Category: Shiia

Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq, Tony Abbott

Aussies go home, Iraqi militias say. Nobody wants you in Iraq Abbott MP’s Shiites or Sunnis why do you ignore them???

Haji Jaafar al-Bindawi, of the Imam Ali Brigades: sceptical of Western motives in Iraq.

Baghdad: Even before a formal announcement, the deal for Australia to help Iraq battle the so-called Islamic State which now controls swaths of Iraq and Syria, drew sharp criticism from forces allied to the Baghdad government.

As Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was finalising the deal for Australian Special Forces.  it was condemned by senior figure in three of the Shiite volunteer militias that now prop up the Iraqi Army on the battlefield.

Haji Jaafar al-Bindawi, chief of training and logistics for the Imam Ali Brigades, told Fairfax Media that the 200 Australians on standby in the United Arab Emirates to deploy in Iraq “should go home”.

Likewise, Adnan al-Shahmani, an MP who serves as a parliamentary and military liaison for several militia forces and who leads his own force in battle, said: “Foreign forces? Never! We don’t need them … in combat or as advisers.

Sunni militia-leader Sheikh Abdul Hamid al Juburi asks why Western air strikes can't win the war with Islamic State.Sunni militia-leader Sheikh Abdul Hamid al Juburi asks why Western air strikes can’t win the war with Islamic State. Photo: Kate Geraghty

“The militias’ objection to Australian and American advisers is part of a greater distrust of Western intentions.

Imam Ali Brigades' Haji Jaafar al-Bindawi makes no promises about what will happen if Australian troops are encountered.

Imam Ali Brigades’ Haji Jaafar al-Bindawi makes no promises about what will happen if Australian troops are encountered. Photo: Kate Geraghty

Asked how the conflict would run, the Imam Ali Brigades’ Haji Jaafar al-Bindawi said that victory would be declared when “the [IS] terrorists have been defeated and we have driven out the returned [US-led] occupation”.

“We don’t need air strikes – unless they are by the Iraqi Air Force.

“More foreign troops? No, we have a million heroes.

“Advisers? No.”

Earlier, Fadil al Shairawi, Baghdad actor and poet who serves as the Imam Ali Brigades’ spokesman, told Fairfax media: “I hope this new experience in Iraq for the Americans will not be a repeat of the last – we were a peaceful people with a full infrastructure, but the US destroyed that infrastructure and made us an aggressive nation.”

That deep suspicion of the West permeated an interview with the MP Adnan al-Shahmani. He argued: “We don’t need a coalition of more than 40 nations to defeat IS, so what’s going on here?

“We don’t need advisers. It’s not complicated – we are at war with a gang of thugs and the Americans say they want to help, but they won’t give us the weapons we need.”

On the Sunni tribal side of the equation, a senior figure – Sheikh Abdul Hamid al Juburi – was derisive about the intent of coalition air strikes.

Claiming to speak for all of the Sunni tribes in central Salah ad-Din province, where IS now controls several major centres, the sheikh argued: “In the war in Yugoslavia, the US was able to use air strikes alone to end the war – why not here?

 

ISIS, Shiia, Syria/iraq

Where are the Sunni tribes. A game over symbol if they joined the fight against Daesh. However they aren’t there

Aftermath ... Security forces inspect the site of a car bomb explosion in the largely Shi

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.

 

 

Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq

State-backed Iraq Shiite militias commit “war crimes,” says Amnesty. Abbot’s allies are Murderers,Kidnappers,and worse a death cult

Iraqi Shiite fighters take part in a parade in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala in central Iraq on October 2, 2014

Shiite militias backed by the Iraqi army are committing war crimes against civilians in their fightback against the Islamic State jihadist group, rights watchdog Amnesty International said Tuesday.

It accused the Baghdad government of supporting and arming groups of Shiite fighters who have carried out a string of kidnappings and killings against Sunni civilians in response to IS’s lightning capture of swathes of Iraqi territory in June.

Amnesty said it had seen evidence of “scores” of “deliberate execution style killings” against Sunnis across Iraq as well as Sunni families having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to free abducted relatives.

Many of those kidnapped are still missing and some were killed even after their families paid hefty ransoms to secure their release, the group said in a report.

The watchdog called on the government of newly-installed Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to rein in the scores of militias targeting civilians across Iraq.

“By granting its blessing to militias who routinely commit such abhorrent abuses, the Iraqi government is sanctioning war crimes and fuelling a dangerous cycle of sectarian violence that is tearing the country apart,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser.

The Sunni extremist fighters of IS seized control of swathes of territory in a June offensive that saw many Iraqi army units abandon their posts.

The group now controls large parts of western and northern Iraq, including the country’s second city of Mosul.

Army missions to regain ground are often conducted alongside allied groups of Shiite fighters, raising fears Iraq is returning to the deadly sectarian violence of the mid-2000s.

“The growing power of Shiite militias has contributed to an overall deterioration in security and an atmosphere of lawlessness,” Amnesty said.

Rights organisations accuse the IS group of widespread abuses, including the targeting of civilians in suicide bomb attacks and carrying out executions on captured soldiers, activists and journalists.

The group boasted on Monday it had revived slavery, providing its fighters with minority Yazidi women and children taken from northern Iraq as spoils of war.

Amnesty accused Shiite armed groups of using the battle against IS as a pretext for carrying out “revenge” attacks on members of the Sunni community.

“Shiite militias are ruthlessly targeting Sunni civilians on a sectarian basis under the guise of fighting terrorism,” it said.

– ‘Government must investigate’ –

The watchdog also accused Iraqi government forces of serious rights violations, including evidence of “torture and ill-treatment of detainees, as well as deaths in custody” of inmates held on terror charges.

It said the body of a lawyer and father of two young children who had died in custody showed bruises and may have been electrocuted by guards.

Another man was given electric shocks and threatened “with rape with a stick” before he was released without charge, Amnesty added.

“Successive Iraqi governments have displayed a callous disregard for fundamental human rights principles,” Rovera said.

“The new government must now change course and put in place effective mechanisms to investigate abuses.”

ISIS, Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq

600 SAS are off to Iraq to train the Iraqi army. The same army of deserters that abandoned their US hardware to ISIS. They have no guaranteed loyalty to the state of Iraq other than$$. Is Abbott doing us any favours??

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.

Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq

Abbott said it was simple baddies vs baddies He can’t ID them. They know who we are and Abbott has put a target on our backs

Mosul dam Isis airstrikes

Isis: the international community has responded just as the jihadists wanted

It is irrelevant what terminology the Australian government chooses to use to defend its involvement in a new war because the declared enemy, Isis, has already set the terms

While it might suit us to imagine this fight in binary terms, a struggle of good versus evil, there is an important point that must not be ignored. This war is pulling together an uncomfortable conglomeration of natural allies and natural enemies on one side and pitting them against an equally messy conglomeration of allies on the other. Within this international coalition there is not even a clear set of values underpinning the agenda and perhaps, more worryingly, there is no clear objective.

Some members of this coalition will be satisfied with diminishing the operational capabilities of Isis. Others will want to see Isis destroyed completely, whatever that means. No convincing argument has yet been made about how bombing specific targets in northern Iraq and Syria will help to destroy an ideology which has spread, cancer-like, radicalising limited but troubling numbers of disaffected young Muslim men and women around the world, including in western Sydney.

Complicating this scenario even further will be the outlying objectives of some members of the international coalition. The Sunni governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have long wanted to see off the Alawite dominated regime of Bashar al-Assad, with its allegiances to Shia Iran and Shia Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Speaking on Sunday, Syria’s deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad put it mildly when he described that approach as “a very dangerous game”

As this drags on, there’s every chance the line will become blurred between radical Sunni Muslim targets and other targets in Iraq and Syria. If, for example Sunni tribes in the north-west of Iraq are not brought back into the fold by a more inclusive national government in Baghdad, how then does the coalition distinguish between them and the radicals? The risk is that what we, in Australia, might see as a clear battle-line between Isis and the rest of the civilized world will be understood in a vastly more nuanced fashion in the Middle East. In truth, this war has a multitude of battle-lines and whilst Australia might be clear about where it stands, it will not always be immediately clear where our partners stand.

The Australian government may have deemed that there is simply no other choice than to commit to this. And they would not be alone in concluding that. But if we are going into battle, we should firstly know if this is in fact “a war”, which side we are on and what precisely it is that we are fighting for.

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Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq

How complicated can this get if Shia don’t want us there? Answer the question Mr Abbott. But you will ignore them wont you

 The mind bogles trying to understand the twists and turns in Iraq. Shiia the enemy of ISIL are demonstrating for them while Sunnis the support base for ISIL are fighting them. Neither want US interferance

Shia Iraqis protest against US interference

Supporters of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protest in Baghdad against US-led coalition targeting ISIL
Thousands of Iraqis have rallied in central Baghdad against a US-led military campaign targeting fighters from the group known as ISIL.

Followers of Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, called on the Iraqi government to reject US interference in the battle against ISIL, as the US-led coalition formed plans to intensify raids against the group.

Sunni tribesmen retake town from ISIL in Iraq

Tribesmen who retook town of Dhuliya say ISIL fighters used chemical weapons during fighting.

 

http://aje.me/1uNoOtK
Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq, Tony Abbott

Remember when Abbott said “more Jakarta less Geneva” what a cretin. He’s spoilt everybody’s Sunni holiday. Try to get Travel insurance

So much for the pivot to Asia

By John Blaxland

Posted about 10 hours agoFri 19 Sep 2014, 10:11am

Focus on the region As Australia battles violent extremism, perhaps we should ask Indonesia what  is the best thing to do.

Our focus on joining the war in the Middle East has effectively derailed the so-called pivot or rebalance to Asia. We should be focussed more on our own immediate region, writes John Blaxland.

This was supposed to be the Asian century. but the Middle East’s shenanigans were like a red rag to a bull.

After the 200,000 or so estimated deaths in Syria in the last few years of conflict failed to crystallise a response, all it took was two American journalists and a British aid worker to be beheaded for the West, led by the US, to be goaded back into the fray.

And to what end?

With the Sunni heartland captured, there was little impetus for them to press far into Shia and Kurdish territory. There’s also considerable local resistance as they are not welcome there by Iraq’s Shia and Kurds, let alone among the concerned neighbouring states.

Defeating them in detail is virtually impossible. They remain well ensconced in Syria and happily blend in among the local population in the cities and towns where aerial precision targeting is of limited utility and generates considerable negative repercussions. Actions in Syria also are likely to earn the wrath of an aggressive Russian administration under Vladimir Putin. Have we thought that through? I think not. Then what do we do?

Support for the US alliance is an enduring priority and one that continues to receive widespread support across the community in Australia. But how much is enough? Are we not better suited at focusing on regional engagement in Australia’s neighbourhood? The Us thought so.

Australia has been surprisingly front-footed about offering to participate in the US-led coalition far from Australia’s shores, citing domestic concerns as a primary motivator for seeking to extinguish the flames of extremism in Iraq. Yet it was in Indonesia, in Bali and Jakarta, where Islamist extremism has most directly affected Australians  not in Australia.

As Australia seeks to deal a blow to violent extremism, perhaps it is appropriate that we ask what Malaysia and Indonesia think is the best thing to do. Perhaps, as modern democracies with a predominantly moderate Muslim electoral base, they might have some pointers for us Mr Abbott. Whether our actions are helping or hindering the cause. Our efforts in the Middle East can be expected to have significant knock-on consequences in South-East Asia as well.The focus on Iraq appears to have effectively derailed the so-called US pivot or rebalance to Asia. Shouldn’t this concern our Australian policymakers, countries, shouldn’t we remain focused on regional security concerns, while America is distracted once again by the Middle East.

Instead Australia has appeared equally willing to abandon the pivot. throwing its weight and its policy efforts into the Middle East rather than its own immediate region.

A significant rethink of policy positions is in order as  it is not the disengagement from the Middle East and beyond that we had been told was to be expected.

We should return to Prime Minster Tony Abbott’s  advice way back when he was spouting  “more Jakarta and less Geneva”, or anywhere else for that matter. Malcolm Fraser is so right that he is the most dangerous PM we have seen.

ISIS, Shiia, Sunni, Syria/iraq

Abbott has become Iran’s man on the ground.

Contradictory interests bedevil US strategy

By Stuart Rollo

Updated 1 Sep 2014, 4:29pmMon 1 Sep 2014, 4:29pm

Kurdish fighters save Iraqi town of Amerli from Islamic State rebels Photo: Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq: The US is a treaty ally with Turkey, which has a long history of suppressing Kurdish independence within its own territory.

To defeat the Islamic State, the United States needs to overcome not only its own split strategic thinking in the region, but also secure the support of Sunnis inside and outside Iraq and Syria. Stuart Rollo writes.

The long-term success of confronting the Islamic State hinges is securing the cooperation of Sunnis, both within Iraq and Syria, and in governments across the Middle-East. Given that G.W Bush killed 60,000 and  assisted in killing some 60,000 plus more it seems like a nigh on impossible task. How do you forgive and forget?

It will need to overcome not only its own split strategic thinking in the region, but also secure the support of its Sunni Arab allies in the Gulf States in a campaign with the essential aim of destroying the main Sunni resistance movement to two widely unpopular Shia governments, which act as proxy states of Iran.

The Islamic State’s success is due not to the appeal of its dogma, but to the local struggles between ruling Shia governments in Iraq and Syria and their disenfranchised Sunni populations.

While the ideological foundations of the Islamic State consist of a Sunni brand of fundamentalist pan-Islamism, the group’s success is due not to the appeal of its dogma, but has been the result of local struggles between ruling Shia governments in Iraq and Syria and their disenfranchised Sunni populations. Those struggles are heavily influenced by the geopolitical maneuverings of their respective Sunni and Shia patrons in the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Rising to prominence as “Al Qaeda in Iraq” in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 US invasion, the group weathered various political and military oscillations there, and were particularly damaged by the US-backed “Sunni Awakening” of 2006, before the 2011 Syrian uprisings provided them with unprecedented opportunity to expand and consolidate their power.

The United States maintains its stance on the illegitimacy of the Assad regime, while the Islamic State has positioned itself as the prime power in the Syrian opposition movement. The United States maintains its support for the Shiia-led government of Iraq, while the Sunni regions, long-backed by America’s closest Arab allies in the Gulf, are in open revolt, having reportedly given their support to the Islamic State.  The semi-autonomous Kurdish region has declared the intention to pursue full independence, at the same time grabbing the oil rich region of Kirkuk from the ailing government in Baghdad.

The US wishes to support Kurdish military forces in their fight against the Islamic State and the system of Kurdish autonomy within Iraq more generally, yet it is a treaty ally with Turkey, a state with a long history of suppressing movements towards Kurdish independence within its own territory, and will not support the full bid for Kurdish independence. The US finds itself navigating the difficult equation of how much arms and training it can provide the Iraqi Kurds to defeat the Islamic State, while minimising the threat that such assistance could pose to the Turkish military in the future.

Perhaps the most spectacular case of contradictory strategic interests for the United States involves Iran. Long the most powerful member of the “Axis of Evil”, and the presumed target of imminent US bombardment for years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been cast in the current conflict as America’s least likely collaborator. A united and Shia-led Iraq is in Iran’s utmost interest, as is the retention of power in Syria of the Assad regime.

The destruction of the Islamic State goes a long way towards securing both of these objectives. The more effectively the United States combats the Islamic State, the better for Iran. The more powerful and secure Iran, the less comfortable America’s regional allies including Saudi Arabia and Israel. For this reason alone the US will find it very difficult to secure genuine, long-term, cooperation from the Gulf States in confronting the Islamic State.

The ramifications of increased US military intervention will have drastic implications on the power dynamics of the region. It is doubtful that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf States will be enthusiastic participants in a military intervention which will empower their bitter regional rival Iran and revitalize the ailing Shia governments in Iraq and Syria that they have worked so hard to destabilize. Without their cooperation the long-term prospects for destroying the Islamic State and securing regional peace become quite bleak.