(Reuters) – The children of refugees who fled Lebanon’s civil war for peaceful Australia in the 1970s form a majority of Australian militants fighting in the Middle East, according to about a dozen counter-terrorism officials, security experts and Muslim community members.
Of the 160 or so Australian jihadists believed to be in Iraq or Syria, several are in senior leadership positions, they say.
But unlike fighters from Britain, France or Germany, who experts say are mostly jobless and alienated, a number of the Australian fighters grew up in a tight-knit criminal gang culture, dominated by men with family ties to the region around the Lebanese city of Tripoli, near the border with Syria.
Still, there is a clear nexus between criminals and radicals within the immigrant Lebanese Muslim community, New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas told Reuters.
The ease with which some hardened criminals from within the community have taken to militant extremism, and the prospect of what they will do when they return home from the Middle East battle-trained, is a major worry for authorities, he said.
In recent years, he said, the divide between criminal gangs and radicals in Lebanese community, who were driven by different motives, had narrowed.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says that at least 20 of the fighters are believed by authorities to have returned to Australia, and that more than 60 people believed to be planning to go to the Middle East have had their passports canceled.
A broad sampling of the areas in Sydney most associated with Lebanese ancestry on the 2011 national census – Auburn, Lakemba, Punchbowl, Granville – show them lagging far behind the rest of New South Wales state on indicators such as income and employment.
“It’s a troubled community as a group,” said Greg Barton, director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University. “So they’re over-represented in petty crime, in organized crime, in religious extremism.”
Aftab Malik, a Scholar-in-Residence at Sydney’s Lebanese Muslim Association who has spent years living in western Sydney’s Muslim community, said he believed the convergence between radical Islam and organized crime was unique to Australia.”I haven’t come across that in the U.S. or in Great Britain. It’s quite specific here and I don’t know why that is,” he said.
When is a war not a war? When is a war really a war?
The answer to those questions is strictly in the hands of whoever is in charge of a country at a particular time.
Tony Abbott badly needed a war, or something like it, when his Government was being shredded a few weeks ago — firstly because he lied to the population about everything his government intended to do. He lied before the election and he lied again after the election when he said he didn’t lie.
The angry backlash had begun to look serious for his Government.
The murderers who appeared out of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham gave Abbott his real opportunity.
War! War! War!
Now U.S. President Barack Obama has decided that
“… we will not get dragged into another ground war.”
Instead it is a “counter terrorism campaign” in the president’s words, but our Tony Abbott decided that it was a war and he is throwing the Australian army and air force right into it.
More recently, Obama has decided that American troops still in Iraq, should be part of a routine policy which America has been following in Somalia and Yemen aimed at securing “national security” and to “protect of our people” — meaning the workers of U.S. oil magnates.
For Tony Abbott, it’s a war. For the U.S. it is not a war.
In Australia, we have a news media today that reeks of sheer bullshit, making headlines of nothing, scaring the pants off many in the population, arguing endlessly about what women should be allowed to wear or not to wear. Inside our population, we undoubtedly have a number of people who have come to Australia and received citizenship but there will always be some who will abuse the freedoms that Australia offers them.
Tony Abbott and his favourite dinner companion Rupert Murdoch are playing a game with the Australian people, while at the same time our police and security forces are doing all that is reasonably necessary to keep us safe. At the same time, we need to be concerned that the opposition side of our parliament must be convinced that Abbott is doing the nation no good.
There are plenty of people in Australia now who are well aware that the country is being taken for a ride for outrageous political chicanery and it needs to be stopped.
I would love to know the subject of the dinner conversations of Abbott and Murdoch. Particularly Murdoch, whose obsolete views on practically everything I learned years ago.
It seems our government has learnt nothing.
Captain Abbott of Team Australia is perhaps in need of a reminder of George Santayana’s well known saying, often repeated by others, that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
I’m old enough to remember the Vietnam War, and how that tragic conflict began with the provision of logistic support, followed by advisers, training, and back up of South Vietnamese forces and then the provision of Australian combat troops.
For the not-so old, and equally disastrously, in 2003, and with the false justification from flawed intelligence, Australia followed the USA into a disastrous war in Iraq.
The result was nearly 5000 coalition troops and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and a less stable nation than it was before the “coalition of the willing” attacked.
And we are still reaping the consequences, 11 years later.
As the Sydney Morning Herald headlined, ‘Abbott has learnt nothing from history’ as he commits Australia not only to humanitarian aid, but also to military equipment, and has not ruled out combat troops..
We have all seen the atrocities emerging from Iraq, as the brutal ISIS commit horrific acts of barbarism in an attempt to fill the power vacuum years of strife and instability in the region has created.
But Western nations sending in armed forces, without a specific mission, with no clear objective and no end in sight, is how we ended up here.
That’s why the Greens’ bill to require a vote of parliament to send our servicemen and women to war (Senator Scott Ludlam Media Release 3 September) seems eminently appropriate to me.
To leave such an important decision up to the prime minister is surely not right.
To commit a nation to any warlike activity surely needs to be a democratic decision.
Other nations across the world, by either law or convention, require their parliament to approve the deployment of troops to war.
In the USA it’s a vote of Congress.
In the UK it’s a vote in the House of Commons.
In Germany it’s the Bundestag.
Parliamentarians here speak at great length about the magnitude of such a decision. And they’re right.
It’s precisely for that reason that these decisions should be scrutinised and debated, and the MPs held accountable for their decision by their electors.
And on top of confirming for the first time that Washington has made a “general request” for more military help from Australia in Iraq, Mr Tony Abbott told Parliament on Wednesday that Australia was considering sending “civil and military capacity-building assistance” to Ukraine.
Perhaps that is why Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was, last week, hobnobbing with presidents, prime ministers and military chiefs at the NATO meeting in Wales.
And there I was thinking she was in need of a geography lesson, having confused the South Pacific with the North Atlantic.
And as John Birmingham wrote, “War drums muffle unrest back home”.
Netanyahu waxed broadly of a Middle East in turmoil on Sunday, in his first public comments on the threat posed to the region by ISIS, a terrorist militia conquering swaths of territory in eastern Syria and northern Iraq.
Threatening a borderless conflict between “extremist Shi’ites,” funded by leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and equally extreme Sunnis— a soft “alliance” between ISIS and al Qaeda— the Israeli prime minister suggested the United States should largely stay out of the fight, and instead allow the parties to weaken one another.
Western diplomats working to end the nuclear crisis holding up such plans should fashion a deal with Iran similar to an agreement reached last fall, brokered by Russia and the US, that rid Syria’s President Bashar Assad of his massive chemical weapons stockpile, Netanyahu said, calling the Syrian accord a “good deal.”
World powers are currently negotiating with Iran in Vienna towards a comprehensive solution to the crisis. The US, Israel and its allies suspect Iran’s nuclear program has military dimensions.
In August, Foreign Policy reported that Islamic State was also trying to develop biological weapons. The report cited information found on a laptop computer seized from an IS operative.
Foreign Policy obtained the computer from a moderate Syrian rebel group who seized the laptop in the Idlib province from an Islamic State hideout whose fighters had fled.
The laptop, belonging to a Tunisian operative of the Islamic State, named Muhammed S., with a background in chemistry and physics, included a 19-page document on developing biological weapons and weaponizing the bubonic plague.
“The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge,” the document says in Arabic, according to Foreign Policy.
Among the files on the seized computer is also a ruling from a Saudi cleric justifying the use of weapons of mass destruction. “If Muslims cannot defeat the unbelievers in a different way, it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction…Even if it kills all of them and wipes them and their descendants off the face of the Earth.”
The British newspaper The Sunday Times reported on Sunday morning that Islamic State is calling on its members to brace for war with Iran in order to take over its nuclear secrets. The newspaper cited a document believed to have been written by top Islamic State member Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, a member of the group’s highly secretive six-man war cabinet.
And have we now forgotten that we spent eight years in Iraq with that same coalition on the pretext of training the new Iraqi Army to deal with any subsequent incursion. Now, just five years later it appears that this same western trained Iraqi army has all but collapsed and can’t even protect its own people. So isn’t it reasonable to ask just what kind of training we gave them over that eight year period? What the hell were we doing?
It’s obvious to anyone that Iraq was a far better governed nation under Sadam Hussien than it is today. It was wealthier, militarily stronger and more than capable of defending itself against its immediate neighbours.Today, it resembles a basket case.
Why hasn’t America intervened in Syria?The reality is that we know nothing of what these air strikes will achieve and will be given nothing but heavily censored, favourably worded reports of “ongoing successes” as the campaign drags on till whenever.Civilian casualties will be concealed or minimised, if not redacted, so as not to upset our delicate sensitivities or impact upon our support. It will be years before the truth comes out.
The strength of Islamic State seems to be somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 depending on which source you believe. Such a disparity in their perceived numbers suggests that nobody really knows. Western intelligence looks to be somewhat flawed. They seem to be making it up as they go along, just like they did prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is the 2003 conflict where today’s problems were born. Michael Brull of New Matilda gives a detailed account of how ISIS came into being; the result of yet another monumental blunder by the invading, conquering Western coalition.
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.
Johnston confident international forces can ‘degrade and delegitimise’ Isis, but warns of ‘quite a long campaign’ ahead.
Defence minister David Johnston has acknowledged weakness in the Iraqi army while Islamic State (Isis) forces are “extremely adaptive” and growing rapidly – making “quite a long campaign” likely for Australian forces.
A western guess is 5,000 fighters in January, but that number had grown to 8,000 in June, 15,000 a month ago and was now 30,000 and growing. If that’s the case aren’t we trying to prevent a reveloution. What numbers does it take to declare the Sunni uprising to have a legitimate cause? The Viet Cong were equally demonized and de-humanized when we went to war with them and they were in our region. However were off to support a half- hearted Iraqi army when the paper work has been cleared after the holiday which might end tonight. Let’s not surprise ISIS mid party. Does anybody get the sense that Abbott has been running a Pythonesque charade here for 3 weeks for his own benefit? If anybody leaks the truth it’s 10 years 20 if you inadvertantly name someone.
In discussions with the prime minister in Iraq, I’ve (Johnston) told him this is a fight the Iraqis must fight.”The defence minister described Australian defence forces as “one of the most restrictive” when it came to avoiding civilian casualties.“This aspect of our operations is at the forefront of our mind,” he said. However according to Obama the leader of this coalition that’s no longer the case. So has Johnston been told yet or is he just blagging us the Abbott way? Truth”let’s not have any civilian casualties, let’s stay focused on the task” sounds total hogwash. Does he really believe ISIS will be in the open desert waving their flags at us or head to towns and commingle.
Tony Abbott reiterated that his government’s national security measures were directed towards terrorism, not a religion. Sorry their focus will be directed at people. People of the security agencies choosing as they did during the Vietnam War. That is anybody that disagrees with them and that will remain on file and impact on their lives.
Abbott’s Churchillian message to Iraq
“In these uncertain times, I have three messages for the Iraqi people”, “First, our government will do everything possible to kill ISIS so get out of our way fuckers don’t commingle. Second, our intelligence measures at home and abroad are directed guessing who they are don’t wear black, a burqa or live in a town. And third, live normally and wave while we try to scare the terrorists with bombs so they will act abnormally and give themselves up”
Australia has been propagandized.
At the same time, however, Hayden said that a much-publicized White House policy that President Obama announced last year barring U.S. drone strikes unless there is a “near certainty” there will be no civilian casualties — “the highest standard we can meet,” he said at the time — does not cover the current U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
The “near certainty” standard was intended to apply “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time,” Hayden said in an email. “That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now.”
There’s a strong whiff of hypocrisy about this new standard for collateral damage.
The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for pursuing an air campaign that cannot possibly destroy the Islamic State. If that is a strategy with limited efficacy, what is the moral argument for continuing to employ it when civilian casualties result? It is one thing when a strategy is well-designed to achieve a specific military objective but quite another when it is not. Obama now is being severely criticized by Isreael. However does anybody even consider that they are all wrong? ISIS hasn’t launched any attacks on American targets (yet), but just the mere potential apparently allows Obama to jettison the same standard he applied to Israel while our ally was under direct and continuous attacks that qualify as war crimes in any sense of the word — from an Islamist terror network not dissimilar at all to ISIS.
The decision not to put a force of ground troops to push ISIS off its ground guarantees that we will create collateral damage like this for months and years to come. If the mission is to “degrade and destroy ISIS” while they remain embedded in these cities and towns, there is no other possible outcome than massive civilian casualties. ISIS will not withdraw under air attack to the desert where they can get bombed and strafed into oblivion, after all, and without ground forces, we won’t have the means to hold any ground we might liberate anyway. Nor will we have the specific intelligence needed to avoid mistakes that happen in any war.
Remember this name Tony Abbott you voted for him I didn’t. He will kill not some “devil cult” but he will kill a lot of families like yours and mine.
A look at some of the reports from independent journalists, aid workers and a handful of U.N. inquiries shows no evidence of Assad committing genocide against his own people. Rather most of the atrocities committed since June 2011 can be laid squarely at the feet of the Al Qaeda based foreign backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Farouq, and Al Nusra. It is these groups which are now being labelled “moderate rebels” and which the U.S. now seeks to arm against Islamic State.
How long will the U.N. charter of non-interference hold up in the face of this convenient new threat? It’s true the Iraqi government, such as it is, has pleaded for western support against the onslaught of Islamic State, but don’t be fooled. So far as the 2003 invasion is concerned it’s mission accomplished. With the job of removing Saddam Hussein and destabilising Iraq now complete, save for establishing a permanent Kurdish state, our work in Iraq is done. It’s time now to move on to our next target – Syria.
As the dust of history settles it’s interesting to watch the official narrative take shape. Saddam was by all accounts a monster, but his Baath party were seen as a secular, pluralist government, and let’s face it, it was the U.S. which put him in power in the first place. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is now universally acknowledged as an illegal war based on a false premise. In time I’m sure the same will be said of Libya.
Let’s not forget that while the great western democracies are used to knife edge elections, just like Gaddafi in Libya, Bashar al Assad has the overwhelming support of his people. Abbott likes to talk about his mandate, as though a 2% to 3% electoral swing can really be called a landslide victory. Perhaps he should consider this: Assad was democratically elected by an 88% majority and still enjoys the popular support of most Syrians.
Islamic State has its roots in Syria and it’s pretty bloody obvious that the only player with any real hope of defeating them is the Syrian Arab Army. If ‘degrading and destroying’ Islamic State is the true objective of the current intervention, then the most logical way to achieve this outcome is by supporting the Syrian government. (I refuse to refer to them as the Assad regime.) Otherwise, what the hell are we doing? Fixing the mess we created in the first place, or simply repeating it?
Will we follow the US into Syria? Undoubtedly. What will be the result? Another bloody mess? Another failed state where terror groups are allowed to operate freely? Already this conflict has created 11.5 million refugees. How many more will there be? Since the end of WWII 90% of all war casualties have been civilians. What will the death count be this time around? What will be the ‘collateral damage’? More to the point, why is nobody talking about the elephant in the room? As new geo-political alliances are forged, what will be the ultimate result of creating such a formidable enemy right on Israel’s doorstep? Or was this part of the plan all along?
Unfortunately, jihadists make headlines while those who wage the anti-jihad rarely do. After all, everyone has heard of Osama bin Laden, but few know of those standing up to would-be bin Ladens across the globe.
In the 1990s, the women’s group known as the Algerian Rally of Democratic Women or RAFD (Refuse) dared to do just that during a “dark decade” of jihadist atrocities committed by the Armed Islamic Group battling the Algerian state. That violence claimed as many as 200,000 lives.
Through acts like these, activists helped galvanize and display the population’s burgeoning rejection of an Islamic State project in Algeria. Nevertheless, RAFD’s work received little attention internationally.
When the West frames the conflict in this way, it can come across as a “clash of civilizations.” But this is not the case. There is a clash of ideologies—not civilizations—and it is taking place within each and every country affected by extremism.
The public relations battle of the ‘anti-jihadists’ is a critical part of the struggle against groups like ISIS—just as important as the military campaign. That is why the international community must do a better job to support those who are today’s version of RAFD, and to recognize that they represent a legitimate voice from within their societies.
Inside the danger zone, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) publicly denounces ISIS for its genocidal campaign against minorities, for raping women, imposing strict female dress codes and operating a “concubine market” that reportedly sells women and girls into sexual slavery. OWFI runs emergency phone lines and even a safe house for women fleeing ISIS persecution.
The Iraqi architect Yanar Mohammed, an opponent of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, founded the group in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Her goal was to promote women’s rights by advocating a secular, non-sectarian Iraq. Like the women of RAFD before them, OWFI faced threats– in this case from both Sunni and Shiite extremists. The founder once received an email with the subject heading, “Killing Yanar.”
Despite her bravery, Yanar once told me that she had limited access to Western media. This echoes what RAFD spokeswoman Zazi Sadou recently told me about the international response to their efforts: “No one wanted to hear us.” Even today, the West is still not listening to the voices of Iraqis who are standing up to the extremists. This must change.
If the international community wants more individuals to fight back, it must offer them support. While Qatari coffers have nourished jihadists across the region, secular groups who fight Islamists scrounge for funds.
If all this is not addressed then there is a real risk that Muslim fundamentalists–armed with money, weapons, foreign fighters and emotive religious rhetoric– will win both propaganda and military battles
According to Abbott IS insurgency in Northern Iraq and Syria had declared “war on the world” and was an “apocalyptic death cult”
” We have not yet made a final decision to commit our forces to combat but Australian aircraft from 1/10/2014 will start over Iraq in support of allied operations”
However Australia’s new AFP chief Andrew Colvin said
“the low- tech terrorism of Islamic State represented a new kind of threat that would take years to stamp out”
Quite different from Abbott’s “world directed apocalyptic death cult”.
The two seem to be on different pages of the hymn book. However Abbott’s delay while all other coalition countries are flying sorties appears to be a document one. That Australia is being more exacting in its requirement for legal indemnity that the sheer amount of paper work is holding up Abbott’s war. What the fuck is this man trying to extort out of his apocalyptic emergency? The resettlement of Asylum seekers?
So after 3 weeks Australian airstrikes are on hold waiting for clearances from Iraq and a decision I repeat a decision by us.
Senior ADF personnel are expressing their official concerns about the delay given the rest of the coalition are in action. Julie Bishop tells us of the” gathering momentum” but not by us Julie wear are holding the coats in this fight it would seem.
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.
“ISIL will claim that our involvement in this international effort is the reason they are targeting us, but these people do not attack us for what we do, but for who we are and how we live.”
Despite this narrative’s denial of the truth, the harsh reality is Australia has caused the threat to itself by striding clumsily with guns blazing and meddling in Middle Eastern affairs — something that began with military action in Afghanistan in 2001.
Last Monday, in a call for action against it enemies, ISIS urged its members to kill civilians and soldiers of the nations aligned against it, naming Australia.
They did this not because Australia is a liberal democratic country, but rather because Australia has allowed itself to become embroiled in Middle East politics and line up as an ally and soldier on the battlefield with the United States.
Why then would the PM come out and claim differently?
The prime minister is playing a political game, attempting to frame the threat to Australia in a way that absolves Australia as the cause of the threats itself.
Government needed to own the intervention and breakage it made, respectively, in 2001 and 2003 to show good faith with voters and to reduce the vicious Islamophobia we are now, unfortunately, seeing spread like wildfire through the community.
Daniel Flitton for the Age writes that tracking money when coming from various sources is exceptionally difficult. Charities were particularly vulnerable to exploitation by terrorist supporters.
“Money raised legitimately can be commingled with fund raise specifically to finance terrorism”
It might be used for family support of terrorists who died. In other words for compassionate reasons. Very few have been discovered in Australia. A more common form of money transfer was known as “hawala” where payments are made across the globe with little documentation but a lot of trust. This form of money transfer was exceptionally common place and not used only by Muslims. Money, is transferred around the world by Indian business men on trust unregulated yet guaranteed to reach the other end. A system that would collapse in western hands.
AUS-TRAC and ASIO would be simple minded to believe terrorist organizations used simple bank to bank transfers even via third parties to terrorists. Bitcoin is a headache for them as is TOR encryption so all they seem to be doing is catching minnows Maybe that explains why it took 100 police to arrest one suspect.
The government says that 60 Australians are suspected of being in Syria/Iraq. It’s not known if they are fighters some are believed to be in the refugee camps. It’s why the government has put the burden of proof on them when they come home or cancelling their passports before they do. Again this young man from Seabrook may not have been supporting a US terrorist fighter at all it all. It remains ‘alleged’ or ‘suspected’.
These terrorist groups have been established for over 10 years certainly wouldn’t consider crowd sourcing as the primary means of funding these sorts operations are more likely to be state criminally funded and the source of those funds has always been difficult to stop.
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.
The family of 56-year-old Sydney resident Sayed Habib Musawi have told the Guardian Australia his body was found on Tuesday with signs he was tortured before being killed.
The ABC reports Mr Musawi was was pulled off a bus by Taliban militants between Kabul and Ghazni province, where he was visiting family.
Reportedly tortured and killed by the Taliban … Sydney resident Sayed Habib Musawi. Source: Facebook
Ghazni’s deputy governor Mohammad Ali Ahmadi said Mr Musawi was targeted for being an Australian citizen.
“Of course the reason is that he was an Afghan-Australian,” Mr Ahmadi told the ABC’s AM program today.
“He didn’t do anything besides that – he didn’t do anything wrong, he wasn’t a criminal, he wasn’t involved in government activities.
Mr Musawi had lived in Australia since 2000. Source: Supplied
Mr Musawi had lived in Australia since 2000 and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing his family with consular assistance. “The Australian Embassy in Kabul continues to seek to confirm reports an Australian-Afghan dual national has been killed in Afghanistan,” a department spokesman told AAP.
“The area where these events reportedly occurred is contested by the Taliban and it will be difficult to obtain definitive and official confirmation of the man’s death from the Afghanistan government.”
Mr Musawi’s 23-year-old son Nemat Musawi told ABC radio this morning that the family was “devastated”.
“It seems like it was all set up, because they just stopped the bus on the way to Ghazni and then they just went straight to my dad,” he said.
“Everyone has been in shock, it’s just unbelievable,” Mr Musawi’s daughter Kubra Musawi told the Guardian.“He’s an Australian citizen and yet nothing’s happened yet.
Ms Musawi, who lives in the Sydney suburb of Berala, says she wants DFAT to “find out how the Taliban knew how [her] dad was going back to Kabul”.
Habib’s destination … an aerial view of Ghazni, considered to be in one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan. Picture: Shah Marai Source: AFP
“He wasn’t anything to do with the government there. They just wanted to stop him coming back to Australia. I don’t want anyone else to experience this. Every minute we think of my brother’s family who are still there, I can’t study or work because of the stress of it.”
Habib’s wife and youngest son, who lives in Melbourne, travelled to his funeral in Jaghori, where he was buried.
Afghanistan remains listed as a “do not travel” destination under Australian government advice to travellers.
Our shock-jock hate mongers like Andrew Bolt put a target on this woman’s back that cried Muslim. She never made it home either.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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
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.
‘Terrifying’ Tony Abbott is using the politics of fear to bully the Australian people into liking him and letting him to take away some of their rights and freedoms, writes Lyn Bender.
With each new threat from ISIL, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is shamelessly fanning the fires of terror in the hope we will forget his shortcomings blunders and buffoonery.
In Abbott Land — security has become insecurity.
But, nevertheless, now a reactive, fearful and fear-manipulating leader is now catapulting us into war. Tony Abbott struts ‒ or more correctly frets ‒ on the world stage: a small frightened man, determined to hold onto his fifteen minutes of fame.
Is western involvement in another war the answer or the problem?
Even Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has said that ISIL is an ideology that cannot be defeated in the battlefield alone.
But things could always be worse. Remember when Abbott’s alpha male posturing to ‘bully’ Putin and his threats to send in armed troops for ‘Operation bring them Home’.
Abbott’s idea of sending an armed defence force to Ukraine was branded as insane in a Fairfax headline:
Abbott is widely acknowledged as a serial liar. And the lies and broken promises continue.
The latest lies relate to what is being dubbed as ‘operation mission creep’.
At first, it was a humanitarian mission to deliver aid to besieged Iraqis. Now it has morphed into a mission to destroy the “death cult” of ISIS and to “respond with extreme force”.
When it comes to understanding and responding to ISL in Iraq, it’s complicated. When it comes to Tony Abbott’s ability to comprehend the global political sphere, it’s simplistic.
“It’s not goodies versus baddies but baddies versus baddies.”
In Abbott’s black and white world there are no shades of grey.
Except when defending baddies as being goodies.
Abbott has excused Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s appalling human rights record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A6MVRAk5Ohk
Justifying torture, he explained:
“Sometimes in difficult circumstances difficult things happen.”
As Rodney E. Lever points out:
‘It is difficult to believe that Tony Abbott knows what he is doing in committing Australia to a third war in Iraq.’
But there is method in the synchronising of fear announcements and photo shoots.
Abbott’s mentor, former Prime Minister John Howard, has allegedly lied on national television on Sunday about leading us into Iraq on false intelligence and by ignoring expert weapon’s inspector Hans Blix.
There were no weapons of mass destruction and Howard allegedly knew this for two years prior to the invasion.
Tony Abbott ‒ like his father-figure, Howard ‒ is again leading us into dangerous waters and setting Australia up as a terrorist target.
Australia is now named on the hit list in a video believed to be from ISIS. It exhorts the killing of infidels in countries including Australia who have joined the Coalition to attack ISIS. Abbott is seeking greater powers, with limited scrutiny.
The fusion of passion for military adventures, and the political exploitation of fear, is a dangerous mix. Abbott may be creating the terror he is claiming to lessen.
Disturbingly, he is now saying we may need to give up some of our rights and freedoms to lessen the terror threat.
“…for some time to come, Australians will have to endure more security than we’re used to, and more inconvenience than we’d like. Regrettably, for some time to come, the delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift.”
Even more worrying, Abbott flags discriminating against certain sections of society — presumably Muslims:
“There may be more restrictions on some so that there can be more protections for others.”
He is asking us to let him persecute certain members of our society for the greater good. That is not democracy.
Moreover, he is asking us trust him to act honestly and decently in the national interest.
From
Team Bull you are either against us or with us in the shoot!
Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and born again Blair vs the Australian Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wilkie ex of Australian Intelligence who advised us that despite all intel and UN advice that there was no evidence of any WMDs in Iraq. Who should we believe John Howard who is now apologising for being dumb. He and the USA were all dumbed out by the info but the decision to invade but it was still right. Or the majority historical opinion that the power vacuum it created and we are experiencing today was not justified by bullshit but what?. Whose word should the true integrity of that decision be decided the participants, historians or Andrew Bolt who says history should take a back seat from the point of his birthin 1959. The man is a media warmonger after all
Howard says Wilkie an ex ADF intelligence officer ex LNP member is wrong despite being embarassed. Malcolm Fraser said it then and is still saying it now.
Independent MP says former prime minister should be ‘deeply ashamed that he lied’ over the 2003 invasion of Iraq
MP Andrew Wilkie “I was shocked to see that John Howard is only embarrassed, almost embarrassed for himself. What he should be is deeply ashamed that he lied to the Australian public 11.5 years ago, and took us into an unnecessary war, a war that has killed countless Iraqis and other people, which effectively destroyed that country and created the conditions for the rise of not just the Islamic State but other groups,” Wilkie told reporters in Canberra.
“Look frankly I’m disappointed that the prosecutor at the international criminal court hasn’t thought to hold John Howard responsible for conspiracy to commit mass murder.”
Howard argued the 2003 invasion did not play a major role in the rise of Isis which now holds large swathes of Syria and northern Iraq.
Wilkie said Howard should have made a “compelling humanitarian” case for dealing with Saddam Hussein in 2003 and told the voters the invasion was about Australia’s bilateral relationship with America, not WMDs.
When asked again if he was suggesting Howard was partly responsible for the rise of Isis, Wilkie responded “I’m not suggesting it, I’m stating it as fact”.
“If we had not gone to war 11.5 years ago, and destroyed that country and created this security vacuum, then the circumstances would not exist for Islamic State to have emerged and to grown strong and to conquer the land that it does. So yes, they are responsible.”
For a number of days Tony Abbott has been chattering about killing the ‘devil cult’ doing wharever it takes to stop them in their tracks. Like echos words rebound and we don’t like what we hear. ISIL couldn’t give a shit about Australia and Australians then. It does now thanks to Tony Abbott. He has left Australians the world over with a problem not just here. What is he going to do about their security?….Nothing. Malcolm Fraser said he was dangerous.
The Islamic State has urged its supporters to go out and kill Western civilians, including Australians, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned the nation would have to sacrifice freedoms for security against terrorism in what he called these “darkening times”.
In a chilling message posted online, the terrorist group called for indiscriminate violence by any means in countries preparing to go to war against its fighters in northern Iraq and Syria.
“Australians will have to endure more security than we’re used to”: Tony Abbott addresses Parliament on the terrorist threat on Monday. Photo: Andrew Meares
The statement, attributed to chief Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al Adnani, mentions Australia three times in 11 pages of apocalyptic threats against “crusaders”.
“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” he said.
“Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever, whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers.”
Abu Muhammad al Adnani, ISIL’s chief spokesman.
Clearly calling for followers to martyr themselves, Adnani says that if IS supporters cannot obtain a bomb or a gun to kill a Westerner, they should “smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him or poison him”.
Adnani is a top figure in the militant group, having served as offical spokesman and senior leader since it rose to prominence last year.
His exhortation comes just days after police smashed an alleged plot in Sydney to kill random Australians on camera and as world leaders prepare to meet in New York to discuss how to combat the problem of foreigners travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight.
Mr Abbott, who will fly to New York on Tuesday for the United Nations sumitt, made a special address to Parliament on national security and warned the “delicate balance” between freedom and security would have to be recast.
“Regrettably, for some time to come, Australians will have to endure more security than we’re used to, and more inconvenience than we’d like,” he said.
“The delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift. There may be more restrictions on some so that there can be more protections for others. After all, the most basic freedom of all is the freedom to walk the streets unharmed and to sleep safe in our beds at night.”
Mr Abbott welcomed Labor standing “shoulder to shoulder” with the Coalition on the terrorism threat, saying “it lets our enemies know that they will never shake our resolve”.
But Islamic State appears determined to test that resolve. Its threat against Australians is the most concrete yet.
Adnani’s statement is troubling as it tells followers they need no further approval of a Muslim cleric or from within the hierarchy of the Islamic State.
This is distinct from the approach of al-Qaeda, whose late leader Osama bin Laden maintained a tight, centralised control over violent activities. It also differs from the protocol of some previous plots in Australia, such as the plan to attack Holsworthy Barracks in Sydney, which was thwarted while the plotters were awaiting the sanction of a cleric.
Adnani calls US President Barack Obama a “mule of the Jews” and US Secretary of State John Kerry an “uncircumcised old geezer”.
The statement threatens not just to beat back any military campaign in Iraq and Syrian but also to go on the offensive, even if it takes generations.
“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted,” it says. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”
A spokewoman for Mr Abbott said counter-terrorism agencies considered the statement to be authentic.
“Australian agencies regard the statement issued today by ISIL calling for attacks against members of the international coalition, including Australians, as genuine,” she said.
“ISIL will claim that our involvement in this international effort is the reason they are targeting us, but these people do not attack us for what we do, but for who we are and how we live.”
Former British Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave his backing to President Barack Obama’s strategy to overwhelm IS with military force.
“The president is absolutely right to take on [ISIL] and to build the broadest possible coalition,” he said.
“We’ve got absolutely no choice but to do this, and not just in order to destroy the onward march of [ISIL] but to send a very strong signal to the other terrorist groups operating in the region. We intend to take action and see it through.”
In his address in reply, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten laid out why Labor backs war against IS.
“Labor recognises that sometimes there is simply no alternative,” Mr Shorten said. “Put plainly, we cannot negotiate with ISIL because there is nothing rational about what they seek to do. ISIL and their like wish only to do harm, to spread the bitter hatred that fuels their genocidal intent.”
Mr Shorten said he rejected the charge that Australia’s engagement in Iraq had made the country more of a target for terrorists.
(Reuters) – Iraqi soldiers described on Monday how Islamic State fighters inflicted heavy losses in a chaotic raid on a military base just an hour’s drive from Baghdad, highlighting the jihadists’ ability to attack high-profile targets despite U.S. air strikes.
Like at Camp Speicher, it remains unclear how many men were present at the base in Saqlawiya and how many are now dead and missing. However one officer who survived the raid said that of an estimated 1,000 soldiers in Saqlawiya, only about 200 had managed to flee.”This failure is not the fault of the soldiers … the mistake was that of the military leadership, they failed,” said the officer, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“We were without ammunition and without food. Every time we contacted military commanders, they promised to send helicopters to air drop reinforcements but nothing happened,” said the officer, who fled to another base close to Falluja on Sunday. “We … were drinking salty well water and eating canned tomato paste.”
About 200 soldiers managed to escape the base on Sunday after battling with the militants in the area which soldiers call the “kilometer of death”.
On Wednesday, the insurgents sent a Humvee vehicle rigged with explosives into the camp. Guards mistakenly assumed that an army driver was at the wheel.
“When it exploded, it caused a lot of confusion. Islamic State exploited that and entered the camp. Now most of regiment headquarters within the base are under the control of Islamic State,” said the officer, adding that one, small army unit remained besieged in the camp.
Shia Iraqis protest against US interference |
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Supporters of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protest in Baghdad against US-led coalition targeting ISIL |
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| 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.
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Posted
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.
Updated
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.
olddogthoughts 
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