The fact of Christs life. He sounds like a Dutch Calvinist a Reformationist. The bible is the word. That book has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the years so much it has people dancing with snakes in the name of god. Speaking in tongues in the name of god. Justifying violence against the state in the name of god ( Timothy Mcveigh). Christians have slaughtered apostates throughout history and found it biblically justified. Here we have Bolt a declared non believer telling us the word. What a bullshit artist the man is and such a bad one at that
The Nazi’s had an ideology maybe not god at the centre. Social Darwinism the natural order the evolution of things. It was an Ideology nevertheless to justify their existence. Eugenics was their proof. God wasn’t a central tenet so it had no guilt breaking any agreements it made with the Catholic church. Science ,Eugenics were nominated as their god
“Islam’s violent tendencies” is Bolt’s unsophisticated figment and simplistic justification for his Ultra Racism
Ok whose for ISIL hands up
Since taking Hit on Thursday, Islamic State fighters have raised their flags on the municipality building and police stations, while Islamic State vehicles were patrolling the streets of the town.
Islamic State took advantage of refugees fleeing Hit to enter Kubaisa, 19 km (10 miles) to the east.
A man escaping Hit, named Abu Saif, described approaching the checkpoint for Kubaisa when three or four cars sped up from behind them and shot dead the soldiers guarding the city.
“We thought that they were displaced families as well. They didn’t look like Islamic State militants to us,” Abu Saif said.
The radical Sunni Muslim militants have captured swathes of western and northern Iraq, including the north’s biggest city Mosul in June, as well as large areas of the east and north of neighbouring Syria.
Islamic State: Australian refuelling, surveillance planes join campaign against militant group in Iraq
Updated
Australian refuelling and surveillance planes will today start flying over Iraq in support of the international coalition battling Islamic State (IS) militants, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says.
But Mr Abbott has told Parliament there is yet to be a decision made on when to commit Australian combat aircraft to the fight against what he says is an “apocalyptic death cult”.
Australia last month sent 600 military personnel and eight F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates in preparation for joining the attack on IS targets in Iraq.
“We have not yet made a final decision to commit our forces to combat but Australian aircraft from today will start flying over Iraq in support of allied operations,” Mr Abbott told Question Time this afternoon.
“Ours are support operations, not strike missions.
Tony Abbott is desperate to go to war, but what are the costs Veteran Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh says
The so called Islamic State is a marauding force of Sunni adherents with an ambitious and opportunistic agenda. It seeks to fill the political and military vacuum brought about by the first American invasion of Iraq. Acquiring power behind the shield of religion is its modus operandi.
Commonsense and compassion dictates that the rampaging rebels must be halted and contained. They must be stopped from beheading western hostages, abducting and raping women and executing prisoners of war. But who is it that should stop them?
This is not Australia’s fight.Australia is not threatened in the way Iraq and neighbouring states might feel threatened.This is a fight for a broad coalition of Arab states. In the absence of this why should Australia step up?
Abbott is approaching military involvement as a religious crusade. He has said that anyone fighting for the rebels is against God and religion. The Attorney General, George Brandis, appears to be on the same hymn sheet, describing the “mission” as humanitarian with military elements. They describe the rebels as evil.The original Crusaders saw their missions as an act of love, righting the wrongs of Islamic occupation of the Holy Lands.
As with American entry to the war in Vietnam, this current undertaking is bereft of strategic thinking and planning. There is a forward rush based on emotional footage and commentary.Abbott and his followers are banging an urgent military tattoo, in order to drown out dissent and numb clear thought.
In building the case for war in Vietnam, media outlets in 1963 were swamped with images of village headmen decapitated, hung and disembowelled by the Viet Cong. Emotion and fear was exploited.
The slogan of the time was that it was better to fight Communism in Vietnam than at home. Abbott’s better to fight the Jihadists in Iraq than Australia eerily echoes the propaganda from that earlier ill-judged and failed war. 60,000 Australians served in Vietnam, 521 died and 3,000 were injured.
Nothing was achieved.
America fatally misread the political and social dynamics of Vietnam.Yet here is Abbott, a latter day lap dog, swallowing every grim U.S. ‘intelligent report’ on IS and Iraq, not factoring in the earlier failure of U.S. policy, which has led to the present imbroglio.
How exactly does Abbott believe the U.S. confrontation of IS will proceed to a more successful outcome than Vietnam, the first and second Iraq wars and Afghanistan?
We have gone to war with the IS in conjunction with the Iraqi military in order to support the government of Iraq, but what if the government in Iraq collapses and/or the untrained and uncommitted Iraqi military fades into the desert? Will the ‘Coalition’ continue the war? Will they take over the instruments of the failed Iraqi state?If Vietnam is any guide, the answer is yes — and with predictable and catastrophic results.What if IS should have further success, gaining more ground and assets and, in the process, look and behave more like a functioning state to the point that a number ‒ perhaps a majority of Arab countries ‒ give recognition and trade with the new entity or state.What if they turn against the ‘Coalition’ on the basis that it comprises interfering infidels?
What if the Taliban in Afghanistan use the ruggedness and remoteness of the country to train IS and other fighters?
As the war drags on, or perhaps before even that situation is reached, will the Abbott government introduce a war levy (tax) and re-introduce selective conscription, for what is likely to become an unpopular war? To top off Abbott’s silly and alarming sabre rattling, we have heard little from the immature government he leads regarding the far greater threat to the world posed by the Ebola plague.
Bruce Haigh is a political commentator, conscript and retired diplomat, who served in the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Analysts say west’s action in Middle East could lead jihadists to stay in Britain rather than travel abroad
- The Observer, Sunday 28 September 2014 07.00 AEST
The internal dynamics of the Syrian civil war were less exciting to many potential British jihadists than a conflict between Isis and the west. “Now that [air strikes] are happening, you can see people are more turned on by the west versus Islam conflict, more excited than when the west was a passive participant,” he said.
The MCB said that, although polls showed widespread public support for air strikes, these sentiments were not shared by British Muslims.
Khan said: “Last night a spokesperson for MCB was chairing an event with about 500 Muslims. They did a straw poll with the audience there and then. They put it to the people: how many would be in favour of air strikes? Three people put their hands up. The bombing itself will only create more hatred, ultimately there will be civilian casualties as well. It will feed into the narrative of Isis.”
On the security front, Neumann said the latest intervention in Iraq would pose new logistical challenges for intelligence agencies. “The problem is that you are dealing with several hundred people. It becomes a capacity problem,” he said. “One cannot follow that many people day and night. The problem is that if you do a relatively low-cost operation, take a big knife and behead someone on the spur of the moment, it’s very difficult to stop.”
Sources say they have no intelligence that a specific terrorist attack is planned against the UK, but fear persists that the most likely form of attack will be low-tech and unsophisticated.
First Dog on the Moon on … Isis’s letter to the west
First Dog on the Moontheguardian.com, Wednesday 24 September 2014 15.40 AES
http://www.reuters.com/article/video/idUSKCN0HK1V520140926?videoId=343695083
A threat by Philippine militants to kill a German hostage in a show of solidarity with Islamic State is the latest sign that the Middle East group’s brand of radicalism is winning recruits in Asia and posing a growing security risk in the region.
Over 100 people from Southeast Asia’s Muslim majority countries of Indonesia and Malaysia and the southern Philippine region are believed by security officials and analysts to have gone to join Islamic State’s fight in Iraq and Syria. Malaysian and Indonesian militants have discussed forming a 100-strong Malay-speaking unit within Islamic State in Syria, according to a report from a well-known security group released this week.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, who heads the U.S. Armed Forces’ Pacific Command, said on Thursday around 1,000 recruits from India to the Pacific may have joined Islamic State to fight in Syria or Iraq. He did not specify the countries or give a time-frame.
“That number could get larger as we go forward,” Locklear told reporters at the Pentagon. In addition to India, the Hawaii-based Pacific Command’s area of responsibility covers 36 countries, including Australia, China and other Pacific Ocean states. The command does not cover Pakistan.
In the region, thousands have sworn oaths of loyalty to Islamic State as local militant groups capitalise on a brand that has been fuelled by violent online videos and calls to jihad through social media, security analysts say. Security officials say this has disturbing implications for the region, especially when battle-hardened fighters return home from the Middle East.
The Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf group, which has earlier claimed links with al Qaeda and is led by a one-armed septuagenarian, has threatened to kill one of the two Germans it holds hostage by Oct. 10, according to messages distributed on Twitter. As well as $5.6 million in ransom, the group demanded that Germany halt its support for the U.S.-led bombing campaign launched against Islamic State this week.
Will Australia pay ransom or shrug it off as collateral damage. The pivot of Asia Tony Abbott has abandoned thousands of Australians and put tergets on their backs.
Terror threat from al-Qaeda veterans in Khorasan eclipses that of the Islamic State, US intelligence officials say
- 8 hours ago September 24, 2014
THEY are so dangerous, no one dared to reveal their name until now. Khorasan. The US says this “unholy mix” of militants’ sole mission is to attack the West.
Intelligence showed that the Khorasan group was in the final stages of plotting attacks against the US and Europe, most likely an attempt to blow up an airplane in flight using explosive toothpaste tubes or clothing they had learnt to smuggle on to planes undetected.
They are a collection of veteran al-Qaeda fighters, actively plotting an attack against a US homeland and Western targets.
As a result, they were the central focus of yesterday’s air strikes.
US Central Command said that eight strikes were conducted against the previously unnamed group including training camps, an explosives factory and command facilities.
Revealed to be named Khorasan, it is just one of many al-Qaeda fragments to find a new identity and purpose after the death of Osama bin Laden.
It asserts the sole reason for its existence is to attack the United States and Europe.
The White House believes them.
The Obama administration has said that the Islamic State, the target of more than 160 air strikes in recent weeks, does not pose an imminent threat to the US homeland. The Khorasan group, however, is considered a clear and present danger.
RELATED: Is al Qaeda planning to surgically implant bombs?
US intelligence sources have revealed they have intercepted discussions from Khorasan that prompted a heightened terror alert among airlines and airports earlier this year, with mobile phones and laptops being banned on flights to the US from Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The director of US national intelligence James Clapper named the new terrorist organisation for the first time last week.
RELATED: Missing airliners raise new 9/11-style attack fear
The warning was initially lost amid his dramatic admission that he had “mistakenly misled” Congress about the surveillance of US citizens last year.
“There is potentially yet another threat to the homeland, yes,” he told an intelligence conference.
“In terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as Islamic State.”
Under pressure … US intelligence director James Clapper Source: AP
Until now, US officials have been reluctant to name the group and its members.
Clapper first warned a Senate hearing in January that a group of core al-Qaeda militants from Afghanistan and Pakistan was plotting attacks against the West from Syria. But the group was not named.
Republican Adam Schiff, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, declined to name the group in an interview with AP. But he described concerns among intelligence officials about “an unholy mix of people in Iraq and Syria right now — some who come from (Yemen), some who come from Afghanistan and Pakistan, others from the Maghreb” in North Africa.
“They can combine in ways that could pose a greater threat than their individual pieces. And that’s something we worry about,” said Schiff.
But Republican member of Congress, Mike Rogers, took the threat warning one step further. He says Khorasan is “engaging with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to develop a terror plot to bring down aeroplanes.”
Like the Islamic State, Khorasan spawned amid the confusion and turmoil wracking Syria. Feeding from the US-backed Muslim-based opposition to Syria’s President Assad, the terror cell is reportedly not interested in carving out a new caliphate.
Instead, it draws inspiration from the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. It is reportedly actively recruiting Islamic fighters with Western passports in order to conduct similar strikes.
BORN OF BLOOD
Despite the years of drone missile strikes against the leadership of core al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Yemen, the movement’s offshoots and affiliates remain a threat to the West. It has been rejuvenated in the past year as offshoots have grown in strength and numbers, bolstered by a flood of Western extremists.
Muhsin al Fadhli, 33, is reported to be the leader of the veteran al Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen who have formed the new terror cell.
The name “Khorasan” refers to a province under the Islamic caliphate, or religious empire, of old that included parts of Afghanistan.
A member of al Qaeda since he was a teenager, the New York Times says Fadhli was such a closely trusted adviser to Bin Laden that he was one of the very few who knew of the September 11 attacks in advance.
His terror credentials include organising a suicide attack on an oil tanker in the Red Sea, conspiring to attack a hotel frequented by US officials in Yemen and plotting to attack a US base in Kuwait.
Terror training ground … Afghan security forces stand guard at the site of a suicide attack near Kabul. Al-Qaeda veterans from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen are said to be behind the newly formed Khorasan group. Source: AFP Source: AFP
CNN reports that Fadhli arrived in Syria in 2013 to work with al Qaeda affiliates in the region. Fadhli is said to be copying the Islamic State’s social media recruitment campaign to seek and train Westerners willing to attack their homelands.
US intelligence has expressed fears Khorasan recruits may include some trained by al Qaeda’s master bombmaker in Yemen, Ibrahim al Asiri, who is believed to be the brains behind several attempts to bring down airliners with devices such as exploding underwear and shoe bombs.
According to US intelligence assessments, the Khorasan militants have been testing new ways to slip explosives past airport security.
US officials say it was because of Khorasan’s ties with Asiri that the Transportation Security Administration in July decided to ban uncharged mobile phones and laptops from flights to the US that originated in Europe and the Middle East.
Concealed weapon … Underwear with a six-inch long packet of the high explosive chemical called PETN was smuggled onto Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23-year-old Nigerian suspect on 25/12/2009. Source: AFP
“The group’s repeated efforts to conceal explosive devices to destroy aircraft demonstrate its continued pursuit of high-profile attacks against the West, its increasing awareness of Western security procedures and its efforts to adapt to those procedures that we adopt,” Nicholas Rasmussen, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently told a Senate panel.
US officials have identified some members of the Khorasan group, but would not disclose the individuals’ names because of concerns they would hide from intelligence-gathering.
Intelligence officials have been deeply concerned about dozens of Americans and hundreds of Europeans who have gone to fight for various jihadist groups in Syria. Some of those Westerners’ identities are unknown and therefore they are less likely to draw the attention of intelligence officials when they purchase tickets and board a crowded jetliner heading for European and American cities.
Pressure-cooker … The flow of arms and cash to support those attempting to overthrow Syria’s President Assad has created a safe training ground for terror, intelligence officials have warned. Source: AFP Source: AFP
TRACKING TERROR
A US-led effort to galvanise the international community against what the Obama administration officials call an “unprecedented” threat from Western-based extremists flocking to Syria and Iraq will be taken to the UN this week.
“These are individuals who’ve been trained. These are individuals who have access to military equipment. And these are individuals who have indicated a willingness to die for their cause,” a White House spokesman said.
President Barack Obama is expected to lead the UN Security Council session that begins tomorrow, just the second time a US president has done so.
What President Obama wants out of the UN meeting, a the spokesman said, “is to have a discussion about what kinds of global standards can be put in place to mitigate the threat from these individuals.”
Prying eyes … This file combination of images shows an airport staff member demonstrating a full body scan at Manchester Airport in Manchester, northwest England. Source: AFP Source: News Limited
The Security Council is expected to adopt a resolution that would require nations to bar their citizens from travelling abroad to join terrorism organisations in a bid to stem the flow of Europeans, Americans and members of other Western nations into their ranks.
The US has been dealing for more than decade with the problem of Islamic extremists flocking to various battlefields, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen. But the movement of an estimated 15,000 foreign fighters to the civil war in Syria, which has spilt into Iraq, is an “unprecedented flow,” that creates an increased risk that some of those people will return to their home countries to attempt terrorist attacks, officials said.
And they are also worried about the presence of foreigners within the Islamic State, including the militant with the British accent who appeared to behead two American journalists and a British aid worker.
Off-focus … The National Security Agency (NSA), home of the United States secret surveillance programs, allegedly spying on the electronic communications of US citizens. Source: AFP Source: AFP
SLIPPING THROUGH THE GAPS
US intelligence agencies are working to track Westerners travelling to fight with extremists in Syria, but there are major gaps.
An Obama administration official said last night that the US “didn’t have full knowledge” of the travel patterns of Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman who returned to Europe this year after fighting in Syria. On May 24, prosecutors say, he methodically shot four people at the Jewish Museum in central Brussels. Three died instantly, one afterwards. Nemmouche was arrested later, apparently by chance.
The US also failed to detect when Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American who grew up a basketball fan in Vero Beach, Florida, travelled back home from the Syrian battlefield. He later returned to Syria, and in May killed 16 people and himself in a suicide bombing attack against Syrian government forces.
The US and many European nations already have laws on the books that allow them to prosecute their citizens who attempt to or succeed in travelling to join extremist groups. The UN resolution is intended to prod other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, to step up efforts to stop the flow of foreign fighters. It is also designed to facilitate more sharing of travel data and other intelligence designed to allow the tracking of foreign fighters, the officials said.
The irony is obvious to many of the commenters, understanding the threat starts with those three. It is the continuing follies of U.S. policy and our involvement in them, that make us a potential target for domestic terrorism — not some bogus perceived external threat.( pic above)
If you listen to what U.S. presidents say, they always invoke freedom, peace, democracy and human rights as they launch their brutal forays into other countries. However if you look at what the U.S. does in the world, then it is clear freedom, peace, democracy and human rights are irrelevant to U.S. policy.
The U.S. talks democracy, but doesn’t hesitate to cuddle up to brutal tyrants, nor to overthrow elected governments. Democracies were replaced by repressive and usually corrupt governments with power bases among the wealthy elites. The Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is among the most notorious for his reign of terror, involving torture, murder and “disappearances”, from 1973 until a popular uprising ousted him in 1990.
Iraq played no role in the 2001 attack on New York’s World Trade Centre, but President George W. Bush used the attack as an excuse to invade Iraq, which was allegedly harbouring Al Qaeda groups. Somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 civilians are reported to have died as a result of the invasion and subsequent fighting, effectively retribution for the 3,000 who died in the WTC attack.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, governed by a repressive family plutocracy, is maintained as a staunch ally of the U.S., even though it too is accused of supplying some groups in the Middle East accused of terrorism. The key, of course, is that Saudi Arabia hosts a large fraction of the world’s oil reserves.
Human-rights abuses are being cited as a prime reason for U.S. intervention, yet the U.S. saw no reason to intervene directly in other barbarities ‒ even including genocide ‒ in places like Cambodia from 1975-79, Rwanda in 1994, the civil wars in the Congo over a long period, in Liberia in the 1990s, and many other parts of Africa and the world.
The consistent factor in U.S. policy clearly is to defend or enhance U.S. “interests” — which means, in practice, the commercial interests of U.S. business. Oil underpins all the other interests. U.S. presidents have always allowed their foreign policy to be bounded by the interests of the country’s rich and powerful.
Why is this apparently so beyond the critical faculties of what passes for Australia’s political conversation? That the US is doing what’s always been normal and can’t afford it so coopts us. Iraq will pay for this excercise whatever the outcome.
The solution ‒ not easy, but clearly available ‒ is to desist from further military intervention. There will, unfortunately, continue to be violence within the Middle East, but the defensible course is to try, by nonviolent means, to reduce the violence as much as possible. Intelligence analyst Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning argues for the viability of such an approach
There is already an overwhelming case, from global warming, for a rapid shift away from oil to renewable, non-polluting sources of energy, such as solar-generated hydrogen. The further pursuit of control over oil is wrong-headed in every respect, not least because of its costs in blood and money.
As to the so-called leadership of Australia, it adds the spectacle of being a pathetic lap dog to all the US follies it chooses to be complicit in.
olddogthoughts 
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