Tag: Iraq

Abbott, ISIS, Weapons

Our allies the US- backed Iraqi Military gave them the weapons. What will happen to the weapons after resupply. Is that why we are the to train them not to give away the weapons? Like the Immigration Dept the Defense Department has gone silent

ISIS rebel militant soldiers on the frontline

Isis has enough weapons to carry on fighting for two years, UN warns

A new report prepared for the United Nations Security Council warns that the militant group known as the Islamic State (Isis) possesses sufficient reserves of small arms, ammunition and vehicles to wage its war for Syria and Iraq for up to two years.

The size and breadth of the Isis arsenal provides the group with durable mobility, range and a limited defense against low-flying aircraft. Even if the US-led bombing campaign continues to destroy the group’s vehicles and heavier weapons, the UN report states, it “cannot mitigate the effect of the significant volume of light weapons” Isis possesses.

Those weapons “are sufficient to allow [Isis] to continue fighting at current levels for six months to two years”, the UN report finds, making Isis not only the world’s best-funded terrorist group but among its best armed.

Isis, along with its former rival turned occasional tactical ally the Nusra Front, are sufficiently armed to threaten the region “even without territory”, the report concludes.

The report, months in the making, recommends the UN implement new steps to cut off Isis’s access to money and guns.

The Isis arsenal, according to the UN assessment, includes T-55 and T-72 tanks; US-manufactured Humvees; machine guns; short-range anti-aircraft artillery, including shoulder-mounted rockets captured from Iraqi and Syrian military stocks; and “extensive supplies of ammunition”. One member state, not named in the report, contends that Isis maintains a motor pool of 250 captured vehicles.

Much of the Isis weapons stocks, particularly “state of the art” weaponry stolen from the US-backed Iraqi military, was “unused” before Isis seized it, the report finds. But some of the relatively complex weapons “may be too much of a challenge” for Isis to effectively wield or maintain.

Earlier this year, speculation focussed on Isis’s potential ability to produce chemical weapons after it seized Iraqi facilities that had contributed to Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons programs, but the UN report casts doubt on the likelihood that Isis possesses the “capability to fully exploit material it might have seized”. Nor does the UN report believe that Isis can manufacture its own chemical or other weapons of mass destruction.

But at least one anonymous member state has provided information about “chemicals and poison-coated metal balls” placed inside Isis’s homemade bombs to maximize damage. In October, Kurdish forces defending the Syrian town of Kobani from Isis reported cases of skin blistering, burning eyes and difficulty breathing after the detonation of an Isis bomb.

The UN Security Council is expected to take up consideration of the report on Wednesday.

The report recommends the UN adopt new waves of sanctions designed to disrupt the well-financed Isis’s economic health. Significant among them is a call for states bordering Isis-controlled territory to “promptly seize all oil tanker trucks and their loads” coming in or going out.

While the report warns that Isis has alternate revenue sources, and does not predict that truck seizures can eliminate Isis’s oil smuggling money, it holds out hope that raising the costs to smuggling networks and trucking companies will deter them from bringing Isis oil to market.

To combat Isis’s ability to resupply its weapons stocks and launder money, the report recommends the UN mandate that no aircraft originating from Isis-held territory can land on airstrips in member states, and to prohibit flights into Isis-held territory. Exemptions would be made for humanitarian relief planes.

The report comes on the heels of an October report to the Security Council assessing that 15,000 fighters from 80 countries have flooded into Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Isis and other militant groups.

While still months off, the US has indicated it will intensify its fight against Isis, primarily in Iraq. After doubling the US troop commitment there, defense officials have said the US will bolster 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades, and may even join in the Iraqi fighting for key terrain, such as the borderlands between Syria and Iraq or the city of Mosul.

ISIL, Sunni Tribes

Intel suggested Sunni tribes could be recruited against ISIL. It was reasonable to predict after the Maliki government the opposite was more likely and they have supported ISIL

Iraq, U.S. find some potential Sunni allies have been lost

By Ben Hubbard, NEW YORK TIMES
November 15, 2014

0

US News

BAGHDAD – When the militants of the Islamic State entered the Sunni Arab area of Al Alam, they gave its tribal leaders a message of reconciliation: We are here to defend you and all the Sunnis, so join us.

But after a group of angry residents sneaked out one night, burned the jihadists’ black banners and raised Iraqi flags, the response was swift.

“They started blowing up the houses of tribal leaders and those who were in the security forces,” Laith al-Jubouri, a local official, said. Since then, the jihadists have demolished dozens of homes and kidnapped more than 100 residents, he said. The captives’ fates remain unknown.

Manipulating tribes

In the Islamic State’s rapid consolidation of Sunni parts of Iraq and Syria, the jihadists have used a double-pronged strategy to gain the obedience of Sunni tribes. While using their abundant cash and arms to entice tribal leaders to join their self-declared caliphate, the jihadists have also eliminated potential foes, hunting down soldiers, police officers, government officials and anyone who once cooperated with the United States as it battled al-Qaida in Iraq.

Now, as the U.S. and the Iraqi government urgently seek to enlist the Sunni tribes to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, they are struggling to undo the militants’ success in co-opting or conquering the majority of them.

ISIS succeeding

Officials admit little success in wooing new Sunni allies, beyond their fitful efforts to arm and supply the tribes who were already fighting the Islamic State – and mostly losing. So far, distrust of the Baghdad government’s intentions and its ability to protect the tribes has won out.

“There is an opportunity for the government to work with the tribes, but the facts on the ground are that ISIS has infiltrated these communities and depleted their ability to go against it,” said Ahmed Ali, an Iraq analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “Time is not on the Iraqi government’s side.”

Much of the Islamic State’s success at holding Sunni areas comes from its deft manipulation of tribal dynamics.
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al-Abadi, General Martin Dempsey

US military considers sending combat troops to battle Isis forces in Iraq

Hagel and Dempsey on Isis

The top-ranking officer in the American military said on Thursday that the US is actively considering the direct use of troops in the toughest upcoming fights against the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq, less than a week after Barack Obama doubled troop levels there.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, indicated to the House of Representatives armed services committee that the strength of Isis relative to the Iraqi army may be such that he would recommend abandoning Obama’s oft-repeated pledge against returning US ground troops to combat in Iraq.

Retaking the critical city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest, and re-establishing the border between Iraq and Syria that Isis has erased “will be fairly complex terrain” for the Iraqi security forces that the US is once again supporting, Dempsey acknowledged.

“I’m not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by US forces, but we’re certainly considering it,” he said.

As Dempsey and the US defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, testified, Isis released a new audio message purported to be from its self-proclaimed leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an apparent refutation of suspicions that Baghdadi was killed or critically injured in air strikes over the weekend.

With last week’s ordered US troop increases, designed to aid Iraqi campaign planning against Isis and to prop up 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades, US troop levels in Iraq will soon stand at 3,000.

Even with potential US involvement in ground combat looming, Dempsey and Hagel said further troop increases would be “modest” and not on the order of the 150,000 US troops occupying Iraq at the height of the 2003-2011 war.

“I just don’t foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent,” Dempsey said.

But should the Iraqi military prove unwilling to take back “al-Anbar province and Ninewa province” – the majority of territory in Iraq seized by Isis – or should the new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, exclude Sunnis from power, “I will have to adjust my recommendations,” Dempsey said.

Dempsey has previously described Mosul as potentially the “decisive” battle of the war against Isis, an assessment backed by General Lloyd Austin, the US Central Command chief who is running the war. Austin signaled last month that an Iraqi-led campaign was months away, owing to insufficient combat prowess on the Iraqis’ part.

Representative Buck McKeon, the retiring California Republican who chairs the panel, said that he would not support a congressional authorization for the war against Isis that ruled out direct US ground combat.

“I will not support sending our military into harm’s way with their arms tied behind their backs,” McKeon said, predicting that an authorization explicitly preventing ground combat would be “DOA in Congress”.

Hagel said that he did not “know specifically what they will propose” in terms of language for the authorization, which Obama said he would seek after last week’s midterm elections drubbing which has handed the Republicans control of Congress.

Dempsey and Hagel were more definitive about a looming expansion of the US air war, which has delivered approximately 800 air strikes since August. Hagel told the panel that “the tempo and intensity of our coalition’s air campaign will accelerate” as the Iraqi forces “build strength” under renewed US mentorship.

Over the past week, US officials have indicated openness to adjusting or revising a strategy against Isis in Iraq and Syria that has come under increasing domestic criticism and battlefield pressures. Syrian rebels whom the US hopes to transform into an anti-Isis proxy force have been recently routed, and have expressed frustration with what they consider insufficient US interest in helping them combat their primary adversary, the dictator Bashar al-Assad.

On Wednesday, US Central Command began a 10-day summit with delegates from over 30 partner nations to “further develop and refine military campaign plans”, it said.

Hagel has reportedly expressed concern to the White House that its perceived lack of clarity about Assad’s future was becoming an obstacle to its planned Syrian recruitment, which has yet to proceed in earnest. While Hagel did not on Thursday advocate expanding war goals to include toppling Assad, he conceded that without a rival government to back or an existing ground force to work with, “our military aims in Syria are limited to isolating and destroying [Isis’s] safe havens”.

Representative Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican who opposes a new congressional war authorization, said Hagel’s rhetoric about Isis was reminiscent of 2002 arguments for invading Iraq.

“It looks like we’re going down the same road that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told us that we had to do,” Jones said.

In a 17-minute audio recording released online on Thursday, which could not be independently verified, Isis leader Baghdadi cited Obama’s deployment orders for an additional 1,500 troops in Iraq last week as evidence that the US campaign was failing.

Baghdadi announced the “expansion of the Islamic State” to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, claiming that Isis has accepted the pledges of allegiance from various groups within those countries. His proclamation came after Egypt’s most active jihadi group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to Isis on Monday, becoming one of the largest militant groups to affirm its loyalty to Isis outside of Baghdadi’s strongholds in Syria and Iraq. This could be an indication that the recording was made as recently as this week.

Before Congress, Dempsey pleaded for “strategic patience” with a US war strategy expected to last for years.

“Progress purchases patience,” Dempsey said

ISIL, Islam

Media at war, death by our side. Do we play by the Geneva convention? Iraq doing it for themselves.

http://aje.me/1uL1dg4

ISIL can be defeated

ISIL is not ISLAM

ISIL will be punished

ISIL is not the only group using the media as a weapon of war, with one anti-ISIL TV station also gaining ground in Iraq.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford reports from northern Iraq.
Daesh, ISIL

USA 3000 AUS 200 the Devils Number 6.66% of our troops in Iraq. Only Baghdad

Australian troops ‘moving into locations’ in Iraq to assist with fight against Islamic State

By political correspondent Emma Griffiths

Updated about an hour agoTue 11 Nov 2014, 10:56am

Australian soldiers Photo: The Government has left open the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq to fight Islamic State insurgents. (Supplied: Defence Force)
Related Story: Australian special forces troops moving into Iraq, Abbott confirms
Related Story: US troop increase in Iraq signals new phase: Obama
Map: Iraq

The Federal Government has left open the possibility of sending more troops to fight Islamic State (IS) militants, a day after confirming that special forces soldiers have begun moving into Iraq.

Australia sent a contingent of about 200 special forces to the defence base in the UAE in September, but they have been waiting there for a formal direction from the Iraqi government.

The troops have begun moving into the strife-torn country in the past week and will initially be placed in Baghdad in an “advise and assist” role.

US president Barack Obama said yesterday he is in talks with Australia and other coalition partners about how they can “supplement” their commitments.

Assistant Defence Minister Stuart Robert said no decision has been made about sending more troops and would not be made until the success of the current commitment could be gauged.

“The Prime Minister has not announced that and the Prime Minister has not made any statements to that effect – nor should we make any commitments further until we’ve actually bedded down what we’re putting into theatre right now,” he told NewsRadio.

“Our forces have now spent a number of days moving into locations. It will take more days to actually become effective in the advising and assisting.

“It will take weeks if not months for that training force to really come into effect.

“So let’s see what effect we can have on our ground before we jump further.”

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is in Beijing for the APEC summit, said yesterday that Australia continues to talk with its partners about fighting the terrorist group.

Anbar, Sunni deaths

Islamic State jihadists execute more than 200 tribespeople who fought them. Why don’t the Iraqi’s want us? They don’t trust us when they read we are the to train them and to give them arms. We just TALK
The depraved IS execution spree

THE Islamic State group has carried out a fresh wave of mass killings, executing more than 200 members of an Iraqi tribe which took up arms against the jihadists.

Women and children were said to be among scores of Albu Nimr tribespeople executed over the past 10 days in western Iraq’s Anbar province.

Reports of the killings came with the country on edge as hundreds of thousands of Shiites prepare to travel to shrine city Karbala this week for a major annual pilgrimage.

IS, a Sunni extremist group that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, is expected to target Ashura pilgrims, and 19 people died in attacks on Shiites on Sunday.

The executions in Anbar came after Sunni Albu Nimr tribesmen took up arms against IS in the province, large parts of which have been overrun by the jihadists.

Accounts varied as to the number and timings of the executions, but all sources spoke of more than 200 people murdered in recent days.

Police Colonel Shaaban al-Obaidi told AFP that more than 200 people were killed, while Faleh al-Essawi, deputy head of Anbar provincial council, put the toll at 258.

The killings are probably aimed at discouraging resistance from powerful local tribes in Anbar.

IS also detained dozens of members of the Jubur tribe in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad, officials and a tribal leader said.

Jubur tribesmen and security forces have been holding out for months against IS in the provincial town of Dhuluiyah.

Pro-government forces have suffered a string of setbacks in Anbar in recent weeks, prompting warnings that the province, which stretches from the borders with Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the western approach to Baghdad, could fall entirely.

Security forces who wilted before a lightning IS offensive in June are fighting to retake territory seized by the jihadists in Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland.

IS has declared an Islamic “caliphate” in territory it controls, imposing its harsh interpretation of sharia law and committing widespread atrocities.

Like other Sunni extremist groups, IS considers Shiites to be heretics and frequently attacks them, posing a major threat to the Ashura religious commemorations which peak on Tuesday.

Two car bombs targeting Shiites in Baghdad ahead of Ashura killed at least 19 people on Sunday, officials said, while a city centre car bombing near a police checkpoint killed at least five.

Caliphate ... IS militants parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armoured vehicl

coalition of the willing, ISIL

Isis: Tony Abbott welcomes extra US troops but says he won’t send more He hasn’t sent any yet they are in UAE

US Navy F-18E Super Hornets supporting operations against IS, after being refueled by a KC-135 Stato

The US president authorises the doubling of troop levels in Iraq to 3,000, but PM says Australia’s plans have not changed. I thought he was under USA command not an independant. Don’t you just get the feeling that after 3 months no help to those who have been begging, Not wanted by those we call allies that Abbott is just doing it for himself?

Barack Obama’s approval of additional troops in Iraq is welcome but Australia’s current commitment remains, the prime minister, Tony Abbott, has said.

The US president has authorised the doubling of US troop levels in Iraq for the war against Islamic State (Isis) militants, further straining his pledge against “boots on the ground”.

Obama ordered an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq on Friday to bolster the performance of Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting Isis in ground combat. The training, the Pentagon said, is expected to last the better part of a year, raising questions about when the Iraqis will be able to wrest territory away from Isis.

Speaking to reporters in Melbourne on Saturday, Abbott welcomed the US announcement but said there were no plans to change Australia’s commitment. The government announced in October it was sending special forces to Iraq and Australian war planes have led international air strikes, destroying key Isis targets.

“Obviously we work in very close partnership with the United States, with the United Kingdom, with a number of other countries,” Abbott told reporters. “This is a very broad coalition, it’s not just the United States.  Isn’t it strange that Iraq government doesn’t rate a mention?

“Our commitment is clear, it’s up to eight Super Hornet strike aircraft … it’s up to 200 special forces. We have made a strong commitment to disrupting and degrading the ISIL death cult and we continue to talk with our partners and allies about how this is best achieved.” I guess sloganeering is one way.

The new US troops, the Pentagon emphasised, would not be used in a combat role, joining roughly the same number of “advisers” who have been performing a similar role in Iraq since June. Troop levels in Iraq will soon stand at about 3,000.

US warplanes will continue their near-daily bombardment of Isis targets from the air.

To finance the expanded effort, the White House has asked Congress for an additional $5.6bn, which will sustain operations like the air strikes and associated logistics. The money includes $1.6bn as a “train and equip fund” for Iraqi and Kurdish units to enable them to “go on the offensive”, said budget director Shaun Donovan.

An additional $3.4bn will be used “to support ongoing operations” including military advisers, intelligence collection and ammunition. The rest would go to the State Department to support diplomacy and to provide aid to neighboring countries including Lebanon and Jordan.

But the Pentagon said that none of the additional troops would arrive in Iraq unless and until Congress approves the funding package.

US officials rejected the assertion that the additional troops represented “mission creep”.

“Even with these additional personnel, the mission is not changing,” a senior administration official said. “The mission continues to be one of training, advising and equipping Iraqis, and Iraqis are the ones who are fighting on the ground, fighting in combat.”

Despite this the Australian Greens leader, Christine Milne, said the US decision to increase ground troops in Iraq confirmed her fears that Australia was involved in mission creep.

“It started off with a humanitarian response, then it moved to dropping weapons, then it moved to committing to air strikes and special forces,” she told reporters on Saturday. “Now we have the Americans significantly increasing their contribution of boots on the ground.”

Milne called on Abbott to rule out increasing the number of Australian special forces. “The effort has to go into cutting off [Isis’s] financial and other supplies,” Milne said.

322 allies killed

Islamic State: Militants kill hundreds in massacre in Iraq’s Anbar province. Where were we? They ran out of Ammo

Iraq's Anbar province police chief

Officials said the victims included dozens of women and children whose bodies were dumped in a well.

The systematic killings marked some of the worst bloodshed in Iraq since the Sunni militants swept through the north in June with the aim of establishing a medieval caliphate there and in Syria.

The Albu Nimr, also Sunni, had put up fierce resistance for weeks but finally ran low on ammunition, food and fuel last week as Islamic State fighters closed in on their village of Zauiyat Albu Nimr.

“The number of people killed by Islamic State from Albu Nimr tribe is 322,” Iraq’s human rights ministry said.

“The bodies of 50 women and children have also been discovered dumped in a well.”

One tribal leader, Sheikh Naeem al-Ga’oud, said he had repeatedly asked the central government and army to provide his men with arms but no action was taken.

State television said prime minister Haider al-Abadi ordered air strikes on Islamic State targets around the town of Hit in response to the killings.

However, officials at a government security operations command centre in Anbar and civilians said they had not seen any air strikes.

IS targets strategic region

Explained: Iraq intervention


Do you understand what’s happening in Iraq and Syria? Our explainer steps you through the complexity.

The fall of the village dampened the Shiite-led national government’s hopes the Sunni tribesmen of Anbar – who once helped US Marines defeat Al Qaeda – would become a formidable force again and help the army take on Iraq’s new enemy.

US air strikes have helped Kurdish Peshmerga fighters retake territory in the north that Islamic State militants had captured in its drive for an Islamic empire that redraws the map of the Middle East.

But the picture in Anbar is more precarious.

IS fighters already control most of the vast desert province which includes towns in the Euphrates River valley dominated by Sunni tribes, running from the Syrian border to the western outskirts of Baghdad.

If the province falls, it could give IS militants a better chance to make good on their threat to march on the capital.

In Anbar, the militants are now encircling a large air base and the vital Haditha dam on the Euphrates.

Fighters control towns from the Syrian border to parts of provincial capital Ramadi and into the lush irrigated areas near Baghdad.

Iraqi Kurdish fighters join battle

Iraqi Kurdish fighters have joined the fight against IS militants in Kobane, hoping their support for fellow Kurds backed by US-led air strikes will keep the ultra-hardline group from seizing the Syrian border town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the civil war, said heavy clashes erupted in Kobane and that both sides had suffered casualties, while the US military said it had launched more air raids on Islamic State militants over the weekend.

The Peshmerga joined the battle late yesterday and it made a big difference with their artillery, it is proper artillery. We didn’t have artillery, we were using mortars and other locally made weapons.

Deputy minister for foreign affairs in Kobane district Idriss Nassan

Deputy minister for foreign affairs in Kobane district Idriss Nassan said Iraqi Kurds using long-range artillery had joined the battle on Saturday night against IS militants.

“The Peshmerga joined the battle late yesterday and it made a big difference with their artillery, it is proper artillery,” he said.

“We didn’t have artillery, we were using mortars and other locally made weapons. So this is a good thing.”

The arrival of the 150 Iraqi fighters – known as Peshmerga or “those who confront death” – marks the first time Turkey has allowed troops from outside Syria to reinforce Syrian Kurds, who have been defending Kobane for more than 40 days.

Air strikes have helped to foil several attempts by IS fighters, notorious for their beheading of hostages and opponents, to take over Kobane.

In their latest air strikes, US military forces staged seven attacks on IS targets in Syria on Saturday and Sunday and were joined by allies in two more attacks in Iraq, the US Central Command said.

In the Kobane area, five strikes hit five small Islamic State units, while two strikes near Dayr Az Zawr, 240km to the southeast in Syria, destroyed an Islamic State tank and vehicle shelters.

US and partner nations hit small Islamic State units near the Iraqi cities of Baiji and Falluja.

In addition to their deployment to Kobane, the Kurds are waging their own battle against the Sunni militants in Iraq.

Car bombs hit Baghdad

Meanwhile, a car bomb blast targeting Shiites in Baghdad ahead of the major Ashura religious commemorations killed at least 13 people on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

The blast struck near a tent from which they were distributing tea and water in the Al-Ilam area in southwest Baghdad, and also wounded at least 29 people, the sources said.

Another car bomb exploded near a police checkpoint in central Baghdad later on Sunday, killing at least five people and wounding at least 17.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims will flock to the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala for Ashura, which marks the death of Imam Hussein, one of the most revered figures in Shiite Islam.

Pilgrims have been targeted during Ashura before, but this year’s commemorations, which peak on Tuesday, face even greater danger, with Islamic State militants in control of large areas of the country.

IS militants, like other Sunni extremist groups, considers Shiites to be heretics and frequently targets them with bombings.

The pilgrimage is a major test for the new government and Iraq’s security forces, who have struggled to push the militants back.

Reuters/AFP

 Gallery: Islamic State insurgents wage war in Iraq

More on this story:

Bolt, Losing, Weapons

Islamic State militants murder 322 Iraqi tribe members in Anbar province. According to Bolt these are the guys we are fighting NOW not waiting to fight.

Haider al-Abadi

Tribe leader Sheikh Naeem al-Ga’oud says he was not provided with any arms by the central government and army. Aren’t we supplying weapons anymore?

Islamic State militants have killed 322 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar province, including dozens of women and children whose bodies were dumped in a well, the government said in the first official confirmation of the scale of the massacre.

The systematic killings, which one tribal leader said were continuing on Sunday, marked some of the worst bloodshed in Iraq since the Sunni militants swept through the north in June with the aim of establishing medieval caliphate there and in Syria.

The Albu Nimr, also Sunni, had put up fierce resistance against Islamic State for weeks but finally ran low on ammunition, food and fuel last week as Islamic State fighters closed in on their village Zauiyat Albu Nimr.

“The number of people killed by Islamic State from Albu Nimr tribe is 322. The bodies of 50 women and children have also been discovered dumped in a well,” the country’s Human Rights Ministry said on Sunday.

One of the leaders of the tribe, Sheikh Naeem al-Ga’oud, told Reuters that he had repeatedly asked the central government and army to provide his men with arms but no action was taken.

State television said on Sunday that prime minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered air strikes on Islamic State targets around the town of Hit in response to the killings.

Officials at a government security operations command centre in Anbar and civilians reached by Reuters said they had not heard of or witnessed air strikes.

The fall of the village dampened the Shia-led national government’s hopes the Sunni tribesmen of Anbar – who once helped US Marines defeat al-Qaida – would become a formidable force again and help the army take on Iraq’s new, far more effective enemy.

US air strikes have helped Kurdish peshmerga fighters retake territory in the north that Islamic State had captured in its drive for an Islamic empire that redraws the map of the Middle East. But the picture in Anbar is more precarious.

Islamic State already controls most of the vast desert province which includes towns in the Euphrates River valley dominated by Sunni tribes, running from the Syrian border to the western outskirts of Baghdad.

If the province falls, it could give Islamic State a better chance to make good on its threat to march on the capital.

Ga’aud said 75 more members of his tribe were killed on Sunday under the same scenario – they were hunted down while trying to escape from Islamic State, shot dead execution-style and dumped near the town of Haditha.

The Albu Nimr leader also said Islamic State killed 15 high school and college students in Zauiyat Albu Nimr and that, apart from an air drop, there had been no help from the US-led air campaign.

Security and government officials could not be immediately reached to confirm the latest killings.

In Anbar, the militants are now encircling a large air base and the vital Haditha dam on the Euphrates. Fighters control towns from the Syrian border to parts of provincial capital Ramadi and into the lush irrigated areas near Baghdad.

80 countries, UN

Foreign jihadists flocking to Iraq and Syria on ‘unprecedented scale’ – UN

Islamic State fighters

UN report suggests decline of al-Qaida has yielded an explosion of jihadist enthusiasm for its even mightier successor organisations, chiefly Isis

The United Nations has warned that foreign jihadists are swarming into the twin conflicts in Iraq and Syria on “an unprecedented scale” and from countries that had not previously contributed combatants to global terrorism.

A report by the UN security council, obtained by the Guardian, finds that 15,000 people have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the Islamic State (Isis) and similar extremist groups. They come from more than 80 countries, the report states, “including a tail of countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida”.

The UN said it was uncertain whether al-Qaida would benefit from the surge. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida who booted Isis out of his organisation, “appears to be maneuvering for relevance”, the report says.

The UN’s numbers bolster recent estimates from US intelligence about the scope of the foreign fighter problem, which the UN report finds to have spread despite the Obama administration’s aggressive counter-terrorism strikes and global surveillance dragnets.

“Numbers since 2010 are now many times the size of the cumulative numbers of foreign terrorist fighters between 1990 and 2010 – and are growing,” says the report, produced by a security council committee that monitors al-Qaida.

The UN report did not list the 80-plus countries that it said were the source of fighters flowing fighters into Iraq and Syria. But in recent months, Isis supporters have appeared in places as unlikely as the Maldives, and its videos proudly display jihadists with Chilean-Norwegian and other diverse backgrounds.

“There are instances of foreign terrorist fighters from France, the Russian Federation and and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland operating together,” it states. More than 500 British citizens are believed to have travelled to the region since 2011.

The UN report, an update on the spread of transnational terrorism and efforts to staunch it, validates the Obama administration’s claim that “core al-Qaida remains weak”. But it suggests that the decline of al-Qaida has yielded an explosion of jihadist enthusiasm for its even mightier successor organizations, chiefly Isis.

Those organisations are less interested in assaults outside their frontiers: “Truly cross-border attacks – or attacks against international targets – remain a minority,” the report assesses. But the report indicates that more nations than ever will face the challenge of experienced fighters returning home from the Syria-Iraq conflict.

Wading into a debate with legal implications for Barack Obama’s new war against Isis, the UN considers Isis “a splinter group” from al-Qaida. It considers an ideological congruence between the two groups sufficient to categorise them as part a broader movement, notwithstanding al-Qaida’s formal excommunication of Isis last February.

“Al-Qaida core and Isil pursue similar strategic goals, albeit with tactical differences regarding sequencing and substantive differences about personal leadership,” the UN writes, using a different acronym for Isis.

Leadership disputes between the organisations are reflected in the shape of their propaganda, the UN finds. A “cosmopolitan” embrace of social media platforms andinternet culture by Isis (“as when extremists post kitten photographs”) has displaced the “long and turgid messaging” from al-Qaida. Zawahiri’s most recent video lasted 55 minutes, while Isis members incessantly use Twitter, Snapchat, Kik, Ask.fm, a communications apparatus “unhindered by organisational structures”.

A “lack of social media message discipline” in Isis points to a leadership “that recognizes the terror and recruitment value of multichannel, multi-language social and other media messaging,” reflecting a younger and “more international” membership than al-Qaida’s various affiliates.

With revenues just from its oil smuggling operations now estimated at $1m daily, Isis controls territory in Iraq and Syria home to between five and six million people, a population the size of Finland’s. Bolstering Isis’s treasury is up to $45m in money from kidnapping for ransom, the UN report finds. Family members of Isis victim James Foley, an American journalist, have questioned the policy of refusing to pay ransoms, which US officials argue would encourage more kidnappings.

Two months of outright US-led war against Isis has suffered from a lack of proxy ground forces to take territory from Isis, as Obama has formally ruled out direct US ground combat. On Thursday at the Pentagon, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the US has yet to even begin vetting Syrian rebels for potential inclusion in an anti-Isis army it seeks to muster in Syria. Dempsey encouraged the Iraqi government to directly arm Sunni tribes to withstand Isis’s advances through the western Anbar Province.

ISIS, PKK, Sunnis

Assad’s warnings start to ring true in Turkey. Will we declare Turkey a criminal State backing ISIS?

Kurdish refugees from Kobani watch as thick smoke covers the Syrian town of Kobani during fighting between Islamic State and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, as seen from the Mursitpinar crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in Sanliurfa province October October 26, 2014. REUTERS-Yannis Behrakis

(Reuters) – When Sunni rebels rose up against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad in 2011, Turkey reclassified its protégé as a pariah, expecting him to lose power within months and join the autocrats of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen on the scrap heap of the “Arab Spring”.

Assad, in contrast, shielded diplomatically by Russia and with military and financial support from Iran and its Shi’ite allies in Lebanon’s Hezbollah, warned that the fires of Syria’s sectarian war would burn its neighbors.

For Turkey, despite the confidence of Tayyip Erdogan, elected this summer to the presidency after 11 years as prime minister and three straight general election victories, Assad’s warning is starting to ring uncomfortably true.

Turkey’s foreign policy is in ruins. Its once shining image as a Muslim democracy and regional power in the NATO alliance and at the doors of the European Union is badly tarnished.

Amid a backlash against political Islam across the region Erdogan is still irritating his Arab neighbors by offering himself as a Sunni Islamist champion.

The world, meanwhile, is transfixed by the desperate siege of Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town just over Turkey’s border, under attack by extremist Sunni fighters of the Islamic State (IS) who are threatening to massacre its defenders.

Erdogan has enraged Turkey’s own Kurdish minority – about a fifth of the population and half of all Kurds across the region – by seeming to prefer that IS jihadis extend their territorial gains in Syria and Iraq rather than that Kurdish insurgents consolidate local power.

Turkey is thus caught between two fires: the possibility of the PKK-led Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey reviving because of Ankara’s policy towards the Syrian Kurds; and the risk that a more robust policy against IS will provoke reprisal attacks that could be damage its economy and the tourist industry that provides Turkey with around a tenth of its income.

Internationally, one veteran Turkish diplomat fears, IS “is acting as a catalyst legitimizing support for an independent Kurdish state not just in Syria but in Turkey” at a time when leading powers have started to question Turkey’s ideological and security affiliations with the West.

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, Tony Abbott

Whatever happened to the people we saved and Scott was going to help resettle here?

THE Islamic State jihadist group says that it has given Yazidi women and children captured in northern Iraq to its fighters as spoils of war, boasting it has revived slavery.

The shocking development comes as researchers revealed thousands of Yazidi men in Iraq were murdered in scenes reminiscent of the Bosnian Srebrenica massacre when IS jihadists hit the Kurdish region in August.

Researchers have pieced together reports of attacks and have concluded that more than 5000 Yazidi were gunned down in a series of massacres by IS fighters, the Mail Online reports.

As the men were massacred, the IS captured and enslaved thousands of women and children.

IS sex-slave girls ‘the spoils of war’

Innocence destroyed … the IS group has admitted holding and selling Yazidi women and children as sex slaves. Picture: AFP

The latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq released on Sunday was the first clear admission by the organisation that it was holding and selling Yazidis as sex slaves.

 

Tens of thousands of Yazidis, a minority whose population is mostly confined to northern Iraq, have been displaced by the four-month-old jihadist offensive in the region.

Yazidi leaders and rights groups warned in August that the small community faced genocide and that threat was put forward by Washington as one of the main reasons for launching air strikes.

Thousands of Yazidis remained trapped on a mountain near their main hub of Sinjar for days in August, while others were massacred and the fate of hundreds of missing women and children remained unclear.

In an article entitled “The revival of slavery before the hour”, Dabiq argues that by enslaving people it claims hold deviant religious beliefs, IS has restored an aspect of Islamic sharia law to its original meaning.

NO ESCAPE: Teen girls recall horror being held captive by IS

PURE EVIL: IS leaves headless bodies on streets of Kobane

CLOSE TO HOME: IS magazine calls for “lone wolf” attacks in Australia

Aid ... A RAAF plane prepares to drop 15 bundles of humanitarian aid to Yazidis trapped o

Aid … A RAAF plane prepares to drop 15 bundles of humanitarian aid to Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar in August. Source: Supplied

“After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations,” the article said.

“This large-scale enslavement of mushrik (polytheist) families is probably the first since the abandonment of this sharia law,” it said.

“The only other known case — albeit much smaller — is that of the enslavement of Christian women and children in the Philippines and Nigeria by the mujahedeen there.”

Dabiq argued that while the “people of the book” — or followers of monotheistic religions such as Christians or Jews — can be given the option of paying the “jizya” tax or convert, this did not apply to Yazidis.

INSIDE IS: Terror group a well-oiled and slick PR machine

No hope ... Internally displaced Iraqi Yazidis who fled from Sinjar and other towns after

 

The Yazidi faith is a unique blend of beliefs that draws from several religions and includes the worship of a devil figure they refer to as the Peacock Angel.

In a report also released on Sunday, Human Rights Watch said abducted Yazidi women were subjected to sexual assault and were being bought and sold by IS fighters.

“The systematic abduction and abuse of Yazidi civilians may amount to crimes against humanity,” the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.

According to interviews HRW conducted with dozens of displaced Yazidis in the autonomous region of Kurdistan last month and in early October, the jihadist group is holding at least 366 people.

Accounts by some of the Yazidi women who managed to escape and two who are still being held suggest the true number could be at least three times as high.

One 15-year-old girl who escaped on September 7 told HRW that the Palestinian fighter who bought her “told her with pride” that he had paid $1,000 for her.

She said the fighter took her to his flat in the city of Raqa, the group’s main hub in Syria, and sexually assaulted her.

Human Rights Watch said that the extent of the sexual abuse inflicted to enslaved Yazidi girls remained unclear but stressed that the stigma surrounding rape in Yazidi culture could explain the low number of first-hand accounts.

“When you ask them, they were never or rarely sexually assaulted. Simply put, they are scared of being killed by their own tribe,” Hanaa Edwar, a veteran Iraqi rights activist, told AFP.

“So much harm has been done. There needs to be a huge psychiatric campaign to deal with these victims,” she said.

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
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.

ASIO, ISIS, Tony Abbott

There 16 & 17 19 & 20 year olds some are now dead where is your suppository of intelligence ASIO?

He was a funded  recruiter ?????

 Where was our alternative recruitment drive Mr Abbott ? 

 ASIO is just a suppository for your intelligence!!

Policing with a heavy club is Neanderthall $650 Mill will take rights from all of us.

 HAS ABBOTT A MANDATE TO CREATE AN ORWELLIAN WORLD?

 

16 and 17 year old Feiz & Abdullah secretly ran away from home last June to join the fight in Syria and Iraq. Feiz has returned home. Their parents did not know where they were. When they left they told them  they were off to go fishing. It’s anybody’s guess where Abdullah is, Iraq most likely. A spokes-person for the Department of the Attorney General said  all 60 should come home

“there are safer and more legal ways of helping the people affected by these conflicts than travelling overseas to fight”

Wow this is a significantly different sound bite coming from a government department than we have heard recently. Are these really the words of the Attorney Generals Department?Is this really policy? Expanded and driven by a community of Muslim  parents you just might  have a competing and alternative recruitment agency that supports these young idealists. Yes idealists not radicals they want to accomplish some good. They needed a good reason  to stay here and help not just join your ‘death cult’. However you and ASIO had nothing to offer.

What could they do here to help? The war in Syria has been going 2-3 years in Iraq longer. ASIO has been fully aware of this.  They know that revolution against repression always attracts young idealists wanting to help and not old people. Where were our intelligence advisers? What have they been doing trying to stop these young people seaching for meaning?  If there was genuine help as the spokes -person was alluding to. Those boys and others like them would still be here and not over there. Is Abbott recruiting young Muslim boys to work in is Humanitarian Aid Drops.Probably not.

Instead the PM and all the voices behind him merely talk of increased surveillance and policing and stopping them. It’s a wonder he hasn’t put them all in detention camps as is his want with asylum seekers.

Please tell us who the above spokes-person is!!  Put them in charge  with a far smaller budget than the $650mill  and most of the 60 Australians over there now would probably still be here  helping in other ways instead of on their unwise boys own adventure. What is Abbott doing to help on the ground here? What is he doing in recruiting help from  the community most affected? Nothing!!!!!!.

ISIS

Pushed or Jumped? Who is this moderate coalition of rebels? Who is the coalition of ME states? If I donate money to our allies will I be arrested?

Responding to Syrian objections over the Administration’s plans to fly combat missions against ISIS in Syrian territory, President Obama told journalists at the White House that as far as he was concerned, Bashar Assad could “Fuck off and die.”

obama_wut_AP

In a speech to the nation last night, Mr. Obama said the United States was recruiting a global coalition to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the militants, known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He warned that “eradicating a cancer” like ISIS was a long-term challenge that would put some American troops at risk.

“We will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are,” Mr. Obama declared in a 14-minute address. “That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq,” he added, using an alternative name for ISIS. “This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

Mr. Obama specifically stated that he would not place U.S. “boots on the ground” in Iraq or Syria, which most intelligent pundits interpreted as meaning that we will have no large ground units in the Middle East like we did in the recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but did not preclude the use of special forces units and forward air observers.

Obama-Angry

Although Mr. Obama has received political support from both parties on his policy statement, some pundits on the far right, particularly those who depend on Fox News for their income, have criticized the President for not going far enough. In addition, several members of the wing nut radio talk show crowd, along with former members of the Bush Administration, continue to blame Obama for the whole situation.

“The Bush Administration and its cheerleaders caused this clusterfuck by invading Iraq in the first place,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. “Anyone who listens to Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity on this subject needs his head examined anyway. They’re best bet is to shut the fuck up, that way they won’t sound so ignorant.”

ISIS

Rearmed and rearranged our allies are the beheaders Will Abbott call this a win??

Iraq’s Shiite militia, Kurds use U.S. air strikes to further own agenda

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter moves into position while firing into Baretle village (background), which is controlled by the Islamic State, in Khazir, on the edge of Mosul September 8, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter moves into position while firing into Baretle village (background), which is controlled by the Islamic State, in Khazir, on the edge of Mosul September 8, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah

Related Video

Video

(Reuters)

Helped by the United States and Iran, Kurdish forces and Shi’ite militia are finally beating back Islamic State militants who overran most Sunni Arab areas in northern and central Iraq nearly three months ago.

But the aftermath illustrates the unintended consequences of the U.S. air campaign against Islamic State.

Kurdish and Shi’ite fighters have regained ground, but Sunni Muslims who fled the violence are being prevented from returning home.

Rather than help keep the nation together, the air strikes risk being used by different factions for their own advantage in Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic conflicts. Yet again with weapons supplied by the West.

The fallout also risks worsening grievances that helped Islamic State find support amongst Iraq’s Sunnis. It allows the militant group to portray the U.S. strikes as targeting their minority sect.

The unlikely coalition of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Shi’ite militias and the U.S. air force have won for the moment. But the Sunni villagers,

“There is no way back for them: we will raze their homes to the ground,” said Abu Abdullah, a commander of the Shi’ite Kataib Hizbollah militia in Amerli.

 

The area is now held by Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite militia, who have become the most powerful forces on the ground, rather than the Iraqi army, whose northern divisions collapsed this summer when Islamic State attacked leaving the US weapons behind for IS.

Sunni civilians have now fled, fearing for their lives.

“If a regular army were holding the area we could return, but as long as the militias are there we cannot,” said a 30-year-old displaced Sunni resident “They would slaughter us on the spot.”

He admitted some villagers had supported IS, but said it was only one or two for every 70 to 80 households, and that the rest were innocent civilians who were too scared to stand against the militants or had nowhere else to go.

A non aligned family had their son kidnapped. The next time they saw him was in a video on the internet captioned “arrest of an Islamic State member”, which appears to show their son being beheaded by Shi’ite militia fighters.

 

“We cannot return. Even if the Shi’ite army and militia withdraw, Islamic State will come back and the same will happen all over again,” said the mother.

 

“Since there is no confidence between Sunni and Shi’ite any more, they need guarantees from a third party, maybe the Kurds, then we can live peacefully together again, as we were.”

 Sunni Arabs are also feeling a backlash in villages where they used to live alongside Kurds, who accuse them of collaborating with Islamic State. Kurds, who are also mostly Sunni but identify first and foremost with their ethnicity Kurds no longer trust Arab Sunnis enough to live with them.

“All my neighbors were Arabs. Now most of them are with Islamic State,”

 

But even during the operation, there were cracks in the coalition: Shi’ite militia and Kurdish forces fought under their own banners and the least visible flag was that of Iraq.Now that the common enemy has been pushed back, the alliance is unraveling. Kataib Hizbollah, which controls access to Amerli, is denying Kurds entry to the town and one peshmerga commander described the militia as the “Shi’ite IS”.

The tensions reflect a struggle for territory which the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad claims, but the Kurds want as part of their autonomous region in the north of the country.All with a renewed armoury

 

Australia, ISIS, Tony Abbott

Saudi Arabia Our Ally Beheaded 79 People last Year Some Foreigners

 

 

‘Forgive me if I see Tony Abbott’s trumped up fear and warmongering for what it is — the last ditch attempts of an unpopular prime minister to gain some support in a country that is sick of his political posturing. It’s the George Dubya Bush school of crisis management — concoct a war, ramp up the terror and let fear and loathing for the unseen enemy unite the country behind he who so bravely leads the charge.’ Sophie Love

 Saudi Arabia Our Allies Beheaded 79 people in 2013 foreigners were amongst them

And because we are so isolated in our own homes, cars, and offices, it is easy to convince the vast majority that there is a terrible terror threat ‘out there’. That we are under attack.

That “they hate us” and want to bring us down.  In February 2003. Over a million people  could see that Bush and Blair’s considered oratory and fear mongering was a web of lies, masking simpler and more sinister political and private industry needs. The same people are falling for the LNP spin and rhetoric. Have we learned nothing?

Wake up, my friends, this is just the last ditch efforts of a floundering government to win friends and influence people. Don’t be a patsy to their political bravado. Watch what the other hand is doing. Sophie Love

ISIS are a long way from here. Quite frankly we have more to fear crossing the road or driving our cars. The current Government seems to want to close our open and generous hearts with all the rhetoric about the threat to our shores, the terror threat, the budget emergency… fear and loathing in Australia.

The Australia I chose 27 years ago was one of hope, open hearts, open minds and welcoming arms. Please don’t change… Sophie Love

View image on Twitter

ISIS, Islam, Tony Abbott

Hallmarks of a Force Lead by Saddam’s Men. ISIS a Sunni Caliphate in a Shia Sea Will They Try to Build?

ISIS has consolidated it’s position across Syria and Iraq even eliminating opposition groups with the same goals such as the FSA in Syria. With the fog of confusion lifted the reality remains whether any rapprochement is possible with Assad and the new Iraq Government. ISIS is now calling for professionals to help consolidate their Sunni caliphate. Unlike previous rebel groups ISIS has the hallmarks of Saddam’s military invasion with it’s specific goals,targets and logistics & bringing together a growing coalition of support.

 “It really is all guesswork at this stage,” said Sakhr al-Makhadhi, a British-Arab journalist and Syria analyst. “The Islamic State recently called for professionals – doctors, engineers and such – to move to its territory, so it’s clear that they view this as a long-term state building project. What this shows is that they’re lacking certain skills. They may have the manpower to fight, but not to build a state.”

It is Muslims in the Middle East who have most to worry about from the Islamic State. The decapitation of the journalist James Foley doesn’t change anything – the number of Iraqis executed by Islamic State fighters is far, far more. In a very short time the Islamic State has become the most compelling and attractive organisation for Muslim fighters around the world, more so than AL-Qaeda ever was.

For countries where Muslims are a minority like Australia paranoia has developed. The impact of this phenomenon on community relations – in Australia, Canada, India, the US, and Europe – could be devastating. Abbott for his own political advantage is calling for National Unity in the hope of restoring flagging polls. Once again, suspicions will easily be raised by Islamophobes like Andrew Bolt about Islamic State sympathisers in the west and whether they pose a threat. The news media will undoubtedly report on Australian, American or European Muslims joining the group or calling for violence in videos, further raising tensions and besmirch the Muslim faith. These very actions help recruit sympathizers amongst Australians being disparaged.

The group has prompted bomb blasts and fighting in Lebanon, and in Jordan and Kuwait the governments are worried that sleeper cells may attack at any moment. But it is Saudi Arabia that is on high alert, worried that the Islamic State group will come after them with force. In a recent interview, a senior Islamic State defector said their next stop would be Saudi Arabia, which includes Mecca and Medina. Its rulers are now in full panic, sending money to the Lebanese army, funding UN counter-terrorism efforts, and even getting senior Muftis to condemn the group. And there is  reason for this panic. However for the moment their focus is firmly on the Middle East states.

The Islamic State is a direct descendant of AL-Qaeda, but there is one key difference: Its leaders believe fighting “apostates” is more important than fighting non-Muslims for now. They want to unite the Middle East under their banner before truly turning their sights on the US and Europe. In the eyes of many jihadis, the Islamic State has established the most successful and feared caliphate in recent history.

President Obama calls the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant a “cancer.” Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, describes ISIL as a “monster.” Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, ranks al-Qaeda and ISIL, also known as ISIS, as “Enemy No. 1″ of Islam. And President Hassan Rouhani of Iran warns Muslim states to beware of “these savage terrorists,” for “tomorrow you will be targeted,” too, by ISIL.

The unanimity of hatred and fear toward the ISIL militants rampaging through Syria and Iraq is testament both to the threat they pose and to an unusual opportunity. Not since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait 24 years ago have the region’s most powerful players expressed such animus toward a common enemy. That’s because ISIL’s goal of replacing national boundaries in the Middle East with a Sunni Muslim caliphate threatens not just the usual “infidels”—Christians, Jews, Shiites, and other non-Sunni Muslim minorities—but the nation-states themselves.

 But make no mistake: The real threat from the Islamic State is to other Muslims in the Middle East. Sooner or later people across the Middle East will have to face up to this threat.